Targeting Social Insurance
The project will target social insurance. Cash transfers have increased in popularity as a tool for governments and NGOs to fight poverty, and questions about how to target cash transfers have a long history in economics. This project will develop a framework for optimal targeting using insights from welfare economics, cutting-edge econometric tools, and large household datasets from experimental analyses of cash transfer programs.
Requisite Skills and Qualifications
The RA's responsibilities will include conducting a literature review of large-scale cash transfer programs, downloading replication packages of economics papers published in top journals, extending the analyses, and using machine learning techniques to estimate heterogeneous treatment effect models. Depending on interest and ability, there may also be an opportunity to work on the theory of optimal targeting. Experience using R or similar software, and basic knowledge of econometrics, is required. Experience with machine learning and/or working with large datasets is a plus.