​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