Property Rights and Social Institutions: How Informal Institutions and Chiefs Shape Land Formalization in Urban Africa
with Pablo Balán, Augustin Bergeron, and Jonathan Weigel [Pre-Analysis Plan] [RCT Registration]Summary: EGAP Stories of Change, J-PAL Evaluation Summary ProMarket SummaryForthcoming, Comparative Political Studies.Bridging the Gap: Revenue Mobilization in South Asia
with Hagen Kruse, Franziska Ohnsorge, and Zoe Leiyu Xie [World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 11104]Summary: World Bank Blogin Taxing Times. South Asia Development Update, Chapter 2. World Bank, April 2025.The State Capacity Ceiling on Tax Rates: Evidence from Randomized Tax Abatements in the DRC
with Augustin Bergeron and Jonathan Weigel [Pre-Analysis Plan] [RCT Registration] [CEPR Working Paper] [NBER Working Paper]Summary: World Bank Development Impact Blog, econimate videoEconometrica, 92(4), 2024.How Can Lower Income Countries Collect More Taxes? The Role of Technology, Tax Agents, and Politics
with Oyebola Okunogbe [World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10655] [Reproducibility Repository]Journal of Economic Perspectives, 38(1), 2024.Hiring Frictions and the Promise of Online Job Portals: Evidence from India [Appendix]
with Nilesh Fernando and Niharika Singh [RCT Registration] [STEG Working Paper]Summary: VoxDev, SGB Evidence Fund, J-PAL Evaluation Summary, IGC BlogAmerican Economic Review: Insights, 5(4), 2023.Targeting in Tax Behavior: Evidence from Rwandan Firms
Summary: World Bank Development Impact Blog, ICTD BlogJournal of Development Economics, 158, 2022.Local Elites as State Capacity: How City Chiefs Use Local Information to Increase Tax Compliance in the D.R. Congo
with Pablo Balán, Augustin Bergeron, and Jonathan Weigel [Pre-Analysis Plan] [RCT Registration] [CEPR Working Paper]Summary: VoxDev, J-PALAmerican Economic Review, 112(3), 2022.Supermodular Bureaucrats: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Tax Collectors in the DRC
with Augustin Bergeron, Pedro Bessone, John Kabeya Kabeya and Jonathan Weigel [RCT Registration] [NBER Working Paper] [CEPR Working Paper]Summary: VoxDevConditionally Accepted, American Economic Review.Does Progressivity Raise Tax Capacity? Experimental Evidence from the D.R. Congo
with Arthur Laroche, Augustin Bergeron, Joana Naritomi, Marina Mavungu Ngoma, and Jonathan Weigel [AEA Registry] [NBER Working Paper]Summary: FIDSubmitted.Does Collecting Taxes Erode the Responsiveness of Informal Leaders? Evidence from the D.R.C
with Augustin Bergeron, Elie Kabue Ngindu, and Jonathan Weigel [Pre-Analysis Plan] [RCT Registration]IIPF Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize 2023Revise and Resubmit, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.Barriers to Formalization: Evidence from Six Randomized Experiments on Transaction Costs, Public Services, and Taxation in the Global South
with Ana de La O et al. [Pre-Analysis Plan] [RCT Registration]Metaketa Initiative, winner of the 2026 Margaret Levi Award for the Advancement of Comparative Methodology Submitted.Fiscal Externalities: Evidence from Tariff Reforms and Domestic Production Networks in Rwanda
with Pierre Bachas, Anne Brockmeyer, Anders Jensen, and Anton ReinickeExtreme Heat and Public Services: Evidence from Vaccinations in Pakistan
with Karrar Hussain, Yasir Khan, and Jiawei LyuDelegating Tax Collection Does Not Adversely Affect Demand for Accountability: Evidence from an Experiment in the D.R. Congo
with Mats Ahrenshop, Augustin Bergeron, Laura Paler, and Jonathan Weigel [Pre-Analysis Plan] [RCT Registration]Using Machine Learning to Create a Property Tax Roll: Evidence from the City of Kananga, D.R. Congo
with Augustin Bergeron, Arnaud Fournier, John Kabeya Kabeya and Jonathan Weigel [ICTD Working Paper]Preferences and Performance Among Bureaucrats: Evidence from Pakistan's Civil Service
with Adnan Khan and Zahra Mansoor [Fieldwork in Progress]Abstract: An effective bureaucracy is a central component of state capacity. In developing countries, bureaucrats often hold a uniquely consequential position as front-line agents of the state, tasked with administering public services and programs directly to citizens. Among the potential determinants of bureaucrat effectiveness in less developed settings – from selection of quality personnel to monitoring and incentives – this project focuses on the relatively underexamined role of how bureaucrats’ preferences over the nature of work they do shape their intrinsic motivations and performance. We examine this question in the context of Pakistan’s Civil Service, where the allocation mechanism for postings creates exogenous variation in whether civil servants are assigned to their preferred position, as well as to more prestigious postings, or postings with specific characters of tasks. We investigate whether assignment to postings along these dimensions impacts motivation, performance, and career advancement among bureaucrats of the nation’s civil service.The Effects of Formalizing Customary Land Rights on Landowners and Land Users: Evidence from Côte d'Ivoire
with Andrea Caflisch, Aletheia Donald, Alexandra Hartman, Michael O'Sullivan, and Oumar Sory [In progress] [Pre-Analysis Plan] [RCT Registration]Abstract: This project studies a land certification program in rural Côte d’Ivoire aimed at formalizing customary rights to land. We leverage experimental variation in exposure to land certification to examine direct impacts on beneficiaries of land certification as well as indirect effects on land users and landowning households excluded from formalization. As governments seek to extend property protections in the interest of alleviating poverty and promoting economic growth, a more complete understanding of formalization’s wider consequences on non-beneficiaries and markets can be valuable for informing complementary policies — to address negative unintended consequences or to capitalize on positive spillovers — to guide how land policy is deployed in the pursuit of broad-based development.Improving Tax Administration in Weak States: Evidence from the DR Congo
with Sarah Danner, Arthur Laroche, Marina Ngoma, Dina Pomeranz, and Jonathan Weigel [In progress] [Pre-Analysis Plan] [RCT Registration]Abstract: This project investigates four key levers of tax administration in a large-scale field experiment embedded in the 2025 property tax campaign in Kananga, D.R. Congo. First, we investigate the cost-effectiveness of in-person collection, a widely used approach in low-income countries that likely boosts compliance but is administratively costly and opens scope for corruption. Bill delivery occurs everywhere, but half of neighborhoods do not receive follow-up in-person collection visits; owners there must pay via other payment modalities. Second, we examine the introduction of mobile money tax payments. Exploiting the first-ever rollout of this payment option in Kananga, we provide information and instructions on paying taxes via mobile money to a random sample of property owners. Third, we test whether paying in installments can raise compliance and revenue, and to what extent this varies by access to mobile money payment. Finally, we cross-randomize a high-frequency personalized deterrence SMS treatment. We assess how these four levers shape compliance, revenue, and the cost-effectiveness of tax collection.Home Effects in Tax Collection: Evidence from the DR Congo
with Sarah Danner, Marina Ngoma, Dina Pomeranz, and Jonathan Weigel [In progress] [Pre-Analysis Plan]Abstract: A key question for governments is whether to assign officials to work in the communities they come from. Local postings can raise government effectiveness because officials have local information. But local postings also create possible conflicts of interest because officials share social ties and may thus internalize costs or benefits of government policy. We study this tradeoff by exploiting variation in whether tax collectors are assigned to their home neighborhoods or not in the context of property tax collection in Kananga, DRC. We study how postings shape interactions between tax collectors and taxpayers, tax compliance, revenue, and bribes in a low-capacity environment.How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Rwandan Businesses: Findings from Phone Surveys PEDL C-19 Note, July 2021