Ten Years of Research to Develop Policies Against Poverty
How do we design public policies capable of tangibly improving people’s lives? Which measures truly work in combating poverty and inequality? And how can we measure their impact? Scholars participating in the LEAP 10th Anniversary Conference, scheduled for June 18 and 19 at Bocconi University, will seek to answer these questions. The event celebrates the first ten years of the Laboratory for Effective Anti-poverty Policies (LEAP), a laboratory dedicated to the study and rigorous evaluation of policies for economic and social development, which recently became part into the new Bocconi INSPIRE research center.
For two days, Milan will serve as a gathering place for researchers from leading universities and international institutions, including Yale, Harvard, Oxford, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, the London School of Economics, and the World Bank. Through keynote lectures and thematic sessions, participants will present new findings on topics ranging from public health to education, from women’s participation in the labor market to social mobility, and the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable communities.
“Over the past ten years, LEAP has helped strengthen the dialogue between research and public policy, producing evidence that helps governments and organizations make more effective decisions,” says Michela Carlana, director of LEAP. “This conference provides an opportunity to reflect on the progress made and, above all, on the challenges that remain in promoting opportunities and well-being for the most vulnerable people.”
The conference will open with Rohini Pande, an economist at Yale and one of the most authoritative voices in the field of economic development, delivering a keynote address on women’s digital autonomy in rural India. The second day will begin with Asim Khwaja of the Harvard Kennedy School, who will present lessons learned from over two decades of research on education in Pakistan. The program also includes presentations on antimicrobial resistance in Kenya, health insurance in Uganda, the mechanisms influencing female employment, educational inequalities, gender-based violence in schools, and strategies to strengthen community resilience to climate shocks. The research presented is largely based on field experiments and impact evaluations—methodologies that have transformed the way development policies are studied and designed in recent years.
The conference will therefore not only be a celebration of LEAP’s achievements over the past ten years, but also an opportunity to explore the new frontiers of applied economic research and the contribution that scientific evidence can make toward building societies that are more inclusive, resilient, and full of opportunities.
