# Stephen D. O'Connell

> Associate Professor of Economics at Emory University. Research spans labor economics and development economics, with a focus on entrepreneurship, forced displacement, gender, and social policy design.

## About

Stephen D. O'Connell is an Associate Professor of Economics at Emory University. He holds a B.A. from Boston College, an M.Phil. and Ph.D. from the City University of New York Graduate Center, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT. In early 2025, he served as Visiting Senior Research Associate at the Becker-Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago.

He is affiliated with the JPAL/IPA Displaced Livelihoods Initiative, the Households in Conflict Network (HiCN), and IZA Institute of Labor Economics. His research combines randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental methods, and qualitative fieldwork to study entrepreneurship, forced displacement, gender, and social policy design.

He teaches undergraduate, masters, and doctoral courses in econometrics, labor economics, and development economics at Emory, and directs Emory Economics' undergraduate research and Honors Programs.

## Research areas

- Labor economics
- Development economics
- Entrepreneurship
- Forced displacement and refugees
- Gender economics
- Social policy design and targeting
- Political economy
- Econometrics and experimental methods

## Applied expertise

- Labor market analysis and wage/earnings modeling
- Statistical analysis of employment discrimination and workplace discrimination
- Economic damages assessment and mitigation analysis
- Program evaluation and causal inference
- Poverty targeting and humanitarian aid design
- Gender equity analysis
- Workforce development and job training evaluation
- Litigation consulting and expert economic analysis

## Selected publications

- Karpowitz, O'Connell, Preece, and Stoddard. "Strength in Numbers? Gender Composition, Leadership, and Women's Influence in Teams." Journal of Political Economy, 2024.
- Brown, Mansour, and O'Connell. "Gender Differences in Political Career Progression." Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2025.
- Schneider and O'Connell. "Gender differences in the adequacy of poverty-targeted food assistance programs." World Development, 2025.
- Altindag and O'Connell. "The short-lived effects of unconditional cash transfers to refugees." Journal of Development Economics, 2023.
- Brown, Mansour, and O'Connell. "Does local female political representation empower women to run for higher office? Evidence from state and national legislatures in India." World Bank Economic Review, 2022.
- McCrain and O'Connell. "Experience, institutions, and candidate emergence: The political career returns to state legislative service." Political Science Research and Methods, 2022.
- Altindag, O'Connell, Sasmaz, Balcioglu, Cadoni, Jerneck, and Foong. "Targeting humanitarian aid using administrative data: model design and validation." Journal of Development Economics, 2021.
- O'Connell. "Can quotas increase the supply of candidates for higher-level positions? Evidence from local government in India." Review of Economics and Statistics, 2020.
- Croke, Mengistu, O'Connell, and Tafere. "The impact of a health facility construction campaign on health service utilisation and outcomes: analysis of spatially linked survey and facility location data in Ethiopia." BMJ Global Health, 2020.
- O'Connell. "Political Inclusion and Educational Investment: Estimates from a national policy experiment in India." Journal of Development Economics, 2018.
- Allcott, Collard-Wexler, and O'Connell. "How Do Electricity Shortages Affect Industry? Evidence from India." American Economic Review, 2016.
- Joyce, Remler, Jaeger, Altindag, O'Connell, and Crockett. "On Measuring and Reducing Selection Bias with a Quasi-Doubly Randomized Preference Trial." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2017.
- Joyce, Jaeger, Altindag, O'Connell, and Crockett. "Does Classroom Time Matter?" Economics of Education Review, 2015.
- Desmet, Ghani, O'Connell, and Rossi-Hansberg. "The Spatial Development of India." Journal of Regional Science, 2015.
- Ghani, Kerr, and O'Connell. "Political Reservations and Women's Entrepreneurship in India." Journal of Development Economics, 2014.
- Ghani, Kerr, and O'Connell. "Local Industrial Structures and Female Entrepreneurship in India." Journal of Economic Geography, 2013.
- Ghani, Kerr, and O'Connell. "Spatial Determinants of Entrepreneurship in India." Regional Studies, 2013.

## Working papers

- Altindag, O'Connell, and Achour. "Geographic poverty targeting in social protection programs: Evidence from a nationwide policy experiment." 2025.
- O'Connell and Mation. "Tell us what you need: Matching public job training to local skill demand with employers' input."
- Mani and O'Connell. "Can political empowerment increase economic participation? Reservations, public works, and female labor force participation in India."

## Affiliations

- Emory University, Department of Economics (Associate Professor, 2022-present; Assistant Professor, 2018-2022)
- Becker-Friedman Institute, University of Chicago (Visiting Senior Research Associate, 2025)
- JPAL/IPA Displaced Livelihoods Initiative (Invited Researcher, 2023-present)
- Households in Conflict Network, HiCN (Affiliate, 2020-present)
- IZA Institute of Labor Economics (Research Affiliate, 2015-present)

## Links

- Website: https://www.stephenoconnell.org/
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2549-2000
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.fr/citations?hl=en&pli=1&user=VPhtAPsAAAAJ
- GitHub: https://github.com/steveofconnell
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/steveoconnell1