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Patricio S. Dalton

Associate Professor of Economics

Department of Economics, Tilburg University

Affiliated Fellow at CAGE, CentER, EBC, TiBER, IGL and IPA

J-PAL invited researcher (DigiFI Africa)

Coordinator for Tilburg of the ENTER Exchange Network (Carlos III, Mannheim, UAB, UCL, ULB, Stockholm -HHS & IIES, TSE, Tilburg). Follow ENTER on Twitter: https://twitter.com/enter_econ.   

Member of Editorial Advisory Board of the National Institute Economic Review.  

Representative for The Netherlands at the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics.

Co-founder and Director of the Network of Development Economists in The Netherlands

Office K-315, PO Box 90153, 5000 LE, Tilburg, NL. 

Phone (office): +31 13 466 4032

email: p.s.dalton AT uvt DOT nl

My UvT page, Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaltonPato , My Google Scholar. The Experimental Economists @ Tilburg

Research interest

My research lies in the intersection between poverty, psychology and decision-making using both formal models and experiments in the laboratory and the field.  My theoretical work addresses the implications of decision-making biases for welfare economics and the link between psychology and poverty. My experimental research has focused on the effect of different aspects of the condition of poverty on aspirations, productivity, preferences, beliefs, biases, emotions, cognitive function and rationality. I also study the effect of goal setting on productivity, of moral support on behavior and of unemployment benefits on labor supply. Most recently, funded by a DFID Grant, I have designed and conducted Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) to understand the constraints of small-firm growth in developing countries. In Kenya, I study the adoption and impact of mobile money by small merchants and how mobile improves their access to finance. In Indonesia, I investigate how small business growth can be fostered by curating and distributing knowledge of successful local practices. In Ghana, I test how the sole fact of setting mere goals can increase labor supply of rural workers. Funded by an ESRC-DFID grant, I am currently working on an RCT in India to empower parents to make their children's school more accountable. 

Recent Media Coverage

An article by Tilburg University about my research on moral support and performance.

A podcast by NOVAFRICA about my research on productivity improvement of small informal firms in developing countries (in English)

An interview by Tilburg University about my research (in English)

Tilburg Impact Award Nomination (video here)

An interview by New Scientist magazine about my research (in English) 

An interview by Trend magazine about my research (in Dutch) 

A recent  interview by Rethinking Economics published at ESB about teaching Economics (in Dutch)