Kate Orkin
Dr Kate Orkin is Associate Professor in Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. Kate completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town. She did her MPhil and DPhil at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, finishing in 2015.
Kate is an applied microeconomist, working in labour, public, development and behavioural economics. She mainly runs large field experiments in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and South Africa, developing and testing real-world interventions in partnership with governments and NGOs. Her research studies frictions in urban developing country labour markets that prevent young people from finding work; the role of mental health in labour market decisions; the design of cash transfer and wage subsidy programmes; and the role of aspirations in economic decision-making.
Kate has worked extensively at the interface of research and policy in taking successful evidence-based interventions to scale. She is an advisor to the South African presidency on the design of cash and active labour market programmes. She provided technical support to the recent roll out of a new unconditional grant to 10.5 million unemployed people, one of the largest expansions of the social safety net in recent years.
