Sustainable and self-sufficient economic development in rural areas of developing countries often hinges on communities' ability to manage natural resources effectively without relying on costly external enforcement. This study investigates how community-based interventions can foster local stewardship and resilience through improved forest resource governance in Liberia. Using a lab-in-the-field experiment simulating tree harvesting decisions, we assess five sequential treatments: open access, peer communication, dissemination of legal rights under Liberia's 2018 Land Rights Act (LRA), facilitated legal information sessions, and two resource shock scenarios. Results show that community dialogue alone reduces extraction by 25.8%, legal awareness by 22.32%, and combining these with facilitation achieves the largest reduction—30.15%. A scarcity shock introduced prior to any intervention increases harvesting by 8.73%, reflecting panic-driven overuse, while the same shock introduced after all interventions decreases harvesting by 5.55%, signaling a 14.28% behavioral premium in resilience when local governance tools are in place. These results demonstrate how empowering communities with knowledge, legal tools, and structured engagement can catalyze locally led conservation efforts, buffer against environmental shocks, and lay the foundation for durable, self-sustaining economic development rooted in participatory resource management. The findings offer valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners aiming to align environmental conservation with rural livelihoods and institutional empowerment.
In this paper, I estimate the impact of the presence of women on electoral lists on females' education. A triple difference-in-differences reveals that having at least one woman candidate in a district increases females' years of schooling by 0.355 years, 13% of the average education. To separate and compare the effect of the presence to that of winning, I incorporate a recentered instrumental variable within the triple difference-in-differences because the order of women on the ballot might be endogenous, and the order affects the chances of winning. This technique removes the endogeneity and estimates the two impacts in the same framework. The results showed that the effect of the mere inclusion of women on electoral lists is 46% of that of their electoral victories. In addition, a mere ten percentage point increase in the proportion of women on the ballot increases females' education by 0.892 years, equivalent to 26% of the average schooling. I formulate a theory suggesting that Bayesian belief updating, driven by the public signal from the pre-election day campaign, is the mechanism underlying these outcomes. The impact of merely running for office calls for a broader debate on how we underestimated the impact of women's inclusiveness and females' human capital accumulation.
This study pushes our understanding of research reliability by reproducing and replicating claims from 110 papers in leading economic and political science journals. The analysis involves computational reproducibility checks and robustness assessments. It reveals several patterns. First, we uncover a high rate of fully computationally reproducible results (over 85%). Second, excluding minor issues like missing packages or broken pathways, we uncover coding errors for about 25% of studies, with some studies containing multiple errors. Third, we test the robustness of the results to 5,511 re-analyses. We find a robustness reproducibility of about 70%. Robustness reproducibility rates are relatively higher for re-analyses that introduce new data and lower for re-analyses that change the sample or the definition of the dependent variable. Fourth, 52% of re-analysis effect size estimates are smaller than the original published estimates and the average statistical significance of a re-analysis is 77% of the original. Lastly, we rely on six teams of researchers working independently to answer eight additional research questions on the determinants of robustness reproducibility. Most teams find a negative relationship between replicators' experience and reproducibility, while finding no relationship between reproducibility and the provision of intermediate or even raw data combined with the necessary cleaning codes.
Balán et al. (2022) evaluate the impact of “local elites” involvement in local tax collection in a large city in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Using a randomized controlled trial to vary the identities of tax collectors, they find that local elites’ involvement raises tax compliance and total revenue by 50 and 44 percent, respectively. The paper argues that the primary mechanism behind the results is better targeting made possible by local elites’ superior information about property holders' willingness and ability to pay. In this replication comment, we first reproduce the paper’s main results. Then, we assess the robustness of the results by (1) employing randomization inference for statistical tests; (2) controlling for baseline characteristics that are not balanced; and (3) using an alternative method to examine the claims supporting the preferred mechanism of better targeting. We find robust estimates in (1). However, the results are less robust both in terms of statistical significance and magnitude for (2) and (3). We conclude that the average treatment effect is robust, while the main claim about mechanisms, the information channel, is less robust to alternative estimation approaches. We contextualize and discuss the significance of these results, including the negligible revenue potential even under full compliance.
Studying the historical legacy of the slave trade, especially the Transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave exports, which lasted over 400 years, is crucial for understanding the persistent economic and social disparities in African countries today. As a driver of economic development and social mobility, migration offers a vital lens for this examination. Using recent individual-level and historical ethnicity-level data, I find a significant causal relationship between slave exports and out-migration from Africa today. The mechanism behind this result is that holding weak institutions, poor aggregate economic performance, and a culture of mistrust the same, the systematic expropriations that characterized the slave trades increased the preference for mobile forms of capital such as education and place-disconnect among the descendants of the most impacted ethnic groups, leading to higher education levels and greater migration propensity at the individual level. Therefore, the most productive and trusting individuals migrate, leaving behind the less educated and less trusting, which reinforces the equilibrium of mistrust and underdevelopment at the margins in their home countries. These findings shed light on why it is challenging to overcome the persistent impacts of slave exports, underscoring the need for further research and policy interventions.
This research explores apprenticeship within the informal sector, where trade knowledge is transmitted from masters to apprentices in an informal setting. To do this, we collected first-hand field data on 326 masters and 436 apprentices from auto mechanics, motorcycle mechanics, sewing, and hairdressing trades in Lome, Sokode, and Kara, three of the five regions of Togo. From the masters, we collected information on revenue, profit, contract fees, contract length, aids to apprentices, learning process, firm size, and many more. On apprentices, we collected variables like expectations on revenue and profit after graduation, why they chose to be apprentices and many more. The research reveals that masters support their apprentices by providing essentials such as shelter, clothing, food, and pocket money. Furthermore, masters who received assistance from their masters during their apprenticeships tend to be more supportive of their apprentices today. A notable trend is that even university students leave formal education to become apprentices due to the perceived financial rewards. This research yielded multiple other ramifications that I will be exploring in the future.
An extensive range of reports and articles like Peng Sun and Almas Heshmati August (2010) have demonstrated that trade can help boost development and reduce poverty by generating growth through increased commercial opportunities and investment, widening the productive base through private sector development, expanding choice and lowering prices for consumers by broadening supply sources of goods and services and strengthening competition, creating absolute gains for partners involved. This paper examines the global situation of Benin's trade from 1998 to 2014. I analyze the patterns, determinants, and Benin's trade potential. I found first that Benin's exports are almost constant while imports are increasing; hence, the trade deficit in absolute value is rising. Secondly, Benin's trade flows fit the gravity model very well. Benin trade partners' GDP per capita and population size, common border, UEMOA, CEMAC, common official language, and the landlocked status of some Benin trade partners positively impact exports. In contrast, distance, common currency, and high-income group countries negatively affect exports. Besides, Benin partners' GDP per capita, population size, common currency, and, for instance, distance, landlocked status, and CEMAC negatively affect imports. The official language positively and significantly impacts imports. I also found that there is still room for more trade between Benin and many of its trade partners, even though Benin over-traded with a few of them. Surprisingly, the gravity model revealed under-imports of Benin from Nigeria even though Nigeria's goods are highly dominant in Benin. This might be due to non-recorded trade in the informal sector (smuggling between Nigeria and Benin), but more investigations are needed.