Working Papers

Working Papers 


Pregnancy, food purchases and nutritional quality (with B. Augsburg, G. Conti, P. Spinola, S.  von Hinke)


Pregnancy is a critical period for health investments, bolstered by extensive public health guidance and evidence that healthy prenatal environments foster child development with lifelong benefits. We provide new evidence on the impact of conception on nutritional choices and environments, during pregnancy and immediately after childbirth. Using an event study design on household scanner data, we show that the nutritional quality of households’ food purchases, measured based on the FSA’s nutrient profiling model, deteriorates substantially during pregnancy (relative to levels prior to conception). The share of healthy calories declines by 2.5 percentage points, equivalent to 50% of the mean difference in this share between a normal weight and an obese individual. This happens despite households’ halving their alcohol purchases, and is caused largely by increased purchases of high-sugar foods, especially among those with higher pre-conception alcohol purchases, suggesting adverse substitution effects from alcohol reduction. The deterioration of nutritional quality varies little by socio-economic status, pregnancy risk factors and food price environments.



The Formation of Subjective House Price Expectations (with S. Kiesl-Reiter, J. Shaw, J. Winter)


Subjective house price expectations drive individual housing choices and market dynamics. We study the formation of subjective expectations about local house prices using novel survey data from Britain, a country with high homeownership rates and widely varying local housing dynamics. There is a substantial and heterogeneous perception gap and individuals extrapolate strongly from perceived but not from realized past price changes. In addition, expectations are predicted by wider, easily observable measures of local economic conditions, especially among individuals with low financial sophistication. Individuals residing in local housing markets where past prices are less informative or less observable rely more strongly on local economic conditions in their belief formation. Our results emphasize the role of heterogeneity in expectations formation processes, and their underlying information set. 



Sanitation Marketing in Nigeria (with L. Abramovsky, N. Akwunwa, B. Augsburg, E. Danladi, E. Harvey, J. Loh, A. Musa, H. Olorenshaw, F. Oteiza, J.P. Rud, K. Smith)


We evaluate the effectiveness of a sanitation marketing intervention aimed at increasing the supply of improved toilet products by local businesses and the household demand for toilets in rural Nigeria. Results from a randomized controlled trial reveals that treated businesses were more likely to produce and market the new toilet model. However, we find no discernible impact on household toilet ownership rates. Our evidence suggests that household liquidity constraints and insufficient incentives for sales agents may explain these results. 

Work in progress