Research

Abstract: Smallholder farming in many developing countries is characterized by low productivity and low quality output. Low quality limits the price farmers can command and their potential income. We conduct a series of experiments among maize farmers in Uganda to shed light on the barriers to quality upgrading and to study its potential. First, we document that quality is low but partly observable. Second, we show that the causal return to quality is zero, suggesting that the market for quality maize is effectively missing. Third, we generate experimental variation in access to a market for premium quality maize, combined with training on agricultural best-practices, and document large increases in both farm productivity and income. Fourth, we show that agricultural training alone does not affect agricultural outcomes. Our findings reveal the importance of demand-side constraints in limiting rural income and productivity growth. 

Abstract: Health, and in turn income and welfare, depend on access to safe drinking water. Although the majority of rural households worldwide obtain drinking water from community water sources, there is limited evidence about how effectively these sources provide safe drinking water. This study combines a randomized experiment with water quality testing to evaluate the impact of a program that provides community deep tubewells in rural Bangladesh. The program reduces exposure to arsenic, a major natural pollutant, but not fecal contamination. Households may use fewer sources with fecal contamination, but any such effects are offset by recontamination through transport and possibly storage. The results suggest that while community deep-tubewell construction programs may reduce exposure to arsenic in Bangladesh, reducing exposure to fecal contamination may require interventions that go beyond community sources.

Abstract:  Early reports suggest the fatality rate from COVID-19 varies greatly across countries, but non-random testing and incomplete vital registration systems render it impossible to directly estimate the infection fatality rate (IFR) in many low- and middle-income countries. To fill this gap, we estimate the adjustments required to extrapolate estimates of the IFR from high- to lower-income regions. Accounting for differences in the distribution of age, sex, and relevant comorbidities yields substantial differences in the predicted IFR across 21 world regions, ranging from 0.11% in Western Sub-Saharan Africa to 0.95% for High Income Asia Pacific. However, these predictions must be treated as lower bounds, as they are grounded in fatality rates from countries with advanced health systems. In order to adjust for health system capacity, we incorporate regional differences in the relative odds of infection fatality from childhood influenza. This adjustment greatly diminishes, but does not entirely erase, the demography-based advantage predicted in the lowest income settings, with regional estimates of the predicted COVID-19 IFR ranging from 0.43% in Western Sub-Saharan Africa to 1.74% for Eastern Europe.

Abstract: We assess the effect on students’ aspirations of a 1-minute motivational video featuring a role model describing their path to success. We use a randomized control trial on a sample of primary and middle school students from a disadvantaged neighbourhood in Naples. We find that exposure to treatment increases schools and career aspirations and boosts self-confidence and grit of the students, at a cost of decreased mood and lower reported empathy and closeness to classmates. Finally, watching a video featuring a female role model decreases gender bias among the male treated students. This study shows the short-run effects of a very brief, inexpensive, and potentially widely replicable intervention, conducted in a developed country, on a sample of children from a fragile socio-economic background. Beyond documenting its potential in boosting aspirations, we caution against backlashes on students’ well-being and prosociality.

Abstract: Development programmes featuring  community decision making increasingly require  co-funding from the community, but little is known about the effects of contribution requirement on their outcomes. This study explores the effects of requiring contributions on the distribution of project benefits within the community and on the efficiency of public good provision. I design and run a controlled experiment in rural Bangladesh where participants are asked to bargain among themselves on how to redistribute a common endowment, with and without co-funding requirements. I  find that requiring contributions decreases efficiency by 12% and increases inequality by 30%. The experimental design allows me to disentangle the mechanisms behind the rise in inequality, focusing on the role of fairness preferences and individual bargaining power from wealth and status. The results show that participants would prefer a lower inequality  but they fail to achieve the desired level of redistribution, even when initial wealth is equalized. Moreover, co-funding increasing the application of self-serving fairness norms by the participants with high social status in the community, but the effects do not explain the overall increase in inequality.

Abstract: Community-driven development projects often require communities to contribute collectively towards project costs. We provide the first experimental evaluation of a community contribution requirement for a development intervention, as well as the first experimental comparison between cash and labour contribution requirements of similar nominal value. Imposing a cash contribution requirement greatly decreases program take-up, relative to a contribution waiver, but imposing a labour contribution does not. Program impact is correspondingly lower under the cash contribution requirement than under the labour contribution requirement or the contribution waiver. Higher take-up under the labour contribution requirement appears to be the consequence of the low real value that communities place on their time. Our results suggest that there may be substantial welfare gains to be made by allowing households in poor rural communities to contribute in labour rather than cash.