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This thesis consists of three standalone chapters that speak to the broad theme of responding to shocks in low- and middle-income countries. Chapter 1 investigates the impact of receiving cash transfers in anticipation of an extreme climate disaster, thereby enabling low-income households to cope with the shock on their own terms. We present quasi-experimental evidence showing the effectiveness of a timelier forecast-based cash transfer delivered to low-income households just before the peak of severe flooding in Bangladesh. We find that the `anticipatory' cash transfer enabled households to change their behaviour and improve their welfare, both during the flood and three months after the intervention. Chapter 2 explores the role of mental imagery in overcoming trauma - largely induced by exposure to violence - by fostering the ability to imagine the future. We design and test a ten-session entrepreneurship training curriculum that teaches mental imagery in business decision making through a randomised control trial in Colombia. We find that mental imagery can be taught as a skill and those who receive imagery training improve their earnings, relative to those who receive a placebo entrepreneurship training. Chapter 3 explores the interaction between public and private cash transfers, recognising that social protection may interact with existing coping strategies. I estimate the extent to which receiving an old-age pension crowds out remittances in post-Apartheid South Africa, using a regression discontinuity design. I find evidence of substantial crowding out in a middle-income country context: for every 1 rand of pension received, 0.22 rand of remittances are displaced on average.

This dissertation comprises three essays on the allocation of labour and capital in a large developing country, Indonesia. In the first essay, I examine the impact of the 1998 East Asian recession on child schooling outcomes in Indonesia. Using panel data on 7-15 year-olds, I exploit the heterogeneous impact of the recession across urban communities as measured by the variation in rice price increases, under the assumption that communities where rice prices increased the most were those where real wages declined the most. I find that for the youngest children (aged 7-12 years) there is a large negative impact of higher rice prices on school attendance and no effect on labour market participation. For older children (aged 13-15 years), schooling enrolment does not respond to rice prices but labour market participation declines sharply in the worst-hit communities. I find no evidence of adverse long-term consequences on human capital formation. In the second essay, I test the hypothesis that there exists a significant earnings differential between similar workers in the formal and informal sectors. Using panel data on salaried and self-employed individuals, I find that after controlling for firm size and individual-specific heterogeneity, there is no formal sector earnings premium, except in the public sector. The results are robust to the presence of unpaid family workers, measurement error, and non-random attrition in the survey. This questions the commonly held belief that labour markets in developing countries are segmented because of legal institutions that protect high formal sector earnings. In the third essay, I estimate the effect of a large exchange rate depreciation on the performance of importers. The ability to manage volatility in the cost of imported inputs is likely to depend on a firm's access to external sources of finance as well its ability to hedge against exchange rate movements. Using data from a census on Indonesian firms, I find that while domestic importers face lower value-added due to a rise in their costs of production, foreign-owned importers fare better: they are more likely to sustain higher value-added, hire more labour and use more materials than domestic owned firms. This suggests another channel through which FDI can add value to a firm in a developing country, particularly with the increasing importance of trade in intermediate goods.

This thesis is a collection of essays on the relevance of property right reforms on the wellbeing of poor households in developing countries; specifically titling programmes in urban Peru. The first essay assesses the effects of titling on housing investment. The availability of a unique dataset permits us to trace households' investment behaviour. This allows us to investigate if tenure security induces households to make sizeable investments, the evolution of this effect over time, and whether heterogeneous expectations about future tenure security matter for the estimated impact. Evidence reveals significant effects, especially on large investment; however, the response on this type of investment may take several years to become effective. The second essay contributes to the debate on the sustainability of property rights reforms by emphasising the importance of strong registration systems. Policymakers have focused on the process of granting titles but the conditions needed to maintain the formality of future plot transactions have been left unattended. The analysis exploits an exogenous variation in legislation to examine the impact of a change in the registration process on the registration rate of plot transactions. Evidence suggests a large negative effect, implying that a weak registration system could threaten the reform. The third essay explores the impact of titling on the risk preferences of slum dwellers. The analysis provides evidence that titled dwellers reported lower values of the risk aversion measure than their non-treated counterparts. Results also suggest that tenure security can influence slum dwellers' preference formation process. Evidence shows that beneficiaries who were exposed to tenure security during their youth report on average lower values of the risk aversion indicator than individuals titled at an older age.

This thesis consists of a short introduction and three self-contained analytical chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on the question of learning gaps and divergence in achievement across countries. I use unique child-level panel data from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam to ask at what ages do gaps between different populations emerge, how they increase or decline over time, and what the proximate determinants of this divergence are. I document that learning gaps between the four countries are already evident at the age of 5 years and grow throughout the age trajectory of children, preserving country ranks from 5 to 15 years of age. At primary school age, the divergence between Vietnam and the other countries is largely accounted for by substantially greater learning gains per year of schooling. Chapter 2 focuses on learning differences between private and government school students in India. I present the first value-added models of learning production in private and government schools in this context, using panel data from Andhra Pradesh. I examine the heterogeneity in private school value-added across different subjects, urban and rural areas, medium of instruction, and across age groups. Further, I also estimate private school effects on children's self-efficacy and agency. I find modest or insignificant causal effects of attending private schools in most test domains other than English and on children's academic self-concept and agency. Results on comparable test domains and age groups correspond closely with, and further extend, estimates from a parallel experimental evaluation. Chapter 3 uses panel data from the state of Andhra Pradesh in India to estimate the impact of the introduction of a national midday meal program on anthropometric z-scores of primary school students, and investigates whether the program ameliorated the deterioration of health in young children caused by a severe drought. Correcting for self-selection into the program using a non-linearity in how age affects the probability of enrollment, we find that the program acted as a safety net for children, providing large and significant health gains for children whose families suffered from drought.

The thesis consists of a short introduction and three self-contained analytical chapters on land policy in developing countries. Chapter 1 examines the agricultural investment choices of small-scale farmers in Ethiopia whose land will be expropriated to provide space for a large factory. I use data from a survey of households conducted before expropriation occurred, but after the policy was announced. I identify the anticipation effects of land expropriation using variation in whether households own plots located inside or outside the proposed project boundary. Households facing immediate expropriation hedge against future income risk by using less fertilizer on their plots, and and growing less risky crops. These households are more likely to grow sorghum (a safe crop) and less likely to grow wheat (a relatively riskier crop). Households also respond to the threat of expropriation by reducing long-term investments in soil quality. Using two-stage least squares I show that subjective beliefs about the likelihood of expropriation act as a channel through which the threat of expropriation affects investment decisions. The results are robust to a number of other specifications, including some that account for unobservable geographic variation in plot characteristics. Chapter 2 explores the consequences of land expropriation for small-scale farmers in Ethiopia. Expropriation of farmland is used by all levels of government in Ethiopia as a tool for providing new land for industrial investors, commercial agriculture and expanding cities. Farmers usually receive a cash payment in exchange for their land based on a fixed formula to establish the price of land. I evaluate the impact of such a policy on a group of small-scale farmers and assess the extent to which they make the transition to new livelihoods. On average, households lose 70% of their land and receive compensation payments that are about 5 times the value of their annual consumption expenditure. Using data collected before and after the intervention I examine the impact of expropriation and compensation on household consumption, productive assets, livestock holdings, savings and labour market participation. Households in the treatment group increase their consumption, start more businesses and participate more in non-farm activities than households that do not lose farmland. These households also reallocate livestock portfolios away from oxen and towards small ruminants and cattle, reflecting a shift away from growing crops. However, these shifts to new livelihoods are relatively small compared to the amount of compensation kept as savings: with the exception of a few households, most of the compensation payment is left in commercial banks earning a negative real return. Chapter 3 focuses on the recent increase in large-scale agricultural land deals across Africa and the nature of the contracts reached by governments and foreign investors. In recent years, multi-national firms and foreign governments have entered into long term contracts with host countries in which large tracts of land are purchased or leased for commercial agricultural production in exchange for promises of infrastructure development, job creation and rural infrastructure improvement. The profitability of these projects is uncertain, especially at a time of increased agricultural commodity price volatility in world markets. Based on stylized facts about land deals I present a theoretical model of land contracts reached by host governments and foreign investors that explains the policy tradeoff between investment timelines, revenue generation and uncertainty. When agricultural projects require fixed infrastructure investment and yield uncertain payoffs, firms benefit from being able to complete the fixed investment in stages. If firms can learn more about payoffs by holding off on investment, they effectively hold an option to abandon the project. The value of this option provides a channel by which uncertainty affects the terms of the land contract. When host governments determine the terms of the contract by setting an income tax, a royalty rate and an investment timeline, the value of this option will affect government's optimal policy choice. In particular, I find that if governments benefit a great deal from investment spillovers the optimal contract will be designed to encourage firms not to abandon a project. But, if governments benefit relatively little from investment spillovers, governments will choose contract parameters to extract the value of the firm's option to abandon the project. I end by examining the effect of increasing uncertainty on the government's optimal policy choice.

This thesis comprises three stand-alone chapters: The first chapter is on the effect of natural disasters on labor markets. Using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, the Desinventar database, the US Geological Survey and district level employment indicators, we explore how a large earthquake in Indonesia affected local labor markets, in particular the evolution of wages and employment across sectors. We find that wage growth in the agriculture sector is significantly higher in earthquake affected areas. We propose two mechanisms for this result and show evidence for both mechanisms. The second chapter investigates the intra-household allocation of leisure and consumption among siblings. Children are often treated as passive members in the household and their preferences over consumption and leisure are rarely modeled. This chapter considers children as agents with their own preferences over leisure and consumption and builds a theoretical and empirical model for children's time and consumption allocations in a household. We test the predictions of the model with data from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. The results suggest that differences in siblings' relative time and consumption allocations are driven by their relative preferences over leisure and consumption rather than differences in parents' relative altruism. The third chapter examines the cost of transport infrastructure in developing countries. To our knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes drivers of unit costs of construction of transport infrastructure using a large data set of 3,322 unit costs of road work activities in low and middle income countries. We find a large dispersion in unit costs for comparable work activities. Unit costs are significantly higher in conflict and corrupt countries, and these effects are robust to controlling for a country's public investment capacity and business environment. Finally, higher unit costs are significantly negatively correlated with infrastructure provision.

Apart from the introduction (Chapter 1) and conclusion (Chapter 7), this thesis comprises five chapters organized into two parts: Part I studies promotion incentives in the public sector, and focuses on the case of teachers in rural China. All teachers in China compete with their colleagues for rank promotions. I aim to answer two questions: first, whether the promotion system for teachers in China elicits effort from teachers, and second, how the design features of the promotion system affect effort incentives. Part I includes four chapters. Chapter 2 introduces the topic and provides a background on promotions for teachers in China. It also discusses related work in this area, and introduces the data that will be used in Part I. Chapter 3 presents and tests a theoretical model of promotions as an incentive device. The model treats all teachers as identical in terms of their ability, and as such, focuses on average levels of teacher effort. It predicts that effort is exerted in response to potential promotions. In addition, the model also predicts that average effort incentives are higher in promotion contests in which the wage gap is higher, the promotion rate is closer to one half, the number of teachers competing for a promotion is higher (for promotion rates between 1/3 and 2/3), and the average age of teachers in the contest is lower, or the proportion of female teachers is lower. The model is used to derive an estimating equation by which to test predictions on average levels of teacher effort. An equation is estimated for the probability of promotion as a function of teacher effort, which is proxied by the teachers' annual performance evaluation scores. There is simultaneity present as effort increases the probability of promotion, but it is also the promise of promotion that motivates effort. As a result, effort is instrumented using wage changes, which are both informative (higher wage gaps are associated with higher effort) and valid (wages only affect promotions through effort). The second stage of the regression demonstrates that effort is indeed exerted by teachers in order to win promotions. The first stage confirms the predictions of the model with regards to wage gaps, the promotion rate, and the size and composition of the pool of competitors. Chapter 4 extends the model of Chapter 3 in two ways: teachers are now treated as heterogeneous in ability, and a multi-period model of teacher effort over time is also added. This chapter focuses on individual levels of teacher effort, and on how the parameters of the promotion system interact with teacher characteristics to affect teacher effort. The predictions include that teachers in the extremes of the skill distribution will have lower incentives, and as the contest size increases these teachers will have effort incentives that are lower still, that teachers who are five or more years from promotion eligibility will have zero effort, as will teachers in the highest rank, that teacher effort will increase in the five years leading up to promotion eligibility, and that teacher effort will decrease after a teacher is eligible for promotion but has been passed over several times. An effort equation is estimated that captures all of these components, and the predictions are largely affirmed by the data. Tests are conducted in order to alleviate concerns about selection, as well as measurement error in the performance evaluation scores. Chapter 5 concludes Part I. Part II of this thesis looks at teacher labour markets, social distance, and learning outcomes in Punjab, Pakistan. Chapter 6 explores the link between the distribution of teachers in the labour market, caste differences between teachers and students, and child learning outcomes. Using rich longitudinal data from Pakistan that allows me to convincingly identify the causal effects of caste on learning outcomes, I show how the distribution of teachers across public schools induces particular matches of high and low caste teachers and students, and that these matches are highly predictive of test score outcomes. Specifically, low caste male children perform significantly better when taught by high caste teachers than when they are taught by low caste teachers. Several possible channels are explored, including discrimination in the classroom, role model effects, teacher quality, patronage, peer effects, and returns to education. Although the channel cannot be proven, the data points to high caste teachers being able to raise the already high returns to education for low caste children because they are able to assist these children in getting educational benefits and employment later on using their patronage networks. Low caste children therefore work harder to impress high caste teachers, and this results in higher learning outcomes.

Aside from the introduction and conclusion, this thesis comprises four core chapters: The first chapter investigates the presence of endogenous peer effects in the adoption of formal property rights. Using data from a unique land titling experiment held in an unplanned settlement in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I show a strong, positive impact of neighbour adoption on the household’s choice to purchase a land title. I also show that this relationship holds in a separate, identical experiment held a year later in a nearby community, as well as in administrative data for approximately 45,000 land parcels in the same city. I also discuss possible channels, including the possibility of complementarities in the reduction in expropriation risk. The second chapter examines the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and the demand for formal land tenure. Using a unique census of two highly fractionalised settle- ments in Dar es Salaam, I show that households located near coethnics are significantly less likely to purchase a limited form of land tenure recently offered by the government. I attempt to address one of the chief concerns, endogenous sorting of households, by con- ditioning on a households choice of neighbors upon arrival in the neighborhood. These results suggest that close-knit ethnic groups may be less likely to accept state-provided goods if they can generate reasonable substitutes. The third chapter is a short chapter which presents results from a recent policy experi- ment in Tanzania where formal land titles were provided to informal settlers at randomised prices. Land owners were also randomly assigned conditional discounts, which could only be applied if a woman was designated as owner or co-owner of the land in question. Results show that conditionality has no adverse effects on demand for land titles, yet drastically increases the probability a woman is included. We discuss the implications of these results for the expected bargaining power impacts of the intervention. The final chapter investigates birth order effects on both anthropometric and edu- cation outcomes in a longitudinal survey of children from the Philippines. Birth order effects are present early in life for both outcomes, but attenuate as children approach adulthood. There is also evidence for nonlinear birth order effects, with both firstborn and lastborn children holding an advantage over middleborn children. These results are at odds with prevalent theories of birth order which predict lasting and monotonic differences in outcomes across children.