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Nava Ashraf

Nava Ashraf

Psychology and Economics Programme Co-Director, Professor of Economics and Research Director, Marshall Institute of Philanthropy and Entrepreneurship

Expertise: development, gender economics

Telephone:
+44 (0)20 7955 6992
Email:
n.ashraf1@lse.ac.uk
Connect:
Twitter
Website
Links:
Economics of Environment and Energy
Development
Psychology and Economics
Altruistic Capital Lab
Cohesive Capitalism
Department of Economics

Biography

Nava Ashraf's current research interests are:

  • Psychology and Economics
  • Development Economics
  • Economics of the Family

Latest

CentrePiece - The magazine of the Centre for Economic Performance
Finding meaning at work

19 June 2026

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, Virginia Minni and Luigi Zingales

Helping employees assess their jobs through the lens of purpose increases productivity and narrows gender gaps in career choices... Read more...
STICERD Public Events and Lectures
Growth, Gender, and Labour Markets in Low-income Countries

25 March 2026

Dennis Novy (FCDO), Oriana Bandiera (LSE), Various speakers , David Lam (Michigan), Nava Ashraf (LSE)

As the G?LM | LIC Programme concludes in 2026, we are pleased to announce a final conference hosted by the London School of Economics in London from March 25 to 27, 2026. ... Read more...
STICERD Public Events and Lectures
Enlightened Bottom Line: Rethinking Success in Business and Investing

16 March 2026

Jenna Nicholas (Impact Experience), Nava Ashraf (LSE)

What if business and investing could be rooted in the deepest values of the human spirit?... Read more...
STICERD Public Events and Lectures
Reimaging Work: Meaning, Purpose and Productivity

20 October 2025

Nava Ashraf (LSE)

Read more...
STICERD Public Events and Lectures
Visions of the Future: Reimagining the way we work

19 June 2025

Oriana Bandiera (LSE), Daniel Susskind (University of Oxford), Nava Ashraf (LSE)

This event is part of the LSE Festival: Visions for the Future, running from Monday 16 to Saturday 21 June 2025, with a series of events exploring the threats and opportunities of the near and distant future, and what a ... Read more...
Wellbeing Seminars
Meaning at Work

12 June 2025

Nava Ashraf (LSE)

Read more...
CEP discussion papers
Meaning at work

14 May 2025

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, Virginia Minni and Luigi Zingales

We evaluate a firm's unusual, worker-centered, solution to the agency problem: enabling employees to reduce the cost of effort rather than pushing them with performance rewards. We randomize the roll-out of the firm's "D... Read more...
Wellbeing Seminars
CANCELLED: Meaning at Work

06 March 2025

Nava Ashraf (LSE)

Read more...
External publications
Gender Gaps across the Spectrum of Development: Local Talent and Firm Productivity

01 June 2024

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, Virginia Minni and Victor Quintas-Martinez

We ask whether the gendered division of work affects firm productivity across the spectrum of economic development. Personnel records of over 100,000 individuals hired by a global firm that operates in 100 countries reve... Read more...
Development Discussion Papers
Losing Prosociality in the Quest for Talent? Sorting, Selection, and Productivity in the Delivery of Public Services

28 July 2014

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Scott Lee

We embed a field experiment in a nationwide recruitment drive for nurses in Zambia to test whether career benefits attract talent at the expense of prosocial motivation. We randomize the offer of career benefits at the r... Read more...
Development Discussion Papers
Awards Unbundled: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment

14 August 2013

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Scott Lee

Organizations often use awards to incentivize performance. We design a field experiment to unbundle the mechanisms through which awards may affect behavior: by facilitating social comparison and by conferring recognition... Read more...
Development Discussion Papers
No Margin, no Mission? A Field Experiment on Incentives for public service delivery

01 January 2012

Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera and Kelsey Jack

A substantial body of research investigates the design of incentives in firms, yet less is known about incentives in organizations that hire individuals to perform tasks with positive social spillovers. We conduct a fiel... Read more...