Professor Sonia Bhalotra FBA

Summary

Sonia Bhalotra is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. Her research has contributed to identifying elements of the micro-foundations of inequality and social mobility, with a focus on health and gender. She uses experimental methods on large data sets to illuminate decision-making in families, businesses and government, guided by the belief that good policy depends upon credible evidence.

Contributions of her research include identifying maternal health as a source of non-randomness in twin births, long term economic impacts of treatment for depression, conditions under which unemployment benefits can reduce domestic violence, understanding why women do not leave abusive partnerships, how firms respond to sexual harassment legislation, how barriers to opportunity cap long run returns to childhood investments, how improvements in child health liberate women into fulfilling work, how low cost sanitation and nutrition programmes in infancy can lower the risk of chronic disease, how to prospectively select good managers, and the substantive impacts of political representation.

Sonia is Principal Investigator on a European Research Council Advanced Grant on violence against women which includes research set in Denmark, Norway, Italy, the UK, USA, India, Brazil and Chile. She is Co-Investigator on the UKRI-funded CAGE Research Centre where she co-leads research on mental health and gender in a similar range of countries. She is Co-Investigator on a Norwegian Research Council large grant on the social consequences of employer power; Co-Principal Investigator on JPAL grants evaluating labour market policies in Italy and teacher-student bonding in Bangladesh respectively; and Co-Investigator on grants from the American National Institute of Health awarded to study persistent impacts of maternal depression on mothers and children. Sonia was Co-I on an ESRC Research Centre grant at Essex, leading the families theme, and Co-I on an ESRC award to the Human Rights Centre, co-leading the health and human rights theme.

Sonia is Fellow of the Royal Economic Society, the UK Academy of Social Sciences, and the International Economic Association. She is Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies London, Centre for Economic Policy Research London, Rockwool Foundation Berlin and CESifo Munich, and Visiting Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She serves on the Council of the Royal Economic Society, and on their Standards of Conduct Committee; she is on the Women in Economics Committee of the European Economic Association, Associate Editor of the Economic Journal, and she acts on a number of advisory boards.