GDN’s Inter-regional Research Projects (IRPs) are a form of collaborative research that enable its Regional Network Partners (RNPs) to engage in ambitious projects on themes rooted in regional relevance.

The overall objective of the initiative is to encourage the exchange of expertise between researchers from different regions, diffuse knowledge across regional borders, foster South-South collaboration more broadly and develop long-term partnerships between researchers across regions.

Macro-economic Management and Economic Growth in the Pacific Islands and Caribbean Countries
This ongoing IRP (the third one in its series) is being conducted in the Caribbean and Pacific regions and is jointly led by the teams at Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Oceania Development Network (ODN). The main objective of this project is to undertake specific studies that will be of relevance to policymakers, in terms of achieving macro-economic stability and growth in both regions.

CITIES: An Analysis of the Post-Communist Experience
The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute (CERGE-EI) and Economics Education and Research Consortium (EERC) together led this IRP. This multidisciplinary project used the natural experiment of the move from the inherent ‘out-of-market equilibrium’ structure of cities in the post-communist world towards a more normal structure over the past 20 years, combined with a comparison to the historically determined development of comparable cities in the West. The aim was to gain insight into the important features of 21st century urban life.

The four broad research themes were City Growth, the Economics of Cities, the Sociology and Governance of Cities. Research teams in Belarus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan examined trends in cities’ growth, as well as the economics, sociology and governance of cities under this project.

For the Cities project overview paper, click here.

Latin America and Africa: Cross-regional Dialogue on the Effects of Commodity Dependence
Under this project, three cross-country case studies on Copper (teams from Chile and Zambia), Oil (teams from Colombia and Nigeria) and Food Security (teams from Argentina and Malawi) were produced.

Over the past two decades, most African economies have shifted considerably from command-based to market-based structures through increased liberalization, contested politics and increasing participation of major stakeholders. Latin American economies have experienced similar changes over the period, with the strengthening of market and democratic institutions.

Additionally, both of these regions share the common feature of a high dependence on a few commodities. This IRP examined the many interesting questions associated with the role of commodities in development from a comparative perspective, using pairs of countries with similar abundances and/or dependencies, but with markedly different outcomes.

Comparative Case Study on Copper
Comparative Case Study on Oil
Comparative Case Study on Food Security