HeyJaredBackstory: How Research Papers in Economics Get Made
Tune into the Backstory Podcast with hosts Riccardo Di Cato, Aakash Bhalothia, Santiago Cantillo, and Maddison Erbabian for a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes process of economic research.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 5
- Latest publication
- Sep 15, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Aug 6, 2026
Latest episodes
Backstory: Solène Delecourt on The Effect of AI Interviewers on Gender Gaps in Hiring (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Santiago speaks with Solène about her work titled "The Effect of AI Interviewers on Gender Gaps in Hiring: A field experiment in the Philippines" and co-authored with Brian Jabarian and Luca Henkel. Solène shares how the project began after reaching out to another economist whose presentation she had seen months earlier, leading to a fast-moving collaboration with results in just a few weeks. She reflects on how AI and online surveys have changed the way we conduct experiments, the barriers face
Backstory: Jonathan Weigel on Whether Progressivity Raises Tax Capacity (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Riccardo speaks with Jonathan Weigel about his paper, coauthored with Augustin Bergeron, Arthur Laroche, Joana Naritomi, Gabriel Tourek, and Marina Ngoma, titled: “Does Progressivity Raise Tax Capacity? Experimental Evidence from the D.R. Congo.” Join us to hear how Jonathan got started on his research agenda in the DRC and what it takes to set up a research organization in the field, manage enumerators, and build relationships with government and tax officials. In the middle of a great conversa
Backstory: Ebehi Iyoha on How Subsidies Flow through Networks (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Mikey speaks with Ebehi Iyoha of Harvard Business School about her working paper with Melko Dragojević and Stejpan Srhoj on spillover effects — the effect on firms when large grants were awarded to other firms in their supply chain — in Croatia. Ebehi goes into detail about they borrowed techniques from the study of networks and applied it to this setting in order to answer a novel question about how grant spending progogates through a network of firms.
Backstory: Matt Lowe on Psychedelics and Well-Being (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Santiago speaks with Matt Lowe about “Psychedelics and Well-Being: An Experiment in Brazil,” coauthored with Patrick Francois and Ieda Matavelli. Matt takes us behind the scenes of the project: how the idea began, what it meant to study psychedelics as economists, and how the team navigated a topic that is making waves in other fields. He also reflects on the importance of building trust with an ayahuasca center, and how that relationship opened the door to a richer research design than the team
Backstory: Patrick Agte on Understaffing in Public Health Care (opens the original)
Read excerpt
Maddison speaks with Patrick Agte of the Stockholm School of Economics about his working paper on the understaffing of India's public healthcare system, and how performance was dramatically improved by the adding a second healthcare worker to village clinics. They also discuss the benefits — and costs — of building relationships with government officials for conducting important research. The paper is available here: https://patrickagte.github.io/patrickagte/agte_jmp.pdf
Publishing over time
Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.
Recurring subjects
Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.
Audience
No verified audience measurement yet.
About this data
Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.
Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.
See coverage about Backstory: How Research Papers in Economics Get Made