Lead Researchers

Andrew BeathAndrew Beath
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University
Andrew Beath is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Government at Harvard University, with a focus on the microeconomic impact of institutional reforms in developing countries. With support from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Bank, Andrew is currently based in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he leads the local team overseeing the field work for the NSP impact evaluation. Andrew has previously worked on a prospective impact evaluation of the National Rural Access Program in Afghanistan, with various departments of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., with the National Assembly of the Kingdom of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, and with the Bulgarian National Bank in Sofia. In previous work, he served as primary author for a study comparing the investment climates of Brazil, India, and South Africa, and contributed to a volume on globalization and development with Ian Goldin and Kenneth Reinert. Andrew also taught a course on the history and theory of economic development at Harvard College between 2001 and 2006 and holds an M.P.A. in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.A. in Economics from Illinois Wesleyan University.
E-mail: beath@fas.harvard.edu
Web: http://www.gov.harvard.edu/people/andrew-beath

 

Fotini ChristiaFotini Christia
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fotini Christia joined the MIT faculty in the fall of 2008. She received her PhD in Public Policy at Harvard University and is the recipient of research fellowships from the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Her research interests deal with issues of ethnicity, conflict and cooperation in the Muslim world. Her manuscript The Closest of Enemies: Alliance Formation in Civil War is under contract at Cambridge University Press.

Fotini has published work on the role of local elites in civil wars and has done ethnographic, survey and experimental research in Afghanistan and Bosnia on the effects of institutions of cooperation in post-conflict, multi-ethnic societies. Fotini has also worked in the Middle East and Central Asia and has written essays and opinion pieces on her experiences from Afghanistan, Iran, the West Bank and Gaza and Uzbekistan for Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. She graduated magna cum laude with a joint BA in Economics-Operations Research from Columbia College and a Masters in International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
E-mail: cfotini@mit.edu
Web: http://web.mit.edu/polisci/faculty/F.Christia.html

 

Ruben EnikolopovRuben Enikolopov
Assistant Professor of Economics, New Economic School
Ruben Enikolopov is an Assistant Professor of Economics in New Economic School, Moscow, which he joined after completing his Ph.D. in Economics in Harvard University. His main area of specialization is political economy and economic development. Ruben has published works on the role of mass media and political institutions in American Economic Review and Journal of Public Economics and continues to work on several projects in these areas. He won First Prize in the Global Development Network Medals Competition for Research in Development. He worked as a consultant for various public and private institutions such as World Bank, United Nations, Russian Ministry of Finance, Citibank. He is teaching graduate level courses in Applied Econometrics, Politics and Finance, Inequality and Redistribution.
E-mail: renikolopov@nes.ru
Web: https://sites.google.com/site/rubenenikolopov/