Research

Research by Tim Dobermann on AI, climate adaptation, energy markets, structural transformation, and public finance.

Working papers

• AI and the Ladder of Development

  Develops a small open-economy model in which frontier AI can raise current productivity yet slow capability accumulation by reallocating labour toward weak-learning local services.

• Human Capital, Mobility, and the Unequal Effects of Climate Change

  Examines how human capital creates mobility across sectors and locations as a channel for climate adaptation, combining a historical schooling expansion in India with a spatial model of structural change.

  IGC project · Policy brief

• The Economic Costs of Lopsided Contracts: Evidence from Power Purchase Agreements in Pakistan with Faraz Hayat and Sugandha Srivastav

  Builds a new database on power purchase agreements to study how asymmetric information and regulatory capture shape electricity prices and productive misallocation.

• Pushing on a String? Price and Enforcement Interventions in Pakistan’s Power Sector with Robin Burgess, Michael Greenstone, Faraz Hayat, and Usman Naeem

  Uses two randomised experiments with government to estimate how electricity payments and theft respond to price incentives and norm-based enforcement.

  IGC project

Work in progress

• Deciphering the Miracle on the Han: How South Korea Escaped Poverty and Transformed its Economy with Oriana Bandiera, Ignacio Bañares Sanchez, Robin Burgess, Jay Euijung Lee, Jeongkyung Won, and Hyunjoo Yang

  Uses newly digitised historical microdata to study the roles of industrial policy, rural development, and infrastructure in South Korea’s rapid transformation.

  IGC project

• Electricity, Agglomeration, and Industrialisation in Ghana with Ignacio Bañares Sanchez and Niclas Moneke

  Estimates how the allocation of electricity outages affects firm productivity, entry, and industrial agglomeration across space.

  IGC project

Ongoing projects

• The Impact of Smart Meters on Firm Performance: Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia with Eyoual Tamrat Demeke, Aregawi Gebremariam, Niclas Moneke, Sugandha Srivastav, Ephrem Andargie Tadesse, and Tewodros Assefa Tesemma
• The Diffusion of Solar in Rural Economies: Markets and Frictions in Ethiopia with Sugandha Srivastav and Tewodros Assefa Tesemma
• Introducing Anonymity and Third-Party Information to Combat Customs Tax Evasion in Pakistan with Michael Best and Faraz Hayat
• Reinventing Pakistan’s Welfare State: Replacing Energy Subsidies with Targeted Transfers with Robin Burgess, Michael Greenstone, Faraz Hayat, and Usman Naeem
• Randomising Anti-Theft Technologies: Experimental Evidence on Aerial Bundled Cables
• Price Relief under Nonlinear Electricity Tariffs: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan
• Optimal Spatial Policy with Local Demand Effects