Events:
IFS/STICERD/UCL Development Work in Progress Seminars
Photo by LSE
Many of our seminars and public events this year will continue as in person or as hybrid (online and in person) events.
Please check our website listings and Twitter feed @STICERD_LSE for updates.
Unless otherwise specified, in-person seminars are open to the public. Please ensure you have informed the event contact as early as possible.
Those unable to join the seminars in-person are welcome to participate via zoom if the event is hybrid.
Thursday 18 June 2026 14:00 - 15:00
The Economics of Purity Norms: Caste, Social Interaction, and Women's Work in India
Caste norms, the religious and social rules that underpin the Hindu caste system, impose strong constraints on behavior: women should stay secluded within the home, caste groups should stay segregated, and certain foods ...Read more...
Patrick Agte (IFS and Stockholm School of Economics), joint with Arielle Bernhardt
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 28 May 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Political Accountability and the Returns to Peace
Why do some economies recover from armed conflict much better than others? We provide evidence that political accountability determines whether post-conflict societies realize the peace dividend. We study Cambodia, where...Read more...
Joris Michael Mueller (National University of Singapore), joint with Daniel Borbely Matthias Buehler and Jonathan Norris
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 21 May 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Joint Learning by Doing
Social interactions are often thought to facilitate learning about new technologies but the barriers to learning are less well-understood. We cross-randomize temporary access to a household technology and exposure to a r...Read more...
Vatsal Khandelwal (Exeter), joint with Juni Singh (World Bank)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 14 May 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Attribution bias by gender
This study investigates gender-based attribution bias, the tendency to attribute men's success to ability and women's failure to a lack of ability- using a controlled principal, agent online experiment. We test for this ...Read more...
Sonya Krutikova (IFS/Manchester), joint with James Fenske (Warwick) and Lily Liu (NERA)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 07 May 2026 14:00 - 15:00
At Scale Implementation and the Perils of Fragmentation
Governments frequently rely on multiple actors to deliver technology-adoption policies at scale, often presuming that layering low-cost interventions, such as information, onto existing programs is at least weakly benefi...Read more...
Bansi Malde (City/Institute for Fiscal Studies), joint with Britta Augsburg, Maitreesh Ghatak and Sara Giunti
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 23 April 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Global Export Restrictions on Critical Minerals and Upgrading in Green Value Chains
Decarbonization and digitalization have triggered demand booms for minerals, yet resource-rich countries have historically struggled to turn finite natural resources into lasting industrialization. This paper provides th...Read more...
Florian Munch (LSE POID and CEP)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 09 April 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Labor Misallocation and Public-Sector Performance
Leveraging personnel and intervention data from the Italian Fire and Rescue Service, we study how allocative frictions affect public sector performance. First, we document persistent delays in managerial turnover: retiri...Read more...
Andrea Smurra (Institute for Fiscal Studies)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 02 April 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Sorting into Entrepreneurial Teams
This paper studies how entrepreneurs sort into teams and how team entrepreneurship affects the equilibrium distribution of firms. Leveraging employer-employee administrative records matched with private companies' balanc...Read more...
Marta Morazzoni (UCL/IFS), joint with Edoardo Acabbi, Andrea Alati and Luca Mazzone
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 26 March 2026 14:00 - 15:00
The Fiscal Contract up Close: Experimental Evidence from Mexico City
Can the provision of public goods strengthen fiscal capacity and foster tax compliance in developing countries? We study this question using a large-scale randomized infrastructure investment in Mexico City and administr...Read more...
Anne Brockmeyer (Institute for Fiscal Studies), joint with Juan Carlos Suarez Serrato and Francisco Garfias
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 19 March 2026 14:00 - 15:00
The Costs of Workplace Favoritism: Evidence from Promotions in Chinese High Schools
This paper studies the productivity consequences of favoritism in employee promotions within organizations. Using data from public high schools in four Chinese cities, I first show that teachers with hometown or college ...Read more...
Xuan Li (KHUTS)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 12 March 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Access AND efficiency: the effects of online triaging on health and healthcare
This paper studies the access & efficiency effects of implementing online triage for healthcare services. In many contexts, healthcare services are offered at low or no cost to individuals, generating an excess of demand...Read more...
Matias Munoz (UZH/UCL)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 05 March 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Effects of point-of-collection water treatment program on chlorination rates and under-5 mortality in rural Kenya
Treating household drinking water with chlorine prevents childhood deaths, but requires constant dosing. We conduct a long-run evaluation of community-level health impact of a water chlorination programs implemented in t...Read more...
Witold Wiecek (Chicago), joint with Michael Kremer, Amy Pickering, Julie Powers, Luiza Cardoso de Andrade, Colin Aitken, Joy Dada
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 19 February 2026 14:00 - 15:00
From flat to fair? The effects from a progressive tax reform
We study the effects of a progressive tax reform on tax compliance, using a research design that distinguishes between two channels. First, using a quasi-experimental design, we estimate the direct effects of the reform?...Read more...
Guillermo Cruces (University de La Plata), joint with Nicolas Ajzenman, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Dario Tortarolo, and Gonzalo Vazquez-Bare
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 05 February 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Information, Market Access and Risk: Addressing Constraints to Agricultural Transformation in Northern Ghana
Farmers face a wide array of constraints that hinder their adoption of the intensified agriculture that might increase their productivity, agricultural income, and living standards. These constraints include imperfect fi...Read more...
Chris Udry (Northwestern University), joint with Dean Karlan and Paula Gonzalez
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 18 December 2025 14:00 - 15:00
TBC
TBC...Read more...
Bansi Malde (City/Institute for Fiscal Studies)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 11 December 2025 14:00 - 15:00
The missing poor
Population censuses constitute the basis of public resource allocation and political representation in many countries. This paper shows that census forms commonly generate incentives for enumerators to disproportionately...Read more...
Torsten Figueiredo Walter (NYU Abu Dhabi)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 04 December 2025 14:00 - 15:00
Misperceptions of Group Inequality and Support for Redistribution and Sectarian Politics: Experimental Evidence from Lebanon
Economic inequality in Lebanon is among the highest in the world, yet political cleavages remain overwhelmingly sectarian rather than class-based. We propose a demand-side explanation: citizens misperceive the extent of ...Read more...
Lydia Assouad (LSE)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 27 November 2025 14:00 - 15:00
Refugees' Right to Work: Efficiency and Equity in Host Country Labor Markets
One out of every 200 people in the world is a refugee. In most host countries, refugees face legal barriers to work, confining them to informal work or unemployment. This paper studies how granting refugees the right to ...Read more...
Sarah Winton (LSE)
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 20 November 2025 14:00 - 15:00
Footloose Enough? Multinationals, Domestic Firms, and Job Creation in Developing Economies as Wages Rise
No abstract available....Read more...
Jonas Hjort (UCL), joint with Yukiko Saito, Yasuka Tateishi, Linda Wu
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Thursday 13 November 2025 14:00 - 15:00
Subjective Expectations of Husbands and Wives and Couples' Decision-Making under Uncertainty
Many important decisions are taken as a couple, and the outcomes of these decisions are often uncertain. It is well-known that spouses may have different preferences over outcomes, but little attention has been paid to t...Read more...
Christine Valente (Bristol), joint with Aureo de Paula and Grant Miller
IFS, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE