Russell Toth is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the School of Economics at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is a development economist, with primary research interests in the economics of entrepreneurship and private sector development. Key themes include constraints to the emergence and growth of farm and non-farm enterprises, the nature of informal market interaction and competition, the effects of introducing products and formal sector firms in informal economies, and the emerging role of ICT in the developing world. This often also involves consideration of social and behavioural issues such as social interactions and networks, subjective beliefs, and aspirations. His work is informed by theory, and leverages a range of applied micro tools including field experiments, quasi-experiments and structural estimation. He has been involved in field experiments and original data collection in Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Myanmar, and Vietnam, with institutions including the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Southeast Asia (J-PAL SEA), Entrepreneurship Development Network Asia-Myanmar (EDNA-Myanmar), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). His other affiliations include the AidData Consortium, the International Growth Centre (IGC), and the Small and Medium Enterprise Initiative at IPA. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Economic Growth Centre at Yale University in 2014-15. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2012.
