Pieter Serneels

Pieter Serneels is Professor of Economics at the University of East Anglia. His research is on applied micro, behavioural and labour economics and human capital in low income countries.

Pieter is a full member of the European Development Network (EUDN) and Experiments in Governance and Politics (EGAP). He is a visiting scholar at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. He provides research advice as Senior Research Fellow to the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), and to Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) at the Blavatnik School of Government Oxford. Pieter co-directed the Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences (CBESS) at the University of East Anglia, and has been a visitor at the University of Oxford, The World Bank, Universidad de Los Andes, among others. He has published in peer-reviewed journals and books, and has given advice to governments in low, middle and high income countries.

Research Interests

• applied microeconomics
• behavioral economics
• development
• human capital
• labor economics
• low income countries
• political economy

Recent articles

• Recruitment, effort and retention effect of performance contracts for civil servants. Experimental evidence from Rwandan primary schools.
  
• American Economic Review, Vol 111. No 7, July 2021, with Clare Leaver, Owen Ozier, Andrew Zeitlin, available from arXiv ; previous versions appeared as RISE Working Paper 20/048, IZA Discussion Paper 13696, Word Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9395, CEPR Discussion paper 15333. See VoxDev, Selection and incentive effects of teacher performance contracts in Rwanda
  
• Health information, treatment, and worker productivity. Journal of the European Economic Association, Vol 19, Issue 2, April 2021, with Andrew Dillon, Jed Friedman
  
• The COVID-19 pandemic and maternal mental health in a fragile and conflict affected setting, a cohort study in Tumaco, Colombia.
  Lancet Global Health, Volume 9, Issue 8, August 2021, with Andres Moya, Alethea Desrosiers, Vilma Reyes, María José Torres.
  
• Productivity and health: alternative productivity measures using physical activity.
  World Bank Economic Review, Vol 35, Issue 3, October 2021,p 652-680,with Oladele Akogun, Andrew Dillon, Jed Friedman, Ashesh Prasann
  
• Poverty, Aspirations and Education. Evidence from India.
  Journal of Development Studies, 2021, Vol 57, Issues 1, with Stefan Dercon, previous versions available as IZA Discussion Paper 13697, RISE Working Paper 20/53
  
• Diabetes, employment and behavioural risk factors in China: Marginal structural models and fixed effects estimation.
  Economics and Human Biology, Vol 39, December 2020, with Till Seuring, Marc Suhrcke, Max Bachmann, available as IZA Discussion Paper 11817
  
• The impact of diabetes on labour market outcomes in Mexico: a panel and biomarker data analysis.
  Social Science and Medicine, Vol 233, July 2019, p252-261. with Till Seuring, Marc Suhrcke
  
• Pay for locally monitored performance? A welfare analysis for teacher attendance in Uganda primary schools.
  Journal of Public Economics, Vol 175, November 2018, p69-90. with Jacobus Cilliers, Ibrahim Kasirye, Clare Leaver, Andrew Zeitlin
  

Work in progress

• Information and collective action in the community monitoring of schools. Field and lab experimental evidence from Uganda,
  with Abigail Barr, Frederik Mungisha, Andrew Zeitlin, Working Paper

• Workplace based health care for malaria: demand and impact on worker productivity and earnings.
  with Oladele Akogun, Andrew Dillon. Working paper

• Does migration from a developing country to the UK increase immigrants’ risk of obesity?
  with Girma Geye Dinsa, Marc Suhrcke. Working paper.

• Malaria and productivity. Evidence from a firm based treatment programme
  with Oladele Akogun, Andrew Dillon, Jed Friedman, Working Paper