Q&A: Assistant Professor Erin Kelley on Her Work in Program Evaluation, International Development, and With the World Bank

Erin Kelley is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy who also serves as a consultant with the Development Impact Evaluation Department of the World Bank. In her research, she studies firm growth, refugee welfare, and technology adoption using randomized field experiments. Her ongoing work includes projects in Bangladesh, Kenya, and India. She recently talked about her work, why she enjoys working with Harris students, and how program evaluation can ultimately make a big difference in improving quality of life around the globe.

Tell us about your research? 

My research focuses on identifying strategies to increase individual and household productivity—an essential pathway to improving income and overall well-being. I study this across three key domains: agriculture, where most households in low-income countries earn their livelihoods; industry, as a driver of economic transformation; and humanitarian settings, where productivity gains can support vulnerable populations.

In the agricultural sector, my research focuses on identifying new technologies and learning approaches that help farmers improve productivity and increase their earnings.

In the industrial sector, I examine both sides of the labor market. On the firm side, I study strategies to boost productivity, such as the use of monitoring technologies. On the worker side, I explore ways to support job search and employment outcomes, including the use of job portals and skill profiling tools.

In humanitarian settings, I study refugee populations and internally displaced people (IDPs), whose livelihoods are often completely disrupted. A lot of my work in this area is understanding which types of interventions (cash, loans, work) help these communities to become more productive in a new environment for them.

What kind of work do you do with the World Bank?

I joined Harris after spending four years at the World Bank, and since then I’ve continued to collaborate closely with my former colleagues there. Much of our joint work involves large-scale impact evaluations of programs funded by the World Bank or implemented by major international organizations such as the World Food Program. These evaluations aim to determine whether these programs improve outcomes, how they might be scaled, and whether successful models in one context can be replicated effectively in others. In doing so we hope that that scarce development resources can be allocated to the most impactful interventions.

Many of the programs I study focus on cash transfers. For example, our team conducted an evaluation of a flagship cash-for-work program implemented by a major international institution across four countries. We examined how targeting women—rather than continuing the status quo where men typically enroll—impacts outcomes for women and their households. In another study, we assessed the effects of delivering cash transfers to farmers within days of a predicted weather shock (such as a flood), using early forecasts to guide allocation. This contrasts with the usual practice of disbursing aid months after a shock, once damage has been verified.

There have been several developments in the world that could potentially impact migrants and refugees: DOGE and the unwinding of USAID, for instance. How do you think about helping these populations?

Development and humanitarian funding rarely match the scale of global needs, so any additional restrictions create serious challenges for efforts to improve lives in a sustainable way. In this constrained environment, it’s essential to target programs where they can have the greatest impact. One critical area of intervention is strengthening livelihoods in contexts of displacement—an effort that spans cash transfers, credit access, education, and healthcare. I hope to collaborate with organizations implementing these initiatives to strengthen the evidence base, so they can scale the most effective programs. One example is a project in Uganda, where we are working with a local microfinance institution to explore opportunities for expanding credit access to refugees. In theory, access to credit can reduce household vulnerability and support investments in income-generating activities. In practice, however, lending to forcibly displaced populations remains a challenge—financial institutions often perceive refugees as high-risk clients due to their lack of collateral and uncertain legal status. Our goal is to generate rigorous evidence on the impact of microcredit in this context. If proven effective, microcredit—because it is repaid—could be a way to stretch scarce resources further.

What are some of the keys for integrating refugees?

Integrating refugees requires very careful planning to ensure that the results do not make host communities worse off, and ideally that they lead to gains in the well-being of refugees and their hosts.

So, for example, if we seek to ensure that refugees benefit from inclusive education, health care, and job opportunities, we must have a deep understanding of the political, social and economic context of the country concerned. In many environments, poor and vulnerable local communities also suffer from inequitable access. Whatever we propose for improving refugee lives, must be commensurate host members who are in similar situations. We also must endeavor to address the concerns of governments and host communities, that inclusion of refugees will not impose costs that they can ill afford.  Targeted development assistance and well-designed program interventions help in this regard.

Evidence- based approaches are key. For example, Bahar et al. (2021) studied Colombia’s regularization program for Venezuelans who were forcibly displaced. The Columbian efforts to grant legal status, work permits, and access to social services was shown to significantly improved the well-being of Venezuelans without harming host communities. Addressing negative perceptions has also been shown to be important. Recent work by Baseler et al. (2025) shows that providing aid to host communities—and clearly communicating that it is part of Uganda’s national aid-sharing policy, which allocates 30% of international refugee aid to hosts—significantly increases local support for admitting refugees and for policies that promote their integration.

Are there basic types of interventions that you're evaluating or seeing that seem very promising?

Yes there are! In general, I try and choose projects based on whether there’s a credible path for the intervention to achieve meaningful impact. This often involves collaborating with institutions who are developing innovative interventions and helping them generate rigorous evidence on what works.

For example, we partnered with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to find cost-effective ways to spread information about new rice varieties within villages. While previous research has shown that targeting influential farmers in social networks can be effective, identifying these individuals is costly and time-consuming. We tested a simpler alternative: randomly selecting farmers to plant both a new and familiar rice variety side by side, using clearly marked signs to highlight the comparison. Our evaluation with IRRI showed that this approach significantly improved information sharing. The “demonstration plots” became natural conversation starters—neighbors observed the results, discussed them, and some went on to try the new variety themselves, while others did not. The approach is inexpensive and easy to scale, making it a promising approach.  

In another example, a team of us at UChicago partnered with climate scientists to deliver weather forecasts to farmers in India. These forecasts predict the timing of the monsoon. We find that the provision of forecasts shifts farmers’ beliefs about the upcoming growing season. In response, they adjust their behavior across several dimensions—changing the area they cultivate, the crops they grow, their spending on farm inputs, and even their off-farm business activities. By allowing farmers to better align their decisions with expected weather, the forecasts reduce risk and improve overall welfare. Disseminating these forecasts at scale is extremely inexpensive. Based in part on this evidence, the Indian government decided to scale up the initiative and now provides forecasts to millions of farmers nationwide.

What opportunities are there for students with you and your work?

I try to involve students in my projects as much as possible—their skills and fresh perspectives add real value to my work. In turn, I hope my experience offers them insight into the world of international development and impact evaluation, a field many of them are eager to enter. One of the things I value most about being at Harris is the encouragement I received to bring in research from my time at the World Bank. It’s been deeply rewarding to use that experience to help students explore and find their footing in that space.

Are there any projects that you're working on where Harris students have been particularly helpful?

For example, I was able to involve two students in World Bank work as part of their Policy Lab coursework. They did so well that I later brought each of them onto my own research projects. One student has been working on a project with an e-commerce platform in Kenya. They have been instrumental in conducting literature reviews to help frame an impact evaluation and has also led the transition of our codebase from R to Python. The other student is working on a new project with the World Bank aimed at understanding the effects of giving job seekers access to an AI skills profiling tool. The student has helped set up and manage certain aspects of the project implementation pipeline.

What else should the Harris community know about you?

I spent some formative years abroad, which widened my world view and sparked my interest in development. I feel very fortunate to be able to pursue my scholarship in an institution that is dedicated to helping shape policy through firm evidence and analysis. Learning through evidence-based approaches, has helped me remain open to new ideas and ways of thinking. I think that is also critical to helping to bridge gaps in what seems like an increasingly polarized world.