Eva Vivalt

Eva Vivalt is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Toronto. Her academic rank is Assistant Professor, and she holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (2011), an M.A. from UC Berkeley (2010), an M.Phil. from Oxford (2007), and an A.B. from Dartmouth College (2005). She focuses on applied microeconomics, with research interests including cash transfer programs, improving evidence-based policy decisions, and meta-research on generalizability of impact evaluations.

Her key projects include leading a large-scale randomized controlled trial on guaranteed income programs in the U.S., analyzing the effects on employment, health, and political attitudes. She also investigates how policymakers interpret evidence and the role of forecasting in social science. Her work on generalizability challenges assumptions about replicating development interventions, revealing significant heterogeneity in results across contexts.

Research highlights include contributions to journals like the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Development Economics, and Science. She founded AidGrade, a nonprofit synthesizing impact evaluation data to inform policy. Her work has been covered by major media outlets, including the New York Times, Financial Times, and Wired.

Her current affiliations include the University of Toronto and Y Combinator Research, where she co-leads a guaranteed income study. She advocates for rigorous evidence synthesis and explores ethical implications of interventions through projects like research on clean meat acceptance.