Sarojini Hirshleifer

Sarojini Hirshleifer’s research spans the fields of development, labor and behavioral economics. She focuses on testing the effectiveness of interventions that alleviate constraints to higher productivity and better decision-making. In order to identify such interventions, she studies the underlying behavioral biases and beliefs that affect investment decisions and the optimization of production processes. A complementary thread in her research aims to understand how to increase the efficiency of learning and human capital accumulation across the lifecycle, and thus support higher labor force participation.

Her research has been supported by Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT, Policy Design Evaluation Lab (PDEL) at UC San Diego, Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at University of California, Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) at CEPR and DFID, and the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF) at the World Bank. She earned a Ph.D. in Economics from University of Caifornia, San Diego, and a B.A. with Highest Honors in Economics and Distinction in General Scholarship from University of California, Berkeley.