Department of Political Economy 🔬 S2.45 Strand Campus
King's College London ☏ 020 7848 7495
Strand WC2R 2LS London ✉ elisa.cavatorta[at]kcl.ac.uk
Welcome to my webpage!
VITA (click here to download a CV)
I am a Lecturer in Political Economy at King's College London and a researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (London).
I gained my PhD in Economics from Birkbeck College, University of London and I was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at SOAS, University of London before joining King's College. I was educated at the University of Glasgow (MSc Econ) and the University of Parma.
I worked for policy institutions in the Middle East and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
You may be interested in the research seminars of the Rationality, Choice and Uncertainty research group, which I organise at King's College, and the events of the London Behavioural & Experimental Group, a platform bringing together academics across disciplines and from all London universities interested in behavioural science and experiments. I am in the Board of Directors of the Association of Italian Scientists in the UK, a private company linking Italian academics and promoting research collaborations between Italian and British scientific institutions and industries. Please get in touch if you are interested in joining us.
RESEARCH FIELDS
My research interests are in the fields of behavioural and experimental economics and development economics.
My research has focused on decision-making, conflict and health behaviours in developing countries. I am particularly interested in the study of preferences and attitudes formation in post-conflict areas and development issues in the Middle East and North Africa.
My research has been funded by the King's ESRC Transformative Research Fellowship (2015), AXA Research Fund (2013-15), Global Development Network-Economic Research Forum (2012), Georgetown University (2011), SOAS Faculty of Law and Social Sciences Grant Competition (2012) and Birkbeck College School Grant (2012).
Beside my enthusiasm in research and teaching, I have a passion for Argentine tango, Thai cuisine and the charm of the Middle East.
PUBLICATIONS
Factor models in panels with cross-sectional dependence: an application to the extended SIPRI military expenditure data, Defence and Peace Economics, forthcoming (with Ron Smith, Birkbeck)
Factor models in panels with cross-sectional dependence: an application to the extended SIPRI military expenditure data, Defence and Peace Economics, forthcoming (with Ron Smith, Birkbeck)
Explaining Cross-State Contrasts in Child Nutrition in Rural India, World Development, 76, 2015, (with Bhavani Shankar and Artemisa Flores-Martinez). [Web-Appendix]
Background risk of food insecurity and insurance behaviour: Evidence from the West Bank, Food Policy, Vol. 43, 2013 , (with Luca Pieroni).
Food insecurity in the West Bank, in Food Security in the Middle East, Hurst, 2013, edited by Z. Babar and S. Mirgani.
From Conscription to Volunteers: Budget Shares in NATO Defence Spending, Defence and Peace Economics, 23(3), 2011, (with Vincenzo Bove).
Unobserved Common Factors in Military Expenditure Interactions across MENA Countries, Defence and Peace Economics, 21(4), 2010.
WORKING PAPERS
Preferences and exposure to policy shocks: Evidence from a natural experiment, (with Ben Groom).
Measuring ambiguity preferences, (with David Schroeder, Birkbeck).
Quality, accessibility and the demand for health care in Nigeria, (with Alice Mesnard, City University and Wendy Janssens, VU Amsterdam).
WORK-IN-PROGRESS
Experiments on Aggregate Informational Cascades, (with Antonio Guarino and Steffen Huck, UCL).
Social capital, conflict and risk-sharing in Colombia, (with Orazio Attanasio, UCL and IFS).
Heterogenous preferences and risk sharing, (with Bansi Malde and Orazio Attanasio, UCL and IFS)
Evaluation of Public Policies (MSc), King’s College
Econometrics (UG), King’s College
Economic Policy-making (UG), King’s College
Dissertation module convenor (UG), King’s College.
Advanced Issues in International Politics (UG), King’s College [co-taught with James Scott].
STATA/EViews Laboratories (UG and PG Diploma), King's College and Birkbeck College.
Introduction to Economics (UG), Birkbeck College.
UG and MSc Dissertation Supervision.
I taught classes in Quantitative Methods I, II (MSc, Birkbeck College), Financial Econometrics (UG, Birkbeck College).
Applied Statistics and Econometrics (PG Diploma, Birkbeck College), Applied Econometrics (UG, City University London), Introduction to Economics (UG, Birkbeck College).
Last update: Sept 2013