Simon Franklin

Simon Franklin is an Associate Professor (Reader) at Queen Mary University of London's School of Economics and Finance. He is affiliated with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), J-PAL (Poverty Action Lab), and the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) at the London School of Economics. His research focuses on development, labour, and urban economics, particularly in African cities. Key themes include the evaluation of public housing policies, social protection mechanisms, and urban redevelopment strategies, often employing experimental methods to assess policy impacts.

Franklin holds a DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford and remains a Research Associate at Oxford's Centre for the Study of African Economies. He also completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Cape Town, with prior work at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU). His research emphasizes spatial frictions in labour markets, the role of housing in economic inclusion, and long-term effects of industrial and entrepreneurial opportunities on youth employment. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Ethiopia and South Africa, examining topics such as transport subsidies, randomized housing lotteries, and urban policy design.

His publications span top journals like the American Economic Review and Journal of Development Economics. Recent work explores how urban public works affect spatial equilibrium and whether wealth influences support for redistribution, using experimental evidence. He also investigates friendship networks in job search processes and the economic consequences of shocks on labour market flexibility.

No scientific awards are explicitly listed in the provided texts. However, his research has received notable coverage in outlets like The Economist, Voxdev, and World Bank Blogs, indicating its policy relevance and academic impact.

Franklin collaborates with institutions such as the Centre for the Study of African Economacies and the University of Oxford, reflecting his involvement in interdisciplinary research networks focused on African economic development. He advises no listed students and has no documented grants in the materials provided, though his collaborative projects suggest active engagement in academic partnerships.