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How did society change during the industrial revolution? Are there lessons we can learn for the age of AI? In this episode of Ideas in Development, Deena Mousa and Oliver Hanney talk to Bruno Caprettini about one of the most common historical analogies people make when talking about AI: the industrial revolution. We discuss how British society, and the economy, changed in real time during this historical period of unprecedented technological change. What did technological change actually look like when it first unfolded? How long did it take for living standards to rise? And what kinds of disruption and backlash showed up along the way? We also discuss the ways in which AI is similar, and different, to this period of history.

Today on Ideas in Development, we think through why economists sound so different to technologists when discussing AI. Listen to learn about the mismatch between the public discourse on the economic impacts of AI, and how economists tend to think through periods of rapid technological change. This is the first episode of our new series on AI. Joining us as co-host across the next ten episodes is Deena Mousa.

In this episode of Ideas in Development, we explore one of the defining development stories of the last 50 years, Vietnam’s economic transformation. How did a country that endured decades of conflict, severe food shortages, and high levels of absolute poverty, turn around its fortunes so rapidly? To take us through Vietnam’s remarkable rise, we are joined by Economist and Advisor Pham Chi Lan, who lived through this change, and helped to drive Vietnam’s reform process.

In this episode of Ideas in Development, we ask how Peru rapidly became a global leader in exporting high-value fruits and vegetables. To take us through this period of sectoral growth, we were joined by former Minister of Production, Piero Ghezzi, who discusses how the Peruvian government worked with the private sector to unlock bottlenecks, and the experimental industrial policy tool at the heart of that story: Mesas Ejecutivas.

In this episode of Ideas in Development, we ask how Costa Rica, a small country of approximately 5 million people, became an attractive hub that now hosts operations for more than 1,000 multinationals. To take us through this period of economic change, we were joined by Andres Valenciano Yamuni, who played his own role in Costa Rica’s FDI journey during his time as Minister of Foreign Trade.

In our first series of Ideas in Development, we are learning about growth success stories in Latin America, Africa and Asia, directly from the policymakers who helped to make them happen. Throughout these conversations, Oliver Hanney, VoxDev managing editor, be joined Kartik Akileswaran, co-founder of Growth Teams. In this episode we discuss why we are focusing on growth, and his experience working as advisor, funder, and practitioner in the growth ecosystem.

The new VoxDev podcast, Ideas in Development, will focus on the big questions in development. In this first episode, Managing Editor Oliver Hanney discusses why we are doing so, and previews some of the upcoming series we’ve been working on, on growth, AI and cities.