Lisa Cameron FASSA (born 27 January 1967) is an Australian economist currently working as a Professional Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne.
Lisa Cameron earned her Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Melbourne in 1989, where she graduated with first class honours. This was followed by completing a Masters of Commerce degree in 1992, as well as a Graduate Diploma in Indonesian Modern Language in 1999. Thereafter, Cameron completed a M.A. and subsequently proceeded to complete a PhD in economics at Princeton University. While at Princeton, she received the Bradley Fellowship award and scholarship from the Department of Economics, the Robertson Fellow award at the Woodrow Wilson School, and the Mellon Grant for research in Indonesia, aligning with her research projects. After her graduation in 1996, she continued in an academic and research capacity at the University of Melbourne for 13 years, being promoted to Director of the Asian Economics Centre in 2007 and becoming a Professor for the Department of Economics in 2010. In order to pursue greater involvement in the developmental economics space, Cameron moved to Monash University in 2010, where she acted as the Director for the Centre for Development Economics (CDE) and as a Professor in the Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics. Since 2017, her current role at the Melbourne Institute has allowed her to concentrate on socio-economic research matters in developing countries of interest. [1]
In addition to her academic position, Cameron maintains affiliations with Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) in Boston, while actively contributing publications for the IZA Institute of Labor Economics in Germany, joining as a Research Fellow in February 2012. [2] In 2014, she was also elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences. [3] Cameron has extensive experience working with international development organizations and global agencies, such as the World Bank and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia). [4]
Cameron's research interests include labour economics, health economics, and developmental economics, specifically in developing nations within Asia (with core countries of focus being Indonesia and China). In most of her research she takes an empirical microeconomics lens, often applying techniques of experimental economics to better understand and gain insights on socio-economic and policy-related issues. While at the World Bank, Cameron focused her earlier efforts in 2004 by preparing a brief on gender inequality for the Indonesian government and a developing research program for the Bank that centered around similar issues. Most recently, she took on Principal Investigator Roles on the evaluation of Indonesian sanitation interventions and child and maternal health trends. Her involvement in DAFTA follows a similar pattern of research, most notably with research projects in disability, gender inequality, and maternal mortality. [5]
With a large focus on the welfare of disadvantaged and marginalized groups and a particular focus around sanitation systems in developing communities, Cameron has published extensive work and forthcoming publications in areas within developmental economics. Cameron's work with Diana Conteras Suarez in evaluating conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs includes new considerations around the role of consumer choice and individual preferences on the likelihood of household participation in these programs, and whether there is evidence of greater aspirations for higher-level education for their children. Through a study conducted in Colombia, Cameron concludes that despite CCT programs driving marginal increases in human capital, the association is primarily due to the rise in disposable income that allows for a greater propensity to invest in schooling. [6] In reality, these transfer programs had no impact on the participants' time preferences, where parents actually assigned a lower probability to their children completing higher levels of education with their involvement in these programs. This suggests a potential risk of over-dependency on money transfers as the children becoming increasingly educated.
Studying the impacts of widely-used community-led total sanitation programs in rural Indonesia with Susan Olivia and Manisha Shah, Cameron concludes that while the initiative resulted in a scaled roll-out across the country and contributed to increases in proper sanitation infrastructure and lowered acceptance rates of open defecation among citizens, there was no evidence of direct impact on children with respect to mitigating anemia and other functional characteristics. [7] The household data collected from randomized trials suggests that while local governments are becoming more proactive in supporting development projects for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), there exists several barriers in enabling systematic changes within Indonesian communities, including varying levels of social and economic capital, levels of poverty, and the willingness of local governments to offer educational support regarding sanitation to citizens. However, local governments were found to lag behind World Bank contractors in terms of their effectiveness in implementing these solutions. Relatedly, in another exploration of the impacts of open defecation on economic growth and development, Cameron, Shah, and Paul Gertler find a negative linear correlation between open defecation rates in villages and the average heights of children (leading to increases of up to 0.44 standard deviations), but only in the case where open defecation was completely eliminated from the environment. [8] The authors also suggest that health promotions and educational campaigns incentivizing individuals to install sanitation facilities were less effective in driving adoption compared to offering subsidies for installation.
Cameron's work on health economics extends to an exploration on the "double burden" of malnutrition in broader South East Asia, where both under-nutrition and over-nutrition run rampant and contribute to systemic health problems within the countries in the Pacific. By adapting the UNICEF framework for malnutrition determinants and the Lancet series' recent obesity framework [9] and examining vulnerabilities in children through body mass index comparisons, she concludes that almost 50% of the global double burden of malnutrition exists in South East Asia and the Pacific alone, holding the fastest increase in female overweight rates in the past 30 years. Based on these findings, a number of policy-based opportunities are identified in order to mitigate the health risks in the South East Asian regions, including commission new research, pushing for private sector involvement, and emphasizing the regional monitoring of nutritional outcomes. [10]
In her most recent publication, Cameron examines the relationship between rising crime rates in China and the marriage market, specifically by looking at the sex ratio and other behavioural drivers of criminality in certain districts within the country. Through collecting survey and experimental data on prison inmates and compatible non-inmates (migrants) in Shenzhen, Cameron finds through regression analysis that the propensity to commit crimes in China is positively associated with the high prevailing sex ratios (marriageable age from 18-27) through two factors. She argues that based on this cohort analysis, criminality is mostly driven by the behaviour of unmarried men through mechanisms in the marriage market. In this case, given high sex ratio environments within Shenzhen, there is increased competition on the marriage markets, putting pressure on men to appear more financiallyattractive and thus incentivizing these unmarried men to commit higher-value, riskier crimes in order to achieve their goals. [11]
The second key area of Cameron's economic contributions are specifically around policy considerations, stemming directly from her extensive experience at the World Bank and DAFTA. In a key publication on social protection for women in developing nations updated in February 2019, Cameron asserts that there are large barriers to accessibility for women looking for social protection schemes, and that optimizing the delivery and uptake of these initiatives requires a concerted effort to design programs that can be scaled up to reach a large number of women. Empirically, she finds that while employment guarantee schemes, pension schemes, microfinance, and conditional cash transfer programs can all be useful in closing the gap in earnings and sustained work, they are often not tailored to specific groups of women and thus fail to adequately protect women. These necessary accommodations can be filled jointly by governments and the efforts of non-governmental organizations to account for the individual differences in women's everyday lives. [12]
Cameron's current and existing research within economic policy in Indonesia spans a broad range of topics, including gender inequality in Indonesian labour markets from a government policy perspective, the impacts of criminalization of sex work, determinants of maternal mortality, and female labour force participation rates in Indonesia. As seen in the research topics, Cameron's work has been increasingly focused on women in the developing economies. Through her policy analysis, she finds that the Indonesian female labour participation rate has stayed for two decades at a constant 51%, primarily due to supply-side drivers. Marital status was found to be a key factor in determining the degree of labour force participation in Indonesia, where a married woman in a rural area is 11% less likely to be working or looking for work. This is compared to urban areas where married women are 24% less likely to be in the workforce relative to single women, with both of these statistics driven further by the level of educational attainment. Using an economic growth model, she forecasts that Indonesia would need to increase its female labour force participation rate to 58.5% to contribute the G20's overall goal of decrease the female-male participation gap to 25% by 2025, which is noted to be unlikely given the current state labour market conditions. [13]
Extending the work on labour force participation further, Cameron has conducted a general study of gender inequality in Indonesia that builds on previous research and literature from the Global Gender Gap Report in 2014, providing new insights specifically in the East Asian region. This includes the extent of the gender-wage gap totalling 41%, suggesting large levels of wage discrimination against women with only a small proportion of this explainable by differences in productive characteristics. Additionally, she notes that the phenomenon of "sticky floors", where women in lower-paid and lower-skilled jobs face more difficulties compared to women at the top of the spectrum, compounds with industrial segregation by occupation and contributes greatly to this disparity. Cameron notes that future priorities and initiatives to mitigate effects of the wage gap should be closely tied to entry and re-entry decisions into the labour market at the individual level. [14]
In collaboration with the Australian-Indonesian Partnership for Economic Governance and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the work of Diana Contreras-Suarez, Cameron provides a policy-based view of disability in Indonesia and its impacts on economic development and welfare. In the research, she notes that the main drivers of disabilities are through diseases and accidents, with the average years of education only being 2.8 to 4.4 years compared to 6.5 years for individuals with no disabilities. [15] This problem is further exacerbated by the fact that the majority of individuals with disabilities do not use assistive devices to help mitigate their health and personal issues. Cameron suggests that there is a huge opportunity to collect higher quality data to inform and build adequate policy mechanisms.
In 2018 Cameron was one of the authors of "Effects of China's One Child Policy on its children". The paper analysed the effect of China's one-child policy using 400 subjects and it was reported that China's policy had created a generation of children who lacked social and economic qualities that were important for success. [16] Her co-authors were Nisvan Erkal of Melbourne University and Lata Gangadharan from Monash University and Xin Meng from the Australian National University. [16] The research analyses the impact of population and economic growth, specifically with potential impacts of gender imbalances and cultural preferences in terms of child bearing. They note that the overall economic impact of the One-Child policy is extremely difficult to determine, with conflicting effects such as a heavier productivity burden on younger generations but with associated stimulations in the country's net savings rate. Due to many Chinese households preferring a son in the child birth, the increasing ratio between the number of men to women has led to many men being unable to find a partner. With the current day policy being looser in requirements, Cameron asserts that although there is now more possibility for greater fertility rates, the majority of urban women are likely to delay childbirth in favour of higher-level education [17] (with no impact on rural Chinese households who were not restricted by the original One-Child policy). [18]
Other topics of Cameron's research include experimental economics examinations of risk-taking within natural disaster contexts, institutional corruption, the complements and substitutes discussion for cannabis, alcohol, and cigarettes, and the considerations in the cultural integration of immigrants.
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(help)Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation systems aim to protect human health by providing a clean environment that will stop the transmission of disease, especially through the fecal–oral route. For example, diarrhea, a main cause of malnutrition and stunted growth in children, can be reduced through adequate sanitation. There are many other diseases which are easily transmitted in communities that have low levels of sanitation, such as ascariasis, cholera, hepatitis, polio, schistosomiasis, and trachoma, to name just a few.
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically described as rural. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for statistical and administrative purposes.
An only child is a person with no siblings, by birth or adoption.
Community-led total sanitation (CLTS) is an approach used mainly in developing countries to improve sanitation and hygiene practices in a community. The approach tries to achieve behavior change in mainly rural people by a process of "triggering", leading to spontaneous and long-term abandonment of open defecation practices. It focuses on spontaneous and long-lasting behavior change of an entire community. The term "triggering" is central to the CLTS process: It refers to ways of igniting community interest in ending open defecation, usually by building simple toilets, such as pit latrines. CLTS involves actions leading to increased self-respect and pride in one's community. It also involves shame and disgust about one's own open defecation behaviors. CLTS takes an approach to rural sanitation that works without hardware subsidies and that facilitates communities to recognize the problem of open defecation and take collective action to clean up and become "open defecation free".
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.
Water supply and sanitation in Indonesia is characterized by poor levels of access and service quality. More than 16 million people lack access to an at least basic water source and almost 33 million of the country's 275 million population has no access to at least basic sanitation. Only about 2% of people have access to sewerage in urban areas; this is one of the lowest in the world among middle-income countries. Water pollution is widespread on Bali and Java. Women in Jakarta report spending US$11 per month on boiling water, implying a significant burden for the poor.
A public health intervention is any effort or policy that attempts to improve mental and physical health on a population level. Public health interventions may be run by a variety of organizations, including governmental health departments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Common types of interventions include screening programs, vaccination, food and water supplementation, and health promotion. Common issues that are the subject of public health interventions include obesity, drug, tobacco, and alcohol use, and the spread of infectious disease, e.g. HIV.
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Open defecation is the human practice of defecating outside rather than into a toilet. People may choose fields, bushes, forests, ditches, streets, canals, or other open spaces for defecation. They do so either because they do not have a toilet readily accessible or due to traditional cultural practices. The practice is common where sanitation infrastructure and services are not available. Even if toilets are available, behavior change efforts may still be needed to promote the use of toilets. 'Open defecation free' (ODF) is a term used to describe communities that have shifted to using toilets instead of open defecation. This can happen, for example, after community-led total sanitation programs have been implemented.
Yana van der Meulen Rodgers is a professor in the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University,. She also serves as Faculty Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers.
Trevon D'Marcus Logan is an American economist. He is the Hazel C. Youngberg Trustees Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Ohio State University, where he was awarded the 2014 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 2014, he was the youngest-ever president of the National Economic Association. In 2019, he was the inaugural North Hall Economics Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2020, he was named the inaugural director of the National Bureau of Economic Research Working Group on Race and Stratification in the Economy. His research mainly focuses on economic history, including studies of African American migration, economic analysis of illegal markets, the economics of marriage transfers, and measures of historical living standards, with an emphasis on racial disparities in the United States.
Oriana Bandiera, FBA is an Italian development economist and academic, who is currently the Sir Anthony Atkinson Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. Her research focuses on development, labour, and organisational economics. Outside of her academic appointment, she is co-editor of Econometrica, and an affiliate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development. A fellow of the Econometric Society and the British Academy, she received the Yrjö Jahnsson Award in 2019, an award granted annually to the best European economist(s) under the age of 45.
Paul William Glewwe is an economist and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include economic development and growth, the economics of the public sector, and poverty and welfare. He formerly was the Director of the Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy and served as co-chair of the education programme of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).
Manisha Shah is an American economist who is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. She is a development economist whose primary research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of applied microeconomics, health, and development. She is an editor at the Journal of Health Economics and an associate editor at the The Review of Economics and Statistics as well as a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor, and a faculty affiliate at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.
Elizabeth Asiedu is a professor of economics at the University of Kansas. She has facilitated research that is centered around foreign aid, foreign directed investment (FDI), and gender. She is a founder of the Association for the Advancement of African Women (AAAWE), as well as the current president of the organization. Asiedu is an editor of the Journal of African Development.
Xin Meng is a Chinese economist and professor at the Research School of Economics, College of Business and Economics (CBE), Australian National University (ANU). She is also a member of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies, the American Economic Association, the Society of Labor Economics and Royal Economic Society. Her main research interests include Labour Economics, Development Economics, Applied Microeconomics and Economics of Education. She focuses on researching issues about the Chinese labour market during transition, the influence of corporations and gender discrimination, the economic assimilation of immigrants and the economic implications of major catastrophes. Meng was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2008.
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes is a Spanish economist, a Professor in the Economics and Business Management faculty at the University of California, Merced and a Professor and Department Chair at San Diego State University. Since 2015, she has been the Western Representative for a standing committee called the Committee for the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP). Her field of work focuses on the fundamentals of labour economics and international migration, particularly the nature of immigration policies and its impact on migrant's assimilation into the community at a state and local level. Amuedo-Dorantes has published multiple articles in refereed journals including Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Population Economics, International Migration, and Journal of Development Economics.
Nisvan Erkal FASSA is an economist of Turkish-Australian nationality. She is a professor of economics at the University of Melbourne and she is a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Erkal has studied a range of subjects including the effect of policies like China's One Child Policy and how the use of information and traditional methods of choosing leaders can result in discrimination against women.
Nicolas Robert Ziebarth is a university professor at the University of Mannheim and the ZEW- the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research. Since 2022, he is head of their Research Unit "Labour Markets and Social Insurance." Since its founding in 2021, he served as a tenured Associate Professor in Cornell's Brooks School of Public Policy and the Department of Economics. Prior to that, he was an Assistant Professor (2011-2017) and then tenured Associate Professor (2017-2021) in Cornell's Department of Policy Analysis and Management.
Scott Cunningham is a professor of economics at Baylor University, Research Fellow of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, and Research Affiliate of the Computational Justice Lab. He is known for popularizing advances in non-experimental impact evaluation methods by making it more accessible to practitioners. He wrote the Yale University Press textbook Causal Inference: The Mixtape. He is the organizer of a 5k running race at the annual meetings of the American Economic Association.
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