Ann-Sofie Isaksson New Associate Professor in Economics
The School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg has accepted Ann-Sofie Isaksson as Associate Professor (Docent) in Economics.
Ann-Sofie Isaksson is a development economist and her research deals with aid, institutional development and governance in developing countries.
In recent years her research has focused on the implications of China becoming a major player in the African aid landscape. Matching geo-referenced data on the subnational allocation of Chinese development projects to Africa with survey data she has explored local political economy effects of Chinese aid project implementation.
"Recent years have seen an explosion of Chinese funds to Africa, and with the increased Chinese presence, concerns over its donor practices have followed. Critics claim that China uses their development finance to secure commercial advantages for their domestic firms, and to prop up corrupt and undemocratic regimes in order to gain access to their natural resource endowments. Others argue that they are particularly responsive to recipient needs and tend to get things done fast. A new comprehensive data material on Chinese aid flows now makes it possible to evaluate claims like these. Our results are unfortunately most in line with the critics, indicating, for instance, more widespread local corruption and less trade union involvement around Chinese project sites, unlike near the project sites of other donors," says Ann-Sofie Isaksson.
She is currently involved in two major research projects.
"In the first one Dick Durevall and I are evaluating aid effectiveness in the SDG era. The the aim is to investigate aid effectiveness in a disaggregated manner, in order to meet the increasing demand for evaluating target specific aid impacts broken down by donors, sectors and sub-national localities."
In the second project Ann-Sofie Isaksson, together with Annika Lindskog and Heather Congdon-Fors, focuses on women’s health and welfare in developing countries.
"We investigate the persistence – over time and across generations – of a number of outcomes important for women’s health and welfare (e.g. early marriage, high fertility and intimate partner violence), and evaluate the effectiveness of different interventions for changing the relevant norms and behaviors."