Samuel Bazzi, UCSD

Samuel Bazzi, UCSD

Samuel Bazzi is a Professor of Economics in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Department of Economics at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). He holds the Pacific Economic Cooperation Chair in International Economic Relations at the School of Global Policy and Strategy. He is also a co-editor at the Journal of Development Economics.

His recent work explores the nation-building process in diverse societies, migration and cultural change, and the political economy of religion. He has a particular interest in how individuals and states adapt to the challenges of diversity, with complementary work in the United States and Indonesia.

Sam is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and a Fellow at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award in 2020.

email: sbazzi[at]ucsd.edu

see his curriculum vitae

working papers

Authority Figures and the Polarization of Gender Norms (with Ali Abboud, Serena Canaan, Antoine Deeb, and Pierre Mouganie)

[nber wp] [cepr dp]

It Takes a Village Election: Turnover and Performance in Local Bureaucracies (with Masyhur Hilmy, Benjamin Marx, Mahvish Shaukat, and Andreas Stegmann)

[nber wp] [cepr dp]

The Moral Values of "Rugged Individualism" (with Martin Fiszbein and Maximiliano Garcia Gonzalez)

[nber wp] [cepr dp]

When Do Migrants Shape Culture? (with Martin Fiszbein)

[nber wp] [cepr dp]

Forthcoming, Handbook of Culture and Economic Behavior, Volume 3 (editors: Benjamin Enke, Paola Giuliano, Nathan Nunn, and Leonard Wantchekon)

The Confederate Diaspora (with Andreas Ferrara, Martin Fiszbein, Thomas Pearson, and Patrick Testa)

[nber wp] [cepr dp]

Forthcoming, Review of Economic Studies

Information, Intermediaries, and International Migration (with Lisa Cameron, Simone Schaner, and Firman Witoelar)

[final draft] [nber wp] [cepr dp]

Forthcoming, Journal of the European Economic Association

Campaign Connections (with Claudio Labanca)

[final draft] [nber wp] [cepr dp] [VoxEu article]

Forthcoming, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Frontier History and Gender Norms in the United States (with Abel Brodeur, Martin Fiszbein, and Joanne Haddad)

[nber wp] [cepr dp]

Conditionally Accepted, Journal of the European Economic Association

Credit Supply Shocks and Firm Dynamics: Evidence from Brazil (with Marc-Andreas Muendler, Raquel Oliveira, and James Rauch)

[nber wp] [VoxDev article]

Revise and Resubmit, Review of Economics and Statistics

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publications

Protest Cycles and Radicalization in the Digital Age: The ReOpen Movement (with Jeremy Menchik, Clara Martiny, Pujan Paudel, Seth Soderborg, and Gianluca Stringhini)

Cambridge Elements Book Series, 2026.

Religion, Education, and the State (with Masyhur Hilmy and Benjamin Marx)

[final draft] [nber wp] [cepr dp]

Review of Economic Studies, May 2026 (Featured Article).

Short version: Education for the masses or the pious? Public and Islamic schools in Indonesia in Nation Building: Big Lessons from Successes and Failures, CEPR E-Book, Dominic Rohner and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, editors, 2023.

How to Build a Diverse Nation: Lessons from the Indonesian Experience

Based on Keynote Lecture, Mubyarto Policy Forum, Yogyakarta, Indonesia 2024.

Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, December 2025.

[final draft] [nber wp] [cepr dp]

The Other Great Migration: Southern Whites and the New Right (with Andreas Ferrara, Martin Fiszbein, Thomas Pearson, and Patrick Testa)

[final draft] [nber wp] [cepr dp]

Media: The Economist, Washington Post, NPR Morning Edition, VoxTalks

Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2023.

The Promise and Pitfalls of Conflict Prediction: Evidence from Colombia and Indonesia (with Robert Blair, Christopher Blattman, Oeindrila Dube, Matthew Gudgeon, and Richard Peck)

Review of Economics and Statistics, July 2022.

[final draft] [nber wp] [replication data]

Sundown Towns and Racial Exclusion: The Southern White Diaspora and the "Great Retreat" (with Andreas Ferrara, Martin Fiszbein, Thomas Pearson, and Patrick Testa)

American Economic Association: Papers & Proceedings, May 2022.

Deterring Illegal Entry: Migrant Sanctions and Recidivism in Border Apprehensions (with Sarah Burns, Gordon Hanson, Bryan Roberts, and John Whitley)

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2021 (Lead Article).

Rugged Individualism and Collective (In)action During the COVID-19 Pandemic (with Martin Fiszbein and Mesay Gebresilasse)

[nber wp] [cepr dp]

Journal of Public Economics, March 2021.

Media: CSMonitor

The Political Boundaries of Ethnic Divisions (with Matthew Gudgeon)

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2021.

[final draft] [nber wp] [cepr dp] [VoxDev article] [replication data]

Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of "Rugged Individualism" in the United States (with Martin Fiszbein and Mesay Gebresilasse)

Econometrica, December 2020.

[final draft] [nber wp] [cepr dp] [VoxEU article]

Media: Le Monde, WSJ, The Economist, Boston Globe, LA Review of Books, Marginal Revolution, BU Today, Weeds Podcast

The Institutional Foundations of Religious Politics: Evidence from Indonesia (with Benjamin Marx and Gabriel Koehler-Derrick)

Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2020.

[final draft] [replication data]

Unity in Diversity? How Intergroup Contact Can Foster Nation Building (with Arya Gaduh, Alex Rothenberg, and Maisy Wong)

American Economic Review, November 2019.

[final draft] [replication data] [VoxEU article] [AEA Research Highlight]

Short version: Diversity, Contact, and Nation Building: Evidence from Population Resettlement in Indonesia in Nation Building: Big Lessons from Successes and Failures, CEPR E-Book, Dominic Rohner and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, editors, 2023.

Media: Marginal Revolution

Finding the Poor vs. Measuring Their Poverty: Exploring the Drivers of Targeting Effectiveness in Indonesia (with Adama Bah, Julia Tobias, and Sudarno Sumarto)

World Bank Economic Review, October 2019.

Wealth Heterogeneity and the Income Elasticity of Migration

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2017.

[final draft] [online appendix] [replication data]

background notes: international migration from Indonesia, heterogeneity and aggregation

Skill Transferability, Migration, and Development: Evidence from Population Resettlement in Indonesia (with Arya Gaduh, Alex Rothenberg, and Maisy Wong)

American Economic Review, September 2016.

[final draft] [online appendix] [slides] [IGC blog post] [VoxDev article] [replication data]

It's All in the Timing: Cash Transfers and Consumption Smoothing in a Developing Country (with Sudarno Sumarto and Asep Suryahadi)

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, November 2015.

[final draft] [online appendix] [replication data: email me]

Economic Shocks and Conflict: Evidence from Commodity Prices (with Christopher Blattman)

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, October 2014 (Lead Article).

[final draft] [online appendix] [replication data] [commodity data]

Blunt Instruments: Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Identifying the Causes of Economic Growth (with Michael Clemens)

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, April 2013.

[final draft] [online appendix] [replication data]

Counting Chickens When They Hatch: Timing and the Effects of Aid on Growth (with Rikhil Bhavnani, Michael Clemens, and Steven Radelet)

The Economic Journal, June 2012.

Recipient of the Royal Economic Society Prize for best non-solicited paper published in The Economic Journal in 2012.

[final draft] [online appendix] [replication data]

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work in progress

Sanctions, Dissent and the Authoritarian Equilibrium (with Kiarash Hosseini, Benjamin Marx, and Pierre Mouganie)

The Drafted Nation: Economic and Political Legacies of Conscription (with Siddharth George and Kewei Zhang)

The Diffusion of Fertility Norms: Who Adopts from Whom and Why (with Hillel Rapoport and Martin Fernandez Sanchez)

Intergroup Contact and National Integration in a Divided Society (with Ali Abboud, Serena Canaan, Antoine Deeb, and Pierre Mouganie)

Religion in the Digital Age (with Layane Alhorr, Faiz Essa, and Benjamin Marx)

The Geography of Demographic Composition in the United States (with Eric Chyn, Andreas Ferrara, Martin Fiszbein, Thomas Pearson, and Patrick Testa)

Funded by the NSF and RSF

The Gender of Names (with Katarina Federov, Martin Fiszbein, and Eli Locke)

Accountability, State Capacity, and Public Goods (with Filipe Campante, Quoc-Anh Do, Radhika Goyal, Matthew Gudgeon, and Karthik Muralidharan)

The Frontier Roots of Religious America (with Martin Fiszbein and Benjamin Marx)

Guns, Rails, and Letters: Territorial Expansion and Nation Building in the United States (with Ariel Akerman, Chelsea Carter, Martin Fiszbein, and Mesay Gebresilasse)

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Identifying Productivity Spillovers Using the Structure of Production Networks (with Amalavoyal Chari, Shanthi Nataraj, and Alexander D. Rothenberg)

[VoxDev article]

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publications in health journals (with my better half)

Behavioral changes following HIV seroconversion during the historical expansion of HIV treatment in the United States (with Angela R. Bazzi and Wenjia Zhu)

AIDS, October 2018.

Incidence and Predictors of HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections among Female Sex Workers and Their Intimate Male Partners in Northern Mexico: A Longitudinal, Multilevel Study (with Angela R. Bazzi, Gudelia Rangel, Gustavo Martinez, Monica D. Ulibarri, Jennifer L. Syvertsen, Scott Roesch, Heather A. Pines, Steffanie A. Strathdee)

American Journal of Epidemiology, March 2015.

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resting projects

Teaching Anti-Corruption Norms (with Masyhur Hilmy, Benjamin Marx, Mahvish Shaukat, and Andreas Stegmann)

Individualism and Innovation (with Enrico Berkes, Martin Fiszbein, and Christian Fons-Rosen)

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