Research Fellow
Academic Unit of Health Economics
University of Leeds,
Leeds, LS2 9JT , UK
I am a Research Fellow at the Academic Unit of Health Economics at University of Leeds.
I am an applied microeconomist with a focus on financial inclusion, political economy of agricultural input subsidies, poverty, and inequality. I have a strong background in doing field research to better understand the lives of the disadvantaged and promote social inclusion through financial inclusion. In my PhD research, I focused on social cash transfers and digital remittances, and I also looked at the benefits of financial inclusion. In my job market paper, "Her Account, Her Way: The Impact of Digital Cash Transfers on Household Decision Making", I show that women economic empowerment leads to the redirection of household spending, and less money being spent on substances that are addictive, including alcohol and cigarettes.
I've held grants by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP).
I am an Associate Reviewer for the Malawi Journal of Economics.
Our work from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant on Dietary Diversity "How effectively might agricultural input subsidies improve nutrition? A case study of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP)" recently got published in the October issue of Food Security .