Dr Elisa Cavatorta
Key information
- Qualifications
- PhD (Birkbeck)
- Building
- 36 Gordon Square
- Office
- LIDC 405
- Email address
- ec21@soas.ac.uk
Biography
Elisa joined the CeDEP in August 2011, after completing her PhD in Economics at Birkbeck, University of London. Her main research interests are in the areas of development economics, applied microeconomics, defence economics and GIS. She contributes to the LANSA research project which focuses on the agricultural-nutritutional disconnect in South Asia.
Elisa's PhD dissertation has a primarily focus on the Middle East: it includes works on military expenditure interactions in the region and studies on food insecurity in the Palestinian Territories. She worked in the Middle East, conducting research on food insecurity for FAO and regional research institutes.
During her doctoral training, Elisa was a teaching assistant in several undergraduate and graduate modules at Birkbeck and City University, she supervised student projects and organised short laboratory courses in applied economics. She has a specific interest in teaching modules in economics and econometrics.
Research interests
Country case studies within the project Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA).
Uninsurable background Risk and insurance: evidence from the West Bank (with Luca Pieroni)
The study explores the effect of an uninsurable background risk on the decision to buy health insurance.
Food insecurity and access to resources: the case of the Palestinian Territories (with Ron Smith)
The project explores the interconnections among several dimensions of deprivation using a mix of GIS techniques and econometric analysis.
Affordability, accessibility and quality in health-care provider choice: the case of Nigeria (with Alice Mesnard and Wendy Janssens).
The study evaluates empirically the role of direct cost (such as fees), indirect costs (particularly travel time and trasport cost) and quality in patient behaviour on health-care provider choice.
Infectious diseases and migration in Tanzania (with Alice Mesnard).
The paper studies whether migration can be seen as a coping-strategy to escape infectious diseases and test empirically this hypothesis using a tracking panel of migrants from Tanzania.