Behind the Scenes of Economics Research
The last newsletter: A roundup of the first season of our podcast, other podcasts to check out, and a spotlight on women researchers highlighted by our podcast guests
We have news for you - we are pausing our newsletter. Over the past couple of years, we have worked on over 25 newsletter editions and applied a gender lens to a wide variety of development topics. It is now time for us to move away from the newsletter and think about other mediums of focusing on gender and highlighting women’s work - such as a zine, or a bi-annual, or a blog. We’re grateful for every one of you who has supported us and provided us feedback on the newsletter, and we hope to continue the work we do over the coming years. We hope you stay tuned for announcements on our social media, sign up to be a member, and continue to engage with our other activities!
One of our big achievements this year was launching our own podcast, and this newsletter edition focuses on the episodes from the first season, other podcasts you should check out if you liked ours, and highlights work by women researchers who were given a shoutout by our podcast guests.
In an attempt to shed light on the experiences of female development researchers, we picked a research study for every episode and went “behind the scenes” of its making through a conversation between a female Principal Investigator on the project and a research assistant or junior researcher. Through this dialogue, we dove into the research process of making notable papers. You can check out Behind the Scenes of Economics Research on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor or Google Podcasts
Episode Summaries
Episode 1:Using Machine Learning & Qualitative Interviews
Dr. Monica Biradavolu, Founder and CEO of QualAnalytics and host Ambika Chopra, Senior Research Associate at J-PAL South Asia host the inaugural podcast episode where they discuss an approach which combines mixed-methods data collection and machine learning.
The host and the speaker discuss the paper ‘Using machine learning and qualitative interviews to design a five-question women’s agency index’. Together they highlight the challenges, success, and some interesting behind-the-scenes of the paper. Dr. Biradavolu shares her experiences and how her perception of ‘women’s agency’ evolved while working on the paper.
Episode 2 : Sex Workers, Stigma, and Self-Image: Evidence from Kolkata Brothels
Dr. Anandi Mani discusses her paper - Sex Workers, Stigma, and Self-Image: Evidence from Kolkata Brothels along with our host Avantika Prabhakar, a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Virginia.
The episode focuses on the paper which studies the link between self-image and behavior among those who face stigma due to poverty and social exclusion. Dr. Mani speaks of her experiences, collaborating with Dr. Smarajit Jana and Durbar; an organisation working for sex workers’ rights. Using a randomized field experiment with sex workers in Kolkata (India), the paper examines whether a psychological intervention to mitigate the adverse effects of internalized stigma can induce behavior change.
Episode 3: Curse of the Mummyji - Influence of Mothers-in-law on Women in India
Dr. S. Anukriti, Research Economist at The World Bank unpacks the complexities of restrictive social norms and women’s social networks through her paper titled Curse of the Mummy-ji: the influence of Mothers-in-law on Women in India in an engaging conversation with Sakshi Hallan, a Research Analyst at The World Bank.
Using primary data from Jaunpur district in rural Uttar Pradesh, the study characterizes the social networks of young married women. Adopting an instrumental variables approach, the study then shows how co-residence with a mother-in-law affects the daughter-in-law’s access to family planning and reproductive health resources by imposing restrictions on the daughter-in-law’s ability to form social connections outside of her household.
Dr. Charity Troyer Moore, Director for South Asia Economics Research at Yale University’s MacMillan Center along with Shambhavi Sawhney, Data Associate at Good Business Lab revisit the seminal paper - On her Own Account: How Strengthening Women's Financial Control Affects Labour Supply and Gender Norms. Dr. Troyer Moore along with co-authors Dr. Rohini Pande, Dr. Simone Schaner and Dr. Natalia Rigol focused on answering whether greater control over earned income incentivises women to work and influence gender norms.
Dr. Troyer Moore recounts her experience while working in Delhi and noticing how public spaces were dominated by men. She describes at length her experience of working with the government and the bureaucratic hurdles the research team faced. Given her extensive field research experience, she discusses how the nature of survey questions may incentivise respondents to withhold information, thereby affecting the quality of data collected.
Episode 5 : Sleepless In ... Chennai
Dr. Heather Schofield , Assistant Professor in the Perelman School of Medicine and The Wharton School and Vasanthi Pillai, PhD researcher in the Professorship of Behavioral Science for Disease Prevention and Health Care at the Technical University of Munich discuss a range of research areas including sleep, Ramadan fasting and its impact on the economic production in agriculture, loneliness and cognitive endurance. Dr. Schofield briefly also talks about the Behavioral Development Lab (BDL) at Chennai which she co-founded with two other researchers. BDL focuses on integrating behavioural economics and development economics to understand the causes and consequences of poverty
Dr. Schofield also delves deeper into how she picks a research idea and the intermediary methods that ultimately lead to the fruition of a research project. She focuses on her paper - The Economic Consequences of Increasing Sleep Among the Urban Poor and how using actigraphy was central to tracking sleep patterns and motor movements among the respondents. She also discusses her study Ramadan Fasting and Agricultural Output” which studies overlaps between Ramadan and the labour-intensive portions of cropping cycles and provides a very interesting insight into the correlation between religiosity and growth.
Episode 6 : Legal Origins & Feminization of HIV
Dr. Siwan Anderson, Professor of Economics at the University of British Columbia and Ieda Matavelli, PhD candidate of Economics at the Vancouver School of Economics discuss a range of research topics that Dr. Anderson is passionate about and has been researching since decades. They range from researching on missing women - a term coined by Amartya Sen to address the worsening sex ratio (number of females per 1,000 males) in countries such as India and China, feminization of HIV specifically in Africa and the utmost importance of improving legal rights of women outside of marriage.
Professor Anderson also discusses her paper Intimate Partner Violence & Female Property Rights in which she parses through data across Sub-Saharan Africa. She also talks at length about her research paper - Legal Origins and Female HIV where she delves deeper to understand feminization of HIV and the possible reasons of why Africa is the only continent where women tend to die more in number when compared to men due to HIV.
Podcast Recommendations
Ideas of India by Mercatus Center: Through conversations with economists, social scientists, journalists, and more, economist Shruti Rajagopalan explores the ideas that will propel India forward.
Probable Causation by Jennifer Doleac : In a biweekly podcast covering law, crime, and economics, economist Jennifer Doleac has an in-depth conversation with an academic about the what, why, and how of their research.
Rocking our Priors by Dr. Alice Evans: Focussed on unpacking gender, Dr. Alice Evans discusses growth, governance, and gender inequalities with researchers in the field of economics, political science, and related fields.
The Seen and the Unseen by Amit Varma: Known for its long-form format and in-depth interviews, this weekly podcast hosted by writer Amit Varma is about economics, policy, politics, and everything in between.
The Mixtape with Scott by Scott Cunningham: In these in-depth interviews, economist Scott Cunningham sits down with economists to learn about their lives, their work, and more in the universe of what he calls ‘modern economics’.
Economists on Zoom Getting Coffee by Dany Bahar : Hosted by economist Dany Bahar and powered by caffeine, this podcast takes the shape of an informal conversation on zoom with economists from different walks of life about the big questions in economics.
Freakonomics Radio by Stephen J. Dubner : Through conversations with intellectuals, researchers, entrepreneurs, and experts, economist Stephen J. Dubner asks questions about anything and everything under the sun to unpack the hidden side of things.
All Things Policy by Takshashila Institution : With daily episodes, hosted by researchers at Takshashila Institution, this podcast breaks down complex topics in economics and geopolitics relevant to current context.
Spotlight: Women Researchers our Podcast Guests Admire
We spotlight (in no particular order) women researchers whose work our guests mentioned they are interested in and inspired by. We list selected publications, podcast features, books and resources for our readers to explore!
Prof. Vandana Madan - University of Delhi
Vandana Madan is the Editor of The Village in India which attempts to address a wide number of interests-economic, political, cultural, social, gender-and presents a profile of processes and change in Indian villages based on publications over the last fifty years.
Dr. Kim Blankenship - American University
Kim Blankenship's research interests include race, class, gender and health inequities; social determination of health and structural interventions.
Devaki Jain - Economist, Writer
Devaki Jain is an Indian economist and writer, who has worked mainly in the field of feminist economics. In 2006 she was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award from the Government of India, for her contribution to social justice and the empowerment of women. Devaki Jain was one of the first feminists to identify the economic implications of the millions of hours of unpaid care work that women do. She pioneered the voice of southern women in the global feminist movement.
Podcast features:
Recent book: The Brass Notebook: A Memoir of Feminism and Freedom (2020)
Aditi Bhowmick’s blog in her series “Boss Ladies”
Claudia Goldin, Harvard University
Claudia Goldin is an economic historian and a labor economist, and her research covers a wide range of topics, including the female labor force, the gender gap in earnings, income inequality, technological change, education, and immigration.
Podcast features:
People I (Mostly) Admire Podcast with Steve Levitt: What’s “Greedy Work” and Why Is It a Problem?
Freakonomics Radio Podcast: The True Story of the Gender Pay Gap
Recent book: Career & Family: Women's Century-Long Journey toward Equity
Rosella Calvi, Rice University
Rosella Calvi conducts research on the Economics of the Family and Gender and Development Economics.
Selected publications:
J. V. Meenakshi, Delhi School of Economics
J.V. Meenakshi’s research areas include: the economics of health, nutrition and food, focusing in particular on the interface between agriculture and nutrition, and evaluation of agricultural and nutrition interventions.
Karla Hoff, Columbia University
Karla Hoff teaches Behavioral Development Economics and is working on a book, The Invisible Hand of Culture: New Understandings of Social Progress and Societal Rigidities. Her research in behavioral development economics examines social influences on preferences, perception, and performance.
Rohini Pande, Yale University
Rohini Pande’s research is largely focused on how formal and informal institutions shape power relationships and patterns of economic and political advantage in society, particularly in developing countries.
Resource: Best Practices for Economists: Building a More Diverse, Inclusive, and Productive Profession
Rohini Pande’s conversation with Lisa Ho, hosted by Women in Economics and Policy
Marianne Bertrand, University of Chicago
Marianne Bertrand is an applied micro-economist whose research covers the fields of labor economics, corporate finance, and development economics.
Selected publications:
Social Norms, Labor Market Opportunities, and the Marriage Market Penalty for Skilled Women
The Gender Socialization of Children Growing up in Non-Traditional Families
Esther Duflo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In her research, Esther Duflo she seeks to understand the economic lives of the poor, with the aim to help design and evaluate social policies.
Professor Duflo has received numerous academic honors and prizes including 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
Books written/edited:
Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty
Good Economics for Hard Times
Podcast features:
Karmini Sharma, postdoctoral fellow at Stanford King Centre on Global Development, Stanford University.
Karmini Sharma works at the intersection of economics of gender, development economics and experimental economics using randomized controlled trials, lab-in-the-field experiments and laboratory experiments to understand deterrence of sexual harassment, gender segregation, and discrimination.
Selected publications:
Tackling Sexual Harassment: Experimental Evidence from India
Demand for Information by Gender: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment
Deepshikha Batheja, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP)
Deepshikha Batheja is a development economist with primary research interests in labor economics, health, field experiments, firm and employee productivity, human capital accumulation, economics of gender and economics of organization.
Kanika Mahajan, Ashoka University
Kanika Mahajan’s primary research interests include empirical development economics in the field of gender, labor and agriculture.
Selected Publications:
Kanika Mahajan’s research presentation for Women in Economics and Policy
Natalie Bau, UCLA
Natalie Bau is an applied micro-economist, focusing on questions in economic development. Her research lies in the intersection of development and education economics with a special emphasis on the industrial organization of education markets.
Selected publications:
Sara Lowes, University of California, San Diego
Sara Lowes’ research interests are at the intersection of development economics, political economy, and economic history.
Selected publications:
Thank you so much for your continued support and readership!
~ The Newsletter Team, Women in Economics and Policy