Women in Economics: Eliana La Ferrara

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

CEPR is working in partnership with UBS to celebrate contributions of women in economics, with a series of portraits and video interviews on a dedicated website.

The fifth economist to be featured in the series is Eliana La Ferrara, the Invernizzi Chair in Development Economics at Bocconi University, Milan, where she also directs the Laboratory for Effective Anti-poverty Policies (LEAP).

Eliana received a PhD in Economics from Harvard University in 1999. She was president of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) in 2016-2019 and president of the European Economic Association in 2018. She is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of CEPR, EUDN and IGIER, a J-PAL Affiliate and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Her research focuses on Development Economics and Political Economics, particularly on the role of social factors in economic development. She has studied ethnic diversity, kin structure and social norms, and the effects of television on social outcomes. She has also investigated political constraints to development, with particular focus on violent conflict in Africa. Her work has been published in the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Development Economics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics and the Journal of the European Economic Association.

You can find a list of all Eliana La Ferrara's CEPR Discussion Papers here, including:

Her VoxEU.org columns, videos and podcasts are listed here and include:

The CEPR/UBS video portraits of Eliana, as well as those of all the other economists featured in the series, are available on our YouTube channel here

This programme shines a light on quality research and policymaking from female leaders in their field. "Women in Economics" will feature videos of prominent researchers discussing their work and insights. The content is designed to appeal to non-expert audiences as well as those with a deeper understanding of economics.

Founded on the UBS “Nobel Perspectives” concept, where, since 2015, UBS has been documenting the lives and work of Nobel Prize-winning economists, this partnership will highlight great economic minds and showcase the outstanding contributions they are making. The aspiration is to underline women’s contributions to the field of economics and inspire future generations.