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Sustainable and self-sufficient economic development in rural areas often hinges on communities’ ability to manage natural resources effectively without costly external enforcement. We study how community-based interventions can foster local stewardship and resilience by improving forest resource governance in Liberia at a pivotal moment—during July–August 2018, when Liberia’s Land Rights Bill was still under legislative debate, weeks before it was passed by the House of Representatives and signed into law. In a lab‑in‑the‑field experiment simulating tree-harvesting decisions, we sequentially introduced (i) open access, (ii) peer communication, (iii) dissemination of draft land-rights provisions that were later enacted in the 2018 Land Rights Act, (iv) facilitated legal-information sessions, and (v) resource‑shock scenarios. Community dialogue reduced extraction by 25.8%, legal-rights information by 22.32%, and combining these with facilitation achieved a 30.15% reduction. A scarcity shock introduced before any intervention increased harvesting by 8.73%, reflecting panic-driven overuse, while the same shock introduced after all interventions decreased harvesting by 5.55%, yielding a 14.28-percentage-point resilience premium. These results indicate that empowering communities with knowledge of impending legal reforms and structured engagement—prior to formal implementation—can catalyse locally led conservation efforts and buffer against environmental shocks. They offer insights for policymakers seeking to align environmental conservation with rural livelihoods by highlighting the importance of pre-implementation awareness and participatory resource management in shaping the success of land-tenure reforms.
In a campaign-centered setting, where running is public, vibrant, and visible, I study how women's candidacy affects females’ education, distinguishing the effect of appearing on the ballot from the impact of winning elections. I construct a unique dataset on the first local elections candidates and match it to individual records in the 2013 census in Benin. Using a triple difference-in-differences design that compares females to males, election-exposed young cohorts to older cohorts, and districts with non-winning women candidates to districts with only male candidates, I find that having at least one woman on the ballot raises the schooling of exposed females by 13%. To separate the effects of presence from policy effects and address candidate selection and ballot-order endogeneity, I estimate an instrumented triple difference-in-differences model using simulated vote-shock re-centered instruments for the shares of non-winning and winning women. A one percentage point increase in the share of non-winning women candidates results in a 3% rise in females' schooling. In contrast, the impact of winning women candidates is small and statistically indistinguishable from zero. I propose a two-step Bayesian belief-updating mechanism in which the act of women running alongside men, especially for the first time, shifts beliefs about females' returns to education and therefore triggers more female schooling.
03 – The Reproducibility and Robustness of Economics and Political Science
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 such as missing packages or broken pathways, we identify coding errors in about 25% of studies, with some containing multiple errors. Third, we test the robustness of the results to 5,511 re-analyses. We find a robust 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 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, thereby reinforcing the equilibrium of mistrust and underdevelopment at the margins of their home countries. These findings shed light on why overcoming the persistent impacts of slave exports is challenging, underscoring the need for further research and policy interventions.
This research explores apprenticeship in the informal sector, where trade knowledge is transmitted from master to apprentice. 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 in pursuit of 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 Benin's trade performance globally from 1998 to 2014. I analyze the patterns, determinants, and Benin's trade potential. I first found that Benin's exports are almost constant, while imports are increasing; hence, the trade deficit in absolute terms is rising. Secondly, Benin's trade flows fit the gravity model very well. The GDP per capita and population size of Benin trade partners, common borders, UEMOA and CEMAC membership, a common official language, and the landlocked status of some Benin trade partners positively impact exports. In contrast, distance, the use of a common currency, and high-income 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.