How has the current pandemic affected measuring and evaluating poverty and welfare programs? In Talking Economics, Katarína Stehlíková directs this question to Nikolas Mittag, Associate Professor with Tenure at CERGE-EI.

According to Nikolas, the evaluation of government programs designed during the pandemic is essential: "The pandemic brought a lot of action to the idea of helping other people, and fending off poverty. So we tried a lot of new things. Now would be the time to look at them and think what worked, what can we do better next time (we'd better be prepared), and what might work in normal situations."

Nikolas Mittag has been an Associate Professor at CERGE and Charles University, and a Researcher at the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. He is affiliated with the Institute for the Study of Labor and the University of Chicago where he received his Ph.D. in Public Policy Studies from the Harris School of Public Policy. His main research interest is in the evaluations of government programs, applied microeconomics, labor economics, and measurement error issues.