IFS/STICERD/UCL Development Economics Work In Progress Seminar Series

Many of our seminars and public events this year will continue as online seminars or as online and in person. Please check our website listings and Twitter feed @STICERD_LSE for updates.

Unless otherwise specified, current restrictions mean in-person seminars are only open to members of the LSE community (those with a valid LSE ID card).

Those unable to join the seminars in-person are welcome to participate via zoom.

This seminar series is jointly organized by the IFS, STICERD, and UCL.

IFS/STICERD/UCL Development Economics Work In Progress seminars are held on Thursdays in term time at 12:30-14:00, ONLINE, unless specified otherwise.

Seminar organisers: Oriana Bandiera (STICERD, LSE), Imran Rasul (UCL), Britta Augsburg (IFS) and Jonathan Weigel (LSE).

For further information please contact Lubala Chibwe, either by email: l.chibwe@lse.ac.uk.

Registration is required, via our mailing list:

Please use this link to subscribe or unsubscribe to the Development Economics Work In Progress seminars mailing list (developmentwip).

Thursday 02 December 2021 12:30 - 14:00

TBC

Dario Tortarolo (IFS)

ONLINE

Thursday 09 December 2021 12:30 - 14:00

TBC

Daniel Prinz (IFS)

ONLINE

Thursday 16 December 2021 12:30 - 14:00

TBC

Michael Callen (LSE)

ONLINE

Thursday 23 September 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Can frontier innovation be sustained under autocracy? We argue that innovation and autocracy can be mutually reinforcing when: (i) the new technology bolsters the autocrat's power; and (ii) autocrats' spending on the new... Read more...

Noam Yuchtman (LSE) joint with Martin Beraja and David Yang

Thursday 30 September 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Organising Development

People are poor because their labor is not paid enough to afford basic needs. To understand development we need to understand the jobs of the poor and how they change over the development path. The traditional view of de... Read more...

Oriana Bandiera (LSE)

Thursday 07 October 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Political Reservations as Term Limits

While political reservations aim to ensure a more equal representation for women and disadvantaged groups, they also impose effective term limits on many incumbent politicians who would otherwise have had a chance to con... Read more...

Caitlin Brown (Manchester, IFS) joint with Garance Genicot and Nishtha Kochhar

Thursday 14 October 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Relational Contracts and Development

The first part of the talk will be based on this review paper (see link below). In the second part, he hopes to receive feedback on a new, closely related, RCT he is undertaking in partnership with a coffee MNC in Rwanda... Read more...

Rocco Macchiavello (LSE and CEP)

Thursday 21 October 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Long-Run Impacts of In-Utero Ramadan Exposure: Evidence from Administrative Tax Records

Using Ramadan fasting as a natural experiment, we estimate the long-run impacts of health and nutrition shocks experienced during pregnancy on adult outcomes. We exploit administrative tax return data comprising the univ... Read more...

Mazhar Waseem (Manchester, IFS)

Thursday 28 October 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Subjective Expectations and Demand for Contraception

One-quarter of married, fertile-age women in Sub-Saharan Africa report not wanting a pregnancy and yet do not use contraceptives. The presentation will cover both our completed project on “Subjective Expectations and D... Read more...

Aureo De Paula (UCL) joint with Christine Valente (Bristol) and Grant Miller (Stanford)

Thursday 04 November 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Fiscal Capacity and Public Spending: Historical Evidence from U.S. Cities

This paper explores the importance of sources of revenue for local public spending. Using newly collected data on municipal finances for more than 300 U.S. cities over 1910-1936, I leverage information on revenue flow fr... Read more...

Sacha Dray (Department of Economics, LSE)

Thursday 11 November 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Revealed Beliefs and the Marriage Market Return to Education

This paper explores how parents in Rajasthan, India decide how long to keep a daughter in school and when, and to who, to get her married. We develop a dynamic model of parental decision making in which parents take scho... Read more...

Alison Andrew (IFS) joint with Abi Adams (Oxford University)

Thursday 18 November 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Bayesian models for stable subgroup treatment effects: an analysis of six graduation studies

Broadly successful interventions such as the Graduation program may still exhibit treatment effect heterogeneity across subgroups and across study contexts. Yet effectively using estimated subgroup effects to inform targ... Read more...

Rachel Meager (LSE, IFS) joint with Witold Więcek, Dean Karlan, Andrew Gelman & Christopher Udry

Thursday 25 November 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Rural to Urban Migration, Informality and Firm Dynamics

Gabriel Ulyssea (Oxford) joint with Clement Imbert (Warwick)

Thursday 02 December 2021 12:30 - 14:00

TBC

Dario Tortarolo (IFS)

ONLINE

Thursday 09 December 2021 12:30 - 14:00

TBC

Daniel Prinz (IFS)

ONLINE

Thursday 16 December 2021 12:30 - 14:00

TBC

Michael Callen (LSE)

ONLINE

Thursday 25 November 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Rural to Urban Migration, Informality and Firm Dynamics

Gabriel Ulyssea (Oxford) joint with Clement Imbert (Warwick)

Thursday 18 November 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Bayesian models for stable subgroup treatment effects: an analysis of six graduation studies

Rachel Meager (LSE, IFS) joint with Witold Więcek, Dean Karlan, Andrew Gelman & Christopher Udry

Thursday 11 November 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Revealed Beliefs and the Marriage Market Return to Education

Alison Andrew (IFS) joint with Abi Adams (Oxford University)

Thursday 04 November 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Fiscal Capacity and Public Spending: Historical Evidence from U.S. Cities

Sacha Dray (Department of Economics, LSE)

Thursday 28 October 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Subjective Expectations and Demand for Contraception

Aureo De Paula (UCL) joint with Christine Valente (Bristol) and Grant Miller (Stanford)

Thursday 21 October 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Long-Run Impacts of In-Utero Ramadan Exposure: Evidence from Administrative Tax Records

Mazhar Waseem (Manchester, IFS)

Thursday 14 October 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Relational Contracts and Development

Rocco Macchiavello (LSE and CEP)

Thursday 07 October 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Political Reservations as Term Limits

Caitlin Brown (Manchester, IFS) joint with Garance Genicot and Nishtha Kochhar

Thursday 30 September 2021 12:30 - 14:00

Organising Development

Oriana Bandiera (LSE)

Thursday 23 September 2021 12:30 - 14:00

AI-tocracy

Noam Yuchtman (LSE) joint with Martin Beraja and David Yang

Thursday 24 June 2021 13:00 - 14:00

Ripple Effects of Conflict: Spatial Propagation through Prices in Somalia

This paper estimates spatial spill-over effects of conflict by considering food prices as a propagating mechanism for food security in Somalia. Exploiting geo-coded data on violent incidents and the food logistics networ... Read more...

Marco Alfano (University of Strathclyde) joint with Thomas Cornelissen (Essex)

Thursday 17 June 2021 13:00 - 14:00

Responsible Sourcing? Theory and Evidence from Costa Rica

The adoption of Responsible Sourcing (RS) requirements by multinational enterprises (MNEs) include minimum standards on wages, benefits, working conditions and other production practices at their suppliers worldwide. Des... Read more...

Jose Vasquez (Princeton) joint with Alonso Alfaro-Ureña, Benjamin Faber, Cecile Gaubert, and Isabela Manelici

Thursday 10 June 2021 13:00 - 14:00

Tax Evasion and the Minimum Wage

Can tax evasion justify high but taxed minimum wages? Exploiting a change in reporting defaults and the implied audit threat in Hungary, we demonstrate that a substantial portion of those who declare the minimum wage hav... Read more...

Daniel Prinz (IFS) joint with Anikó Bíró and László Sándor

Thursday 03 June 2021 13:00 - 14:00

Pro-Poor Transfers and Economic Preferences of the Rich and Poor: Evidence from a Four Year Partial Population Experiment.

Nicolas Cerkez (UCL) joint with Adnan Q. Khan, Imran Rasul, and Anam Shoaibsa

Thursday 27 May 2021 13:00 - 14:00

Interest-Based Negotiation over Natural Resources: Experimental Evidence from Liberia

Over the last two decades, developing countries have seen a sharp increase in external demand for land and other natural resources. Despite hopes that these outside investments would spur local development, host communit... Read more...

Alessandro Toppeta (UCL) joint with Alexandra Hartman, Darin Christensen and Cyrus Samii

Thursday 20 May 2021 13:00 - 14:00

Optimal Assignment of Bureaucrats: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Tax Collectors in the DRC

States regularly assign agents to teams and postings, yet rarely with the explicit goal of boosting public sector productivity. This paper asks whether a low-capacity state can improve performance through the optimal... Read more...

Jonathan Weigel (LSE) joint with Augustin Bergeron (Harvard), Pedro Bessone (MIT), John Kabeya Kabeya (DGRKOC), and Gabriel Tourek (MIT/JPAL)

Thursday 13 May 2021 13:00 - 14:00

Ethnic Homogenization and Public Goods: Evidence from Kenya's land reform programme

Juliette Crespin-Boucaud (LSE and PSE) joint with Catherine Boone and Alexander Moradi

Thursday 06 May 2021 13:00 - 14:00

Improving Infrastructure in Developing Cities: Experimental Evidence from India

Antonella Bancalari (LSE) joint with Britta Augsberg and Alex Armand

Thursday 01 April 2021 12:30 - 17:00

Wage Effects of Employer-Mediated Transfers

Dario Tortarolo (IFS)

Thursday 25 March 2021 12:30 - 17:00

Gender Norms and Adolescent Girls' Trajectories: Evidence from a Field Experiment in India

We study the effects of two interventions designed to reduce the grip of highly restrictive gender norms on adolescent girls' education, marriage and well-being in rural Rajasthan, India. The first intervention comprised... Read more...

Sonya Krutikova (IFS) joint with Alison Andrew (UCL&IFS), Abhishek Gautam (ICRW), and Gabriela Smarrelli (Oxford), Hemlata Verma (ICRW).

Thursday 18 March 2021 12:30 - 17:00