EGC affiliates receive major research grants

The Center has played a key role in bringing funding to Yale for projects on a range of topics, from educational interventions to economic history.

On Her Own Account: Impact of Strengthening Women’s Financial Control

A study by Rohini Pande and a team of researchers shines a spotlight on the importance of providing women with control over their own income through personal bank accounts and banking training.

Largest study on masks and Covid-19 demonstrates their effectiveness in the real world

Results from EGC affiliate Mushfiq Mobarak and coauthors’ recent paper clearly demonstrate that mask usage reduces Covid-19, highlighting how masks should continue to play a vital role in fighting the pandemic.

The Corporation Through Time

Does the "bigness" of firms, from Standard Oil to Google, undermine competition and put consumers at a disadvantage? Naomi Lamoreaux discusses her work on the evolution of the corporation through time.

Inclusive Innovator

Rohini Pande discusses her research on gender, environment, and the workings of democracy in an interview with International Monetary Fund Finance & Development magazine. “There’s a vicious circle of rising inequality and weakening institutions—particularly democratic institutions—which is going to be exacerbated by planetary limits on growth," she notes.

Gendered Laws Do Matter

Pinelopi Goldberg & Simeon Djankov analysed global data on legal gender equality and found that greater legal equality between men and women is associated with a narrower gender gap in opportunities and outcomes, fewer female workers in positions of vulnerable employment, and greater political representation for women.

Study: Migrants Who Returned Earned Five-Fold of Those Who Stayed Back

New data on India's migrant workers and Covid-19: Large-scale surveys by EGC and Yale MacMillan Center researchers and coauthors show both the economic benefits of returning to city work, and the disadvantages suffered by women. The results have bearing on the policy response to the current outbreak.

Skilled Workers Flee from Polluted Cities, Hampering Economic Growth

In China, highly educated people are more likely to move away from areas with poor air quality. Reducing pollution could substantially increase GDP there and in other countries, according to a new study co-authored by EGC Faculty Affiliate Mushfiq Mobarak.

The Role of Early Interventions in Improving the Lives of Children

Early childhood interventions can have long-lasting effects on people's lives. What does economics tell us about how to improve them? Orazio Attanasio discusses an integrated approach to researching childhood development.

Tackling the Global Learning Crisis

Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg writes that by exacerbating a pre-existing "learning crisis," the COVID-19 pandemic has undermined many developing countries' long-term economic prospects. Even in the face of today's fiscal constraints, immediate action to improve educational outcomes has become an urgent priority.

Impact of Subsidies and Informal Insurance on Migration

Research by Mushfiq Mobarak and co-authors titled "Migration and Informal Insurance" examines whether new migration opportunities for rural households change the nature and extent of informal risk-sharing. The findings suggest it is important to take into account spillover effects when designing social protection programmes.

How COVID-19 is Making Gender Inequality Worse in Low-Income Countries—and What to Do About It

Gender disparities in social and economic outcomes, already larger in the developing world than in rich countries, have been exacerbated by the pandemic, according to Yale SOM’s Mushfiq Mobarak and his co-authors. They write that policy action is badly needed to address the compounding of existing inequalities and protect the most vulnerable women.

Yale Development Dialogue Series Offers Perspective on Future of Poverty and Climate Change

What are the prospects for "Green Pathways out of Poverty" when the costs of growth fall hardest on the poor? Director of the Yale Economic Growth Center and professor of Economics Rohini Pande notes, “the ones who are affected the most … are the ones with the least power.”

‘Outside’ Managers’ Productivity, Firm Dynamics, and Economy Growth

New research by Michael Peters on the effects that the absence of outside professional management has on India’s businesses & economy

Public Disclosure as a Political Incentive: Evidence from Municipal Elections in India

Rohini Pande shares insights from a study in urban Delhi, India with Abhijit Banerjee, Nils Enevoldsen, and Michael Walton that evaluated the extent to which public disclosure of performance could motivate local politicians to spend on infrastructure.

Why Does the Pandemic Seem to Be Hitting Some Countries Harder Than Others?

"Population pyramids" may explain some of the dramatic differences in Covid19 death rates in lower/higher income countries. Siddhartha Mukherjee quotes Mushfiq Mobarak in a New Yorker article.

Only 7% of Urban Indian Women Have Paid Jobs

In recommending ways India could draw more women into the labor force, The Economist cites research by Rohini Pande, Charity Troyer Moore, Erica Field, Natalia Rigol, and Simone Schaner

Economic Growth Helps Child Nutrition but Isn’t Enough, Latest Health Survey Shows

Economic growth in India is not leading to commensurate gains in child nutrition. Research by economists Seema Jayachandran and Rohini Pande is showing links between stunting & social standing.

Unpaid Electric Bills Undermine Efforts to Improve Access: Study

Poor electricity access in developing countries may be consequence of society treating electricity as a right rather than a commodity. Nicholas Ryan and co-authors suggest reforms.

Gendered Laws and Women in the Global Workforce

Penny Goldberg and co-authors Marie Hyland and Simeon Djankov provide the first global picture of gender discrimination by the law as it affects women’s economic opportunities.

Getting All Bangladeshis to Wear Masks

The idea that mask norms are hard to change but stable once achieved is not correct: the data in Bangladesh indicates that norms can change rapidly in both directions, write Jason Abaluck and Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak.

‘Financial Inclusion, Peers, Role Models Empower Women’

Rohini Pande shares her perspective on powerful interventions that can strengthen women wanting to work — and change social norms.

Panelists Talk History and Foreign Aid in New Lecture Series

The Yale South Asian Studies Council and the Yale Economic Growth Center co-hosted a panel discussion titled “Aid, Power, and Plague: Lessons from History and Practice on Foreign Aid Responses.” Experts discussed how knowledge of the history of foreign aid development can inform contemporary policy.

Legal Discrimination Stymies Economic Outcomes for Women

Despite decades of progress in addressing gender discrimination, women across the globe face persistent legal barriers to participating in the economy on an equal basis with men, according to a study co-authored by Yale economist Pinelopi Goldberg.

We recommend a new funding model to address COVID-19 and floods

Nepal’s new federal institutions are up against a formidable set of disasters: the COVID-19 pandemic and severe floods, along with the imminent lean season. The federal, provincial, and local levels of government need to coordinate to rise to these challenges. A large-scale survey of provincial and local government officials suggests that a data-driven approach to allocating funds can help.

Seeking Scalable Solutions to Poverty

Mushfiq Mobarak describes the arc of his research on scalable, evidence-based policy responses to the deprivations of poverty. This year, Mobarak and his team repurposed their existing research infrastructure to respond to the COVID crisis—building ties in Bangladesh that could be valuable long after the pandemic passes.

How Poverty Reduction Can Survive Deglobalization

Penny Goldberg explains that the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated a trend that was already underway, and argues that now more important than ever, developing countries must seek alternatives to export-led growth.

100 economists sign a letter on divestment from fossil fuels

In Spanish: José Antonio Espín-Sánchez discusses the responsibility of financial institutions and universities to divest in fossil fuels. This comes after an open letter signed by economists.

EGC & Google researchers collaborate on smart flood alerts for India and Bangladesh

The team has improved and expanded a program that uses artificial intelligence software to forecast floods in South Asia, enabling governments to issue earlier and more accurate warnings that can potentially save lives.

Keep Borders Open

Rich countries should keep their doors open to migrants from poorer ones – for not only moral reasons, but in their own self-interest. Penny Goldberg lays out the reasons why.

The 'Motherhood Penalty' that working women face

Penny Goldberg discusses the key findings from the World Banks's new "Women, Business and the Law" database, which tracks inequality in legislation throughout the duration of a woman's working life, from the time she can enter the labor force through retirement.

Fear stops Rohingya getting tested as virus hits refugee camps

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh with symptoms of the novel coronavirus are not coming forward to get tested because they fear being separated from their families and held in isolation - one of many reasons it's difficult to know the true spread of the disease, according to a report by Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak.

Lockdowns work better for rich nations: Study

Social distancing can save a large number of lives in high-income countries because practically any economic cost is worth bearing, but in lower-income countries, the benefits diminish, according to a study by Mushfiq Mobarak and Zachary Barnett-Howell.

Yale study finds a majority of India’s poor women likely to miss Centre’s cash transfers

If the Government of India distributes COVID emergency cash payouts using only its digital banking program PMJDY, a majority of poor women may be excluded, according to research by Rohini Pande

Migration and risk sharing: Evidence from Bangladesh

Rural-to-urban migration can improve the allocation of labour, but can it have unintended consequences on risk-sharing in rural communities? Costas Meghir explains in an interview.

Responding to COVID-19 in the Developing World

What are the policy options when info channels are weak and the cost of social distancing may be going hungry? Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak explores the role of research and policy in Bangladesh and other developing countries for Yale Insights.

Abandon ideology-driven politics to create a dream team

Economist Yukiko Fukagawa, M.A. '95 Yale International and Development Economics program, now Waseda University, gives her thoughts on South Korea's Moon Jae-in administration.

A Silent Hero of the Coronavirus Crisis

A champion in the fight against COVID-19 is data-driven technology enabling governments to track the infected, contact them, & quarantine them early, says Penny Goldberg.

World Bank’s chief economist to return to Yale

Members of the Yale community react to news of the return of Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg to the Economics Department this Fall, and Penny gives her first public comments on her departure from the World Bank.

COVID-19 and Children’s Education

The time to plan large-scale summer learning programs is now. Column by Fabrizio Zilibotti.

Why the Economics of Coronavirus is Very Different from the Great Depression

Macroeconomic policy may help today, but it will be no panacea. The wealth of nations is determined by technology, human capital, institutions, and social cohesion. A column by Fabrizio Zilibotti.

The Fiscal Fight Against COVID-19

In the face of major challenges e.g. Japan's Typhoon Hagibis and now #COVID19, governments may need to defy fiscal conservatives and act quickly. Koichi Hamada, Yale Department of Economics / EGC Professor Emeritus, in Project Syndicate:

Pulling women into India's economy isn’t a function of budget alone

In India, giving poor, rural women control financial control over their own wages had a surprising range of effects. Rohini Pande and Charity Troyer Moore describe their research.

Not just for play: parent engagement can boost toddlers’ skills development

New research by EGC faculty Orazio Attanasio, Costas Meghir shows how encouraging poor families to make learning materials and involve their toddlers in household activities can improve cognitive and socio-emotional skills.

Women More Likely To Work If They Can Control Their Earnings: Study

Poor women in socially restrictive households in India were more likely to take up jobs if their wages were deposited into their bank accounts and they were trained in digital banking, according to new research by Rohini Pande and coauthors.

Altering social norms with Yale economist Rohini Pande

The new EGC director talks about challenging restrictive social norms, harnessing digital technology to increase women’s access to health care and employment in India — and economics as an agent of social justice.