Flashy purchases are associated with higher levels of violent crime in the U.S.

From the Occupy Wall Street movement, to Thomas Piketty’s more recent Capital in the Twenty-first Century, the notion of inequality has become increasingly prescient to politicians and the public in general. In new research, Daniel L. Hicks and Joan Hamory Hicks find that one very visible aspect of that inequality, conspicuous consumption by the rich, is associated with higher levels of violent crime. They write that one potential explanation for their findings is that rising inequality could then increase feelings of relative deprivation among those who are unable to succeed legally, and lead them to commit crimes against their neighbors

The Case for Mass Treatment of Intestinal Helminths in Endemic Areas

Two articles published earlier this year in the International Journal of Epidemiology [1,2] have re-ignited the debate over the World Health Organization’s long-held recommendation of mass-treatment of intestinal helminths in endemic areas. In this note, we discuss the content and relevance of these articles to the policy debate, and review the broader research literature on the educational and economic impacts of deworming. We conclude that existing evidence still indicates that mass deworming is a cost-effective health investment for governments in low-income countries where worm infections are widespread

Education as Liberation?

Abstract: Scholars have long speculated about education's political impacts, variously arguing that it promotes modern or pro-democratic attitudes; that it instills acceptance of existing authority; and that it empowers the disadvantaged to challenge authority. To avoid endogeneity bias, if schooling requires some willingness to accept authority, we assess the political and social impacts of a randomized girls' merit scholarship incentive program in Kenya that raised test scores and secondary schooling. We find little evidence for modernization theory. Consistent with the empowerment view, young women in program schools were less likely to accept domestic violence. Moreover, the program increased objective political knowledge, and reduced acceptance of political authority. However, this rejection of the status quo did not translate into greater perceived political efficacy, community participation, or voting intentions. Instead, the perceived legitimacy of political violence increased. Reverse causality may help account for the view that education instills greater acceptance of authority

Essays in Development Economics

According to the World Bank's World Development Report 2007, there are 1.3 billion young adults aged 12-24 living in less-developed countries today. Individuals in this age group are going through a period of tremendous flux in their lives as they embark on marriage, job searches or higher education, and their experiences during this time will shape the next generation of decision makers. Research focusing on the choices of these individuals, as well as the circumstances under which they are made, is urgently needed. The present collection of essays seeks to advance such research by utilizing a recent longitudinal survey to examine the decisions of young adults in rural Kenya as they relate to education, migration and behavior in the wake of violent civil conflict.Chapter 1 explores the extent to which individual academic and cognitive ability is factored into household decisions concerning education. Panel information on schooling for nearly 1,900 rural Kenyan youth over the period 1998-2008 is combined with satellite precipitation data in order to examine the effects of agricultural income variability on school attendance. A unique early-age academic test score proxies for child ability. Regression analysis indicates that during times of plenty, there is an 11 percent increase in attendance of high ability relative to low ability individuals, suggesting households recognize and value ability when making schooling decisions. This finding is framed using a model of human capital accumulation in which schooling decisions are a function of individual ability. Surprisingly, although youth on the whole are less likely to attend school during negative income shocks, there are no differential attendance changes across individuals of different ability levels. Instead, credit constraints and income shocks may work together in this setting to limit desirable human capital investments. Such consumption smoothing behavior could imply negative long-term effects on household welfare.Chapter 2 studies selective migration among 1,500 Kenyan youth originally living in rural areas. In particular, this essay examines whether migration rates are related to individual “ability”, broadly defined to include cognitive aptitude as well as health, and then uses these estimates to determine how much of the urban-rural wage gap in Kenya is due to selection versus actual productivity differences. Whereas previous empirical work has focused on schooling attainment as a proxy for cognitive ability, the present research employs an arguably preferable measure, a pre-migration primary school academic test score. Pre-migration randomized assignment to a deworming treatment program provides variation in health status. Results suggest a positive relationship between both measures of human capital (cognitive ability and deworming) and subsequent migration, though only the former is robust at standard statistical significance levels. Specifically, an increase of two standard deviations in academic test score increases the likelihood of rural-urban migration by 17%. In an interesting contrast with the existing literature, schooling attainment is not significantly associated with urban migration once cognitive ability is accounted for. Accounting for migration selection due to both cognitive ability and schooling attainment does not explain more than a small fraction of the sizeable urban-rural wage gap in Kenya, suggesting that productivity differences across sectors remain large.Finally, Chapter 3 examines the socioeconomic impacts of two months of protests and violent, primarily ethnic-based clashes that erupted across central and western Kenya in late 2007 following the controversial conclusion of a heavily-contested presidential election. Although not an epicenter of the conflict, Busia District experienced sporadic unrest, an influx of refugees from other parts of Kenya, inflation, supply shortages, and local market closures. Unique and timely survey data collected from young adults living primarily in this district of rural western Kenya in the months surrounding the election permits the use of both differences-in-differences and propensity score matching methodologies to estimate the short- to medium-run impacts of this conflict, and both approaches yield broadly similar findings. Despite little support for lasting effects on labor, migration and nutritional outcomes within weeks of cessation of the violence, there do appear to be persistent consequences for social cohesion and informal financial activities. While there is little indication of change in survey respondents' self-reported attitudes regarding trust of others, analysis confirms large declines in attendance at religious services, participation in community and bible groups, and utilization of non-family members as points of contact for future survey enumeration efforts. These findings highlight a disconnect between reported attitudes and observable behavior. Furthermore, respondents are between 29 and 53 percent less likely to engage in informal lending and transfers post-conflict. Given the key role played by social networks in informal financial markets in less-developed countries, these results indicate that even brief civil unrest may have lasting negative consequences

The Case for Mass Treatment of Intestinal Helminths in Endemic Areas.

Two articles published earlier this year in the International Journal of Epidemiology [1,2] have re-ignited the debate over the World Health Organization's long-held recommendation of mass-treatment of intestinal helminths in endemic areas. In this note, we discuss the content and relevance of these articles to the policy debate, and review the broader research literature on the educational and economic impacts of deworming. We conclude that existing evidence still indicates that mass deworming is a cost-effective health investment for governments in low-income countries where worm infections are widespread

Randomized control trial as social observatory: A case study

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Critics of randomized control trials (RCTs) in development economics argue that this methodology lends itself to ‘smaller’ questions with limited relevance to policy or economics. Using the seminal work of Miguel and Kremer (2004) on a school-based deworming intervention in Kenya as a case study, we argue that RCTs can spearhead policy change, serve as a laboratory to test economic theories and develop cutting-edge empirical methods, or do both. This does not happen in a vacuum, but through thoughtful design embedded in a broader research and policy agenda. Here, we describe a family of studies built on Miguel and Kremer (2004), shedding light on factors that supported the generation of evidence and insights far beyond the near-term RCT result. As in any piece of social sciences research, this descriptive evidence may not be externally valid in all settings. We nevertheless hope the lessons it offers will inspire others to examine these possibilities in their own research