A new website popularizing research in development and behavioral economics recently launched, and CERGE-EI faculty and PhD students are intricately involved. You can check out the new site here: www.gapiresearch.org.

The Group for Analysis of Poverty and Inequality is behind this project.  The group was founded by Michal Bauer (CERGE-EI) and Julie Chytilová  (Charles University), along with their PhD students Vojta Bartos, Jana Cahlikova, Lubos Cingl, Dasa Katreniakova, Ian Levely and Tomas Zelinsky. Their main aim is to bring applicable economic research to a broader audience, while also bringing researchers interested in these issues closer together.

The group is interested in understanding the roots of human poverty and inequality within and across societies. They explore crucial issues of economic development, and their research is often inspired by insights from behavioral economics and psychology.

Does the experience of war cause people to cooperate more within their groups? What can this mean for post-conflict recovery? Why are poor people willing to pay for the opportunity to save, and how does microcredit help them in this respect? Are women more patient in their decisions than men, and what does it mean for targeting development aid within a family?

These difficult questions largely require tools from experimental economics. The researchers collect original experimental data in many countries ranging from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Georgia, Uganda, Sierra Leone, all the way to India and Afghanistan.

If you are curious about the answers to these questions, you can dig deeper into this exciting field at www.gapiresearch.org or check regular updates at their facebook profile: http://facebook.com/GAPIresearch.