Research
My research is about how power and connection shape economic development. On power, I measure the capacity, authority and means of urban governments in Africa, and what they do for local public goods. On connection, I ask how foreign investment and global value chains land in particular regions, and whether the green transition changes who captures the value.
Primary fields: urban and regional economics; political economy of development; global value chains and foreign direct investment. Secondary: fiscal decentralisation and local public finance; economic geography; computational measurement of institutions.
A new Cambridge Element with Riccardo Crescenzi, Green Global Value Chains for Sustainable Development, goes online at Cambridge University Press on 11 November 2026, open access. An LSE public event on 18 November marks it.
Drafts not linked below are available on request.
Featured paper
Status without Power: City Creation, Central Transfers and Local Public Goods in Uganda Working paper, October 2026. Drawn from the thesis Power and Place Uganda declared fifteen new cities in 2020, ten of which commenced together on 1 July and five never did. Commencement brought a budget line, an elected council and parliamentary seats, and no new legal powers or revenue authority. A block difference-in-differences compares the ten against the cities declared but never commenced; a third arm of municipalities never declared separates commencement from declaration alone; and a boundary design compares areas inside and outside the pre-reform municipal limits. City budgets rose by 13.36 billion shillings a year while their parent districts’ and neighbours’ budgets fell, local public goods and night-time light showed no detectable change within four years, and the periphery absorbed to meet the population threshold did not catch up. Request draft
Abstract
Much of Africa’s urban growth is happening in secondary cities, and governments create them by decree. Economics has studied one way of doing so, splitting existing units. I study a second, upgrading, using Uganda’s declaration of fifteen new cities in 2020 — regional growth centres under its National Urban Policy, meant to anchor regional economies and draw growth away from the capital — ten of which commenced and five never did. Commencement brought a budget line, an elected council and parliamentary seats, and no new legal powers or revenue authority. Comparing commenced with never-commenced cities, old municipal cores with territory absorbed to meet a population threshold, and neighbouring councils by road distance, I find that city budgets rose by 13.36 billion shillings a year while their parent districts’ and neighbours’ budgets fell, so that little new money reached the territory and the development grant did not rise; that local public goods and night-time light showed no detectable change within four years; and that the absorbed periphery, already behind the land left outside the city, did not catch up. Status and earmarked transfers arrived without devolved power, and services had not followed by the end of the window, a pattern that fits money without power, though a horizon this short cannot rule out a response that is merely slow.
Working papers
Authority without Means: Partisan Alignment and Central Investment after Guyana’s Local Government Reforms Working paper, October 2026 Guyana restored local elections in 2016 after 22 years, created four towns, and equalised formula transfers by design. The national alternation of August 2020 reversed every council’s alignment with the centre without changing any council. Councils held by the party that lost national office became 22 percentage points less likely to receive audited central capital works, which ethnic composition does not explain, while town status brought central investment and little else. Request draft
Abstract
Decentralisation reforms often give councils elections and legal status while the centre keeps the money. Guyana restored local elections in 2016 after 22 years, created four towns, and equalised formula transfers by design. The national alternation of August 2020 reversed every council’s alignment with the centre without changing any council. Councils held by the party that lost national office became 22 percentage points less likely to receive audited central capital works, which ethnic composition does not explain. Town status brought central investment and little else. Authority without means left councils dependent on central discretion, which followed party.
Moving the Seat of Government and the Growth of African Towns Working paper, October 2026 Governments that move a seat of government, or create a region or district, expect people, economic activity and public services to follow the offices. I test that expectation on a register of 38 contests and moves of seats of government in 12 African countries in which the towns that lost are documented, comparing each new seat with the runner-up that would otherwise have hosted it, and both with towns of similar size in regions that were not reformed. Request draft
Abstract
Governments that move a seat of government out of a crowded city, or create a region or district, expect people, economic activity and public services to follow the offices, and the city left behind to decongest. Behind the expectation is a claim that the offices, contracts, services and status a seat brings can redirect urban growth. I test it with a register of 38 contests and moves of seats of government in 12 African countries in which the towns that lost are documented. I compare each new seat with the runner-up that would otherwise have hosted it, and compare both with towns of similar size in regions that were not reformed, using night-time light, built-up area and three measures of population. Reforms went to regions that were already growing faster than the rest of their country, and within those regions the towns chosen as seats grew no faster than the others, so a comparison with towns elsewhere credits the seat with most of its region’s growth. Within a decade, built-up surface around the new seats rose faster than around towns elsewhere, much as it did across their region, and their population did not grow. Light rose by an imprecise amount that one event carries, and the rise is clear only around the seats of Kenya’s counties, which received an elected government and a budget of their own, and even there people did not follow. The runners-up lost nothing and kept growing faster in the censuses, and the few towns that lost an existing seat give mixed evidence. In Uganda, 80 new districts did not raise the presence of local public goods. Over decades, new national capitals outgrew other large towns only where the executive and its ministries moved.
Measuring Metropolitan Authority in Africa: A Regional Authority Index for Five Countries, 1994–2024 IGC Working Paper, in preparation Extends the Regional Authority Index to the metropolitan tier, where Africa has had almost no coverage. Constitutional and statutory instruments are coded in sequence with model assistance and validated against independent human coding.
Green Foreign Direct Investment in Africa In preparation The first systematic, taxonomy-based assessment of green FDI in Africa, classifying 9,935 greenfield projects (2013–2025) against the EU and Rwandan green taxonomies with large language models. More than one in six dollars of inward FDI is green, and three-fifths of that lies outside renewable energy and waste.
Abstract
Green foreign direct investment (GFDI) is increasingly recognised as a lever for sustainable development, yet its scale and scope across African economies remain poorly understood. Existing statistics rely on broad sectoral classifications that label renewable energy and waste as ‘green’ while overlooking greening dynamics across all other sectors. We address this gap by providing the first systematic, taxonomy-based assessment of GFDI in Africa. Combining project-level data on 9,935 greenfield investments (2013–2025) with the green taxonomies of the EU and Rwanda, and leveraging Large Language Models for activity-level classification, we distinguish between green FDI in renewable energy and waste, green FDI beyond energy, and non-green FDI. We embed these flows within a green global value chain framework that positions GFDI as a channel for upgrading. Three findings emerge. First, more than one in six dollars of inward FDI into Africa is classifiable as green, with three-fifths occurring outside renewable energy and waste. Second, beyond-energy GFDI concentrates in knowledge-intensive manufacturing, suggesting that upgrading beyond the energy sector is linked to industrial capability. Third, renewable energy and beyond-energy GFDI follow distinct spatial footprints with different policy implications. A comparative analysis of EU, Rwandan, and South African taxonomies reveals that taxonomy design directly shapes which investments governance systems can see, incentivise, and track.
Transforming Small and Medium Enterprise Integration into Global Value Chains IGC Working Paper GBR-26101, October 2026 Programmes that connect small firms to multinational buyers are usually judged by how many come to trade with the buyer. Using the internal record of TRANSFORM, a decade-long partnership between Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and EY, we find that an integration count reflects the buyer’s purchasing decisions as much as the programme’s work. Working paper
Abstract
Programmes that connect small firms to multinational buyers are expected to produce a link to the buyer, and the usual measure of whether they did is a count of the firms that came to trade with it. We ask what that count measures, using the internal record of TRANSFORM, a decade-long partnership between Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and EY in the form of an impact accelerator. We use a regression across 90 enterprises, configurational analyses coded from the enterprises’ own applications, and nineteen interviews with founders and with Unilever and programme staff. Sixteen per cent of enterprises ever integrated, and half of those relationships had lapsed by March 2026. Whether the buyer’s side saw a use for the proposed project at entry predicts integration, and ratings of the link during the project add nothing. In the programme team’s record, none of 24 enterprises whose project offered Unilever nothing it could use integrated, against 14 of 66 whose project did. A prior relationship with Unilever raises the rate above that threshold and is not necessary for it. Among enterprises the buyer had matched to a use at entry, no combination of what the enterprise itself brings, as recorded at entry, is sufficient for integration. Enterprises referred by a Unilever local market team, every one of them already known to the business, integrate at four times the rate of any other route. Those funded under the environmental pillars integrate no more often than those under the social ones. Staff interviews place the reason on the buyer’s side of the transaction. A contract needs several Unilever functions with unrelated objectives to agree at once, and an impact credential counts with the teams that fund pilots and carries no weight with those that sign contracts. Enterprises that never integrated report gains in capability and access to other buyers more often than those that did. An integration count therefore reflects the buyer’s purchasing decisions as much as the programme’s work, and such programmes should also be judged on what their participants keep.
Measuring Urban Growth from Built Cover Where the Census Is Old In preparation In the 2020 round of censuses, 17 African countries and territories holding 45 percent of the continent’s population held none. Where the census is old, satellite population layers carry the old count forward by assumption. We measure urban growth from built cover instead, defining each urban area as a dense core with the built-up land within walking distance of it. In Ethiopia, last counted in 2007, the method finds 961 urban areas in 2025, and Uganda’s census of 2024, taken after the layers were made, validates the account.
Abstract
Governments allocate public resources according to where people live, but in the 2020 round of censuses 17 African countries and territories, home to 45 percent of the continent’s population, held none. Where the census is old, urban growth is measured with satellite gridded population layers or official projections, and both carry an old count forward by assumption. We propose a way of measuring urban growth that does not depend on how an old census is divided. Each urban area is a dense core with the built-up land within walking distance of it, and its growth is measured from built cover, which satellites observe. In Ethiopia, last counted in 2007, the method finds 961 urban areas in 2025, and over twenty years most of the growth of built cover in those present since 2005 lay on land they added. Measures that rest on population depend on which layer is used. Two layers built on the same census disagree on how many urban areas exceed 50,000 people and on whether their density rose or fell, because each spreads the census by its own rule and none observes how towns grow. Uganda’s census of 2024, taken after the layers were made, validates this account, since layers built from small census units place urban population close to the count. Against the same count, our delineation is more selective than the dartboard and follows household access to grid electricity more closely.
Valuing Land with Auctions: Implications for Land Taxation in Addis Ababa In preparation Ethiopia’s land and property tax of 2025 asks every city to assess urban land at market value, in a country that keeps no record of sales. Using 305 Addis Ababa plots recovered from scanned site plans and linked to the bids paid for them, we ask what the city’s public tenders reveal about land value, and whether its own cost-based benchmark captures that value well enough to tax.
Abstract
Urban land is worth what it can reach and what the city may become, and taxing that value favours compact building. Ethiopia’s 2025 land and property tax requires market-value assessment where sales are unrecorded. Using 305 Addis Ababa plots located from site plans, we ask what auction prices reveal about land value and whether the city’s cost-based price captures it. Buyers pay for access to the centre and services, and local growth carries no detectable premium. A distance-and-size model values unseen locations and rounds within assessors’ standards. The benchmark does no better than a flat rate and burdens cheaper land.
Publications
Books
Green Global Value Chains for Sustainable Development: Environmental Upgrading in a Fragmented Spatial Economy Elements on Globalization and Global Supply Chains, Cambridge University Press, 11 November 2026. Open access on Cambridge Core We argue that green global value chains, and the green foreign direct investment that helps to build and reconfigure them, can support sustainable development across a fragmented spatial economy. The Element advances the concept of environmental upgrading, introduces the Green Smile Curve with a typology of green, brown and ordinary chains, gives new evidence on the geography of green investment, and proposes a policy framework for governments. About the book Cambridge Core Cambridge University Press Short version (RSA blog) Media and commentary: RSA Summer Conference opening plenary (video) Sustainability in a fragmented world (RSA video) LSE iQ podcast What Port Talbot teaches us (LSE Business Review)
Harnessing Global Value Chains for Regional Development: How to Upgrade through Regional Policy, FDI and Trade Regional Studies Policy Impact Book Series, Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003356141 Written for regional policymakers, on what a region can do about its position in global production. Reviewed in Regional Studies, Economic Geography and European Planning Studies, and cited in policy documents from the World Bank, the OECD and the United Nations. About the book Book Overview (open access) Chapter 2 (author’s version) Associated materials Media and commentary: LSE Research for the World feature Book launch (video) What are global value chains? (LSE Research video) Ideas Untrapped (podcast)
Articles
Unequal Progress and Barriers for Women in Economics Reviews of Economic Literature, 1. Open access. doi:10.21627/aekcyv04. Earlier version: “Pipelines or pyramids: A review of barriers for women in economics”, IGC Working Paper (2023) Reviews the literature on gender inequality in economics. Women now make up 26% of published economists but only 5% of those in the top percentile of research influence, where recent progress has, paradoxically, been concentrated. Article Working paper (SSRN) IGC version Media and commentary: Barriers for women in economics (IGC blog)
Abstract
This paper reviews the literature on gender inequality in the academic field of economics, highlighting both the unequal progress that women have experienced and the persistent barriers that they continue to face. Our analysis of this recent research and available data highlights that the reduction in women’s absence in the field has been heterogeneous. While women now constitute 26% of published economists, their presence sharply declines at higher ranks, with only 5% representation among economists in the top percentile of research influence. Notably, recent progress has paradoxically concentrated at this highest level, indicating shifting institutional norms and evolving perceptions about women’s contributions. We further explore how understanding women’s behaviors and career choices, and gender biases in evaluation and workplace environments, contribute to women’s underrepresentation in the field. Our discussion extends to the labor market for economists, drawing parallels with broader labor trends and examining how gender-biased treatment and hiring processes affect women’s advancement. Finally, we turn to policy interventions that are key in promoting gender balance, focusing on networks, mentorship, role models, and representation.
Book chapters
Local and Regional Development In De Marchi, V., Rabellotti, R., and Van Assche, A. (eds), Encyclopedia of Global Value Chains, Edward Elgar
From Local Regions in the EU to Those in Ukraine (and Back Again): How FDI and Global Value Chains Tie Our Local Economies Together Chapter 24 in Gorodnichenko, Y., and Rashkovan, V. (eds), Supporting Ukraine: More Critical Than Ever, CEPR Press Chapter
A Policy Framework for Infrastructure Development and Global Value Chains Chapter 6 in Asian Infrastructure Finance 2021: Sustaining Global Value Chains, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Chapter
Doctoral thesis
- Power and Place: Decentralisation, Urbanisation and Local Economic Development in Africa DPhil in Sustainable Urban Development, University of Oxford, submitted October 2026. Supervised by Vlad Mykhnenko The thesis asks where power sits in African urban government, and what follows from that placement. The first three results chapters measure it through a framework of capacity, authority and means (CAM): how citizens rate their governments, what the law grants them, and the fiscal resources behind both. The last two ask what follows for local public goods, and for the new cities Uganda created in 2020.
Results chapters
Urban Capacity How urban government capacity compares with central government capacity across African regions, how that balance has moved since 2002, and whether urban settlement structure conditions it. Capacity is a composite of citizen-reported performance, trust, service delivery and the absence of corruption from Afrobarometer, compared with central government in the same country and survey round so that the question is the balance between tiers rather than the level of either.
Metropolitan Authority How much formal authority African metropolitan governments hold, how it has changed since the early 1990s, and how it compares globally. Constitutional and statutory instruments are coded against the metropolitan adaptation of the Regional Authority Index, read in sequence with model assistance and validated against independent human coding, with results for Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda. Case studies examine the gap between what statute grants and what governments exercise.
Fiscal Means and CAM Integration How large and how autonomous the fiscal footprint of African local government is, using IMF Government Finance Statistics, with revenue read alongside the power to raise it and expenditure alongside discretion over it. The chapter then brings capacity, authority and means together for the first time, at the metropolitan region and survey round.
Local Public Goods in Africa How local public goods can be measured across African urban areas, how provision is distributed and has changed over two decades, and whether trajectories vary with urbanisation. Four indicators built from enumerator observations, each applying a different theoretical filter, are triangulated and matched to urban population growth in a regional panel.
Decentralisation and Development: Uganda’s New Cities Which dimensions of local power a change in city status and resources moves when formal authority is not decentralised alongside it. Developed as the featured paper above.
Data
RAI(Metro) Africa A Regional Authority Index at the metropolitan tier for African countries since the early 1990s, coded from constitutional and statutory instruments with model assistance and validated against independent human coding. Open release of the data and coding pipeline in preparation
CAM Africa Database Capacity, authority and means indicators for African metropolitan regions, combining Afrobarometer, legislative and IMF fiscal data. Citable deposit in preparation
Mapping Municipal Finance Reform in Developing Countries Interactive data visualisation, International Growth Centre View
Grants
- 2025 Green Foreign Direct Investment in Africa, with J. Alvarez-Vilanova, R. Crescenzi and C. Lippitsch £15k+
- 2025 Authority in African Cities, International Growth Centre. Co-investigator, with V. Mykhnenko (PI) £10k+
- 2025 Regional Studies Association Research Network on Green(ing) Global Value Chains for Sustainable Regional Development, with V. De Marchi, R. Crescenzi and C. Hulke £10k+
- 2024 Urban Expansion and Drivers of Emissions in Cities, with S. Barzin and C. Riom £15k+
- 2023 Spatial Vulnerabilities in Punjab, with G. Bryan, H. Shaikh and N. Tsivanidis £15k+
- 2021 COVID-19 Economic Evidence Grant, UKRI. Co-thematic lead, cities research Programme £1m+
- 2021 Transformative Economic Policy Programme, Bangladesh, FCDO. Thematic lead, cities research Programme £2.25m+
Selected presentations
- 2026 Still Too Early—or Too Slow? Urbanisation and Unequal Public Goods in African Cities. CSAE Conference, University of Oxford
- 2025 Authority in African Cities. Sustainable Urban Development Seminar, University of Oxford
- 2025 (Local) Public Goods in Africa. RSA Student and Early Career Conference, London
- 2025 Urban Government Capacity and Decentralisation Hotspots in Africa. CSAE Conference, University of Oxford
- 2024 Urban Government Capacity and Decentralisation Hotspots in Africa. ODI Global Public Financial Management Workshop, London; RSA Winter Conference, London; RSA Student and Early Career Conference, Cambridge
- 2024 Green Global Value Chains for Sustainable Regional Development. International Business Seminar, Henley Business School, University of Reading
- 2023 Green Global Value Chains for Sustainable Regional Development. Opening plenary, RSA Summer Conference, Ljubljana
- 2023 Upgrading as a Pathway to Structural Transformation. UNU-WIDER and ACRC workshop on African urbanisation and structural transformation
- 2022 Harnessing Global Value Chains for Regional Development. Book launch, LSE
- 2020 Spatial Productivity for Regional and Local Development. OECD Spatial Productivity Lab, Trento
Service
Co-organiser, Urbanisation and Poverty Reduction Research Conference (2019–2025) International conference and policy workshop, co-hosted with the World Bank and George Washington University 9th (2024–25, with the City of Cape Town): Urban economics in action: Addressing African cities’ challenges IGC World Bank Videos 8th (2023–24, with the Millennium Challenge Corporation): Urban expansion and the future spatial organisation of cities IGC World Bank Videos 7th (2022–23): Climate change and sustainable cities IGC World Bank Videos 6th (2019, with the Inter-American Development Bank): three days on research, policy and city application IGC World Bank Opening session
Regional Studies Association Research Network on Green Global Value Chains for Sustainable Regional Development (2025–) With V. De Marchi, R. Crescenzi and C. Hulke Network
Special session co-organiser RSA Annual Conference, Florence, and RSA Winter Conference, London (2024); RSA Regions in Recovery Global E-Festival (2021)
Editorial board, Global Investments and Local Development blog, LSE (2024–)
Pre-scoping contributor, IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities (2024)
Referee Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society; Economic Development Quarterly; Environment and Urbanization; Journal of Economic Geography; Spatial Economic Analysis; Edward Elgar; Routledge; Regional Studies Association; C40 Cities; International Centre for Tax and Development; International Growth Centre