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Sports Betting: 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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Insecurity and Industrial Organization: Evidence from Afghanistan (with Josh Blumenstock, Tarek Ghani, Ethan Kapstein, Tom Scherer, and Ott Toomet): Working Paper
One-fifth of the world's population lives in countries affected by fragility, violence and conflict, impeding long-term economic growth. However, little is known about how firms respond to local changes in security, in part because of the difficulty of measuring firm activity in these settings. This paper makes two contributions. First, we develop a method for observing private sector activity using data from mobile phone networks, and validate this measure with existing administrative data as well as an original survey of 2,300 firms in Afghanistan. Second, we use this new measure of firm activity to examine how major violent events affect firm activity. To provide intuition for this response, our main analysis begins with a detailed empirical case study of the 2015 Taliban attack on Kunduz, Afghanistan's fifth largest city. We then generalize this approach by studying how nationwide location decisions of these private Afghan firms respond to 80 large terrorist attacks occurring from 2013-2016. We find a negative impact on firm presence in areas that experience major conflict, which is driven both by an increase in firm exit and a reduction of entry. These impacts attenuate after a month, and appear stronger among larger firms who may be both more exposed and more able to respond to violence.
Sport for Development? A Randomized Control Trial among Vulnerable Youth in Liberia (with Lori Beaman, Niall Keleher, and Jeremy Magruder): Working Paper
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.
Marriage Markets and Income Shocks (with Marieke Kleemans):
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. This project examines how marriage markets adjust to these shocks. Using data from Indonesia, we explore marriage timing, bride price, and migration as different responses to shocks that may allow marriage markets to re-balance and clear.
One-fifth of the world's population lives in countries affected by fragility, violence and conflict, impeding long-term economic growth. However, little is known about how firms respond to local changes in security, in part because of the difficulty of measuring firm activity in these settings. This paper makes two contributions. First, we develop a method for observing private sector activity using data from mobile phone networks, and validate this measure with existing administrative data as well as an original survey of 2,300 firms in Afghanistan. Second, we use this new measure of firm activity to examine how major violent events affect firm activity. To provide intuition for this response, our main analysis begins with a detailed empirical case study of the 2015 Taliban attack on Kunduz, Afghanistan's fifth largest city. We then generalize this approach by studying how nationwide location decisions of these private Afghan firms respond to 80 large terrorist attacks occurring from 2013-2016. We find a negative impact on firm presence in areas that experience major conflict, which is driven both by an increase in firm exit and a reduction of entry. These impacts attenuate after a month, and appear stronger among larger firms who may be both more exposed and more able to respond to violence.
Sport for Development? A Randomized Control Trial among Vulnerable Youth in Liberia (with Lori Beaman, Niall Keleher, and Jeremy Magruder): Working Paper
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.
Marriage Markets and Income Shocks (with Marieke Kleemans):
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. This project examines how marriage markets adjust to these shocks. Using data from Indonesia, we explore marriage timing, bride price, and migration as different responses to shocks that may allow marriage markets to re-balance and clear.