Applied microeconomics, development economics, microeconometrics

Current Research Programme
I was trained as an econometrician and wrote my thesis on self-selection models. Since then, I have been working in development economics, focusing on the study of household behaviour and rural institutions.  In particular, I have been involved in the design and analysis of a panel data survey of households in both rural and urban Ethiopia, and in India.

Aspirations and Poverty Traps: The role of non-cognitive skills (self-esteem and aspirations) in educational and job outcomes, involving collection of data in the slums of Bombay to evaluate an intervention by an NGO offering non-formal education to children in slums in order to raise both cognitive skills, but especially raise self-esteem, confidence and aspirations.  Involves survey of carefully matched control groups as well as those enrolled by NGO.  Core research question is whether cognitive and/or non-cognitive skill acquisition contributes to success in labour markets and helps them to be lifted out of poverty.

Endogenous Network Formation: Social network formation in India and Ethiopia exploring: i) financial networks ii) informal insurance iii) networks and access to public programmes. Building on our work drawing on empirical applications of theoretical models of network formation, we ask how network structure is affected by the nature of the transactions sought and how network structure affects the extent of financial intermediation and insurance, as well as access to programmes.

Growth and Reforms in India: On migration in India using the ICRISAT sample (1976-2007). New data collection in the ICRISAT panel data includes extensive tracking of all migrants as well as all those that stay behind.  The core question asked is whether migration is a trajectory out of poverty or whether the migrants would have done just as well if they had stayed, as they are just bound to be successful. 

Publications

Journals

• 2009, "Links and Architecture in Village Networks", (with E.Sciubba), Economic Journal, Volume 119, No. 537 , April.
  
  
• 2009, "Poverty and the Psychosocial Competencies of Children: Evidence from the Young Lives Sample in Four Developing Countries", (2009), (with S. Dercon ), Children, Youth and Environments 19(2), 138-163


• 2007, "Teacher Shocks and Student Learning: evidence from Zambia", (with J.Das, S.Dercon, J.Habyarimana), Fall 2007, Volume 42, Issue 4: Journal of Human Resources


• 2007, "Poverty and Productivity in Female-Headed Households in Zimbabwe", with S. Horrell, Cambridge Working Papers in Economics no. 0663, Journal of Development Studies, November 2007
  
  
• 2004,"Africa and the World Economy: A Focus on Capital -- An Overview," ( with A. K. Fosu & L. Ndikumana),  Journal of African Economies, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(02), pages ii1-ii14, December.
  


• 2003, “Risk Sharing and Public Transfers”, Economic Journal, March, C86-C94 (with S.Dercon).


• 2000, “In Sickness and in Health: Risk Sharing within Households in Rural Ethiopia”, Journal of Political Economy, , vol. 108, no. 4, pp.688-727. (with S.Dercon).


• 2000, “Vulnerability, seasonality and poverty in Ethiopia”, paper prepared for special issue on poverty dynamics, Journal of Development Studies  (August) (with S Dercon).


• 1999, "Decomposition of wage differentials by sex: A new technique and applications to three African  countries",  Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 47(2), January 1999, pages 289-312 (with S.Appleton and J.Hoddinott).


• 1996, "Family background, education and employment in urban Ethiopia", Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, vol.58(1), February , pages 167-83


• 1996, "Income portfolios in rural Ethiopia and Tanzania: choices and constraints", Journal of Development Studies, vol. 32(6), August 1996, pages 850-75, (with S.Dercon).


Chapters in Books


• 2010, "Land Rights Revisited", in Institutional Microeconomics of Development, with S. Dercon, (eds.)Besley, T. and Jayaraman, R., The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Mass. USA.


• 2005, “Networks” (with S.Dercon and J.Hoddinott), in J.Kirsten (ed.), Economics of Institutions: Theory and Applications for African Agriculture. (forthcoming)


• 2004, “The Urban Labour Market During Structural Adjustment: Ethiopia 1990-1997” (with T.G. Selassie and S.Dercon), in A.Bigsten (ed.), Poverty in Ethiopia, Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.


• 2004, "Food Aid and Informal Insurance" (with S.Dercon) in S.Dercon (ed.) (2004), Insurance against Poverty, Oxford University Press.


• 2004, "Demobilisation, Land and Household Livelihoods", (with D.Ayalew and S.Dercon), in T.Addison, (ed.), (2004), From Conflict to Recovery, Oxford University Press.


• 2003, "Changes in Poverty in Villages in Rural Ethiopia: 1989-95", (with S.Dercon),  in A.Booth and P.Mosley, (eds.), The New Poverty Strategies , Palgrave MacMillan, London.


• 1998, "Can the labour market explain lower female schooling ? Evidence from three African countries", in: G.Naveretti, R.Faini and G.Zanalda (eds.), Labour Allocation in Development 
           (with S.Appleton, J.Hoddinott and K. Max).
 
Current Working Papers


• 2011, "School Inputs, Household Substitution, and Test Scores", NBER working paper16830
  
  
• 2010, "Skill Formation in Bombay's Slums", with S. Krutikova, Cambridge Working Papers in Economics no. 1010, University of Cambridge.


• 2006, “Cultural Norms, Social Interactions and the Fertility Transition in India”,


• 2006, “Public sector pay and private sector wage premiums: Testing alternative models of wage determination”


• 2007, “Collective Action and Vulnerability: Burial Societies in Rural Ethiopia”, with (S. Dercon, J. Hoddinott and T. Woldehanna), GPRG Working Paper, Universities of Oxford and Manchester, GPRG-WPS-076.
         (forthcoming as chapter in book submitted to publisher).


• 2007, “Changes in Living Standards in Villages in India 1975-2004: Revisiting the Icrisat Village-Level Studies”, (with R. Badiani, S. Dercon and KPC Rao), QEH Working papers, University of Oxford.


• 2004, "When can School Inputs Improve Test-Scores" (with J.Das, S.Dercon, J.Habyarimana), Policy Research Working Paper Series no. 3217, World Bank, Washington D.C.  (Under revision)


• 2007, “Long-term welfare changes in India: evidence from the 30-year ICRISAT panel” (draft in progress)


• 2007, “The structure of social networks and informal insurance:  Evidence from Ethiopia”,  (draft in progress).