William A. Masters
Welcome
I am a Professor and Chair of the Food and Nutrition Policy Department in the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts University. Detailed contact info is at the top of my CV. I look forward to hearing from you!
For publications and presentations please scroll down the chronological non-blog below, or use google to see where I work and what I do.
Recent publications, presentations and events
- July 2014 blog post on contest design for AgResults: winner-take-all prizes are popular, but broader incentives may work better
- June 2014 talk on quality certification logos for GAIN multi-nutrient supplements initiative at NYAS
- May 2014 radio on Marketplace about agricultural research: why staple crops are still the real superfoods
- May 2014 posters on complementary foods and peanut-based products for Micronutrient Forum in Addis Ababa
- May 2014 new slides and handout for NCFAR Capitol Hill seminars on agricultural development [+favorite slides #1 and #2]
- Apr 2014 new article in Journal of Economic Growth on agriculture and urbanization [preprint]
- Apr 2014 new article in Journal of Development Economics on disease and development in Burkina Faso [preprint]
- Apr 2014 new article published in AfJARE on Malawi’s input subsidy program
- Mar 2014 updated slides on agriculture-nutrition linkages for HSPH course in global health
- Mar 2014 updated slides on global malnutrition at MIT Knight science journalism food boot camp
- Feb 2014 new article for Annals of the NYAS on ag., nutrition & health in global development [preprint]
- Jan 2014 revised paper on agriculture and the location of urbanization (+ slides for NEUDC)
- Nov 2013 presentation slides for Tufts Medical School seminar on infant food quality
- Oct 2013 revised paper on theory vs. experimental results in prize contests
- Sept 2013 GAIN report on improving nutritional value chain for peanut products in Ghana
- Sept 2013 UN SDSN report on sustainable solutions for agriculture and food systems
- Sept 2013 GFS article on urbanization & farm size in Asia and Africa [preprint]
- Aug 2013 opening of new online class, for registered students here and an associated public blog
- Aug 2013 AAEA Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis (prize fund goes here)
- Aug 2013 AAEA presentations on global malnutrition and agriculture-nutrition linkages
- July 2013 new NBER working paper on disease control, demography and development in Burkina Faso
- June 2013 poster describing new project on marketed complementary foods (+high-res version)
- June 2013 slides (or PDF) on nutritional quality of marketed complementary food for A4NH workshop
- Apr 2013 comments in CHE article on a controversial nutrition assistance proposal
- Mar 2013 changing face of malnutrition talk at MIT Knight science journalism food boot camp
- Mar 2013 hyperinflation vacation with Graeme Wood in The Atlantic, with my Zimbabwe wall of shame (vs. other African money)
- Jan 2013 Japanese edition of our Econ of Ag Development textbook
- Jan 2013 new book chapter on child nutrition in economic development
- Oct 2012 new article in J. of Dev. Studies on child nutrition and poverty reduction
- Oct 2012 slides for APHA on infant feeding in developing countries
- Oct 2012 paper and slides for NEUDC on disease, demography and development
- Sep. 2012 slides for Maggie McMillan’s Econ 136 on disease, demography and development
- Aug. 2012 presentations at the AAEA meetings on infant feeding, African development and foreign assistance
- May 2012 chapter on Transformational Incentives in USAID’s Frontiers in Development book and conference; with related CGD paper by Kim Elliott
- May 2012 why carbon taxes would be better than counting food miles, on the Freakonomics blog
- Apr 2012 workshop on Food Wars in Africa? at the Harvard International Development Conference
- Mar 2012 discussion of Africa’s turnaround at MIT Knight Fellows’ Food Boot Camp [+ book chapter]
- Mar 2012 talk on Proportional Prizes at NC-1034 meeting, Washington DC [+ new paper]
- Feb 2012 talk on Africa’s Last Famine? at the Radcliffe Gym (event site) [Video]
- Jan 2012 NBER working paper on rural demography in Burkina Faso
- Jan 2012 talk on food security at the Northwestern University human rights conference
- Jan 2012 symposium on malnutrition at the NCSE conference in Washington, DC.
- Oct 2011 talk on Africa’s turnaround (+book chapter) at the African Economic Conference in Addis
- Oct 2011 talk on food prices and nutrition at McGill conference on food security (program here)
- Sep 2011 Seminar on infant foods at Harvard School of Public Health (streaming video, slides with photos (huge file, 48MB !)
- Aug 2011 Call for papers for the May 2012 AAEA-EAAE Conference on the Food Environment
- Aug 2011 NBER African Successes conference paper, slides and presentation on Africa’s turnaround
- July 2011 Nutrition CRSP implementation workshop in Kampala (photos)
- June 2011 Nutrition CRSP launch workshop in Kampala (see photos)
- May 2011 Chicago Council Progress Report on U.S. Leadership in Global Ag Development (see press release and some commentary)
- May 2011 Tufts research day on sustainability (see new slides and book chapter)
- Apr 2011 Radio Australia interview on world food crisis (with Crawford Fund director Denis Blight)
- Apr 2011 Stanford symposium on poverty in Africa — discussant for Chris Barrett seminar (my bit starts around 70 minutes into the streaming video)
- Mar 2011 paper + slides on Africa’s turnaround, for the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance and Harvard African Development Conference
- Feb 2011 webcast + slides on world food crises, for Friedman School online seminar
- Feb 2011 streaming video of presentations at the IFPRI 2020 conference in New Delhi on the Nutrition CRSP (5 min.) and on the economics of infant feeding (10 min.)
- Feb 2011 working paper and policy brief on quality certification of infant foods in Ghana for the IGC
- Jan 2011 piece in the Tufts Journal (and earlier in Tufts Nutrition magazine) about asymmetric information in child nutrition
- Dec 2010 talk on Africa’s turnaround, in French as Le moment africain (ppt slides and mp3 audio, from SFER)
- Dec 2010 talk on asymmetric information in agriculture at NSF-ICG-AERC workshop in Mombasa
- Nov 2010 talk on remedies for asymmetric information in food and agriculture at Tufts economics department
- Nov 2010 guest lectures on agricultural productivity (NUTR 304) and agricultural policy (NUTR 215)
- Nov 2010 talks on undernutrition for the Friedman Symposium and the Board of Overseers
- Oct 2010 Nutrition CRSP launch, nicely described in the Tufts Daily
- Oct 2010 photos from Zimbabwe & Zambia trip for US State Dept., with news coverage here and there
- Oct 2010 new version of paper on agriculture and urbanization
- Sept 2010 draft report on quality certification of infant foods, with slides in PDF form, a one-page concept note and seminar presentation in streaming video.
- Aug 2010 photos from Ethiopia site visits for interviews on R&D policy
- July 2010 chapter on development, policy and food consumption for Lusk, Roosen and Shogren’s forthcoming Oxford Handbook on the Economics of Food Consumption and Policy
- July 2010 notes from talks in Nigeria on Rethinking Food (+some news coverage)
- June 2010 paper on prizes and other innovation incentives by Kim Elliott of CGD
- June 2010 article in Journal of Public Economics on proportional vs. winner-take-all contests
- June 2010 article in Economics and Human Biology on underweight children in developing countries
- May 2010 farewell talk for the graduate students at Purdue (with commentary at Freakonomics blog)
- Apr. 2010 op-ed for Project Syndicate entitled “Planting the Seeds of Africa’s Growth”
- Mar. 2010 second edition of the Economics of Agricultural Development textbook is now out
- Nov. 2009 talk at the AfDB African Economic Conference on incentives for innovation
- Oct. 2009 talk at the ADA Food and Nutrition Conference on world food markets
- Jun. 2009 fun with economics on the Freakonomics NYT blog
- Mar. 2009 World Bank book on Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Africa
- Sep. 2008 food crisis talk at Columbia: a short (8-minute) video
