Research Assistantships

Description: The Growth Lab has been analysing value chains in clean energy technologies and other industries with a view to helping places integrate into these value chains. This research has so far relied on various aggregated trade data sets. We are acquiring a new, large-scale trade data set on firm-to-firm transactions, built from customs data. We will use the increased richness in this dataset to refine our understanding of green value chains and of places’ ability to integrate into these value chains using green industrial policy. While we will start with green industries, this work will have broader implications for industrial policy in other industries as well. Work will involve conducting deep dives into this dataset alongside Growth Lab researchers.

Required experience/qualifications: Completed or enrolled in one of Ricardo Hausmann’s courses. Background on trade flow analysis and trade policy, familiarity with gravity models is preferred.

Expected deliverables: TBD

Description: Support research on the success of migrant integration into different countries using labor force surveys.

Required experience/qualifications: Experience with large datasets and labor data.

Expected deliverable: TBD

Description: In many emerging economies, conglomerates solve many market failures. In this research, we will examine the properties of conglomerates in developing countries. In particular, we will analyse which industries the conglomerates pick to co-agglomerate under themselves.

Required experience/qualifications: Completed or enrolled in one of Ricardo Hausmann’s courses; dealing with large datasets; coding; and network analysis.

Expected deliverables: TBD

Description: The Growth Lab has access to a large-scale dataset on jobs and skills. We would like to understand the skill accumulation process using this dataset.

Required experience/qualifications: Completed or enrolled in one of Ricardo Hausmann’s courses; and dealing with large-scale data.

Expected deliverables: TBD

Description: One green growth strategy is for places to use ample renewable energy resources to build an energy-intensive industrial base. We are building a model that lets us assess suitable locations for clean energy-intensive industrial sites that make use of local clean energy resources. This work will largely involve identifying, cleaning, and combining large geospatial and other datasets on various parameters related to industry energy intensiveness. It will also involve applying techno-economic models that assess cost effectiveness of industrial production, at scale using these datasets. We aim to use this analysis to support policymakers who seek to develop an industrial base using clean energy resources.

Required experience/qualification: Completed or enrolled in one of Ricardo Hausmann’s courses; industrial analysis; and interest in green growth.

Expected deliverables: TBD

Description: The Growth Lab deals with many different datasets that require intuitive visual representations. The RA will help Growth Lab fellows in streamlining this process.

Required experience/qualifications: Dealing with large datasets; background in visualizations; coding; and network analysis.

Expected deliverables: TBD

Description: Conduct research and analysis to assess Azerbaijan’s potential for new FTAs, identifying priority partners and evaluating sectoral opportunities and risks.

Required experience/qualification: Completed or enrolled in one of Ricardo Hausmann’s courses. Background on trade flow analysis and trade policy, familiarity with gravity models is preferred.

Expected deliverables: Presentation and/or policy brief.

Description: Agriculture in Bolivia’s Andean and sub-Andean valleys has long been central to rural livelihoods, yet its productivity, diversification, and market integration lag behind comparable regions in neighboring countries. While regional peers have seen growth in highland crops such as coffee, quinoa, grapes, and horticulture, Bolivia’s valleys remain underdeveloped and face persistent logistical, institutional, and policy constraints. This RAship will focus on understanding how these peers achieved agricultural success in their highland valleys, and what lessons emerge for Bolivia. The research will look at the institutional arrangements (cooperatives, irrigation systems, extension services), infrastructure and logistics improvements, and policy frameworks that enabled productivity growth and market access. By studying these comparative experiences, the RAship will highlight what Bolivia could adapt or replicate to unlock opportunities in its own valleys and promote rural development.

Experience/qualification: Experience conducting literature reviews, case studies, synthesizing academic and policy sources, and writing analytical memos. Experience in agriculture topics is preferred. Ability to work with basic economic or agricultural data. Familiarity with Latin America, particularly Andean economies, is strongly preferred. Reading proficiency in Spanish (many sources will be in Spanish).

Expected deliverables: A written output/presentation summarizing key findings, including policy recommendations.

Description: For the past 20 years, Bolivia’s state-centric economic growth model has stifled private sector development. Today, the country has one of the highest informality rates in Latin America (close to 80%), low private investment (around 6% of GDP, 3x times lower than neighboring countries such as Paraguay and Peru), and little diversification in business activities. Firms cite burdensome business regulations, including restrictive labor policies, a very bureaucratic tax system, and trade barriers, as some of the obstacles constraining private sector development. The purpose of this workstream is to (i) analyze and evaluate Bolivia’s business regulations and identify most binding regulations to private sector development, with a focus on labor regulations, (ii) study the relationship between these regulations and informality, and (iii) provide policy recommendations for reform including changes to labor laws, the tax regime, and other restrictive policies. The RA would have the opportunity to apply the growth diagnostics methodology on labor market dynamics using quantitative and qualitative methods, engage with private sector actors in Bolivia, and advance the Lab’s understanding of the causes behind informality.

Required experience/qualifications: Experience conducting literature reviews, regulatory analysis, and writing policy memos. Ability to work with different data sources, such as enterprise surveys. Background in labor markets and informality preferred. Spanish proficiency preferred.

Expected deliverables: A business and labor regulations diagnostic with policy recommendations (both written output and slide deck). If interviews are conducted, a summary of the key findings during the interviews.

Description: Bolivia faces mounting macro-fiscal pressures driven by high and persistent fiscal deficits, monetization, and rising financial vulnerabilities. The Growth Lab has built a consolidated public-sector fiscal picture; the next step is to disaggregate it by level of government and assess how Bolivia’s decentralization architecture shapes revenues, expenditures, and fiscal balances. The student will (i) assemble and harmonize fiscal data for central, departmental, and municipal governments; (ii) map the budget cycle and execution bottlenecks across levels; and (iii) analyze how current and potential reforms in fiscal decentralization (i.e., intergovernmental competencies, transfers, and borrowing rules would affect fiscal balances at each level of government and to the overall fiscal position. The work blends public-finance analytics, institutional mapping, and policy translation.

Required experience/qualifications: Experience with public finance/fiscal federalism (revenue & expenditure assignments, intergovernmental transfers, PFM/budget execution). Spanish reading proficiency for budget/legal documents is a plus (English writing for outputs).

Expected deliverables: A harmonized subnational fiscal dataset with a codebook; a short diagnostic (written output) and slide deck on revenue/expenditure composition by level of government, execution, and decentralization implications; and a scenario tool to gauge impacts of plausible decentralization/transfer reforms.

Description: Bolivia’s mining cooperatives are at the center of the country’s mining sector and play a unique role compared to international norms – they dominate the $3bn heavy gold mining sector of the country. Originally created as small groups of workers who took over operations abandoned by the state during the 1980s collapse of COMIBOL, they have since grown into politically powerful organizations. Today, tens of thousands of miners are formally affiliated with cooperatives, though many operate under highly informal conditions. Unlike private firms, cooperatives are legally considered associations of workers rather than commercial enterprises, which exempts them from paying corporate income tax and provides them with other fiscal advantages. This legal status has encouraged their rapid expansion but also left regulatory oversight weak, leading to widespread informality within a “semi-formal” framework. We would like to understand efforts that other countries, such as Peru, have undertaken to formalize the informal mining sector. The RA will (i) analyze formalization approaches in other countries, such as Peru, and (ii) analyze the application of these learnings to Bolivia.

Experience/qualifications: Experience conducting literature reviews, case studies, synthesizing academic and policy sources, and writing analytical memos. Familiarity with Latin America and Spanish proficiency is preferred (many sources will be in Spanish).

Expected deliverable: A written output/presentation summarizing key findings, including policy recommendations.

Description: Bolivia’s transport constraints are costly within the country and to export markets. Mountainous/Amazonian geography hinder regional development and raise general logistic costs. Poor air connectivity and other means of reaching international markets act as a barrier to internatinonal exports and foreign-exchange (FOREX) generation. Transport costs are especially problematic for growth in agriculture exports and tourism exports. Quantifying how these costs shape market access and connectivity is key to boosting growth, diversifying into higher-value products and experiences, and increasing FOREX generation.

Required experience/qualification: Strong data skills and experience with geospatial analysis. Experience in analyzing multi-modal transport costs and logistics, including trade research is preferred. Spanish proficiency preferred.

Expected deliverable: A quantitative overview of Bolivia’s multimodal transport costs (e.g. road, rail, air, and river) with a focus on how these costs affect agriculture and tourism. This should include subnational and international comparisons, highlighting major bottlenecks and their implications for competitiveness. The work should also provide clear visualizations (maps, charts).

Description: Bolivia has one of the world’s largest fiscal deficits, which has triggered an ongoing macroeconomic crisis. Its economy is also highly constrained by a complex web of distortions. There are over 60 state-owned enterprises (SOEs), many of which hold several subsidiaries and contribute to both the fiscal crisis and the economy’s distortions. Taken together, they employ a substantial share of formally employed workers, and hold many real estate or other types of assets in their large balance sheets. A few key SOEs related to hydrocarbons, mining, electricity, telecommunications and transport explain most of the contribution to the fiscal deficit. However, other SOEs may introduce distortions or compete unfairly in specific markets. For example, there are SOEs for milk products, sugar, agro-processing, seeds and fertilizers, glass containers, paper and cardboard. The purpose of the research workstream is to study the landscape of SOEs in detail to understand each SOE’s externalities, fiscal contribution, balance sheet composition, employment, and capacity to be a positive agent of change over the short term or long term in Bolivia. RAs may be able to coordinate with counterparts in the Bolivian government during their research process.

Experience/qualification: Experience conducting literature reviews, case studies, synthesizing academic and policy sources, and writing analytical memos. Familiarity with Latin America and Spanish proficiency is strongly preferred (many sources will be in Spanish). Background in macroeconomics and microeconomics preferred.

Expected deliverables: A written output/presentation summarizing key findings, including policy recommendations.

Description: Malawi is facing a macroeconomic crisis where the path forward is not clear. Addressing high inflation, spiraling debt, foreign exchange scarcity, and growing risks within the financial system will require not only well-informed and bold policy choices but also active monitoring and adjustments as policy changes are implemented. Therefore, one focus of the next phase of the Growth Lab’s project in Malawi will include developing dashboards and other monitoring tools for tracking GDP, inflation, exchange rates (official & parallel), fiscal/monetary variables, and sectoral trends to improve decision-making. One or more student RAs could assist the team in building such tools using cleaned data from reliable sources (RBM, NSO, IMF, World Bank) as well as leveraging macro-level information to better inform priority decisions by the government.

Required experience/qualifications: Background in macroeconomics and data analysis. Skills with creating dashboards in Excel, Tableau, Markdown, Shiny, etc., are preferred.

Expected deliverables: Updated macroeconomic dashboard (could change based on the needs of counterparts).

Description: Economic opportunity in Malawi is severely constrained. Alongside project research to address constraints and accelerate growth opportunities in Malawi, the project will seek to inform better labor migration to countries with stronger economies. This topic will combine global research on new models of labor migration, including rotational migration, and specific policy strategies that will be explored with the Government of Malawi. Work is expected to include quantitative analysis, building on work in recent years by the Growth Lab and partner institutions, as well as qualitative research with Malawian counterparts.

Required experience/qualifications: Experience or special interest exhibited on the topic of labor migration.

Expected deliverables: Well-developed policy proposal(s).

Description: The Growth Lab’s project in Malawi is seeking to involve student RAs from Malawi and the wider region of Southern and Eastern Africa, in order to better prioritize economic research that responds to the needs of Malawian citizens and issues facing the region. Student RAs will not only share their own local knowledge and perspectives but also work alongside the Growth Lab team to develop approaches for better elevating voices across Malawian society and for diagnosing political economy roadblocks that undermine better responsiveness to society’s needs.

Required experience/qualifications: Malawian or from the nearby region, or special experience in the region.

Expected deliberables: TBD

Description: A Growth Lab team has conducted initial research over the summer to understand Malawi’s current macroeconomic crisis and its longer-term constraints to growth. The multi-year research project will empower the newly elected government with research and capacity building. To aid this effort, we are seeking student RA support with data cleaning, descriptive analysis, and policy research. This may include policy areas such as tax policy, social safety net design, labor market policies, and agriculture policy.

Required experience/qualifications: Experience with granular work with survey data and economics. Completed or enrolled in Ricardo Hausmann’s courses (DEV-130 or DEV-309) is preferred.

Expected deliverables: TBD

Description: After conducting extensive economic resarch at the national level in Morocco, the Growth Lab is expanding its research focus on individual cities to empower better local growth strategies. Student RA support is needed to help collect and analyze data on the cost of living in various Moroccan cities, especially data on housing costs for the last several years in Morocco, likely using archived rental data. This information will be used in city-level diagnostic efforts in the short term and will also contribute to a new effort at the Africa Business School in Morocco to construct datasets using emerging technologies. These datasets are intended for widespread use for economic research and policymaking in areas that are poorly covered by national data

Required experience/qualifications: Coding experience. City-level work experience or interest in Growth Diagnostics is preferred.

Expected deliverable: TBD

Description: Over the last year, the Growth Lab has conducted substantial research on innovation patterns in Morocco utilizing patent and research publication data. This research focus will expand in collabortion with a new research center that is now being launched at the Africa Business School. Student RA support will help to expand this joint research. One initial focus will be to analyze quantitatively and qualitatively potential university partnerships inside and outside Morocco to develop its innovation ecosystem.

Required experience/qualifications: Experience in innovation policy and coding is preferred.

Expected deliverables: Presentation and/or policy brief.

Description: The Growth Lab has conducted an intensive research project on the State of Wyoming, together with state and local partners, over the last three years. Following an effort over the last several months to support six targeted struggling rural economies across the state, the team is seeking one or more student RAs to expand the capacities of these communities in ways that are consistent with the local diagnoses of constraints to growth. Examples of targeted support could include: better marketing/repurposing of a rural gas station for new ownership in Clearmont, WY; support toward community projects to prepare for rare earth mining near Newcastle, WY; and local project design and delivery support with Lusk, WY.

Experience/qualifications: Participation in the Growth Lab’s Study Group on Rural American Economies in Spring 2025, and experience or special interest in rural economies is preferred.

Expected deliverables: TBD

Description: The Growth Lab has conducted an intensive research project on the State of Wyoming, together with state and local partners, over the last three years. The Wyoming Business Council, the state’s economic development agency, has developed a range of new approaches to respond to constraints to growth as a result of this collaboration. One objective that WBC is currently pursuing is better targeting of one of its largest grant programs to better target grant spending to projects that address binding constraints (see here for more information). The Growth Lab team is seeking student support to help in this policy design challenge.

Required experience/qualifications: Relevant experience in design or execution of grant programs. Participation in the Growth Lab’s Study Group on Rural American Economies in Spring 2025, and experience or special interest in rural economies is preferred.

Expected deliverables: TBD

Description: The Growth Lab has conducted an intensive research project on the State of Wyoming, together with state and local partners, over the last three years. The Wyoming Business Council, the state’s economic development agency, has developed a range of new approaches to respond to constraints to growth as a result of this collaboration. One new function that the Business Council is interested in expanding is regular and structured surveying – both of the business community and of local towns and other communities. The team is seeking a student RA with experience in surveying to help in the design of possible approaches.

Experience/qualifications: Experience in survey design and/or execution. Participation in the Growth Lab’s Study Group on Rural American Economies in Spring 2025, and experience or special interest in rural economies is preferred.

Expected deliverable: TBD