About

Dr. Jessica A. Goldberg is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. She created and serves as the faculty director of a program for undergraduate students called Promoting Achievement and Diversity in Economics (PADE). Dr. Goldberg is a development economist whose research interests include rural labor markets, strategies and obstacles to financial inclusion, and the role of social networks in economic decisions. She is currently working on field experiments about credit and savings in Uganda and Zambia, women's participation as providers and consumers of mobile money services in Bangladesh, and the role of social networks in outreach to treat communicable disease in India. She is a faculty affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL) and the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and a faculty research fellow in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Additionally, she serves as a Co-Editor of the Journal of Human Resources and an Associate Editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Development Economics.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Business
• Economics
• Econometrics
• Finance
• Pathology
• Family medicine
• Actuarial science
• Environmental health
• Economic growth
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Experience in financial decision-making: Field evidence from Malawi

  Journal of Development Economics · 2022 · 4 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Economics
  • Finance
  PublisherDOI

• Incentivized Peer Referrals for Tuberculosis Screening: Evidence from India

  American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 2022 · 11 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Medicine
  • Family medicine
  • Environmental health

  We study whether and how peer referrals increase screening, testing, and identification of patients with tuberculosis, an infectious disease responsible for over one million deaths annually. In an experiment with 3,176 patients at 122 tuberculosis treatment centers in India, we find that small financial incentives raise the probability that existing patients refer prospective patients for screening and testing, resulting in cost-effective identification of new cases. Incentivized referrals operate through two mechanisms: peers have private information about individuals in their social networks to target for outreach, and they are more effective than health workers in inducing these individuals to get tested. (JEL H51, I12, I18, O15, Z13)

  PublisherDOI

• Evaluating the Impact of a Digital Agriculture Advisory Program in India

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2021-11-18

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• Impact of a Digital Agriculture Advisory Program in Odisha

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2021-11-18

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• Impact of a Digital Agriculture Advisory Program in Odisha

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2021-11-18

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• Endowment Effects and Usage of Financial Products : Field Evidence from Malawi

  RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 2018-01-01 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  When offered a choice between two
\n savings accounts, prior account holders are significantly
\n less likely to switch to a cheaper account, compared with
\n new subjects without a prior account. While 49 percent of
\n account holders retained their original, expensive accounts,
\n none of the new subjects who opened an account chose the
\n expensive one. This finding is consistent with the
\n "endowment effect." Exploiting previous
\n experimental variation in account usage among prior account
\n holders, the paper finds that the endowment effect
\n disappears among those with higher induced usage. This
\n finding suggests that familiarity with the account can
\n mitigate behavioral anomalies and improve financial decision-making.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Incentivized Peer Referrals for Tuberculosis Screening: Evidence from India

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2018-11-01 · 10 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We study whether and how peer referrals increase screening, testing, and identification of patients with tuberculosis, an infectious disease responsible for over one million deaths annually. In an experiment with 3,176 patients at 122 tuberculosis treatment centers in India, we find that small financial incentives raise the probability that existing patients refer prospective patients for screening and testing, resulting in cost-effective identification of new cases. Incentivized referrals operate through two mechanisms: peers have private information about individuals in their social networks to target for outreach, and they are more effective than health workers in inducing these individuals to get tested.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Leveraging Patients' Social Networks to Overcome Tuberculosis Underdetection: A Field Experiment in India

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2018-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Experience in Financial Decision-Making: Field Evidence from Malawi

  Washington, DC: World Bank eBooks · 2018-09-01 · 1 citations

  bookOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Fifty-three percent of subjects who owned a high-fee account with a local bank in Malawi did not switch to a new, lower-fee account when given the choice. In contrast, holders of high-fee accounts who had been induced to make more transactions in the past were significantly more likely to adopt the new, cheaper account. Using estimates from a structural model, we find that the different propensity to switch is better explained by differences in the valuation of the new account rather than differences in the cost of switching. Experience using financial products can thus improve financial decision making.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Savings defaults and payment delays for cash transfers: Field experimental evidence from Malawi

  Journal of Development Economics · 2017-06-28 · 43 citations

  articleCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Dean Yang

  56 shared

• Mario Macis

  William Carey University

  45 shared

• Xavier Giné

  43 shared

• Pradeep K. Chintagunta

  University of Chicago

  39 shared

• Dan Silverman

  Arizona State University

  28 shared

• Lasse Brune

  8 shared

• Kathleen Beegle

  6 shared

• Emanuela Galasso

  6 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Economics

  University of Maryland

  2009

• B.A., Economics

  University of California, Berkeley

  2003