BREAD-IGC virtual PhD course on social protection 2025
This virtual PhD-level course is designed to provide a comprehensive review of the economic questions relevant to social protection.
We are offering a virtual PhD-level non-credit course beginning on 16 September 2025. This twelve-week-long course designed for PhD students and early career researchers will cover a variety of topics related to social protection in low- and middle-income countries.
Each lecture will be led by expert development economists who can provide deep insights into challenges, opportunities, and unanswered questions related to social protection in the developing world.
About
Social protection programs can play a critical role in society. For instance, cash transfers and food support programs can assist the poor in making sure they can meet their basic needs and avoid hunger, while health insurance can make sure that people do not go without necessary health care and help to ensure that a health emergency does not drive someone into debt or poverty.
While there is a lot of research about how to design and implement social protection programs in high-income countries, low- and middle-income countries differ in fundamental ways—from high levels of informality to weaker institutional contexts to more limited fiscal space.
Course details
Our PhD-level course is designed to provide a comprehensive review of the economic questions relevant to social protection in low- and middle-income countries. Throughout the twelve-lecture series, we will delve into diverse topics such as identifying program beneficiaries, the different forms programs can take, measuring long-run impacts, the role of digital technology, and spillovers and general equilibrium effects, among others.
Those who apply and register for the course by 16 September 2025 are expected to attend regularly and can actively participate in the Zoom class. Late registrations will be considered on the basis of space available.
The course will run from 16 September 2025 – 2 December 2025, with one lecture per week every Tuesday at 2:30-4:00pm BST/GMT.
You can use the links below to navigate to specific lectures.
Lecture schedule
- Lecture 1: Introduction to the course
- Lecture 2: Graduation programs
- Lecture 3: Cash transfers
- Lecture 4: The form of transfers: Cash, in-kind, vouchers
- Lecture 5: Measuring the long-run impact of cash transfers
- Lecture 6: Identifying program beneficiaries
- Lecture 7: Digital technology and social protection
- Lecture 8: Public health insurance
- Lecture 9: Job displacement insurance
- Lecture 10: Public work programs
- Lecture 11: Spillovers and general equilibrium effects
- Lecture 12: Social protection, conflict and reparations
1. Introduction to the course
4. The form of transfers: cash, in-kind, vouchers
BREAD-IGC virtual PhD course on social protection lecture 4.
5. Measuring the long-run impact of cash transfers
7. Digital technology and social protection
IGC BREAD Course on Social Protection Video Recording Week 8
IGC BREAD Course on Social Protection: Week 9
BREAD-IGC Virtual PhD Course on Social Protection, Lecture: Public Works Programs
