Description

Many developing countries confront a common set of challenges, and policymakers in those countries often lack access to reliable and relevant explanations and evidence to help inform decision-making.

• What is the right mix of policies, investments, and incentives needed to spur industrial growth?
• How can policymakers ensure that prosperity is widely distributed and addresses the most extreme forms of poverty?
• What policies promote more effective government and more free societies?
• How can societies prevent and respond to economic and political instability?

Together, these are the defining problems of the 21st century. They do not demand a new approach to economics or new tools. Instead, these problems demand that economists turn their attention, models, and analysis toward new places and a new set of questions.

The Development Economics Initiative brings together 20+ scholars from across the UChicago community for a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach to addressing these challenges. Through rigorous research and active engagement with policymakers and stakeholders, UChicago scholars can push the frontiers of research and have real world impact.

2020-21 Field Requirements