Publications
"Culture, intra-household distribution and individual poverty" (with Olivier Bargain, Maira Collacce, and Luca Tiberti)
Economic Development and Cultural Change (2024), Vol. 73 (1)
Traditional family norms often have persistent effects on household decisions. We question whether kinship ancestries of postmarital residence still affect household consumption sharing. We estimate a model of resource allocation using expenditure surveys for Ghana and Malawi, two countries in which patrilocal and matrilocal traditions coexist. Ancestral patrilocality coincides with a 10% lower resource share for women, contributing to a higher prevalence of poverty among women. Women’s resource shares increase with age, a pattern more pronounced for matrilocal groups. These results indicate how a combination of cultural and demographic factors may be used to improve policies targeted at poor individuals.
"Gimme shelter. Social distancing and income support in times of pandemic" (with Olivier Bargain and Tanguy Bernard)
European Economic Review (2023), Vol. 157, 104507
Stay-at-home orders feature high in the set of policies used to curb the spread of epidemics such as COVID-19, but are potentially less efficient among poor people who must continue to work during pandemics. We examine how income support programs help poor people comply with stay-at-home order and thereby generate positive health externalities. We use data on work-related mobility in 2020 and on poverty rates for 729 subnational regions of Africa, Latin America and Asia. We focus on within-country differential mobility changes between higher- and lower-poverty regions. Accounting for all time-variant country-level factors, we show that lockdowns have decreased mobility significantly less in poorer regions. In turn, emergency income support programs have helped reduce this difference, mitigating the regional poverty gap in virus exposure through work mobility.
Covered in VoxEU
"Poverty and COVID-19 in Africa and Latin America" (with Olivier Bargain)
World Development (2021), Vol.142, 105422
Since March 2020, governments have recommended or enacted lockdown policies to curb the spread of COVID-19. Yet, poorer segments of the population cannot afford to stay at home and must continue to work. In this paper, we test whether work-related mobility is effectively influenced by the local intensity of poverty. To do so, we exploit poverty data and Google mobility data for 242 regions of nine Latin American and African countries. We find that the drop in work-related mobility during the first lockdown period was indeed significantly lower in high-poverty regions compared to other regions. We also illustrate how higher poverty has induced a faster spread of the virus. The policy implication is that social protection measures in the form of food or cash trasfers must be complementary to physical distancing measures. Further research must evaluate how such transfers, when implemented, have attenuated the difference between poor and non-poor regions in terms of exposure to the virus.
"Trust and compliance to public health policies in times of COVID-19" (with Olivier Bargain)
Journal of Public Economics, Vol.192, 104316
While degraded trust and cohesion within a country are often shown to have large socio-economic impacts, they can also have dramatic consequences when compliance is required for collective survival. We illustrate this point in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. Policy responses all over the world aim to reduce social interaction and limit contagion. Using data on human mobility and political trust at regional level in Europe, we examine whether the compliance to these containment policies depends on the level of trust in policy makers prior to the crisis. Using a double difference approach around the time of lockdown announcements, we find that high-trust regions decrease their mobility related to non-necessary activities significantly more than low-trust regions. We also exploit country and time variation in treatment using the daily strictness of national policies. The efficiency of policy stringency in terms of mobility reduction significantly increases with trust. The trust effect is nonlinear and increases with the degree of stringency. We assess how the impact of trust on mobility potentially translates in terms of mortality growth rate.
Best Health Economics Paper Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic, by the German Association of Health Economics
Covered in VoxEU
Working papers
"Global evidence on gender gaps and child poverty in consumption" (with Olivier Bargain and Maira Colacce)
Revise & Resubmit at World Bank Economic Review
Since intra-household resource distribution is unobserved, it is difficult to compare how women and children fare across countries. To address this, we analyze 45 household expenditure surveys from predominantly low- and middle-income countries, i.e. an international sample of around 2.4 million individuals. Using harmonized estimations of intra-household resource sharing, we construct globally comparable measures of gender inequality and child poverty in consumption. Our findings reveal a widespread imbalance: women receive about one-fifth less than men, leading to a 60% higher poverty rate. Children appear to fare even worse, though this is partly explained by differences in needs and sibling economies of scale. Intra-household inequalities are more pronounced in poorer countries and among low-income households within countries. Cross-checks with nutritional proxies tend to validate our results, linking household poverty and intra-household disparities to child undernutrition. Finally, we decompose global individual consumption inequality and find that 13%-32% (across measures) stems from inequality within households.
"Intra-household resource allocation after rainfall shocks"
This paper investigates whether rainfall shocks affect the intra-household distribution of consumption in Malawi. Using four waves of household survey data and exploiting spatial-temporal rainfall variation across four agricultural growing seasons from 2010 to 2019, I estimate a resource allocation model to retrieve consumption shares for men, women, and children. The findings show that droughts tend to shift household resources from women and children to men. Welfare analyses indicate that women are more likely to bear the brunt of these shocks. This redistribution is likely linked to existing gender gaps in access to off-farm employment, which restrict women’s ability to contribute to household income when their farming activities are disrupted by droughts. In contrast, men’s relatively better access to off-farm work strengthens their role as the primary breadwinner, giving them greater access to household resources.
Work in progress
"Culture clusters and gendered implications: Global evidence using machine learning approach" (with Olivier Bargain)
"Gender backlash in fertility: Evidence from Central Asia" (with Catherine Guirkinger and Manzura Jumaniyazova)
"Heat wave perceptions, air pollution, and the role of green zones in Central Asia” (with Manuela Fritz and Avralt-Od Purevjav)
"Solar panel expansion and power disruptions" (with Dilnovoz Abdurazzakova, Bakhtiyor Eshchanov and Obid Khakimov)
"Temporary migration and labor supply back home" (with Laurent Bossavie and Adesola Olumayowa Sunmoni)
"The role of son preference and birth order in early childcare practices: A global evidence" (with Manzura Jumaniyazova, Andreas Landmann and Janina Steinert)
Field experiments
"Enhancing child and parental engagement in learning progress" (with Sule Alan and Dilnovoz Abdurazzakova)