World Bank DIME-KDI School 4th Development Impact Conference

Aker is a Professor of Development Economics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Department of Economics at Tufts University. At Fletcher, she is the Co-Director of CIERP and the Director of the Fletcher Leadership Program for Financial Inclusion (FLPFI).

Arianna Legovini developed a new trial-and-adopt technology to rethink how we do development and maximize its impact. Development projects are costly and late, with an inadequate evidence base. Trial-and-adopt is used to understand how to optimize the design of development projects and secure uptake. 

Dr. Jong-Il You, an economist with a Harvard Ph.D., taught at renowned universities worldwide before becoming a Professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management. He has authored numerous influential articles and volumes, including 'A Transformative New Deal.' 

 Isaac is a Ph.D. Candidate in the ARE department at the University of California, Davis. He is an applied microeconomist studying development economics.
He researches issues related to secondary and higher education access in Sub-Saharan Africa, education gender affirmative action policies, and higher education peer effects.

Joe Amick is a Technical Director in Social Impact’s (SI) Evaluation, Research, and Analytics Division.  He leads impact evaluations, large-scale surveys, assessments, and other research projects with a sectoral focus on land tenure, labor, governance, democracy, and agriculture.  He has over fifteen years of experience in research and evaluation and has worked in Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia, Zambia, Pakistan, and Botswana.  

Henrique Pita Barros is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Brown University. His research focuses on economic development, with a particular interest in how the disruption caused by migration, forced displacement or conflict affects human behavior. As part of his doctoral research, Henrique has designed a new intervention promoting the social-integration of internally displaced persons into hosting communities, which he empirically evaluated in the context of an ongoing Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique.

Girija Borker is an Economist and Gender Program Coordinator in the Development Impact Evaluation unit at the World Bank. She is a development economist working primarily on gender, violence, and transport in urban areas. A large part of her current research studies the economic consequences of sexual harassment in public spaces and assesses potential solutions' effectiveness on women’s physical and economic mobility such as police patrolling, a reliable reporting system, and access to subsidized public transit.

Mattia is a Ph.D. Candidate in Economics at Nova School of Business and Economics and member of NOVAFRICA. Her research focuses on Development, Behavioral, Personnel, and Health Economics. She has conducted field and survey experiments aimed at improving public service delivery in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, with a particular emphasis on interventions designed for scalability. 

John Giles is a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group (Human Development Team). He completed his PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley and was an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at Michigan State University before joining the World Bank in 2007. 

Daniel Gilligan is the Director of the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and is Co-Lead of the CGIAR Research Initiative on Gender Equality (HER+). His research addresses the impact of interventions in social protection, agriculture and nutrition; gender dimensions of development; and the economics of household investments in childhood nutrition and education. 

Xavier Gine is a Lead Economist in the Finance and Private Sector Development Team of the Development Research Group at the World Bank. His research focuses on access to financial services, financial consumer protection and community driven development.  Prior to joining the Bank he was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the Economic Growth Center at Yale University. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain, an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Javier Romero is an economist in the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice and the Latin America and the Caribbean Gender Innovation Lab (LACGIL). His work focuses on economic development, health, labor, and gender, where he uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods to guide policy making. 

Dongil Lee is an Assistant Professor at KDI School of Public Policy and Management. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University in 2022. His research focuses on the impact of development aid on political institutions in Africa, with a keen interest in policy interventions to enhance democratic accountability and responsiveness.

Narae Lee is a Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy at George Mason University. With the socially marginalized populations at the core, she studies topics in labor economics, development economics, urban economics, and public financing. She combines applied microeconomic causal inference methodology with large data analysis, geospatial tools, and social network analysis to evaluate policy impacts. 

John Loeser is an Economist in Development Impact Department (DIME) at the World Bank. He completed his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley in 2019. John is a development economist who focuses on applying theory to expand the set of questions we can answer with impact evaluations. His current research focuses on quantifying the productive impacts of investments in agriculture and rural infrastructure in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Rwanda.

Mai Mahmoud is a PhD candidate in Economics and Public Policy at the Economics Department and the Fletcher School, Tufts University. Her research interests are in development economics, applied microeconomics, and agricultural economics. In her job-market paper, Mahmoud uses a two-stage randomized controlled trial to examine whether lower prices differentially allocate agricultural inputs to farmers with higher or lower returns.

Josh is an associate professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in Sejong City, South Korea, a Research Affiliate at IZA (Institute of Labor Economics) in Bonn, Germany, and an Invited Researcher with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). His research and teaching interests include the microeconomics of development, applied microeconometrics, agriculture, poverty, and the environment.

Jessica received her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Bocconi University. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Economics, Management and Statistics at the University of Milano-Bicocca and a research fellow at Economic Research Southern Africa. Her research interests are social economics, education, health,  and development economics.  

Emir Murathanoglu is a Ph.D. candidate in the joint Business and Economics program at the University of Michigan. He is a development economist with interests in labor economics and economics of migration.  His current research explores (1) the causes and consequences of migration from and within developing countries and (2) development of managerial skills in developing countries.

Shotaro Nakamura is an Economist at the Bureau of Economics, Federal Trade Commission in Washington, DC. His research interests are in Development Economics, Environmental Economics, and Industrial Organization. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Davis.

Antonia Paredes-Haz is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley Haas Business School. Her research focuses on Political Economy and Development Economics, specifically the political representation of women in low- and middle-income countries. She received her B.A. in economics from Universidad Católica de Chile and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Jorge is a Research Assistant in the Department of Impact Evaluation (DIME) at The World Bank. He received his BA and MCs degrees in economics from Universidad de los Andes. His research areas are in developing economics, urban economics, and determinants of crime. His masters’ thesis studies the effect of transport subsidies in a developing context to assess changes in welfare, measured as consumer surplus, generated by the policy. 

Javier Romero is an economist in the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice and the Latin America and the Caribbean Gender Innovation Lab (LACGIL). His work focuses on economic development, health, labor, and gender, where he uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods to guide policy making. Javier holds a PhD and MA in economics from Duke University and a BA and Licenciatura in economics from Universidad de Piura.

Vanisha Sharma is a Job-Market PhD Candidate at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. Vanisha earned her Masters in Public Administration also at Cornell, and a Bachelors in Economics with a double minor in Psychology and Sociology at the University of Hong Kong. She is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief for Economics That Really Matters, which is a blog pioneered by Cornell to encourage early researchers to share development economics research at the current frontier.

Mahvish Shaukat is an Economist in the Macroeconomics and Growth Team in the Development Research Group. Her research studies issues in governance, political economy, and public finance, with the goal of understanding how institutions and incentives shape state efficacy and citizen welfare. She received her PhD in economics from MIT in 2019.

Ajay Shenoy is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a faculty affiliate at the Center for Effective Global Action, and a member of the steering committee of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. He received his B.A. in Mathematics and Political Science from the University of Connecticut and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan. He studies political economy, market imperfections, and production in developing countries.

Juni Singh is a Postdoc at Caltech currently teaching a course on sustainability. She has a Ph.D. in Economics at the Paris School of Economics, specializing in behavioral and development economics. Her research interests are in entrepreneurship, climate change and social networks. Before starting her PhD, she worked as a World Bank consultant. She aims to work for better public policy in Nepal through her research. 

Gabriela Smarrelli is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre of Global Development’s global education program. Her work currently investigates the barriers to human capital formation, particularly those imposed by the prevalence of school violence and restrictive social norms.  She holds a PhD from the University of Oxford and an MPA in Public and Economic Policy from the London School of Economics.

I am researcher at Banco de la República de Colombia (Central Bank of Colombia). I earned my Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2011-2015). I specialize in the economics of education, health economics, crime economics, and labor economics.

Nicholas Swanson is a PhD candidate in Economics at UC Berkeley, with research interests in Development Economics, Behavioral Economics and Labor Economics. Nicholas has research projects in Burundi and Zambia. His research investigates the role of labor market frictions in limiting technology adoption and lowering firm productivity. Prior to his PhD, Nicholas obtained an MSc in Economics at LSE and a BA in Economics at the University of Cambridge. He is currently on the Job Market.

Hannah Uckat is an Economist in the Development Impact Department (DIME) at the World Bank. Her expertise combines private sector development and entrepreneurship, labor, and gender. She researches firm growth and labor markets in low- and middle-income countries, and the interaction between the workplace and the household. Hannah has extensive experience in designing, implementing and analyzing impact evaluations, and in studying complex firm- and household-level data. 

Margaux Vinez is a Senior Economist at the World Bank. She works with governments in East and West Africa to support the design, implementation and evaluation of programs in social protection and agriculture. Her research focuses on shock-responsive social protection, economic inclusion, agriculture and conservation, and gender. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Paris School of Economics.

Kelsey is a Ph.D. Candidate in Economics at PSE. Her current research focuses on safety net programs in developing countries. In addition, she is interested in measurement, gender, and agriculture, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. She also teaches at Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) at SciencesPo.

Florence manages DIME’s unit on Economic Transformation & Growth. She joined the World Bank as a Young Professional and received a magistere in economics from the Paris School of Economics, a PhD in economics from the University of London, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. 

Aidan manages DIME’s unit on Infrastructure and Climate Change. After completing his MSc in Statistics at University College London and MSc in Economics for Development at the University of Oxford, he joined DIME in South Africa, exploring the effects of a large-scale slum upgrading project implemented across the country. 

Paul Christian is an Economist at DIME. His research on agriculture and food security programs focuses on targeting and management of irrigation projects. He has led impact evaluations in India, Nepal, Mozambique, Liberia, and Ghana. He holds a PhD and MA in Economics from Brown University

Patrick Premand is a Senior Economist at DIME. He works on Social Protection and Safety Nets; Jobs, Economic Inclusion and Entrepreneurship; and Early Childhood Development. He conducts impact evaluations and policy experiments of social protection, jobs and human development programs. He works on government-led interventions implemented at scale.

John Loeser is an Economist in DIME. He holds PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from UC Berkeley. John is a development economist who focuses on applying theory to expand the set of questions we can answer with impact evaluations. His current research focuses on quantifying the productive impacts of investments in agriculture and rural infrastructure in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Rwanda.

Hee Kwon (Samuel) Seo is a development economist in DIME.  He completed a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics at Harvard University and PhD in economics at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.  His current research focuses on climate change economics, labor economics, and inclusive development.

Dahyeon Jeong is an Economist in DIME. His main research interests include agriculture, labor, and social protection. He conducts large-scale field experiments to inform policy decisions. He received a BA in Public Administration and Statistics from Korea University, an MPA from Cornell University, and a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Dongil Lee is an Assistant Professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management. In 2022, he received his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University. His research lies at the intersection of comparative politics and political economy, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa. Through his work, he examines how development aid affects political institutions in Africa and the political dynamics that shape the implementation of foreign aid programs. 

David Sungho Park is an Assistant Professor of Development Economics at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management. Most of his research consists of empirical works based on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in Sub-Saharan African countries. He studies topics including intimate partner violence, unconditional cash transfers, food security, agriculture, and survey methodology.