“Integrating Data to Evaluate a Global Health Grand Challenge” highlights the results of a multiyear and multi-disciplinary evaluation study for a Global Health Grand Challenge program, “Saving Lives at Birth.” Conducted by a multidisciplinary team from Duke University, the evaluation was led by the Duke Global Health Institute and the Global Health Innovation Center with contributions from the Sanford School of Public Policy and the Duke Center for International Development (DCID).

Nicholas Institute Senior Fellow Elizabeth Losos and DCID Senior Fellow T. Robert Fetter have published a report, Building a Common Approach: Global Infrastructure Standards, that examines three new initiatives—Blue Dot Network, FAST-Infra, and Green Development Guidance—that have been independently developed to create a global standard to mobilize capital for sustainable, quality infrastructure projects.

In this paper, the authors explore and provide an empirical assessment of an important mechanism by which global markets can motivate labor‐related upgrading among developing country firms. New market opportunities, which result from exogenous shocks, can some producers to improve their treatment of workers. These improvements come because they are consistent with taking advantage of …

In this paper, the authors study the emerging market of Vietnam to examine which type of reassurance mechanism is most successful. Using a survey of 1,583 foreign firms, they inform investors about either a domestic law or international treaty designed to strengthen commercial arbitration procedures. The authors find that priming foreign firms about the international investment agreement has a larger positive impact on their views about the future profitability of their projects

In a policy brief released by the Duke Center for International Development (DCID), Sarah Bermeo, associate professor of public policy and political science and DCID director of graduate studies, and David Leblang, professor of politics and public policy at the University of Virginia, share vital research on the root causes of migration from Honduras, with a particular emphasis on the interconnected role of climate change and violence.

Combining a stratified field experiment in India with a triple-differences estimation strategy, Faraz Usmani, Marc Jeuland and Subhrendu K. Pattanayak show that a local development NGO’s prior engagement with target communities increases the effectiveness of a technology-promotion intervention implemented by at least 30 percent. This “NGO effect” has implications for the generalizability and scalability of evidence from experimental research conducted with local implementation partners.

In this paper written by Graham Glenday, Tuan Minh Le, Shireen Mahdi, and Albert Pijuan, the researchers provide a diagnostic framework (DF) for helping governments conceptualize and develop desirable functions and institutional arrangements for public investments managed by state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

Kerilyn Schewel and Legass Bahir Asmamaw examine the impact of Ethiopia’s historical development on the nature, volume, and direction of internal and international migration.

Eddy Malesky and co-authors Terrence L. Chapman, Nathan M. Jensen, and Scott Wolford examine one obstacle to successful regulation, “regulatory leakage,” in the context of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention (ABC).

In this paper, the authors discuss Ethiopia’s approach to health delivery, trends in health financing trends, focusing on the financing arrangements and expenditure management systems through which health funding is allocated from various internal and external sources. The paper reviews Ethiopia’s public financial management system to identify challenges and opportunities to improve domestic resource mobilization …