Lorenzo Casaburi

Lorenzo Casaburi is the UBS Foundation Associate Professor of Development Economics at the University of Zurich. His research in development economics focuses on agricultural markets and state capacity.

Lorenzo’s work on agricultural markets has focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on market structure and firm behavior. Recent papers in this area study the impact of saving constraints on agricultural markets and the design of novel agricultural insurance products for smallholders. His second main area of interest is state capacity, with an emphasis on tax enforcement. Recent work in this area includes a paper on the impact of tax enforcement policies on voting behavior and ongoing collaboration with the Kenya Revenue Authority on projects aimed at reducing evasion of rental income tax and value added tax.

His research has been funded by several institutions, including USAID, DFID, IGC, 3ie, and J-PAL. Lorenzo holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard and a B.A from the University of Bologna.

Lorenzo has served as a lecturer at J-PAL training events and as a mentor to J-PAL regional scholars.