Stanford King Center on Global Development

One week left to apply: Present your economic development research paper at the largest West Coast conference on global Development Economics, and one of the leading Development Economics events in the United States. 🌎

The King Center will host the 2024 Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev) on March 9, 2024.

Researchers from around the world are encouraged to apply to present papers at PacDev. Call for Papers deadline: Sunday, December 10, 2023.

Apply 👉 https://stanford.io/419jS7V

Deadline for the King Center’s Postdoctoral Fellowships: 12/3/23

We offer support to new PhD recipients—coming from fields such as computer science, earth systems science, economics, engineering, health policy, political science, sociology, and more. We support policy-relevant research related to international development and poverty alleviation. 🌏

✅ Learn more: https://stanford.io/47DTqWu
✅ Fellowship application deadline: 12/3/23

Know a scholar with research that's tackling some of the world's most pressing problems? Share this! 👇

🔀 The King Center on Global Development welcomes research paper submissions for the 2024 Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev)—the largest West Coast conference on Development Economics, and one of the leading Development Economics events in the United States—taking place March 9, 2024.

Call for Papers deadline ✅ 12/10/23
Learn more 🔎 https://stanford.io/47Tx2IC

Know someone who's on their way to being a global development scholar & researcher? 🌍

The King Center offers predoctoral fellowships to students pursuing careers in academic research focused on issues around global development, equity and poverty alleviation.

The multidisciplinary program provides a diverse set of fellows with the opportunity to gain research experience and preparation for applications to PhD programs and doctoral studies. In partnership with the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Applications for the predoctoral program close January 7, 2024: https://stanford.io/3t42eWB

Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev) 2024 - CEGA About the Conference The Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev) is one of the major annual conferences dedicated to development economics. The event brings together researchers and practitioners to present and discuss work that enhances our understanding of economic development, advan...

The King Center welcomes research paper submissions for the Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev) taking place March 9, 2024.

Some funding for conference travel costs is available for the P*s of accepted papers, based in low- and middle-income countries.

Call for Papers deadline ✅ 12/10/23
Apply 👉 https://stanford.io/3utpsWu

Looking for support to pursue your policy-relevant research related to international development and poverty alleviation? 🌏

The Deadline for King Center Postdoctoral Fellowships is a week away! 12/3/23!

Apply for The King Center’s Postdoctoral Fellows Program. We offer support to new PhD recipients—coming from fields such as computer science, earth systems science, economics, engineering, health policy, political science, and sociology.

✅ Learn more: https://stanford.io/46xgbKC
✅ Fellowship application deadline: 12/3/23

Present your economic development paper at the largest West Coast conference on global Development Economics, and one of the leading Development Economics events in the United States. 🌎

The King Center will host the 2024 Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev) on March 9, 2024. We welcome economic development researchers from around the world to apply to present papers at PacDev.

Researchers are encouraged to apply to the Call for Papers by Sunday, December 10, 2023 at 11:59 PM PST.

Apply 👉 https://stanford.io/40S2ep7

Spread the Word! 📣
The King Center offers new PhD scholars to pursue policy-relevant research on topics related to and alleviation. 🌍

Only two weeks left to apply! 👉 https://stanford.io/3svxeyK
Deadline: 12/3/23.

Applications are still open for the King Center Fellows Program! The program is intended for outstanding new PhD recipients to pursue policy-relevant research on topics related to and poverty alleviation.

Former postdoc Juan Felipe Riaño spoke about his time in the program, including his research in and a conference he organized with King Center support. Read about his experience: https://stanford.io/40tYpGy

We particularly encourage applications from women and minority PhD recipients and from scholars from low- and middle-income countries, as well as from others whose backgrounds and experience would contribute to the diversity (broadly defined) of the program.

Learn more about the program: https://stanford.io/40yaD0I

📷 The King Center is proud to present one of the winners of our Photo Contest, Tracy Li, EdS '25, from the Stanford Graduate School of Education!

"Sisters walking to school together in the morning in the Juaboso District, Western Region, ."

📣 SPREAD THE WORD: Applications for the King Center's Research Fellows Program open NEXT SATURDAY, November 11!

A full-time, two-year program, this multidisciplinary program is designed to prepare individuals for careers in academic research focused on issues related to , and operates in partnership with Stanford Graduate School of Business. Students from low- and middle-income countries are particularly encouraged to apply!

Know someone who's interested? Share Ei Thandar Myint's story about being a member of the inaugural cohort at the King Center 👉 https://stanford.io/49nGMMx

"I see the amount of beauty, hope, creativity that immigrant populations bring to the US," explains Andrew Leon Hanna. "But when I look up at the news I see a very different story being told."

At King Center's , Hanna spoke about his new book , with Dr. Adam Lichtenheld, Executive Director of the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University. Hanna discussed how, despite overwhelming obstacles and often being cast as "victims or villains", refugees overwhelmingly want to contribute, create community and help others.

"I wanted to tell a story that honors the voices of these folks...and entrepreneurship is such an interesting lens," says Hanna. "It shows how you put your ideas and creativity into the world, in practice."

Watch the recorded book talk here: 👇
https://bit.ly/3SlQ31K

Did you know that the King Center’s program offers scholars the chance to work with some of the world’s leading experts in and ? 🍃

Whether it’s food security with David Lobell, sanitation engineering with William Tarpeh, infectious diseases with Erin Mordecai, or human ecology with James Holland Jones, these postdocs are making a difference in solving global challenges. 🌍

Read more about our faculty mentors:
https://stanford.io/3QRRDHH

📷 The King Center is proud to present one of the winners of our Photo Contest, Liza Goldberg, BS '24, from the Department of Earth System Science at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability! The photo was taken in Cotonou, .

"This photograph was taken via a drone that we flew above Lake Nokoué while we traveled via motorized canoe below. This lake has thriving mangrove forests, which the local communities rely on for fish and coastal protection from storms. Here, we see an ideal example of harmony between human and natural needs."

“The global refugee crisis continues to get worse due to wars and climate change. Is there some role for entrepreneurship to be a piece of the puzzle to solve the crisis?” asks King Center Faculty Affiliate and Associate Professor of Management Science and Engineering Charles Eesley.

This summer, Natalie Milan, ’24, MA ’24, and Faith Zehfuss, ’24, traveled to Kampala, Uganda, as undergraduate student research assistants, where they helped Eesley and PhD candidate Zahra Hejrati facilitate a 10-week program for .

Both Milan and Zehfuss say they are most proud of helping forge a partnership with Makerere University Business School’s Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Incubation Centre. The connection will give participants in the Stanford program unprecedented access to clinics run by the university.

https://stanford.io/40lqdN7

Stanford School of Engineering Management Science and Engineering - Stanford University

📷 The King Center is proud to present one of the winners of our Photo Contest, Anna Vdovina, PhD '28, from the Department of Economics of the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences!

"I took this photo while volunteering for an educational NGO in Zanzibar, Tanzania. These women were heading to a birthday party nearby and I thought it would be a beautiful moment to capture the mood and the sense of community."

Know any graduate students working in ? They'll want to hear about this! 📢

Next Wednesday, Nov. 1, the King Center will be hosting Research Roadmap: Failing Forward, a panel discussion about how to adapt and recover—and even learn and thrive!—when field research plans get derailed.

https://stanford.io/3tUlwOb

A new Washington Post analysis shows that and demographic growth could put over 5 billion people at risk for by 2040.

Watch the King Center's panel event about innovative approaches to malaria elimination, where Dr. Jane Achan, Dr. Ally Olotu, Dr. Michelle Hsiang discussed ongoing efforts and successes in malaria eradication programs, drawing from their research experience around the world.

https://bit.ly/46HzxgJ

The original article: https://wapo.st/3tMF8nt

Speaker Series on Malaria Eradication On Thursday, August 3, 2023, the King Center on Global Development hosted a panel about the ongoing efforts and successes in malaria eradication programs, dr...

Want to join a world-class research community and make an impact on ? Apply for the King Center Fellows Program by Dec. 3!

The program is intended for promising new PhD recipients—coming from fields such as computer science, earth systems science, economics, engineering, health policy, political science, and sociology—to pursue policy-relevant research on topics related to international development and poverty alleviation.

See what current postdoc Karmini Sharma has to say about the program: https://stanford.io/40pgbLj

Learn more about the program: https://stanford.io/497RlDj

Join us for our exciting at Stanford next week!

On Thursday, Oct. 26, we'll be hearing from author and entrepreneur Andrew Leon Hanna about his Financial Times award-winning book, 25 Million Sparks: The Untold Story of Refugee Entrepreneurs.

“Refugees are among the most entrepreneurial people on Earth, despite facing the most extreme challenges. But beyond relaying the major economic value refugees provide and the incredible talents they possess, this book seeks to tell a human story that points to a more important truth: refugees are equal human beings deserving of dignity, simply for who they are.”
—Andrew Leon Hanna

Building from personal stories, the book discusses the broader crisis and the research behind why refugees are 1.5 to 2 times more entrepreneurial than native-born citizens, traveling to more than 20 camps and cities around the world to show the magnitude of refugees’ contributions to their adoptive homes.

After reading a passage from the book, Hanna will be joined in conversation by Dr. Adam Lichtenheld, Executive Director of the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University. They will discuss the refugee phenomenon highlighted in the book before opening up the discussion to questions from the audience.

https://stanford.io/449TH0O

“I’ve always been interested in the idea of puzzle solving,” says PhD student Jamie Hintson. “There are a lot of really complicated and opaque puzzles in political science. Disentangling them and understanding them can be really interesting.”

As a King Center funding recipient, Hintson is studying the expansion of in more than 20 African countries and how this ties to corruption in public procurement.

“Much of this expansion of state infrastructure has been hollow,” he says. “Why is the state investing heavily in building all of this infrastructure [that no one can use]?” Hintson’s research so far suggests that infrastructure projects are often rent-seeking enterprises: Government leaders pay contractors to build the facilities—and receive kickbacks—but do not set aside money for actual operations.

Read more about Hinston's findings here: https://stanford.io/3M44tiT

Did you know Oct. 17 marks the United Nations ? The King Center, 's global development hub, is contributing to creating scalable, sustainable solutions to address the root causes of global and . Here's how we're doing it:

Globally, 1 in 3 women experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. Former postdoctoral fellow Nirvikar Jassal researched women's access to justice in and whether gender-based policing reforms are working.
https://stanford.io/45BzbH2

Most research on inclusive education has been conducted in high-income countries. Undergraduate RA Alejandra Salazar, with Faculty Affiliate and Stanford Graduate School of Education Professor Alfredo J. Artiles, investigated how making education accessible for marginalized people is happening in . https://stanford.io/45QCxq9

Too often, extreme poverty comes with a wide range of psychological and social challenges. Funding recipient Catherine Thomas showed that psychosocial interventions like life skills trainings can improve the cost-effectiveness of anti-poverty programs. https://voxdev.org/topic/labour-markets-migration/can-psychosocial-interventions-make-anti-poverty-programmes-more-cost-effective-evidence-niger

📢 Spread the word: The King Center on Global Development provides competitive fellowship stipends for multidisciplinary Fellows working in ! 🌍

Applications are open now and close December 3. ⏰ Learn more about the program and application here:

https://stanford.io/3RUQTSL

Malnutrition Early in Life Sets Stage for Poor Growth and Death Babies who experience malnutrition may also experience worse cognitive development and have higher chances of death.

Current and former King Center undergraduate research assistants shared their experience in the lab of Professor Desiree LaBeaud, which specializes in arboviral epidemiology, or the study of mosquito-borne viruses, including dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and Rift Valley fever viruses in and other developing regions.

“It’s been an awesome process,” says Annabelle Smith, '24. “I felt like a valued member of the team, and seeing how Dr. LaBeaud is able to bridge her clinical duties as well as maintain a lab has shown me it’s possible. I definitely want to be involved in research, not only in medical school but hopefully when I am a physician.”

https://kingcenter.stanford.edu/news/king-center-supports-undergraduate-student-research-infectious-disease-lab

An estimated 1 million people are held in conditions of modern slavery in Brazil today. Members of the Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab, a King Center-supported initiative, traveled to Brazil to investigate possible trafficking sites while working alongside their Brazilian counterparts to expand an AI database designed to help authorities find illegal camps faster and more effectively.

https://healthpolicy.fsi.stanford.edu/news/stanford-researchers-investigate-human-trafficking-alongside-brazilian-partners-amazon

Three undergraduate students joined them, too. Thay Graciano, a King Center summer research assistant, traveled to Brasília to share the students’ research project with federal officials on the National Commission on the Eradication of Slave Work and in other ministries. She not only met with social workers and civil society organizations, but police chiefs, representatives of the Justice Department and Human Rights Ministry and labor unions.

“Policymaking was happening right in front of my eyes,” said Graciano. “Just being here actually makes you understand what it is that makes policy work—or not. Sometimes it's a bug in the data input; sometimes it's that small fix that can lead to big things. I read about policy, but here I'm actually getting to see policy in action and what can make it work.”

https://healthpolicy.fsi.stanford.edu/news/students-devote-their-summer-combating-human-trafficking-brazil

Stanford Researchers Investigate Human Trafficking Alongside Brazilian Stanford Health Policy is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford School of Medicine

Faculty Affiliate Alison Hoyt is working with a multidiscplinary team of researchers across Stanford to measure methane emissions in tropical wetlands—one of the largest sources of the potent greenhouse gas.

As a graduate student, Hoyt spent a lot of time installing and monitoring sensors in challenging field conditions. Specialized environmental methane sensors cost upwards of $30,000 and struggled with the extreme humidity. Now, Hoyt and collaborators are working on a new approach to overcome these challenges: calibrating commercially available sensors to do the job at a fraction of the cost. Networks of these sensors could be left unattended in remote field sites to continuously monitor emissions.

“My experiences in the field really motivated me to find a better way to collect data,” Hoyt said. “Getting a handle on greenhouse gas emissions gets more urgent every day, and no one knows exactly why methane levels in the atmosphere keep rising.”

'Getting a handle' on a potent climate threat Stanford researchers are working across disciplines to measure emissions of a potent greenhouse gas in extreme conditions.

PhD student Mark Walsh received support from the King Center for his experiment in studying why people are reluctant to share information about new technologies—in this case, mobile banking.

“When people have social concerns, they communicate in different ways to different people—it’s going to matter whom they are communicating to and what type of information it is,” Walsh explains. “They are worried about these things for good reason, and we need to account for those concerns in how we design interventions.”

https://kingcenter.stanford.edu/news/examining-barriers-communication-pakistan

On October 26, the King Center on Global Development and the Immigration Policy Lab invite you to hear from Andrew Leon Hanna, entrepreneur, author, and professor, about his book 25 Million Sparks: The Untold Story of Refugee Entrepreneurs (Cambridge University Press).

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year, it tells the stories of three Syrian women entrepreneurs living in the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan.

After reading a passage from the book, Andrew Leon Hanna will be joined in conversation by Adam Lichtenheld, Executive Director of the Immigration Policy Lab to discuss the refugee entrepreneurship phenomenon highlighted in the book.

https://stanford.io/449TH0O

The King Center's Conflict and Polarization initiative, which includes Faculty Affiliate Saumitra Jha and affiliated researcher Chagai Weiss, examined whether engaging in trade can deepen trust by encouraging Israelis to invest in a range of Israeli and Palestinian companies.

“Even though it’s clear that the markets really depend on trust to work, at the same time, it’s unclear whether participating in the markets might lead people to trust one another,” Jha said.

By encouraging Israelis to hold and trade stock in a range of Israeli and Palestinian companies, the researchers created an environment where people could learn about financial markets, recognize how intertwined Israeli and Palestinian business interests are, and even increase their support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Another Payoff From Trading Stocks: Reducing Political Polarization Government & Politics Another Payoff From Trading Stocks: Reducing Political Polarization An experiment shows that investing — even when unprofitable — can be a lesson in building trust. August 28, 2023 | by Sara Harrison When people from different backgrounds buy into the same market, they may ...

Globally, more than 2 billion people—mostly from rural areas of low-income countries—lack access to clean water. Unsafe water contributes to diarrheal disease, which is estimated to be the eighth leading cause of death globally.

In places without good water infrastructure, government and non-governmental organizations have encouraged people to safely treat their water at home. When used correctly, manual chlorination can improve health but relying on individuals to manually treat their water is unlikely to lead to widespread public health benefits.

In this research brief, former Postdoctoral Fellow Yoshika Crider investigated to what extent people manually treat their water with chlorine and the impact of "passive chlorination" systems, in which water is automatically treated before it is collected, in rural and urban low-income settings.
https://kingcenter.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj16611/files/media/file/su-kcgd_crider-passivetechnology_r6-webpost.pdf

One of the most popular strategies to increase energy efficiency and reduce pollution in homes is transitioning from gas to electric stoves.

A team of researchers including Faculty Affiliate Marshall Burke and former Postdoctoral Fellow Brandon de la Cuesta studied the health and environmental impacts of a program in that put induction stoves in 750,000 households.

"A key insight is that policies or programs that promote decarbonization could also have immediate and very large health benefits at population scale. Our study shows that these co-benefits of adopting these programs could be much larger than previously thought,” said Burke.

Benefits of Electric Stoves on Health and Environment in Ecuador An international team of researchers led by UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science investigated the health and environmental impacts of a program in Ecuador that put induction stoves in 750,000 households.

In a recently-published study, King Center undergraduate research assistant Claire Morton and Faculty Affiliate David Lobell show that adding minerals to farmland soil could help prevent childhood stunting, a condition due to chronic undernutrition that is associated with poor brain development and long-lasting harmful consequences, such as reduced school performance and increased disease risks.

The paper is the first large-scale study to examine the association between children’s nutritional status or health outcomes and soil mineral availability in India, where more than a third of children under five suffer from stunting.

Growing solutions to childhood stunting The Center on Food Security and the Environment is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

September 8 marks , which was declared by UNESCO to remind us all of the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights, and to advance the literacy agenda towards a more literate and sustainable society.

In , Faculty Affiliate Dr. Alfredo J. Artiles and undergraduate research assistant Alejandra Salazar investigated the ways in which inclusive education is defined and enacted across various levels of the educational system.

Most research on inclusive education has been conducted in high-income countries, and Artiles and Salazar are documenting the complexities of implementing inclusive education in a low-income nation.

https://kingcenter.stanford.edu/news/stanford-undergrad-examines-efforts-make-classrooms-guatemala-more-welcoming-traditionally

Ei Thandar Myint shared her experience as a Predoctoral Research Fellow from 2021 to 2023 at the King Center, where she worked with faculty affiliates on projects related to health, gender, representation, and development. https://kingcenter.stanford.edu/news/qa-king-center-predoctoral-fellow-ei-thandar-myint

The changing climate is dramatically altering the landscape of mosquito-borne diseases. Warmer temperatures, changes in rainfall, and human activity are enabling their spread to new places often unprepared to deal with them.

Faculty Affiliates Erin Mordecai and Desiree LaBeaud discuss what we know and how communities can protect themselves from these changing disease threats.

“Often people think that all mosquitoes are the same, or that all mosquitoes can transmit the same diseases, but in fact mosquitoes differ in their ecologies and their ability to transmit different pathogens, resulting in differences in how we prevent and mitigate disease transmission,” said Professor Mordecai, associate professor of biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

Mosquito diseases on the move | Stanford News Climate change and human activity are enabling the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, like dengue fever, to new places. Stanford infectious disease experts and disease ecologists discuss what we know and how communities can protect themselves from these changing disease threats.

A study by Faculty Affiliate Alessandra Voena and her co-authors analyze gender views in 60 countries representing 85 percent of the world’s population. They find that people worldwide often misjudge what others think about certain policies supporting women and what the majority opinion actually is.

Men and women, for example, are often believed to be on opposite sides of gender issues, such as whether women should have an advantage in hiring for leadership positions in government and business. The study data suggest that such perceptions are wrong: Men and women are much more aligned than people think.

https://kingcenter.stanford.edu/news/surprising-insights-global-study-perceptions-gender-norms