Natalie Bau
Appointment
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar 2016-2018
Institutions, Organizations & Growth
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About
Natalie Bau explores the interaction between cultural norms, economic behaviour and development policies.
In one strand of her research, she studies the role that norms play in determining how much an ethnic group’s female educational attainment increases in response to large-scale school-building programs. In another strand, she shows that pension plans may play a larger or smaller role in crowding out parents’ educational investments in their children, depending on the cultural norms practised by the parents’ ethnic group. Additionally, Bau studies how policies can have unintended consequences, leading cultural practices to evolve and change. Understanding how culture affects individuals’ reactions to different policy initiatives is important for understanding how these policy initiatives will affect growth.
Awards
- Connaught New Researcher Award
- Christopher and Silvana Pascucci Graduate Student Dissertation Fellowship
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
- Harvard Inequality and Social Policy Doctoral Fellowship
Relevant Publications
Ashraf, N. et al. “Bride Price and Female Education.” NBER Working Papers 22417 (2016).
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