My research blends work on international development, environmental policy, and participatory democracy.
I ask how the ways in which sustainable development interventions engage with stakeholders affects long-run outcomes through human psychology and related behavior change. I have conducted fieldwork in Latin America, East Africa and Southeast Asia. I am fluent in Spanish and have received advanced training in Portuguese and Swahili. Publications Root, Elisabeth, Alan Zarychta, Bertha Bermudez Tapia, Tara Grillos, Krister Andersson & Jane Menken. Organizations Matter in Local Governance: Evidence from Health Sector Decentralization in Honduras. Health Policy & Planning, forthcoming. Zarychta, Alan, Tara Grillos & Krister Andersson. 2019. Public Sector Governance Reform and Motivation of Street-Level Bureaucrats in Developing Countries. Public Administration Review, 80(1):75-91. (doi: 10.1111/puar.13132) Hayes, Tanya, Tara Grillos, Leah L. Bremer, Felipe Murtinho & Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza. 2019. Collective PES: More than the sum of individual incentives. Environmental Science and Policy, 102: 1-8. (doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2019.09.010) Grillos, Tara, Patrick Bottazzi, David Crespo, Nigel Asquith & Julia P.G. Jones. 2019. In-kind conservation payments crowd in environmental values and increase support for government intervention: A Randomized trial in Bolivia. Ecological Economics, 166. (doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106404) [full text pre-print here] Cook, Nathan, Tara Grillos & Krister Andersson. 2019. Gender quotas increase equality and effectiveness of climate policy interventions. Nature Climate Change, 9: 330-334. (doi: 10.1038/s41558-019-0438-4rdcu.be/brEMe) Zarychta, Alan, Krister Andersson, Elisabeth Root, Jane Menken and Tara Grillos. 2019. Assessing the impacts of governance reforms on health services delivery: A Systematic approach to overcome persistent weaknesses of policy evaluation. Health Services and Outcomes Research Methodology, 19(4), 241-258. (doi: 10.1007/s10742-019-00201-8) Grillos, Tara. 2018. Women's participation in environmental decision-making: Quasi-experimental evidence from northern Kenya. World Development, 108C: 115-130. (doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.03.017) Andersson, Krister P., Nathan Cook, Tara Grillos, Maria Claudia Lopez, Carl F. Salk, Glenn D. Wright, and Esther Mwangi. 2018. Experimental evidence on payments for forest commons conservation. Nature Sustainability, 1(3):128-135. (doi:10.1038/s41893-018-0034-z) Grillos, Tara. 2017. Economic vs. non-material incentives for participation in an in-kind payments for ecosystem services program in Bolivia. Ecological Economics, 131:178-190. (doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.08.010) Grillos, Tara. 2017. Participatory budgeting and the poor: Tracing bias in a multi-staged process in Solo, Indonesia. World Development, 96:343-358. (doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.03.019) Working Papers Deliberative Democracy Improves Collective Decision Making: Experimental Evidence from Kenya. Paper prepared for presentation at American Political Science Association Annual Conference. Linking Knowledge to Action when Engagement is Out of Reach. (w/Roger Emmelhainz, Alan Zarychta & Krister Andersson). SSRN Working Paper. (doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3512268) The Social & Behavioral Effects of Decentralization on Health Services Delivery: Evidence from the Honduran Health Sector. Paper prepared for presentation at the MIT Gov/Lab Political Behavior of Development Conference. Institutional Reform & Bureaucratic Capacity to Solve Complex Problems: When Incentivizing Cooperation is Not Enough. (w/Alan Zarychta & Krister Andersson). Paper prepared for presentation at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference. Cooperation among Public Officials in Local Service Delivery: Evidence from the Honduran Health Sector. (w/Adriana Molina Garzon, Alan Zarychta & Krister Andersson). Paper prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Annual Conference. Accountability and Effort among Local Health Workers: Evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field Experiment in Honduras. (w/Alan Zarychta & Krister Andersson). Paper prepared for presentation at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Conference. |
"Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry beings pursue with the world and with others."
-Paolo Freire |