Welcoming twelve new affiliates
We are excited to welcome twelve new affiliates to J-PAL: Lauren Falcao Bergquist (University of Michigan), Stefano Caria (University of Bristol), Jishnu Das (Georgetown University), Susan Godlonton (Williams College), Rachel Heath (University of Washington), Simon Jäger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Jason Kerwin (University of Minnesota), Adnan Khan (London School of Economics), Amit Khandelwal (Columbia University), Adrienne Lucas (University of Delaware), Rocco Macchiavello (London School of Economics), and Christopher Palmer (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Their research interests span labor markets, trade liberalization, housing, and more.
Lauren Falcao Bergquist is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Michigan. Her current research interests focus on market efficiency, trade, and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Lauren is involved in several projects through J-PAL/CEGA’s joint Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative. Among these are a pilot investigating the barriers to high product quality along a value chain within Ethiopia’s honey sector and a study on the timing of loans to maize farmers to promote grain storage. She earned her PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Stefano Caria is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Bristol. He uses experimental and structural methods to investigate how to make labor markets work better for the poor. In recent work, Stefano evaluates a number of interventions designed to help different populations (including young Ethiopians and Syrian refugees) search for employment and to understand the causes and consequences of labor turnover. Stefano received his PhD in economics from the University of Oxford.
Jishnu Das is a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. His work focuses on the delivery of basic services, particularly health and education. He has worked on the quality of health care, mental health, information in health and education markets, child learning and test-scores and the determinants of trust. Prior to Georgetown, Jishnu worked as a lead economist at the World Bank, where he was part of the core team on the World Development Report on Gender and Development in 2011. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University.
Susan Godlonton is an assistant professor of economics at Williams College. Her research focuses on economic development in Africa, with specific interests in preventative health care, transitions to work and agricultural productivity. She holds a BA from the University of Stellenbosch, an MA from the University of Cape Town, and a PhD from the University of Michigan.
Rachel M. Heath is an associate professor of economics at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on gender and labor markets in low- and middle-income countries. In particular, she examines how job opportunities can change women's lives, the factors that influence women's decisions to join the labor force, and how firms decide what workers to hire. Rachel received her PhD in economics from Yale University.
Simon Jäger is an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Before joining MIT, he worked at the Institute on Behavior and Inequality (briq) as a postdoctoral researcher. Simon conducts research in labor, public, and behavioral economics. His work combines experimental and quasi-experimental methods with large, administrative datasets to shed light on the functioning of labor markets and the origins and consequences of inequality. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University.
Jason Kerwin is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Minnesota. He is a development economist, with research interests in health, education, labor, and financial inclusion. Jason’s research has covered topics ranging from behavioral responses to HIV risks are limited to how to improve literacy education in low-resource settings. He works primarily in Malawi and Uganda, and has recently begun doing research in India as well. Jason received his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan.
Adnan Khan is a professor in practice at the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, a joint appointment with the Suntory Toyota International Centre for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD). His areas of interest include economic development, political economy, state capacity, and social protection. He has spent more than fifteen years in the policy world as a practitioner, policymaker and activist, and over ten years in the research world. Adnan’s research focuses mostly in Africa and Asia. He received his PhD in economics from Queen’s University.
Amit Khandelwal is the Jerome A. Chazen Professor of Global Business at Columbia’s Graduate School of Business. His research examines issues in international and development economics, including the strategic response of firms to trade liberalizations and increased international competition. His recent papers have explored topics like the US trade war and the intersection of trade and development. Amit’s research focuses in India, Egypt, Myanmar, Pakistan, and elsewhere. He received his PhD in economics from Yale University.
Adrienne Lucas is an associate professor of economics in the Lerner College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware. Her current research focuses on the importance of information in school choice decisions, the effect of teacher incentives on student achievement, and using existing school personnel and resources to increase student learning. She has published research on a range of topics in health and education, often with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. She received her PhD in economics from Brown University.
Rocco Macchiavello is an associate professor of management at the London School of Economics. His research interests lie at the intersection of development, organizational, and industrial economics, often focusing on the coffee, flowers, dairy, and garment industries. In his work, Rocco has collaborated with numerous government agencies, international organizations, social enterprises and large companies. His current research studies industrial zones and policy in emerging markets, markets, and firms in weakly institutionalized environments, organized crime, and international drug trafficking. Rocco received his PhD from the London School of Economics.
Christopher Palmer is the Albert and Jeanne Clear Career Development Professor and an Assistant Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research focuses on how credit, real estate, and labor markets respond to periods of significant upheaval. His recent experimental work tests the impact of offering rental assistance to help families in the United States living in high-poverty neighborhoods move to low-poverty areas, as well as the impact of consumer financial disclosures on savings accounts decisions in the United Kingdom. Prior to joining MIT, he taught real estate finance at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and was a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Christopher received his PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
