Jie Bai is an Associate Professor (without tenure) in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Jie's research focuses on firms and markets in developing countries and emerging economies, addressing two broad questions: First, what are the key barriers and constraints that hinder firm growth and upgrading in developing countries? Second, understanding these, how can we then structure effective policies to alleviate firm-level constraints and market frictions to facilitate private sector development? Methodologically, Jie combines large-scale randomised control trials, quasi-experimental applied micro techniques, and structural modelling tools from industrial organisation and international trade. Jie also likes to ground her empirical research in microeconomic theory to shed light on how firms make decision, and how markets are organised to generate incentives and allocate resources.
Jie has conducted research in China, East Africa and Southeast Asia, where she has collaborated with governments and non-government organisations to design, implement and evaluate industrial, trade and development policies.
Jie received her Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in June 2016, and spent one year at Microsoft Research New England prior to joining HKS in 2017.