معرفی
Joost de Laat is an Associate Professor at Utrecht University's Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance, specifically within the Department of Economics, Applied Economics Section. Since 2018, he holds the Chair of Global Economic Challenges at the Utrecht School of Economics and directs the Utrecht Centre for Global Challenges, a multidisciplinary platform connecting researchers, teachers, and societal stakeholders to address global challenges through projects, transdisciplinary education, and public engagement.
Dr. de Laat is an applied micro-economist whose research focuses on understanding the drivers of inequalities and policy and behavioral options to address them, particularly in low- and middle income countries. His current research agenda centers on two global challenges: ensuring disadvantaged children have equal early education opportunities and promoting environmental sustainability. Much of his work involves primary data collection through field experiments, lab-in-the-field studies, and survey research conducted in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Bulgaria.
His research has demonstrable impact on policy, exemplified by the Bulgarian government's adoption of a new law making kindergartens free for the poorest 40% of children, which was informed by his large-scale field experiment involving over 5,000 children across 236 communities. Dr. de Laat also coordinates academic initiatives to connect practice to research, including a new series on effective delivery of integrated interventions in early childhood and collaborations with African academics to develop university courses on impact evaluation methods.
Dr. de Laat has received recognition through significant citations of his work, particularly his 2017 Science article 'Cash for carbon: A randomized trial of payments for ecosystem services to reduce deforestation' which has garnered over 300 citation indexes and 95 policy citations. His work appears in top journals including Science, Review of Economic Studies, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Prior to joining Utrecht University, Dr. de Laat served as Director for Learning and Evaluation at Porticus, a global philanthropy, and worked as Senior Economist at the World Bank's Human Development team for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He managed the World Bank's Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) and held academic positions at Université du Québec à Montréal and as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He earned his PhD in Economics from Brown University in 2005, with research focused on gender norms and inequalities, based partly on field research among migrants in Nairobi's informal settlements.
