Ana Radu
I am a first-year Ph.D. Student at Princeton University interested in Development Economics.
Before Princeton, I was a Research Professional at the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago.
I have a B.S. in Mathematics and Economics from NYU Abu Dhabi.
Research
Working Papers
The Missing Poor Forthcoming — American Economic Review: Insights
[Hide abstract] [DOI] [Final Draft] [Slides]
Population censuses constitute the basis of public resource allocation and political representation globally. This paper shows that census forms commonly generate incentives for enumerators to disproportionately omit members of larger households. Using microdata from 254 censuses, we estimate that this leads to undercounting in at least 60% of censuses. Omission is concentrated in poor countries where 0.6% of the population is missing. Within countries, poor households are missing three times as many members as rich ones, leading to larger undercounts in poorer regions. We illustrate how this translates into systematic underfunding of public services and political underrepresentation in poor regions.
Work in Progress
Testing a Community-Based Approach To Expand Access to Safe Water: a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial in Rural Nigeria
Fieldwork
