Rachel Glennerster
Rachel Glennerster is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.
Previously, Rachel was Chief Economist for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Executive Director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), sat on DFID’s Independent Advisory Committee on Development Impact, and was the Lead Academic for IGC Sierra Leone. She also worked on debt relief and the reform of the international monetary system at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and financial regulation at the Harvard Institute for International Development and the UK Treasury. In the mid-1990s, she was part of the UK delegation to the IMF and World Bank. She has a PhD in economics from Birkbeck College, University of London, and is a coauthor of “Strong Medicine: Creating Incentives for Pharmaceutical Research on Neglected Diseases.”
Content by Rachel Glennerster
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Blog post
Herbert M’cleod: The man behind the scenes, striving for peace
IGC Sierra Leone and Liberia Country Director Herbert M’cleod passed away on 19 May 2022. Professor Rachel Glennerster, Lead Academic in the IGC Sierra Leone programme until 2017, when she was appointed Chief Economist at the UK Department for International Development (now FCDO), pens a tribute to her long-time friend and mentor. Sierra Leone, the African continent, and...
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Multimedia Item - Video
Event: A new approach to state fragility
CIFAR, IGC, and the British Academy host a panel discussion with Sir Tim Besley (LSE), Rachel Glennerster (DFID), Adnan Khan (IGC), and Roger Myerson (University of Chicago) to discuss the findings of the LSE-Oxford Fragility Commission's report 'Escaping the Fragility Trap'.
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Publication - Project Report
The economic impacts of Ebola on firms in Sierra Leone
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Publication - Project Report
Election debates: Scoping for scale up
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Project
Election debates in Sierra Leone: Scoping for scale-up
During Sierra Leone’s 2012 parliamentary elections, an IGC study found that on a constituency level, publicly-screened debates between rival political candidates had a significant impact on voter knowledge and behaviour, and in turn the subsequent performance of elected MPs. Encouraged by these findings, this project sought to find the best ways to scale up debates...
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Multimedia Item - Audio
Rachel Glennerster on Radio Democracy
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Publication - Project Memo
Health insurance engagement in Sierra Leone (Project Memo)
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Publication - Bulletin
The economic impacts of Ebola – Bulletin seven (February 2016)
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Multimedia Item - Audio
Africa Growth Forum 2015: Containing contagion - Lessons from Ebola for Africa
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Multimedia Item - Audio
Africa Growth Forum 2015: Rachel Glennerster and Joseph Kandeh
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Publication - Bulletin
The economic impacts of Ebola - Bulletin four (June 2015)
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Project
Health insurance engagement
Sierra Leone’s health sector has significantly underperformed since the end of the civil war The Government solicited advice from IGC to help design a social health insurance scheme for the informal sector Researchers worked with the Directorate of Policy, Planning and Information (DPPI) providing input on the design of the insurance plan The Sierra...
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Blog post
How bad data fed the Ebola epidemic
Misleading reports, speculation and poor projections from international agencies, government ministries and the media about the Ebola outbreak have exacerbated the problem
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Project
The economic impacts of Ebola on firms in Sierra Leone
Katherine Casey (Stanford), Rachel Glennerster (J-PAL), and Tavneet Suri (MIT) have initiated a research project studying the firm-level impact of the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone. Our objective is twofold: first, to bring reliable quantitative data to the policy discussion as the outbreak unfolds in real time; and second, to establish baseline information on the private...
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Multimedia Item - Video
The economic impacts of Ebola, and rebuilding the healthcare system
Rachel Glennerster recently delivered a public lecture on ‘The economic impacts of Ebola, and rebuilding the healthcare system’.
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Publication - Bulletin
The economic impacts of ebola - Bulletin two (January 2015)
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Publication - Bulletin
The economic impacts of Ebola - Bulletin one (November 2014)
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Blog post
How to plan for a post-Ebola West Africa
The immediate need is to control the spread of the virus, but planning can and should be done to rebuild a post-Ebola West Africa
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Project
Pilot program on decentralization in Sierra Leone
Local councils were reintroduced into Sierra Leone in 2004 and were given the responsibility for local development and supervision of local public services. There is considerable debate in Sierra Leone and other countries about the extent to which development funds should be decentralized to councils as well as what role, if any, Members of Parliament should take in...
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Project
The economic implications of Ebola on markets, traders and food security
Rachel Glennerster and Tavneet Suri have analysed the impact of the Ebola crisis on the functioning of agricultural markets in Sierra Leone. Several rounds of phone call-based market surveys have aimed to understand how commodity prices are shifting across different regions and how trading has been affected. The researchers partnered with Innovations for Poverty Action to...
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Publication - Project Report
The Economic Impact of Ebola (October 2014 Report)
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Project
Agriculture, Technology Adoption, and Infrastructure: What Are the Returns and Who Do They Accrue To? Evidence from Sierra Leone
In spite of the central relevance of infrastructure in the development policy debate, there has been little rigorous research on the impact of large scale infrastructure investments in very poor economies. It is usually difficult to disentangle the causal impact of infrastructure on economic outcomes as infrastructure is often built in the fastest growing areas of a...
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Publication - Working Paper
Reshaping Institutions: Evidence on External Aid and Local Collective Action (Appendices)
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Project
Promoting the adoption of new rice varieties: Addressing the costs of early adoption
Over the past decades, agricultural productivity has stagnated in much of sub-Saharan Africa while many other regions have seen dramatic productivity improvements. As a result, many African countries do not produce enough staple food to meet their growing consumption needs. Sierra Leone, a net exporter of rice in the 1960s, must now import a third of its total consumption...
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Publication - Project Report
The Economic Impact of Ebola (September 2014 Report)
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Multimedia Item - Video
Video: Rachel Glennerster (J-PAL & IGC) - Drawing Policy Lessons from RCT's
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Multimedia Item - Video
Video: Rachel Glennerster on Good Morning Sierra Leone
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Blog post
Strengthening the accountability of politicians
Across much of the world, votes are often caste on the basis of regional ties, patronage politics, or simple bribery. In Freetown last week, politicians, civil society, academics, and media came together to discuss ways to make politicians more accountable and to encourage people to base their vote on policies and performance, rather than party loyalty and/or gifts. In the...
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Publication - Policy Brief
The Impact of Voter Knowledge Initiatives in Sierra Leone (Policy Brief)
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Publication - Working Paper
The Impact of Voter Knowledge Initiatives in Sierra Leone (Final Report)
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Publication - Working Paper
Rural Roads and Intermediated Trade (Working Paper)
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Publication - Policy Brief
Rural Feeder Roads and Access to Markets (Policy Brief)
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Publication - Policy Brief
The Impact of Information on Voter Knowledge and Engagement: Evidence from the 2012 Elections in Sierra Leone (Policy Brief)
Search for Common Ground (SFCG) produced debates covering local and national issues between two sitting MPs of the two main political parties, representing different constituencies in the same geographic district. The authors worked with SFCG to pilot the effect of debates on voter knowledge and engagement. Voter attendance was high and participants were visibly...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Promoting the Adoption of New Rice Varieties: Addressing the Costs of Early Adoption (Policy Brief)
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Multimedia Item - Video
Video: Governance & Accountability - Ideas for Growth Session 5: IGC, Growth Week 2011
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Publication - Working Paper
Reshaping Institutions: Evidence on External Aid and Local Collective Action (Working Paper)
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Publication - Policy Brief
Reshaping Institutions: Evidence on External Aid and Local Collective Action (Policy Brief)
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Project
The impact of information on voter knowledge and engagement: Evidence from the 2012 elections in Sierra Leone
Evidence from India and Brazil suggests that increased information about politician performance can result in lower vote shares for low-performing or corrupt representatives. Using the 2012 elections in Sierra Leone, this project looks at the impact of public screenings of debates between electoral candidates on voting outcome. In the run-up to the November 2012...
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Project
Community-driven development in post-conflict Sierra Leone
A significant analysis of the popular community driven development (CDD) programmes in post-war Sierra Leone has found that although CDD has positive impacts on enhancing the quality of local public goods and improved household economic welfare, it does not increase participation in local governance as previously believed. Despite the World Bank’s push for greater...