A network of High School friendships coloured by ethnicity from the book 'Social and Economic Networks' by Matthew Jackson. A network of High School friendships coloured by ethnicity from the book 'Social and Economic Networks' by Matthew Jackson.

Research

I am a development economist combining field experiments, network analysis, and machine learning to study human capital investment in low and middle-income countries. My work examines how social networks shape educational aspirations, how families allocate resources among children, and how to optimally distribute scarce healthcare resources.

Research fields: computational economics, development economics, economics of education, social and economic networks, human capital, field and lab-in-the-field experiments, machine learning for public policy.

Publications

Learning in low and middle-income countries: essays on education and development economics link
Michelle González Amador.
Doctoral Thesis, Maastricht University, 2024
Welfare-Maximizing Pooled Testing arXiv pre-registration
Exemplary Track Paper Award - Applied Modeling
Simon Finster, Michelle González Amador, Edwin Lock, Francisco Marmolejo-Cossío, Evi Micha, and Ariel D. Procaccia.
Proceedings of the 24th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC'23), 2023; journal version submitted
Youth aspirations and the future of work link
Drew Gardiner, Micheline Goedhuys, and Michelle González Amador.
Book Chapter. In: Is the future ready for youth? International Labour Organization, Geneva, 2021

Working Papers

Peer Networks and Malleability of Educational Aspirations arXiv
Michelle González Amador, Robin Cowan, and Eleonora Nillesen.
Working Paper, Submitted
Labor Market Returns to Education and Intra-family Educational Inequality: Theory and Experimental Evidence pre-registration
Esther Gehrke and Michelle González Amador.
Working Paper, Lab-in-the-field experiment with parents in Mexico; presented at NED'26
IAC: A Framework for Enabling Patient Agency in the Use of AI-Enabled Healthcare arXiv
Chinasa T. Okolo and Michelle González Amador.
Working Paper
Cash Transfers, Training and Savings Groups in Rural Rwanda
Erwin Bulte, Michelle González Amador, and Clement Uwizeye.
Field Experiment, Cluster-randomised trial in 90 villages: cash only vs. cash + training + VSLA; baseline completed; first transfers made in 2026
The Income Gradient of Between-Sibling Educational Inequality
Michelle González Amador, Esther Gehrke, and Tomohisa Miyamoto.
Work in Progress
Networks and Human Capital
Michelle González Amador.
Work in Progress
Social Networks in Rwanda: Network Architecture and Village Dynamics
Erwin Bulte, Michelle González Amador, and Clement Uwizeye.
Work in Progress, Village census of trust and support networks: 16,343 households in 90 villages
Machine Learning and Tax Base in Developing Countries
Michelle González Amador and Rose Vincent.
Work in Progress
Willingness to Donate in an Emergency: From the Global North to the Global South
Simon Finster, Michelle González Amador, and Edwin Lock.
Work in Progress
Educational Resilience in Times of Crisis: State Policies, Aggregate Shocks and Students' Educational Resilience in Peru
Michelle González Amador.
Work in Progress

Grants & Awards

NWO SSH Open Competition XS €49,992
Dutch Research Council (NWO), 2026
Co-applicant for 'Technological progress and social mobility: Schooling choices when wage-returns to education are convex'
Exemplary Track Paper Award
24th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, 2023
Awarded for 'Welfare-Maximizing Pooled Testing' (Applied Modeling track)
DUS-I International Collaborative Virtual Project Grant €15,000
Dutch Ministry of Education, 2023-2024
Co-PI for 'Machine Learning for Public Policy'

Press & Media

Supporting indigenous women researchers to flourish link
UNU-MERIT — Verano Internacional de la Ciencia (Summer of Science)
Innovating with Indigenous Mexican communities link
Harvard SEAS — Verano Internacional de la Ciencia (Summer of Science), 2023
"Summer of Science": STEM for Mexican Indigenous Women link
Harvard ReVista — Verano Internacional de la Ciencia (Summer of Science), 2024
Potosinas destacan con proyectos sociales en evento internacional link
La Jornada San Luis — Verano Internacional de la Ciencia (Summer of Science), 2022
Welfare-Maximizing Pooled Testing link
SIGecom Exchanges — ACM Special Interest Group on Economics and Computation

Full CV