Aisha Nanyiti
Dr. Aisha Nanyiti is a Lecturer at Makerere University’s School of Economics. She holds a PhD in Development Economics from Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on impact evaluation, causal inference, and behavioural economics, with expertise in Randomized Control Trials (RCTs), Lab‑in‑the‑Field experiments, and survey-based causal analysis. Aisha studies labour and financial markets, gender and women’s empowerment, poverty, and clean energy adoption, bridging rigorous evidence with real-world policy impact. She is also a Research Fellow at the Environment for Development Initiative (EfD‑Mak Centre), contributing to inclusive development and evidence-based policy in East Africa.
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Dr. Aisha Nanyiti is a Lecturer at Makerere University’s School of Economics. She holds a PhD in Development Economics from Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Her research focuses on impact evaluation, causal inference, and behavioural economics, with expertise in Randomized Control Trials (RCTs), Lab‑in‑the‑Field experiments, and survey-based causal analysis. Aisha studies labour and financial markets, gender and women’s empowerment, poverty, and clean energy adoption, bridging rigorous evidence with real-world policy impact. She is also a Research Fellow at the Environment for Development Initiative (EfD‑Mak Centre), contributing to inclusive development and evidence-based policy in East Africa.
In their own words…
IEA – Could you walk us through the key moments that shaped your path – from your earliest exposure to economic thinking, to what sparked your interest in the field, and ultimately what drew you to academic research?
Aisha – It started when I was putting together my thoughts for my PhD proposal. The microfinance movement had taken shape, with significant success but also with indebtedness for some individual and group recipients. So, the quest for answers on what poor people themselves can do to improve their welfare was still on. Collective action of the poor through saving institutions seemed a viable option in the context of limited space for autonomy. The device of framed field experiments came from our initiative to conduct causal and generalizable analyses.
IEA – Your experimental study found evidence of moral hazard under informal insurance but not under formal insurance among Ugandan farmers. What do you think explains this asymmetry, and what are its implications for designing insurance products for smallholder farmers in developing countries?
Aisha – Unlike the formal insurance case, informal insurance is associated with a disincentive to exert effort due to the dislike of reduced expected earnings from sharing good state earnings with a peer in a bad state. This implies that informal insurance provides limited coverage. In real sharing networks, there is a tendency for actions like income hiding that are also associated with far-reaching productivity losses among peers. Formal insurance products that are designed to reduce these effects can benefit from awareness programmes that help farmers understand potential negative outcomes. For example, through simulations or testimonials from peers who have experienced losses, to increase uptake.
IEA – Your study uses an incentive-compatible framed field experiment with real household items to measure women’s bargaining power, finding that rural electrification increases women’s empowerment. How does this experimental approach improve upon self-reported measures used in previous studies, and what mechanisms might explain the link between electrification and enhanced bargaining power for women?
Aisha – Self-reported responses tend to be noisy, as respondents may inflate or under-report their responses. A framed field experiment with real household items enables the simulation of real bargaining situations that spouses encounter each day, in order to elicit more accurate choices. Besides increasing opportunities for starting income-generating activities, electrification increases access to information through media, which changes attitudes and perceptions towards women.
IEA – Your research shows that tied labor contracts and savings products – both designed to help workers smooth consumption – actually reduce their wages and income. Can you explain why institutional innovations meant to help agricultural workers can paradoxically make them worse off?
Aisha – Compared to the spot labour market, tied labour contracts and savings products offer consumption smoothing benefits to agricultural workers, for which they have to incur a risk premium in the form of reduced spot wages or an average tied wage that is lower than the average spot wage. In the context of high unemployment and landlords essentially being first movers, the smoothing institutions are unable to prompt wage offers that offset the risk premium.
IEA – How has your personal background influenced your research perspectives, and what concrete steps do you think the economics field should take to become more inclusive?
Aisha – Micro-econometric development research is particularly of interest to me, given my knowledge and experience with the local context in terms of people’s livelihoods, incentives, and coping mechanisms. Building the capacity of researchers through good-quality PhD training via scholarship programmes, with appropriate sandwich arrangements — where doctoral candidates split their training between a home institution and an overseas university — may be attractive to potential women researchers. Research and academic institutions can promote collaboration between researchers and accommodate inclusive time frames for administrative and research meetings.
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