Current research

Waterborne diseases lead to over 6 billion diarrheal episodes per year, with most of the burden on children in low-income countries. We employ hydrological engineering principles to construct a novel measure of stagnant water, crucial to the spread of these diseases. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we estimate the causal effect of stagnant water on the health and cognitive skills of Tanzanian children. A 10 percentage point increase in stagnant water increases local diarrhea incidence rates among children by 30%. Exposure to stagnant water also affects human capital accumulation. Our results show an immediate reduction in the cognitive abilities of affected children, measured by standardized test scores, and this negative effect appears to persist over the long term. The effects on health and cognition are exacerbated by high temperatures and population density, but are completely mitigated by access to safe water and sanitation. We find that projected climate change could triple the burden of waterborne diseases, but that disease awareness in high-risk locations remains low. By showing how stagnant water shocks affect health and cognitive skills of children, our results provide new evidence relevant to the global learning crisis, with millions of children failing to reach their cognitive potential.

As climate change leads to increasingly erratic weather patterns, how will households reliant on rainfed agriculture adapt to this growing uncertainty? I investigate how exposure to climate instability,  defined as the year-to-year change between dry and wet conditions, affects households' financial coping strategies. Using detailed individual-level data on financial inclusion across 29 low-income countries, I find that a one standard deviation increase in climate instability increases the propensity for households to save by up to 7%. This is driven primarily by rural households with low education, who are the most dependent on rainfed agriculture. Saving increases only during wet years, when households attain an agricultural surplus, and the reason for saving is deliberately precautionary, in anticipation of a future negative income shock. Consistent with this finding,  lagged climate instability successfully predicts current climate shocks, which suggests that the elicited saving behavior is a rational adaptation. Using household panel data, I find that the increase in saving during wet years is attained through a decrease in non-food expenditures, and this successfully protects against the threat of food shortages. However, uptake of formal financial services is limited, and instead most adaptation is facilitated through community groups and informal networks. Addressing the gaps in financial inclusion and financial literacy may thus be crucial to further increase the resilience of poor rural households against the looming threat of climate change.

This paper studies the cultural roots of parental behavior concerning children’s human capital. We examine the effect of traditional kinship norms on parental investment in human capital, with a focus on two predominant forms of kinship norms in developing countries –matrilineal and patrilineal systems. We use novel survey data from Tanzania to capture detailed parental investment behavior, including time and attention devoted to children’s learning. Using a fuzzy spatial regression discontinuity design, we find that matrilineal parents invest less in their children’s human capital. For instance, they are less likely to check their children’s homework or discuss their performance with teachers. In turn, matrilineal children have poorer cognitive skills, captured by standardized test scores on numeracy and literacy. Assessment of various mechanisms suggests that spousal conflict and cooperation, family instability, and labor market conditions play a part. Lastly, we evaluate the effect of a nation-building reform intended to undo ethnic norms. We show that this policy did not effectively counteract the influence of traditional norms.

In an influential study, Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) show that the slave trade in Africa engendered a culture of mistrust. We revisit their study and extend it by shedding further light on three sources of heterogeneity. i) The slave trade led to mistrust only in societies with ancestral slavery. ii) The negative correlation between the slave trade and trust is driven by ethnic groups in the vicinity of the trans-Saharan trade route. iii) The negative effect of the slave trade on trust is mostly driven by areas with greater Tsetse disease suitability.