Essays in Political Economy: Historical Natural Experiments and Economic Development

This thesis consists of three chapters. State Capacity, National Economic Policies and Local Development: The Russian State in the Southern Urals Abstract: This study analyzes how state capacity shapes the local impact of national policies by exploiting a quasi-natural experiment in the regional expansion of the state. It uses the local discontinuity created by the boundary of the largest peasant rebellion in 18th century Russia where the state increased security forces and levied taxes more efficiently after the uprising ended. The results show that increased state capacity had limited effects on economic growth until the central government targeted specific development objectives. Namely, when rulers chose to build schools or foster industrialization, their national policies benefited areas which already had strong state capacity. Political Elites and Civic Engagement: The Russian Empire's First Revolution 1825 Abstract: This study investigates whether the promotion of liberal ideology can have a lasting impact on contemporary behavior, by exploiting the random exile settlements of an educated elite to the Russian Empire's 'Hinterland' as a quasi-natural experiment. It uses the locations of the failed Decembrist insurgents sent to Siberia and other remote areas of Russia, and matches them with the household locations of contemporary surveys. The results show that individuals that live within 10 km proximity of at least one Decembrist' exile location, are more likely to participate in informal and formal political activities, and are more inclined toward liberal values. Independence Movements and Ethnic Politics: The Mau Mau Origins of Ethnic Voting and Distrust in Kenya Abstract: This study examines the effects of the violent repression of independence movements on ethnic politics and social cohesion. We exploit local variation in the intensity of repression to analyze the long-run impacts of British detention camps in 1950s colonial Kenya. Using a rich body of census and survey data and a triple-difference design, we show that exposure to a detention camp increases ethnic voting in the contested 2007 presidential election and erodes contemporary trust. In addition, we show that affected individuals accumulate less wealth, are less literate, and have poorer labor market outcomes three to five decades after the event

Does India Use Development Finance to Compete With China? A Subnational Analysis

China and India increasingly provide aid and credit to developing countries. This paper explores whether India uses these financial instruments to compete for geopolitical and commercial influence with China (and vice versa). To do so, we build a new geocoded dataset of Indian government-financed projects in the Global South between 2007 and 2014 and combine it with data on Chinese government-financed projects. Our regression results for 2,333 provinces within 123 countries demonstrate that India’s Exim Bank is significantly more likely to locate a project in a given jurisdiction if China provided government financing there in the previous year. Since this effect is more pronounced in countries where India is more popular relative to China and where both lenders have a similar export structure, we interpret this as evidence of India competing with China. By contrast, we do not find evidence that China uses official aid or credit to compete with India through co-located projects

Supplemental Material - Does India Use Development Finance to Compete With China? A Subnational Analysis

Supplemental Material for Does India Use Development Finance to Compete With China? A Subnational Analysis by Gerda Asmus-Bluhm, Vera Z. Eichenauer, Andreas Fuchs, and Bradley Parks in Journal of Conflict Resolution</p

Supplemental Material - Does India Use Development Finance to Compete With China? A Subnational Analysis

Supplemental Material for Does India Use Development Finance to Compete With China? A Subnational Analysis by Gerda Asmus-Bluhm, Vera Z. Eichenauer, Andreas Fuchs, and Bradley Parks in Journal of Conflict Resolution</p

Impacts of community delivery of antiretroviral drugs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Raw data; code to create the cleaned dataset for analysis from the raw data; the cleaned dataset for analysis; code for the final data analysis using the cleaned data (please see the “readme_2018-09-26.txt” for details)

Community delivery of antiretroviral drugs: A non-inferiority cluster-randomized pragmatic trial in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

BackgroundWith the increase in people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa and expanding eligibility criteria for antiretroviral therapy (ART), there is intense interest in the use of novel delivery models that allow understaffed health systems to successfully deal with an increasing demand for antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). This pragmatic randomized controlled trial in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, evaluated a novel model of ARV community delivery: lay health workers (home-based carers [HBCs]) deliver ARVs to the homes of patients who are clinically stable on ART, while nurses and physicians deliver standard facility-based care for patients who are clinically unstable. Specifically, the trial aimed to assess whether the ARV community delivery model performed at least equally well in averting virological failure as the standard of care (facility-based care for all ART patients).Methods and findingsThe study took place from March 1, 2016, to October 27, 2017. All (48) healthcare facilities in Dar es Salaam that provided ART and had an affiliated team of public-sector HBCs were randomized 1:1 to either (i) ARV community delivery (intervention) or (ii) the standard of care (control). Our prespecified primary endpoint was the proportion of adult non-pregnant ART patients with virological failure at the end of the study period. The prespecified margin of non-inferiority was a risk ratio (RR) of 1.45. The mean follow-up period was 326 days. We obtained intent-to-treat (ITT) RRs using a log-binomial model adjusting standard errors for clustering at the level of the healthcare facility. A total of 2,172 patients were enrolled at intervention (1,163 patients) and control (1,009 patients) facilities. Of the 1,163 patients in the intervention arm, 516 (44.4%) were both clinically stable on ART and opted to receive ARVs in their homes or at another meeting point of their choosing in the community. At the end of the study period, 10.9% (95/872) of patients in the control arm and 9.7% (91/943) in the intervention arm were failing virologically. The ITT RR for virological failure demonstrated non-inferiority of the ARV community delivery model (RR 0.89 [1-sided 95% CI 0.00-1.18]). We observed no significant difference between study arms in self-reported patient healthcare expenditures over the last 6 months before study exit. Of those who received ARVs in the community, 97.2% (95% CI 94.7%-98.7%) reported being either "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the program. Other than loss to follow-up (18.9% in the intervention and 13.6% in the control arm), the main limitation of this trial was that substantial decongestion of healthcare facilities was not achieved, thus making the logic for our preregistered ITT approach (which includes those ineligible to receive ARVs at home in the intervention sample) less compelling.ConclusionsIn this study, an ARV community delivery model performed at least as well as the standard of care regarding the critical health indicator of virological failure. The intervention did not significantly reduce patient healthcare expenditures, but satisfaction with the program was high and it is likely to save patients time. Policy-makers should consider piloting, evaluating, and scaling more ambitious ARV community delivery programs that can reach higher proportions of ART patients.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT02711293