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Published and Forthcoming Papers:
Sports Betting: (forthcoming, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics) I first became aware of sports betting while spending time in Liberia. Every street corner had groups of young men, discussing and debating international football games and fervently placing bets on the day's matches. In Monrovia, a city with limited new investments and capital, it was striking to see international organizations flooding the market with electronic betting consoles linking local vendors to international betting odds. After getting to know and talking with many of the bettors themselves, it quickly became clear that these young men were spending considerable portions of their weekly income on sports betting (8-15%). With high expected losses from participation (~35-50%), I wanted to understand both the causes and consequences of such high levels of participation in economically disadvantaged populations. I was later forced to shift the project to Uganda where I saw a nearly identical system of sports betting with similar levels of popularity and intensity. Field work was conducted from September 2015-July 2016. The paper looks at the tension between betting and saving as competing strategies of liquidity generation in pursuit of large, lumpy expenditures. |
Betting shop in Kampala, Uganda
Betting stand in Monrovia, Liberia
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Sport for Development? A Randomized Control Trial among Vulnerable Youth in Liberia (with Lori Beaman, Niall Keleher, and Jeremy Magruder): (forthcoming, Economic Development and Cultural Change)
Over the past two decades, sports programs have proliferated as a form of direct intervention as well as a mode of engaging youth in development projects. Thousands of organizations, millions of participants, and hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in sports based development programs each year. The underlying belief that sports promote socioemotional skills, psychological well-being, and foster traits that boost employability has provided motivation to expand funding and offerings of sports for development (SFD) programs. Through a randomized control trial in Monrovia, Liberia, we assess the impact of a sports and non-cognitive skills development
program for vulnerable youth. Our results do not show evidence of improved psychosocial behaviors. However, we do see a 0.115 standard deviation increase in an index of labor market outcomes for those randomly assigned to participate. While we are unable to isolate the mechanism of these impacts, we find that the effects are strongest among those likely to be most disadvantaged in the labor market.
Income Variability, Evolving Diets, and Elasticity Estimation of Demand for Processed Foods in Nigeria (with Alan de Brauw): (forthcoming, American Journal of Agricultural Economics)
We present evidence on evolving dietary patterns in Nigeria using six rounds of household consumption data from the Nigerian General Household Survey panel between 2011 and 2016. First, following conventional definitions in the literature, we show that Nigeria has not shown any aggregate increase in consumption of highly processed foods over this period, contrary to patterns observed elsewhere in the region. In fact, consumption of highly processed foods at home has declined, while food consumed away from home, often assumed to be highly processed, has risen substantially. We then show that estimates of food expenditure elasticities of different food types are highly sensitive to different estimation approaches and raise concerns about some frequently used methods in the literature. In the absence of credible exogenous variation, we argue for the importance of panel methods and household fixed effects to control for time invariant factors likely to confound cross-sectional estimates. Finally, we examine semiparametric Engel curves for different food groups and find that apparent curvature in the relationships between food budget shares and overall food expenditure levels in the raw data become nearly linear when removing variation explained by time-invariant household factors.
Working Papers and Work in Progress:
Insecurity and Industrial Organization: Evidence from Afghanistan (with Josh Blumenstock, Tarek Ghani, Ethan Kapstein, Tom Scherer, and Ott Toomet): Working Paper
We provide new evidence on how insecurity affects firm behavior by linking data on violent conflict in Afghanistan to geo-stamped corporate mobile phone records. We begin by developing a method for observing firm location choice with phone data, and validate these measurements using independent sources of administrative and survey data. Next, we show that deadly terrorist attacks reduce the presence of firms in targeted districts by 4-6%. The effect includes both an increase in the local exit of existing firms following attacks and a decrease in new firm entry. We find large negative spillovers from attacks in provincial capitals on firm presence in nearby rural districts. After violence, employees in provincial capitals are 33% more likely to move to Kabul and 15% more likely to leave for another province.
Are We Done Yet? Response Fatigue and Rural Livelihoods (with Kate Ambler and Mywish Maredia): Working Paper
Survey modules that gather information about multiple household members impose significant costs on households’ designated respondents. In rural Ghana, we estimate how response fatigue impacts the measurement of productive activities by randomizing the order in which members are asked about. We estimate that response fatigue leads to an undercounting of labor activities by an average of 8%. Women and youth are systematically listed later and the effects of fatigue, conditional on roster position, are also stronger for these groups. These two factors induce systematic biases when comparing labor contributions by gender or age, both within households and in population-wide estimates.
Marriage Markets and Income Shocks (with Marieke Kleemans):
We look at both ex-ante and ex-post responses to income volatility in household marriage market decisions. Inter-household linkages and risk-coping networks are particularly important in areas without complete insurance mechanisms and creation of risk-mitigating household linkages may be reflected in marriage partner selection. Where insurance remains incomplete and in societies where financial burdens associated with marriage are asymmetric, large correlated income shocks, such as those from rainfall, can shift both the supply and demand for brides in a marriage market with predictions on marriage timing and marriage-linked migration affected by marriage market structure. We test for evidence of these factors using data from Indonesia.
Conception and Contraceptives in Times of Drought: Draft Available on Request
The ability of parents to adjust the timing of conception away from those of financial hardship has important implications for the well-being of their children and overall households. This paper looks at whether droughts affect timing of conception among agriculture-dependent rural populations across Africa. In addition, I examine impacts on contraceptive usage in order to show that responses are, at least in part, the result of intentional choices made by parents and not exclusively the byproduct of other physiological or shock-coping responses.
Over the past two decades, sports programs have proliferated as a form of direct intervention as well as a mode of engaging youth in development projects. Thousands of organizations, millions of participants, and hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in sports based development programs each year. The underlying belief that sports promote socioemotional skills, psychological well-being, and foster traits that boost employability has provided motivation to expand funding and offerings of sports for development (SFD) programs. Through a randomized control trial in Monrovia, Liberia, we assess the impact of a sports and non-cognitive skills development
program for vulnerable youth. Our results do not show evidence of improved psychosocial behaviors. However, we do see a 0.115 standard deviation increase in an index of labor market outcomes for those randomly assigned to participate. While we are unable to isolate the mechanism of these impacts, we find that the effects are strongest among those likely to be most disadvantaged in the labor market.
Income Variability, Evolving Diets, and Elasticity Estimation of Demand for Processed Foods in Nigeria (with Alan de Brauw): (forthcoming, American Journal of Agricultural Economics)
We present evidence on evolving dietary patterns in Nigeria using six rounds of household consumption data from the Nigerian General Household Survey panel between 2011 and 2016. First, following conventional definitions in the literature, we show that Nigeria has not shown any aggregate increase in consumption of highly processed foods over this period, contrary to patterns observed elsewhere in the region. In fact, consumption of highly processed foods at home has declined, while food consumed away from home, often assumed to be highly processed, has risen substantially. We then show that estimates of food expenditure elasticities of different food types are highly sensitive to different estimation approaches and raise concerns about some frequently used methods in the literature. In the absence of credible exogenous variation, we argue for the importance of panel methods and household fixed effects to control for time invariant factors likely to confound cross-sectional estimates. Finally, we examine semiparametric Engel curves for different food groups and find that apparent curvature in the relationships between food budget shares and overall food expenditure levels in the raw data become nearly linear when removing variation explained by time-invariant household factors.
Working Papers and Work in Progress:
Insecurity and Industrial Organization: Evidence from Afghanistan (with Josh Blumenstock, Tarek Ghani, Ethan Kapstein, Tom Scherer, and Ott Toomet): Working Paper
We provide new evidence on how insecurity affects firm behavior by linking data on violent conflict in Afghanistan to geo-stamped corporate mobile phone records. We begin by developing a method for observing firm location choice with phone data, and validate these measurements using independent sources of administrative and survey data. Next, we show that deadly terrorist attacks reduce the presence of firms in targeted districts by 4-6%. The effect includes both an increase in the local exit of existing firms following attacks and a decrease in new firm entry. We find large negative spillovers from attacks in provincial capitals on firm presence in nearby rural districts. After violence, employees in provincial capitals are 33% more likely to move to Kabul and 15% more likely to leave for another province.
Are We Done Yet? Response Fatigue and Rural Livelihoods (with Kate Ambler and Mywish Maredia): Working Paper
Survey modules that gather information about multiple household members impose significant costs on households’ designated respondents. In rural Ghana, we estimate how response fatigue impacts the measurement of productive activities by randomizing the order in which members are asked about. We estimate that response fatigue leads to an undercounting of labor activities by an average of 8%. Women and youth are systematically listed later and the effects of fatigue, conditional on roster position, are also stronger for these groups. These two factors induce systematic biases when comparing labor contributions by gender or age, both within households and in population-wide estimates.
Marriage Markets and Income Shocks (with Marieke Kleemans):
We look at both ex-ante and ex-post responses to income volatility in household marriage market decisions. Inter-household linkages and risk-coping networks are particularly important in areas without complete insurance mechanisms and creation of risk-mitigating household linkages may be reflected in marriage partner selection. Where insurance remains incomplete and in societies where financial burdens associated with marriage are asymmetric, large correlated income shocks, such as those from rainfall, can shift both the supply and demand for brides in a marriage market with predictions on marriage timing and marriage-linked migration affected by marriage market structure. We test for evidence of these factors using data from Indonesia.
Conception and Contraceptives in Times of Drought: Draft Available on Request
The ability of parents to adjust the timing of conception away from those of financial hardship has important implications for the well-being of their children and overall households. This paper looks at whether droughts affect timing of conception among agriculture-dependent rural populations across Africa. In addition, I examine impacts on contraceptive usage in order to show that responses are, at least in part, the result of intentional choices made by parents and not exclusively the byproduct of other physiological or shock-coping responses.