Teferi Mergo

Associate Professor of Economics
Headshot of Teferi Mergo

Intro:

I grew up in Ethiopia during a turbulent time which sparked my early interest in development economics, setting me on an improbable journey to pursuing higher education in Economics at Berkeley.

Research Interests:

My research seeks to gauge the causal impacts of various policy interventions and institutions on development, with emphasis on the African continent - a diverse region that is well-suited for such inquiry.  With appointments at United college and the Economics department at the University of Waterloo, I aim to build a research portfolio that has some relevance to policy making for economic development in low-income regions.

Selected Publications:

  1. Is low fertility really a problem? Population aging, dependency, and consumption, Science, 346(6206), 229 – 234, (2014) – With R. Lee, et al.
  2. The effects of international migration on migrant-source households: Evidence from Ethiopian Diversity-Visa lottery migrants, World Development, 84(3), 69-81, (2016).
  3. Parental health outcomes of children's migration: Experimental evidence from Ethiopia, International Migration, 58(6), 153 - 170.  (2020).
  4. Ethnically asymmetric political representation and the provision of public goods: theory and evidence from Ethiopia, Economics of Governance, 24(4), 519-547. (2023) - With A. Nimubona and H. Rus
  5. The effectiveness of English-medium instruction in primary education: evidence from Ethiopia, Applied Economics Letters, https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2024.2332586 - With L. Daba

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