For Elena Stacy, managing field work and learning Hindi as a predoc enhanced her research abilities

Predoc Alumni Class of 2021

PhD Student at UC Berkeley Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics

Predoc Advisor: Rohini Pande

During her time as a pre-doctoral fellow at Yale, Elena Stacy worked at the forefront of development economics research, immersing herself in field work and the management of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) designed to evaluate the real-world effects of policy interventions.

Today, that hands-on experience is shaping her research as she pursues a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley’s Agricultural & Resource Economics Program.

“Working with faculty gave me experience doing field work and working on RCTs, and working through all steps of the research process that I now do on my own as a PhD student.”

While at Yale, Stacy worked on several projects related to female labor force participation in India, including a paper that relied on a randomized controlled trial covering 197 village clusters in northern Madhya Pradesh. That paper, now published in The American Economic Review, studied whether giving women more control over their earnings could incentivize them to work and influence norms around gender roles. With the same group of researchers, Stacy also co-authored a paper on measuring time use in India that is now published in the Journal of Development Economics.

After the program, Stacy enrolled in UC Berkeley’s Agricultural & Resource Economics Program and continued her work in development economics. Her research today focuses on how flooding affects labor choices and time use in India and Nigeria, and on urbanization and environmental quality in Latin America.

Speaking about her time in the predoctoral fellows program, she noted how valuable it was to be embedded within the broader Yale Economics community, which allowed her to attend seminars, interact with PhD students, and stay attuned to cutting-edge research. Equally important, she forged lasting friendships with fellow pre-doctoral fellows and established ongoing professional relationships with her faculty mentors.

Looking back, she highlights the supportive environment created by both the Tobin Center program and the broader Yale community. Affordable housing, a walkable neighborhood, and easy access to nature also made New Haven a memorable place to live. Below, she shares her reflections in her own words.

I chose the program because I was really interested in the research being done by my would-be faculty advisor, Rohini Pande. It was a great match!

The activities and support that the Tobin program provides to help us with professional development, and the pre-doctoral cohort community made the time especially valuable and enjoyable.

I built great relationships with other pre-doctoral fellows that have lasted for years, and my faculty PI's have continued to provide support after the program. New Haven was one of my favorite places I’ve ever lived. There is lots of great food, housing is affordable, the neighborhood is extremely walkable, and there are nice nature areas nearby.

Working with my faculty PI gave me experience doing field work and working on RCTs, and working through all steps of the research process that I now do on my own as a PhD student. Being an active part of the Yale Economics community by attending seminars and job talks was also very helpful in getting exposed to current research frontiers and what other PhD students are working on.

I worked on several projects, mostly related to female labor force participation in India, including this paper that is now published in the AER. I had the opportunity to co-author a paper on measuring time use in India, which is now published in the Journal of Development Economics.

I'm still working on development economics topics, and have integrated the intersection of environment and geography into my research agenda. One stream of my work has focused on flooding, understanding the impact of floods on labor choices and time use in India and Nigeria, and the effects of which flood measurement method is used in social sciences research. Another stream of my work focuses on environmental quality and urbanization in Latin America, where I study religious migration and its impacts on the subsequent local development outcomes.

More broadly, I’m developing a research agenda that focuses on how climate change impacts, especially extreme weather events, disproportionately affect historically marginalized populations around the globe.

While I was at Yale, I and a fellow predoc took Elementary Hindi in the Hindi department for fieldwork professional development. It was a great experience and very fun!