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Do voters choose the best leaders or just the best male candidate? In a new VoxTalks Economics podcast, Senior Economist S Anukriti discusses her recent working paper that looks at how a school-building program in India shifted voter perceptions. Anukriti and her co-authors found that the program increased voter prioritization of leader competence over gender, boosting the share of women among candidates and state parliamentarians and the overall capability of elected officials.

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Land institutions and policies will be critical to help African countries respond to the challenges of climate change, urban expansion, structural transformation, and gender equality. Yet, many African land registries command little trust due to poor performance and wealth bias in service delivery. This publication draws on a wealth of data, examples, and studies from Africa and beyond to show that regulatory and institutional reforms can harness countries' potential by improving the quality, coverage, usefulness, and sustainability of documented land rights.

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134 Economics Thesis Topics: Ideas for Outstanding Writing

Writing a thesis is not an easy task. For most of the students, it can be even intimidating, especially when you do not know where to start your research.

Here, we have provided an economics thesis topics list. After all, everyone knows that choosing the right idea is crucial when writing an academic paper. In economics, it can combine history, math, social studies, politics, and numerous other subjects. You should also have solid foundations and a sound factual basis for a thesis. Without these elements, you won’t be able to master your research paper.

The issue is:

It is not always clear what could be seen as an excellent economics thesis topic. Our experts can assist you with this challenge. This list contains some outstanding examples to get you started.

⭐ Thesis in Economics
🔥 Supreme Thesis Topics
👍 Bachelor’s Thesis
😲 Master’s Thesis

📊 Microeconomics

📈 macroeconomics.

🤔 Developmental
👨‍💼 Behavioral
💼 Financial
🌱 Agricultural
🤝‍ Sociology
📚 Ph.D. Topics
📝 How to Pick a Topic

⭐ What Does a Thesis in Economics Look Like?

A good thesis in economics is a blend between an empirical paper and a theoretical one. One of the essential steps in choosing a topic in economics is to decide which one you will write.

You may write, research, analyze statistical data and other information. Or build and study a specific economic model.

Or why not both!

Here are some questions you can ask when deciding what topic to choose:

What has already been written on this topic?
What economic variables will my paper study?
Where should I look for the data?
What econometrics techniques should I use?
What type of model will I study?

The best way to understand what type of research you have to do is to write a thesis proposal. You will most probably be required to submit it anyway. Your thesis supervisor will examine your ideas, methods, list of secondary and primary sources. At some universities, the proposal will be graded.

Master’s thesis and Bachelor’s thesis have three main differences.

After you get the initial feedback, you will have a clear idea of what to adjust before writing your thesis. Only then, you’ll be able to start.

🔥 Supreme Economics Thesis Topics List

Fast fashion in India.
The UK housing prices.
Brexit and European trade.
Behavioral economics.
Healthcare macroeconomics.
COVID-19’s economic impact.
Global gender wage gap.
Commodity dependence in Africa.
International trade – developing countries.
Climate change and business development.

👍 Economics Bachelor’s Thesis Topics

At the U.S. Universities, an undergraduate thesis is very uncommon. However, it depends on the Department Policy.

The biggest challenge with the Bachelor’s Thesis in economics concerns its originality. Even though you are not required to conduct entirely unique research, you have to lack redundant ideas.

You can easily avoid making this mistake by simply choosing one of these topics. Also, consider visiting IvyPanda essays database. It’s a perfect palce to conduct a brainstorming session and come up with fresh ideas for a paper, as well as get tons of inspiration.

The impact of the oil industry on the economic development of Nigeria. The oil industry is vital for the economic development of Nigeria. In this thesis, students can discuss the notion of the resource curse. Analyze the reasons why general people are not benefiting from the oil industry. Why did it produce very little change in the social and economic growth of the country?
Sports Marketing and Advertising: the impact it has on the consumers.
Economic opportunities and challenges of investing in Kenya .
Economic Development in the Tourism Industry in Africa. Since the early 1990s, tourism significantly contributed to the economic growth of African countries. In this thesis, students can talk about the characteristics of the tourist sector in Africa. Or elaborate on specific countries and how their national development plans look like.
Globalization and its significance to business worldwide .
Economic risks connected to investing in Turkey .
The decline in employment rates as the biggest American economy challenge .
The economics of alcohol abuse problems. In this thesis, students can develop several essential issues. First, they can examine how poverty is connected to alcohol abuse. Second, they can see the link between alcohol consumption and productivity. To sum up, students can elaborate on the economic costs of alcohol abuse.
Causes and solutions for unemployment in Great Britain.
Parallel perspective on Global Economic Order: China and America. This thesis can bring a comparative analysis of the economies to a new level. China and The US are the world’s two largest economies. These two countries have a significant impact on the global economic order. So, looking at the set of institutions, policies, rules can be constructive.
The new international economic order after COVID-19
Financial stability of the banking sector in China.
New Electronic Payment Services in Russia.
The influence of culture on different entrepreneurial behaviors.
The impact of natural cultural practices on entrepreneurial activity.
The relationships between national culture and individual behavior.
The main reasons for salary inequalities in different parts of the U.S.

😲 Economics Master’s Thesis Topics

Student life can be fascinating, but it comes with its challenges. One of which is selecting your Master’s thesis topic.

Here is a list of topics for a Master’s thesis in economics. Are you pursuing MPhil in Economics and writing a thesis? Use the following ideas as an inspiration for that. They can also be helpful if you are working on a Master’s thesis in financial economics.

The impact of visual aid in teaching home economics.
The effect of income changes in consumer behaviors in America.
Forces behind socio-economic inequalities in the United States. This thesis can explore three critical factors for socio-economic differences in the United States. In the past 30 years, social disparities increased in the United States. Some of the main reasons are technology, trade, and institutions.
The relationships between economic growth and international development.
Technological innovations and their influence on green and environmental products.
The economics of non-solar renewable energy .

Renewable energy is beneficial for various economic reasons.

The economic consequences of terrorism . Terrorism not only takes away lives and destroys property but also widely affects the economy. It creates uncertainty in the market, increases insurance claims, slows down investment projects, and tourism. This thesis can address all of the ways in which terrorism can affect economies.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) implementation in the Oil and Gas Industry in Africa.
Use of incentives in behavioral economics.
Economic opportunities and challenges of sustainable communities .
Economics of nuclear power plants.
Aid and financial help for emerging markets. This topic is very versatile. Students can look at both the positive and the adverse effects that funding has on the development. There are plenty of excellent examples. Besides, some theories call international help a form of neocolonialism.
Multinational firms impact on economic growth in America .
The effect of natural disasters on economic development in Asia.
The influence of globalization on emerging markets and economic development.

📑 More Economics Thesis Topics: Theme

For some students, it makes more sense to center their search around a certain subject. Sometimes you have an econ area that interests you. You may have an idea about what you want to write, but you did not decide what it will be.

If that’s the case with you, then these economics thesis topics ideas are for you.

An analysis of the energy market in Russia.
The impact of game theory on economic development.
The connection between minimum wage and market equilibrium.
Gender differences in the labor market in the United States. This topic can shed light on gender differences in the labor market in the United States. In the past years, the overall inequality in labor in the markets decreased. However, there is still a lot of work that can be done.
Economic reasons that influence the prices of oil .
Relationship between the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient.
Challenges of small businesses in the market economy.
The changes in oil prices: causes and solutions . Universal economic principles do not always apply to the sale and purchase of the oil. The same happens with its cost. In the thesis, talk about what affects the prices. What are the solutions that can be implemented?
The economic analysis of the impact of immigration on the American economy.

Immigration has a little long-run effect on Americans’ wages.

Economic inequality as a result of globalization . Economic inequality becomes even more apparent on the global level. There is a common belief that globalization is the cause of that. Discuss what can be the solutions to these problems. This topic is vital to minimize the gap between the rich and the poor.
The economic explanation of political dishonesty .
Effect of Increasing Interest rates costs in Africa .
The connection between game theory and microeconomics.
Marketing uses in microeconomics.
Financial liability in human-made environmental disasters.
Banks and their role in the economy. Banks are crucial elements of any economy, and this topic covers why. You can explain how banks allow the goods and services to be exchanged. Talk about why banks are so essential for economic growth and stability.
Inflation in the US and ways to reduce its impact.
The connection between politics and economics.
Income Dynamics and demographic economics.
US Market Liquidity and macroeconomics.
Macroeconomics and self-correction of the economy .
The American economy, monetary policy, and monopolies .
The importance of control in macroeconomics. One of the central topics in macroeconomics is grouped around the issue of control. It is quite reasonable that control over money and resources should become a topic of discussion.
Analysis of Africa’s macroeconomics and its performance.
Economics of education in developing markets.
Problems and possible solutions for Japan macroeconomics .
Comparative analysis of British macroeconomics concerning the US .
Public policies and socio-economic disparities.
The world problems through macroeconomic analysis. Indeed, macroeconomics is very complicated. There are many influences, details, and intricacies in it. However, it allows economists to use this complex set of tools to examine the world’s leading problems today.

There are four main problems in macroeconomics.

The connection between employment interest and money.

🤔 Development Economics

Economics of development . This topic is very rich in content. First, explain what it is. Then pay particular attention to domestic and international policies that affect development, income distribution, and economic growth.
The relation between development and incentive for migration.
The impact of natural disasters on the economy and political stability of emerging markets.
The economic consequences of population growth in developing countries.
The role of industrialization in developing countries . The industrialization has been connected with the development. It promotes capital formation and catalyzes economic growth in emerging markets. In this thesis, you can talk about this correlation.
Latin American economic development.
Gender inequality and socio-economic development .
Problems of tax and taxation in connection with economic growth.
The economic impact of terrorism on developing markets.
Religious decline as a key to economic development. Not everyone knows, but a lot of research has been done in the past years on the topic. It argues that decreased religious activity is connected with increased economic growth. This topic is quite controversial. Students who decide to write about it should be extra careful and polite.

👨‍💼 Behavioral Economics

Risk Preferences in Rural South Africa.
Behavioral Economics and Finance .
Applied behavioral economics in marketing strategies. If you want to focus your attention on marketing, this topic is for you. Behavioral economics provides a peculiar lens to look at marketing strategies. It allows marketers to identify common behaviors and adapt their marketing strategies.
The impact of behavioral finance on investment decisions.
Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs in North Texas.
Guidelines for Behavioral Economics in Healthcare Sector.
Cognitive and behavioral theories in economics .
Cross-cultural consumer behavior and marketing communication. Consumers are not only affected by personal characteristics, but also by the culture they are living in. This topic focuses on the extent it should determine marketing strategy and communication.
Behavior implications of wealth and inequality.

The richest population holds a huge portion of the national income.

Optimism and pessimism for future behavior.

💼 Financial Economics

Financial Economics for Infrastructure and Fiscal Policy .
The use of the economic concept of human capital. Students can focus on the dichotomy between human and nonhuman capital. Many economists believe that human capital is the most crucial of all. Some approach this issue differently. Therefore, students should do their research and find where they stand on this issue.
The analysis of the global financial crisis of 2020s. Share your thoughts, predictions, ideas. Analyze the economic situation that affects almost everyone in the world. This thesis topic will be fresh and original. It can help to start a good and fruitful conversation.
The big data economic challenges for Volvo car.
The connection between finance, economics, and accounting.
Financial economics: Banks competition in the UK .
Risk-Taking by mutual funds as a response to incentives.
Managerial economics and financial accounting as a basis for business decisions.
Stock market overreaction.

🌱 Agricultural Economics

Agricultural economics and agribusiness.
The vulnerability of agricultural business in African countries.
Agricultural economics and environmental considerations of biofuels .
Farmer’s contribution to agricultural social capital.
Agricultural and resource economics. Agricultural and resource economics plays a huge role in development. They are subdivided into four main characteristics which in this topic, students can talk about: – mineral and energy resources; – soil resources, water resources; – biological resources. One or even all of them can be a focus of the thesis.
Water as an economic good in irrigated agriculture.
Agriculture in the economic development of Iran.
The US Agricultural Food Policy and Production .
Pesticides usage on agricultural products in California.

The region of greatest pesticide use was San Joaquin Valley.

An analysis of economic efficiency in agriculture. A lot of research has been done on the question of economic efficiency in agriculture. However, it does not mean there is no place for your study. You have to read a lot of secondary sources to see where your arguments can fit.

🤝‍Economic Sociology

Theory, approach, and method in economics sociology.
Economic sociology of capitalism. While economists believe in the positive effect capitalism has on the economy, the social effect is quite different. The “economic” part of the issue has been studied a lot. However, the sociology of it has been not. This thesis can be very intriguing to read.
Political Economy and Economic Sociology.
Gender and economic sociology .
Progress, sociology, and economics.
Data analysis in economics, sociology, environment .
Economic sociology as a way to understand the human mind.
Economic sociology of money.
Economics, sociology, and psychology of security.
Major principles of economic sociology. In the past decade, economic sociology became an increasingly popular field. Mainly due to it giving a new view on economics, human mind, and behavior. Besides, it explores relationships between politics, law, culture, and gender.

📚 The List of Ph.D. Topics in Economics

If you decide to go to grad school to do your Masters, you will likely end up getting a Ph.D. as well. So, with this plan in mind, think about a field that interests you enough during your Masters. Working with the same topic for both graduate degrees is easier and more effective.

This list of Ph.D. Topics in Economics can help you identify the areas you can work on.

Occupational injuries in Pakistan and its effect on the economy. Injuries are the leading cause of the global burden of disability. Globally, Pakistan was ranked 9th populated country with a large number of unskilled workers. In this dissertation, consider the link between occupational injuries and their effects on the economy.
The study of the Philippines’ economic development.

The Philippine economy is projected to continue on its expansionary path.

Financial derivatives and climate change .
Econometric Analysis of Financial Markets.
Islamic Banking and Financial Markets .
Health economics and policy in the UK.
Health insurance: rationale and economic justification. In this dissertation, students can find different ways to explain and justify health insurance. Starting to philosophical to purely economic grounds. In the past years, there was a lot of discussion regarding the healthcare system for all. What are some of the economic benefits of that?
Colombian economy, economic growth, and inequality.
Benefits of mergers and acquisitions in agribusiness.
Methods to measure financial risks when investing in Africa.
The significance of financial economics in understanding the relationship between a country’s GDP and NDP.
Network effects in cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies are not new anymore. However, it is still an original subject for a dissertation. Students can decide to choose several crypto coins and evaluate the importance of the network effect. This effect is particularly significant for Bitcoin. Explain why.
The comparison of the Chinese growth model with the American growth model.
An economic justification versus political expediency.
Pollution Externalities Role in Management Economics .

📝 How to Select an Economics Thesis Topic

As your academic journey is coming to an end, it’s time to pick the right topic for your thesis. The whole academic life you were preparing to undertake this challenge.

Here is the list of six points that will help you to select an economics thesis topic:

Make sure it is something you are genuinely interested in. It is incredibly challenging to write something engaging if you are not interested in the topic. So, choose wisely and chose what excites you.
Draw inspiration from the previous student’s projects. A great place to start is by looking at what the previous students wrote. You can find some fresh ideas and a general direction.
Ask your thesis advisor for his feedback. Most probably, your thesis advisor supervised many students before. They can be a great help too because they know how to assess papers. Before meeting with your professor, do some basic research, and understand what topic is about.
Be original, but not too much. You do not want to spend your time writing about a project that many people wrote about. Your readers will not be interested in reading it, but your professors as well. However, make sure you do not pick anything too obscure. It will leave you with no secondary sources.
Choose a narrow and specific topic. Not only will it allow you to be more original, but also to master a topic. When the issue is too broad, there is just too much information to cover in one thesis.
Go interdisciplinary. If you find yourself interested in history, philosophy, or any other related topic, it can help you write an exceptional thesis in economics. Most of your peers may work on pure economics. Then, the interdisciplinary approach can help you to stand out among them.

Some universities ask their students to focus on topics from one discipline.

Thank you for reading the article to the end! We hope this list of economics thesis topics ideas could help you to gather your thoughts and get inspired. Share it with those who may find it useful. Let us know what you think about it in the comment section below.

🔗 References

Economics Thesis Topics List: Seminars Only
How To Pick A Topic For Your Economics Research Project Or Master’s Thesis: INOMICS, The Site for Economists
What Do Theses and Dissertations Look Like: KU Writing Center, the University of Kansas
Writing Economics: Robert Neugeboren with Mireille Jacobson, University of Harvard
Economics Ph.D. Theses: Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School, IDEAS_RePEc
World Economic Situation and Prospects 2018: United Nations
Undergraduate Honors Theses: Department of Economics, University of California, Berkeley
Economics Department Dissertations Collection: Economics Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Topics for Master Theses: Department of Economics, NHH, Norwegian School of Economics
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The dilemma I faced in getting Thesis proposal for my M Phil programme is taken away. Your article would be a useful guide to many more students.Thank you for your guidance.

Thanks for the feedback, John! Your opinion is very important for us!

I wants it for msc thesis

These are very helpful and concise research topics which I have spent days surfing the internet to get all this while. Thanks for making research life experience easier for me. Keep this good work up.

Thank you, Idris!

Glad to hear that! Thank you for your feedback, Idris!

Excellent research

For research

A very well written, clear and easy-to-read article. It was highly helpful. Thank you!

Thanks for your kind words! We look forward to seeing you again!

Browse Course Material

Course info, instructors.

Prof. Esther Duflo
Prof. Benjamin Olken

Departments

As taught in.

Developmental Economics
Microeconomics

Learning Resource Types

Development economics.

Readings marked *** are required.

Session 1: Introduction

Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo (2007). “The Economic Lives of the Poor.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(1): 141-168.
Banerjee, Abhijit V., (2008). “Big Answers for Big Questions: The Presumption of Growth Policy.” Brookings Global Economy and Development.
Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson (2001). “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review , 91(5), 1369-1401.
Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson (2002). “Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution." The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 117(4), 1231-1294.
Mankiw, N. Gregory, David Romer, and David N. Weil (1992). “A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth." The Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol. 107, No. 2, 407-437.
Caselli, Francesco (2005), “Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences.” In Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth , edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 679-741.
Dollar, David and Aart Kraay (2002). “Growth Is Good for the Poor.” Journal of Economic Growth , 7, 195-225.
Bills, Mark and Pete Klenow (2000). “Does Schooling Cause Growth?” American Economic Review , 90(5), 1160-1183.
Rodrik, Dani, Arvind Subramanian, and Francesco Trebbi (2002), “Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions over Geography and Integration in Economic Development,” Journal of Economic Growth , 9(2), 131-165.
Sala-i-Martin, Xavier (2006). “The World Distribution of Income: Falling Poverty and… Convergence, Period.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol. 121, No. 2: 351-397.
World Bank (2021). “World Development Indicators 2020.”

Sessions 2–3: Poverty Traps

Read the following in detail:

*** Dasgupta, Partha and Debraj Ray (1986). “[Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Theory](Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Theory).” The Economic Journal , Vol. 96 (384), pp. 1011-1034.
*** Srinivasan, T. N. (1994). “ Destitution: A Discourse .” Journal of Economic Literature , Vol. 32 (4), pp. 1842-55.
Galor, Oded and Joseph Zeira (1993). “Income Distribution and Macroeconomics.” Review of Economic Studies , 60, 35-52.

Evidence (or Lack Thereof)

*** Subramanian, Shankar and Angus Deaton (1996), “ The Demand for Food and Calories” (PDF - 3MB) . Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 104 (1), pp 133-62.
Deaton, Angus and Jean Dreze (2009). “Nutrition in India: Facts and Interpretation.” Economic and Political Weekly , 14 February 2009.
Strauss, John (1986), “Does Better Nutrition Raise Farm Productivity?”, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 94, 297-320.
*** Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2004). “ Growth Theory through the Lens of Development Economics” (PDF) . Section 2.1.2.
*** Haushofer, Johannes and Jeremy Shapiro (2016). “ The Short-term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: Experimental Evidence from Kenya .” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , Volume 131, Issue 4, Pages 1973–2042
Jensen, Robert and Nolan Miller (2011). “Do Consumer Price Subsidies Really Improve Nutrition?” Review of Economics and Statistics , Vol. 93(4), pp. 1205-1223.
Jensen, Robert and Nolan Miller (2008). “Giffen Behavior and Subsistence Consumption.” American Economic Review , 98(4), p. 1553−1577.
Strauss, John and Duncan Thomas (1998). “Health, Nutrition and Economic Development.” Journal of Economic Literature , Vol. 36 (2), 766-817.

Breaking the poverty trap: Ultra-poor programs

Balboni, Clare, Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Maitreesh Ghatak, and Anton Heil (2021). “Why do people stay poor?”
Bandiera, Oriana, Robin Burgess, Narayan Das, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul, and Munshi Sulaiman (2017). “Labor markets and poverty in village economies.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 132, no. 2: 811-870.
Abhijit Banerjee, Dean Karlan, Robert Osei, Hannah Trachtman, and Christopher Udry (2020). “Unpacking a Multi-Faceted Program to Build Sustainable Income for the Very Poor.”
Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Nathanael Goldberg, Dean Karlan, Robert Osei, William Parienté, Jeremy Shapiro, Bram Thuysbaert, and Christopher Udry (2015). “A multifaceted program causes lasting progress for the very poor: Evidence from six countries.” Science 348, no. 6236.
Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, and Garima Sharma (2021). “Long-Term Effects of the Targeting the Ultra Poor Program.” American Economic Review: Insights (forthcoming).
Kraay, Aart, and David McKenzie (2014). “Do poverty traps exist? Assessing the evidence.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 28, no. 3: 127-48.

Sessions 3–4: Behavioral Economics

***Bessone, P., Rao, G., Schilbach, F., Schofield, H., & Toma, M. (2021). “ The economic consequences of increasing sleep among the urban poor .” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 136(3), 1887-1941.

General Introduction / reference

*** Kremer, Michael, Gautam Rao, and Frank Schilbach (2019). “ Behavioral Development Economics .” In Handbook of Behavioral Economics, Vol. 2 . 2019. ISBN: 9780444633750.

More generally, the recent Handbook of Behavioral Economics provides great overviews of recent work on various topics, e.g. time preferences, limited attention, beliefs, behavioral IO, etc.

The Euler Equation Puzzle and Demand for Commitment

***Behavioral Development Economics Handbook Chapter (see above), Sections 1 to 4.
Banerjee and Duflo (2010). “Growth Theory through the Lens of Development Economics”. Handbook of Economic Growth .
Frederick, S., G. Loewenstein, and T. O’Donoghue (2002). “Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review.” Journal of Economic Literature, 40 (2), 351-401.
Ericson, Keith Marzilli, and David Laibson (2019). “Intertemporal choice.” In Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Applications and Foundations 1, vol. 2, pp. 1-67. North-Holland.
Cohen, J.D, K.M. Ericson, D. Laibson, and J.M. White (2020). “Measuring Time Preferences.” Journal of Economic Literature . 58(2): 299-347.
Ashraf, Nava, Dean Karlan, and Wesley Yin (2006). “Tying Odysseus to the mast: Evidence from a commitment savings product in the Philippines.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 121, no. 2: 635-672.
Kaur, Supreet, Michael Kremer, and Sendhil Mullainathan (2015). “Self-Control at Work.” Journal of Political Economy . 123(6): 1227-1277.
Laibson, David (2015). “Why Don’t Present-Biased Agents Make Commitments?” American Economic Review P&P. 105(5): 267-272.
Schilbach, Frank (2019). “Alcohol and Self-Control: A Field Experiment in India.”, American Economic Review . 109(4): 1290-1322.
Casaburi, Lorenzo, and Rocco Macchiavello (2019). “Demand and supply of infrequent payments as a commitment device: evidence from Kenya.” American Economic Review 109, no. 2: 523-55.
Bai, Liang, Ben Handel, Edward Miguel, and Gautam Rao (2021). “Self-Control and Demand for Preventative Health: Evidence from Hypertension in India.” Review of Economics and Statistics .
Brune, Lasse, Eric Chyn, and Jason Kerwin (2021). “Pay me Later: Savings Contsraints and the Demand for Deferred Payments” American Economic Review 111(7). 2179-2212.

Scarcity and Limited Attention

Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Sendhil Mullainathan (2008). “Limited Attention and Income Distribution.” American Economic Review , 98(2): 489-93.
Mani, A., S. Mullainathan, E. Shafir, and J. Zhao (2013). “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function.” Science , 341, 976-980.
Mullainathan, Sendhil and Eldar Shafir (2013) Scarcity . New York: Time Books.
Dean, Joshua (2021) “Noise, Cognitive Function, and Worker Productivity.” Mimeo. Working Paper.
Fehr, Dietmar and Guenther Fink, and Kelsey Jack (2021): “Poor and Rational: Decision-Making under Scarcity.” Mimeo.
Kaur, Supreet, Sendhil Mullainathan, Suanna Oh, and Frank Schilbach (2021): “Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?”.
Lim, Julian and David Dinges (2010). “A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Short-Term Sleep Deprivation on Cognitive Variables.” Psychological Bulletin 136(3): 375-389.
Walker, Matthew (2017). “Why We Sleep.”
Bessone, P., Rao, G., Schilbach, F., Schofield, H., & Toma, M. (2021). “The economic consequences of increasing sleep among the urban poor.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 136(3), 1887-1941.
Jagnani, Maulik (2021). “Children’s Sleep and Human Capital Production."
Rao, Gautam, Susan Redline, Frank Schilbach, Heather Schofield, and Mattie Toma (2021). “Informing Policy Through Field Experiments on Sleep Around the World.”
Fehr, Ernst and Haushofer, Johannes (2014). “On the Psychology of Poverty.” Science 344, 862–867.
Ridley, Matthew, Gautam Rao, Frank Schilbach, and Vikram Patel (2020). “Poverty, Depression, and Anxiety: Causal Evidence and Mechanisms.” Science 370(6522).
Patel, Vikram, Neerja Chowdhary, Atif Rahman, and Helen Verdeli (2011). “Improving Access to Psychological Treatments: Lessons from Developing Countries.” Behavior Research and Therapy , 49, pp. 523-528.
Singla, Daisy, Brandon Kohrt, Laura Murrary, Arpita Anand, Bruce Chorpita, and Vikram Patel (2017). “Psychological Treatments for the World: Lessons from Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 13: 149-181.
Blattman, C, JC Jamison, M Sheridan (2017): “Reducing crime and violence: Experimental evidence from cognitive behavioral therapy in Liberia.” American Economic Review , 107(4): 1165-1206.
Baranov, Victoria, Sonia Bhalotra, Pietro Biroli, and Joanna Maselko (2020): “Maternal Depression, Women’s Empowerment, and Parental Investment: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial.” American Economic Review . 110(3): 824-59.
Angelucci, Manuela and Daniel Bennett (2021): “The Economic Impact of Depression Treatment in India.”
Lund, Crick, et al. (2018). “Economic Impacts of Mental Health Interventions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.”
McKelway, Maddie (2021). “Women’s Employment in India: Intra-Household and Intra-Personal Constraints”.

Sessions 6–9: Education

General Readings on Education (Review Articles)

Muralidharan, Karthik (2017). “Field Experiments in Education in Developing Countries.” Draft prepared for the Handbook of Field Experiments.

The Neo-Classical Model: Returns, Costs, and Budget Constraints

*** Banerjee, Abhijit (2004). “ Educational Policy and the Economics of the Family. ” Journal of Development Economics , 74 3-32.
Becker, Gary (1981). A Treatise on the Family. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674906990.
Barro, Robert (1974). “Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?” Journal of Political Economy 82 (6) 1095-117.
Loury, Glenn (1981). “Intergenerational Transfers and the Distribution of Earnings.” Econometrica , 49 (4) 843-867.
Strauss, John and Duncan Thomas (1995). “Human Resources: Empirical Modeling of Household and Family Decisions.” In Behrman, Jere and T.N. Srinivasan, eds., Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 3 . pp. 1885-2023.

Evidence—What do household respond to?

Read in detail:

Duflo, Esther (2001), “Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment.” American Economic Review , Vol. 91 (4), pp 795-813.

Perceived Returns and Benefits

*** Jensen, Robert (2010). “ The Perceived Return to Education and the Demand for Schooling .” Quarterly Journal of Economics 125 (2), p 515-548.
*** Jensen, Robert (2012). “ Do Labor Market Opportunities Affect Young Women’s Work and Family Decisions? Experimental Evidence from India .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 127(2), p. 753-792.
Nguyen, Trang (2008). “Information, Role Models and Perceived Returns to Education: Experimental Evidence from Madagascar.” MIT.
*** Jayachandran, Seema and Adriana Lleras-Muney (2009). “ Life Expectancy and Human Capital Investments: Evidence from Maternal Mortality Declines .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol 124 (1) pp. 349-397.
*** Qian, Nancy (2008). “ Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 123(3), 1251-1285.

Costs and opportunity costs: School building and Conditional Cash transfers

Benhassine, Najy, Florencia Devoto, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, and Victor Pouliquen (2015). “Turning a shove into a nudge? A ’labeled cash transfer’ for education.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 7, no. 3: 86-125.
Baird, Sarah, Craig McIntosh, and Berk Özler (2011). “Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment.” Oxford University Press, vol. 126(4), pages 1709-1753.

Intra-family information gap and behavioral issues

Bursztyn, Leonardo and Lucas C. Coffman (2012). “The Schooling Decision: Family Preferences, Intergenerational Conflict, and Moral Hazard in the Brazilian Favelas.” Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 120, No. 3, pp. 359-397.
*** Dizon-Ross, Rebecca (2019). “ Parents’ beliefs about their children’s academic ability: Implications for educational investments .” American Economic Review 109, no. 8: 2728-65.

Evidence (Part 2)—Private and Social returns to education

*** Duflo, Esther, Pascaline Dupas, and Michael Kremer (2021). “ The impact of free secondary education: Experimental evidence from Ghana .” No. w28937. National Bureau of Economic Research.

Other papers

Chou, Shin-Yi, Jin-Tan Liu, Michael Grossman, and Ted Joyce (2010). “Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 2(1): 33-61.
Duflo, Esther, Pascaline Dupas, and Michael Kremer (2015). “Education, HIV, and early fertility: Experimental evidence from Kenya.” American Economic Review 105, no. 9: 2757-97.
*** Duflo, Esther (2004). “ The Medium Run Effects of Educational Expansion: Evidence from a Large School Construction Program in Indonesia .” Journal of Development Economics , 74(1), 163-197.

Education: The Supply Side

***Banerjee, Abhijit, Rukmini Banerji, James Berry, Esther Duflo, Harini Kannan, Shobhini Mukerji, Marc Shotland, and Michael Walton (2017). “ From proof of concept to scalable policies: Challenges and solutions, with an application .” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 4: 73-102.
Duflo Esther, Pascaline Dupas, and Michael Kremer (2011). “Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya.” American Economic Review , Vol.101(5), pp. 1739-74.
*** Glewwe, Paul and Michael Kremer (2006). “ Schools, Teachers, and Education Outcomes in Developing Countries .” in Handbook of the Economics of Education , Elsevier.
Duflo, Esther and Michael Kremer (2003). “Use of Randomization in the Evaluation of Development Effectiveness.” MIT-Harvard. Proceedings of the Conference on Evaluating Development Effectiveness, July 15-16, 2003, World Bank Operations Evaluation Department (OED) Washington, D.C.
*** Angrist, Joshua and Victor Lavy (1999). “ Using Maimonides’ Rule to Estimate the Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement ,” Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol 114 (2), pp. 533-575.
*** Urquiola, Miguel and Eric Verhoogen, (2009). “ Class Size Caps, Sorting, and the Regression Discontinuity Design .” American Economic Review . Vol. (99)1: 179–215.
Muralidharan, Karthik and Venkatesh Sundararaman (2011). “Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India.” Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 119, No. 1, pp. 39-77.
Glewwe, Paul, Nauman Ilias, and Michael Kremer (2010). “Teacher incentives.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2, no. 3: 205-27.
Kremer, Michael, Edward Miguel, and Rebecca Thornton. “Incentives to learn.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 91, no. 3 (2009): 437-456.
Duflo, E., Hanna, R., & Ryan, S. P. (2012). “Incentives Work: Getting Teachers to Come to School.” The American Economic Review , 102(4), 1241-1278.

Teacher Absence

Chaudhury, Nazmul, Jeffrey Hammer, Michael Kremer, Karthik Muralidharan, and F. Halsey Rogers (2005).“Teacher Absence in India: A Snapshot.” Journal of the European Economic Association . 3, No. 2-3, Pages 658-667.
Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2006). “Addressing Absence.” Journal of Economic Perspectives , 20(1) 117-132.

Curriculum, Pedagogy, Tracking, Inputs, etc.

***Duflo Esther, Pascaline Dupas and Michael Kremer (2011). “Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya.” American Economic Review , Vol.101(5), pp. 1739-74.
Glewwe, Paul, Michael Kremer and Sylvie Moulin (2009). “Many Children Left Behind? Textbooks and Test Scores in Kenya.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , Vol.1(1)112-135.
Muralidharan, Karthik and Venkatesh Sundararaman (2013). “Contract Teachers: Experimental Evidence from India.”
Banerjee, Abhijit, Shawn Cole, Esther Duflo and Leigh Linden (2007). “Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol. 122 (3) 1235-1264.
Dillon, Moira R., Harini Kannan, Joshua T. Dean, Elizabeth S. Spelke, and Esther Duflo (2017). “Cognitive science in the field: A preschool intervention durably enhances intuitive but not formal mathematics.” Science 357, no. 6346: 47-55.

School Choice

Angrist, Joshua, Eric Bettinger, and Michael Kremer, (2006). “Long-Term Educational Consequences of Secondary School Vouchers: Evidence from Administrative Records in Colombia.” American Economic Review. Volume 96(3) 847-862.
Angrist, Joshua, Eric Bettinger, Erik Bloom, Michael Kremer and Elizabeth King (2002). “Vouchers for Private Schooling in Colombia: Evidence from Randomized Natural Experiments.” The American Economic Review , December, Volume 92(5) 1535-1558.
Urquiola, Miguel and Chang-Tai Hsieh, (2006). “The Effects of Generalized School Choice on Achievement and Stratification: Evidence from Chile’s School Voucher Program.” Journal of Public Economics , 90 (8-9) 1477-1503.
Foster, Andrew and Mark Rosenzweig (1996). “Technical Change and Human-Capital Returns and Investments: Evidence from the Green Revolution.” American Economic Review , 86(4) 931-953.

Session 10: Time Preferences and Savings

Hyperbolic Discounting/Time Preferences, Demand for commitment

Cohen, J.D, K.M. Ericson, D. Laibson, and J.M. White (2020). “Measuring Time Preferences.” Journal of Economic Literature . 58(2): 299-347.
Frederick, S., G. Loewenstein, and T. O’Donoghue (2002). “Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review.” Journal of Economic Literature, 40 (2), 351-401.
Mahajan, Aprajit, Christian Michel, and Alessandro Tarozzi. “Identification of time-inconsistent models: The case of insecticide treated nets.” No. w27198. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2020.
Andreoni, James, Michael Callen, Karrar Jaffar, Yasir Khan, and Charles Sprenger (2020). “Using Preference Estimates to Customize Incentives: An Application to Polio Vaccination Drives in Pakistan.” NBER.
Schilbach, Frank (2019). “Alcohol and Self-Control: A Field Experiment in India.” American Economic Review . 109(4): 1290-1322.
Ashraf, Nava, Dean Karlan, and Wesley Yin (2006). “Tying Odysseus to the mast: Evidence from a commitment savings product in the Philippines.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 121, no. 2: 635-672.
Blumenstock, Joshua, Michael Callen, and Tarek Ghani (2018). “Why do defaults affect behavior? Experimental evidence from Afghanistan.” American Economic Review 108, no. 10: 2868-2901.
Casaburi, Lorenzo, and Rocco Macchiavello (2019). “Demand and supply of infrequent payments as a commitment device: evidence from Kenya.” American Economic Review 109, no. 2: 523-55.
Dupas, Pascaline, and Jonathan Robinson (2013). “Savings constraints and microenterprise development: Evidence from a field experiment in Kenya.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5, no. 1: 163-92.
Dupas, Pascaline, and Jonathan Robinson (2013). “Why don’t the poor save more? Evidence from health savings experiments.” American Economic Review 103, no. 4: 1138-71.
Dupas, Pascaline, Dean Karlan, Jonathan Robinson, and Diego Ubfal (2018). “Banking the unbanked? Evidence from three countries.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10, no. 2: 257-97.
Schaner, Simone (2018). “The persistent power of behavioral change: Long-run impacts of temporary savings subsidies for the poor.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10, no. 3: 67-100.

Sessions 11–12: Health

The demand for health

*** Banerjee, Abhijit, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, and Matthew O. Jackson (2019). “Using gossips to spread information: Theory and evidence from two randomized controlled trials.” The Review of Economic Studies 86, no. 6: 2453-2490.
*** Chernozhukov, Victor, Mert Demirer, Esther Duflo, and Ivan Fernandez-Val (2020). “Generic Machine Learning Inference on Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in Randomized Experiments, with an Application to Immunization in India.” No. w24678. National Bureau of Economic Research.

Session 13: Family

Udry, Christopher (1996). “ Gender, Agricultural Production and the Theory of the Household. ” Journal of Political Economy . 104(5), 1010-1046.

Sessions 14–15: Gender, Sexual Behavior, and Female Labor Supply

Bursztyn, Leonardo, Alessandra L. González, and David Yanagizawa-Drott (2020). “Misperceived social norms: Women working outside the home in Saudi Arabia.” American Economic Review 110, no. 10: 2997-3029.
Diva Dhar, Tarun Jain, and Seema Jayachandran (2021). “Reshaping Adolescents’ Gender Attitudes: Evidence from a School-Based Experiment in India.”
*** Qian, Nancy (2008). “ Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 123(3), 1251-1285.
McKelway, Madeline (2021). “Women’s employment in India: Intra-household and intra-personal constraints.”
Conlon, John J., Malavika Mani, Gautam Rao, Matthew W. Ridley, and Frank Schilbach (2021). “Learning in the Household.” No. w28844. National Bureau of Economic Research.
Ashraf, Nava, Erica Field, and Jean Lee (2014). “Household bargaining and excess fertility: an experimental study in Zambia.” American Economic Review 104, no. 7: 2210-37.
Munshi, Kaivan, and Jacques Myaux (2006). “Social norms and the fertility transition.” Journal of Development Economics 80, no. 1: 1-38.
Miller, Grant (2010). “Contraception as development? New evidence from family planning in Colombia.” The Economic Journal 120, no. 545: 709-736.
Jayachandran, Seema, and Rohini Pande (2017). “Why are Indian children so short? The role of birth order and son preference.” American Economic Review 107, no. 9: 2600-2629.
Duflo, Esther (2012). “Women empowerment and economic development.” Journal of Economic Literature 50, no. 4: 1051-79.
Jayachandran, Seema (2015). “The Roots of Gender Inequality in Developing Countries.” Annu. Rev. Econ 7: 63-88.
Jayachandran, Seema, and Ilyana Kuziemko (2011). “Why do mothers breastfeed girls less than boys? Evidence and implications for child health in India.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 126, no. 3: 1485-1538.
Banerjee, Abhijit, Eliana La Ferrara, and Victor H. Orozco-Olvera (2019). “The entertaining way to behavioral change: Fighting HIV with MTV.” No. w26096. National Bureau of Economic Research.

Session 16: Land

Sharecropping and Moral Hazard

**Burchardi, Konrad B., Selim Gulesci, Benedetta Lerva, and Munshi Sulaiman (2019), “ Moral Hazard: Experimental Evidence from Tenancy Contracts .” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 134(1): 281-347.
Stiglitz, Joseph E. (1974). “Incentives and Risk Sharing in Sharecropping.” The Review of Economic Studies 41(2): 219-55.
Shaban, Radwan Ali (1987). “Testing between Competing Models of Sharecropping.” Journal of Political Economy , 95 (5): 893-920.
Laffont, Jean-Jacques, and Mohamed Salah Matoussi (1995). “Moral Hazard, Financial Constraints and Sharecropping in El Oulja.” Review of Economic Studies , 62(3): 381-399.
Banerjee, Abhijit (2000). “Prospects and Strategies for Land Reforms.” in B. Pleskovic and J. Stiglitz (eds), Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 1999. Washington, DC: World Bank, 253-284.
Besley, Timothy, and Robin Burgess (2000). “Land Reform, Poverty Reduction, and Growth: Evidence from India.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 115(2): 389-430.

Property Rights and Investment Decisions

** Goldstein, Markus and Christopher Udry (2008). “ The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana .” Journal of Political Economy , 116 (6): 981-1022.
** Field, Erica (2007). “ Entitled to Work: Urban Property Rights and Labor Supply in Peru .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 122(4): 1561-1602.
Goldstein, Markus, Kenneth Houngbedji, Florence Kondylis, Michael O’Sullivan, and Harris Selod (2018). “Formalization without certification? Experimental evidence on property rights and investment.” Journal of Development Economics, 132: 57-74.
De Janvry, Alain, Kyle Emerick, Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, and Elisabeth Sadoulet (2015). “Delinking Land Rights from Land Use: Certification and Migration in Mexico.” American Economic Review , 105(10), 3125-49.
Galán, JS (2020). “Tied to the Land? Intergenerational Mobility and Agrarian Reform in Colombia.” Submitted to Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Banerjee, Abhijit, Paul J. Gertler, and Maitreesh Ghatak (2002). “Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal.” Journal of Political Economy , 110(2): 239-280.
Do, Quy‐Toan and Lakshmi Iyer (2008). “Land Titling and Rural Transition in Vietnam.” Economic Development and Cultural Change , 56(3): 531-579.
Field, Erica and Maximo Torero (2006). “Do Property Titles Increase Credit Access Among the Urban Poor? Evidence from a Nationwide Titling Program.”
Leight, Jessica (2016). “Reallocating Wealth? Insecure Property Rights and Agricultural Investment in Rural China.” China Economic Review, 40: 207-227.
Montero, Eduardo (2021). “Cooperative Property Rights and Development: Evidence from a Land Reform in El Salvador.”

Land Market Frictions and Reallocation

Ravallion, Martin, and Dominique van de Walle (2006). “Land Reallocation in an Agrarian Transition.” The Economic Journal, 116(514): 924-942.
Bleakley, Hoyt, and Joseph Ferrie (2015). “Land Openings on the Georgia frontier and the Coase Theorem in the Short-and Long-Run.”
Restuccia, Diego and Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis (2017). “Land Misallocation and Productivity.”

Sessions 17–18: Public Finance

The Design of Transfer Programs

*** Alatas, Vivi, Abhijit Banerjee, Rema Hanna, Benjamin A. Olken, and Julia Tobias (2012). “ Targeting the Poor: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia. ” American Economic Review , 102(4): 1206-1240.
*** Alatas, Vivi, Abhijit Banerjee, Rema Hanna, Benjamin A. Olken, Ririn Purnamasari, and Matthew Wai-Poi (2016). “ Self-Targeting: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia .” Journal of Political Economy 124(2): 371-427.
Hanna, Rema and Benjamin A. Olken (2018). “Universal Basic Incomes vs. Targeted Transfers: Anti-Poverty Programs in Developing Countries*.” Journal of Economic Perspectives.* 32(4): 201-226.
Nichols, Albert L. and Richard J. Zeckhauser (1982). “Targeting Transfers through Restrictions on Recipients.” American Economic Review , 72(2): 372-377.
Olken, Benjamin A. (2006). “Corruption and the Costs of Redistribution: Micro evidence from Indonesia.” Journal of Public Economics , 90(4-5): 853-870.
Elbers, Chris, Jean O. Lanjouw, and Peter Lanjouw (2003). “Micro-Level Estimation of Poverty and Inequality.” Econometrica , 71(1): 355-364.
Niehaus, Paul, Antonia Atanassova, Marianne Bertrand, and Sendhil Mullainathan (2013). “Targeting with Agents.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy , 5(1): 206-238.

The Form of Transfers: Conditionality, Cash vs In-Kind, Workfare

*** Cunha, Jesse M., Giacomo De Giorgi, and Seema Jayachandran (2019). “The Price Effects of Cash Versus In-Kind Transfers .” Review of Economic Studies . 86, 240-281.
*** Baird, Sarah, Craig McIntosh, and Berk Özler (2011). “ Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 126(4): 1709-175.
*** Banerjee, Abhijit, Rema Hanna, Benjamin A. Olken, Elan Satriawan, and Sudarno Sumarto (2021). “ Food vs. Food Stamps: Evidence from an At-Scale Experiment in Indonesia .”
Gadenne, Lucie, Samuel Norris, Monica Singhal, and Sandip Sukhtankar (2021). “In-Kind Transfers as Insurance.”
Cunha, Jesse M. (2014). “Testing Paternalism: Cash versus In-kind Transfers.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 6(2): 195-230.
Coate, Stephen, Stephen Johnson, and Richard Zeckhauser (1994). “Pecuniary Redistribution Through In-Kind Programs.” Journal of Public Economics , 55(1): 19-40.
Banerjee, Abhijit V. (2016). “Policies for a Better-Fed World.” Review of World Economics , 152 (1): 3-17.
Besley, Timothy and Ravi Kanbur (1988). “Food Subsidies and Poverty Alleviation.” The Economic Journal , 98(392): 701-719.

Big Push Programs, Business Programs, Cash Transfers

*** Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Nathanael Goldberg, Dean Karlan, Robert Osei, William Parienté, Jeremy Shapiro, Bram Thuysbaert, and Christopher Udry (2015). “ A Multifaceted Program Causes Lasting Progress for the Very Poor: Evidence from Six Countries .” Science , 348(6236): 772-790.
Blattman, Chris, Nathan Fiala, and Sebastian Martinez (2014). “Generating Skilled Self-Employment in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from Uganda.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 129 (2): 697-752.
Blattman, Christopher, Eric P. Green, Julian Jamison, M. Christian Lehmann, and Jeannie Annan (2016). “The Returns to Microenterprise Support Among the Ultrapoor: A Field Experiment in Postwar Uganda.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 8(2): 35-64.
***Haushofer, Johannes, and Jeremy Shapiro (2016). “ The Short-Term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: Experimental Evidence from Kenya .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 131(4): 1973-2042.
Bandiera, Oriana, Robin Burgess, Narayan Das, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul, and Munshi Sulaiman (2017). “Labor Markets and Poverty in Village Economies.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 132(2): 811-870.

Taxes and the Informal Sector

*** Jensen, Anders (2019). “ Employment Structure and the Rise of the Modern Tax System .” NBER Working Paper 25502.
*** Basri, M. Chatib, Mayara Felix, Rema Hanna, and Benjamin A. Olken (2019). “ Tax Administration vs. Tax Rates: Evidence from Corporate Taxation in Indonesia .” NBER Working Paper 26150.
*** Khan, Adnan Q., Asim Khwaja, and Benjamin A. Olken (2016). “ Tax Farming Redux: Experimental Evidence on Performance Pay for Tax Collectors .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 131(1): 219-271.
***Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen, Claus Thustrup Kreiner, and Emmanuel Saez (2016). “ Why Can Modern Governments Tax So Much? An Agency Model of Firms as Fiscal Intermediaries .” Economica , 83: 219–246.
Naritomi, Joana (2019). “Consumers as Tax Auditors.” American Economic Review, 109(9): 3031-72*.*
Kumler, Todd, Eric Verhoogen, and Judith Frías (2020). “Enlisting Employees in Improving Payroll-Tax Compliance: Evidence from Mexico.”
Gordon, Roger and Wei Li (2009). “Tax Structure in Developing Countries: Many Puzzles and a Possible Explanation.” Journal of Public Economics , 93(7-8): 855-866.
Fisman, Raymond and Shang-Jin Wei (2004). “Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from ‘Missing Imports’ in China.” Journal of Political Economy , 112(2): 471-496.
Mishra, Prachi, Arvind Subramanian, and Petia Topalova (2008). “Tariffs, Enforcement, and Customs Evasion: Evidence from India.” Journal of Public Economics , 92(10-11): 1907-1925.
Olken, Benjamin A., and Monica Singhal (2011). “Informal Taxation.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 3(4): 1-28.
De Paula, Áureo and José A. Scheinkman (2010). “Value-Added Taxes, Chain Effects, and Informality.” American Economics Journal: Macroeconomics , 2(4): 195-221.
Carrillo, Paul, Dina Pomeranz, and Monica Singhal (2017). “Dodging the Taxman: Firm Misreporting and Limits to Tax Enforcement.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 9(2): 144-164.
Gadenne Lucie, Tushar K. Nandi, Roland Rathelot (2019). “Taxation and Supplier Networks: Evidence from India.” International Growth Centre S-89450-INC-1.
Brockmeyer, Anne, Alejandro Estefan, Karina Ramírez Arras, Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato (2020). “Taxing Property in Developing Countries: Theory and Evidence from Mexico.” 112 th Annual Conference on Taxation .
Bachas, Pierre, Lucie Gadenne, and Anders Jensen (2020). “Informality, Consumption Taxes, and Redistribution.” NBER Working Paper 27429.
Londoño-Vélez, Juliana and Javier Ávila-Mahecha (2021). “Enforcing Wealth Taxes in the Developing World: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Colombia.” American Economic Review: Insights , 3(2): 131-48.
Almunia, Miguel, Jonas Hjort, Justine Knebelmann, and Lin Tian (2021). “Strategic or Confused Firms? Evidence from ‘Missing’ Transactions in Uganda.”

Sessions 19–21: Labor

Labor Supply and Labor Demand in Rural Labor Markets

Labor Supply: Testing for Separation

*** LaFave, Daniel and Duncan Thomas (2016). “ Farms, Families, and Markets: New Evidence on Completeness of Markets in Agricultural Settings .” Econometrica, 84(5): 1917-1960.
LaFave, Daniel R., Evan D. Peet, and Duncan Thomas (2020). “Farm Profits, Prices and Household Behavior,” National Bureau of Economic Research.

Classical Labor Supply

Jayachandran, Seema (2006). “Selling Labor Low: Wage Responses to Productivity Shocks in Developing Countries.” Journal of Political Economy , 114(3): 538-575.
Imbert, Clément and John Papp (2015). “Labor Market Effects of Social Programs: Evidence from India’s Employment Guarantee.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(2): 233-263.
Goldberg, Jessica (2016). “Kwacha Gonna Do? Experimental Evidence about Labor Supply in Rural Malawi.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 8(1): 129-149.

Nominal Rigidities, Behavioral Issues, and Labor Supply

Breza, Emily, Supreet Kaur, and Yogita Shamdasani (2019). “Labor Rationing: A Revealed Preference Approach from Hiring Shocks.”
Kaur, Supreet (2019). “Nominal Wage Rigidity in Village Labor Markets.” American Economic Review . 109(10): 3588-3616.
Breza, Emily, Supreet Kaur, and Nandita Krishnaswamy (2018). “Scabs: The Social Suppression of Labor Supply.”
Schultz, Theodore W. “The Doctrine of Agricultural Labor of Zero Value.” Chapter 4 in Transforming Traditional Agriculture . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Hussam, Reshmaan, Erin M. Kelley, Gregory Lane, and Fatima Zahra (2021). “The Psychosocial Value of Employment.” NBER Working Paper No. 28924.
Agness, Daniel, Travis Baseler, Sylvain Chassang, Pascaline Dupas, and Erik Snowberg (2020). “Valuing the Time of the Self-Employed.”
Oh, Suanna (2020). “Does Identity Affect Labor Supply.” CDEP-CGEG Working Paper Series.
Kaur, Supreet, Sendhil Mullainathan, Suanna Oh, and Frank Schilbach (2021). “Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?”

Frictions in Labor Demand

Fink, Günther, B. Kelsey Jack, and Felix Masiye (2018). “Seasonal Liquidity, Rural Labor Markets and Agricultural Production.” NBER Working Paper No. 24564.

Urban Labor Markets, Search, and Frictions

***Blattman, Christopher and Stefan Dercon (2018). “ The Impacts of Industrial and Entrepreneurial Work on Income and Health: Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia .” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 10(3): 1-38*.*
Derenoncourt, Ellora, François Gérard, Lorenzo Lagos, and Claire Montialoux (2021). “Racial Inequality, Minimum Wage Spillovers, and the Informal Sector.” NBER Summer Institute Development Economics.
Hjort, Jonas, Xuan Li, and Heather Sarsons, (2020), “Across-Country Wage Compression in Multinationals.”
Besley, Timothy and Robin Burgess (2004). “Can Labor Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from India.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 119(1): 91-134.
Alfonsi, Livia, Oriana Bandiera, Vittorio Bassi, Robin Burgess, Imran Rasul, Munshi Sulaiman, and Anna Vitali (2020). “Tackling Youth Unemployment: Evidence from a Labor Market Experiment in Uganda.” Econometrica , 88(6): 2369-2414.
Bertrand, Marianne, Chang-Tai Hsieh, and Nick Tsivanidis (2017). “Contract Labor and Firm Growth in India.”
Carranza, Eliana, Robert Garlick, Kate Orkin, and Neil Rankin (2020). “Job Search and Hiring with Two-Sided Limited Information about Workseekers’ Skills*,”* CID Faculty Working Paper No. 383.
Wheeler, Laura, Robert Garlick, Eric Johnson, Patrick Shaw, and Marissa Gargano (2021). “LinkedIn(to) Job Opportunities: Experimental Evidence from Job Readiness Training.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (forthcoming) . Working Paper.
*** Boudreau, Laura (2020). “ Multinational enforcement of labor law: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh’s apparel sector .” Working Paper.
Boudreau, Laura, Rocco Macchiavello, Virginia Minni, and Mari Tanaka (2021). “Union Leaders: Experimental Evidence from Myanmar.” Columbia Business School. Working Paper.

Sessions 22–23: Credit

Sources of Credit Constraints: Adverse Selection, Moral Hazard, and Monitoring

*** Banerjee, Abhijit (2004)." Contracting Constraints, Credit Markets, and Economic Development” (PDF) . In M. Dewatripont, L. Hansen and S. Turnovsky, eds. Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications , Eight World Congress of the Econometric Society, Volume III. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-46.
****Karlan, Dean and Jonathan Zinman (2009). “ Observing Unobservables: Identifying Information Asymmetries with a Consumer Credit Field Experiment .” Econometrica , 77(6): 1993-2008.
Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2010). “Giving Credit Where it is Due.” Journal of Economic Perspectives , 24(3): 61-80.
Aleem, Irfan (1990). “Imperfect Information, Screening and the Costs of Informal Lending: A Study of a Rural Credit Market in Pakistan.” World Bank Economic Review , 4(3): 329-349.
Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2014). “Do Firms Want to Borrow More? Testing Credit Constraints Using a Directed Lending Program.” Review of Economic Studies, 81 (2): 572-607.

Estimating Credit Constraints, and What Happens When You Relax Them

*** McKenzie David, Suresh de Mel, and Christopher Woodruff (2008). “ Returns to Capital in Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 123(4): 1329-72.
McKenzie, David, Suresh de Mel, and Christopher Woodruff (2012). “One-Time Transfers of Cash or Capital Have Long-Lasting Effects on Microenterprises in Sri Lanka.” Science , 335(6071): 962-66.
*** Townsend, Robert M. and Joseph P. Kaboski (2011), “ A Structural Evaluation of a Large-Scale Quasi-Experimental Microfinance Initiative .” Econometrica , 79(5): 1357-1406.
Karlan, Dean, Robert Osei, Isaac Osei-Akoto and Christopher Udry (2014). “Agricultural Decisions After Relaxing Credit and Risk Constraints.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 129 (2): 597-652.
Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2014). “Do Firms Want to Borrow More? Testing Credit Constraints Using a Directed Lending Program.” Review of Economic Studies , 81(2): 572-607.
Keniston, Daniel E. (2011). “Experimental vs. Structural Estimates of the Return to Capital in Microenterprises.” Mimeo, Yale.
Blouin, Arthur, and Rocco Macchiavello (2013). “Tropical Lending: International Prices, Strategic Default and Credit Constraints among Coffee Washing Stations.”
Bernhardt, Arielle, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, and Natalia Rigol (2019). “Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital among Female Microentrepreneurs,” American Economic Review: Insights , 1(2): 141-60.

Microfinance: Impacts and Mechanisms

***Meager, Rachael (2019). “ Understanding the Average Impact of Microcredit Expansions: A Bayesian Hierarchical Analysis of Seven Randomized Experiments .” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 11(1): 57-91.
*** Hussam, Reshmaan, Natalia Rigol, and Benjamin N. Roth (2020). “ Targeting High Ability Entrepreneurs Using Community Information: Mechanism Design in The Field .” PEDL Research Paper.
*** Field, Erica, John Papp, Rohini Pande and Natalia Rigol (2013). “ Does the Classic Microfinance Model Discourage Entrepreneurship Among the Poor? Experimental Evidence from India .” American Economic Review , 103(6): 2196-2226.
*** Karlan, Dean (2007). “ Social Connections and Group Banking .” The Economic Journal , 117(517): F52-F84.
*** Feigenberg, Benjamin, Erica Field and Rohini Pande (2013). “ The Economic Returns to Social Interaction: Experimental Evidence from Microfinance .” Review of Economic Studies , 80(4): 1459-1483.
Bryan, Gharad, Dean Karlan, and Jonathan Zinman (2015). “Referrals: Peer Screening and Enforcement in a Consumer Credit Field Experiment.” American Economic Journal: Microeconomics , 7(3): 174-204.
Giné, Xavier and Dean Karlan (2014). “Group versus Individual Liability: Short and Long Term Evidence from Philippine Microcredit Lending Groups.” Journal of Development Economics , 107: 65–83.
Field, Erica and Rohini Pande (2008). “Repayment Frequency and Default in Micro-finance: Evidence from India.” Journal of the European Economics Association Papers and Proceedings 6(2-3): 501-509.
Banerjee, Abhijit, Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman (2015). “Six Randomized Evaluations of Microcredit: Introduction and Further Steps.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 1-21.
Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster, and Cynthia Kinnan (2015). “The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 22-53.
Tarozzi, Alessandro, Jaikishan Desai, and Kristin Johnson (2015). “The Impacts of Microcredit: Evidence from Ethiopia.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 54-89.
Attanasio, Orazio, Britta Augsburg, Ralph De Haas, Emla Fitzsimons, and Heike Harmgart (2015). “The Impacts of Microfinance: Evidence from Joint-Liability Lending in Mongolia.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 90-122.
Crépon, Bruno, Florencia Devoto, Esther Duflo, and William Parienté (2015). “Estimating the Impact of Microcredit on Those Who Take It Up: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Morocco.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 123-50.
Angelucci, Manuela, Dean Karlan, and Jonathan Zinman (2015). “Microcredit Impacts: Evidence from a Randomized Microcredit Program Placement Experiment by Compartamos Banco.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 151-82.
Augsburg, Britta, Ralph De Haas, Heike Harmgart, and Costas Meghir (2015). “The Impacts of Microcredit: Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 183-203.
Karlan, Dean and Jonathan Zinman (2010). “Expanding Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts.” The Review of Financial Studies , 23(1): 433-464.
Banerjee, Abhijit (2013). “Microcredit under the Microscope: What Have We Learned in the Past Two Decades, and What Do We Need to Know?” Annual Review of Economics 5: 487-519.
Karlan, Dean and Jonathan Zinman (2008). “Credit Elasticities in Less Developed Countries: Implications for Microfinance.” American Economic Review, 98(3): 1040-1068 .

What’s the Latest Research in Development Economics? A Round-up from NEUDC 2020

David evans, almedina music.

Last weekend was the North East Universities Development Consortium annual conference , hosted by Dartmouth University but held virtually. Researchers presented about 225 papers (about a 50 percent increase from last year’s conference ) on a wide range of development topics, from agriculture and credit to tax and transport. For those not able to attend or who want a refresher, we’ve prepared a brief takeaway from each paper (or in some cases, abstract) that we could find online.

Remember that research is much more than a tweet-sized takeaway (and these takeaways are ours, not necessarily the authors), so if you’re interested in a result, we encourage you to read the linked papers. For as many of the papers for which we could easily discern and characterize it, we included a methodological hashtag. A guide to those hashtags is at the end of the post . We’ve sorted the papers by topic below, but in case you’re interested in reading about all the research from a given country or region, you can also find the research sorted that way .

Before we dive into the content of the papers, here are a few statistics. About a quarter of the papers are from each of three regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Only two percent of papers are from the Middle East or North Africa. In terms of country coverage, India—with 42 studies—had three times as many studies as the next most studied countries (Mexico and Brazil, with 13 studies and 11 studies), as you can see in the figure below. One in four papers (58 studies total) report on a randomized controlled trial, with lots of quasi-experimental methods in use as well: difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, fixed effects, and instrumental variables are each used by more than a dozen papers.

Figure: Distribution of papers from NEUDC 2020 by country

Map of countries of study for NEUDC 2020

If we missed a paper or if you had a different takeaway from a paper, share your thoughts in the comments! Both of us had the papers we submitted rejected by the conference, so we summarize those at the bottom.

Households and human capital

Early childhood.

· Climate change increases acidification of the ocean, which reduces available fish. For babies in utero, that means more deaths, especially for the weakest kids. ( Armand and Kim Taveras ) #FE

· When one child is born smaller than another, do parents compensate for those differences with health and nutrition investments, or do they reinforce them? Evidence from Indonesia suggests that in early childhood, parents reinforce differences. Data from 50 countries suggest parents are more likely to “reinforce initial inequalities in poorer countries.” ( Banerjee and Majid ) #FE

· A play-based preschool curriculum in Bangladesh together with monthly teacher-parent meetings to boost parenting skills led to improved child cognitive and socioemotional development. Even for kids who switched from existing preschools, their socioemotional skills improved. ( Rodriguez and Saltiel ) #RCT #ML

· Home visits to educate parents about feeding in Peru decreased anemia among children who were anemic at baseline but apparently increased it among those who weren’t (and no, it’s not just mean reversion), potentially because some parents misinterpreted messages from the visitors. ( Barron, Castro, and Lavado ) #RCT

· Helping secondary students in Zanzibar (Tanzania) to set goals for improvement on math tests led to better reported time use but not better test scores. These intermediate gains are largest for girls. ( Islam et al. ) #RCT

· If you took the Indonesian secondary school entrance exam on a particularly hot day, it not only affects your math and science score, it also has “compounding negative effects on a wide range of long-term achievements such as adult educational attainment, labor market returns and entry to the marriage market.” ( Das ) #IV

· During the Pinochet dictatorship, funding for universities in Chile fell. Decades later, children of parents affecting by the reduced university spaces were themselves less likely to enroll in college. ( Bautista et al. ) #RD (actually a Regression Kink Design )

· With data on undergraduate students in India in the process of choosing a major, this paper finds that “women are willing to pay twice as much as men for course enjoyment and higher grades, even as they expect lower grades in science and economics.” ( Dasgupta and Sharma )

· Does providing e-readers to students in Lagos, Nigeria, boost test scores? Only if the devices had materials from the curriculum and were filling a gap in textbooks. ( Habyarimana and Sabarwal ) #RCT

· In Mexico, providing “information to parents about how to support their children’s learning” improved parent behavior at home and student behavior at school. In a separate experiment, providing “financial resources to parent associations” had no behavioral impact. Neither improved student test scores. ( Barrera-Osorio et al. ) #RCT

· Two different interventions to make school principals in Salta (Argentina) more effective had no impact during the intervention, but in the two years after the intervention concluded, fewer students repeated grades. “Good things come to those who wait.” ( de Hoyos, Ganimian, and Holland ) #RCT

· What happens when your local school closes in China due to a school consolidation program? Delayed enrollment, but no change in lifetime education attainment. Later in life, it may have led to later marriage and more off-farm work. ( Zhao ) #DID

· In Pakistan, “both high value-added teachers and teachers who respond more strongly to

incentives significantly prefer performance pay and sort into” school where performance pay is on offer. ( Brown and Andrabi ) #RCT

· A teacher professional development for secondary school teachers in Rwanda boosted use of active instruction but did not increase students’ “academic outcomes or skills.” ( Blimpo and Pugatch ) #RCT

· Across 15 African countries, there is lots of variation in how much teachers are paid relative to other workers with comparable education and experience. However, on average across the countries, teachers are paid about the same per month and somewhat more per hour. ( Evans, Yuan, and Filmer ) You can read the authors’ blog post about the paper here.

· Training teachers in targeted instruction in Ghana boosted student learning. Adding training for managers boosted the quality of management but didn’t further improve learning for students. ( Beg, Fitzpatrick, and Lucas ) #RCT

· Winning a lottery increases the willingness to pay for remedial education services much more for those who aren’t able to borrow money than for those who are. “Credit constraints limit access to educational programs” in Tanzania. ( Burchardi et al. ) #RCT

· School-based “internet access has a modest, positive short-run impact on school-average standardized test scores” in Peru, and the “effect grows over time.” ( Kho, Lakdawala, and Nakasone ) #ES

· After three years, on-site, in-person coaching had much broader impacts than coaching delivered through a tablet in South Africa. ( Cilliers et al. ) #RCT [You can also read Dave’s blog post on this paper.]

· “A multi-faceted program that integrates technology into education, provides ongoing teacher training and professional development, includes community ownership, and offers free primary education” boosts reading and math scores in rural Zambia. ( de Hoop et al. ) #RCT

· Providing computers and computer-assisted learning software to primary schools in Angola led to falls in teacher absenteeism and rises in student and teacher technological familiarity; but student learning didn’t rise. ( Cardim, Molina-Millán, and Vicente ) #RCT

· Do stereotypical beliefs of teachers affect learning outcomes of girls in India? “A standard deviation increase in biased attitude of the math teacher widens the female disadvantage in math performance by 0.07 SD over an academic year.” (Rakshit and Sahoo)

· In China, “high-ability students have detrimental effects on their high-ability roommates’ performance.” This is likely driven by competition lowering help and interaction among roommates. (Hu and Chen)

· Sex education provided by near-peers in Botswana reduced pregnancy by over 40 percent whereas government teachers had a null effect and potentially increased pregnancy. (Angrist) #RCT

· When a college in China changes its name, it enrolls applications with 0.06–0.08 SD higher college entrance exam scores, equivalent to a college improving their ranking by 40 to 50 places. There is a small benefit for listing the college’s new name in employers’ recruitment decisions. (Eble and Hu)

· Can information about jobs improve the effectiveness of vocational training? An experiment based on the DDU-GKY, a large-scale training program in India, showed that better informed trainees are 17 percent more likely to stay in the job in which they are placed. (Chakrarvorty et al.) #RCT

· Land reform 50 years on: population levels in Kenya are higher in the settlement schemes than in neighboring areas. School provision is at par with population levels, indicating that there is no impact of the reform on this public good in the long run. (Crespin-Boucaud, Boone, and Moradi) #RD

· Households in Bolivia that became eligible for a pre-existing, near-universal pension program during the COVID crisis were much less likely to go hungry. ( Bottan, Hoffman, and Vera-Cossio ) #RD

· “A fter Brazil’s president publicly and emphatically dismissed the risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and advised against isolation, the social distancing measures taken by citizens in pro-government localities weakened compared to places where political support of the president is less strong.” Especially in municipalities with more active Twitter accounts! ( Ajzenman, Cavalcanti, and Da Mata ) #FE

· In Ethiopia, despite worries about food insecurity in the wake of COVID-19, “food consumption and household dietary diversity are largely unchanged or slightly increased by August 2020” relative to a year previously. ( Hirvonen, de Brauw, and Abate )

· Lockdowns among adults aged 65+ in Turkey worsened mental health outcomes due to a large increase in social and physical isolation. (Altindag, Erten, and Keskin) #RD

· In Kenya, the COVID-19 pandemic drove over 20 percent of traders out of business and disrupted supply chains, while most cross-border traders switched to being domestic traders. Remaining traders rely on informal borders, with an increase in bribes paid and more frequent harassment by officials and the police. (Wiseman)

· Adding nutrition education to a cash and food transfers in Bangladesh boosted both the quantity and quality of food consumed more than transfers alone. ( Tauseef ) #RCT

· A locust plague in Mali affected people in two ways. Prices went up in the short run because people knew the harvest would be smaller. “Children exposed in utero to the adverse effects of the locust plague suffer major health setbacks.” ( Conte, Piemontese, and Tapsoba ) #DID

· One potential advantage of in-kind transfers relative to cash is that they serve as insurance against food price changes. For poor households in India, in-kind food transfers do a better job of reducing calorie shortfalls than cash. ( Gadenne et al. ) #FE

· What’s the impact of double-fortified salt on schoolchildren’s health in India? After both one year and four years of exposure, anemia rates fall. ( von Grafenstein et al. ) #RCT

· “Low soil zinc availability drives child stunting in Nepal.” The authors do a bunch of robustness checks to make sure it’s not all driven by unobserved characteristics. “Our most conservative estimates suggest that on average, moving from [low zinc] to [high zinc] soils … reduces child stunting by 6 percentage points.” ( Bevis, Kim, and Guerena ) #FE

· School feeding in Rwanda boosted student learning and closed gender gaps. “Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that providing school feeding yields an 11:1 return on investment.” ( Mensah and Nsabimana ) #DID

· Should the government sell you goods? “In the absence of government milk in Mexico, private market prices would be 3% higher.” Direct provision generates gains in consumer welfare of 4 percent relative to milk vouchers and 2 percent relative to unrestricted cash transfers. (Jim é nez-Hern á ndez and Seira)

· A review of 34 mental health interventions in low- and middle-income countries shows positive impacts on economic outcomes, especially interventions that combine psychosocial and pharmacological elements. ( Lund et al. )

· What is the impact of an epidemic outbreak on votes? In Mexico after the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, researchers find “ a strong, negative relationship between the magnitude of the local epidemic outbreak and the governing party vote share in the 2009 congressional election.” There were persistent effects in the 2012 election. ( Guti érrez, Meriläinen, and Rubli ) #DID

· Towns headed by Indian (as opposed to British) district officers in India experienced 15 percent lower deaths during the 1918 Influenza pandemic, coinciding with greater responsiveness in relief provision. (Xu)

· Some US states have laws that require health insurers to cover telehealth services. Those laws have little average impact on telehealth use, but for a subset of users, they decrease medical spending and emergency room visits. ( Jamal ) #IV #ML

· “Using manipulated portraits (thinner/fatter) of real Kampala [Uganda] residents, I first show that obesity is perceived as a reliable wealth signal.” Then, in a “real-stakes field experiment,” the research shows that “obese borrowers have easier access to credit: going from normal weight to obese is equivalent to increasing one’s income by 60 percent.” ( Macchi ) #RCT

· Preventive healthcare appointments are common in rich countries but not in poor countries. In Malawi, both the offer of HIV testing appointments and financial commitment devices increase HIV testing among high-risk men, but appointments are much more effective. ( Derksen et al. ) #RCT

· Some community health workers in Pakistan watched a video and a discussion about the mission of their work: their performance improved on a range of tasks. Some workers received financial incentives: their performance improved only on the incentivized tasks. ( Khan ) #RCT

· Introducing public pharmacies in Chile “increased consumer savings and mayors were politically rewarded in the upcoming election.” ( Atal et al. ) #ES #RCT

· When public health systems contract private hospitals, how do hospitals react? In India, “hospitals engage in substantial coding manipulation order to increase their revenues.” Also, “hospital charges for care that is supposed to be free are pervasive.” ( Jain and Dupas ) #DID

· Are non-financial incentives effective to motivate community health workers? Providing an honorary award at a public ceremony boosted performance, with impacts on child health. Showing a video that demonstrates the consequences of health worker choices was less effective. ( Fracchia, Molina Millán, and Vicente ) #RCT

· A law that banned female genital cutting in Senegal reduced the prevalence of the practice and increased investments in girls’ education. ( Hombrados and Salgado ) #DID

· Married women in India are much less likely to make more than their husbands than they are to make just a little bit less than their husbands, suggesting a strong social norm and that some women are earning less than they could. ( Gupta )

· In India, “ women who paid higher dowries are less likely to be poor relative to women who did not, even when their household incomes are the same.” The surprising implication is that “anti-dowry laws may have the unintended effect of increasing female poverty. ” ( Calvi and Keskar )

· How does women’s employment affect technology adoption? In the United States when lots of women went to work in factories during World War II, rising employment led to more home appliances. For women who had kids, that meant more washing machines. ( Bose, Jain, and Walker ) #IV

· Women entrepreneurs in urban Bangladesh who receive cognitive behavioral therapy (which includes goal-setting, time-management, and problem-solving strategies) experience reduced stress and lose less work time solving problems at home, but profits stay the same. ( Lopez-Pena ) #RCT

· Women in Bogota, Colombia are willing to pay for flexible work schedules, especially women with higher incomes, suggesting that “flexibility is a luxury good.” ( Bustelo et al. ) #LIF

· For gig economy workers in India, receiving criticism worsens worker attitudes but increases their effort. Praise affects neither. It doesn’t make a difference whether the manager giving feedback is a woman or a man. ( Abel and Buchman ) #RCT

· Among “jobseekers in Egypt, women are more sensitive to long commutes, and value flexible schedules and on-site daycare more than men.” ( Feld, Nagy, and Osman ) #RCT

· Are female-led communities differentially affected by conflict? In Colombia, municipalities where a female mayor was elected experienced a 60 percent decrease in guerrilla attacks. Female negotiation skills could explain the drop in conflict violence. (Eslava) #RD

· A gender quota among Muslim leaders in Uttar Pradesh, India has a large and positive effect on toilet provision (across both Muslim and Hindu households), while with Hindu leaders there is no average affect. (Chaturvedi, Das, and Mahajan) #RD

· A school-based intervention in India with classroom discussions to reduce adolescents’ support for restrictive gender norms “converted 16% of participants’ regressive views.” Self-reported behavior became more aligned with progressive gender norms, particularly among boys. (Dhar, Jain, and Jayachandran) #RCT

· Registering sugarcane blocks in the wife’s name in Uganda improves two dimensions of women’s economic empowerment: access to resources and agency, with marginal impacts on personal welfare outcomes. In contrast, a behavior change intervention has strong impacts on personal welfare impacts. (Ambler, Jones, and O’Sullivan) #RCT

· “A one time large unconditional cash transfer (in rural Kenya) improves women’s control of household resources but not the frequency of physical and sexual intimate partner violence. Combining a light touch psychological intervention targeting self-believes with the cash transfer reduces the violence index by 0.14 SD.” (Mahmud, Orkin, and Riley) #RCT

· Benefiting from the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, a conditional cash transfer program in the Philippines, at the critical age between 12.5 and 14 years delays marriage and first birth by 1 year and 6 months, respectively. (Dervisevic, Perova, and Sahay)

· “A large share of the gender pay gap in Brazil is due to women working at lower-paying employers.” There are sizable output and welfare gains from moving to a gender-neutral economy, but analysis suggests that equal-treatment policies fail to close the gender gap in equilibrium. (Morchio and Moser)

· In South Korea, a glass ceiling for women exists: “the (large) unexplained gender wage gap substantially increases at the upper end of the wage distribution.” Effects of marriage and childbirth also explain the dramatic increase in the gender wage gap for women in their 30s and 40s. (Lee)

· A program aiming at reducing intimate partner violence (IPV) in Rwanda increased violence. “The program may have increased violence because men backlashed against the perceived threat to their identity posed by program messages about women’s empowerment, and against their wives’ more progressive gender attitudes and aspirations. (Cullen et al.) #RCT

· Sexual crimes, lapses in alimony, and domestic violence declined during the COVID-19 stay-at-home order in Mexico, and then rose back to their pre-COVID levels. Femicides remained constant during the pandemic, but declined in municipalities with alcohol sales prohibition. (Hoehn-Velasco, de la Miyar, and Silverio Murillo)

· “Providing poor women in rural Bangladesh with cash or food transfers, alongside nutrition behavior change communication, led to sustained reductions in” intimate partner violence. (Roy et al.) #RCT

· Amendments to the Indian anti-dowry law were successful in decreasing dowry payments. They also led to exposed women being 2.6 percentage points less likely to be in involved in household decisions, and a 1.9 percentage points increase in the probability of domestic violence. (Calvi and Keskar)

· Sexual harassment awareness trainings in India increased awareness among men by 0.106 SD, and decreased reported physical forms of sexual harassment among women by 0.125 SD. (Sharma) #RCT

· In China, only the majority ethnic group was subject to birth quotas, but birth rates fell among other ethnic groups as well. “A woman gives birth to 0.65 fewer children if the average completed fertility among her peers is exogenously reduced by one child.” ( Rossi and Xiao ) #IV

· In the past, some ethnic groups across African countries practiced twin infanticide. Today, twin mortality is no higher for those groups than for other others. Phew. Uses data from 23 countries. ( Fenske and Wang ) #FE

· African women in former British colonies tend to marry later and have lower fertility than women in former French colonies. But those effects tend to disappear close to the sea, where market access is higher. ( Canning, Mabeu, and Pongou ) #RD

· “I n societies characterized by the co-existence of strong son preference and worse maternal health conditions, women with first-born girls exhibit a lower likelihood of survival into older ages. This is likely due to harmful fertility behaviors after the birth of a daughter. ” ( Agarwal and Milazzo )

Households and marriage

· Parents in Bangladesh see that their children are biased toward the present and are willing to pay to restrict their kids’ choices and—ultimately—may be able to mold their children’s preferences. ( Kiessling et al. ) #LIF

· A lab experiment in rural Togo suggests that men in rural farming households put less investment into their wives’ farm plots than would maximize household agricultural production. ( Apedo-Amah, Djebbari, and Ziparo ) #LIF

· An earthquake in Gujarat (India) reduced men’s and women’s ages at marriage but increased the education gap in marriages and lowered women’s likelihood of entering into self-arranged marriages. ( Das and Dasgupta ) #DID

· Floods in Bihar, India reduced both men’s and women’s ages at marriage and—for married women—decreased the secondary school completion rate and labor force participation. It was more pronounced among groups for which dowry is the norm and among the landless, so dowry may have been helping to smooth consumption. ( Khanna and Kochhar ) #DID

· An education reform in Zimbabwe increased women’s education and led them to marry more educated men. Since the increase in women’s education was greater, the education gap narrowed. ( Salcher ) #RD

· Bans on cousin marriage in the US led to descendants with more education and higher labor force participation. ( Ghosh, Hwang, and Squires ) #IV

Migration and refugees

· In low-income countries, richer people are the ones who emigrate: “In low-income countries, people actively preparing to emigrate have 30 percent higher incomes than others overall, 14 percent higher incomes explained by observable traits such as schooling, and 12 percent higher incomes explained by unobservable traits.” ( Clemens and Mendola )

· Research with “Filipino migrants in the UAE and their spouses in the Philippines” shows that “both migrants and spouses have biased beliefs about each other’s finances and these biases are the result of strategic misreporting. Spouses and certain subgroups of migrants underreport their income to influence the remittance decision in their favor.” ( Rehman ) #LIF

· In municipalities of Brazil with more immigrants historically, both the descendants of the immigrants and others have higher wages. ( Cenci, Lopes, and Monasterio ) #FE

· “Do migrant incomes catalyze economic development back home?” In the Philippines, yes: “Positive migrant income shocks lead to higher household consumption and higher asset ownership in origin areas a decade later.” ( Khanna, Theoharides, and Yang ) #FE #IV

· “Refugees who have access to a larger co-refugee network tend to have more interactions with the local population” among Syrian refugees in Turkey. This is likely because “immigrant networks share experiences and information on the local population, therefore making it easier for refugees to interact with locals.” ( Gautier ) #IV

· “Why do migrants embark on dangerous border crossing journeys? … Migrants [from Mexico] with poor long term economic prospects at home are more tolerant of crossing places offering high reward and high risks.” ( Chau, Garip, and Oritz-Bobea ) #IV

· Migration prohibitions for women in Sri Lanka—based on age and on age of youngest child—had impacts on fertility. Young women increased their fertility; older women reduced their fertility. “As a result, new mothers are less-educated and younger, which may have an impact on child outcomes.” ( Peru ) #RD

· Palm-oil price shocks in Indonesia benefit producing districts with higher per capita expenditure, while price shocks on rice do not. Districts exposed to palm-oil price shocks and those surrounding them receive more migration resulting in an overall welfare increase of 0.39 percent, with one third due to internal migration. (Siregar)

Working and saving

Banking and credit.

· In India, some urban centers have too many bank branches, and some rural areas have too few, so banks could reallocate branches and increase access without much or any decrease in deposits. ( Hawkins-Pierot )

· More banks in rural India make it easier for households to deal with tough times like bad harvests: “Households that experience shocks but have access to banking services are better off with respect to consumption compared to those that have to cope without access.” ( Cramer ) #RD

· Informal moneylenders in rural India use loans from formal financial institutions as capital to make loans to households. ( Surendra ) #FE

· Giving informal savings groups access to loans from formal banks in Uganda increased food security but also led to more group turnover. ( Burlando, Etcheverry, and Goldberg ) #RCT

· Providing rural households with access to a mobile money agent in Uganda increased food security and self-employment off of farms, mostly through peer-to-peer transfers and lower costs in accessing remittances (e.g., they didn’t have to travel to get the money). ( Wieser et al. ) #RCT

· How does the disbursement of microfinance loans via mobile money impact borrowers’ businesses in Uganda? “Women who received their microfinance loan on the mobile money account had 15% higher business profits and 11% higher levels of business capital.” (Riley) #RCT

· Is the type of financial support provided to businesses more important than which businesses receive it? In Egypt, those who succeed with loans are equivalent to those who succeed with grants, showcasing that owner heterogeneity is more important than the type of support received. (Cr épon, El Komi, and Osman) #RCT

· Flexible repayment schedules reduce high social pressure among microcredit borrowers in the Philippines but come at a cost of reduced loan repayment. (Czura, John, Spantig) #LIF

· In Pakistan, microenterprises with hire-purchase contracts “are more likely to remain in self-employment, run larger businesses, and enjoy higher profits.” As a result, their households increase spending on food and children’s education. (Bari et al.) #RCT

· In Chile, low-income individuals receiving messages about how to prevent and face shocks, and how to face present bias and social comparison, combined with additional messages about options that individuals at risk of defaulting could take, decreased loan delinquency probability between 20 and 32 percent. (Álvarez, Miranda, and Ruiz-Tagle) #RCT

· “Doubling the delivery time [of digital credit] from ten to twenty hours reduces the default rate by 20%” in Mexico. (Burlando, Kuhn, and Prina) #RD

· Lottery players tend to bet less on numbers that recently won, suggesting a default “gambler’s fallacy” bias. 6.3 percent of players in Haiti and 15.7 percent in Denmark choose “hot” numbers — those which were winners in the previous round. There is no evidence of “streak switching”—in which beliefs switch from gambler’s fallacy to hot hand fallacy as streaks increase. (Dillon and Lybbert)

· Receiving monthly wages into either a bank or a mobile money account increased savings and improved coping with unanticipated economic shocks among factory workers in Bangladesh. (Breza, Kanz, and Klapper) #RCT

Cash transfers

· Households that benefitted from a multiyear cash transfer program in rural Niger have more savings and more earnings from both agricultural and non-agricultural activities. As a result, they have higher consumption even in the face of drought. ( Premand and Stoeffler ) #RCT

· Cash transfers in rural Mali help “low-income households to invest in profitable endeavors outside of subsistence agriculture and may reduce the marital migration of women in vulnerable households.” ( Hidrobo, Mueller, and Roy ) #RCT

· Cash transfers in Brazil reduced formal labor supply at the individual level, but because of the extra cash in the local economy, they actually lead a net positive impact on overall local labor supply. ( Gerard, Naritomi, and Silva )

· If households find out that they’re going to receive a cash transfer with more time to anticipate and plan, they’re more likely to save the money. ( Thakral and Tô ) #RCT

· Voters in Kenya (correctly) do not attribute a cash transfer program to local leaders, and receiving a cash transfer does not affect household’s voter turnout, vote choice, or favorability ratings of candidates. (Orkin and Walker) #RCT

Firms and microenterprises

· Firms of disadvantaged castes have a higher average revenue product of capital. Across-caste dispersion is concentrated in financially underdeveloped regions in India and the majority can be explained by differences in access to credit which reduces aggregate TFP by 6-10 percent. (Goraya)

· Charging higher prices for business training in Jamaica screens out poorer business owners, selects those who expect to benefit from it, and increases attendance among those who do pay . (Maffioli, McKenzie, and Ubfal)

· Firms in rural Tanzania with access to a digital phone book (lowering the cost of accessing new business and customer networks) “increase relational contracting with their suppliers and decrease it with their customers,” suggesting an improved bargaining position of firms relative to their pre-existing customers and suppliers. (Rudder) #RCT

· In Chile, mentoring improves mentee’s business practices but not their business survival, profits or income. Two success factors matter most: the time that the mentor has available, and the size of her network. (Lafortune, Martin, and Tessada)

· Indonesian firm-level data shows that democratization increases firm productivity, a critical determinant of economic growth. (Abeberese et al.) #DID

· The expansion of special economic zones in Vietnam (from 73 to 450 between 2000–2007) had little impact on increases in employment, number of firms, output, or output per worker. (McCaig et al.) #DID

· English training to domestic middle managers in Myanmar increases frequency of communication with their foreign managers, and trained managers perform better in management exercises. Employers value candidates with both higher English ability and multinational corporation experience. (Guillouet et al.)

· Access to premium recruitment services (increasing the supply of applicants) to firms in India increases “employer interest in applications.” Combining access to premium services with access to identity verification services increases actual hiring and leads these firms to employ a higher fraction of employees hired through the platform. (Fernando, Singh, and Tourek) #RCT

· How do firms respond to insecurity in Afghanistan? “Terrorist attacks reduce firm presence by 4-6% in affected districts… After violence, employees in provincial capitals are 33% more likely to move to Kabul and 15% more likely to exit the province.” (Blumenstock et al.)

· In Brazil, the probability of criminal prosecution increases by 23 percent upon job loss and remains constant. Unemployment benefits offset potential crime increases, especially for liquidity-constrained individuals. This effect completely vanishes upon benefit expiration. (Britto, Pinotti, and Sampaio) #RD

· How does information and publicity of human right abuses impact those firms tied to an abuse? “Firms associated with an assassination (of civil society activists) have large, negative abnormal returns following the event.” (Kreitmeir, Lane, and Raschky)

· “Firms exogenously exposed to the Drug War [in Mexico] experience lower export growth”, as resources went from production to protection and eroded local capacity to attract capital investment. ( Gorr ín, Morales-Arilla, and Ricca )

· How do multinationals affect development in the long run? In Costa Rica, regions under control of the United Fruit Company were 29 percent less likely to be poor than nearby locations in 1973, with only 56 percent of the gap closing over the following four decades. “The firm increased aggregated welfare by 3.7% and this effect is increasing in worker mobility.” (Méndez-Chacón and Van Patten) #RD

· Among firms along the manufacturing supply chain in Ecuador, “bilateral trade is estimated to be inefficiently low in early periods of the relationship.” ( Brug ués )

· Localized conflict in the Ukraine decreased sales by at least 5.8 percent outside of violent areas due a propagation effect (affecting firms’ buyers and suppliers) and a change in the production network structure. (Korovkin and Makarin)

· A contracting arrangement between producers and buyers that bundles price premium certainty with training and credit for a quality-improving technology induced producers in Senegal to purchase and use the technology. Producers are also more likely to produce higher-quality products (groundnuts) with increased output sales to the cooperative. (Deutschmann, Bernard, and Yameogo) #RCT

· Informal insurance is prevalent in rural India but has serious limitations, since it depends on members not getting hit by the same adverse shock. But if the same communities control cooperative irrigation schemes, then the irrigation and insurance institutions can be mutually supporting. ( Mazur )

Labor (including child labor)

· “At least 23% of self-employment in lean months occurs because workers cannot find jobs” in India. ( Breza, Kaur, and Shamdasani )

· “Increased early life investment reduces schooling in districts with high child labor, especially for girls and lower castes” in India. ( Bau et al. ) #FE #IV

· Including information of being a recipient of a Beca 18—a merit-based scholarship provided to poor students in Peru to pursue college education—in a résumé “increases the likelihood of getting a callback for a job interview by 20%.” (Ag ü ero, Galarza, and Yamada) #RCT

· Labor market discrimination among Slovaks towards the Roma minority is prevalent at both margins, and more so at the extensive margin. (Mani) #LIF

· For men that graduated from college during the public-sector hiring freeze in Tamil Nadu, India, the likelihood of being unemployed increased by about 32 percent. The application rate jumped by about 20 times for the few recruitments that were conducted. (Mangal) #DID

· The “employment impacts of a small cash grant, information and psychological support are close to zero,” but optimized targeting, i.e. offering the best possible intervention to each group, “raises employment (among Syrian refugees in Jordan) by a 1 percentage point (a 20% gain).” (Caria et al.) #RCT

· Training job seekers in South Africa to join and use an online professional networking platforms increases their end-of-program employment rate from 70 percent to 77 percent. (Wheeler et al.) #RCT

· An “SMS-based messaging app that connects agricultural workers and employers” in Tanzania “reduces within-village wage dispersion by 16-40 percent.” ( Jeong ) #RCT

· “Workers (in Israel) are 3-4 times more likely to find employment in firms where their parents have professional connections.” Connections matter for inequality: “the wage gap between Arabs and Jews decreases by 12% when equalizing the groups’ connections but increases by 56% when prohibiting the hiring of connected workers.” This is because “Arabs have connections to lower-paying firms, but use their connections more extensively.” (San)

Governments, institutions, and conflict

Bureaucracy and politics.

· Sending scorecards measuring delays in service delivery to government officials and their supervisors in Bangladesh increased services delivered without delay by 11 percent. (Mattsson)

· The 1883 Pendleton Act—requiring US customhouses with 50+ employees to recruit through competitive exams—led to employees having stronger professional backgrounds who stayed longer in their jobs. (Moreira and P é rez)

· Changing judge selection procedure from presidential appointment to appointment by judge peers in Pakistan significantly decreases rulings in favor of the government. (Mehmood)

· Villages controlled by the state ruling party in West Bengal, India systematically receive higher aggregate anti-poverty program allocations. There are also persistent large excess payments to local candidates affiliated with the ruling party. (Shenoy and Zimmermann) #RD

· Political reservation in Bihar, India: (i) lowers inequality in access to public goods; (ii) lowers intergroup private asset inequality; and (iii) increases presence of minority group members in local government. (Kumar and Sharan) #RD

Conflict and crime

· The civil war in Nepal (1996–2006) led to lower food consumption and less dietary diversity, mostly through reduced purchased food. ( Marchesi and Rockmore ) #FE

· Data from 43 African countries shows that conflict over power emerges due to ethnic groups’ disagreement over the mix of public goods provided by a culturally distant government. (Guarnieri) #DID

· Police station openings deter violent crime by 15 percent and housing crime by 30 percent—leading to 4–6 percent increase in housing values in Colombia. (Morales-Mosquera) #IV #DID

· “A one standard deviation increase in the total pounds of bombs dropped (in Laos) is associated with a 9.3% fall in GPD per capita.” (Ria ñ o and Caicedo) #IV

· Pretrial detention in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil reduces re-arrest in the medium term (mostly driven by incapacitation effects) and increases the probability and severity of post-release crime. (Ribeiro and Ferraz) #IV

· Police “repression causes a temporary deterrence effect but only on students with social (rather than geographic) links to the victim.” Police violence increased student-led boycotts and had negative educational consequences for students in Chile. (Gonzalez)

· US drone strikes in Pakistan encourage terrorism, causing up to 17.5 percent of all terror attacks or about 6,000 deaths. (Mahmood and Jetter) #IV

· Following the 1918 Finnish Civil War, substantial increases in redistribution and a drastic shift towards equality occurred in municipalities that were affected by the 1866–1868 famine, that had higher levels of pre-conflict inequality, and that had more insurgents. (Meril ä inen, Mitrunen, and Virkola)

· Ethnic civil conflicts in Africa between 1989–2009 reveal that gender-unequal armed actors are more likely to be perpetrators of sexual violence. Sexual violence also increases “when the perpetrator is more gender-unequal than the victim.” (Guarnieri and Tur-Prats)

· “An increase in the value of (labor intensive) artisanal mining activities increase both the use of sexual violence and nonlethal violence against civilians” using data from across Africa. “By contrast, an increase in the value of (capital intensive) industrial mines increases only the use of lethal violence.” (Fourati, Girard, and Laurent-Lucchetti)

· US marijuana liberalization led to a large “reduction in both marijuana cultivation and gun-related homicides in Mexico as well as an increase in legal agricultural outputs.” (Swanson)

· According to data from 25 African countries, the strength of an ethnic group identity increases when mineral resource exploitation in that group’s historical homeland intensifies. (Berman, Couttenier, and Girard)

· Grassroots monitoring leads to a decrease in the share of missing expenditures of 8–10 percentage points in non-audit villages in Indonesia. However, “in government audit villages, individuals are less likely to attend, talk, and actively participate in accountability meetings.” (Gonzales, Harvey and Tzachrista)

· “Concentrated incentives, i.e. notifying of audit timing in advance, would have persuaded bureaucrats to forgo misappropriating an additional USD 35m (16% of average annual expenditures [on Indonesia’s employment guarantee program]) when compared to dispersed incentives, i.e. messages are uninformative and audit timing is unpredictable.” (Wong)

· Switching from appointed to randomly assigned municipal auditors in Italy increased municipality’s surplus by 9 percent and debt repayments by 8 percent, with improvements coming from those that ran deficits before the reform and where the mayor did not face re-election pressure. (Vannutelli) #DID

· In Russia, the procurement prices in rigged auctions are between 36 percent and 44 percent higher and the reported number of bidders is 23 percent lower. (Charankevich) #FE

· Reducing the separation between Church and State can be corrosive to political institutions: religious leaders in Pakistan use their legitimacy to gain political office and misuse their political authority to undermine the independence of the Judiciary. (Mehmood and Seror)

· Male-specific labor market shocks in Brazil increase support for Bolsonaro among men, while female-specific labor market shocks reduce support among women. (Barros and Santos Silva)

· Rodrigo Duterte’s 2016 inauguration speech on illegal drugs solidified the population’s perception of illegal drugs as one of the primary and most pressing concerns in the Philippines. (Jetter and Molina)

· Voters in South Africa are swayed by “whether a party is just winning a pre-election poll, compared to just losing.” “Supporters of the party just ahead in the polls are 10 percentage points more likely to turn out to vote and 12 percentage points more likely to vote for their party.” (Orkin)

· Regionalist parties cause local violence in constituencies with significant tribal populations in India, as successful regionalists favor local ethnic majorities, causing higher uncertainty for minority groups. (Kapoor and Magesan)

· The Ebola epidemic in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in 2014 – 2016 led “people living in more ethnically diverse and less segregated communities” to “demonstrate a broadened sense of identity and lower attachment to own ethnic group following Ebola.” But the effect was the opposite in more isolated communities. ( Yarkin ) #FE #IV

· In Nepal, people playing a lab game demonstrated that among closely knit groups, group members may not choose someone to be the formal monitor of behavior, whereas among more sparsely connected groups, they’re more likely to do so. ( Iacobelli and Singh ) #LIF

· “The need to protect from weather-related subsistence shocks led to weaker kin ties and the development of institutional arrangements going beyond the local community.” Countries whose ancestors had weaker kin ties are associated with institutions of higher quality over time. (Tedeschi)

· Network recovery from aggregated relational data is generally possible without parametric assumptions using a nuclear-norm penalized regression. Computation takes seconds for samples with hundreds of observations. (Alidaee, Auerbach, and Leung)

· A tax exemption for newly built buildings in Montevideo, Uruguay led to more housing in some areas. In those areas, grocery store prices fell and there was more variety, driven by increasing competition. ( Borraz et al. ) #DID

· What is the effect of public good and tax collection on tax compliance and political protest? In Haiti, tax collection lowered tax compliance and increased political action, while public goods led to higher tax compliance and lower political action. (Krause) #RCT

· “Multinational firms can avoid paying taxes by using intra-group transactions to shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions.” A tax reform in Chile, intended to raise revenues, did not achieve that, but it did increase “the demand for tax advisory services.” ( Pomeranz ) #DID #ES

· A tax reform in Thailand reduced the price subsidy for long-term savings. Middle-income taxpayers—especially those already making small contributions—reduce their savings much more than high-income taxpayers. ( Muthitacharoen and Burong ) #DID

· Providing better advice to customs inspectors in Madagascar boosted their fraud findings, but less so when “opportunities for graft are large.” Monitoring inspectors did not “result in the detection of more fraud or the collection of more revenue.” ( Chalendard et al. ) #IV #RCT

· A letter experiment to nudge income taxpayers in Eswatini resulted in non-filers significantly responding to the nudges, while nil and active filers did not . (Santoro) #RCT

· Larger municipal councils in Brazil have greater political diversity, collect higher tax revenues (on services), and exhibit higher expenditures on “pro-social” public goods (health, education, and housing). (Kresch et al.) #RD

· A personal income tax reform in Uganda—increasing the marginal tax rate of the top 1 percent group of taxpayers by 10 percentage points—led to a substantial decline in reported income among that income group. (Jouste et al.) #DID

· Firms in India “remit 20% higher taxes and report 16% higher taxable income, once they are subject to third-party audits.” (Choudhary and Gupta) #DID

Urban and infrastructure

· A location-based price subsidy in Bogotá (Colombia) leads to neighborhood blocks having newer houses—implying more construction. Properties in areas receiving a small subsidy are cheaper than those receiving a bigger subsidy. (Uribe) #RD

· Scheduled Castes/Tribes and Muslims are more likely to live in poorer cities in India. Cities with more Muslims have worse access to education and health, while cities with Schedule Castes/Tribes have better access. (Adukia et al.)

· “Subsidies for investment in rural areas in India created net benefits for workers due to larger agglomeration economies.” (Reed)

· Better transit networks reduce overall criminal activity and improve welfare in Medellín, Colombia, despite dispersing some criminality to different parts of the city. (Khanna et al.)

· Areas in Tokyo that had a higher proportion of local lords’ estates at the end of the 1850s now have taller and fewer buildings, more floor space, and higher land prices. (Yamasaki, Nakajima, and Teshima) #RD

· The Taiping Rebellion in 19 th century China blocked land routes and increased sea-trade. This catalyzed a population shift towards port cities. (Hu)

· Transit improvements in Mexico City “reduce informality rates by 4 percentage points” (as informal workers are more sensitive to commuting costs). Worker’s reallocation to the formal sector explain about 17–25 percent of the total welfare gains stemming from the new infrastructure. (Zárate) #DID

· How does slum demolition in Victorian England affect the economic outcomes of the displaced? Displaced residents were 7.4 percentage points more likely to move out of their neighborhood and 7.8 percentage points more likely to change their occupation in the medium-run due to the loss of self-owned businesses and local job opportunities. (He)

· “After the Mexican Revolution, Indigenous people who descend from centralised societies in pre-colonial times were better able to reject road infrastructure in Mexico.” Where road building was less successful, economic outcomes are worse today. (Elizalde and Hidalgo, and Salgado) #DID

· In Turkish provinces where the length of an expressway network increased from 51km to 193km, the AKP party’s vote share increased by 4.2 percentage points, or a one-third increase between 2002 and 2011. (Akubulut-Yuksel, Okoye, and Turan) #FE

· Can White Elephants Kill? Unfinished sewerage projects in Peru “increased early-life mortality, driven by lack of water availability, water-borne diseases and accidents.” (Bancalari)

· Over 40 percent of infrastructure projects in Brazil are never completed. A change in mayor negatively impacts the delivery of projects inherited (from the opposition) in a construction stage, while it positively impacts the delivery of more recent projects. (Granato and Ferraz) #RD

· Areas which adopted electricity early in late 19 th century Switzerland continue to be more industrialized and have higher incomes today. The persistence is explained by increased human capital accumulation and innovation. (Brey) #IV

· Access to rural roads increases agricultural fires (to clear agricultural residue) which cause a 1.25 percent increase in local PM2.5 pollution in rural India. (Garg, Jagnani, and Pullabhotla) #RD

· Brazilian municipalities closer to a migrants’ settlement (from the early 20 th century) have enhanced provision of public goods today and more well-defined property rights. The settlements implied a larger size of the middle class which increased pressures for public goods provision and for more egalitarian legal institutions. (Guimbeau)

Water and sanitation

· A 1 SD reduction in childhood diarrhea mortality rates from the Programa de Agua Limpia—a 1991 clean water program in Mexico—leads to a 6 percent persisting increase in cognitive skills and 0.11 SD increase in height in adolescence. (Bhalotra, Brown, and Venkataramani)

· Drought-hit households in Uganda are 3 percentage points more likely to pay user fees for water and increase time spent fetching water by 1.8 hours per week (13 percent increase). Women and girls spend more time fetching water. (Kamei)

· The Swachh Bharat Mission—an in-house toilet construction program in India—reduced sexual assault of women but did not affect reported rape. (Mahajan and Sekhri) #IV

· Exposure to European Christian missions results in a broader scope of morality in the Democratic Republic of Congo today as it is associated with weaker kinship ties and less communal (i.e. more universal) moral values. (Bergeron) #LIF

· Massive public-school construction in Indonesia in the 70s decreased attendance in primary Islamic schools in favor of public schools but increased enrolment in religious schools at secondary level—absorbing the higher demand that resulted from mass public primary schooling. (Bazzi, Hilmy, and Marx)

· Religious conversion by Christians missions caused persistent anti-gay norms and attitudes in a sample of 33 African countries. (Ananyev and Poyker)

Agriculture and the environment

Agriculture.

· Why do farmers often “sell low” and “buy high”? Across 20 years and 26 countries, the lean-season price (which we’d expect to be high) doesn’t exceed the harvest season price (which we’d expect to be low) more than a quarter of the time across all countries (and more than half the time in Nigeria). Wait, you mean the farmers knew what they were doing all along? ( Cardell and Michelson )

· Giving farmers in Mexico autonomy increased adoption of improved agricultural practices, but only in the years after the intervention ended. ( Gine ) #RCT

· In 2014, maize farmers in Tanzania received vouchers for fertilizer, plot-specific fertilizer recommendations, or both. Three to five years later, only farmers who received both “sustain higher yields after the initial intervention concluded.” But even that might be measurement error. ( Tamim et al. ) #RCT

· Farmers in Bihar, India who received reusable, hermetically sealed storage bags for a small price were no more likely to use them than farmers who got them for free. But getting them for free initially did reduce farmers’ willingness to pay for the bags later, “suggesting free distribution can stifle future markets for repeat-purchase goods.” ( Shukla, Pullabhotla, and Baylis ) #RCT

· Training Bangladeshi farmers on a rice-growing innovation boosted “rice yields, revenues, costs, and profits for both trained and untrained farmers in training villages.” Even life satisfaction went up! ( Barrett et al. ) #RCT

· Training dragon fruit farmers in Vietnam improves the quality of dragon fruit (less pesticide residue), and training farmers and intermediaries improve quality even more, but just training intermediaries didn’t cut it. ( Park, Yuan, and Zhang ) #RCT

· “Several African countries have recently centralized their agricultural markets by launching a commodity exchange. What would be the impact of such a move?” This paper presents a model and finds that “forcing all farmers to sell into the commodity exchange can make some farmers worse off.” ( Nyarko and Pellegrina )

· In Ethiopia, access to a rural road by itself didn’t boost agricultural productivity, and neither did the provision of agricultural extension. But together they boosted productivity by 6 percent. ( Gebresilasse ) #FE #IV

· Why is fertilizer use so low in so many African countries? In Tanzania, lots of farmers worry about counterfeit fertilizer despite testing suggesting it’s not a problem. Two possible explanations: crop yields depend on lots of factors so farmers misattribute low yields to bad fertilizer, and farmers have uncertainty about the likelihood of fertilizer being bad. Evidence from Uganda supports both hypotheses. ( Hoel et al. )

· “Representative household surveys from the wide Niger river basin [in Niger and Nigeria] show that the relationship between farmers’ market access and crop trade is not simply explained by market access.” ( Tsuda )

· How does an agricultural minimum wage affect the effects of weather shocks on labor market outcomes in South Africa? “Minimum wage substantially weakens the resilience of agricultural employment to reduced soil moisture in the short term.” (Sharp) #DID

· A public works program implemented in Ethiopia since 2005 shows no effect on agricultural productivity. (Gazeaud and Stephane) #DID

Natural disasters

· Short-term changes in the share of people living in poverty impact tropical cyclone mortality risk in the Philippines at the municipal level. (Tennant)

· Natural disasters in Indonesia increase risk aversion among exposed individuals, with variation by severity, type and time frame of the disasters. (Purcell)

Deforestation

· Increasing agricultural productivity could lead to either less deforestation (because people use land more intensively) or more deforestation (because it makes agricultural land more valuable). In Uganda, an agricultural extension program reduced annual deforestation. ( Abman et al. ) #RD

· In Peru, re-electing an incumbent mayor reduces deforestation by a third. ( Medina, Moromizato, and Barron ) #RD

· Rising rice prices in Cambodia increased deforestation as farmers used more land for cash crops. ( Wilcox, Ortiz-Bobea, and Just ) #IV

· A tax on passenger vehicles in Uganda decreased imports of passenger vehicles but didn’t reduce registration, since local traders had large inventories. ( Forster and Nakyambadde ) #DID

· Pollution generated by coal fueled power increases anemia among women and children in India. (Datt et al.)

· Receiving air pollution forecasts increases willingness to pay to continue receiving such forecasts in Lahore, Pakistan. (Ahmad et al.) #RCT

· Air pollution in Colombia not only affects respiratory and cardiovascular health, but also mental health. (Ordonez)

· Land acquisition for Special Economic Zones in India “increases uncertainty about landownership leading to a reduction in area under cultivation. This reduces labor demand in agriculture, suppressing agricultural wages and worsening income inequality.” (Misra) #DID

· High levels of air pollution decrease student attendance via a health effect and thus reduce reading outcomes by 1.1–2.4 percentage points and math outcomes by 0.5–1.9 percentage points, with girls and older children witnessing a larger decline. (Balakrishnan and Tsaneva)

Macroeconomics

Growth and inequality.

· Neoclassical growth theory predicts that countries will converge to a level of income affected by their policies, institutions, and culture. Adding the last twenty years of data to older analyses suggests a trend toward unconditional convergence since the 1960s. Policies and institutions have tended to converge toward those associated with richer countries. (Kremer, Willis, and You)

· Splitting municipalities in Brazil “increases economic activity and public sector delivery in new municipalities. Parent municipalities remain unaffected.” (Dahis and Szerman)

· “Individuals that were exposed to democratic institutions during their “impressionable years” (ages 18–25) display persistently higher levels of civic engagement.” (Ajzenman, Aksoy, and Fiszbein)

· Vernacularization, i.e. the increased use of the common or spoken tongues in writing following the Protestant Reformation in 1517, led to a significant increase in works from authors with low socioeconomic background. An increase in vernacular printing also increased city population growth and in future births of famous individuals. (Binzel, Link, and Ramachandran)

· In India, the steady state distribution of household durable expenditures exhibits natural clusters (or “classes”). “Households in the lowest class may be unable to take advantage of either the labor market (via education investment to increase subsequent income) or the marriage market (via durables as a signal of ‘social status’).” (Maitra)

· A new metric intended to capture the concept of “inclusive growth” is used to demonstrate that in India, there is “evidence of inclusive growth only in horizontal decomposition (social groups and religion) in the urban sector and for a few (middle) deciles in the rural sector.” (Thapliyal and Malghan)

· OLS estimates of relative income mobility based on household data in Indonesia show higher mobility than the preferred IV estimates. Absolute mobility in income and consumption expenditure also suggests lower upward mobility. (Zafar) #IV

· Who benefits from an allocation? Allocations of Mexico’s PROGRESA anti-poverty program rank a household 13 percentiles higher if indigenous, 8 percentiles lower for each SD increase in household income, and 21 percentiles higher for each additional small child in the household, on average. (Björkegren, Blumenstock, and Knight)

· Foreign capital liberalization reduces capital misallocation and increases aggregate productivity in India. “For initially high marginal revenue products of capital (MRPK), liberalization increased revenues by 19%, physical capital by 59%, and wage bills by 29%.” There were no effects on low MRPK firms. (Bau and Matray) #DID

· In Peru, “where different ethnic groups were (historically) composed of more heterogenous subpopulations, they engage in more reciprocal behavior and exhibit more open attitudes toward out-group members.” (Artiles)

· How much can employers suppress wages below marginal productivity? In Colombia’s exporting firms, “workers produce about 30% more than their wage level.” (Amodio and de Roux)

· Reductions in trade costs of agricultural outputs and inputs across countries between 1980 and 2015 led to welfare and productivity gains. (Farrokhi and Pellegrina)

· China’s accession to the World Trade Organization and the subsequent reduction in tariff uncertainty (i.e. higher exports) led to a lower probability of enrolling in high school, especially in urban areas. (Leight and Pan) #DID

· “Exporter market power prevents farmers (in Ecuador) from benefiting from international trade.” (Zavala)

· Chinese import competition increased formal employment in India by 4.6 percent and aggregate labor productivity by 3.9 percent. (Chakraborty, Singh, and Soundararajan) #IV

· Exposure to Chinese imports led to short-run declines in employment of both men and women in Peru; however, adverse effects are only persistent for women. (Mansour, Medina, and V é lasquez)

Guide to the methodological hashtags

#DID = Difference-in-differences

#ES = Event study

#FE = Fixed effects

#IV = Instrumental variables

#LIF = Lab in the field

#ML = Machine learning

#PSM = Propensity score matching

#RCT = Randomized controlled trial

#RD = Regression discontinuity

Before you go

Here are summaries of two papers that were rejected by the conference—one submitted by Almedina and one by Dave.

· Experiencing an earthquake in Indonesia before age 5 leads to 0.7 years less schooling in the long run. Boys have lower education outcomes including cognitive skills, whereas girls exhibit worse health outcomes. (Gignoux, Menéndez, and Music) #DID

· Across more than 140 impact evaluations of education interventions in African countries, multi-faceted pedagogical support programs and mother tongue instruction programs both performed well in multiple settings. ( Evans and Mendez Acosta ) You can also read the authors’ blog post about the paper.

The order of authors on this blog was determined by a virtual coin flip . This blog post benefited from research assistance from Amina Mendez Acosta.

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Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development

Senior Economist, Education Global Practice

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Yale Economic Growth Center

New research from EGC's Gender and Growth Gaps project featured in the 2024 World Development Report

August 2, 2024: The World Bank’s 2024 World Development Report – focusing on the "Middle-Income Trap" – features research by EGC's Gender and Growth Gaps project: a new Global Gender Distortions Index which quantifies the economic growth potential from closing gender gaps in the labor market.

EGC Gender and Growth Gaps Research Featured in World Bank’s 2024 World Development Report

By Adam Walker August 2, 2024

The 2024 WDR focuses on the "Middle-Income Trap", a situation where growth slows when countries hit middle-income levels, and the leap to high-income status requires entirely new levers for economic transformation.

It featured the Global Gender Distortions Index, which EGC researchers are developing under the Gender and Growth Gaps project to measure economic growth losses due to gender gaps in the labor market. The GGDI links gender gap changes to productivity growth by improving the allocation of women’s talent, quantifying how much a country's GDP could grow from better women's labor market opportunities. The index considers labor demand distortions, which create wage and productivity discrepancies, and occupational preferences influenced by social norms. Using wage, labor supply, and employment differences, the GGDI estimates productivity losses or gains, allowing cross-time and location comparisons to inform policy decisions.

"Integrating women into the labor market is widely believed to be beneficial not only for women but for the entire economy," explained Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg , the Elihu Professor of Economics and Global Affairs and Professor of Management, and member of the Gender and Growth Gaps program faculty. "The GGDI operationalizes this idea. It is the product of a successful collaboration between Yale’s Economic Growth Center and the World Bank, and we hope that it will help guide policy decisions – especially in developing countries where gender gaps in the labor market remain significant."

The GGDI will be computed for 30 countries over the next 24 months, serving as a dynamic economic barometer.

Read more and download the 2024 WDR at the World Bank's website .

Gender and Growth Gaps Project
Gender and Growth Gaps in India - Research and Policy Dialogue 2024
Download the 2024 WDR
Download WDR Box 5.3 on the Global Gender Distortions Index
Goldberg et al., 2024

Looks and Gaming: Who and Why?

We investigate the relationship between physical attractiveness and the time people devote to video/computer gaming. Average American teenagers spend 2.6% of their waking hours gaming, while for adults this figure is 2.7%. Using the American Add Health Study, we show that adults who are better-looking have more close friends. Arguably, gaming is costlier for them, and they thus engage in less of it. Physically attractive teens are less likely to engage in gaming at all, whereas unattractive teens who do game spend more time each week on it than other gamers. Attractive adults are also less likely than others to spend any time gaming; and if they do, they spend less time on it than less attractive adults. Using the longitudinal nature of the Add Health Study, we find supportive evidence that these relationships are causal for adults: good looks decrease gaming time, not vice-versa.

We are grateful for helpful comments from Sarah Jewell, Simonetta Longhi, Samantha Rawlings, Rachel Scarfe, Dominik Schreyer, and Paul Telemo. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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2024, 16th Annual Feldstein Lecture, Cecilia E. Rouse," Lessons for Economists from the Pandemic" cover slide

In this blog, you’ll find some of the top macroeconomic research Paper topics for 2024. Grasping macroeconomics enables you to understand the workings of national and global economies. Let’s delve into this subject-oriented essay topic blog to explore what macroeconomics is and why it is crucial for your research.

What is Macroeconomics? Definition and Scope

Macroeconomics focuses on broad economic factors such as national income, total employment, and aggregate price levels. It explores how different sectors of the economy interact on a large scale. The discussion could be on anything, including government policies, international trade, and global financial systems.

Macroeconomics studies the economy broadly, concentrating on aspects like GDP, inflation rates, and unemployment, whereas microeconomics zeroes in on individual and business decisions. Macroeconomics addresses large-scale economic factors, while microeconomics explores supply and demand, consumer behavior, and pricing more granularly. Macroeconomics centralizes its attention on broader aspects, while microeconomics focuses on specific topics. Both perspectives offer valuable insights but from distinct viewpoints.

3 Primary Objectives of Macroeconomics

1. Economic Growth: As a primary objective, economic growth aims to increase the output of goods and services in an economy over time. Sustained economic growth improves living standards, creates job opportunities, and boosts national income. It also empowers governments with more resources to invest in public services and infrastructure.

2. Inflation: Inflation control is a key objective in macroeconomics, focusing on maintaining price stability within an economy. By managing inflation, governments and central banks aim to ensure that prices do not rise too quickly, which can erode purchasing power. Effective inflation control supports economic stability and promotes sustainable growth.

3. Unemployment: Reducing unemployment is a central goal. It aims to balance job availability. High employment levels contribute to economic stability and growth by maximizing the productive capacity of the workforce. Policymakers focus on creating job prospects and enhancing skills to address unemployment and support a healthy economy.

Importance of Studying Macroeconomics

Macroeconomics offers a comprehensive view of economic health and guides effective policy implementation. Understanding these concepts is essential for grasping the complexities of both national and global economies. Studying macroeconomics is crucial for several reasons. See the following to know them:

Informed Policy Making : Understanding macroeconomic principles helps policymakers design effective strategies to manage economic growth, control inflation, and reduce unemployment. This knowledge is vital for creating policies that stabilize and stimulate the economy.

Economic Forecasting : Macroeconomics provides tools for predicting future economic trends and conditions. Accurate forecasts can guide business decisions, investments, and financial planning, helping both individuals and organizations prepare for potential economic changes.

Global Economic Understanding : Macroeconomics analyzes global economic interactions and trade to help understand the impact of international events on national economies. This knowledge is essential for navigating and responding to global economic challenges.

Economic Stability and Growth : Studying macroeconomics helps understand the factors contributing to economic stability and growth. This insight is crucial for developing strategies to effectively promote sustainable economic development and manage economic fluctuations.

How to Select a Good Macroeconomics Research Topic?

Identify areas of interest :.

Begin by considering what aspects of macroeconomics capture your interest. Are you intrigued by the impact of government policies on economic performance, or are you interested in the effects of international trade? Selecting a topic that genuinely excites you will make the research process more enjoyable and engaging. For instance, if you have a passion for environmental issues, you might investigate the economic implications of climate change policies.

Review Current Literature :

Reviewing current literature is crucial for selecting a good macroeconomic research topic. It helps you understand existing research trends, identify gaps in knowledge, and spot areas where further investigation is needed. Reviewing recent studies, theories, and findings helps pinpoint unresolved issues or underexplored areas, aligning your interests and having the potential for impactful research. It ensures your topic is both relevant and original, contributing to the broader field of macroeconomics.

Look for Gaps in Existing Research

After pinpointing your area of interest, review existing research to identify gaps. Are there unresolved questions or areas with contradictory results? Addressing these gaps can lead to a distinctive and influential research paper. For example, if most studies focus on the impact of fiscal policy on economic growth but overlook its effects during economic downturns, exploring this angle could provide valuable insights.

Consider Practical Relevance, Impact & Timeliness :

A topic with practical relevance addresses real-world economic issues, influencing policy decisions, business strategies, or societal outcomes. Evaluating the impact ensures that your research can contribute meaningful insights or solutions to pressing economic challenges. Timeliness reflects current economic trends, making your research more pertinent to audiences. This approach makes your work academically rigorous, applicable, and influential.

Evaluate Data and Resource Feasibility:

Ensure you have access to reliable and comprehensive data sources like economic reports, statistical databases, and scholarly articles necessary for your analysis. Consider whether you have the tools and skills required to analyze this data effectively. Assessing the feasibility involves determining if you can realistically obtain and utilize the necessary data within your research timeline and constraints. It ensures that your research is thoroughly and effectively conducted, leading to credible and insightful results.

Define Clear Objectives :

Start by outlining what you aim to discover or prove through your research. This could be anything from understanding the impact of monetary policy on inflation to evaluating the effects of trade tariffs on economic growth. Articulated objectives guide your focus, narrow your topic, and keep your research relevant. This clarity streamlines the research process, enhancing your findings’ quality and coherence. It also facilitates the communication of your findings.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

How does the energy consumption structure affect the green economic development a spatial impact analysis.

1 School of Economics, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, China
2 Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, Shandong Province, China

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Optimizing the structure of energy consumption (ECS) is conducive to promoting the improvement of efficiency and quality of regional green economic development (GED). This study utilizes panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2021 to construct a comprehensive evaluation index of green economic development (GED) and adopts a spatial Durbin model to assess the impact of energy consumption structure (ECS) on GED. Results mainly showed that: (1) ECS improved GED and passed the significance test. (2) The ECS optimization had apparent spatial spillover effects. The optimization of ECS in this region promoted the GED of neighboring regions, which was more significant in central and western regions. (3) As for regional heterogeneity, the optimization effect of ECS on the region presents central region > western region > eastern region. (4) ECS affects GED through industrial structure optimization. It is crucial for structuring energy usage, improving human well-being, and fostering sustainable growth.

Keywords: China, Energy consumption structure, Green economy development, spatial Durbin model, Mechanism analysis

Received: 05 Apr 2024; Accepted: 14 Aug 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Zhang, Wang and Guan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Shumin Zhang, School of Economics, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, China Jiawei Guan, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, 250014, Shandong Province, China

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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