Research interests: development, behavioural, political economy

Working papers

Customized cash transfers: financial lives and cash-flow preferences in rural Kenya (with Anandi Mani and Paul Niehaus)

Working paperLink opens in a new window

• We examine the preferences of low-income households in Kenya over the structure of unconditional cash transfers. We find, first, that most preferred lumpy transfers, and some preferred deferred receipt -- unlike the structures typical of safety-net programs, but consistent with evidence on the financial challenges of poverty. Second, modest deferral of transfers increased income 1.5 years later. Finally, small changes in cash flow around the time of decision-making about transfer structure affected demand for deferral, with large downstream consequences. Taken together, these results illustrate how adapting cash transfer design to the decision-making environment of those in poverty could improve financial choices and outcomes.

Can term limits accelerate women's access to top political positions? Quasi-experimental evidence from Italy (with Manuel Bagues)

Working paperLink opens in a new window

Lavoce.info summary (italian)

• We investigate whether term limits can help women gain faster access to positions of political power. We exploit evidence from Italian local elections where, in a context of rapidly increasing women's presence in politics, mayoral term limits were extended in small municipalities. Using as control group slightly larger municipalities, we find that longer term limits delay younger cohorts' access to mayoral roles, significantly slowing the increase in female representation. The impact is stronger in municipalities with a larger presence of women at lower political levels and where gender quotas are in place, suggesting a complementarity between these policies. Our findings suggest that term limits help bridge the representation gap between entry and top-level positions, especially in times of rapid societal change.

Work in progress

Missing secondary markets and technology adoption (with H. Alperen Tosun) - PI, STEG PhD Grant n.2635

Teaching - fall 2024

EC910 Quantitative methods: Econometrics B

EC203 Applied Econometrics

Office hours

Book a slot here