Aurélie Harou

Degrees

PhD: Cornell University
MSc: University of California, Davis
BSc: University of Sussex

Short Bio

Aurélie Harou obtained a BSc from the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK, in Environmental Science and Geography and later an MSc from the University of California at Davis in Agricultural and Resource Economics. She worked for several years first for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency on the National Flood Insurance Program and later as a consultant for an economics litigation company in Berkeley, California. After living in D.R. Congo for a year doing humanitarian work for Action Against Hunger, she pursued a PhD in Applied Economics at Cornell University. She then joined the Agriculture and Food Security group at Columbia University as an Earth Institute post-doctoral fellow. Her research on global food security has brought her to work in many countries including Guatemala, Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Philippines and Nepal where she has partnered with various local and international organizations to conduct her work, including the World Food Program, Catholic Relief Services, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Bank.

Awards and Recognitions

2017 Best Article in the Journal of the International Association of Agricultural Economists, Agricultural Economics
2015 Universitá degli Studi di Bicocca Department of Economics Visiting Scholar Fellowship
2013 Columbia University Earth Institute Post-doctoral Fellowship
2014 George F. Warren 2nd Place Award for Outstanding Publication
2010 Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies Field Work Travel Award
2003 Geography and Environmental Science University of Sussex Dissertation Award

Active Affiliations

Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, member
Canadian Agricultural Economics Society, member
International Association of Agricultural Economists, member
American Economics Association, member
Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, member
American Association of Geographers, member

Research Interests

Aurélie Harou's research team is committed to improving household food security to reduce poverty and malnutrition in sustainable ways both in the short term, but also in the future, as climate change threatens our current global food system. More specifically, they measure how economic, political and climatic shocks affect human welfare, nutrition and household consumption and production decisions. To help mitigate the adverse effects of such shocks, Aurélie's team also evaluates the efficiency of different social safety net programs like food aid and weather index-based insurance. Furthermore, the team's work tries to better understand smallholder farmer behaviour and what incentives can be put in place to elicit more optimal yield-enhancing agronomic practices.

Current Research

1) Exploring new information communication technology attributes to enhance learning about agricultural technologies;

2) Measuring the long-term impact of plot-specific soil management recommendations on farmers' input decisions and yields in Tanzania;

3) Evaluating the timeliness of disaster reconstruction efforts in the Philippines post-typhoons;

4) Understanding the indirect effects and mechanisms of agricultural subsidies on nutrition outcomes

5) Exploring the effects of water demand on food security and migration in Tajikistan

Courses

Publications

View a list of current publications