Learning from a North Korean

Before writing this, I already received the permission from a dear colleague of mine, a native of Pyongyang in North Korea, to write about my experience with her. In general, it would be strange to comment on your colleague in a public post, both on professional and personal grounds. But instead, my aim is to … Continue reading Learning from a North Korean →

Nobel Prize in Economics 2019

The news of this year's Nobel laureate(s) in Economic Sciences was just an hour ago announced to be the economists Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for their work to alleviate global poverty, the official announcement said. Hopefully, this will bring development economics back to the radar of mainstream economics research and make the … Continue reading Nobel Prize in Economics 2019 →

China and inequality

In many developing countries with a deeply rooted legacy of socialism and egalitarianism, debates about choosing between the policy preferences of economic growth, equality and social justice remain as contentious as ever. Within economics, unanimity is really never meant to be achieved when studying the following questions: What is the optimal tax rate? What is … Continue reading China and inequality →

Economic development in advanced and developing democracies

The past 4-6 weeks have been incredibly hectic, as I've recently been embroiled in many weeks (and weekends) of busy work, online studies and two full weeks of field missions to the border areas of Indonesia and Timor-Leste (I will share more about the field experience in a separate blog post). Now that I am … Continue reading Economic development in advanced and developing democracies →

#WhatEconomistsReallyDo

It's always refreshing to keep being reminded about the reasons why I remain optimistic about what's actually going on in economics research. A recent podcast episode by VoxEU, which featured this year's Yrjö Jahnsson Award winners, Oriana Bandiera and Imran Rasul, proved to be just one of those reminders. Generally speaking, the interview was aimed … Continue reading #WhatEconomistsReallyDo →

Fasting and elections

For several weeks now, I've been slowly adopting to life in Jakarta in conjuncture with many important events taking place in Indonesia. Two events have personally left me with significant impressions: the first being the hotly contested 2019 presidential elections, in which over 190 million were eligible to cast their votes on 17 April, and … Continue reading Fasting and elections →

Emi Nakamura and #WomenInEconomics

On 2 May, it was announced that the economist, Emi Nakamura (Berkeley), had earned the John Bates Clark Medal, an annually-awarded prize which enjoys similar prestige among young American economists as the Yrjö Jahnsson Award does among young European economists. While myself being an enthusiastic follower of the "credibility revolution" within microeconomics - which can … Continue reading Emi Nakamura and #WomenInEconomics →