-
A Thai village study finds wide variation in risk attitudes, suggesting that policy to smooth economic volatility may need to be nuanced. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis: The Region, June 2010 Douglas Clement, Editor It may be a vestige of colonial history that leads people in industrialized...
-
New book by MIT Economist Robert M. Townsend establishes foundation for analyzing the impact of financial policies in developing countries. CHICAGO, March 22, 2011 Ever since widespread defaults on microloans in India thrust the microfinance industry into crisis, a compelling and fundamental question...
-
Robert M. Townsend of MIT talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about development and the role of financial institutions in growth. Drawing on his research, particularly his surveys of households in Thailand, Townsend argues that both informal networks and arrangements and formal financial institutions...
-
Robert M. Townsend, Interviewed by Stephen Yeo Robert M. Townsend of MIT talks about his research on how the lives of the world’s poor can be improved through more efficient financial systems. Drawing on data gathered from an extensive survey of Thai households, Townsend discusses risk-sharing and the...
-
Robert M. Townsend, Interviewed by Stephen Yeo Robert M. Townsend talks about his recent book, co-authored with Krislert Samphantharak, that analyses household finance in developing countries using integrated household surveys. Townsend describes how to create new and more comprehensive household ‘accounts...
-
Economist’s study shows how the poor in developing countries become wealthier. Peter Dizikes, MIT News Office January 10, 2011 For all the detailed tools developed to study finance in past decades, relatively few scholars have brought those methods to bear on a pressing social question: How do poor people...
-
Measurements of consumer behavior, firm productivity, and real standards of living across countries are all crucial to understanding economic growth and development as well as shaping policy - but what if the measurements are wrong? At the Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics' (MFI...
-
La conferencia titulada “Acumulación de Riqueza y Factores que Explican el Éxito” dio inicio al encuentro que contó con la participación del destacado académico del MIT, Robert Townsend. El encuentro profundizó sobre la importancia de la realización de la primera Encuesta Longitudinal de Empresas (ELE...
-
Leading experts will discuss ways to improve survey design and data collection in developing economies when they meet Dec. 10-11 at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. for “Survey Design and Measurement in Development Economics,” a conference presented by the University of Chicago, the World Bank and...
-
"We actually are the ones being trained by the successful individuals who are out there -- we learn from them, from what they do, and how they overcome obstacles." That is the modest analysis offered by Professor Robert M. Townsend of the ambitious program over which he is presiding, funded...