Preparing for an Aging Africa: Data-Driven Priorities for Economic Research and Policy
(with Madeline Duhon, Edward Miguel, Amos Njuguna and Daniela Pinto Veizaga)
JPE:Micro, forthcoming
NBER Working Paper #31750
Selected coverage: NBER Bulletin on Retirement and Aging Summary
Targeting Impact versus Deprivation
(with Johannes Haushofer, Edward Miguel, Carlos Paramo and Paul Niehaus)
American Economic Review 115(6): 1936-74, 2025.
NBER Working Paper No. 30138, December 2022.
Social protection, community participation and state-citizen
relations: Evidence from a cash transfer program in south-central Somalia,
(with Vanessa van den Boogaard and Fabrizio Santoro)
Social Policy & Administration, 57(7), 1181–1198. 2023.
General Equilibrium Effects of Cash Transfers: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
(with Dennis Egger, Johannes Haushofer, Edward Miguel and Paul Niehaus)
Econometrica 90(6): 2603-2643, 2022.
2024 Frisch Medal
NBER Working Paper #26600
AEA Study Registry
Selected Coverage: Washington Post , Economist, NPR, Vox , Behavioral Scientist, Econimate (video summary)
The Twenty Year Economic Impacts of Deworming
(with Joan Hamory , Edward Miguel, Michael Kremer , and Sarah Baird) (author order randomized)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 118(14), 2021.
NBER Working Paper version (#27611)
AEA Study Registry Replication Data (Dataverse)
OSF project page
Selected Coverage: BFI Insights
Vox
NPR
Falling living standards during the COVID-19 crisis: Quantitative evidence from nine developing countries
(with Dennis Egger, Edward Miguel, Shana Warren, et al.) (author order randomized)
Science Advances 7(6):eabe0997, 2021.
Policy Brief
Replication Data (Dataverse)
Selected Coverage: NPR Vox Reuters Scientific American FT
Repo runs: evidence from the tri-party repo market
(with Antoine Martin and Adam Copeland)
Journal of Finance 69(6): pp.2343-2380, 2014.
Midlife cognitive testing in Africa: validity of the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol in the Kenya
Life Panel Survey
(with Alden Gross, Madeline Duhon, Eric Ochieng, Jean Ikanga, William Dow, Jinkook Lee, Michelle Layvant, Anthony Ngugi, Joshua Ehrlich, and Edward Miguel)
BMJ Open 15:e096619, 2025.
Parent Psychological Well-Being, Home Learning Environment, and Child Development among Kenyan Families
(with Ye Rang Park, Madeline Duhon, Kyong Ah Kwon, Amber Beisly, and Edward Miguel)
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 97:101760, 2025.
COVID-19 and mental health in 8 low- and middle-income
countries: A prospective cohort study,
(with Nursena Aksunger, Corey Vernot, et al.)
PLoS Medicine 20(4): e1004081. 2023.
Self-reported vs Directly Observed Face Mask Use in Kenya
(with Aleksandra Jakubowski, Dennis Egger, Carolyne Nekesa, Layna Lowe, and Edward Miguel)
JAMA Network Open 4(7):e2118830, 2021.
Can Cash Transfers Save Lives? Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment in Kenya (with Nick Shankar , Edward Miguel, Dennis Egger, and Grady Killeen ) (author order randomized)
NBER Working Paper No. 34152, August 2025. Submitted
Selected Coverage: NY Times , NPR
Slack and Economic Development
(with Nachiket Shah, Edward Miguel, Dennis Egger, Felix Samy Soliman and Tilman Graf ) (author order randomized)
NBER Working Paper No. 33055, October 2024. Submitted
Selected Coverage: How low demand constrains productivity and economic development (Vox Dev) , Do Cash Transfers Cause Inflation (VoxDev)
Intergenerational Human Capital Impacts and Complementarities in Kenya (with Madeline Duhon, Lia Fernald, Joan Hamory, Edward Miguel and Eric Ochieng)
NBER Working Paper No. 32617, June 2024. Submitted
Intergenerational Child Mortality Impacts of Deworming: Experimental Evidence from Two Decades of the Kenya Life Panel Survey (with Alice H. Huang, Suleiman Asman, Sarah J. Baird, Lia Fernald, Joan Hamory Hicks, Fernando Hoces de la Guardia, Satoshi Koiso, Michael Kremer, Matthew N. Krupoff, Michelle Layvant, Eric Ochieng, Pooja Suri & Edward Miguel)
NBER Working Paper No. 31162, April 2023. Submitted
Informal Taxation and Cash Transfers: Experimental Evidence from Kenya
(Under revision, please e-mail for most recent version.)
Abstract:
Informal taxation, whereby households contribute to public goods outside the formal tax system, plays an important role in local public good financing in many low-income countries, yet little is known about its magnitude or incidence. Informal taxation is implemented by local leaders and trades off information advantages with potential elite capture and reduced enforcement. In contrast to formal tax systems, it is unclear how household informal tax payments respond to changes in income. This paper uses panel data on households and local leaders, combined with exogenous variation in household income from a large-scale randomized controlled trial of a one-time unconditional cash transfer to poor households, to study how informal taxation and public goods provision responds to household income shocks. The (temporary) cash transfers are not captured by local leaders: I find no effect on household informal tax payments, and recipient household payments are in line with their pre-treatment income. Informal taxes do respond to non-experimental changes in permanent income in panel data. Recipient households pay more formal self-employment taxes, though the magnitude of the increase is small relative to the transfer amount: less than 1 percent of total transfer income is captured by formal or informal taxes. I find no effects of the cash transfers on public goods provision. This suggests local leaders emphasize equity considerations by exempting these cash transfers to poor households from taxation, but miss out on opportunity to meaningfully increase public goods investment.
AEA Study Registry
Coverage: World Bank Development Impact Blog
Cash Transfers and Community Participation in Public Affairs: A Village-Level Randomized Controlled Trial in Kenya
(with Kate Orkin)
(Draft available upon request)
Promoting Parent-Child Reading: Evidence from Kenya (with Stephanie Bonds, Joan Hamory, Edward Miguel and Eric Ochieng)
The long-term effects of cash transfers in Kenya (with Dennis Egger, Johannes Haushofer and Edward Miguel)
Mask Up! Testing strategies to increase mask usage in Kenya ( with Dennis Egger and Aleksandra Jakubowski)