Ideas Made to Matter
How 75 cents a day helped Kenyans weather bad times
A new study suggests that a universal basic income provided stability to impoverished Kenyans in bad times. Could UBI work elsewhere?
Oct 1, 2020
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Tavneet Suri
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Tavneet Suri is the Louis E. Seley Professor of Applied Economics and a Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her expertise is in the role of technology in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tavneet is editor-in-chief of VoxDev; Scientific Director for Africa for J-PAL; CoChair of the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative at J-PAL; Chair of the Digital Identification and Finance Initiative at J-PAL Africa; and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
She holds a BA in economics from Cambridge University, UK, and an MA in International and Development Economics (IDE) and a PhD in economics, both from Yale University.
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Publications
Featured Publication
"The Long-run Poverty and Gender Impacts of Mobile Money."
Suri, Tavneet, and William Jack. Science Vol. 354, No. 6317 (2016): 1288-1292.
Featured Publication
"Risk Sharing and Transaction Costs: Evidence from Kenya's Mobile Money Revolution."
Jack, William, and Tavneet Suri. American Economic Review Vol. 104, No. 1 (2014): 183-223. Download Appendix.
"Agricultural Technology in Africa."
Suri, Tavneet and Christopher Udry. Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol. 36, No. 1 (2022): 33-56.
"Fintech and Household Resilience to Shocks: Evidence from Digital Loans in Kenya."
Suri, Tavneet, Prashant Bharadwaj, and William Jack. Journal of Development Economics Vol. 153, (2021).
"Voter Mobilisation and Trust in Electoral Institutions: Evidence from Kenya."
Marx, Benjamin, Vincent Pons, and Tavneet Suri. The Economic Journal Vol. 131, No. 638 (2021): 2585–2612.
"Diversity and Team Performance in a Kenyan Organization."
Marx, Benjamin, Vincent Pons, and Tavneet Suri. Journal of Public Economics Vol. 197, (2021): 104332.
Recent Insights
Alumni
Creating a More Inclusive Global Movement
Professors Tavneet Suri and Esther Duflo recently participated in a fireside chat at the MIT Sloan Women’s Conference.
Nov 17, 2022
Media Highlights
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The Boston Globe
'FemTech' and a moonshot for menstruation science
"As a 'secret illness of women,' bad periods are a pervasive drain on the lives of roughly 20 percent of women. Yet, they're rarely discussed."
Press
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Project Syndicate (Opinion Piece) (Registration Required)
How a universal basic income helped Kenyans fight COVID
“The UBI improved households' food security and physical and mental health, relative to the comparison group."
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HuffPost
The radical idea of making sure everybody has enough money to live on
The program in Kenya is a big deal in the UBI world...“We don't check if you're rich or poor; we give it to everybody,” said Tavneet Suri.
Press
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The Conversation (Opinion Piece)
Universal basic income helped Kenyans weather COVID-19 - but it's not a ...
"The onset of the coronavirus prompted my colleagues and I to look at how universal basic income affected how people coped with a severe shock."
Executive Education
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Business Sustainability Strategy
For many companies, the topic of sustainability is at the forefront of business agendas. Consumers and stakeholders are demanding greater accountability from organizations, and the regulatory environment is becoming increasingly stringent. However, pursuing the environmental, social, and governance impacts of business is often met with tension. Leaders now need to manage the misconception within business that meeting sustainability goals means compromising profits.
- Mar 8-Apr 25, 2023