Tavneet Suri

Tavneet Suri is the MIT economist who guides Planet Money’s Kenya and Nigeria Summer School episode in Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School). The source identifies her as Kenyan and uses her to connect visible African entrepreneurship with the policy questions of jobs, Human Capital Development, Missing Middle, and Randomized Controlled Trials.

Suri’s role in the episode is interpretive. She explains why African demographic growth creates a job-creation challenge, why entrepreneurs need both skills and capital, why informal records make bank lending hard, and why education and health investments can raise long-run productivity.

Connections

• Planet Money and NPR - source context.
• Kenya, Nigeria, and Busia, Kenya - country and local cases she helps interpret.
• Development Economics, Small Business Financing Gap, and Evidence-Based Development Policy - policy branches developed in the episode.