Santiago speaks with Solène about her work titled "The Effect of AI Interviewers on Gender Gaps in Hiring: A field experiment in the Philippines" and co-authored with Brian Jabarian and Luca Henkel. Solène shares how the project began after reaching out to another economist whose presentation she had seen months earlier, leading to a fast-moving collaboration with results in just a few weeks. She reflects on how AI and online surveys have changed the way we conduct experiments, the barriers faced, as well as the questions we ask. She also shares her view on how she studies AI in the context of economics and management, so tune in to learn more!

Riccardo speaks with Jonathan Weigel about his paper, coauthored with Augustin Bergeron, Arthur Laroche, Joana Naritomi, Gabriel Tourek, and Marina Ngoma, titled: “Does Progressivity Raise Tax Capacity? Experimental Evidence from the D.R. Congo.”

Join us to hear how Jonathan got started on his research agenda in the DRC and what it takes to set up a research organization in the field, manage enumerators, and build relationships with government and tax officials. In the middle of a great conversation, there are also some hidden gems about challenges encountered in the field. Tune in to hear more!

Mikey speaks with Ebehi Iyoha of Harvard Business School about her working paper with Melko Dragojević and Stejpan Srhoj on spillover effects — the effect on firms when large grants were awarded to other firms in their supply chain — in Croatia. Ebehi goes into detail about they borrowed techniques from the study of networks and applied it to this setting in order to answer a novel question about how grant spending progogates through a network of firms.

Santiago speaks with Matt Lowe about “Psychedelics and Well-Being: An Experiment in Brazil,” coauthored with Patrick Francois and Ieda Matavelli. Matt takes us behind the scenes of the project: how the idea began, what it meant to study psychedelics as economists, and how the team navigated a topic that is making waves in other fields. He also reflects on the importance of building trust with an ayahuasca center, and how that relationship opened the door to a richer research design than the team initially imagined. Join us for the backstory behind this project!
The working paper version is available at: https://mattjlowe.github.io/files/Francois%20Lowe%20Matavelli%20(18dec25)%20Psychedelics.pdf

Maddison speaks with Patrick Agte of the Stockholm School of Economics about his working paper on the understaffing of India's public healthcare system, and how performance was dramatically improved by the adding a second healthcare worker to village clinics. They also discuss the benefits — and costs — of building relationships with government officials for conducting important research.
The paper is available here: https://patrickagte.github.io/patrickagte/agte_jmp.pdf

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!