Livia Alfonsi

Livia Alfonsi is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, affiliated with the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets unit. Her research centers on labor market frictions and participation determinants in low-income contexts, focusing on youth unemployment and gender disparities in employment. She also explores how individual preferences and beliefs influence labor decisions.

Research Interests: Alfonsi’s work integrates development economics with labor market analysis, emphasizing barriers to employment in sub-Saharan Africa. She employs experimental methodologies to assess interventions aimed at improving labor outcomes, particularly during crises like the pandemic.

Recent Publications: Alfonsi’s recent studies address gender gaps in Ugandan labor markets during the pandemic, causal links between human capital and religious identity in Kenya, and skills training impacts on youth unemployment in Uganda. Her work spans empirical analyses in Econometrica, the Journal of Development Economics, and working papers.