Research
Working Papers
The Dynamic Consequences of State-Building: Evidence from the French Revolution, with Cédric Chambru and Emeric Henry. CEPR discussion paper. Coverage by VoxEU, VoxTalks, Broadstreet, and Econimate. Oliver Williamson Best Conference Paper Award, SIOE 2022. Conditionally accepted, American Economic Review. Online Appendix here.
Religion, Education, and the State, with Samuel Bazzi and Masyhur Hilmy. NBER and CEPR working paper versions. Revise & Resubmit, Review of Economic Studies.
Electoral Turnovers, with Vincent Pons and Vincent Rollet. NBER and CEPR working papers. VoxEU column and media coverage: Atlantico, Bloomberg, Sciences Humaines. Revise & Resubmit, Review of Economic Studies.
Eat Widely, Vote Wisely: Lessons from a Campaign Against Vote Buying in Uganda, with Chris Blattman, Horacio Larreguy, and Otis Reid. NBER and CEPR working paper versions. Evaluation on the J-PAL website.
Turnover and Accountability in Africa's Parliaments, with Jeremy Bowles. Revise & Resubmit, Journal of Development Economics.
Elections as Incentives: Project Completion and Visibility in African Politics.
Published / Forthcoming Papers
J'Accuse! Antisemitism and Financial Markets in the Time of the Dreyfus Affair (2024), with Quoc-Anh Do, Roberto Galbiati, and Miguel Ortiz Serrano. CEPR discussion paper. Forthcoming, Journal of Financial Economics.
Voter Mobilisation and Trust in Electoral Institutions: Evidence from Kenya (2021), with Vincent Pons and Tavneet Suri, Economic Journal, vol. 131, issue 638, pages 2585-2612. Online appendix here and replication data here.
Diversity and Team Performance in a Kenyan Organization (2021), with Vincent Pons and Tavneet Suri, Journal of Public Economics, vol. 197, May 2021, 104332. Final draft and published version.
The Institutional Foundations of Religious Politics: Evidence from Indonesia (2020), with Samuel Bazzi and Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Quarterly Journal of Economics 135(2): 845-911. Online appendix here and replication data here.
There Is No Free House: Ethnic Patronage in a Kenyan Slum (2019), with Thomas Stoker and Tavneet Suri, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 11(4): 36-70. Online appendix here and replication data here.
A Signaling Theory of Distributive Policy Choice: Evidence From Senegal (2019), with Jessica Gottlieb, Guy Grossman, and Horacio Larreguy, Journal of Politics 81(2): 631-647. Replication data here.
The Economics of Slums in the Developing World (2013), with Thomas Stoker and Tavneet Suri, Journal of Economic Perspectives 27(4): 187-210.
Media coverage:The Economist: "Down and out. Shanty-towns may be more of a trap than economists thought"The Atlantic Cities: "The Amazing Endurance of Slums"
Work in Progress
Religion in the Digital Age, with Layane Alhorr, Samuel Bazzi, and Faiz Essa.
Colonial Surveillance of Islam in French West Africa, with Jeremy Bowles and Gabriel Koehler-Derrick.
Turnover, Morale, and Performance in Bureaucracies, with Samuel Bazzi, Masyhur Hilmy, Mahvish Shaukat, and Andreas Stegmann.
Changing Norms of Corruption Among Future Public Servants, with Samuel Bazzi, Masyhur Hilmy, Mahvish Shaukat, and Andreas Stegmann.
Red Ball Express: Types of Contact and the Transmission of Prejudice, with Claudius Willem.
The Frontier Roots of Religious America, with Samuel Bazzi and Martin Fiszbein.