John Hoddinott is a co-research director for Transform Nutrition. He is also H.E. Babcock Professor of Food & Nutrition Economics and Policy, Cornell University
John’s research interests revolve around the intersection of the causes of poverty, food insecurity and undernutrition, and the design and evaluation of interventions that would reduce these. This builds on earlier work on poverty dynamics, intrahousehold resource allocation, schooling, labour markets aid allocation and on improving survey methods.
Much of his current work focuses on the effectiveness of social protection programs and on the links between economics and early life nutrition. He has led or participated in the evaluations of some of the largest social protection programs in the developing world, including the Vulnerable Group Development scheme in Bangladesh, Brazil’s Bolsa Familia cash transfer program, Ethiopia’s Productive Safety net Programme,PROGRESA in Mexico and South Africa’s Child Support Grant. John has recently completed a four country study evaluating the impact of food, cash and voucher transfers for the World Food Program and is currently engaged in the analysis of the impact of social protection interventions in Bangladesh and Ethiopia. He has been heavily involved in primary data collection through living in a mud hut in western Kenya and a small town near Timbuktu Mali as well as developing longitudinal and cross-sectional household surveys in Bangladesh, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya, Mali, Namibia, Niger and Zimbabwe.
John has approximately 110 published journal articles, books and book chapters. His work has been cited in a number of media outlets including the Guardian, the Economist, Newsweek, the New York Times, Slate, theTimes of India, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and on the BBC World Service, NPR, Radio-Canada International and Voice of America.
John is currently a Managing Editor of the Journal of African Economies and an Assistant Editor of Economics and Human Biology.
