Program Directors

Seema Jayachandran is a professor in the department of economics at Princeton University. Her research interests include health, education, labor markets, the environment, and political economy in developing nations. She has been an NBER affiliate since 2007.

Benjamin A. Olken is a professor in the department of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. His research focuses on the political economy of developing nations, with particular emphasis on corruption. He has been an NBER affiliate since 2005.
Featured Program Content

Since the early 1990s, the Chinese economy has achieved some of the highest rates of growth in GDP per capita in recorded history. This was accompanied by...

TransJakarta, the bus system serving greater Jakarta, Indonesia, undertook a major expansion in the last decade. It tripled its routes and doubled the...

Governments and multilateral institutions often implement policies through procurement contracts: agreements with private companies for building a piece of...