Discipline: Economics

Guanghong Xu

Guanghong is an Economics Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). His research focuses on the economic development of lower-income countries and how technology can help with global poverty reduction. He has conducted fieldwork in Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania. He’s currently a visiting scientist at International…

Egor Bronnikov

Egor is a doctoral researcher and PhD Candidate in Economics at the School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University, a research assistant at the Faculty of Economics at Harvard University, and an adjunct professor at the Free University of Moscow (Brīvā Universitāte). Inter alia, Egor is a member of Dissernet, an…

PGRP Onboarding Materials for Collaborative Reproducible Workflows

Catalyst Thomas Brailey developed a set of training materials to help transition J-PAL’s Payments and Governance Research Program (PGRP) towards a version-controlled research pipeline by onboarding all research team members to GitHub, GitHub desktop, and R. These teaching materials can be applied to onboard other research/lab teams across a variety of contexts…

Improving Research Transparency, Reproducibility and Open Science Research in Burkina Faso

This training aims to contribute to empowering the next generation with the appropriate tools and the road map used to conduct transparent, reproducible, and open research. We will train master’s students, Ph.D. candidates, postdocs, junior faculty, and researchers in Economics, Political Sciences, and Public policy in methods for transparent, open, and reproducible…

Doing Open Science: Reproducibility, Transparency, and Ethics in Social Sciences

Social science should be widely available for critical interpretation and contribution to foster open societies. The “Haciendo Ciencia Abierta” workshop aims to strengthen research practices by providing the Spanish-speaking community with approaches and free, open-source tools for transparent and reproducible social sciences. The 3-day synchronous remote workshop will take place at the…

Starting from Scratch: Training Teachers and Students of Tribhuvan University, Nepal on Fundamentals of Research Ethics and Transparency

At Tribhuvan University, Nepal, graduate, and undergraduate students conduct a mini-research project or write a thesis in the last year of study. They receive training in research methods and related coursework. However, the course curricula do not have research ethics and transparency component. As a result, students are missing out on learning…

Bishal Chalise

Bishal is a second-year Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Economics at Deakin University, Australia and a lecturer at Tribhuvan University, Nepal (on leave). He conducts applied economic research at the intersection of development, environment, and political economy. As a BITSS Catalyst, he received a grant in 2022 to organize various training…

Coding style guides for collaborators (in R, Stata, and Python)

Developed by Sean Higgins (Northwestern University) and colleagues, this guide provides instructions for using R on research projects. Its purpose is to use with collaborators and research assistants to make code consistent, easier to read, transparent, and reproducible. See also the Python Guide and Stata Guide.

Social Science Reproduction Platform

The Social Science Reproduction Platform crowdsources and catalogs attempts to assess and improve the computational reproducibility of social science research. Instructors can use the SSRP in applied social science courses at the graduate or undergraduate levels to teach fundamental concepts, methods, and reproducible research practices. Get started by creating a free account and browsing…

A template README for social science replication packages

The template README follows best practices as defined by a number of data editors at social science journals. A full list of endorsers is listed in Endorsers. The most recent version is available at https://social-science-data-editors.github.io/template_README/. Specific releases can be found at https://github.com/social-science-data-editors/template_README/releases. The template README is available in a variety of formats, including HTML…

Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri

Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics and Affiliated Professors at the Center for Research and Formation in Artificial Intelligence (CINFONIA) at the University de Los Andes. Before joining Los Andes, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in data science in applied microeconomics at the National Center for…

Evidence on Research Transparency in Economics

A decade ago, the term “research transparency” was not on economists’ radar screen, but in a few short years a scholarly movement has emerged to bring new open science practices, tools and norms into the mainstream of our discipline. The goal of this article is to lay out the evidence on the…

The State of Social Science (3S) Survey

Has there been a meaningful movement toward open science practices within the social sciences in recent years? Discussions about changes in practices such as posting data and pre-registering analyses have been marked by controversy—including over the extent to which change has taken place. This study, based on the State of Social Science…

Development Research in Practice : The DIME Analytics Data Handbook

“Development Research in Practice” leads the reader through a complete empirical research project, providing links to continuously updated resources on the DIME Wiki as well as illustrative examples from the Demand for Safe Spaces study. The handbook is intended to train users of development data on how to handle data effectively, efficiently,…

Analysis Plans in Economics

Find slides from a presentation by Benjamin Olken titled “Analysis Plans in Economics”.

Filling in the gaps: a workshop to promote, improve, and implement transparency and reproducibility tools in health economics research

This project aims to improve open science (OS) practices in health economics research (HER) through the promotion of transparency and reproducibility (TR) tools. Although HER has a huge impact on the policy-making process, transparent and reproducible research has not been entirely fulfilled. The practice of OS standards within the community has been…

Transparency and Equity in Pre-Doctoral Research

Pre-doctoral research positions are becoming increasingly common in economics and related fields. While these pre-docs are often responsible for data collection, cleaning, and analysis, there are no open science initiatives geared toward those who will fill these positions. Furthermore, pre-doctoral researchers in economics tend to have similar backgrounds in terms of demographics…

Raquel Guimaraes

Dr. Guimaraes is currently an Assistant Professor of Economics and Demography in the Department of Economics at Federal University of Paraná (Brazil). She is a Guest Researcher (by courtesy) at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA, Austria) and in the Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Human Capital (WiC, Austria). Raquel…

Anna Josephson

Dr. Anna Josephson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Arizona. She completed her PhD and MS in Agricultural Economics at Purdue University and BS in Geology and Economics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Josephson’s research focuses on individuals in and households around…

Jun Wong

Jun is a research assistant at NYU Stern. His research interests are primarily in climate change, development, and innovation. He received his undergraduate degree in Economics from UC Berkeley. Contact

Jeffrey Michler

Jeff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Arizona. He earned his PhD in Agricultural Economics at Purdue University in 2015 and completed a postdoc at the University of Illinois in 2017. Prior to joining the University of Arizona, Jeff was an Assistant…

Birhanu Adamie

Birhanu Adamie is a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Sweden. He holds a PhD in Development Economics from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2016, he was a visiting scholar at Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. Previously, he also worked as a…

Andrea Salas Ortiz

Andrea studied a B.A in Economics at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo (UMSNH) and a master in Administration and Public Policy at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), in Mexico. Throughout her professional career, Andrea has worked in different areas: economic regulation; management and organizational theory; health…

Ahwaz Akhtar

Ahwaz is based out of Pakistan and is associated with Indus Health Network and Center for Economic Research in Pakistan. His work is mainly focused on improving public health and increasing private sector productivity in developing country contexts. More recently, he was involved with several COVID-related initiatives that were aimed at supporting…

Data Citations module

Created by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, this module introduces students to the key elements of data citations. See also related modules for Data Literacy.

Handbook on Using Administrative Data for Research and Evidence-Based Policy

Co-edited by Shawn Cole, Iqbal Dhaliwal, Anja Sautmann, and Lars Vilhuber and published by J-PAL’s Innovations in Data and Experiments for Action Initiative (IDEA), this handbook includes case studies of large-scale randomized evaluations using private and national government administrative data, and technical guidance to support partnerships with governments, nonprofits, or firms to…

Comparison of multiple hypothesis testing commands in Stata

In this post on the Development Impact blog, David McKenzie (World Bank) compares various Stata packages used for multiple hypothesis testing adjustments and discusses settings where each package is best applied.

Pre-Analysis Plans for Observational Research

In her presentation at RT2 DC in 2019, Fiona Burlig (University of Chicago) provides advice on how one can credibly pre-register an observational research project. Also see Burlig’s 2018 paper that describes three scenarios for pre-registration of observational work, including i) cases where researchers collect their own data; ii) prospective studies; and…

Data for Development Impact (Resource Guide)

“Data for Development Impact: The DIME Analytics Resource Guide” is intended to serve as an introduction to the primary tasks required in development research, from experimental design to data collection to data analysis to publication. It serves as a companion to the DIME Wiki and is produced by DIME Analytics.

Open Science Module for Behavioral Science graduate course

Instructors Kelly Zhang (MIT GOV/LAB) and Chaning Jang (Busara) integrated a module on research transparency and the use of pre-analysis plans as part of the Behavioral Science in the Field course designed for graduate students who use behavioral science games as part of their research.

J-PAL Guide to De-Identifying Data

Developed by J-PAL’s Sarah Kooper, Anja Sautmann, and James Turrito, this guide includes: An overview of personally identifiable information (PII) and the responsibility of data users not to use data to try to identify human subjects Recommendations for handling direct identifiers (such as full name, social security number, or phone number), as…

J-PAL Guide to Publishing Research Data

Developed by J-PAL’s Sarah Kooper, Anja Sautmann, and James Turrito, this guide includes: A list of considerations to make before publishing data, such as what information was provided to study participants and the IRB, the sensitivity of the data collected, and legal requirements Sample consent form language that will allow future publication…

BITSS Registered Reports Literature Review

Prepared by BITSS, this literature review includes information on the distinguishing features and advantages of registered reports, as well as challenges involved in its implementation.

A Breath of Fresh Air: Raising Awareness for Clean Fuel Adoption

Air pollution is amongst the gravest public health concerns worldwide and indoor sources are the largest contributors in many developing countries. Attempts to persuade hoseholds to use more efficient solid-fuel cooking stoves have been mostly unsuccessful in reducing air pollution. We build on a new, nation-wide program in India that has provided…