Nathan Nunn: Evolution of Culture and Institutions

Come join Princeton Development Lab for our kick-off speaker event for the 2014-2015 school year! Hear Nathan Nunn give a fascinating talk on the evolution of culture and institutions. Starting with the Kuba Kingdom in the early 17th century, Professor Nathan Nunn will discuss how state development affects internal norms. Nathan Nunn, a professor of Economics at Harvard and co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics is an expert in his field and is sure to give a great speech! At 4:30 we will host a small welcome and reception with refreshments, after which the talk will begin.

This event took place Tuesday, September 30th, 2014.

Next PDL Event: UNICEF Information Session, 02/12/2014

Mac Glovinsky and Julio Dantas will be speaking to us about UNICEF’s current Global Innovation Challenge: First 72 hours which encourages participants to find innovative ideas that create solutions that can improve situations in the crucial 72 hours after a disaster hits. The Challenge ends on February 25th so this is a great time to get your questions answered and get some feedback on what the judges are looking for in a winning submission. Mac Glovinsky is the Lead for Innovation in the emergencies division of UNICEF while Julio Dantas in the focal point for Innovation in Emergencies in Latin America.

The event will be held on Wednesday, February 12th at Robertson 020!

 

Next PDL Speaker: Prof. Francisco Buera (UCLA and Chicago Fed), 02/06/2014

Professor Buera will discuss “The Macroeconomics of Micro-Development Policies”. The talk will bridge micro- and macro-perspectives on finance development and will build on his recent research on “The Macroeconomics of Microfinace” as well as a paper under the title “Macro-Perspectives on Asset Grants Programs: Occupational and Wealth Mobility.” Professor Buera is a macroeconomist with a strong interest in economic development. The research topics that he has recently worked on and is currently pursing include optimal management of government debt, entrepreneurship and financial frictions, as well as the role of financial markets in the process of development.

The event will take place on Thursday, February 6 at 4.30pm in McCosh Hall Room 2. This should be a great start to the spring semester, which will be filled with exciting PDL events!

Next PDL Speaker: Xavier Giné (World Bank), 12/12/2013

At our next meeting, Xavier Giné will hold a talk under the title “Rethinking Microfinance.” Xavier is a Senior 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 and rural financial markets. Being an expert in the field, he will draw on his extensive research experience to highlight some effective and less effective mechanisms in microfinance. In recent papers he investigated the macroeconomic effects of a credit liberalization; the relationship between formal and informal sources of credit in rural credit markets; and rollouts of microinsurance and microsavings. 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.

The event will take place on Thursday, December 12 at 4.30pm in Fisher Hall B06. We are look forward to seeing you there!

Next PDL speaker: Josephine Duh (Princeton University), 12/05/2013

We’re back  this week featuring a great discussion with Josephine Duh, a Ph.D. candidate in the Economics department here at Princeton. She will discuss “The Effects of Antiretroviral Therapy on Socioeconomic Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa.”  Josephine’s research focuses on addressing questions related to health and health care in developing countries, especially HIV/AIDS and calorie consumption.

We hope you will join us for this engaging discussion on Thursday, December 5 at 4:30 in Fisher B06!

Next PDL speaker: Sofi Bergkvist (ACCESS Health), 11/21/2013

Sofi Bergkvist will join PDL in a conversation on health accessibility and affordability throughout the developing world.  Sofi is the founding Managing Director of ACCESS Health International and one of the 18 inaugural fellows for the Rockefeller Foundation Global Fellowship Program on Social Innovation. ACCESS Health identifies, analyzes and supports in the design of healthcare service delivery and financing models for high quality and low-cost healthcare. She is also is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Emerging Markets Solutions at the Indian School of Business, where she focuses on health financing and public private partnerships in health. Previously, Sofi was a healthcare analyst for an asset management company in India. She has also worked in management consulting in Sweden, where she focused on outsourcing of public sector services. Sofi was engaged with the UNFPA in Malawi and carried out a cost-effectiveness study of the national road map for reduced maternal mortality. She has also worked as an advisor to the European Commission’s Delegation to the United Nations on sustainable development issues. Sofi has a Master of Science in international economics from the Stockholm School of Economics, and studied on the MBA program at McGill University in Montreal. When not working, she can be found outdoors running, swimming, biking or skiing.

The event is scheduled for Thursday, November 21 at 4.30pm in Wallace Hall Room 004.

Next PDL speaker: Fernanda Marquez Padilla (Princeton University), 11/14/2013

For our next event, Fernanda Marquez Padilla will discuss “The Effect of Drug-Related Violence on Education Outcomes in Mexico”. Drug-related violence in Mexico has had an unprecedented increase as of 2007. This setting presents a unique opportunity to explore the detrimental effects of crime and violence on educational attainment.  Fernanda’s research exploits the geographic and time variation of the increase in crime to analyze the impact of Mexico’s War on Drugs on school enrollment, passing rates, and cognitive ability as measured by standardized math test scores.

The event will take place on Thursday, November 14 at 4.30pm in Fisher Hall (Economics Department) Room B06.

Next PDL Speaker: Shantanayan Devarajan ’75 (World Bank), 11/8/2013

Mr. Devarajan ‘75, will join PDL and Princeton’s Engineers Without Borders for a talk about the challenges at the intersection of development and politics. Absentee teachers, negligent doctors, high transport costs, missing fertilizers, and elite-captured industrial policy all stand in the way of poor people’s escaping poverty.  While the proximate reason for these obstacles may be a lack of resources or an erroneous policy, the underlying reason is politics. The only way these equilibria will shift is if the incentives facing politicians change.   You can read more about this topic in his recent blog post.

This event will take place on November 8th at 4:30 pm in 001 Robertson Hall.  Following the seminar, there will be a dinner open to all guests.  Please make sure to RSVP here.

Next PDL Speaker: Dan Zook ’01 (Dalberg), 11/7/2013

Dan Zook will discuss the Initiative for Smallholder Finance, a multi-donor initiative facilitated by Dalberg Global Development Advisors to address the largely unmet need for financing among small scale farmers in the developing world.  Access to finance for small farmers can serve as a critical catalyst for economic growth and poverty alleviation. Yet current formal sources of financing meet less than 3% of the estimated $450 billion in financing demand. Meanwhile, as increasing global demand for key agricultural commodities exceeds growth in supply, multi-national food companies and investors are increasingly looking at opportunities to incorporate small farmers into the global food supply chain.  Dan will discuss some of the existing models that show promise for reaching scale through donor and private sector collaboration.

Dan is a Project Manager at Dalberg. He was previously a management consultant with Booz & Company based in Dubai, and he started his career as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Vietnam.

The event will take place on November 7th at 4.30pm in 122 Lewis Library.

Fall break

Thank you to everyone for making today’s event featuring Prof. Nancy Qian a great success.

Princeton Development Lab will take it easy next week in order to allow everyone to get ready for Fall Break. We look forward to seeing you back for our next event on November 7 — details to be announced soon!