Research

Working Papers       Published Papers        ISSER-Northwestern-Yale Ghana Panel Survey      Other


Working Papers

  1. Does Poverty Change Labor Supply? Evidence from Multiple Income Effects and 115,579 Bags, with Abhijit Banerjee, Dean Karlan and Hannah Trachtman. December 2023.
  2. Estimating Impact with Surveys versus Digital Traces: Evidence from Randomized Cash Transfers in Togo, with Emily Aiken, Suzanne Bellue, Joshua Blumenstock, and Dean Karlan. September 2023.
  3. The Fading Treatment Effects of a Multi-Faceted Asset-Transfer Program in Ethiopia, with Nathan Barker, Dean Karlan and Kelsey Wright. July 2023.
  4. Social Protection and Social Distancing During the Pandemic: Mobile Money Transfers in Ghana, with Dean Karlan, Matt Lowe, Robert Osei, Isaac Osei-Akoto and Benjamin Roth, July 2022
  5. Sharing Research Results with Participants, with Sam Friedlander, Mikaela Rabb, Caroline Tangoren, Jenny Aker and Sule Alan. December 2020.
  6. The Effects of Land Title Registration on Tenure Security, Investment and the Allocation of Productive Resources: Evidence from Ghana, with Andrew Agyei-Holmes, Niklas Buehren, Markus Goldstein, Robert Osei and Isaac Osei-Akoto. September 2020.
  7. Assessing the Benefits of Long-Run Weather Forecasting for the Rural Poor: Farmer Investments and Worker Migration in a Dynamic Equilibrium Model, with Mark Rosenzweig, May 2019.
  8. Information, Market Access and Risk: Addressing Constraints to Agricultural Transformation in Northern Ghana, March 2019
  9. Forecasting Profitability, with Mark Rosenzweig, June 2014.
  10. Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Côte d’Ivoire: Social Norms, Separate Accounts and Consumption Choices, December 2004, with Esther Duflo.


Publications

  1. Selection into Credit Markets: Evidence from Agriculture in Mali, with Lori Beaman, Dean Karlan and Bram Thuysbaert, Econometrica. September 2023. 91/5, pp. 1595-1627.
  2. How Political Insiders Lose Out When International Aid Underperforms: Evidence from a Participatory Development Experiment in Ghana, with Kate Baldwin, Dean Karlan, and Ernest Appiah. World Development, September 2023.
  3. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Among Ghana’s Rural Poor is Effective Regardless of Baseline Mental Distress, with Nathan Barker, Gharad Bryan, Dean Karlan and Angela Ofori-Atta. American Economic Review: Insights. 4/4, December 2022 CBT manual.
  4. Tackling Psychosocial and Capital Constraints Opens Pathways out of Poverty, with Thomas Bossuroy, Markus Goldstein, Dean Karlan, Harounan Kazianga, William Pariente, Patrick Premand, Catherine Thomas, Julia Vaillant and Kesley Wright. May 2022. Nature. 605/7909, pp. 291-297
  5. Machine Learning and Phone Data can Improve Targeting of Humanitarian Aid, with Emily Aiken, Suzanne Bellue, Dean Karlan and Joshua E. Blumenstock. 2022. Nature. 603/7903, pp. 864-870
  6. Agricultural Technology in Africa, with Tavneet Suri.  Journal of Economic Perspectives.36/1 Winter 2022.
  7. Unpacking a Multi-Faceted Program to Build Sustainable Income for the Very Poor, with Abhijit Banerjee, Dean Karlan, Robert Osei and Hannah Trachtman.  Journal of Development Economics. December 2021.
  8. Social Protection Amidst Social Upheaval: Examining the Impact of a Multi-Faceted Program for Ultra-Poor Households in Yemen, with Lasse Brune, Dean Karlan and Sikandra Kurdi. Journal of Development Economics. November 2021.
  9. A Call for Structured Ethics Appendices in Social Science Papers, with Edward Asiedu, Dean Karlan and Monica Lambon-Quayefio. PNAS. 118(29) 20 July 2021.
  10. Falling Living Standards During the COVID-19 Crisis: Quantitative Evidence from Nine Developing Countries,” with Dennis Egger, Edward Miguel, Shana S. Warren, Ashish Shenoy, Elliott Collins, Dean Karlan, Doug Parkerson, Mushfiq Mobarak, Gunther Fink, Michael Walker, Johannes Haushofer, Magdalena Lerreboure, Susan Athey, Paula Lopez-Pena, Salim Benhachmi, Macartan Humphreys, Layna Lowe, Niccolo F. Meriggi, Andrew Wabwire, C. Austin Davis, Utz Johann Pape, Tilman Graff, Maarten Voors, Carolyn Nekesa and Corey Vernot. Science Advances. 7/6, February 2021
  11. Heterogeneity, Measurement Error and Misallocation: Evidence from African Agriculture, with Douglas Gollin, Journal of Political Economy. 129(1) 1-80, January 2021.
  12. Blue Porches: Finding the Limits of External Validity of the Endowment Effect, with Gharad Bryan, Matthew Grant, Dean Karlan and Meredith Startz. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. 2020. 176.
  13. External Validity in a Stochastic World: Evidence from Low Income Countries, with Mark Rosenzweig, Review of Economic Studies, 87(1) 343-381, January 2020.
  14. Good Identification, Meet Good Data, with Andrew Dillon, Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman. World Development, 127/1. January 2020.
  15. Impact of Savings Groups on the Lives of the Poor (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), Early Edition: March 7, 2017 with Dean Karlan, Beniamino Savonitto, Bram Thuysbaert (Data)
  16. A Multifacited Program Causes Lasting Progress for the Poor: Evidence from Six Countries, with Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Nathanael Goldberg, Dean Karlan, Robert Osei, William Parienté, Jeremy Shapiro, Bram Thuysbaert. Science. Vol. 348 no. 6236. 15 May 2015.
  17. Consulting and Capital Experiments with Micro and Small Tailoring Enterprises in Ghana, with Dean Karlan and Ryan Knight, 2015, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 118, 281-302 Earlier version, Hoping to Win, Expected to Lose: Theory and Lessons on Micro Enterprise Development.
  18. Agricultural Decisions after Relaxing Credit and Risk Constraints, with Dean Karlan, Robert Osei and Isaac Osei-Akoto. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 129(2), May 2014.
  19. Rainfall Forecasts, Weather and Wages over the Agricultural Production Cycle, with Mark Rosenzweig. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings.104(5), May 2014.
  20. Profitability of Fertilizer: Experimental Evidence from Female Rice Farmers in Mali,  with Lori Beaman and Dean Karlan. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 2013.
  21. Poor Mental Health in Ghana: Who is at Risk?, with Heather Sipsma, Angela Ofori-Atta, Maureen Canavan, Isaac Osei-Akoto and Elizabeth Bradley. BMC Public Health, 2013, 13:288.
  22. Psychological Distress in Ghana: Associations with Employment and Lost Productivity, with Maureen Canavan, Heather Sipsma, Achyua Adhvaryu, Angela Ofori-Atta, Helen Jack, Isaac Osei-Akoto and Elizabeth Bradley. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 2013, 7:9.
  23. Land Tenure, in Ernest Aryeetey, Shantayanan Devarajan and Ravi Kanbur, eds. The Oxford Companion to the Economics of Africa, 2011
  24. Esther Duflo, 2010 John Bates Clark Medalist, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2011
  25. Crop Price Indemnified Loans for Farmers: A Pilot Experiment in Rural Ghana, with Dean Karlan, Ed Kutsoati and Margaret McMillan. March 2011, Journal of Risk and Insurance. Data. Survey instruments.
  26. The Economics of Agriculture in Africa: Notes on a Research Program. Forthcoming, African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics
  27. Creating Property Rights: Land Banks in Ghana 16 Property Rights, with Ernest Aryeetey. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 2010.
  28. Learning About a New Technology: Pineapple in Ghana, with Tim Conley. American Economic Review, March 2010.
  29. The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana, with Markus Goldstein. Journal of Political Economy, December 2008
  30. Households and the Social Organization of Consumption in Southern Ghana, with Hyungi Woo. African Studies Review, 2007.
  31. The Return to Capital in Ghana, with Santosh Anagol, February 2006, AER Papers and Proceedings.
  32. Addressing Unequal Economic Opportunities: A Case Study of Land Tenure in Ghana, with Markus Goldstein. Development Outreach, February 2006.
  33. Institutions and Development: A View from Below, in Advances in Economics and Econometrics 2006, Blundell, Newey and Persson, eds., with Rohini Pande
  34. Consumption Smoothing? Livestock, Insurance and Drought in Rural Burkina Faso, Journal of Development Economics, 2006 with Harounan Kazianga.
  35. Rural Financial Markets in Developing Countries, Handbook of Agricultural Economics, 2007, with Jonathan Conning.
  36. Child Labor, in Banerjee, Benabou and Mookherjee, eds. Understanding Poverty, 2006.
  37. Fieldwork, Economic Theory and Research on Institutions in Developing Countries, January 2003. A somewhat less terse version that ignores the AER Papers and Proceedings restrictions.
  38. Social Learning Through Networks: The Adoption of New Agricultural Technologies in Ghana, November 2000, with Tim Conley. Forthcoming, American Journal of Agricultural Economics.
  39. Development Microeconomics, a graduate textbook I’ve written with Pranab Bardhan.
  40. Efficiency and Market Structure: Testing for Profit Maximization in African Agriculture, June 1997.
  41. Gender, Agricultural Productivity and the Theory of the Household, Journal of Political Economy, 1996 (104/5).
  42. Drought and Saving in West Africa: Are Livestock a Buffer Stock?, with Marcel Fafchamps and Katie Czukas. 1997, Journal of Development Economics.
  43. Risk and Saving in Northern Nigeria, American Economic Review, January 1996.
  44. Recent Advances in Empirical Microeconomic Research in Poor Countries,Journal of Economic Education, Winter 1997.
  45. The Characteristics of Informal Financial Markets in Africa, with Ernest Aryeetey, Journal of African Economies 1997 (6/1) .
  46. Estimation of Type 3 Tobit Models using Symmetric Trimming and Pairwise Comparisons, with Bo Honoré and Ekaterini Kyriazidou , This paper is available at the Journal of Econometrics web site.
  47. “Financial Markets and Financial Liberalization in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Synthesis,” with Ernest Aryeetey and Lemma Senbet.” 1997. Journal of African Economies. 6(1).
  48. “Risk and Insurance in a Rural Credit Market: An Empirical Investigation in Northern Nigeria,” 1994. Review of Economic Studies. 61(3), no. 208, pp. 495-526.
  49. “Agricultural Credit in Northern Nigeria: Credit as Insurance in a Rural Economy.” World Bank Economic Review, 1990, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 251-269.  Revised version reprinted in K. Hoff, A. Braverman, and J. Stiglitz, eds. 1993. The Economics of Rural Organization. Oxford: Oxford University
  50. “Production Relations in Semi-Arid African Agriculture,” with Hans Binswanger and John McIntire, in Bardhan, P., ed. (1989) The Economic Theory of Agrarian Institutions. Oxford: Clarendon Press
  51. Review of Bevan, D., P. Collier and J. Gunning. 1989. Peasants and Governments: An Economic Analysis. Oxford: Clarendon Press in Economic Journal, 1991, Vol. 101 No. 408, pp. 1304-6.


Other Things

  1. Northwestern Alumni Assocation, Economic Research in the Real World: Understanding Extreme Poverty, January 2022
  2. Power Point presentation for “The Teaching of Africa”, July 2011.
  3. Networks, Local Institutions and Agriculture in Africa: Notes Toward a Research Program, July 2009.
  4. Slides from “Mixing Methods” talk
  5. Informal Notes on Households, Firms and Networks in Africa, April, 2000.
  6. Agricultural Innovation and Resource Management in Ghana with Markus Goldstein . September 1999. Here are the landscape figures  and the portrait figures.
    This appendix contains reproductions of the survey instruments, and the schedule of their administration.
  7. Documentation for the Northern Nigeria Rural Credit Survey. This is data that I collected in 1988-89 near Zaria, Northern Nigeria. One relevant reference is Udry, “Risk and Insurance in a Rural Credit Market: An Empirical Investigation in Northern Nigeria.” Review of Economic Studies, 61, 1994. You can download the data. If you do download the data, I ask that you send me e-mail to let me know. I would also like to receive copies of any papers written using these data. The data are also available at the ICPSR as study number 1107.