By NOVAFRICA Nova School of Business and Economics professor Adeline Delavande with co-authors, Sonia Bhalotra, Paulino Font Gilabert, and Joanna Maselko. Using survey-based measures of mothers’ expectations, the authors examine how perceived effort costs and expected returns shape two key maternal investments in newborns: breastfeeding and stimulation. They find: ✅ Significant heterogeneity across mothers in... Read More

A new study in the Journal of Development Economics explores whether wage subsidies can help break the cycle of long-term unemployment. In a large-scale randomized experiment in North Macedonia, NOVAFRICA Nova School of Business and Economics Professor Alex Armand, together with NOVAFRICA External Member Pedro Carneiro, Federico Tagliati, and Yiming Xia, tested a simple idea:... Read More

🎙️ New! Episode 8 of season 7  of the NOVAFRICA Sustainable Development Talks, we welcome Professor Tanguy Bernard from the Bordeaux School of Economics to discuss his paper: “Promoting Unobservable Food Safety in Smallholder Agriculture: Evidence from Nigeria.”   Professor Bernard explores the challenges smallholder farmers face in adopting food safety practices—focusing on aflatoxin contamination... Read More

“Is Mobile Money Changing Rural Africa? Evidence from a Field Experiment”   By NOVAFRICA Scientific Directors, Professors Cátia Batista and Pedro C. Vicente. This paper evaluates the introduction of mobile money in rural Mozambique through a randomized field experiment, providing causal evidence on how it increased out migration from rural villages by reducing remittance transaction... Read More

In episode 7 of season 7 of the NOVAFRICA Sustainable Development Talks, we chat with Professor Lydia Assouad from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) about her article: “Leadership and Nation-Building.”   In this conversation, Professor Assouad discusses how political leadership shaped nation-building in Turkey. She examines the effects of Atatürk’s visits... Read More

As part of NOVAFRICA ongoing efforts to understand health and social dynamics in Guinea-Bissau, one key study examines how local female leaders influence the uptake of community-based health insurance. Title: Follow the Leader: Community-based Health Insurance in West Africa Rute M. Caeiro UNU-WIDER and NOVAFRICA Alexander Coutts Nova School of Business and Economics and NOVAFRICA... Read More

In Episode 6, Season 7 of the NOVAFRICA Sustainable Development Talks, we speak with Professor Prashant Bharadwaj from the University of California, San Diego, about his paper: “Statistical Discrimination and the Distribution of Wages.”   In this conversation, we discuss: – The difference between statistical discrimination and taste-based discrimination– A new perspective on the Oaxaca-Blinder... Read More

❓How can we make food safety a priority for smallholder farmers? In our next NOVAFRICA Seminar on Wednesday, June 18, at 3:30 PM (Lisbon time) in Room D 010 at Nova School of Business and Economics, Carcavelos campus, we are pleased to host Professor Tanguy Bernard from Bordeaux School of Economics to present his paper:... Read More

What role do leaders play in shaping national identity—beyond the policies they enact? In our next NOVAFRICA Seminar on Wednesday, June 11, at 3:30 PM (Lisbon time) in Room D 010 at Nova School of Business and Economics, Carcavelos campus, we are pleased to host Professor Lydia Assouad from the London School of Economics and... Read More