Before starting graduate school, I always imagined I would split the summer after my first year between travelling and joining a field research project to gain experience in conducting primary research in economics. Although these plans seemed out of reach under the “new normal” of a global pandemic, I hoped to make the most of these three months before diving back into coursework in the Fall. I’d always admired Professor Rema Hanna’s research at the intersection of public finance and development, and decided to reach out to her to ask about projects I could potentially help with over the summer. She described a new project she was about to launch with collaborators at MIT, the World Bank, and the Sri Lankan government, evaluating the effects of a large housing transfer program that has been running in Sri Lanka for the last twenty years. This sounded like an incredible opportunity, and I was immediately ready to jump on board!
As a research assistant on this project, I will help Professor Hanna and her collaborators lay the groundwork for an impact evaluation of the Samurdhi housing lottery. Since 2002, Samurdhi has been conducting a lottery under which approximately 34,000 beneficiaries have been awarded funds to date for purchasing land or building a house. The research project aims to study the effects of the housing transfer on living standards, investments in productive and human capital, and subsequent take-up of welfare programs. Since existing evidence on whether access to formal housing reduces gender gaps in earnings is mixed (Barnhardt et al., 2016; Franklin, 2020), I look forward to exploring whether large one-time transfers extended under the Samurdhi lottery helped to reduce gender gaps in earnings and labor force participation.
This project feels like a perfect fit given my interests in public finance, gender, and development economics. Even though I will be working from home in Delhi instead of in the field, I will have valuable opportunities to help with designing and piloting primary surveys, to build relationships with officials in the Sri Lankan government, and to learn more about project management. Since the project is in its early stages, I hope to be able to contribute to discussions about research design and gain first-hand experience in the coordination, exploratory data analysis, and pilot development required to launch a research project of this magnitude.
After a year of remote learning alongside classmates living all over the world, it feels only natural to be joining a team spanning time zones from Cambridge to Colombo! I’m excited to start my new role as a research assistant, and look forward to sharing updates here throughout the summer.