Inequality in wealth, income, and opportunities based on natural identities, especially caste and gender, is widespread. One policy tool to reduce this inequality or "level the playing field" is Affirmative Action (AA) policies. Previous research has shown that AA policies effectively increase the willingness to compete with people who benefit from AA. However, most studies focus on resource...
We conduct a large-scale evaluation study designed as an RCT in southeastern El
Salvador. Teachers are randomly assigned to either a control group or one of three
training programs focusing on (i) pedagogical knowledge, (ii) content knowledge, or
(iii) a combination of both inputs. To evaluate the programs we conduct teacher math
and pedagogy tests, student math tests and classroom...
Despite vast economic disparities, international migration from developing to advanced economies remains low. This is because people do not know whether and how they can migrate, are not allowed to migrate, do not want to migrate irregularly, or cannot afford to migrate. This paper examines the effects of informing individuals about legal migration pathways on aspirations for mobility and...
This study highlights how rising temperatures due to climate change are amplifying gender inequality in developing countries. Using a rich district-level panel dataset from the Census of India and household surveys (1987–2018), we find that in regions with a high share of poor, landless farmers, as rising temperatures leave the agricultural sector less productive and more volatile, male...
Increasing the diffusion of technologies with positive externalities is a global policy priority. We investigate the market for energy-efficient biomass cookstoves in rural Senegal, which have private and external benefits, but uptake is low. Our pre-specified study covers stove producers and intermediary vendors on the supply side, and we elicit demand from rural households using real...
Building upon the argument that factor endowments influence distributional outcomes, this paper examines the consequences of the China shock to global food markets for economic inequality in Brazilian municipalities from 1985 to 2020. I propose a new identification strategy that exploits plausibly exogenous variation in demand for soybeans based on fluctuations in the size of the pig stock in...
This paper examines the long-term impact of colonial-era railroad infrastructure on agricultural productivity across 24 sub-Saharan African countries. Leveraging multiple identification strategies, including comparisons with placebo lines, spatial first differences, and spatial discontinuity designs, we find robust evidence that railroad localities exhibit significantly higher crop yields in...
We study whether perceptions of labor market competition negatively influence out-group attitudes between refugees and their local hosts using a survey vignette experiment conducted in urban and rural Ethiopia and Uganda. Our vignette consists of a short story about a fictional job-seeker in which we randomize the citizenship (refugee/national) and occupation (same as/different from...
In this paper, we study the effect of exogenous global food price changes on out-migration from agricultural and non-agricultural households in Sub-Saharan Africa due to economic reasons. We show that the effect of a locally relevant global food price increase on household out-migration depends on the initial household wealth. Higher international producer prices relax the budget constraint of...
It is well established that there is a motherhood penalty in the labor market for child-bearing women. Theoretical models, as well as empirical estimates, suggest that unmarried or never married women without children have a relative advantage in terms of labor market opportunities. However, little is known about single mothers and their labor market outcomes. Aside from the fact that this is...
Minerals are crucial for the modern economy, including the transition to a green economy, but mining often causes serious environmental and social issues. Mining has both potential positive effects on development, such as economic growth and job creation, but also negative effects like the resource curse and significant environmental damage. This study looks at the impacts of opening and...
We conduct a field experiment to investigate the effect of an educational technology intervention on the numeracy and literacy skills of children with functional difficulties in a low-income setting with a high disability prevalence. Children with special needs in primary school are recruited through a government screening program at school. After randomization, at the school level, children...
We examine the long-term impact of forced labor on individual risk preferences and economic decisions. For that, we focus on a policy of coercive cotton cultivation enforced in colonial Mozambique between 1926 and 1961. We combine archival information about the boundaries of historical cotton concessions with survey data collected specifically for this study. By employing a regression...
The discourse surrounding human trafficking often portrays migrants as naive subjects of deceit and disinformation. Yet, some argue that migrants actively choose trafficking as a migration strategy. We shed light on this discussion by investigating original data from a two-wave repeated cross-section of approximately 2,700 individuals fielded in 2021 and 2023 in Edo State, Nigeria, a focal...
Power grid extension into hitherto unconnected areas is high on the policy agenda in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, connection rates and electricity consumption remain low in rural grid-covered areas, at least in the short and medium run. This paper provides a long-term follow-up on an evaluation of a large grid extension program in rural Rwanda. We study the adoption of grid electricity over time...
English, the world's third most spoken language, is of global importance, especially in former British colonies, which are destinations for outsourced jobs. In India, with its many languages, English serves as the lingua franca, providing labor market advantages. Despite India's emphasis on vernacular languages in school education, English remains the primary medium of instruction in higher...
This study examines the effects of the violent repression of independence movements on ethnic politics and social cohesion. We exploit local variation in the intensity of repression to analyze the long-run impacts of British detention camps in 1950s colonial Kenya. Using a rich body of census and survey data and a triple-difference design, we show that exposure to a detention camp increases...
We examine how shocks to migration opportunities affect schooling outcomes in origin communities. We focus on the migration between Mexico and the United States, and exploit the expansion of the Secure Communities program in the US —a federal data-sharing program that substantially increased the risk of detainment and deportation for illegal migrants— as exogenous shock to the attractiveness...
As Chinese lending has grown to dominate global development finance, understanding its impact on other capital flows has become increasingly important. This paper provides the first causal evidence on how public investment through China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) influences cross border private capital flows to emerging markets, and how geopolitical alignment moderates this relationship....
Land reforms are one of the most profound institutional changes in developing countries. Nevertheless, these reforms often fail, due to interruptions, reversals, and partial implementations. Unsuccessful land redistribution policies are likely to produce grievances and social unrest, further hindering economic development in areas with historically excluded populations such as peasants and...
We examine how the death of co-residing in-laws affects married women’s labor force participation in India across three household surveys. Using simple and dynamic difference-indifferences we find that labor force participation increases upon the death of a co-residing father-in-law but not mother-in-law. Income effects are directionally consistent with priors but lack strong statistical...
