Placement Officer: Professor Leonardo Felli +44 (0)20 7955 7525

ERIKA DESERRANNO
LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS & POLITICAL SCIENCE
Placement Officer:
Placement Assistant:
Professor Leonardo Felli
Mr John Curtis
Department of Economics
+44 (0)20 7955 7525
+44 (0)20 7955 7545
lfelli@econ.lse.ac.uk
j.curtis@lse.ac.uk
OFFICE ADDRESS, TELEPHONE & E-MAIL:
STICERD, Houghton Street, London WC2A AE,
+44(0)7723865672
e.deserranno@lse.ac.uk
GENDER: F
CITIZENSHIP: Belgian, Italian
PRE-DOCTORAL STUDIES:
2009-2011
MRes Economics, London School of Economics, with Distinction
2006-2008
MSc Economics and Social Sciences, Bocconi University, with Summa Cum Laude
2003-2006
BSc Business Engineering, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Solvay Business School,
with Distinction
DOCTORAL STUDIES:
2011 – present
Ph.D. Economics, London School of Economics.
Expected completion date: June 2015
THESIS ADVISOR AND REFERENCES:
Professor Oriana Bandiera (Advisor)
Department of Economics
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London
WC2A 2AE
o.bandiera@lse.ac.uk
Tel. (44-20) 7955-7519
Fax (44-20) 7831-1840
Professor Robin Burgess
Department of Economics
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London
WC2A 2AE
r.burgess@lse.ac.uk
Tel. (44-20) 7955-6676
Fax (44-20) 7831-1840
Dr. Johannes Spinnewijn
Department of Economics
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London
WC2A 2AE
j.spinnewijn@lse.ac.uk
Tel. (44-20) 7955-7022
Fax (44-20) 7831-1840
1
ERIKA DESERRANNO
DESIRED TEACHING AND RESEARCH:
Primary Fields: Development Economics, Labor Economics
Secondary Fields: Applied Microeconomics, Organizational Economics
TEACHING EXPERIENCE:
2013-2015
LSE Teaching Fellow, EC455 Quantitative Approaches and Policy Analysis (graduate)
2012-2014
LSE EC400 Introductory Course in Mathematics (graduate)
2012-2013
LSE Teaching Assistant, EC102 Economics B (undergraduate)
2011-2012
LSE Teaching Assistant, EC 333 Applied Econometrics (undergraduate)
2010-2011
LSE Teaching Assistant, EC102 Economics B (undergraduate)
2008-2009
Bocconi University, Teaching Assistant, 30029 Microeconomics II (undergraduate)
RELEVANT POSITIONS HELD:
2012
Research Assistant for Dr. Greg Fischer, Prof. Dean Karlan, Dr. Margaret McConnell
2012
Consultant, AVSI South Sudan
2008-2009
Research Assistant for Prof. Eliana La Ferrara
Summer 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005: Internships at the European Commission (DG Development), Belgian
Technical Cooperation (BTC-CTB), Belgian Directorate General for Development Cooperation (DGCD)
LANGUAGES
Basic Spoken
Spanish
Fluent Spoken
English, Italian, French
Basic Written
Spanish
Fluent Written
English, Italian, French
HONORS, SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS:
2014
Best Paper Award on Public Organizations, Unicredit
2013-2015
Teaching Fellowship, LSE
2009-2013
Department of Economics Scholarship, LSE
2009-2013
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Quota Award
2010-2011
Unicredit, Giovanna Crivelli Scholarship
2009-2010
Marco Fanno Scholarship
2008
Best Master Thesis Award, Fondazione Franceschi
2
ERIKA DESERRANNO
COMPLETED PAPERS:
Job Market Paper:
“Financial incentives as signals: Experimental evidence from the recruitment of health workers”,
Working Paper, October 2014
I study the role of financial incentives as signals of job attributes when these are unknown to potential
applicants. I create experimental variation in expected earnings and use it to estimate the effect of
financial incentives on the size and composition of the applicant pool for a newly created health worker
position in Uganda. I find that more lucrative positions are perceived as entailing a lower positive
externality for the community, and discourage agents with strong pro-social preferences to apply. While
higher financial incentives attract a larger number of applicants, and help the recruiter fill vacancies, they
hamper retention by reducing the ability to recruit the most socially motivated agents, who are found to
stay longer on the job.
RESEARCH IN PROGRESS:
“Women farmers and barriers to technology adoption: A randomized evaluation of BRAC’s extension
program in rural Uganda”, joint with Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Imran Rasul, Munshi Sulaiman
“Does selection of leaders matter for the functioning of community groups? Direct democracy vs.
appointment by local elite. Experimental evidence from Uganda”, joint with Miri Stryjan, Munshi Sulaiman
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS:
Dec 2014
EEDEC Symposium on Economic Experiments in Development Countries, Bergen
Dec 2014
ES European Winter Meeting, Madrid
Nov 2014
NEUDC, Boston
Oct 2014
Conference for Ph.D and post-doctoral researchers in development economics, Oxford
Sep 2014
Workshop in Public Organizations, Vienna
July 2014
Applied Economics Workshop, Petralia
June 2014
Workshop in Development Economics, Ascea
3