Centre for Economic Policy Research

Structural Transformation and Economic Growth (STEG) aims to develop a strong body of evidence on the underlying processes of economic growth and the changes in structure that take place in an economy when moving from low to middle and high-income status, made accessible to and used by policy-makers for improved economic decision-making. STEG’s aim is to support high-quality academic research that: brings the best economic thinking to structural transformation issues and generate new understanding; has clear policy and programme relevance, and; can be put into practice in developing countries. In addition, the programme also aims to increase the number of researchers working on structural transformation in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LICs and LMICs) as well as investing resources in the collection of new data and improving the accessibility of existing data.  The programme is delivered through a contract with the Centre for Economic Policy (CEPR) in collaboration with  Oxford University, the University of Notre Dame, the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET), the Yale Research Initiative on Innovation and Scale (Y-RISE), and Groningen Growth and Development Centre of the University of Groningen.

The Growth Research Platform (GRP) is a new initiative led by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), focused on understanding and addressing the challenges faced by economies in developing countries. The platform is funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) and incorporates the research of the Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL), Structural Transformation and Economic Growth (STEG), and Reducing Conflict and Improving Performance in the Economy (ReCIPE) programmes, alongside the synthesising and dissemination work of VoxDev.

Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) is a joint research initiative of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the Department For International Development (DFID). It offers a competitive research grants scheme for projects related to the behaviour of firms in Low-Income Countries (LICs) that aim to better understand what determines the strength of market forces driving efficiency in these countries. It will pursue a research agenda focusing on private-sector development. Existing research suggests that the private sector in these countries faces a multitude of constraints. These constraints interact with one another. For example, the strategic interaction of firms with market power will be affected by the regulatory regime governing both new entrants and incumbent firms. What is needed is research which allows us to understand how these constraints interact. PEDL will pursue a range of approaches that promise to produce credible research results that will be useful for policy-making, supporting research related to private enterprises of all sizes, initially focused on four themes: modelling market frictions in LICs using newly available data, understanding how constraints interact using micro-founded macro models, the dynamics of SMEs - informality and entrepreneurship and the role of export-oriented industries in driving growth. PEDL offers a mixture of substantial research grants and smaller “Exploratory” grants. Grants will be awarded on a competitive basis, with applications solicited from researchers throughout the world.