1,203 research outputs found

    Trapped in the Middle: On the Detrimental Welfare Effects of Low-Wage Competition on Medium-Wage Countries

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    The entry of a low-wage country into a world economy with pre-existing wage differentials puts the gains from trade in a former low-wage and then medium-wage country under pressure. If negotiations over the formation of a free trade area cover international transfers, there is a strong presumption that they bring about global free trade. Full compensation of the medium-wage country for the reduction in its gains from trade, however, does not necessarily occur. In the absence of international transfers the medium-wage country is never compensated when global free trade causes a reduction in its gains from trade, and it may in fact happen that the medium-wage country is not part of the equilibrium free trade area. Furthermore, the entry of a low-wage competitor may give the high-wage country an incentive to reap welfare gains in a tariff war at the expense of the medium-wage country, and capital may drain away from the medium-wage country to the high-wage country and, simultaneously, to the low-wage country

    To What Extent Do Environmental Regulations Curb Air Pollution and Enhance Production, Productivity, and Innovation?

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    This study delves into the fascinating relationship between environmental regulations, air pollution reduction, and their subsequent impact on production, productivity, and innovation. By adopting Porter’s hypothesis approach, the study aims to shed light on a crucial aspect overlooked in previous studies - the prerequisite of “well-designed environmental regulation,” as Porter’s hypothesis emphasizes. The study uses microeconomic principles, whose conclusions propose a novel framework for crafting effective policies that balance curbing air pollution and fostering economic growth. Specifically, the study advocates for a tax rate on pollution that aligns with the marginal cost of the polluter within the industry. This approach ensures that environmental regulations are not only effective in reducing pollution but also facilitate sustainable production practices. Through a comprehensive analysis of industry-specific data and econometric modeling, we uncover the substantial potential of well-designed environmental regulations to enhance production and productivity. Moreover, our study highlights the transformative impact such regulations can have on innovation within industries, fostering the development of cleaner technologies and practices. By elucidating the profound interplay between environmental regulations, air pollution reduction, and economic outcomes, this study seeks to provide policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers with valuable insights into the importance of crafting meticulously designed environmental policies. Ultimately, this research contributes to the ongoing dialogue surrounding sustainable development, paving the way for a greener and more prosperous future

    Mental Models, Decision-Making, Bargaining Power, and Institutional Change

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    Institutions not only impact on the behavior of individuals, but they are affected by the behavior of individuals and the mental models or practical theories that drive human action. I argue that it is important to better incorporate mental models and competing mental models into the modelling of institutional change. This needs to be coupled with integrating the role of power relationships to better explain for institutional change and related to this, economic development. Power relationships affect not only the development of mental models, which ones are developed and articulated, they also influence which ones receive public approbation or disapprobation, and which are used to drive or justify institutional design and public policy. I argue that given the particular bundle of power relationships and mental models one can predict an array of institutional designs consistent with an array of levels of economic development and wellbeing, ranging from highly efficient and dynamic to inefficient and laggard. In contrast with traditional economics, no unique set of institutions are inevitable and efficient regimes need not and often do not drive out the inefficient ones. And, in contrast with transaction cost institutional modelling, transaction costs’ role is outranking here by the importance of bargaining power, mental model availability and model literacy.</p

    Constitutions of Value

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    Gathering an interdisciplinary range of cutting-edge scholars, this book addresses legal constitutions of value. Global value production and transnational value practices that rely on exploitation and extraction have left us with toxic commons and a damaged planet. Against this situation, the book examines law’s fundamental role in institutions of value production and valuation. Utilising pathbreaking theoretical approaches, it problematizes mainstream efforts to redeem institutions of value production by recoupling them with progressive values. Aiming beyond radical critique, the book opens up the possibility of imagining and enacting new and different value practices. This wide-ranging and accessible book will appeal to international lawyers, socio-legal scholars, those working at the intersections of law and economy and others, in politics, economics, environmental studies and elsewhere, who are concerned with rethinking our current ideas of what has value, what does not, and whether and how value may be revalued

    京都大学経済研究所年次報告書 2022年度

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    本資料は、教員個人の履歴、業績を除き、特に断りがない限り、2022年4月から2023年3月までの活動についてまとめたものです。1 研究所の概要 [1]1-1.沿革 [1]1-2.年表、歴代所長、名誉教授 [2]1-3.第一期中期計画の概要 [6]1-4.第一期中期目標期間に係る京都大学経済研究所の研究に関する現況分析結果について [9]1-5.第二期中期計画の概要 [11]1-6.第二期中期目標期間に係る京都大学経済研究所の研究に関する現況分析結果について [13]1-7.第三期中期計画の概要 [16]1-8.第三期中期目標期間に係る京都大学経済研究所の研究に関する現況分析結果について [17]1-9.第四期中期計画の概要 [19]2 研究体制 [20]2-1.組織 [20]2-2.職員 [21]2-3.予算 [28]2-4.図書 [30]2-5.公的統計オンサイト利用施設 [30]2-6.敷地と建物 [31]2-7.東京分室 [31]3 研究活動 [32]3-1.研究の概要 [32]3-2.研究活動 [40]3-3.研究成果 [66]4 人材養成 [68]4-1.大学院教育への協力 [68]4-2.大学院生受入状況 [68]4-3.研究生受入状況 [68]4-4.ポスト・ドクター(PD)受入状況 [68]4-5.日本学術振興会外国人特別研究員受入状況 [68]5 国際交流 [69]5-1.研究者の受入 [69]5-2.国際シンポジウム [75]6 社会貢献 [76]6-1.学外委員等 [76]6-2.一般市民対象シンポジウム等の開催 [77]6-3.創立60周年記念式典並びに記念講演会の開催 [78]7 参考資料 [79]7-1.過去の大規模プロジェクト [79]7-2.研究成果(所員による論文・著書被引用数より) --社会科学系附置研究所比較-- [82]7-3.共同利用 [84]教員の履歴・業績・研究概要 [87

    A strategic turnaround model for distressed properties

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    The importance of commercial real estate is clearly shown by the role it plays, worldwide, in the sustainability of economic activities, with a substantial global impact when measured in monetary terms. This study responds to an important gap in the built environment and turnaround literature relating to the likelihood of a successful distressed commercial property financial recovery. The present research effort addressed the absence of empirical evidence by identifying a number of important factors that influence the likelihood of a successful distressed, commercial property financial recovery. Once the important factors that increase the likelihood of recovery have been determined, the results can be used as a basis for turnaround strategies concerning property investors who invest in distressed opportunities. A theoretical turnaround model concerning properties in distress, would be of interest to ‘opportunistic investing’ yield-hungry investors targeting real estate transactions involving ‘turnaround’ potential. Against this background, the main research problem investigated in the present research effort was as follows: Determine the important factors that would increase the likelihood of a successful distressed commercial property financial recovery. A proposed theoretical model was constructed and empirically tested through a questionnaire distributed physically and electronically to a sample of real estate practitioners from across the globe, and who had all been involved, directly or indirectly, with reviving distressed properties. An explanation was provided to respondents of how the questionnaire was developed and how it would be administered. The demographic information pertaining to the 391 respondents was analysed and summarised. The statistical analysis performed to ensure the validity and reliability of the results, was explained to respondents, together with a detailed description of the covariance structural equation modelling method used to verify the proposed theoretical conceptual model. vi The independent variables of the present research effort comprised; Obsolescence Identification, Capital Improvements Feasibility, Tenant Mix, Triple Net Leases, Concessions, Property Management, Contracts, Business Analysis, Debt Renegotiation, Cost-Cutting, Market Analysis, Strategic Planning and Demography, while the dependent variable was The Perceived Likelihood of a Distressed Commercial Property Financial Recovery. After analysis of the findings, a revised model was then proposed and assessed. Both validity and reliability were assessed and resulted in the following factors that potentially influence the dependent variables; Strategy, Concessions, Tenant Mix, Debt Restructuring, Demography, Analyse Alternatives, Capital Improvements Feasibility, Property Management and Net Leases while, after analysis, the dependent variable was replaced by two dependent variables; The Likelihood of a Distressed Property Turnaround and The Likelihood of a Distressed Property Financial Recovery. The results showed that Strategy (comprising of items from Strategic Planning, Business Analysis, Obsolescence Identification and Property Management) and Concessions (comprising of items from Concessions and Triple Net Leases) had a positive influence on both the dependent variables. Property Management (comprising of items from Business Analysis, Property Management, Capital Improvements Feasibility and Tenant Mix) had a positive influence on Financial Turnaround variable while Capital Improvements Feasibility (comprising of items from Capital Improvements Feasibility, Obsolescence Identification and Property Management) had a negative influence on both. Demography (comprising of items only from Demography) had a negative influence on the Financial Recovery variable. The balance of the relationships were depicted as non-significant. The present research effort presents important actions that can be used to influence the turnaround and recovery of distressed real estate. The literature had indicated reasons to recover distressed properties as having wide-ranging economic consequences for the broader communities and the countries in which they reside. The turnaround of distressed properties will not only present financial rewards for opportunistic investors but will have positive effects on the greater community and economy and, thus, social and economic stability. Vii With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, issues with climate change and sustainability, global demographic shifts, changing user requirements, shifts in technology, the threat of obsolescence, urbanisation, globalisation, geo-political tensions, shifting global order, new trends and different generational expectations, it is becoming more apparent that the threat of distressed, abandoned and derelict properties is here to stay, and which will present future opportunities for turnaround, distressed property owners, as well as future worries for urban authorities and municipalities dealing with urban decay. The study concluded with an examination of the perceived limitations of the study as well as presenting a comprehensive range of suggestions for further research.Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology, School of the built Environment, 202

    Territorial Cohesion in Peripheralised Contexts: A Comparative Study of Integrated Territorial Development Instruments and Strategies in Germany and Romania

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    This dissertation offers insights into the use of ideas in policies designed to address uneven territorial development in regions outside metropolitan areas in the European Union (EU). The focus is on integrated territorial development policies which draw on the notion of territorial cohesion in two different national contexts within the EU: Germany and Romania. The theoretical background of the thesis traces how territorial disparities are addressed in key theoretical paradigms which have influenced regional development thinking. Integrated territorial development is singled out as a key policy approach designed to overcome development disparities by tapping into underutilised endogenous assets and knowledge as part of a cross-sectoral vision within a defined space (be it an urban, rural, or regional context). Forward-thinking as this approach strives to be, it faces fundamental challenges in places which have been grappling with a rise of economic, social, and political disparities for many years. Understanding these processes through the relational concept of peripheralisation steers research towards engaging with people’s perceptions of spatial disparities and policies designed to address them. The conceptual framework of the thesis is designed around principles which enable an interpretive analysis of public policy. This mode of inquiry is based on an anti-foudnationalist ontology and a constructivist epistemology. The cornerstone of this approach is understanding policy actions as indeterminate, prone to unintended consequences, and fundamentally shaped by the backtalk of the complex social system it seeks to influence. Policy-making and implementing is hence viewed as a setting in which disparate and contingent beliefs and actions of individuals come together to shape a temporarily concerted course of actions. Different types of policy ideas (in many cases belonging to different schools of thought) hence come together in a process of policy framing where policy substance, actors’ identities and relationships, and the policy process are shaped. To operationalise this framework, the methodological design of this research follows an abductive mode of scientific inquiry which pursues an iterative engagement with the field and the theory. The empirical research is designed around two case study regions – the Chemnitz Region in The Free State of Saxony (one of Germany’s 16 federal states) and the North-West Region in Romania. The rationale behind the selection of the case studies was to choose regions in starkly different policy contexts, yet which are as similar as possible in terms of their socio-economic development trajectories. The study analyses three policy instruments: integrated urban development funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), integrated rural development funded through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and regional development planning initiatives. The primary data stems from 43 semi-structured expert interviews conducted with 46 policy practitioners and experts. Policy documents, local and regional strategies, and statistics have served as a source of secondary data. The analytical approach draws on principles of grounded theory for inductively developing theoretical categories and establishing causal explanations in the form of mid-level, provisional theories. The first block of the analysis engages with the substance of integrated territorial development policies and strategies, showcasing different interpretations of territorial cohesion in national contexts. Governments in both contexts view territorial cohesion as a means of strengthening the governance and coordination of policies, with a focus on local development conditions. Nonetheless, little emphasis is put on the competitive polycentric development approach, balanced development, and the environmental dimensions. In both studied contexts, polarised development is grasped as an inevitable approach for overcoming broad regional structural weaknesses. The second analytical block engages with policy processes which underpin the implementation of integrated territorial development strategies. This serves to highlight the settings in which policy-relevant actors apply the integrated instruments available to them. The analysis centres on the separation of urban from rural development, the ownership of the goals pursued through integrated development and the ensuing impact on actors’ motivation to engage with complex policy procedures, and the role of experts in guiding policy beneficiaries The final block of the analysis touches on the problematisation of peripheralisation in relation to integrated development instruments in four domains: demographic change, structural economic shifts, infrastructures and services of general interest, and place identity and marketing. These domains are not tied to any specific policies, but have rather emerged as salient in the inductive analysis. The research concludes with a number of open questions and suggestions for policy makers. A key observation is that the notion of territorial cohesion itself tends to bring little value added to policy programmes, as many topics are already addressed in bespoke national normative concepts and policy programmes. Far from being an end-state, territorial cohesion comes across as a process which is shaped by contrasting perceptions on competitive and balanced development; by centralised and devolved modes of governance; by functional territorial planning or network-based development windows of opportunity. The added value of policies which draw on territorial cohesion to address territorial disparities may lay in bringing the perspective of peripheralised policy communities to the forefront of the debate and enabling innovative forms of cooperation.:Preface and acknowledgments – iii Table of contents – vii List of figures and tables – xi Abbreviations – xv Introduction – 1 PART I: THEORETICAL, CONCEPTUAL, AND METHODOLOGICAL GROUNDS 1. Theoretical insights into territorial cohesion and disparities in the EU – 15 1.1. Key shifts in regional development policy thinking – 15 1.1.1. The neoliberalisation of regional and local development – 16 1.1.2. The neoliberalising logic of strategic spatial planning – 23 1.1.3. New approaches towards development policies – 24 1.2. Normative and policy dimensions of territorial cohesion – 26 1.2.1. Establishing European planning concepts – 27 1.2.2. Dimensions of territorial cohesion and its integrative role – 30 1.3. Towards a relational understanding of territorial disparities – 36 1.3.1. Understanding territorial disparities through peripheralisation – 36 1.3.2. Ideational dependency in development policies – 39 1.4. Territorial cohesion and peripheralisation: research perspectives – 40 2. Conceptual framework – 43 2.1. Policy analysis: a constructivist perspective – 44 2.1.1. The case for an anti-foundationalist ontology of public policy – 45 2.1.2. Policy analysis in an interpretive epistemology – 49 2.2. Understanding the role of prominent policy ideas – 52 2.2.1. Decentering political science – 53 2.2.2. Prominent policy ideas: an interpretive perspective – 54 2.3. Reflexive agency in public policy – 56 2.3.1. Putting travelling ideas to use in policy design processes – 56 2.3.2. Policy frames and policy framing – 61 2.4. Guiding principles – 64 3. Methodology – 67 3.1. Interpretive analysis in spatial policy research – 68 3.2. Research design – 72 3.2.1. Key principles – 72 3.2.2. Comparing two case studies – 75 3.2.3. Generating theory: principles and quality criteria – 79 3.3. Methods – 85 3.3.1. Qualitative interviewing – 85 3.3.2. Policy and document analysis – 90 3.4. Case and respondent selection – 91 3.4.1. Selecting regions in Germany and Romania – 91 3.4.2. Selecting respondents – 95 PART II: CONTEXT 4. The administrative context of integrated territorial development policies – 105 4.1. The ESI funds and the Cohesion Policy: a brief overview – 106 4.1.1. The key aims of the ESI funds – 107 4.1.2. EU priorities for the Cohesion Policy – 108 4.1.3. Integrated territorial development – 110 4.2. Planning and regional development in Saxony and Romania – 112 4.2.1. Saxony – 113 4.2.2. Romania – 114 4.3. Policy instruments for integrated territorial development – 115 4.3.1. Saxony – 115 4.3.2. Romania – 120 4.4. Policy directions – 125 5. Territorial structures of, and development trends in the studied regions – 127 5.1. Territorial structures – 127 5.1.1. The Chemnitz region in Saxony – 127 5.1.2. The North-West region in Romania – 130 5.2. Population and demography – 133 5.3. Transport infrastructure – 135 5.4. Economic profiles – 139 5.4.1. Employment concentration – 139 5.4.2. Commuting – 142 5.4.3. Economic sectors - 142 PART III: EMPIRICAL FINDINGS 6. The substance of integrated territorial development policies and strategies – 149 6.1. Normative positions on territorial cohesion – 149 6.1.1. Normative Positions – 150 6.1.2. Linking the storylines – 152 6.1.3. Key remarks – 153 6.2. The substance of governmental policies – 155 6.2.1. Categorising space: the inevitability of polarised development – 157 6.2.2. The role of integrated territorial development policies – 163 6.3. The substance of local and regional strategies – 169 6.3.1. Integrated Rural Development Plans – 169 6.3.2. Integrated Urban Development Plans – 174 7. Ideas in action: making sense of integrated territorial development – 189 7.1.Practical constraints and affordances of using integrated instruments – 189 7.1.1. The urban-rural split in ESI-funded instruments – 189 7.1.2. Centralising the ownership of European goals – 196 7.2. The role of experts in framing integrated responses – 203 7.2.1. Experts’ roles beyond bureaucracies – 204 7.2.2. Attuning expertise to local conditions – 204 7.2.3. Conveying expertise at a regional level and beyond – 208 7.3. From ideas to action – 210 7.3.1. Fostering motivation – 210 7.3.2. Eroding trust through complex bureaucracies – 215 8. Problematising integrated development: a local-regional perspective – 219 8.1. Demographic change – 219 8.2. Structural economic shifts – 225 8.2.1. Regional economies in transition – 226 8.2.2. Towards competitive territories – 231 8.3. Infrastructures and public services – 235 8.3.1. In-between adaptation and expansion – 236 8.3.2. Key remarks – 240 8.4. Place identity and marketing – 240 8.5. From problems to perceptions of cumulative disadvantages – 247 PART IV: CONCLUSIONS 9. Conclusions and implications – 255 9.1. Summary of the research approach. Key findings – 255 9.1.1. Research approach and theoretical anchors – 255 9.1.2 Policy ideas and their role in policy framing 258 9.2. Reflections and implications – 264 9.2.1. Methodological reflections – 265 9.2.2. Policy implications – 266 9.2.3. Perspectives for further research – 269 References – 271 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Analysed policy documents – 301 Appendix 2: Analysed strategies – 303 Appendix 3: Details about the interviews – 305 Appendix 4: List of original quotes – 31

    Time Varying Fiscal-Monetary Interactions within a Monetary Union

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    This dissertation covers the analysis of fiscal-monetary interactions on the efficacy of fiscal stimulus within members of a currency union. Chapter 2 covers an empirical analysis of the influence of fiscal and monetary behavior within and across a member's borders on fiscal spillover shocks. Chapters 3 and 4 aim to identify the transmission mechanisms responsible for the results that I receive in Chapter 2. Thus, they consist of two separate theoretical analyses. One focuses on the impact of fiscal-monetary and the other on cross-country fiscal interactions on the efficacy of different fiscal spending shocks. The empirical estimation uses local projections, which is followed by a qualitative and quantitative approach using a two-country New Keynesian DSGE model with time-varying policy rules. By constructing Taylor-type fiscal policy rules, I allow governments just like the monetary authority to switch between active and passive regimes. An active central bank implements strong inflation targeting such that the real rate rises with inflation. Conversely, an active government is characterized by an expansive policy that does not adjust the surplus enough to hold debt in check. At the same time, a passive regime shows strong consolidation efforts. These regimes have various implications when considering the effect of fiscal spending shocks in an open economy framework. The findings indicate that, overall, a relatively low debt reduction of a member generates the highest fiscal multipliers due to terms of trade benefits. This effect is more prominent for trade-intensive countries and when there is a union-wide shock. For highly indebted members, spillover multipliers benefit from low-interest rate policy through the monetary and union-wide fiscal authority

    Critiquing commodification in environmental governance :examples of urban waste governance in Cape Town, Rotterdam, and Bristol

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    Is the governance of waste in cities being encroached by logics of commodification? This question is posed to analyse a capitalistic turn in environmental governance. Encroachment of such logics is hypothesised to occur by innovation- and discourse-based means. But, alongside changes in how urban waste governance systems are contested, there are changes in how they are maintained and reinforced, e.g., through information technologies. Therefore, this thesis aims to better understand the commodification of waste – including relevant ideas with political traction – which is shaping and shaped by institutionalisation in urban waste governance. Three objectives follow this aim. The first is to identify and critically analyse institutions sharing explicit alignment with either or both circular economy or food-energy-water nexus ideas, and relationships between these institutions in Rotterdam, Cape Town, and Bristol. The second is to investigate and critically analyse the role of ideational power in processes of institutionalisation, or institutional change, within urban waste governance systems. And third, to synthesise and simulate factors affecting the outcomes of institutionalisation or institutional change aligned with circular economy or foodenergy-water nexus discourse in different urban waste governance systems. An innovative mixed method methodology which includes social network analysis, qualitative analysis, and agentbased modelling has been developed and applied to achieve these research objectives. Methods were selected and integrated with reference to an interdisciplinary theoretical framework including environmental governance and critical institutionalism, a systems-thinking analytical framing, and a conceptual frame that foregrounds context in the interaction between research and government policy. Results suggest that the way critique is mobilised and affects institutional networks through which waste governance occurs in cities is becoming increasingly complex and nuanced. Whilst this may mean that contestation is increasingly open to influence or disruption, caution is warranted in such interpretations. A shallow process of institutional diversification may obscure deeper rigidity of established power hierarchies in urban environmental governance. How such systemic asymmetries or inequities might be addressed by innovative forms of critique is an open question, but a systems-thinking analytical approach which is sensitive to contextual factors determining how and whether critical engagement affects policy, and its outcomes, is instructive. The commodification of waste and of competing ideas interacting with waste governance systems calls for holistic analysis of urban waste governance networks. Mixed methods that appraise and integrate computer based- and empirical forms of social data enable holistic-critical analysis of the governance networks wherein hegemony or domination is difficult to pinpoint and destabilise. Such exercises of holistically analysing and critically engaging with diffuse / fluid domination in urban waste governance networks give impetus to unorthodox alternatives to commodification – both in terms of governance processes and outcomes that we might reasonably expect from those

    Randomized Control Trials in the Field of Development

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    In October 2019, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer jointly won the 51st Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty." But what is the exact scope of their experimental method, known as randomized control trials (RCTs)? Which sorts of questions are RCTs able to address and which do they fail to answer? This book provides answers to these questions, explaining how RCTs work, what they can achieve, why they sometimes fail, how they can be improved and why other methods are both useful and necessary. Chapters contributed by leading specialists in the field present a full and coherent picture of the main strengths and weaknesses of RCTs in the field of development. Looking beyond the epistemological, political, and ethical differences underlying many of the disagreements surrounding RCTs, it explores the implementation of RCTs on the ground, outside of their ideal theoretical conditions and reveals some unsuspected uses and effects, their disruptive potential, but also their political uses. The contributions uncover the implicit worldview that many RCTs draw on and disseminate, and probe the gap between the method's narrow scope and its success, while also proposing improvements and alternatives. This book warns against the potential dangers of their excessive use, arguing that the best use for RCTs is not necessarily that which immediately springs to mind, and offering opportunity to come to an informed and reasoned judgement on RCTs and what they can bring to development
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