CSAE Predoctoral Fellow

The postholder will join Associate Professor Dennis Egger as an inaugural pre-doctoral fellow of a new research group for macro-experimental development at Oxford. The group will focus on combining experimentation at-scale with more structural approaches to economics to learn about the challenges and impacts of large-scale development interventions. Thematically, the research agenda will initially focus on the macroeconomic and general equilibrium impacts of cash transfers and social protection more broadly, particularly in East Africa (Malawi, Rwanda, and Ethiopia). The group will work with partner organisations, including local governments and the NGO GiveDirectly. There are several large-scale randomized controlled trials and large-scale data collections - on the direct and general equilibrium impacts of cash transfers and social protection policies, including in the context of refugees - in the field or in preparation, in Malawi, Rwanda, and Ethiopia.
The postholder will work as a research assistant on several large-scale research projects on cash transfers and social protection in East Africa. They will engage regularly with principal investigators, post-doctoral and doctoral students, and other pre-doctoral students in the group. They will be engaged in all aspects of the research process, e.g. fieldwork planning, the design of survey instruments, providing oversight to data quality checks, data cleaning and analysis, data visualization. The postholder will also play a key role in developing materials to communicate our results, including presentations and policy briefs.
The role will be based at Oxford, but may involve travel for fieldwork, workshops and policy engagement. CSAE and the research group can support this travel financially, as well as provide other research-related resources.
This position is a great opportunity for those hoping to go on to doctoral work in economics or public policy or a career in international development. It provides excellent exposure for the applicant's future career, specifically through oversight of a large-scale randomized control trials implemented in collaboration with governments, international organizations, and NGOs. This will be an great opportunity to observe and implement best practices in research conduct, and contribute to some large-scale long-term research projects from start to finish.
The post-holder would be embedded in a larger research group, learn from peers, doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows, and have access to the broader community of the Centre for the Study of African Economies [CSAE], an internationally renowned development economics research centre at the University of Oxford, with researchers based in the Department of Economics, the Blavatnik School of Government [BSG], and the Oxford Department for International Development [ODID]. They may attend seminars and conferences and potentially take some courses not for credit.

A successful candidate will have the ability to carry out independent quantitative research, excellent skills in statistics/econometrics and a demonstrated ability to take responsibility for driving new projects to completion. They should hold excellent team working, communication and organisational skills, with a keen eye for detail. A master's degree in economics (or similar) with a quantitative focus, along with an interest in development economics, is essential.