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Robin Burgess

Robin Burgess

Economics, Environment, and Energy Programme Director and Professor of Economics

Telephone:
+44 (0)20 7955 6676
Email:
r.burgess@lse.ac.uk
Room:
SAL 3.03 B
Connect:
Website
Links:
Economics of Environment and Energy
Development
Department of Economics

Biography

Robin Burgess's current research interests are:

  • Development economics
  • Public economics
  • Political economy
  • Labour economics
  • Environmental economics

Robin's latest projects include:

  • What makes bureaucrats effective?
  • Political Economy of deforestation in Indonesia
  • Expanding Opportunity and the Ultra-Poor Program in Bangladesh
  • Climate Change and Death in India

Latest

POID Working Papers
Electricity demand and supply on the global electrification frontier

03 November 2023

Robin Burgess, Michael Greenstone, Nicholas Ryan and Anant Sudarshan

Falling off-grid solar prices and grid expansion now give many households in developing countries a choice between electricity sources. We experimentally estimate demand over all sources in Bihar, India and find that: (i... Read more...
POID Working Papers
National borders and the conservation of nature

03 November 2023

Robin Burgess, Francisco Costa and Benjamin Olken

Tropical forests play a central role in slowing climate change and their conservation has become an international priority. The fact that the majority of tropical deforestation is illegal, often involves complicit states... Read more...
STICERD Public Events and Lectures
Why do people stay poor?

01 March 2023

Robin Burgess (LSE), Oriana Bandiera (LSE), Imran Matin (BRAC), Shameran Abed (BRAC), Scott MacMillan (BRAC), Adnan Khan (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office)

Recent research indicates there is a wealth threshold below which people are stuck in the so-called `poverty trap? ? where the initial wealth of a person and a system of oppression keeps them in a cycle of poverty rather... Read more...
STICERD Public Events and LecturesPOID Research Seminar
Ray of hope? China and the rise of solar

05 September 2022

Robin Burgess (LSE)

Solar energy prices are falling quickly and this source of energy is becoming a more important in countries across the world. Within China a range of policies have been implemented to encourage the solar industry. There ... Read more...
Blog
Bureaucracy and development

08 November 2021

Timothy Besley, Robin Burgess, Jonathan Old, Adnan Qadir Khan and Guo Xu

How does bureaucracy matter for development? Over the last years, an enormous interest in this question has created a large body of research, mostly focused around evidence from field experiments and micro-level administ... Read more...
EEE Working Papers
The Origins and Control of Forest Fires in the Tropics

19 March 2021

Clare Balboni, Robin Burgess and Benjamin Olken

Pigou (1920) pointed to "uncompensated damage done to surrounding woods by sparks from railway engines" as the canonical example of an environmental externality. We study a modern corollary - tropical forest fires used f... Read more...
Development Discussion Papers
Development Policy through the Lens of Social Structure

29 May 2020

Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Erika Deserranno, Ricardo Morel, Imran Rasul and Munshi Sulaiman

This paper studies how the social structure of village economies affects policy implementation by local agents. We randomly select one of two viable candidates to deliver an agricultural extension program in rural Uganda... Read more...
Development Discussion Papers
Why Do People Stay Poor?

09 March 2020

Clare Balboni, Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Maitreesh Ghatak and Anton Heil

There are two views as to why people stay poor. The equal opportunity view emphasizes that differences in individual traits like talent or motivation make the poor choose low productivity jobs. The poverty traps view e... Read more...
Development Discussion Papers
Tackling Youth Unemployment: Evidence from a Labour Market Experiment in Uganda

08 January 2018

Livia Alfonsi, Oriana Bandiera, Vittorio Bassi, Robin Burgess, Imran Rasul, Munshi Sulaiman and Anna Vitali

We design a labour market experiment to compare demand-side and supply-side policies to tackle youth unemployment, a key issue in low-income countries. The experiment tracks 1700 workers and 1500 firms over four years to... Read more...
Development Discussion Papers
Labor Markets and Poverty in Village Economies

06 April 2016

Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Narayan Das, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul and Munshi Sulaiman

We study how women?s choices over labor activities in village economies correlate with poverty and whether enabling the poorest women to take on the activities of their richer counterparts can set them on a sustainable... Read more...
Development Discussion Papers
Women?s Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa

19 March 2014

Oriana Bandiera, Niklas Buehren, Robin Burgess, Markus Goldstein, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul and Munshi Sulaiman

Women in developing countries are disempowered relative to their contemporaries in developed countries. High youth unemployment and early marriage and childbearing interact to limit human capital investment and enforce d... Read more...
STICERD Public Events and LecturesPOID Research SeminarEOPP Work in Progress Seminars
Can Entrepreneurship Programmes Transform the Economic Lives of the Poor?

11 October 2010

Robin Burgess (LSE)

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