About

Tavneet Suri is the Louis E. Seley Professor of Applied Economics and a Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her expertise focuses on the role of technology in Sub-Saharan Africa, with significant involvement in initiatives related to agricultural technology adoption, digital identification, and finance. She is an editor at the Review of Economics and Statistics, Co-Chair of the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative at J-PAL, Co-Chair of the Digital Identification and Finance Initiative at J-PAL Africa, a member of the Executive Committee at J-PAL, and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her academic background includes a BA in economics from Cambridge University, UK, and both an MA in International and Development Economics and a PhD in economics from Yale University. She has received recognition such as the Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising from the MIT Graduate Student Council.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Economics
• Financial system
• Finance
• Business
• Economic growth
• Political Science
• Geography
• Development economics
• Natural resource economics

Selected publications

• The Promise of Microbial Fertilizer for Affordable and Sustainable Food Production in Africa

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Chat Over Coffee? Diffusion of Agronomic Practices and Market Spillovers in Rwanda

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Replication package for: Credit Access, Selection, and Incentives in a Market for Asset Collateralized Loans: Evidence from Kenya

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2023-02-01

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  Paper: Credit Access, Selection, and Incentives in a Market for Asset Collateralized Loans: Evidence from Kenya, by William Jack, Michael Kremer, Joost de Laat and Tavneet Suri, Forthcoming, the Review of Economic Studies. The replication package includes the data and do files for the experiment reported on in the paper.

  PublisherDOI

• Chat Over Coffee? Diffusion of Agronomic Practices and Market Spillovers in Rwanda

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Credit Access, Selection, and Incentives in a Market for Asset-Collateralized Loans: Evidence From Kenya

  The Review of Economic Studies · 2023-03-02 · 10 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract We study the potential for asset collateralization to expand access to credit in rural Kenya. Increasing the share of a loan for a durable agricultural asset that is collateralized by the physical asset itself (from 0 to 96%) while reducing the share backed by financial assets increases loan take-up considerably, with only a very limited impact on repayment behavior and the lender's profitability. A Karlan–Zinman test finds evidence of small and marginally significant selection effects in some specifications but no evidence of moral hazard. We find no evidence that joint versus individual liability affects take-up or repayment. Loans had real impacts on investment, milk sales, and girls’ school enrollment. The lender, a savings and credit cooperative, responded to the study results by offering 80% asset-collateralized loans.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Replication package for: Credit Access, Selection, and Incentives in a Market for Asset Collateralized Loans: Evidence from Kenya

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2023-02-01

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  Paper: Credit Access, Selection, and Incentives in a Market for Asset Collateralized Loans: Evidence from Kenya, by William Jack, Michael Kremer, Joost de Laat and Tavneet Suri, Forthcoming, the Review of Economic Studies. The replication package includes the data and do files for the experiment reported on in the paper.

  PublisherDOI

• Chat Over Coffee? Diffusion of Agronomic Practices and Market Spillovers in Rwanda

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2023-06-01 · 2 citations

  reportOpen access

  Agricultural extension programs often train a few farmers and count on diffusion through social networks for the innovation to spread.However, if markets are imperfectly integrated, this may also inflict negative externalities.In a two-step experiment of an agronomy training program among Rwandan coffee farmers, we first randomize the concentration of trainees at the village level and then randomly select within each village.Knowledge increased, and yields were 6.7% higher for trained farmers.We find no evidence of social diffusion; instead, control households experienced negative spillovers in high treatment concentration areas, likely because of competition for a scarce input, fertilizer.

  PublisherDOI

• Replication package for: Credit Access, Selection, and Incentives in a Market for Asset Collateralized Loans: Evidence from Kenya

  2022-09-21

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  Paper: Credit Access, Selection, and Incentives in a Market for Asset Collateralized Loans: Evidence from Kenya, by William Jack, Michael Kremer, Joost de Laat and Tavneet Suri, Forthcoming, the Review of Economic Studies. The replication package includes the data and do files for the experiment reported on in the paper.

  PublisherDOI

• Agricultural Technology in Africa

  The Journal of Economic Perspectives · 2022 · 190 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Economics
  • Natural resource economics

  We discuss recent trends in agricultural productivity in Africa and highlight how technological progress in agriculture has stagnated on the continent. We briefly review the literature that tries to explain this stagnation through the lens of particular constraints to technology adoption. Ultimately, none of these constraints alone can explain these trends. New research highlights pervasive heterogeneity in the gross and net returns to agricultural technologies across Africa. We argue that this heterogeneity makes the adoption process more challenging, limits the scope of many innovations, and contributes to the stagnation in technology use. We conclude with directions for policy and what we feel are still important, unanswered research questions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Diversity and team performance in a Kenyan organization☆

  Journal of Public Economics · 2021-04-10 · 51 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• William Jack

  Georgetown University

  46 shared

• Joost de Laat

  31 shared

• Michael Kremer

  University of Chicago

  28 shared

• Benjamin Marx

  Center for Economic and Policy Research

  12 shared

• Vincent Pons

  8 shared

• Dean Karlan

  7 shared

• Paul Niehaus

  University of California, San Diego

  7 shared

• Teresa Lezcano Cadwallader

  6 shared

Awards & honors

• Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising