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Person

Philip Mader

Philip Mader

Research Fellow

Philip Mader is a research fellow in the Business, Markets and the State research cluster, and has over 15 years’ research and consulting experience in the field of international development. His research areas include political economy, financialisation, digital finance, taxation, financial inclusion, youth employment, intersecting inequalities and, more broadly, the politics of market-oriented interventions in development.

Phil currently co-leads a programme on Digital Public Infrastructure and taxation with the International Centre for Tax and Development. He has led impact evaluations of financial inclusion and Solidarity Groups for European and international funders. His prior research, which focused on microfinance and its connections with poverty and financial markets, was awarded the German Thesis Award and the Otto Hahn Medal. He has research and consulting experience across India and sub-Saharan Africa, and has been invited to speak at academic and practitioner events on all continents.

Phil obtained his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. He holds an MPhil in Development Studies from Cambridge and a BA in Economics with Development Studies from Sussex.

Teaching

Phil has served as convenor of the MA in Globalisation, Business and Development and teaches a variety of economics, political economy and social development topics at IDS. He previously taught sociology, political economy and theory of knowledge at the Universities of Cologne and Basel.

Office hours for students: 11:30-12:30 on Wednesdays during term time; please e-mail in advance for an appointment.

PhD supervision

Phil has supervised the PhD of Dr. Stella Odiase. He is currently supervising the PhD project of Jose Morales. He will consider applications from applicants who reach out with a CV and (approx.) 2-page proposal that clearly states how the proposed research fits his interests and how the PhD will be funded. Regrettably, he is unable to discuss admission requirements, funding sources, or research ideas that are not yet developed into a proposal.

Research

Programme

Youth employment and politics

Over 40 percent of global populations are under 25 yet young people cannot secure work and increasingly face a crisis of citizenship. Youth Employment and Politics at IDS builds on decades of research to develop knowledge and evidence that contributes to effective interventions that supports,...

Project

Handbook of Financialization

  Financialization has become the go-to term for scholarship that studies the vastly expanded role of finance in contemporary politics, economy and society. The concept itself has equally expanded and evolved from a niche research theme in critical scholarship to one that informs an...

Programme

Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development (CREID)

The Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development (CREID) provides research evidence and delivers practical programmes which aim to redress the impact of discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, tackle poverty and exclusion, and promote people’s wellbeing and...

Opinions

Opinion

How should Africa’s digital payments be taxed?

Africa’s governments need tax revenue to fund everything from education and social welfare to paying international debts. No wonder governments are eyeing digital financial services (DFS) – a rapidly growing, highly profitable industry – for additional revenue. However, critics...

25 October 2022

Opinion

A world of cameras: how sustainable is it?

Over the last five to ten years, the number of people owning smartphones has grown rapidly, especially in lower-and-middle-income countries. Now synonymous with cameras, these smartphones are responsible for the majority of images taken worldwide. Embedded cameras are ever more present...

1 March 2022

Opinion

Young Africans need more and better jobs, not more training

When the world rebuilds after the Covid-19 crisis, Africa will have a unique challenge to face: bringing its overwhelmingly young workforce into decent, productive, and secure jobs. Africa has the world’s youngest population, a fact that some hope will mean fewer deaths and serious cases,...

Philip Mader
Philip Mader & 4 others

10 September 2020

Publications

Book

What About Us? Global Perspectives on Redressing Religious Inequalities

eBook

How can we make religious equality a reality for those on the margins of society and politics? This book is about the individual and collective struggles of the religiously marginalised to be recognised and their inequalities, religious or otherwise, redressed.

26 October 2022

Philip Mader’s recent work

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