Clara Sievert

Clara Sievert

Assistant Professor in Economics

CERGE-EI

Hello!

I’m an economist, researcher, and lecturer. My research lies in the fields of political economy, development economics, and health with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa and primarily uses original survey data collection and field experiments.

I received my PhD in Political Economy and Government (Economics track) from Harvard University in 2024. It is a degree that combines the Economics Department’s PhD program with support from the Harvard Kennedy School.

In 2024, I joined CERGE-EI as an assistant professor in Economics (tenure track). CERGE-EI is a joint workplace of Charles University and the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. More in my CV.

In my job market paper, I study supernatural beliefs about the cause of illness and their implications for medical decision-making in Sub-Saharan Africa. I conducted a field experiment in the DR Congo to show that (1) supernatural beliefs about illness are extremely common (94% of respondents), (2) they are linked to health behavior through beliefs in the efficacy of modern medicine and stigma toward those with illness, but (3) a medical information intervention can causally shift beliefs and increase the uptake of modern medicine by 50%.

Ongoing Research

Mental Health at European Economics Departments
Markets and the Making of Modern `Sensibilities'? Experimental Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa
The Religious Landscape of Kananga, D.R. Congo