Working papers
High-Frequency Human Mobility in Three African Countries
with Paul Blanchard (Trinity College Dublin), Doug Gollin (Tufts University) and Michael Peters (Yale)
Revise & Resubmit, Econometrica
CEPR Discussion Paper DP16661 Bibtex
This paper uses smartphone app location data from three African countries to characterize patterns of human mobility at a high level of spatial and temporal detail. We document three novel facts that show how high-frequency mobility allows distant populations to benefit from the amenities that Africa's largest cities offer. First, individuals travel frequently and far. Second, mobility is spatially unbalanced and features a strong urban bias. Third, visitors are seen at locations associated with shops, markets, and recreational venues, highlighting the importance of consumption as a reason for travel. Quantitatively, visitors may account for up to 15% of total demand faced by urban service establishments. Motivated by these facts, we propose a novel theory where consumption trips effectively make non-tradable services tradable between cities and more distant locations. Our model has new implications for urban-rural development and the distribution of welfare gains from urbanization and transportation.
Concrete Thinking About Development
with Keelan Beirne (MIT), CEPR Discussion Paper DP18170
Revise & Resubmit, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
Previous Version (October 2020) Bibtex
Presentation at the IGC/Stanford 2020 Conference on Firms, Trade and Development
Misallocation is increasingly recognized as an important factor in explaining productivity differences across countries. This paper uses new micro-data on key input prices in the construction sector and market structure at a global level to study distortions in construction sector inputs and their consequences. We document that (i) there is large dispersion in construction sector input prices and that cement prices are particularly high in the poorest countries; (ii) cement prices are highest in countries with few firms; (iii) cement plays a significant role in construction sector expenditures, particularly in the poorest countries. To understand the reasons for price differences in cement we estimate a model of oligopoly using both a demand-based instrument and exploiting geological variation in the dispersion of limestone deposits within countries. Our results suggest that lower levels of competition lead to significantly higher prices. Firm-level financial accounts data point toward substantial economic rents. We then embed the oligopoly structure into a dynamic general equilibrium network model to analyse the consequences of distortions on the wider economy. We find that due to cement's network position, distortions have large effects on steady-state output: for every dollar increase in cement profits, steady-state output falls by two. Finally, we find that common ownership in cement is an important source of distortions accounting for between 75% and 85% of the wedge due to markups in cement.
Publications
Conscientiousness in the workplace: Evidence from a field experiment in West Africa
with Mathias Allemand (University of Zurich), Sveta Milusheva (The World Bank), Carol Newman (Trinity College Dublin), Brent Roberts (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Vincent Thorne (Trinity College Dublin), TEP Working Paper No. 0123
The Review of Economics and Statistics, accepted
Measuring Migration (2021)
Regional Science and Urban Economics, Special Issue on Rural-Urban Migration in Honor of Harris and Todaro, 91.
Do Urban Wage Premia Reflect Lower Amenities? Evidence from Africa (2021)
with Doug Gollin (University of Oxford) and David Lagakos (Boston University)
Journal of Urban Economics, 121.
NBER Working Paper 23916 Bibtex
Intra-household Allocation of Time and Money Across Siblings (2020)
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 179:361-377.
Natural Disasters and Labor Markets (2017)
Journal of Development Economics, 125:40-58.
The Cost of Road Infrastructure in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (2016)
with Paul Collier (University of Oxford) and Måns Söderbom (University of Gothenburg)
The World Bank Economic Review, 30(3): 522-548.
Book chapters
The Role of the Construction Sector in Developing Countries: Some Key Issues (2020)
in Page, J & Tarp, F. (Eds.). Mining for Change: Natural Resources and Industry in Africa, Oxford University Press, see here for a pdf of the book.
Selected work in progress
Constructing Africa’s Cities: Labor Market Effects of Infrastructure Construction
with Kevin Donovan (Yale), Carol Newman (Trinity College Dublin) and Sveta Milusheva (The World Bank)
Urban-Rural Definitions and Spatial Income Gaps
with Doug Gollin (Tufts University), David Lagakos (Boston University) and Shraddha Mandi (Boston University)
Quantifying Cross-Border Flows in Construction at a Global Level and Their Effects on Low-Income Countries
with Andrew B Bernard (Dartmouth College) and Michael Peters (Yale)
New Evidence on Sectoral Labor Productivity Gaps: Implications for Industrialization and Development
with Berthold Herrendorf (Arizona State University), Richard Rogerson (Princeton), and Akos Valentinyi (University of Manchester)
Rebuilding Ukraine's Cities: Maximizing Benefits and Minimizing Costs
with Ed L Glaeser (Harvard University) and Andrii Parkhomenko (USC Marshall)
Research-related work
Kagera Health and Development Survey 2010: Basic Information Document (2012)
with Joachim De Weerdt (Economic Development Initiatives), Kathleen Beegle (World Bank), Helene Bie Lilleør (Rockwool Foundation), Stefan Dercon (University of Oxford), Kalle Hirvonen (Sussex University) and Sofya Krutikova (University of Oxford), Rockwool Foundation Working Paper Series, Study Paper No. 46.
Agricultural Productivity Growth in Kagera between 1991 and 2004 (2011)
with Fulgence Mishili (Sokoine University of Agriculture), 2011, IGC Working Paper 11/0897, International Growth Centre.
See here for the policy brief.
Literature Review on Microinsurance (2008)
with Stefan Dercon (University of Oxford), Jan-Willelm Gunning (VU University Amsterdam), and Jean-Philippe Platteau (University of Namur), 2008, Microinsurance paper No.1, International Labour Organization, Geneva.