Kibrom A. Abay
Kibrom A. Abay is a Country Program Leader/Research Fellow in the Development Strategy and Governance Division at IFPRI, based in Cairo. He is a development and agricultural economist with research interests covering rural development, agricultural transformation, urbanization, food and nutrition security, and behavioral economics. Most of his research involves impact evaluation methods. Some of his recent studies examine the behavioral and inferential implications of mismeasurement in household surveys. Much of his current research focuses on Africa South of the Sahara and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Before joining IFPRI, he has worked as Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Kibrom received his PhD in Economics from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
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Follow Kibrom on:
Website
Kibrom A. Abay is a Country Program Leader/Research Fellow in the Development Strategy and Governance Division at IFPRI, based in Cairo. He is a development and agricultural economist with research interests covering rural development, agricultural transformation, urbanization, food and nutrition security, and behavioral economics. Most of his research involves impact evaluation methods. Some of his recent studies examine the behavioral and inferential implications of mismeasurement in household surveys. Much of his current research focuses on Africa South of the Sahara and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Before joining IFPRI, he has worked as Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Kibrom received his PhD in Economics from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
In their own words…
IEA: Can you tell us what made you pursue a career in economics?
Kibrom: Growing up in a poor household and since I first heard about the concepts of economics, I thought that economics can contribute to addressing the challenges of the poor. The first economics course I took was when I was doing my high school study. There were not many economics graduates in the small town and high school I went to, but we had an excellent part-time teacher whose main job was leading the rural development and agricultural office of the district. Through this introductory course and his practical work on rural and agricultural development, he managed to convince some of us that economics is a valuable tool to reduce poverty. Since then, I pursued studying economics at undergraduate and graduate levels. As soon as I complete each program, I usually realize the limitation of the trainings I acquired and hence the need to add more skills to meaningfully contribute to research and evidence-based public discourse in Africa.
IEA: You have worked on a wide variety of topics, ranging from measurement issues to implications of Covid-19, bringing to each of these topics an attention for careful econometric estimation. What have you learned in the course of doing this empirical work about the role of good empirical work in low-income countries such as Ethiopia?
Kibrom: Despite some encouraging trends, low-income countries remain under-researched, both in economics and other social sciences. In these contexts, increasing the breadth of research and the quality of empirical work is particularly crucial because we mostly have limited studies covering a specific issue. If these limited studies are not based on rigorous empirical approaches and high-quality data, they can easily misguide policies and allocation of meagre resources and investments. High quality empirical work requires improved measurement of outcomes, reliable and high-quality data, and appropriate empirical research design. The quality of empirical work in economics is only as good as the quality of data and/or the validity of empirical methods. I strive to contribute to these outcomes through my research on measurement error and survey design as well as my other work deploying impact evaluation (econometric) methods to identify the impact of various interventions.
IEA: Researchers based in developing countries sometimes face serious obstacles in accessing research networks that are located largely in advanced countries. Would you have some advice for young scholars who are starting off their careers outside those established networks?
Kibrom: Access to research networks and resources is a major obstacle to many young researchers from low-income countries. I am not sure if I have ample experience on this, but below are my three pieces of advice: (i) Recently, there are some evolving networks to address these challenges and hence targeting young researchers from low-income countries. Some of these include the STAARS fellowship program at Cornell, the East Africa Social Science Translation (EASST) at Berkeley. I know the scale of these programs is limited but they can build the capacity of young researchers while also integrating and connecting them with some of the major established networks. I was part of the STAARS program, and I benefited a lot from the collaboration with (and mentorship by) leading development and agricultural economists (including Chris Barrett and others). Second, again recently, there are evolving alternative Southern-based networks that aim to fill this gap. For example, the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP), the African Economic Research Consortium and more recently the Pan-African Scientific Research Council have some form of networks. Although most of these alternative networks remain at early stage, joining these networks can help young researchers access alternative Africa-based networks and resources. I am member of the PEP research fellows’ network and I can tell that these types of networks can help young scholars access further networks and resources. Third, I tend to think that some (not many) of the networks (and people leading some of these networks) in advanced countries may be accessible and approachable than we think.