The World Bank–KDI School 6th Development Impact Conference is hosted by the World Bank’s Development Impact Group in partnership with KDI School of Public Policy and Management.
 

Building on a decade of DECDI–KDI School collaboration, the event serves as a dynamic forum for showcasing high-quality academic research and innovative impact evaluations of development programs. It brings together researchers, policymakers, donors, and development practitioners with a shared commitment to generate, apply, and scale rigorous evidence that improves development outcomes.
 

This year’s conference will be held in Washington, D.C., on November 6–7, 2025. This year’s special thematic area are the below:
 

  • Education, Social Protection, and Jobs in the Digital Age
  • Agricultural and Rural Development and Resilience 
  • Universal Health Coverage and Advancement of Health Services 
  • Productive Uses of Energy and Emissions Management 
  • Governance and Development in Fragile, Conflict-Affected, and Volatile Contexts 
  • Urban Development and Gender Inclusivity

The past conference programs can be found for 2024 and 2023.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The World Bank

8:30 AM Registration & Coffee
9:00 AM Opening Remarks
Arianna Legovini, Director, Development Impact Group, World Bank
Joon-Kyung Kim, Dean, KDI School of Public Policy and Management
9:30 AM

Presentations | Jobs 

Chair: Yoonyoung Cho, Senior Economist, World Bank

  • Voice AI in Firms: A Natural Field Experiment on Automated Job Interviews
    Brian Jabarian (University of Chicago) 
  • Soft Skills and Hiring
    Jennifer Kades (RAND) 
  • Reaching Marginalized Job Seekers through Public Employment Services: Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia
    Johanna Roth (Sciences Po)
10:35 AM Coffee Break
10:50 AM

Presentations | Labor

Chair: John Loeser, Economist, World Bank

  • Flexible Work Arrangements and Firm Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from India
    Shreya Chandra (UC Berkeley)
  • Who Benefits from Industrialization? Labor Market Adjustments and Household Welfare in Vietnam
    Trinh Pham (KDI School)
11:55 AM

Presentations | Urban Environment and Energy 

Chair: Remi Jedwab, Professor, George Washington University

  • High Returns, Low Adoption: Air Purifiers in Bangladeshi Firms
    Maulik Jagnani (Tufts University)
  • Electrifying Paratransit? Experimental Evidence on Vehicle Access Contracts, Labor Productivity, and Driver-Firm Incidence
    Narae Lee (World Bank)
  • The Congestion Impacts of Curfews and Externalities on Road Traffic Crashes
    Svetoslava Milusheva (World Bank)
1:00 PM Lunch
2:00 PM

Lightning Sessions

  • Cleaner Air through Cheaper Transfers? The Case of Integrated Fare System
    Sunny Jaiwon Lee (Yonsei University)
  • Conflict, Forced Displacement and Growth: Evidence from Uganda
    Ayah Bohsali (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
  • Information Frictions and the Market for Climate Adaptation
    Ricardo Pommer Muñoz (Columbia University)
  • How Mechanistic Explanations Reshape Learning and Behavior: Evidence from a Fertilizer Choice Experiment in Eastern Uganda
    Anirudh Sankar (Stanford University)
  • Economic and Psychological Returns to Social Relationships: Alleviating Constraints to Network Formation in Malawi
    Gabriella Fleischman (Harvard University)
  • Shaped by Stories: Migration Inflows and Higher Education Decisions of Natives
    Alejandra Quintana (Columbia University)
3:00 PM
 Coffee Break
3:15 PM

Presentations | Education

Chair: Luis Benveniste, Global Director, World Bank

  • An Apple A Day: The Impact of Healthier School Meals on Children in Jordan
    Benedetta Lerva (World Bank)
  • Public-Private Partnerships in Education: Experimental Evidence from Colombia
    Felipe Barrera-Osorio (Vanderbilt University)
  • Cash and Cognition: The Impact of Transfer Timing on Standardized Test Performance and Human Capital
    Axel Eizmendi Larrinaga (Tufts University)
4:20 PM

Presentations | Health

Chair: Damien de Walque, Lead Economist, World Bank

  • Who Calls the Shots? Financial Incentives and Provider Influence in the Adoption of a New Health Technology
    Carlos Paramo (Stanford University)
  • Stigma and Social Cover: A Mental Health Care Experiment in Refugee Networks
    Emma Smith (Georgetown University)
  • The Making of a Public Sector Worker: The Causal Effects of Temporary Work Assignments to Poor Areas
    Mariel Bedoya (Columbia University)
5:30 PM Reception
   
9:00 AM

Presentations | Agriculture and Rural Development 

Chair: Paul Christian, Senior Economist, World Bank

  • Long-run Impacts of Increased Access to Asset-Collateralized Loans
    Joshua Deutschmann (University of Chicago)
  • Price Regulation and the Adoption–Innovation Trade-off
    Matteo Ruzzante (Northwestern University)
  • A Road for all Seasons: Market Access and Inter-temporal Arbitrage in Rural India
    Ishani Chatterjee (Analysis Group)
  • Autonomy and Technology Adoption
    Xavier Gine (World Bank)
10:30 AM Coffee
  • 11:00 AM

Presentations | Gender 

Chair: Michael B. O'Sullivan, Lead Economist, World Bank

  • The Cost of Gender on Rent for Single Women in South Asia
    Geetika Nagpal (World Bank)
  • Debiasing the Workplace: Evidence from an Expressive Arts Intervention in India with Law Enforcement
    Sofia Amaral (World Bank)
  • Women's Mobility and Labor Supply: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan
    Katherine Vyborny (World Bank)
  • Talk Therapy and Human Capital in Adolescence: Evidence from a Low-Resource Setting
    Eric Edmonds (Dartmouth College)
12:30 PM Lunch
1:30 PM Keynote Speech by Seema Jayachandran (Princeton University)
2:30 PM Coffee
2:45 PM

Presentations | Entrepreneurship 

Chair: Miriam Bruhn , Senior Economist, World Bank

  • Poverty Alleviation at High Frequency
    Moritz Poll (Brown University)
  • Misperceptions and Product Choice: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in Zambia
    David Sungho Park (KDI School)
  • Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Digital Receipts in the Ugandan Dairy Chain
    Pedro Felipe Magaña Sáenz (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
3:55 PM

Presentations | Governance and FCV 

Chair: Arturo Herrera Gutierrez Global Director, World Bank

  • The State of Maintenance: Can Government and Citizens Cooperate for Improved Water Access?
    Luca Stanus-Ghib (World Bank)
  • Electronic Payroll System and Intra-civil service Corruption: Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo
    Dongil Lee (KDI School)
  • Natural Disasters, Local Economic Impacts and Migration: Evidence from the 2004 Tsunami in Sri Lanka
    Chungeun Yoon (KDI School)

Explore the complete agenda and speaker biographies here.

Travel Subsidies

 

Partial travel subsidies will be available for graduate students. All eligible submissions will automatically be considered for travel subsidies, and there is no separate funding application. Decisions will be communicated in early October.

 

Please contact Jimin Lee at jimin_lee@kdischool.ac.kr for details on travel subsidies.

Conference Committee

 

  • Paul Christian, Acting Manager, World Bank Development Impact 
  • Aidan Coville, Senior Economist, World Bank Development Impact 
  • Dahyeon (DJ) Jeong, Economist, World Bank Development Impact 
  • John Loeser, Economist, World Bank Development Impact 
  • Hee Kwon (Samuel) Seo, Economist, World Bank Development Impact 
  • Narae Lee, Impact Evaluation Officer, World Bank Development Impact 
  • Florence Kondylis, Research Manager, World Bank Development Research Group 
  • Dongil Lee, Assistant Professor, KDI School of Public Policy and Management 
  • David Sungho Park, Assistant Professor, KDI School of Public Policy and Management
  • Trinh Pham, Assistant Professor, KDI School of Public Policy and Management

FAQs

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