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Alessandra Voena
Professor of Economics, Stanford University
Alessandra Voena is a labour and development economist whose research focuses primarily on the economics of the family and the economics of gender. Her most recent work studies the economic consequences of the cultural norms around marriage on human capital investments in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. She is currently a Professor of Economics at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at SIEPR, a Research Affiliate at CEPR and a Faculty Research Fellow at NBER. Voena received a PhD in economics in 2011 from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Torino in Italy in 2005. She was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2017 and the Carlo Alberto Medal in the same year.
Recent work by Alessandra Voena
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Pricing health insurance in India
Households are willing to pay for public health insurance, but those who pay to enrol have higher average costs than those who enrol when insurance is free. How then should governments set premiums for health insurance given the high costs of raising...
Published 12.09.24
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How gender norms are perceived across the world
Data from 60 countries across six continents reveals that, in almost every country, the support for basic rights is underestimated, especially among men, suggesting that aligning perceived and actual views may be a promising policy intervention to ra...
Published 29.02.24
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Direct and spillover effects of access to health insurance in India
Demand for insurance is high even at the actuarially fair price and receiving it alongside peers increases utilisation, yet health effects are elusive
Published 01.07.22
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Economic shocks and the age of marriage in sub-Saharan Africa and India
The age of marriage responds to economic conditions. Reducing child marriage requires understanding the economic role of culture and institutions
Published 13.03.20
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Reducing fertility in sub-Saharan Africa
Why do we still see very high fertility rates in Zambia when women want to have fewer children and are open to the use of contraceptives?
Published 30.10.19
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Bride and prejudice: The price of education
Without other subsidies, well-intentioned activism against bride price may cause more harm than good for investing in girls’ education.
Published 21.06.17