Institutions

Female Entrepreneurship and Trust in the Market

Commerce requires trust, but trust is difficult when one group can expropriate another using violence or social power.

Working Paper
25 Mar 2025

Monopoly of Taxation Without a Monopoly of Violence: The Weak State’s Trade-Offs From Taxation

This study presents a new economic perspective on state-building based on a case study in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s hinterland. We explore the implications for the state of considering rebels as stationary bandits.

Journal Article
15 Jan 2025

Social Origins of Militias: The Extraordinary Rise of “Outraged Citizens"

We use a sharp withdrawal of the state that precipitated a rise in insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to analyze the role of community in the rise of militias.

Working Paper
15 Jan 2025

Does weak contract enforcement hurt female entrepreneurship and inter-gender business linkages?

This project is a series of low-cost lab-in-the-field interventions that aim to identify the causal effects of institutions on business performance and gender gaps, and explore the channels behind this effect in Lusaka, Zambia.

Research Project
28 Oct 2024

Connections, Gender, and Access to State-Facilitated Private Sector Development: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Senegal

In developing countries, access to opportunities within the private sector are often unequally distributed. Advantages accrue to those with connections to the state or to those with privileged social status.

Research Note
22 Mar 2023

Violence and black markets: Evidence from the Niger Delta conflict

We use original data on the locations of militant commanders, attacks on the petroleum industry, and oil theft to show that a 2009 amnesty concluding the Niger Delta oil conflict led to sustained declines in militant activity and growth in oil theft.

Working Paper
2 Feb 2022

Development through Integration

What would happen if a poor country were to be integrated with a richer neighbor? Our analysis of the reunification of South and North Korea shows convergence of income between countries but divergence within.

Research Note
2 Mar 2021

Rule of Law and Female Entrepreneurship

Commerce requires trust, but trust is difficult when one group consistently fears expropriation by another.

Working Paper
1 Dec 2020

The Politics of Order in Informal Markets: Evidence from Lagos

Property rights are important for economic exchange, but in many parts of the world, they are not publicly guaranteed.

Journal Article
1 Jan 2020

Political Connections and Access to Private-Sector Growth: Evidence from an Audit Experiment in Senegal

This project examines whether political and personal connections, as well as co-ethnicity, co-religiosity and gender, affect access to institutions.

Research Project
1 Oct 2019

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