Website - Generating New Evidence to Address Violence Against Women: Realizing Women’s Rights (Evidence-VAW)
Violence against women (VAW) is both a cause of and a manifestation of gender inequality, yet it has drawn significantly less intellectual curiosity from economists than aspects of gender inequality such as the pay gap. VAW generates significant constraints on women’s lives, with spillovers for society, the economy and the next generation. It potentially causes physical and psychological harm, compromises women’s productivity as workers and parents, and distorts the optimal allocation of talent.
In the course of this project, I propose to acquire and generate under-used and unavailable data and to analyse the data using techniques for causal identification with a view to producing a rich tapestry of scientific evidence to guide policy and further scholarship.
This is an important time to do this as there is a growing consensus around prioritizing VAW in international policy making. Creative new strategies are being used in many countries to reduce VAW, but typically without scientific evaluation. The evidence base is thin. This is partly because representative time-varying data on VAW are scarce. Available data are contaminated by under-reporting and endogenous reporting behaviour.
This project will investigate institutional designs that encourage women to report VAW and that deliver justice on VAW; it will study the role of information and support in inducing behavioural change among men and women; it will analyse the likely value of policies addressing proximate causes; and the potential of women’s political mobilisation. It will include natural experiments and field and lab experiments. In addition to primary field data, it will use longitudinal administrative data. Although focused on women’s rights, it addresses issues on the frontier of economics research, including inequality, productivity, institutional design, political economy, and legislative reform.
Co-I, Labor Market Power, Institutional Structures, and Social Consequences, Norwegian Research Council grant. With M Bhuller, S Dodini, K Loken, A Willen, 2026--
Co-I, Rockwool Foundation research grant on postpartum depression and employment. With M Trandafir, M Daysal, T Zohar, 2025-2027
PI, Teacher effectiveness- an intervention on bonding with students. JPAL-MIT, Learning for All Initiative, 2025-2027. $75,533.70. With B Arold, S Chaudhury, J Vecci
Co-Investigator and co-theme leader, Wellbeing Strand, CAGE ESRC Research Centre grant, Warwick, 2024-2029, circa £7 million. With M Draca et al.
Co-PI, Evaluating incentives for firms to hire disadvantaged groups. JPAL-Europe ESII initiative, 2025-2026. 50,000 Euros. With E Rubolino, M Sandi, A Stegmann
NIHR (UK) Maternity Challenge Consortium. 2025-2030, £50 million, Warwick share TBC
European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant. €2.5 million. Principal Investigator (2021- 2026). The economics of violence against women. Awarded 2020, delayed for a year because of
Covid. (9.8% success rate)
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). £7.7 million. Co-Investigator (2019-2024). With E Delbono et al. Theme Leader ‘Families’, Centre on Micro-Social Change Essex (MiSoC)
ESRC Human Rights, Big Data & Technology Project, £5 million. Co-Investigator (2015-2022) Theme Leader ‘Health and Human Rights’. Large Grant held at Essex Human Rights Centre
Italian Social Security Institute (INPS). 2022 -2023. €6,000. Co-I. With E Rubolino, Roland Rathelot. The gender wage gap and pro-female labour market policies: Evidence from Italian administrative data.
National Institute of Health America (NIH) R01 Grant. $2.1 million. Co-Investigator (2022-2025). With V Baranov, J Maselko et al. Risk and resilience: Evaluating the multigenerational effect of a psychosocial maternal depression intervention against COVID-19-related stressors.
NIH R01 Grant. $3.3 million. Co-Investigator (2020-2025). With J Maselko et al. Early life adversities and the emergence of risk and resilience: a longitudinal study of child development.
Forte Research Grants Sweden. 3.2 million SEK. Named researcher (2021-2023). Abortion and domestic violence.
Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI). $126,000. Co-I. (2021- 2022). With J Carvalho, J Vecci et al. Knowledge for Action to End Violence Against Women and Violence Against
Children Research Grant. Understanding the impacts of Covid-19 on domestic violence in Brazil (2% success rate).
NBER Gender in the Economy Study Group Research Grants on Women, Victimization, and Covid-19. $20,000. Co-PI. (2020-21). With E Britto, D Clarke, P Phillipi, F Pino. Impacts of
Covid-19 on domestic violence- Evidence from administrative data leveraging rolling quarantines in Chile. (4% success rate).
Chilean Ministry of Science. National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) award. £46,500. Co-PI. (2020-2021). With E Britto, D Clarke, P Phillipi, F Pino. Covid-19 and social
distancing: impact on domestic violence and gender inequality.
CEDIL Grant. £1 million. Co-Investigator (2020-2023). With J Maselko et al. Evaluating complex interventions (withdrawn under FCO budget cuts).
GCRF Essex. £4848. PI. (2020). With M F Sierra. The dynamics of women’s work: Routes to economic and social empowerment.
Swedish Research Council. €495,000. Co-I (2019-2022). With P Martinsson, J Vecci et al. The Psychology of Poverty.
Innovations for Poverty Action. $177,500. Co-PI. (2019-2020). With Pietro Biroli, José Carvalho, Karlijn Morsink, Joseph Vecci. Addressing Intimate Partner Violence: Evaluating
Interventions with Male Perpetrators vs Female Victims in Brazil. Joint Principal Investigator
Grand Challenges Explorations Award. $95,900. Co-I. (2019-2020). With R Rocha. Using geocoded big data to identify causal links between infectious diseases and child developmental outcomes. Eastern Arc Facilitation Fund. £9582. Co-I. (2019). With I Clots-Figueras and J Gomes. The long run effects of climatic extremes on mental and physical health- Evidence from the UK.
Alderbert Foundation Research Award Sweden. €50,000. Co-I (2018-2021). With J Vecci and J Carvalho. Understanding and preventing domestic violence in Brazil.
GCRF Essex. £4920. PI. (2018-2019). With M F Sierra. Restricting access to health services: citizens’ rights and the effects of denying medical care in Colombia.
British Academy Small Grant. £10,000. PI. (2017-2018). With P. Nolen. Behavioural insights for evidence-based policy making to address domestic violence.
British Academy Sustainable Development Programme. £311,179. PI. (2016-2018). With R. Rocha. Welfare dependence and poverty traps.
British Academy Newton Advanced Fellowship. £84,155. Co-I. (2016-2019). With R Rocha. Hospitalization and mortality under the new policy on emergency care in Brazil.
ESRC grant. £200,000. Co-I. (2016-2018). With A Delavande, P Fisher, J James. Impacts of information on health-status on health-related behaviours- Evidence from a quasi-experiment in the UKLHS.
International Growth Centre (DFID). £20,000. PI (2016-2017). With T Baskaran, B Min and Y Uppal. Women legislators and economic growth.
International Growth Centre. £20,000. PI (2016-2018). With I Clots and L Iyer. Religion of politicians and voters in India.
RCUK-CONFAP Newton Fund. £73,000. PI. (2015-2016). With R Soares and R Rocha. Inequalities in access to health and the role of the Unified Health System in Brazil.
ESRC Centre on Micro-Social Change Essex, £5 million Co-Director, Co-Investigator. (2014-2019)
ESRC Centre Grant, Centre for Market and Public Organization Bristol, £5 million (2008-2013)
Bank of Sweden. £250,000. Co-I. (2013-2016). With M Karlsson and T Nilsson. Evaluation of lifecourse consequences of policy innovations in health.
Grand Challenges Canada consortium. $3 million. Co-Principal Investigator (2012-2014) Early life risk factors for cognitive development and human capital. Hosted at UPenn by J Behrman
Grand Challenges Canada. $880,000 Co-investigator (2012-2014) Follow-up of a randomized control trial on maternal depression treatment and children’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills in Pakistan
International Growth Centre. £10,000. PI. (2012). With L Iyer, I Clots, G Cassan. Religious political identity and public policy choices.
Nuffield Foundation. £15,000. PI. (2011-2013). With U Osili. Fertility and next generation consequences of the introduction of universal primary education in Nigeria.
International Growth Centre. £15,000. PI. (2010-2011). With L Iyer, I Clots. Politician identity and policy implementation.
Water Strategic Fund, University of Bristol. £6000. PI. (2010-2011). With S Gundry (Engineering, Bristol). The demand for environmental quality: The role of culture and information.
Water Strategic Fund, Bristol. £7000. PI. (2010-2011). With A Venkataramani. Short and medium-run returns of early life exposure to clean water programs: Evidence from Mexico.
ESRC-DFID. £119,000. PI. (2006-2008). Religion and mortality.
ESRC Centre for Market and Public Organisation Bristol. £5 million. Co-I (2006-2013)
Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research, Bristol. Management Board (2006-2013)
ESRC. £45,000. Co-I. (2004-2006). With W. Arulampalam. Sibling death clustering in India.
DFID. £157,000. PI. (2000-2004). With RM Smith. Welfare provisioning under the English poor
laws: Lessons for pro-poor growth today.
ESRC £90,000. Co-I. (1997-2000). With Chris Heady. Child labour in developing countries.
DFID £60,000. Co-I. (1996-1999). With Chris Heady, Child labour in Pakistan and Ghana.
DFID £50,000. 1996-1998. With Nottingham under an Oxford-Bristol-Nottingham Consortium. Trade liberalisation and labour markets in Mauritius and India.