Research
My research aims to improve poverty, health and education in Africa by studying policies and interventions via randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and natural experiments.
Working Papers
“Double-Booked: Effects of Overlap between School and Farming Calendars on Education and Child Labor,” IFPRI Discussion Paper 2235, Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, January 2024.
Synopsis: Across sub-Saharan Africa, countries with a greater percentage of overlapping days in their school and farming calendars also have lower primary school survival rates, as greater overlap between these calendars reduces the time available for both schooling and farm-based child labor. I causally identify such effects by leveraging a four-month shift to the school calendar in Malawi that differentially affected communities based on their pre-policy crop allotments. I find that a 10-day increase in school calendar overlap during peak farming periods decreases school advancement by 0.34 grades after four years (one lost grade for every three children) and also reduces child labor on the household farm. Policy simulations show that adapting the school calendar to minimize overlap with peak farming periods should increase school participation by better accommodating farm labor demand.
Links: World Bank Development Impact Blog, UM Article, Working Paper Version
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Publications:
“Correcting Perceived Social Distancing Norms to Combat COVID-19”, (with Arlete Mahumane, James Riddell IV, Tanya Rosenblat, Dean Yang, and Hang Yu), Economic Development and Cultural Change, forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.1086/727192
Synopsis: Can informing people of high rates of community support for social distancing encourage them to do more of it? We randomly assigned a “social norm correction” treatment, informing people of true high rates of community support for social distancing. Consistent with our theory, the treatment increases social distancing where COVID-19 case loads are high, but decreases it where caseloads are low.
Presentation: Johns Hopkins Special Online Conference on Experimental Insights from Behavioural Economics on Covid-19
Links: Replication Package, NBER Working Paper 28651, AEA Registry, Populated PAP, IPA Project Summary, Policy Brief, Project Website
“Knowledge, Stigma, and HIV Testing: An Analysis of a Widespread HIV/AIDS Program,” (with Arlete Mahumane, James Riddell IV, Dean Yang, and Hang Yu), Journal of Development Economics, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2022.102958
Synopsis: Using randomized methodologies, we study a common community HIV/AIDS program that seeks to promote HIV testing by improving knowledge and reducing stigmatizing attitudes. Contrary to expectations, the program has a substantial negative effect on HIV testing rates. We provide evidence of likely mechanisms behind the program’s negative effect: it inadvertently increased misinformation about HIV, and worsened HIV-related stigmatizing attitudes.
Links: NBER Working Paper 28716, AEA Registry, Populated PAP
"Teaching and Incentives: Substitutes or Complements?" (with Arlete Mahumane, James Riddell IV, Tanya Rosenblat, Dean Yang, and Hang Yu), Economics of Education Review, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102317
Synopsis: Interventions to promote learning are often categorized into supply- and demand-side approaches. In a randomized experiment to promote learning about COVID-19 among Mozambican adults, we study the interaction between a supply and a demand intervention, respectively: teaching, and providing financial incentives to learners. Experts surveyed in advance predicted a high degree of substitutability between the two treatments. In contrast, we find substantially more complementarity than experts predicted. Combining teaching and incentive treatments raises COVID-19 knowledge test scores by 0.5 standard deviations.
Links: Replication Package, NBER Working Paper 28976, AEA Registry, Populated PAP, Policy Brief, Project Website
Synopsis: In this paper, I test for geographic heterogeneity in separability—a common test of functioning agricultural markets—between rural, peri-urban, and urban districts using 2014-15 World Bank LSMS data from Tanzania. I find evidence that can be interpreted of increased agricultural market functionality around 3 of Tanzania's 5 largest cities relative to rural areas. Adapted from a second-year term paper.
Other Publications:
"The Demography of the Labor Force in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities," (with David Lam and Murray Leibbrandt), GLM|LIC Synthesis Paper No. 10, November 2019.
Synopsis: The world is projected to add 3.1 billion people to the total population and 1.4 billion people to the working-age population between 2020 and 2100. Almost all of the additional working-age people will be added in Sub-Saharan Africa, a dramatic change from previous decades. This paper analyzes the demography of the African labor force in the coming decades using the United Nations population projections and shows that by 2050 Africa will be the only region in the world with a growing working-age population and will be the only region in which the ratio of dependents to working-age population is falling.
Works in Progress
“Impact Evaluation of Egypt’s Forsa Graduation Program” (with Daniel Gilligan, Sikandra Kurdi, Nada Shokry, and Basma Yassa).
Status: Data collection complete. Analysis ongoing.
Policy outputs: Midline Report, Midline Policy Note
“The Economics of Health Decision-Making in Mozambique” (with Arlete Mahumane, James Riddell IV, Tanya Rosenblat, Dean Yang, and Hang Yu).
Status: Data collection ongoing.
See AEA Registry for pre-analysis plan for “Hiring Effective Health Promoters”
See other outputs from recent Combating Covid-19 study: policy briefs and summary reports
“World Vision PARES Evaluation on Phase-Out of School-Feeding in Mozambique” (with Naureen Karachiwalla and Jordan Kyle).
Status: Preparing for baseline data collection.
“Blood Taxes: The Development Effects of Military Conscription in Colonial French West Africa” (with Jon Denton-Schneider).
Status: Digitizing raw data collected at the Archives Nationales du Senegal.
Pre-Doctoral Research
Select Publications from when I worked as Research Director for the Community and Economic Development Initiative of Kentucky (CEDIK) at the University of Kentucky, 2012-2016:
“Impacts of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) voucher program on food lifestyle behaviors: Evidence from an employer-sponsored pilot program”, (with Jairus Rossi, Timothy Woods), Sustainability, 9.9, 1543, August 2017. doi:10.3390/su9091543
"CSA shareholder food lifestyle behaviors: a comparison across consumer groups," (with Jairus Rossi, Timothy Woods and Alison Davis), Agriculture and Human Values, February 2017. doi:10.1007/s10460-017-9779-7.
“Do community supported agriculture programmes encourage change to food lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes? New evidence from shareholders,” (with Jairus Rossi, Timothy Woods and Alison Davis), International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, May 2016. doi: 10.1080/14735903.2016.1177866.
“Constructing a multi-dimensional measure of local entrepreneurial culture,” (with Nicole Breazeale, Michael W-P Fortunato, Ronald J. Hustedde, Helen Pushkarskaya), Community Development, 46:5, 516-540, October 2015. doi: 10.1080/15575330.2015.1080743.
“Residents’ Willingness-to-Pay for Attributes for Rural Health Care Facilities,” (with Alison Davis, Wuyang Hu, Emmanuel Owusu-Amankwah), Journal of Rural Health, 31:1, 7-18, July 2014. doi: 10.1111/jrh.12080.
Select Working Papers from when I studied Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University:
“Determinants of Land Allocation in a Multi-Crop Farming System: An Application of the Fractional Multinomial Logit Model to Agricultural Households in Mali,” Master's Thesis and Working Paper, AgEcon Search, May 28, 2014.
“Lessons Learned from 25 Years of Food Security Research, Capacity-Building, and Outreach,” (with Eric Crawford, Duncan Boughton, and John Staatz), Michigan State University, International Development Working Paper 101, October, 2009.