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Debates in Development Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee is Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2003, he founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), along with Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan and remains one of the directors of the lab. In 2009, J-PAL won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Development Cooperation. Banerjee is a past president of the Bureau for Research in Economic Debates in Development: The Search for Answers Analysis of Development, a Research Associate of the NBER, a 2012 Annual Conference CEPR research fellow, and has been a Guggenheim Fellow and an Alfred P. Sloan The Great Hall at Cooper Union, New York City Fellow. His areas of research are development economics and economic theory. He is the author of three books including Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way 9:00am-10:00am to Fight Global Poverty, as well as a large number of articles, and is the editor of a Coffee and Refreshments fourth book. 10:00am-10:45am Welcome by NYU Provost David McLaughlin and Michael Clemens is a senior fellow and Research Manager at the Introductory Remarks from DRI Center for Global Development where he leads the Migration and Technology Answers and Development Possibilities Development initiative. His current research focuses on the Yaw Nyarko, NYU Development Research Institute effects of international migration on people from and in Finding Answers or Answer-Finding Systems? developing countries. His past writings have examined the effects William Easterly, NYU Development Research Institute of foreign aid, determinants of capital flows, the effects of tariff policy in the 19th century and the historical determinants of 10:45am-12:15pm school system expansion. Clemens has served as an Affiliated Session I: Development Goals, Evaluation, and Learning from Projects in Africa Associate Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Michael Clemens, Center for Global Development Stewart Paperin, Open Society Foundations Angus Deaton is Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Bernadette Wanjala, Tilburg University Development Research Institute Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson 12:15pm-1:30pm School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Lunch Provided Department at Princeton University. He is a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the American 1:30pm-2:30pm Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Econometric Session II: Keynote Address: Finding Answers in the Global Market Society and, in 1978, was the first recipient of the Society's Andrew Rugasira, Founder and Chairman, Good African Coffee, Uganda Frisch Medal. He was President of the American Economic 2:30pm-3:00pm Association in 2009. In 2012, he won the BBVA Frontiers of Coffee Break Knowledge Award in Economics. His main current research areas are health, well- being, and economic development. 3:00pm-4:30pm Session III: Searching for Answers with Randomized Experiments Esther Duflo is Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, MIT Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Presentation of their book Poor Economics Economics at MIT and a founder and director of the Abdul Latif Discussant: Angus Deaton, Princeton University and Woodrow Wilson School Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), specializing in randomized 4:30pm-5:00pm evaluations of social programs, which won the BBVA Foundation Poor Economics Book Signing Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Development Cooperation. *** Duflo is an NBER Research Associate, serves on the board of the www.nyudri.org Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development Follow the conference on twitter: #DRIdebates (BREAD), and is Director of the Center of Economic Policy Research's development economics program. Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing Stewart J. Paperin is Executive Vice President of the Open countries, including household behavior, education, access to finance, and health and Society Foundations and President of the Soros Economic policy evaluation. Duflo has received the John Bates Clark Medal (2010), a MacArthur Development Fund, a non-profit social investment fund. He Fellowship (2009), and many other awards. In 2008-2009, she was the inaugural manages the administration and operations of the holder of the Knowledge Against Poverty international chair at the Collège de France. Foundations and provides leadership to the Foundations' She is the co-author of Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight economic reform and development activities. Paperin was Global Poverty. previously president of LionRock Partners, Ltd., a diversified consulting and investment firm in New York City, and William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York president of Brooke Group International, a US–based leveraged buy-out firm operating University and Co-Director of the NYU Development Research in the former Soviet Union. He also served as chief financial officer of Western Union Institute, which won the 2009 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge in Corporation during a major restructuring. Paperin has served as a member of the Development Cooperation Award. He is the author of two boards of directors of Western Union Corporation, PennOctane Corp., Global books: The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid TeleSystems Group, Inc., Golden Telecom Inc., Armour Reit and OAO Svyazinvest the Rest Have Done So Much Harm and So Little Good (2006) (Russia’s national telephone company) as well as a variety of emerging internet and and The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and telecommunication companies. Paperin also serves on the boards of directors of Misadventures in the Tropics (2001). The former won the FA several economic policy institutes in Central and Eastern Europe and as a director of Hayek Award from the Manhattan Institute. He was named in 2008 and 2009 among the National Urban Reconstruction Housing Authority of South Africa. the Top 100 Global Public Intellectuals by Foreign Policy. He is Research Associate of the NBER, senior fellow at BREAD and nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. He is Andrew Rugasira is Founder and Chief Executive of Good also the 11th most famous native of Bowling Green, Ohio. African Coffee, a Uganda-based social enterprise that brings quality coffees roasted and packed at source to the David McLaughlin is Provost at New York University and a global market. Good African was the first African-owned Professor of Mathematics and Neural Science at the coffee brand to be listed in UK supermarkets and works Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (CIMS). He is an with a supply network of more than 14,000 coffee farmers applied mathematician, whose recent work in visual neural in western Uganda, where the company has also developed science has focused upon computational models of the 17 savings and credit co-ops for those farming communities. Previously, he was CEO of primary visual cortex. He is a member of the National VR Promotions Ltd, Uganda’s leading promotions and events management Company, Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American and held a research position at the Centre for Basic Research in Kampala. Rugasira is Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association involved with a number of charities and church projects in Uganda. He is a Fellow of for the Advancement of Science, and the Society for Industrial and Applied the Royal Society of Arts, London, a member of Uganda’s Presidential Investor Mathematics. From 1994-2002, he was Director of NYU's Courant Institute of Roundtable (PIRT), and sits on the board of Maisha Film Lab. He has won several Mathematical Sciences. awards, including the Legatum Pioneers for Prosperity Award (2007) and Uganda Coffee Development Authority’s Ugandan Entrepreneur of the Year (2007). He was Yaw Nyarko is Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Arts and nominated by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader (2007) and for a Science of New York University. He is Co-Director of the NYU Financial Times/Accelor Mittal Boldness in Business Award (2010). He has written Development Research Institute and is the founding Director of articles in numerous publications, including the Guardian (UK), the Financial Times NYU’s Africa House, a multi-disciplinary institute devoted to the (UK), the Telegraph (UK) and the New Vision (Uganda), and is currently completing his study of contemporary Africa. He is the author of numerous first book to be published by Random House in 2012. refereed publications. His current research in economics focuses on human capital models of economic growth and development. Bernadette Wanjala is an economist, currently working as a He also works on theoretical models of economic decision policy analyst at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research making where the economic actors engage in active learning about their economic and Analysis (KIPPRA) in Nairobi, Kenya. She is also a PhD Fellow environments. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the United Nations, and at Development Research Institute (IVO), Tilburg University, the Social Science Research Council, among others. He recently served as NYU’s Vice Netherlands. Her research interests are fiscal policy, gender and Provost for Globalization and Multicultural Affairs with responsibility for the macroeconomics, macroeconomic modeling, social accounting university’s international campuses and programs. matrices and impact evaluation. .
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