Benjamin Olken Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows Contact Information NBER 1050 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138 ph: (617) 253-6833 (MIT J-PAL office) ph: (617) 588-1437 (NBER office) fax: (617) 868-2742 email: bolken@nber.org

Curriculum Vitae Research Statement Published / Forthcoming Papers: “The Anatomy of Start-Stop Growth” with Ben Jones. Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming August 2008. Longer version: NBER Working Paper #11528 (2005). “Monitoring Corruption: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia” Journal of Political Economy 115 (2), pp. 200-249, April 2007. Data and programs here. Additional analysis tables here. “Corruption and the Costs of Redistribution: Micro Evidence from Indonesia” Journal of Public Economics 90 (4-5), pp. 853-870, May 2006. “Do Leaders Matter? National Leadership and Growth since World War II” with Ben Jones. Quarterly Journal of Economics 120 (3), pp. 835-864, August 2005. “Revealed Community Equivalence Scales” Journal of Public Economics 89 (2-3), pp. 545-566, February 2005. Working Papers: “The Simple Economics of Extortion: Evidence from Trucking in Aceh” with Patrick Barron. May 2007. NBER Working Paper #13145. BREAD Working Paper #151. CEPR Discussion Paper #6332. “Hit or Miss? The Effect of Assassinations on Institutions and War” with Ben Jones. May 2007. NBER Working Paper #13102. BREAD Working Paper #150. CEPR Discussion Paper #6298. “Political Institutions and Local Public Goods: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia” April 2008. “Do Television and Radio Destroy Social Capital? Evidence from Indonesian Villages” Revise and resubmit, Quarterly Journal of Economics. September 2006. NBER Working Paper #12561. BREAD Working Paper #130. “Corruption Perceptions vs. Corruption Reality” July 2006. NBER Working Paper #12428. BREAD Working Paper #126. Revise and resubmit, Journal of Public Economics. “A Biological Model of Unions” with Michael Kremer. January 2006. Revise and resubmit, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. Earlier versions: NBER Working Paper #8257. 2002 version here. Research in Progress: “Climate Change and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century” (with Melissa Dell and Benjamin F. Jones). “Informal Taxation” (with Monica Singhal). “Decentralization and Deforestation: Understanding the Rapid Demise of Indonesia’s Forests” (with Robin Burgess and Stefanie Sieber). “Should Aid Be Conditional on Performance? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia” (with Junko Onishi and Susan Wong). Fieldwork underway. Preliminary results available mid-2009. Research discussed in popular press Photos and Videos: Photos from “Monitoring Corruption” Building a Road Measuring a Road Video from “The Simple Economics of Extortion” Paying a bribe at a checkpoint in Aceh