Backstory: How Research Papers in Economics Get Made

In this episode, Maddison speaks with Gautam Rao, Associate Professor at the Haas School of Business and the Department of Economics at UC Berkeley, about his paper titled, "Laboratories of Democracy? Experimental Evidence on Policy Diffusion between Municipalities in Brazil,” joint with Ines Badin, Jonas Hjort, Diana Moreira, Juan Santini.  He also discusses how this project built on an earlier project, “How Research Affects Policy: Experimental Evidence from 2,150 Brazilian Municipalities,” and talks about the process of forming collaborations with field partners and coauthors. Gautam also shares about his experience of developing his job market paper, “Familiarity Does Not Breed Contempt: Generosity, Discrimination and Diversity in Delhi Schools.”

Maddison speaks with Claudia Allende, Assistant Professor of Economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.  Claudia shares the backstory behind her paper with Francisco Gallego and Chris Neilson, titled “Approximating the Equilibrium Effects of Informed School Choice,” along with the story behind her related research including her job market paper, “Competition Under Social Interactions and the Design of Education Policies.”  She also shares how she developed the skills to do research combining structural and empirical methods.

Mikey speaks to Manaswini Rao, an assistant professor of economics at the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics at the University of Delaware. Manaswini discusses the challenges faced by the judicial system in India, the promise of mediation address some of those challanges, and her new working paper that measures whether mediation lives up to that promise.

Read the working paper here!

Santiago speaks with Claudio Ferraz about the research behind "When Democracy Refuses to Die: Evaluating a Training Program for New Politicians", a paper on RenovaBR, one of the world’s largest training programs for aspiring politicians in Brazil. They discuss how to build a partnership with a large NGO while keeping the collaboration aligned with the incentives, standards, and timelines of academic research. Claudio also reflects on a question many researchers face: how to know when a paper is done, when an extension truly adds value, and when an idea belongs in a separate project instead. They close by discussing how to choose co-authors and why long-term collaborations can make research better and more sustainable.
The paper is co-authored with Ernesto Dal Bó, Frederico Finan, and Pedro Pessoa and is available at https://www.nber.org/papers/w33251.

In this episode, Precious interviews Andre Gray (UC San Diego) about his job-market paper, "Density and Diversity in African Cities." Andre discusses how migration size and migrant composition shape productivity, conflict, and structural transformation in rapidly urbanizing African cities. He also shares what drew him to urban and development economics and reflects on building a research agenda spanning African and U.S. settings.

Check out Andre's JMP here!