Consultant - Firm Size and Preferences for Workplace Environment - J-PAL South Asia

Organization: J-PAL South Asia at IFMR

Location: Tirupur, Tamil Nadu

Experience: 1 to 2 years

Start Date: 1 November 2024

Language requirement: English, Hindi and Tamil

Contract duration: 3 months

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), established in 2003 as a research center at the Economics Department at MIT, is a global research center working to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of more than 1,000 researchers at universities worldwide, J-PAL conducts randomized impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty. J-PAL South Asia, based at the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) in India, analyzes and disseminates research results, builds partnerships with policymakers, and ensures that policy is informed by scientific evidence.

J-PAL co-founders Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, with longtime affiliate Michael Kremer, were awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics for their pioneering approach to alleviating global poverty.

Project Description:

The Firm Size and Preferences for Workplace Environment studies the relationship between firm owners/managers and workers across varied firm sizes in Tirupur. It looks at the differences in workplace environments across small and large firms and studies the workers' willingness to pay for flexibility in their working conditions. The PI on the project is Shreya Chandra, PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley

Roles and Responsibilities:

The role involves an array of responsibilities, including, but not limited to:

Collaborating with the PI in refining research design, designing surveys, and conducting scoping and pilots in the field

Developing error-free and rigorously tested digital versions of survey instruments and setting up data management systems for the project

Ensuring the data collected is of the highest quality by implementing and overseeing data quality monitoring systems, including the design of meticulous data checks during data collection

Cleaning data, assisting with preliminary data analysis, and preparation of summary statistics and reports across different rounds of data collection

Leading the recruitment, onboarding, training, and supervising of data collection teams

Effectively communicating and reporting field observations for fine-tuning research design components

Overseeing the implementation of the evaluation following the research design on the ground

Supervising data collection and data entry, and ensuring data quality and productivity including admin data from the partner

Assisting with data cleaning, preliminary data analysis, and preparation of documents and presentations for dissemination

Reporting to PIs on all of the activities mentioned above.

Maintain compliance with all J-PAL protocols and policies.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s/ Master’s degree in economics, social sciences, mathematics/statistics, public policy, or related fields

Experience- 1-2 years

Experience in primary data collection and field management role

Experience working with police and governance projects before

Excellent management/ organizational skills and ability to solve unexpected problems

Working knowledge of Stata (would be a plus)

Familiarity with RCTs

Demonstrated experience managing a team

Flexible, self-motivating, independent, and manages multiple tasks efficiently

Ability to deal with unstructured and changing environments

Attention to detail