Muthoni Nganga

Assistant Professor
Department of Economics
University  of  Victoria,  BC Canada

E: muthoni@uvic.ca 

CV: pdf 

Research Interests:
Development Economics,  Agriculture, Education , Gender

Teaching:
Fall 2025:  Applied Econometrics (ECON 345), Writing for Economists (ECON 225)

Spring 2026: Principles of Microeconomics (ECON 103), Applied Econometrics (ECON 345), Writing for Economists (ECON 225)

Past: Economics Paper and Seminar (EC481), Economics of Education (EC328), Economics and Gender (EC316)

Peer-reviewed publications

• Smart Classrooms and Education Outcomes. Evidence from Rwanda. with Aimable Nsabimana and Christine Niyizamwiyitira. WIDER Working Paper 2024/7. (Economics of Education Review (upcoming)- accepted for publication- 2025).

• Greater Traditionalism Predicts COVID-19 Precautionary Behaviors Across 27 Societies. With Theodore Samore et al. Scientific Reports, 13(1), p. 4969, 2023.

• Social Capital and Women's Empowerment.  With Phyllis Machio, Diana Kimani, Patrick Kariuki & Michael Njoroge. Forum for Social Economics, pp. 1–19, 2022.

• Experimental Evidence on Scaling up Education Reforms in Kenya. With Tessa Bold, Mwangi Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu & Justin Sandefur.  Journal of Public Economics, 168, pp. 1-20, 2018.

• Mathematics Gender Gaps in Kenya: Are Resource Differentials Between Boys and Girls to blame?  With Leopold P. Mureithi & Anthony Wambugu. Cogent Education, 5 (1), 2018.

Working Papers

• Using iBeacon Technology to Track the Distribution of Development Goods in Kenya. with Jennifer Hamilton and Daniel Posner (Under Review).

• Experimental Assessment of the Collective Action Impacts of Participatory Rangeland Management of the Livestock and Climate Initiative. with Travis J. Lybbert, Colter Hoffman, Jackson Mdoe and Eric Kioko.

Research in Progress

• Understanding Gender-Specific Constraints to Agricultural Technology Adoption: New Approaches to Extension and Seed Delivery for Female Kenyan Farmers. with Carly Trachtman and Michael Murigi (Randomized experiment ongoing- Fund for Innovation in Development grant - €963,916 .

• Increasing Uptake of Digital Agricultural Services Among Smallholder Farmers. with Shalmali Ghaisas (Field work completed, data analysis and working paper ongoing)

Book Chapters

Institutional Challenges to Scaling up Learning in Kenya. with Tessa Bold, Mwangi Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu & Justin Sandefur.  In Laurence Chandy, Akio Hosono, Homi Kharas and Johannes Linn (ed.s), 2013, Getting to Scale: How to Bring Development Solutions to Millions of Poor People. Brookings Institution Press, US:  262-276.