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This field seminar in international political economy covers major theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives. The basic orientation is disciplinary and comparative (over time and across countries, regions, firms), spanning issues relevant to both industrial and developing states. Special attention is given to challenges and dilemmas shaped by the macro-level consequences of micro-level behavior, and by micro-level adjustments to macro-level influences.

Can personalized mentorship by experienced workers improve young job seekers’ labor market trajectories? To answer this question, in the first chapter of this dissertation I study “Meet Your Future”, a mentorship program we designed and randomized which assisted a subset of 1,112 vocational students during their school-to- work transitions in urban Uganda, where youth unemployment is high. The program improved participants’ labor market outcomes. Relative to the control, mentored students were 27% more likely to work three months after graduation; after one year, they earned 18% more. Call transcripts from mentorship sessions and survey data reveal that mentorship primarily improved outcomes through information about entry level jobs and labor market dynamics, and not through job referrals, information about specific vacancies, or through building search capital. Consistent with this finding, mentored students revise downward their overly optimistic beliefs about starting wages and revise upward beliefs about the returns to experience. As a result, they lower their reservation wages and turn down fewer job offers. The results emphasizes the role of distorted beliefs among job seekers in prolonging youth unemployment and proposes a cost effective and scalable policy with an estimated internal rate of return of 300%. In the second chapter of this dissertation, I move to investigate whether hiring processes themselves can disadvantage women and consequently explain part of the gender wage gap and the occupational segregation documented in many labor markets across the world. Specifically, I look at referrals, a significant factor in hiring decisions and one of the primary ways to land a job. With my coauthor, we conduct a correspondence experiment to examine how referrals by firm employees may perpetuate occupational gender segregation among Uganda’s skilled workers. We start by presenting pairs of gender-differing profiles of potential candidates to workers in a wide

Market access and agricultural intensification: Remotely-sensed evidence from Mozambican river crossings Many believe that high transport costs are a significant constraint to agricultural intensification in rural Africa. Empirical evidence is limited, however, because areas with high agricultural potential may see more infrastructure improvements and data is rarely available at the necessary granularity. We use satellite imagery to measure agricultural outcomes in Mozambique, where inadequate river crossings create discrete jumps in travel costs between banks. We find that better-connected banks have 4.1% more land under cultivation than worse-connected counterparts. Improved access thus leads to intensified land use, albeit at the potential cost of lost natural lands. Remotely-sensed market activity as a high-frequency economic indicator in remote rural areas Effective targeting of social policies and their rigorous evaluation require relevant and accurate data. With the majority of the world's poor depending on agriculture and informal businesses for their livelihoods, information on these sectors is particularly valuable. I use high-frequency satellite imagery to map rural marketplaces across large geographies and track activity within them in real-time. Measured activity not only displays intuitive variation with respect to exogenous shocks, but also deepens the temporal and geographical detail at which remote sensing-based analyses are possible. Rural marketplaces and local development Marketplaces are an age-old way to connect geographically separated producers and consumers, and they remain widespread in low-income countries. How do these gatherings shape development around them? To address long-standing data gaps, I combine historical sources with novel satellite-based methods to map marketplaces and measure local population density, establishing three stylized facts for Kenya over the last five decades. First, while rural population quadrupled, two third

Market access and agricultural intensification: Remotely-sensed evidence from Mozambican river crossings Many believe that high transport costs are a significant constraint to agricultural intensification in rural Africa. Empirical evidence is limited, however, because areas with high agricultural potential may see more infrastructure improvements and data is rarely available at the necessary granularity. We use satellite imagery to measure agricultural outcomes in Mozambique, where inadequate river crossings create discrete jumps in travel costs between banks. We find that better-connected banks have 4.1% more land under cultivation than worse-connected counterparts. Improved access thus leads to intensified land use, albeit at the potential cost of lost natural lands. Remotely-sensed market activity as a high-frequency economic indicator in remote rural areas Effective targeting of social policies and their rigorous evaluation require relevant and accurate data. With the majority of the world's poor depending on agriculture and informal businesses for their livelihoods, information on these sectors is particularly valuable. I use high-frequency satellite imagery to map rural marketplaces across large geographies and track activity within them in real-time. Measured activity not only displays intuitive variation with respect to exogenous shocks, but also deepens the temporal and geographical detail at which remote sensing-based analyses are possible. Rural marketplaces and local development Marketplaces are an age-old way to connect geographically separated producers and consumers, and they remain widespread in low-income countries. How do these gatherings shape development around them? To address long-standing data gaps, I combine historical sources with novel satellite-based methods to map marketplaces and measure local population density, establishing three stylized facts for Kenya over the last five decades. First, while rural population quadrupled, two third

Market access and agricultural intensification: Remotely-sensed evidence from Mozambican river crossings Many believe that high transport costs are a significant constraint to agricultural intensification in rural Africa. Empirical evidence is limited, however, because areas with high agricultural potential may see more infrastructure improvements and data is rarely available at the necessary granularity. We use satellite imagery to measure agricultural outcomes in Mozambique, where inadequate river crossings create discrete jumps in travel costs between banks. We find that better-connected banks have 4.1% more land under cultivation than worse-connected counterparts. Improved access thus leads to intensified land use, albeit at the potential cost of lost natural lands. Remotely-sensed market activity as a high-frequency economic indicator in remote rural areas Effective targeting of social policies and their rigorous evaluation require relevant and accurate data. With the majority of the world's poor depending on agriculture and informal businesses for their livelihoods, information on these sectors is particularly valuable. I use high-frequency satellite imagery to map rural marketplaces across large geographies and track activity within them in real-time. Measured activity not only displays intuitive variation with respect to exogenous shocks, but also deepens the temporal and geographical detail at which remote sensing-based analyses are possible. Rural marketplaces and local development Marketplaces are an age-old way to connect geographically separated producers and consumers, and they remain widespread in low-income countries. How do these gatherings shape development around them? To address long-standing data gaps, I combine historical sources with novel satellite-based methods to map marketplaces and measure local population density, establishing three stylized facts for Kenya over the last five decades. First, while rural population quadrupled, two third

Market access and agricultural intensification: Remotely-sensed evidence from Mozambican river crossings Many believe that high transport costs are a significant constraint to agricultural intensification in rural Africa. Empirical evidence is limited, however, because areas with high agricultural potential may see more infrastructure improvements and data is rarely available at the necessary granularity. We use satellite imagery to measure agricultural outcomes in Mozambique, where inadequate river crossings create discrete jumps in travel costs between banks. We find that better-connected banks have 4.1% more land under cultivation than worse-connected counterparts. Improved access thus leads to intensified land use, albeit at the potential cost of lost natural lands. Remotely-sensed market activity as a high-frequency economic indicator in remote rural areas Effective targeting of social policies and their rigorous evaluation require relevant and accurate data. With the majority of the world's poor depending on agriculture and informal businesses for their livelihoods, information on these sectors is particularly valuable. I use high-frequency satellite imagery to map rural marketplaces across large geographies and track activity within them in real-time. Measured activity not only displays intuitive variation with respect to exogenous shocks, but also deepens the temporal and geographical detail at which remote sensing-based analyses are possible. Rural marketplaces and local development Marketplaces are an age-old way to connect geographically separated producers and consumers, and they remain widespread in low-income countries. How do these gatherings shape development around them? To address long-standing data gaps, I combine historical sources with novel satellite-based methods to map marketplaces and measure local population density, establishing three stylized facts for Kenya over the last five decades. First, while rural population quadrupled, two third

This field seminar in international political economy covers major theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives. The basic orientation is disciplinary and comparative (over time and across countries, regions, firms), spanning issues relevant to both industrial and developing states. Special attention is given to challenges and dilemmas shaped by the macro-level consequences of micro-level behavior, and by micro-level adjustments to macro-level influences.

This field seminar in international political economy covers major theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives. The basic orientation is disciplinary and comparative (over time and across countries, regions, firms), spanning issues relevant to both industrial and developing states. Special attention is given to challenges and dilemmas shaped by the macro-level consequences of micro-level behavior, and by micro-level adjustments to macro-level influences.

The thesis consists of three self-contained essays. Local Banking and Historical Innovation: the Effect of Swedish Savings Banks How does access to credit affect innovation at the early stages of development? This essay uses digitized records from the Swedish savings banks movement, in combination with novel data on the universe of historical patenting, to study how savings banks affected innovation in Sweden between 1900 and 1949, a period when the country was still a developing economy. The empirical strategy exploits local variation in the openings and closings of the savings banks. Municipalities with bank presence experienced increased innovation, measured by more patents from innovators seated in the municipality. In particular, the head offices of the banks impacted innovation, as they were the executive unit and administered lending. Patents from industries more dependent on financing from external sources are driving the effect, along with places with a relatively high population, a developed industry, and a previous history of innovation. The results emphasize the importance of financial institutions with strong local ties and the ability to encourage and redirect savings to promote innovation in developing economies. The Effects of Local Banking: Historical Evidence from the Swedish Savings Bank Movement What is the long-term effect of local banking on industrial growth and economic progress in a developing economy? We shed light on this question using rich data covering the staggered rollout of the Swedish savings bank movement and information on industrial development, population statistics, and mortality in 2400 Swedish municipalities during the first half of the 20th century. The first part of the empirical analysis shows that the presence of a savings bank substantially affected industry structure and industry growth by increasing the number of firms, the degree of mechanization, and industry sales value. More advanced industries, reliant on external

The thesis consists of three self-contained essays. Local Banking and Historical Innovation: the Effect of Swedish Savings Banks How does access to credit affect innovation at the early stages of development? This essay uses digitized records from the Swedish savings banks movement, in combination with novel data on the universe of historical patenting, to study how savings banks affected innovation in Sweden between 1900 and 1949, a period when the country was still a developing economy. The empirical strategy exploits local variation in the openings and closings of the savings banks. Municipalities with bank presence experienced increased innovation, measured by more patents from innovators seated in the municipality. In particular, the head offices of the banks impacted innovation, as they were the executive unit and administered lending. Patents from industries more dependent on financing from external sources are driving the effect, along with places with a relatively high population, a developed industry, and a previous history of innovation. The results emphasize the importance of financial institutions with strong local ties and the ability to encourage and redirect savings to promote innovation in developing economies. The Effects of Local Banking: Historical Evidence from the Swedish Savings Bank Movement What is the long-term effect of local banking on industrial growth and economic progress in a developing economy? We shed light on this question using rich data covering the staggered rollout of the Swedish savings bank movement and information on industrial development, population statistics, and mortality in 2400 Swedish municipalities during the first half of the 20th century. The first part of the empirical analysis shows that the presence of a savings bank substantially affected industry structure and industry growth by increasing the number of firms, the degree of mechanization, and industry sales value. More advanced industries, reliant on external

The thesis consists of three self-contained essays. Local Banking and Historical Innovation: the Effect of Swedish Savings Banks How does access to credit affect innovation at the early stages of development? This essay uses digitized records from the Swedish savings banks movement, in combination with novel data on the universe of historical patenting, to study how savings banks affected innovation in Sweden between 1900 and 1949, a period when the country was still a developing economy. The empirical strategy exploits local variation in the openings and closings of the savings banks. Municipalities with bank presence experienced increased innovation, measured by more patents from innovators seated in the municipality. In particular, the head offices of the banks impacted innovation, as they were the executive unit and administered lending. Patents from industries more dependent on financing from external sources are driving the effect, along with places with a relatively high population, a developed industry, and a previous history of innovation. The results emphasize the importance of financial institutions with strong local ties and the ability to encourage and redirect savings to promote innovation in developing economies. The Effects of Local Banking: Historical Evidence from the Swedish Savings Bank Movement What is the long-term effect of local banking on industrial growth and economic progress in a developing economy? We shed light on this question using rich data covering the staggered rollout of the Swedish savings bank movement and information on industrial development, population statistics, and mortality in 2400 Swedish municipalities during the first half of the 20th century. The first part of the empirical analysis shows that the presence of a savings bank substantially affected industry structure and industry growth by increasing the number of firms, the degree of mechanization, and industry sales value. More advanced industries, reliant on external

The thesis consists of three self-contained essays. Local Banking and Historical Innovation: the Effect of Swedish Savings Banks How does access to credit affect innovation at the early stages of development? This essay uses digitized records from the Swedish savings banks movement, in combination with novel data on the universe of historical patenting, to study how savings banks affected innovation in Sweden between 1900 and 1949, a period when the country was still a developing economy. The empirical strategy exploits local variation in the openings and closings of the savings banks. Municipalities with bank presence experienced increased innovation, measured by more patents from innovators seated in the municipality. In particular, the head offices of the banks impacted innovation, as they were the executive unit and administered lending. Patents from industries more dependent on financing from external sources are driving the effect, along with places with a relatively high population, a developed industry, and a previous history of innovation. The results emphasize the importance of financial institutions with strong local ties and the ability to encourage and redirect savings to promote innovation in developing economies. The Effects of Local Banking: Historical Evidence from the Swedish Savings Bank Movement What is the long-term effect of local banking on industrial growth and economic progress in a developing economy? We shed light on this question using rich data covering the staggered rollout of the Swedish savings bank movement and information on industrial development, population statistics, and mortality in 2400 Swedish municipalities during the first half of the 20th century. The first part of the empirical analysis shows that the presence of a savings bank substantially affected industry structure and industry growth by increasing the number of firms, the degree of mechanization, and industry sales value. More advanced industries, reliant on external

The thesis consists of three self-contained essays. Local Banking and Historical Innovation: the Effect of Swedish Savings Banks How does access to credit affect innovation at the early stages of development? This essay uses digitized records from the Swedish savings banks movement, in combination with novel data on the universe of historical patenting, to study how savings banks affected innovation in Sweden between 1900 and 1949, a period when the country was still a developing economy. The empirical strategy exploits local variation in the openings and closings of the savings banks. Municipalities with bank presence experienced increased innovation, measured by more patents from innovators seated in the municipality. In particular, the head offices of the banks impacted innovation, as they were the executive unit and administered lending. Patents from industries more dependent on financing from external sources are driving the effect, along with places with a relatively high population, a developed industry, and a previous history of innovation. The results emphasize the importance of financial institutions with strong local ties and the ability to encourage and redirect savings to promote innovation in developing economies. The Effects of Local Banking: Historical Evidence from the Swedish Savings Bank Movement What is the long-term effect of local banking on industrial growth and economic progress in a developing economy? We shed light on this question using rich data covering the staggered rollout of the Swedish savings bank movement and information on industrial development, population statistics, and mortality in 2400 Swedish municipalities during the first half of the 20th century. The first part of the empirical analysis shows that the presence of a savings bank substantially affected industry structure and industry growth by increasing the number of firms, the degree of mechanization, and industry sales value. More advanced industries, reliant on external

The first two chapters in this dissertation deal with innovative methods that aim to further our understanding of social mobility and inequality in developing countries on the basis of commonly available data sources. Chapter 1 provides a comprehensive assessment of the adequacy of synthetic panel methods to deliver point estimates of poverty dynamics, and proposes an alternative estimator for a key intermediate parameter. Chapter 2 puts forward an imputation-based method that allows decomposing consumption inequality into their local and spatial components. This procedure is applied to the study of inequality dynamics in India over the first decade of this century. The third chapter takes advantage of a natural experiment to identify the causal impact of improved physical connection to markets on social relations in Indian villages. Improved access to markets leads to fewer social contacts and decreased cooperation within castes. While rural roads do not seem to generally improve relations between castes, they induce a decline in violent attacks, which is likely related to a reduction in casteist incidents.

This repository contains the analysis files and documentation for the thesis entitled "Risks and opportunities to development: a local perspective". Respondents did not consent to sharing their data, so the input data is not shared. It can be accessed in case of doubts about the academic integrity of the thesis by contacting the author or office.economics@wur.nl. All replication files are contained in a zip file which also contains a readme and a copy of the thesis.

The purpose of this article is to assess the impact of the Chinese economic penetration in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia) on the relation of this region with the European Union (EU) and on the role of this region in the international division of labour. Using international economics and international political economy theoretical concepts, this article outlines an interpretation of relevant quantitative data and a qualitative analysis of the Chinese economic flows in the Western Balkans. The results highlight that China is unlikely to challenge the economic hegemonic position of the EU in the region. The article also shows that the Chinese economic flows and development projects, notably the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), are not significantly transforming the peripherical role of the Western Balkans in the international division of labour. It explains why Chinese economic flows do not contribute substantially to the insertion of these economies in the international production networks set up by Chinese firms.

An accurate understanding of how policies and programs affect individual and household welfare requires correctly modeling household decision making. This dissertation examines standard assumptions of the collective model that household members achieve efficiency (Essays 1 and 3), have perfect information (Essays 2 and 3), communicate, and make binding commitments (Essay 3). I analyze the theoretical implications of relaxing these assumptions and empirically assess how well these assumptions reflect reality in diverse contexts. The first essay calls into question the assumption that households in rural Ethiopia operate on the Pareto efficient frontier. The second essay examines differences in spouses' responses to questions regarding women's asset ownership and participation in household decisions in Nepal, and what these differences tell us about women's well-being. The third essay analyzes how introducing cellular network access in the Philippines affects wives’ control over household resources and information asymmetries between spouses.Do Property Rights Affect the Efficiency and Intrahousehold Labor Allocations of Rural Ethiopian Households?If the share of land that a husband or wife claims in divorce differs from his or her share of other assets, does this induce inefficient allocations of productive resources? To address this question, the first essay examines the effects of two policies that altered the distribution of property rights upon marital dissolution in Ethiopia: (1) joint land certification, which shifted land rights from husbands to both husbands and wives and (2) changes to regional Family Codes, which shifted non-land rights from husbands to a more equal division between spouses. Using two-way fixed effects, I analyze both panel and repeated cross-sectional data from rural Ethiopia. My results suggest that, when regional Family Codes are in place, joint land certification increases real household consumption per capita and the probability of bei

This paper describes emerging work in development economics at the intersection of hope, poverty and material prosperity. We blend Sen’s capability approach and Snyder’s hope theory to provide a conceptual framework for integrating hope into development eco-nomics. This framework emphasizes the interplay of internal and external constraints, belief updating and differential malleability of hope between children and adults. The paper then surveys the recent literature in development economics related to Snyder’s components of hope: aspirations, pathways and agency. This survey focuses primarily on the domains of education, employment and enterprise and uses the Sen-Snyder framework to synthesize patterns in these results. It concludes with a discussion of promising research frontiers for development economists, including the need to understand how complementarities between hope components shape realized outcomes and to accommodate distinctive features of hope as it is experienced by the poor in non-Western contexts.

Diese Arbeit untersucht den Einfluss verhaltensökonomischer Aspekte und Bildung für die finanzielle Entwicklung. Sie besteht aus vier Kapiteln, welche jeweils ein separates Forschungspapier darstellen. Die Kapitel decken folgende Themen ab: Determinanten einer impulsiven Kreditaufnahme, Hindernisse bei finanzieller Inklusion, die Auswirkungen von finanzieller Bildung und die finanziellen Folgen eines Schocks. Alle Kapitel nutzen Umfragedaten. Außerdem nutzen einige Kapitel experimentelle (Labor-)Ergebnisse. Nach einer Einleitung untersucht Kapitel zwei die Rolle von Selbstkontrolle und finanzieller Bildung bei einer impulsiven Kreditaufnahme und analysiert experimentelle Daten, die in einem Labor in Berlin erhoben wurden, sowie Umfragedaten aus der Innovations-Stichprobe des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels. Kapitel drei trägt zu einem besseren Verständnis der Determinanten und Hindernisse für die Nutzung von Mobile Money in einem einkommensschwachen Land bei, wobei es auch den Beitrag von Mobile Money zur finanziellen Inklusion betrachtet. Da Bildung die Wahrscheinlichkeit erhöht, dass neue Technologien genutzt werden, könnte finanzielle Bildung weitere Bemühungen zur finanziellen Inklusion und zum Verbraucherschutz für die finanzielle Entwicklung sinnvoll ergänzen. Daher ist es wichtig, die Auswirkungen von Programmen zu bewerten, die auf finanzielle Bildung abzielen. Dafür werden in Kapitel vier die Auswirkungen eines Finanzbildungsprogramms und seine Spillover-Effekte anhand einer randomisierten kontrollierten Studie analysiert. Kapitel fünf beleuchtet die Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie auf das finanzielle Wohlergehen und die Technologienutzung von Kleinstunternehmern. Die in Kapitel drei bis fünf verwenden Daten wurden in zwei groß angelegten Erhebungswellen im ländlichen Uganda erhoben., This thesis focuses on the role of behavioral characteristics and education for financial development. It consists of four chapters, each being a separate research paper, covering related areas: determinants of impulsive borrowing, barriers to financial inclusion, the impact of financial education, and the financial consequences due to a shock. All chapters use survey evidence, and some include (lab) experimental findings. After the introduction, Chapter two investigates the role of self-control and financial literacy for impulsive borrowing, analyzing experimental data collected in a laboratory in Berlin and survey data provided by the German Socio-Economic Panel's Innovation Sample. Chapter three contributes to a better understanding of the determinants and barriers to mobile money adoption in a low-income country, and the contribution of mobile money services to financial inclusion. As education makes it more likely to adopt new technologies, financial education could complement other financial inclusion and consumer protection efforts for financial development. Thus, it is relevant to assess the consequences of programs targeting financial education. Therefore, chapter four analyzes the impact of a financial education program and its spillover effects via a randomized controlled trial. Chapter five sheds light on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial well-being and technology adoption of micro-entrepreneurs. Chapter three to five use data collected in two large-scale survey waves in rural Uganda.

Diese Arbeit untersucht den Einfluss verhaltensökonomischer Aspekte und Bildung für die finanzielle Entwicklung. Sie besteht aus vier Kapiteln, welche jeweils ein separates Forschungspapier darstellen. Die Kapitel decken folgende Themen ab: Determinanten einer impulsiven Kreditaufnahme, Hindernisse bei finanzieller Inklusion, die Auswirkungen von finanzieller Bildung und die finanziellen Folgen eines Schocks. Alle Kapitel nutzen Umfragedaten. Außerdem nutzen einige Kapitel experimentelle (Labor-)Ergebnisse. Nach einer Einleitung untersucht Kapitel zwei die Rolle von Selbstkontrolle und finanzieller Bildung bei einer impulsiven Kreditaufnahme und analysiert experimentelle Daten, die in einem Labor in Berlin erhoben wurden, sowie Umfragedaten aus der Innovations-Stichprobe des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels. Kapitel drei trägt zu einem besseren Verständnis der Determinanten und Hindernisse für die Nutzung von Mobile Money in einem einkommensschwachen Land bei, wobei es auch den Beitrag von Mobile Money zur finanziellen Inklusion betrachtet. Da Bildung die Wahrscheinlichkeit erhöht, dass neue Technologien genutzt werden, könnte finanzielle Bildung weitere Bemühungen zur finanziellen Inklusion und zum Verbraucherschutz für die finanzielle Entwicklung sinnvoll ergänzen. Daher ist es wichtig, die Auswirkungen von Programmen zu bewerten, die auf finanzielle Bildung abzielen. Dafür werden in Kapitel vier die Auswirkungen eines Finanzbildungsprogramms und seine Spillover-Effekte anhand einer randomisierten kontrollierten Studie analysiert. Kapitel fünf beleuchtet die Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie auf das finanzielle Wohlergehen und die Technologienutzung von Kleinstunternehmern. Die in Kapitel drei bis fünf verwenden Daten wurden in zwei groß angelegten Erhebungswellen im ländlichen Uganda erhoben., This thesis focuses on the role of behavioral characteristics and education for financial development. It consists of four chapters, each being a separate research paper, covering related areas: determinants of impulsive borrowing, barriers to financial inclusion, the impact of financial education, and the financial consequences due to a shock. All chapters use survey evidence, and some include (lab) experimental findings. After the introduction, Chapter two investigates the role of self-control and financial literacy for impulsive borrowing, analyzing experimental data collected in a laboratory in Berlin and survey data provided by the German Socio-Economic Panel's Innovation Sample. Chapter three contributes to a better understanding of the determinants and barriers to mobile money adoption in a low-income country, and the contribution of mobile money services to financial inclusion. As education makes it more likely to adopt new technologies, financial education could complement other financial inclusion and consumer protection efforts for financial development. Thus, it is relevant to assess the consequences of programs targeting financial education. Therefore, chapter four analyzes the impact of a financial education program and its spillover effects via a randomized controlled trial. Chapter five sheds light on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial well-being and technology adoption of micro-entrepreneurs. Chapter three to five use data collected in two large-scale survey waves in rural Uganda.

This paper describes emerging work in development economics at the intersection of hope, poverty and material prosperity. We blend Sen’s capability approach and Snyder’s hope theory to provide a conceptual framework for integrating hope into development eco-nomics. This framework emphasizes the interplay of internal and external constraints, belief updating and differential malleability of hope between children and adults. The paper then surveys the recent literature in development economics related to Snyder’s components of hope: aspirations, pathways and agency. This survey focuses primarily on the domains of education, employment and enterprise and uses the Sen-Snyder framework to synthesize patterns in these results. It concludes with a discussion of promising research frontiers for development economists, including the need to understand how complementarities between hope components shape realized outcomes and to accommodate distinctive features of hope as it is experienced by the poor in non-Western contexts.

An accurate understanding of how policies and programs affect individual and household welfare requires correctly modeling household decision making. This dissertation examines standard assumptions of the collective model that household members achieve efficiency (Essays 1 and 3), have perfect information (Essays 2 and 3), communicate, and make binding commitments (Essay 3). I analyze the theoretical implications of relaxing these assumptions and empirically assess how well these assumptions reflect reality in diverse contexts. The first essay calls into question the assumption that households in rural Ethiopia operate on the Pareto efficient frontier. The second essay examines differences in spouses' responses to questions regarding women's asset ownership and participation in household decisions in Nepal, and what these differences tell us about women's well-being. The third essay analyzes how introducing cellular network access in the Philippines affects wives’ control over household resources and information asymmetries between spouses.Do Property Rights Affect the Efficiency and Intrahousehold Labor Allocations of Rural Ethiopian Households?If the share of land that a husband or wife claims in divorce differs from his or her share of other assets, does this induce inefficient allocations of productive resources? To address this question, the first essay examines the effects of two policies that altered the distribution of property rights upon marital dissolution in Ethiopia: (1) joint land certification, which shifted land rights from husbands to both husbands and wives and (2) changes to regional Family Codes, which shifted non-land rights from husbands to a more equal division between spouses. Using two-way fixed effects, I analyze both panel and repeated cross-sectional data from rural Ethiopia. My results suggest that, when regional Family Codes are in place, joint land certification increases real household consumption per capita and the probability of bei

Interest has grown over recent years in policy programs targeting a green, bio-based economy. In the European Union, the European Commission promotes the development of bioeconomy policy and encourages the use of biomass and waste for industrial purposes. Alongside these technical dimensions, European bioeconomy policy also promotes knowledge sharing, learning from others, and so-called ‘best practice’. Consequently, many European places and policymakers that have committed to developing a bio-based economy are now sharing their positive policy experiences. However, sharing ‘best practice’ for green economy policy programs has sometimes been described as producing oversimplified views of complex climate issues. Despite such criticisms, policymakers continue to search for and share bioeconomy policy ‘best practice’. This paper explores the development of bioeconomy policy with a focus on shareability and dissemination of ‘best practice’ in two Swedish regions, Värmland and Västerbotten. Herein, we adopt the conceptual underpinnings of urban policy mobilities to explain green policymaking, and more specifically bioeconomy policy development on a regional scale. So far, policy mobilities research has had a primarily urban focus, whereas this paper provides valuable insights into how these processes take place within regional and more peripheral settings. Thus, we seek to understand the role of ‘best practice’ in the development of regional bioeconomy policies and which elements of these policies are promoted as transferable elsewhere.

Interest has grown over recent years in policy programs targeting a green, bio-based economy. In the European Union, the European Commission promotes the development of bioeconomy policy and encourages the use of biomass and waste for industrial purposes. Alongside these technical dimensions, European bioeconomy policy also promotes knowledge sharing, learning from others, and so-called ‘best practice’. Consequently, many European places and policymakers that have committed to developing a bio-based economy are now sharing their positive policy experiences. However, sharing ‘best practice’ for green economy policy programs has sometimes been described as producing oversimplified views of complex climate issues. Despite such criticisms, policymakers continue to search for and share bioeconomy policy ‘best practice’. This paper explores the development of bioeconomy policy with a focus on shareability and dissemination of ‘best practice’ in two Swedish regions, Värmland and Västerbotten. Herein, we adopt the conceptual underpinnings of urban policy mobilities to explain green policymaking, and more specifically bioeconomy policy development on a regional scale. So far, policy mobilities research has had a primarily urban focus, whereas this paper provides valuable insights into how these processes take place within regional and more peripheral settings. Thus, we seek to understand the role of ‘best practice’ in the development of regional bioeconomy policies and which elements of these policies are promoted as transferable elsewhere.

Interest has grown over recent years in policy programs targeting a green, bio-based economy. In the European Union, the European Commission promotes the development of bioeconomy policy and encourages the use of biomass and waste for industrial purposes. Alongside these technical dimensions, European bioeconomy policy also promotes knowledge sharing, learning from others, and so-called ‘best practice’. Consequently, many European places and policymakers that have committed to developing a bio-based economy are now sharing their positive policy experiences. However, sharing ‘best practice’ for green economy policy programs has sometimes been described as producing oversimplified views of complex climate issues. Despite such criticisms, policymakers continue to search for and share bioeconomy policy ‘best practice’. This paper explores the development of bioeconomy policy with a focus on shareability and dissemination of ‘best practice’ in two Swedish regions, Värmland and Västerbotten. Herein, we adopt the conceptual underpinnings of urban policy mobilities to explain green policymaking, and more specifically bioeconomy policy development on a regional scale. So far, policy mobilities research has had a primarily urban focus, whereas this paper provides valuable insights into how these processes take place within regional and more peripheral settings. Thus, we seek to understand the role of ‘best practice’ in the development of regional bioeconomy policies and which elements of these policies are promoted as transferable elsewhere.

Interest has grown over recent years in policy programs targeting a green, bio-based economy. In the European Union, the European Commission promotes the development of bioeconomy policy and encourages the use of biomass and waste for industrial purposes. Alongside these technical dimensions, European bioeconomy policy also promotes knowledge sharing, learning from others, and so-called ‘best practice’. Consequently, many European places and policymakers that have committed to developing a bio-based economy are now sharing their positive policy experiences. However, sharing ‘best practice’ for green economy policy programs has sometimes been described as producing oversimplified views of complex climate issues. Despite such criticisms, policymakers continue to search for and share bioeconomy policy ‘best practice’. This paper explores the development of bioeconomy policy with a focus on shareability and dissemination of ‘best practice’ in two Swedish regions, Värmland and Västerbotten. Herein, we adopt the conceptual underpinnings of urban policy mobilities to explain green policymaking, and more specifically bioeconomy policy development on a regional scale. So far, policy mobilities research has had a primarily urban focus, whereas this paper provides valuable insights into how these processes take place within regional and more peripheral settings. Thus, we seek to understand the role of ‘best practice’ in the development of regional bioeconomy policies and which elements of these policies are promoted as transferable elsewhere.

This dissertation comprises three studies on development economics and state capacity. In the first two chapters, developed through a partnership with the Tax Authority in Honduras, I examine the design and enforcement of tax policies when state capacity is low. State-provided public goods are crucial for economic development, and collecting taxes is necessary to finance the state. The first study evaluates the impact of a policy aimed at increasing tax payments from large corporations and highlights the importance of third-party information on enforcement. The second study reports the result of a large-scale experiment with taxpayers, aimed at estimating the compliance effects of informing taxpayers about the Tax Authority’s knowledge on their transactions. The final chapter focuses on another dimension of state capacity and development: the selection of state personnel that are key to the delivery of public services. In that chapter, I study whether the impersonal examinations used to select judges in Brazil are predictive about their performance on the job.In chapter 1, co-authored with Felipe Lobel and Pedro Zúniga, I study how corporations in Honduras responded to the introduction of a minimum income tax, a provision that taxes firms on revenue when reported profits are low. Minimum taxes are recommended to tax authorities in lower-income countries by the International Monetary Fund and figure prominently in current debates on international tax cooperation. Evidence on their impact on tax collection and behavioral responses of firms is nonetheless still scarce. Using non- linearities in the tax schedule introduced by the policy and tools from the bunching literature, I show that the reaction of corporations reveals substantial evasion under profit taxation and a large elasticity of reported revenue. I also document that the enforcement environment faced by firms is important in determining these responses, highlighting the fact that the trade-offs between poli

This dissertation consists of three contributions to the literature at the intersection of development economics and public economics, set in the context of Uganda but with broader applications. In each of the three chapters, I use rigorous identification and a rich variety of administrative data to answer interesting and challenging questions about a variety of ways in which the public sector influences and is influenced by economic development.The first chapter studies the subnational fiscal response to international aid, and examines how other donors and the Ugandan government respond to exogenous increases in the amount of World Bank funds allocated to local projects. While similar analysis has been done before at the country level, my analysis is the first that is focused on the subnational level. I find evidence of a ``crowding in'' of donors, whereby some other donors follow the lead of the World Bank in determining where to allocate funding across Uganda's smaller administrative units. The crowding in of aid, and the subsequent potential for overspending and diminishing marginal returns, may help explain why international aid sees large returns viewed locally, but smaller returns on national levels.The second chapter focuses on a randomized control trial which I conducted with the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), studying tax compliance in the context of low state capacity. Although the ability of the state to collect tax revenue is crucial for development, relatively little is known about what drives tax compliance and how it can be improved in poor, low-capacity countries. I show that low-cost, easily implementable tax compliance interventions can succeed, testing a highly effective tax encouragement scheme in conjunction with URA. I find a 6x rate of return to sending a simple text message to prospective taxpayers in the days before taxes are due, which increases to 13x when considering an enforcement-focused message; this intervention is estimated to have

Drawing on theory from development economics and industrial organization, I study the economics of rural firms and markets to understand how different types of shocks affect firm operations. I examine three types of shocks: technology, weather, and prices. I use a combination of randomized experimental variation and quasi-experimental variation to identify the effect of each type of shock on small firm outcomes. The primary outcomes are relational contracting with suppliers and customers, firm performance (sales, profits, hiring of workers), number of competitors, and changes to input and output prices.In the first essay, I evaluate how a technology shock designed to lower search costs affects how firms interact with their suppliers and customers. For small firms, search frictions interfere with learning about new suppliers in their upstream market, and raise the cost of meeting new customers in their downstream market. Using a randomized experiment of 507 small firms, I study the impact of a digital phonebook that lowers the cost of accessing new business and customer contacts. Participating firms are split into a control and treatment group with two variations: 1) a phonebook listing that is visible to upstream suppliers in urban areas, and 2) a phonebook listing that is visible to downstream customers in rural areas. I find that treated firms increase relational contracting with their suppliers and decrease it with their customers. Yet, there is no strong evidence that the number of new customers or suppliers increases. This pattern suggests that being listed in the phonebook caused firms to update their valuation of relational contracts and respond by negotiating better terms with suppliers and customers.In the second essay, I study how a weather shock that lowers agricultural production affects rural firms whose customer base experiences crop losses. In the absence of insurance and credit markets, the effect of adverse weather shocks on rural firms is ambiguous

Complex policy problems like climate change and illicit finance require a diverse methodological repertoire and an agnostic approach to selecting the appropriate analytical tool to accomplish discrete inferential tasks. Drawing from the disciplines of political science, economics, and statistical data science, this dissertation tackles three distinct problems on causal evaluation, measurement, and missing data. The first paper evaluates the causal effect of a climate mitigation policy on the carbon emissions of the UK. Using a synthetic control estimator, this chapter finds that post-treatment emissions in the UK were 10% lower than what they would have been without the climate policy. The results imply that voluntary climate reforms that make concessions to domestic producers are still able to meaningfully reduce emissions, even in the absence of a legally binding global climate treaty. The second paper presents a novel methodology to measure illicit trade flows and originates the "atlas of misinvoicing", the first database to provide comprehensive bilateral estimates of the dollar amount of misinvoiced trade disaggregated by commodity sector for 167 countries during 2000-2018. Results show that African countries lost on average $86 billion a year in gross illicit outflows during that period, and that the biggest source of illicit trade on the continent was the natural resources sector. The findings suggest that combating illicit financial flows will be crucial to providing finance for sustainable development and to promoting domestic resource mobilization in poor countries. The third paper proposes a machine learning approach to ameliorate the problem of missing data from developing countries, where administrative systems for data collection tend to be weaker. Some African countries do not provide customs declarations, which the "atlas" method requires as input data. This chapter predicts illicit trade using machine learning models that are trained on readily avai

Der Klimawandel ist eine globale Herausforderung, aber seine Auswirkungen sind besonders stark in Entwicklungsländern zu spüren. So erleiden arme Menschen deutlich höhere Verluste, weil sie Extremereignissen stärker ausgesetzt sind und weniger Ressourcen für Anpassung und Schockbewältigung haben. Trotz der weitreichenden Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf Haushalte in Entwicklungsländern ist die aktuelle Forschung zum Zusammenhang zwischen Klimawandel, Armut und Entwicklung begrenzt. Insbesondere die langfristigen Folgen von Wetterextremen für betroffene Haushalte sind wenig erforscht. Diese Arbeit soll dazu beitragen, die komplexen Zusammenhänge zwischen veränderten klimatischen Bedingungen und Entwicklung auf Haushaltsebene besser zu verstehen. Kapitel 2 befasst sich mit den unmittelbaren Folgen eines extremen Wetterereignisses für die Ernährungssicherheit, wobei Nahrungsmenge und -qualität untersucht werden. Es analysiert, inwieweit die Selbstversorgung mit Nahrungsmitteln die Einkommenselastizität für Ernährung verringern kann und zeigt die negativen Folgen eines Wetterschocks auf die Ernährungsqualität auf. Kapitel 3 befasst sich mit der Schockpersistenz. Basierend auf einem theoretischen Modell zeigt es negative Wachstumseffekte eines einmaligen extremen Wetterereignisses, zusätzlich zu den unmittelbaren Verlusten. Es zeigt auch, dass die Folgen von extremen Wetterereignissen stärker sind als die von anderen Schocks auf Haushaltsebene. Kapitel 4 analysiert das Einkommenspotenzial in der nicht-landwirtschaftlichen Kleinstselbstständigkeit. Selbst in diesem Kontext unvollständiger Märkte existieren robuste Bildungsrenditen. Das Kapitel zeigt außerdem verschiedene Übertragungskanäle auf. Zusammengenommen fordern diese Ergebnisse politische Maßnahmen, die den Nexus Klimawandel - Entwicklung auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen adressieren: Unmittelbare Katastrophenhilfe sowie längerfristige Anpassungsunterstützungen., Anthropogenic climate change is a global challenge, but its effects are felt disproportionally in developing countries. As such, poor people incur significantly higher disaster-induced losses due to higher shock exposure and vulnerability as well as fewer resources for adaptation and recovery. Despite the far-reaching impacts of climate change on households in developing countries and the predicted aggravation of climate change outcomes, there is still little research focusing on the link between them. In particular, the long-term consequences of weather-related disasters on the livelihood of poor households are not well understood. This thesis aims to help our understanding of the complex links between changing climatic conditions and development for affected households. It sheds light on three different stages of the climate-change – development nexus. Chapter 2 is concerned with the immediate consequences of an extreme weather event for food security, focusing on dietary quantity and quality. It analyses to what extent food self-provisioning can help reduce the income elasticity of consumption and shows the negative effects of a weather-related disaster on dietary quality. Chapter 3 looks at shock persistence. Based on a theoretical model, it provides robust evidence for negative growth effects of a one-off extreme weather event, in addition to the immediate losses caused. It also demonstrates that the effects of extreme weather events are stronger than those of other household-level shocks. Chapter 4 analyses the income-earning potential in non-agricultural micro self-employment. It provides robust evidence for the existence of returns to education even in a context of petty self-employment, highlighting different transmission channels. Put together, these results call for policy action addressing all stages of the climate change – development nexus: Immediate disaster relief as well as longer-term mitigation and adaptation efforts.

The three main chapters in this dissertation cover three different topics in development economics: education, poverty, and infrastructure. Each chapter contains relevant findings for the respective subject area and methodological contributions. Chapter 2 studies the impact of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program on students’ decisions to continue school once the program ends. The CCT in question is Mexico’s PROGRESA, which covered students only until the end of middle school. I find that the program reduced the probability to transfer to high school afterwards by about 10 to 14 percentage points. The reasons appear to be behavioral: cash crowds out the intrinsic motivation for seeking education, and CCT programs ending early may signal that school is not worth it after a certain point. In addition, the program had positive spillover effects on students from better-off families who were not eligible, presumably raising their desire to distinguish themselves by staying in school. Identifying the effect on the transition probability poses a unique challenge: if PROGRESA has successfully kept students in middle school, then samples of middle school graduates who received the program are likely different from those who did not. To tackle this issue, I apply double machine learning—a recently developed method to identify treatment effects in the presence of many potential confounders. I extend the method to account not only for selection bias but also for non-random attrition. Chapter 3 is about participatory wealth rankings (PWRs)—a targeting method in which representatives of a community rank households by their wealth. I demonstrate how PWRs can be used to construct a welfare measure that reflects local perceptions of poverty, using data from a field experiment on targeting in Indonesia. The idea is to estimate the relationship between rankings and household characteristics via a rank-ordered logit model. The welfare scores predicted from this model can be used t

Aquesta tesi doctoral esta composta per tres capítols independents. Contribueix a una literatura sobre desenvolupament econòmic, la geografia econòmica, el comerç internacional i el canvi climàtic. Al capítol 1, "El poder dels mercats: impacte de les invasions de llagostes del desert sobre la salut infantil", proporciono proves reduïdes de la importància (accés a) mercats en la transmissió de xocs agrícoles impulsats pel canvi climàtic a l'acumulació de capital humà a economies agrícoles de baixos ingressos. En general, argumenta per la importància d'abordar les reaccions del mercat local a aquest tipus de xoc agrícola a l'hora de dissenyar polítiques públiques. També transmet evidències clares de la vulnerabilitat de les economies agrícoles i de baixos ingressos als xocs a curt termini induïts pel canvi climàtic. Per tant, motiva els capítols posteriors, en què estudio les reaccions econòmiques a llarg termini i les conseqüències del canvi climàtic. Al capítol 2, "Canvi climàtic i migració: el cas d'Àfrica", estudio els possibles costos econòmics i les respostes migratòries al canvi climàtic en el context de l'Àfrica subsahariana (SSA) durant les properes dècades. Per a això, desenvolupo un marc espacial quantitatiu que recull el paper de les xarxes comercials i la idoneïtat agrícola en la distribució de la població i el PIB (tenint en compte els ajustos endògens de la selecció i el comerç de cultius). El combino amb dades geoespacials detallades de SSA per simular l'impacte del canvi climàtic mitjançant previsions de productivitat agrícola el 2080 de la FAO. Els resultats suggereixen que el canvi climàtic podria conduir a grans fluxos migratoris dins i entre els països de la SSA, amb pèrdues econòmiques substancials. A més, la capacitat d'ajustar la barreja de producció entre diferents sectors (cultius i / o no agrícoles) o l'elevat accés als mercats mitiga parcialment els impactes del canvi climàtic en termes de sortides de població. Finalment, un experiment rela, En el capítulo 1, "El poder de los mercados: impacto de las invasiones de langostas del desierto sobre la salud infantil", proporciono pruebas reducidas de la importancia (acceso a) mercados en la transmisión de choques agrícolas impulsados por el cambio climático a la acumulación de capital humano a economías agrícolas de bajos ingresos. En general, argumenta por la importancia de abordar las reacciones del mercado local en este tipo de choque agrícola a la hora de diseñar políticas públicas. También transmite evidencias claras de la vulnerabilidad de las economías agrícolas y de bajos ingresos a los choques a corto plazo inducidos por el cambio climático. Por lo tanto, motiva a los capítulos posteriores, en que estudio las reacciones económicas a largo plazo y las consecuencias del cambio climático. En el capítulo 2, "Cambio climático y migración: el caso de África", estudio los posibles costes económicos y las respuestas migratorias al cambio climático en el contexto del África subsahariana (SSA) durante las próximas décadas. Para ello, desarrollo un marco espacial cuantitativo que recoge el papel de las redes comerciales y la idoneidad agrícola en la distribución de la población y el PIB (teniendo en cuenta los ajustes endógenos de la selección y el comercio de cultivos). Lo combino con datos geoespaciales detalladas para simular el impacto del cambio climático mediante previsiones de productividad agrícola en el 2080 de la FAO. Los resultados sugieren que el cambio climático podría conducir a grandes flujos migratorios dentro y entre los países de la SSA, con pérdidas económicas sustanciales. Además, la capacidad de ajustar la mezcla de producción entre diferentes sectores (cultivos y / o no agrícolas) o el elevado acceso a los mercados mitiga parcialmente los impactos del cambio climático en términos de salidas de población. Finalmente, un experimento relacionado con la adopción de tecnología a la agricultura muestra que la adopción tecnología en este sector p, This doctoral thesis answer questions related to the spatial impacts of climate change on economic outcomes. Composed by three independent chapters, it contributes to a literature at the intersection of economic development, economic geography, international trade, and climate change. In Chapter 1, "The Power of Markets: Impact of Desert Locust Invasions on Child Health", I provide reduced-form evidence of the importance of (access to) markets on the transmission of climate change-led agricultural shocks to human capital accumulation in low-income agricultural economies. Overall, it argues for the importance of addressing local market reactions to this type of agricultural shock when designing public policy. It also conveys clear evidence of the vulnerability of agricultural, low-income economies, to short-term shocks induced by climate change. Hence, it motivates the subsequent chapters, in which I study the long-run economic reactions to and consequences of climate change. In particular, in Chapter 2, "Climate Change and Migration: the case of Africa", I study the potential economic costs and migration responses to climate change in the context of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) during the next decades. For that, I develop a quantitative spatial framework that captures the role of trade networks and agricultural suitability on the distribution of population and GDP accounting for endogenous adjustments of crop choice and trade. I combine it with detailed geospatial data from SSA to simulate the impact of climate change using forecasts of agricultural productivity in 2080 from FAO. My results suggest that climate change could lead to major migration flows within and across SSA countries, with substantial economic losses associated with it. Moreover, the capacity of adjusting the production mix across different sectors (crops and/or non-agricultural) or high access to markets partially mitigates the impacts of climate change in terms of population outflows. Finally, a poli

Complex policy problems like climate change and illicit finance require a diverse methodological repertoire and an agnostic approach to selecting the appropriate analytical tool to accomplish discrete inferential tasks. Drawing from the disciplines of political science, economics, and statistical data science, this dissertation tackles three distinct problems on causal evaluation, measurement, and missing data. The first paper evaluates the causal effect of a climate mitigation policy on the carbon emissions of the UK. Using a synthetic control estimator, this chapter finds that post-treatment emissions in the UK were 10% lower than what they would have been without the climate policy. The results imply that voluntary climate reforms that make concessions to domestic producers are still able to meaningfully reduce emissions, even in the absence of a legally binding global climate treaty. The second paper presents a novel methodology to measure illicit trade flows and originates the "atlas of misinvoicing", the first database to provide comprehensive bilateral estimates of the dollar amount of misinvoiced trade disaggregated by commodity sector for 167 countries during 2000-2018. Results show that African countries lost on average $86 billion a year in gross illicit outflows during that period, and that the biggest source of illicit trade on the continent was the natural resources sector. The findings suggest that combating illicit financial flows will be crucial to providing finance for sustainable development and to promoting domestic resource mobilization in poor countries. The third paper proposes a machine learning approach to ameliorate the problem of missing data from developing countries, where administrative systems for data collection tend to be weaker. Some African countries do not provide customs declarations, which the "atlas" method requires as input data. This chapter predicts illicit trade using machine learning models that are trained on readily avai

The three main chapters in this dissertation cover three different topics in development economics: education, poverty, and infrastructure. Each chapter contains relevant findings for the respective subject area and methodological contributions. Chapter 2 studies the impact of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program on students’ decisions to continue school once the program ends. The CCT in question is Mexico’s PROGRESA, which covered students only until the end of middle school. I find that the program reduced the probability to transfer to high school afterwards by about 10 to 14 percentage points. The reasons appear to be behavioral: cash crowds out the intrinsic motivation for seeking education, and CCT programs ending early may signal that school is not worth it after a certain point. In addition, the program had positive spillover effects on students from better-off families who were not eligible, presumably raising their desire to distinguish themselves by staying in school. Identifying the effect on the transition probability poses a unique challenge: if PROGRESA has successfully kept students in middle school, then samples of middle school graduates who received the program are likely different from those who did not. To tackle this issue, I apply double machine learning—a recently developed method to identify treatment effects in the presence of many potential confounders. I extend the method to account not only for selection bias but also for non-random attrition. Chapter 3 is about participatory wealth rankings (PWRs)—a targeting method in which representatives of a community rank households by their wealth. I demonstrate how PWRs can be used to construct a welfare measure that reflects local perceptions of poverty, using data from a field experiment on targeting in Indonesia. The idea is to estimate the relationship between rankings and household characteristics via a rank-ordered logit model. The welfare scores predicted from this model can be used t

Interest has grown over recent years in policy programs targeting a green, bio-based economy. In the European Union, the European Commission promotes the development of bioeconomy policy and encourages the use of biomass and waste for industrial purposes. Alongside these technical dimensions, European bioeconomy policy also promotes knowledge sharing, learning from others, and so-called ‘best practice’. Consequently, many European places and policymakers that have committed to developing a bio-based economy are now sharing their positive policy experiences. However, sharing ‘best practice’ for green economy policy programs has sometimes been described as producing oversimplified views of complex climate issues. Despite such criticisms, policymakers continue to search for and share bioeconomy policy ‘best practice’. This paper explores the development of bioeconomy policy with a focus on shareability and dissemination of ‘best practice’ in two Swedish regions, Värmland and Västerbotten. Herein, we adopt the conceptual underpinnings of urban policy mobilities to explain green policymaking, and more specifically bioeconomy policy development on a regional scale. So far, policy mobilities research has had a primarily urban focus, whereas this paper provides valuable insights into how these processes take place within regional and more peripheral settings. Thus, we seek to understand the role of ‘best practice’ in the development of regional bioeconomy policies and which elements of these policies are promoted as transferable elsewhere.

This dissertation empirically studies the interplay of government policies, finance, and economic development. More specifically, it considers the impact of corporate taxes on employment, of bank regulation on financial information sharing on banking stability and of banking crises on democracy. Two of the chapters focus on Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The third one takes a more global perspective. Chapter 1 evaluates the impact of corporate income tax rates (CIT) on employment at the firm level for a sample of SSA countries. It finds that on average, firms employ more workers in countries with higher CIT rates. This is consistent with the fact that corporate tax revenues allow governments to provide public goods and infrastructure which are crucial to firm activities. We report estimation results to support this assumption. More specifically, while the marginal effect of CIT decreases with income level or with government expenditures, it increases with the level of democracy. Furthermore, we also find that the effect of CIT rates on employment works partially through improvements in the business environment in which firms operate. Chapter 2 assesses the effects of government policies setting the extent to which credit information on the credit history of borrowers is shared among lenders. It shows that credit information sharing stabilizes banks. Moreover, despite foreign banks having an informational disadvantage over domestic banks due to information frictions and would hence benefit more from credit information sharing, the results indicate that both types of banks are affected in the same way. This suggests that foreign banks rely on alternative strategies to compensate for their informational disadvantage in local markets. Lastly, Chapter 3 documents the impact of banking crises on the level of democracy. It provides evidence that democracy improves in the 10-year window following the occurrence of a banking crisis. The results also highlight the prese, Cette thèse étudie empiriquement l'interaction des politiques gouvernementales, de la finance, et du développement économique. Plus précisément, il examine l'impact de la fiscalité des entreprises sur l'emploi, de la réglementation bancaire relative au partage d'informations sur le crédit sur la stabilité bancaire, et des crises bancaires sur la démocratie. Les deux premiers chapitres se focalisent sur les pays d'Afrique subsaharienne. Le troisième adopte une perspective plus globale pour couvrir. Le premier chapitre évalue l'impact des taux d'imposition des sociétés (IS) sur l'emploi au niveau de l'entreprise pour un échantillon de pays d'Afrique subsaharienne. Ses résultats montrent qu'en moyenne, les entreprises emploient plus de travailleurs dans les pays où les taux de taxation des entreprises sont plus élevés. Cela s’explique par le fait que les recettes de l'impôt sur les sociétés permettent aux gouvernements de financer des biens publics et des infrastructures qui sont essentiels aux activités des entreprises. Nous présentons des résultats d'estimation pour soutenir cette hypothèse. Plus précisément, alors que l'effet marginal de l'IS diminue avec le niveau de revenu ou avec les dépenses publiques, il augmente avec le niveau de démocratie. En outre, nous constatons également que l'effet des taux d'IS sur l'emploi s'explique en partie par l'amélioration de l'environnement des affaires dans lequel opèrent les entreprises. Le second chapitre évalue les effets des politiques gouvernementales fixant la mesure dans laquelle les informations sur les antécédents de crédit des emprunteurs sont partagées entre les prêteurs. Il montre que le partage d'informations sur le crédit permet de stabiliser les banques. De plus, bien que les banques étrangères aient un désavantage informationnel par rapport aux banques nationales en raison de frictions d'information et bénéficieraient donc davantage du partage d'informations sur le crédit, les résultats indiquent que les deux t, Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This dissertation comprises three studies on development economics and state capacity. In the first two chapters, developed through a partnership with the Tax Authority in Honduras, I examine the design and enforcement of tax policies when state capacity is low. State-provided public goods are crucial for economic development, and collecting taxes is necessary to finance the state. The first study evaluates the impact of a policy aimed at increasing tax payments from large corporations and highlights the importance of third-party information on enforcement. The second study reports the result of a large-scale experiment with taxpayers, aimed at estimating the compliance effects of informing taxpayers about the Tax Authority’s knowledge on their transactions. The final chapter focuses on another dimension of state capacity and development: the selection of state personnel that are key to the delivery of public services. In that chapter, I study whether the impersonal examinations used to select judges in Brazil are predictive about their performance on the job.In chapter 1, co-authored with Felipe Lobel and Pedro Zúniga, I study how corporations in Honduras responded to the introduction of a minimum income tax, a provision that taxes firms on revenue when reported profits are low. Minimum taxes are recommended to tax authorities in lower-income countries by the International Monetary Fund and figure prominently in current debates on international tax cooperation. Evidence on their impact on tax collection and behavioral responses of firms is nonetheless still scarce. Using non- linearities in the tax schedule introduced by the policy and tools from the bunching literature, I show that the reaction of corporations reveals substantial evasion under profit taxation and a large elasticity of reported revenue. I also document that the enforcement environment faced by firms is important in determining these responses, highlighting the fact that the trade-offs between poli

This dissertation consists of three contributions to the literature at the intersection of development economics and public economics, set in the context of Uganda but with broader applications. In each of the three chapters, I use rigorous identification and a rich variety of administrative data to answer interesting and challenging questions about a variety of ways in which the public sector influences and is influenced by economic development.The first chapter studies the subnational fiscal response to international aid, and examines how other donors and the Ugandan government respond to exogenous increases in the amount of World Bank funds allocated to local projects. While similar analysis has been done before at the country level, my analysis is the first that is focused on the subnational level. I find evidence of a ``crowding in'' of donors, whereby some other donors follow the lead of the World Bank in determining where to allocate funding across Uganda's smaller administrative units. The crowding in of aid, and the subsequent potential for overspending and diminishing marginal returns, may help explain why international aid sees large returns viewed locally, but smaller returns on national levels.The second chapter focuses on a randomized control trial which I conducted with the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), studying tax compliance in the context of low state capacity. Although the ability of the state to collect tax revenue is crucial for development, relatively little is known about what drives tax compliance and how it can be improved in poor, low-capacity countries. I show that low-cost, easily implementable tax compliance interventions can succeed, testing a highly effective tax encouragement scheme in conjunction with URA. I find a 6x rate of return to sending a simple text message to prospective taxpayers in the days before taxes are due, which increases to 13x when considering an enforcement-focused message; this intervention is estimated to have

Drawing on theory from development economics and industrial organization, I study the economics of rural firms and markets to understand how different types of shocks affect firm operations. I examine three types of shocks: technology, weather, and prices. I use a combination of randomized experimental variation and quasi-experimental variation to identify the effect of each type of shock on small firm outcomes. The primary outcomes are relational contracting with suppliers and customers, firm performance (sales, profits, hiring of workers), number of competitors, and changes to input and output prices.In the first essay, I evaluate how a technology shock designed to lower search costs affects how firms interact with their suppliers and customers. For small firms, search frictions interfere with learning about new suppliers in their upstream market, and raise the cost of meeting new customers in their downstream market. Using a randomized experiment of 507 small firms, I study the impact of a digital phonebook that lowers the cost of accessing new business and customer contacts. Participating firms are split into a control and treatment group with two variations: 1) a phonebook listing that is visible to upstream suppliers in urban areas, and 2) a phonebook listing that is visible to downstream customers in rural areas. I find that treated firms increase relational contracting with their suppliers and decrease it with their customers. Yet, there is no strong evidence that the number of new customers or suppliers increases. This pattern suggests that being listed in the phonebook caused firms to update their valuation of relational contracts and respond by negotiating better terms with suppliers and customers.In the second essay, I study how a weather shock that lowers agricultural production affects rural firms whose customer base experiences crop losses. In the absence of insurance and credit markets, the effect of adverse weather shocks on rural firms is ambiguous

This chapter analyses to what extent China’s economic penetration into Latin America has transformed the role of Latin American economies in the global division of labour. The dramatic increase of Chinese trade with LAC has fostered debates over the phenomenon of a relative deindustrialization labelled reprimarización. Indeed, China-Latin American trade patterns constitute a classic case of North–South relations. Latin America would find itself in the economic periphery vis-à-vis China that would replace the traditional Western industrialized economies in the position of economic centre. Focusing on the large economies of Latin America (Argentine, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico) that developed a significant industrial base and large manufacturing firms in the 20th century, this chapter show that the role of China is often overestimated and that reprimarización was already well engaged before the Chinese commercial penetration of Latin America.

This paper uses exogenous variation in the probability of being surveyed at baseline to estimate the impact of being surveyed on subsistence farmers’ take-up of a new agricultural technology that improves food safety. I find large and statistically significant impacts of being surveyed, and also find that an experimental treatment effect disappears for surveyed farmers. My results have strong implications for our understanding of the process of technology adoption, for the external validity of adoption results measured in surveyed populations, and for research ethics.

An understanding of household finance in rural communities is vital to poverty reduction strategies in the developing world. Informal moneylenders continue to occupy a large part of the financial landscape in many developing countries, and policy interventions often focus on reducing the need for informal debt. In this dissertation, I focus on rural India, and study the interaction between the formal and informal financial sectors, how credit and savings policies impact local rural labor markets, and how labor market policies impact local credit markets.In the first chapter, I study the relationship between formal and informal credit markets. These two sectors might either compete with each other, or be embedded in a vertical relationship with informal lenders on-lending formal loans, or both. I test this by analyzing whether credit market responses to demand shocks vary across environments with high and low supplies of formal credit. Exploiting rainfall shocks as exogenous changes to household incomes, I find that increases in incomes raise household borrowing from informal sources primarily due to higher borrowing for purchases of durable goods. This increase in borrowing is accompanied by an increase in informal loan interest rates, pointing to a demand response. I then exploit plausibly exogenous variation in formal credit supply, and find that the demand responses previously observed are absent when there are contractions in formal credit, suggesting complementarities between formal and informal credit. I validate this through a qualitative survey of informal moneylenders, who indicate using loans from banks as lending capital. These results suggest that informal moneylenders play an intermediating role between borrowers and formal financial institutions, contributing to their persistence in the credit landscape.In the second chapter, I turn to credit market policy interventions. Federal and state governments in India have relied on women’s self-help groups (SH

This dissertation consists of three chapters which relate to public officials’ capacity and incentives to improve public services.Chapter 1 examines a setting in which government seeks to augment its capacity by enlisting the private sector. It uses a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to measure the effect of a Liberian school reform which outsourced management of public primary schools to private providers. It finds that outsourced public schools saw learning gains of 0.18 standard deviations in both English and mathematics on average, but the effects varied a lot by private provider. Chapter 2 turns to the question of whether improved public services yield electoral rewards for the officials responsible. It leverages the random variation in learning gains provided by Chapter 1’s randomized school reform in Liberia. On average, voters near treated schools were 3 percentage points less likely to vote for the incumbent party’s candidate than those near control schools. This negative average electoral effect, however, masks important heterogeneity. The negative electoral impact of the reform was concentrated in places where the reform reduced children’s learning. In places where the reform significantly improved test scores, it also produced electoral rewards. Chapter 3 also seeks to measure the electoral gains to public good provision, focusing on the construction of the Interstate Highway System (IHS) in the United States of America. It uses a shift-share estimator to isolate exogenous variation in the timing of IHS construction by county. It finds that a mile of IHS construction in an election year increases county-level vote share for the incumbent governor’s party by 0.6-2.2 percentage points during the period 1950-1972. These essays provide new empirical evidence of democratic accountability for public service provision, even as they illuminate directions for future research into the conditions in which democratic accountability binds.

Objective: The objective of this paper is to evaluate the different explanations provided by competing theories for informal sector competitors being viewed as hindering formal entrepreneurs more in some countries than others.Theoretical background: These theories variously explain such cross-country variations as determined by: economic under-development (modernization theory); government over-interference and high taxes (neo-liberal theory); too little government intervention (political economy theory), or the asymmetry between the laws and regulations of formal institutions and entrepreneurs’ views on the acceptability of participating in the informal economy (institutional theory).Methods: To evaluate these theories, the chosen method focus on World Bank Enterprise Survey data on 31 Latin American and Caribbean countries using binary probit regression analysis.Main results: The findings show significant cross-country differences, ranging from 58.1 per cent of entrepreneurs viewing informal sector competition as a major constraint in Bolivia to 11.1 percent in Dominica. The binary probit regression analysis confirms the modernization and institutional theories, only partially confirms political economy theory, but refutes neo-liberal theory.Theoretical contribution: The paper concludes by discussing the implications for theory and the policy initiatives required to reduce informal sector competition.

Finanzielle Resilienz und der Umgang mit finanziellen Risiken sind wesentliche Bestandteile einer erfolgreichen finanziellen Inklusion. Die persönlichen Faktoren, die finanzielles Management formen, sind allerdings nicht umfassend bekannt. Diese Dissertation untersucht wie nicht-standard-ökonomische Präferenzen und Vorstellungen („Beliefs“) dazu beitragen können verschiedene Vorgehensweisen im finanziellen Risikomanagement von Haushalten zu verstehen. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf Ländern, die kurz davor stehen einkommensstarke Ökonomien zu werden und in denen die Auswahl an finanziellen Produkten und die finanzielle Inklusion stetig wachsen. Vier Bereiche des finanziellen Risikomanagements werden betrachtet. Kapitel zwei analysiert den Zusammenhang zwischen Ungleichheitsaversion und der Aufnahme von Versicherungen. Dazu wird ein neuartiges Maß für Ungleichheitsaversion konstruiert und in einer Haushalts-Panelumfrage in Thailand verwendet. In Kapitel drei wird der Effekt von sozialen Vergleichen auf die Schuldenaufnahme in einem Laborexperiment in Deutschland untersucht um zwei Arten von Peer Effekten zu entflechten: Sorge um das soziale Ansehen und Peer Information. Kapitel vier erforscht potenzielle Unterschiede in Unsicherheitspräferenzen und in Beliefs zwischen Individuen, die vermeintlich ein hohes Risiko managen: Selbständige aus der Notwendigkeit und Selbstständige aus der Möglichkeit heraus als auch Menschen mit Migrationsgeschichte in Albanien und im Kosovo. In Kapitel fünf werden Beliefs und deren potenzieller Effekt auf Überschuldung innerhalb der gleichen Panel-Stichprobe in Thailand wie in Kapitel zwei studiert. Alle Kapitel folgen einem gemeinsamen methodologischen Ansatz indem Labor- oder sogenannte lab-in-the-field-Experimente verwendet werden. In drei Kapiteln wird die Evidenz aus dem Labor in Relation zu Resultaten aus dem wahren Leben gesetzt, die mit selbstberichteten Umfragedaten erfasst werden., Financial resilience and managing financial risks are key factors of a successful financial inclusion. The personal factors that shape financial management are, yet, not well understood. This dissertation studies how non-standard economic preferences and beliefs might help explain different financial management practices of households. The focus is on countries that are on the verge of becoming high income economies and where financial products and inclusion are steadily expanding. Four domains of financial risk management are considered. Chapter two analyzes the relationship between inequality aversion and insurance take-up. To this end, a novel measure for inequality aversion is constructed and employed in a household panel survey in Thailand. In chapter three, the effect of social comparison on debt taking is investigated in a lab experiment in Germany to disentangle two kinds of peer effects: social image concerns and peer information. Chapter four explores potential differences in uncertainty preferences and in beliefs between supposedly high-risk managers: necessity and opportunity entrepreneurs as well as return migrants in Albania and Kosovo. In chapter five, beliefs and their potential effect on over-indebtedness are studied using the same panel sample in Thailand as in chapter two. All chapters follow a common methodological approach by using lab(-in-the-field) experiments. In three chapters, lab evidence is set in relation to real life outcomes elicited with self-reported survey data.