Paper published in Review of Economic Studies
Blumenstock’s work with lab alum Guanghua Chi, and Xu Tan, was published in the Review of Economic Studies. Migration and the Value of Social Networks How do social networks influence the decision to migrate? Prior work suggests two distinct mechanisms... Read More →
FastCompany on lab’s research: These new poverty maps could reshape how we deliver international aid
These new poverty maps could reshape how we deliver international aid Granular geographic targeting, down to 2-by-2-kilometer squares, may help pinpoint the very poorest who need urgent financial assistance—and COVID-19 vaccines. “…The new model—called the Relative Wealth Index—will be freely available... Read More →
PhD student Emily Aiken and Prof. Blumenstock quoted in Economist article, “In poor countries, statistics are both undersupplied and underused”
“Emily Aiken of the University of California, Berkeley, and her colleagues have tested whether a machine-learning algorithm can identify the poorest households in 80 Afghan villages based on mobile-phone data, such as the duration of their calls, their network of... Read More →
Paper published in Review of Economics and Statistics
A paper, co-authored by lab Director Blumenstock (with Michael Callen, Tarek Ghani, and Robert Gonzalez), was published in the journal, Review of Economics and Statistics. Read it here: https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article/106/2/352/108828/Violence-and-Financial-Decisions-Evidence-from Violence and Financial Decisions: Evidence from Mobile Money in Afghanistan Abstract... Read More →
Kohli wins Best Doctoral Dissertation Award
Lab member Nitin Kohli was awarded the International iSchools Best Doctoral Dissertation Award for his research on differential privacy. The article describes how Nitin’s work advances both science and privacy by designing algorithms to create “privacy-protective statistics” that can be... Read More →
BBC News covers lab research in 5-minute film, “How satellite images are helping one country hand out cash”
How satellite images are helping one country hand out cash Togo has found a high-tech way to identify people who need financial help in the pandemic and send them emergency cash. They use computers to search for clues in... Read More →
Lab wins data.org “Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge” — one of 9 winners (out of 1350 applicants)!
Our work, a partnership between GiveDirectly and CEGA, was one of 8 awardees (out of 1350 applicants) of the data.org Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge. Read the press release here: https://www.mastercardcenter.org/press-releases/dataorg-challenge-awardees-announcement. hm
NPR article on our work in Togo
Read about our work on NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/02/15/966848542/the-pandemic-pushed-this-farmer-into-deep-poverty-then-something-amazing-happene Shegun Adjadi Bakari, advisor to Togo’s president, consulted with Esther Duflo, who in 2019 won a Nobel prize for her experimental approach to alleviating poverty — using randomized control trials to see if programs... Read More →
Lab research featured on Wired
Wired Magazine covered our work in Togo in the article, “A Clever Strategy to Distribute Covid Aid—With Satellite Data” Lawson was proud to see government aid sent so fast, but as Covid-19 spread she also worried her program wasn’t able... Read More →
Funding from Social Science Research Council
Zoe Kahn received a “Just Tech” grant from the Social Science Research Council for her work, done with Emily Aiken and Joshua Blumenstock, “Covid-19 Social Impact Scenarios: Bridging the Knowledge Gap between Technical System Outputs and Policymaking.” Congrats Zoe! Full... Read More →