Julia Tobias

Dr. Julia Tobias recently joined the Overseas Development Institute as a Research Fellow in Politics and Governance. She has expertise in the areas of social protection, poverty reduction and targeting, and the politics of public service delivery. Before joining ODI, she worked under the office of the Vice President of Indonesia supported by AusAID and led the design of Indonesia’s National Targeting System and Unified Database, which is now being used by the government to deliver social assistance benefits to 25 million poor and vulnerable households. Previously, she worked at the World Bank office in Jakarta. Her research has focused on the politics of cash transfers and other social protection programs, including the co-authored article Targeting the Poor: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia (American Economic Review, 2012). She holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.