Research Assistant

1. Description: RELIEF research team is looking for a Research Assistant to work with Dr. Elisabetta Pietrostefani and the local RELIEF team on an applied economics project on formal and informal job choices in Lebanon.

References and training will be provided. Tasks include but are not limited to:  

• Literature reviews on related topics
• Data collection
• Data cleaning

• Quantitative analysis with topics related to labour economics, prosperity and inequalities
• Drafting texts for academic and non-academic audiences
• Working with the local team on the ground when required
• Attending workshops when required

2. Skills

a) Necessary:

·         Basic Econometrics/ Statistic skills

·         Use of : STATA

·         Good command of Arabic and English

·         Ability to write literature reviews

·         Ability to follow citation styles (bibtex, APA)

b) Desirable:

·         Advanced Econometrics/ Statistic skills

·         Use of : R/Python

·         Use of GIS

·         Non-linear programming

3. About Leverhulme job choice project

Classical labour market models have proved limited in capturing the extreme shocks precipitating macroeconomic instability and issues of under-employment, further intensified by mass displacement and demographic change. Our interdisciplinary empirical framework will produce deeper analyses of connections between macroeconomic instability, uncertainty, structural change and their consequences on real-world choices affecting livelihoods and wellbeing. Alongside empirical evidence, we will develop decision-support tools for vulnerable groups enabling efficient job search and matching, thus increasing employment chances. Empowering people to make better decisions about their livelihoods will have broader societal benefits as insecure, poorly paid jobs generate broad social and public health impacts.

This project will make original theoretical and methodological contributions in a number of areas as follows:

1. Application of a Discrete Choice Experiment for jobs in Lebanon for Lebanese and non-Lebanese populations.
2. Measuring Prosperity. While existing studies almost invariably measure the costs and contributions of informality in economic terms, this project will measure them through a multi-dimensional notion of prosperity, which includes livelihoods and income, as well as social and human capital, networks of exchange, infrastructures, and physical and mental health. This will be done through the IGP’s Prosperity Index for Lebanon (PIL) which has been developed on the basis of community inputs about how prosperity should be defined and measured in different contexts.
3. Citizen Social Science. Research for the project will be carried out through a Citizen Social Science methodology, whereby residents from the research sites are recruited and trained to become members of the research team.