Inequality and a Repeated Joint Project

Agents voluntarily contribute to an infinitely repeated joint project. We investigate the conditions for cooperation to be a renegotiation-proof and coalition-proof equilibrium before examining the influence of output share inequality on the sustainability of cooperation. When shares are not equally distributed, cooperation requires agents to be more patient than under perfect equality. Beyond a certain degree of share inequality, full efficiency cannot be reached without redistribution. This model also explains the coexistence of one cooperating and one free-riding coalition. In this case, increasing inequality can have a positive or negative impact on the aggregate level of effort.

Life and Death of Roscas : If Power Corrupts, Does Powerlessness Make One Blameless ?

We have very few ideas as to what factors can influence the duration of roscas and reduce their failure risk. In this research, we bring new light on these empirical questions using an original data set containing information on living and dead roscas from Cotonou, Benin. We notice that the groups run by a president alone are more likely to fall apart. We also present evidence that individuals attracted to this type of groups have a lower social capital and therefore might be more likely to default.ROSCA ; Survival Analysis ; Governance structure ; Benin

Rosca Participation in Benin : a Commitment Issue

In the light of first-hand data from a Beninese urban household survey in Cotonou, we investigate several motives aiming to explain participation in Rotating Savings and Credit ASsociations. We provide empirical findings which indicate that individuals use their participation in a rosca as a device to discipline themselves to save money and commit against problems of self-control.ROSCA, self-control, Benin, Intra-Household Allocation, Saving, Household Survey, Development Finance

Rosca Participation in Benin: a Commitment Issue

In the light of first-hand data from a Beninese urban household survey in Cotonou, we investigate several motives aiming to explain participation in Rotating Savings and Credit ASsociations. We provide anecdotal pieces of evidence, descriptive statistics, FIML regressions and matching estimates which tend to indicate that most individuals use their participation in a rosca as a device to commit themselves to save money and to deal with self-control problems.ROSCA, self-control, commitment device, Benin

Inequality and Inefficiency in Joint Projects

A group of agents voluntarily participates in a joint project, in which efforts are not perfectly substitutable. The output is divided according to some given vector of shares. A share vector is unimprovable if no other share vector yields a higher sum of payoffs. When the elasticity of substitution across efforts is two or lower, only the perfectly equal share vector is unimprovable, and all other vectors can be improved via Lorenz domination. For higher elasticities of substitution, perfect equality is no longer unimprovable. Our results throw light on the connections between inequality and collective action.Inequality, Collective Action, Substitutability

Is it all about Money? A Randomized Evaluations of the Impact of Insurance Literacy and Marketing Treatments on the Demand for Health Microinsurance in Senegal

In Senegal mutual health organizations (MHOs) have been present in the greater region of Thiès for years. Despite their benefits, in some areas there remain low take-up rates. We offer an insurance literacy module, communicating the benefits from health microinsurance and the functioning of MHOs, to a randomly selected sample of households in the city of Thiès. The effects of this training, and three cross-cutting marketing treatments, are evaluated using a randomized control trial. We find that the insurance literacy module has no impact, but that our marketing treatment has a significant effect on the take up decisions of households.community based health insurance scheme; Randomized control trials; Africa; Senegal

Do girls pay the price of civil war?:violence and infant mortality in Congo

This paper documents the impact of civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo on infant mortality between 1997 and 2004. It adopts an instrumental variable approach to correct for the non-random timing and location of conflict. Strong and robust evidence, including mother fixed effects regressions, shows that conflict significantly increases girl mortality. It also examines the mechanisms explaining this phenomenon, with a focus on disentangling the behavioral from the biological factors. The analysis suggests that gender imbalances in infant mortality are driven by the selection induced by a higher vulnerability of boys in utero rather than by gender discrimination

The Impact of Insurance Literacy and Marketing Treatments on the Demand for Health Microinsurance in Senegal: A Randomised Evaluation

Mutual health organisations have been present in Senegal for years. Despite their benefits, in most areas take-up rates remain low. Using randomised controlled trials, we evaluate the effect of an insurance literacy module, communicating the benefits and functioning of health microinsurance, as well as three cross-cutting marketing treatments. The results from our various marketing treatments indicate a positive and significant effect on health insurance adoption, particularly for poor households, increasing take-up by around 35-40%. The insurance literacy module does not seem to have a positive impact on take-up decisions. We attempt to provide different contextual reasons for this result

Inequality and a repeated joint project

Agents voluntarily contribute to an infinitely repeated joint project. We investigate the conditions for cooperation to be a renegotiation-proof and coalition-proof equilibrium before examining the influence of output share inequality on the sustainability of cooperation. When shares are not equally distributed, cooperation requires agents to be more patient than under perfect equality. Beyond a certain degree of share inequality, full efficiency cannot be reached without redistribution. This model also explains the coexistence of one cooperating and one free-riding coalition. In this case, increasing inequality can have a positive or negative impact on the aggregate level of effort

The labor market integration of refugees in the United States:do entrepreneurs in the network help?

We investigate whether entrepreneurs in the network of refugees – from the same country of origin – help refugees enter the labor market by hiring them. We analyze the universe of refugee cases without U.S. ties who were resettled in the United States between 2005 and 2010. We address threats to identification due to refugees sorting into specific labor markets and to strategic placement by resettlement agencies. We find that the probability that refugees are employed 90 days after arrival is positively affected by the number of business owners in their network, but negatively affected by the number of those who are employees. This suggests that network members who are entrepreneurs hire refugees, while network members working as employees compete with them, which is consistent with refugees complementing the former and substituting for the latter