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14.771

Development Economics: Microeconomic Issues

5-0-7 units · Graduate

A rigorous introduction to core micro-economic issues in economic development, focusing on both key theoretical contributions and empirical applications to understand both why some countries are poor and on how markets function differently in poor economies. Topics include poverty traps; human capital (education and health); labor markets; credit markets; land markets; and the role of the public sector.

Fall 2021 · Development Economics

This course provides rigorous introduction to core microeconomic issues in economic development, focusing on both key theoretical contributions and empirical applications to understand both why some countries are poor and on how markets function differently in poor economies. Topics include human capital (education and health); labor markets; credit markets; land markets; firms; and the role of the public sector.

Readings

  • Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo (2007). “The Economic Lives of the Poor.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(1): 141-168.
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit V., (2008). “Big Answers for Big Questions: The Presumption of Growth Policy.” Brookings Global Economy and Development.
    Listed reading
  • Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson (2001). “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review , 91(5), 1369-1401.
    Listed reading
  • Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson (2002). “Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution." The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 117(4), 1231-1294.
    Listed reading
  • Mankiw, N. Gregory, David Romer, and David N. Weil (1992). “A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth." The Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol. 107, No. 2, 407-437.
    Listed reading
  • Caselli, Francesco (2005), “Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences.” In Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth , edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 679-741.
    Listed reading
  • Dollar, David and Aart Kraay (2002). “Growth Is Good for the Poor.” Journal of Economic Growth , 7, 195-225.
    Listed reading
  • Bills, Mark and Pete Klenow (2000). “Does Schooling Cause Growth?” American Economic Review , 90(5), 1160-1183.
    Listed reading
  • Rodrik, Dani, Arvind Subramanian, and Francesco Trebbi (2002), “Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions over Geography and Integration in Economic Development,” Journal of Economic Growth , 9(2), 131-165.
    Listed reading
  • Sala-i-Martin, Xavier (2006). “The World Distribution of Income: Falling Poverty and… Convergence, Period.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol. 121, No. 2: 351-397.
    Listed reading
  • World Bank (2021). “World Development Indicators 2020.”
    Listed reading
  • Read the following in detail:
    Listed reading
  • *** Dasgupta, Partha and Debraj Ray (1986). “[Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Theory](Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Theory).” The Economic Journal , Vol. 96 (384), pp. 1011-1034.
    Listed reading
  • *** Srinivasan, T. N. (1994). “ Destitution: A Discourse .” Journal of Economic Literature , Vol. 32 (4), pp. 1842-55. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Galor, Oded and Joseph Zeira (1993). “Income Distribution and Macroeconomics.” Review of Economic Studies , 60, 35-52.
    Listed reading
  • Evidence (or Lack Thereof)
    Listed reading
  • *** Subramanian, Shankar and Angus Deaton (1996), “ The Demand for Food and Calories” (PDF - 3MB) . Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 104 (1), pp 133-62. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Deaton, Angus and Jean Dreze (2009). “Nutrition in India: Facts and Interpretation.” Economic and Political Weekly , 14 February 2009.
    Listed reading
  • Strauss, John (1986), “Does Better Nutrition Raise Farm Productivity?”, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 94, 297-320.
    Listed reading
  • *** Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2004). “ Growth Theory through the Lens of Development Economics” (PDF) . Section 2.1.2. ↗
    Listed reading
  • *** Haushofer, Johannes and Jeremy Shapiro (2016). “ The Short-term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: Experimental Evidence from Kenya .” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , Volume 131, Issue 4, Pages 1973–2042 ↗
    Listed reading
  • Jensen, Robert and Nolan Miller (2011). “Do Consumer Price Subsidies Really Improve Nutrition?” Review of Economics and Statistics , Vol. 93(4), pp. 1205-1223.
    Listed reading
  • Jensen, Robert and Nolan Miller (2008). “Giffen Behavior and Subsistence Consumption.” American Economic Review , 98(4), p. 1553−1577.
    Listed reading
  • Strauss, John and Duncan Thomas (1998). “Health, Nutrition and Economic Development.” Journal of Economic Literature , Vol. 36 (2), 766-817.
    Listed reading
  • Breaking the poverty trap: Ultra-poor programs
    Listed reading
  • Balboni, Clare, Oriana Bandiera, Robin Burgess, Maitreesh Ghatak, and Anton Heil (2021). “Why do people stay poor?”
    Listed reading
  • Bandiera, Oriana, Robin Burgess, Narayan Das, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul, and Munshi Sulaiman (2017). “Labor markets and poverty in village economies.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 132, no. 2: 811-870.
    Listed reading
  • Abhijit Banerjee, Dean Karlan, Robert Osei, Hannah Trachtman, and Christopher Udry (2020). “Unpacking a Multi-Faceted Program to Build Sustainable Income for the Very Poor.”
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Nathanael Goldberg, Dean Karlan, Robert Osei, William Parienté, Jeremy Shapiro, Bram Thuysbaert, and Christopher Udry (2015). “A multifaceted program causes lasting progress for the very poor: Evidence from six countries.” Science 348, no. 6236.
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, and Garima Sharma (2021). “Long-Term Effects of the Targeting the Ultra Poor Program.” American Economic Review: Insights (forthcoming).
    Listed reading
  • Kraay, Aart, and David McKenzie (2014). “Do poverty traps exist? Assessing the evidence.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 28, no. 3: 127-48.
    Listed reading
  • ***Bessone, P., Rao, G., Schilbach, F., Schofield, H., & Toma, M. (2021). “ The economic consequences of increasing sleep among the urban poor .” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 136(3), 1887-1941. ↗
    Listed reading
  • General Introduction / reference
    Listed reading
  • *** Kremer, Michael, Gautam Rao, and Frank Schilbach (2019). “ Behavioral Development Economics .” In Handbook of Behavioral Economics, Vol. 2 . 2019. ISBN: 9780444633750. ↗
    Listed reading
  • More generally, the recent Handbook of Behavioral Economics provides great overviews of recent work on various topics, e.g. time preferences, limited attention, beliefs, behavioral IO, etc. ↗
    Listed reading
  • The Euler Equation Puzzle and Demand for Commitment
    Listed reading
  • ***Behavioral Development Economics Handbook Chapter (see above), Sections 1 to 4.
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee and Duflo (2010). “Growth Theory through the Lens of Development Economics”. Handbook of Economic Growth .
    Listed reading
  • Frederick, S., G. Loewenstein, and T. O’Donoghue (2002). “Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review.” Journal of Economic Literature, 40 (2), 351-401.
    Listed reading
  • Ericson, Keith Marzilli, and David Laibson (2019). “Intertemporal choice.” In Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Applications and Foundations 1, vol. 2, pp. 1-67. North-Holland.
    Listed reading
  • Cohen, J.D, K.M. Ericson, D. Laibson, and J.M. White (2020). “Measuring Time Preferences.” Journal of Economic Literature . 58(2): 299-347.
    Listed reading
  • Ashraf, Nava, Dean Karlan, and Wesley Yin (2006). “Tying Odysseus to the mast: Evidence from a commitment savings product in the Philippines.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 121, no. 2: 635-672.
    Listed reading
  • Kaur, Supreet, Michael Kremer, and Sendhil Mullainathan (2015). “Self-Control at Work.” Journal of Political Economy . 123(6): 1227-1277.
    Listed reading
  • Laibson, David (2015). “Why Don’t Present-Biased Agents Make Commitments?” American Economic Review P&P. 105(5): 267-272.
    Listed reading
  • Schilbach, Frank (2019). “Alcohol and Self-Control: A Field Experiment in India.”, American Economic Review . 109(4): 1290-1322.
    Listed reading
  • Casaburi, Lorenzo, and Rocco Macchiavello (2019). “Demand and supply of infrequent payments as a commitment device: evidence from Kenya.” American Economic Review 109, no. 2: 523-55.
    Listed reading
  • Bai, Liang, Ben Handel, Edward Miguel, and Gautam Rao (2021). “Self-Control and Demand for Preventative Health: Evidence from Hypertension in India.” Review of Economics and Statistics .
    Listed reading
  • Brune, Lasse, Eric Chyn, and Jason Kerwin (2021). “Pay me Later: Savings Contsraints and the Demand for Deferred Payments” American Economic Review 111(7). 2179-2212.
    Listed reading
  • Scarcity and Limited Attention
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Sendhil Mullainathan (2008). “Limited Attention and Income Distribution.” American Economic Review , 98(2): 489-93.
    Listed reading
  • Mani, A., S. Mullainathan, E. Shafir, and J. Zhao (2013). “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function.” Science , 341, 976-980.
    Listed reading
  • Mullainathan, Sendhil and Eldar Shafir (2013) Scarcity . New York: Time Books.
    Listed reading
  • Dean, Joshua (2021) “Noise, Cognitive Function, and Worker Productivity.” Mimeo. Working Paper.
    Listed reading
  • Fehr, Dietmar and Guenther Fink, and Kelsey Jack (2021): “Poor and Rational: Decision-Making under Scarcity.” Mimeo.
    Listed reading
  • Kaur, Supreet, Sendhil Mullainathan, Suanna Oh, and Frank Schilbach (2021): “Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?”.
    Listed reading
  • Lim, Julian and David Dinges (2010). “A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Short-Term Sleep Deprivation on Cognitive Variables.” Psychological Bulletin 136(3): 375-389.
    Listed reading
  • Walker, Matthew (2017). “Why We Sleep.”
    Listed reading
  • Bessone, P., Rao, G., Schilbach, F., Schofield, H., & Toma, M. (2021). “The economic consequences of increasing sleep among the urban poor.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 136(3), 1887-1941.
    Listed reading
  • Jagnani, Maulik (2021). “Children’s Sleep and Human Capital Production."
    Listed reading
  • Rao, Gautam, Susan Redline, Frank Schilbach, Heather Schofield, and Mattie Toma (2021). “Informing Policy Through Field Experiments on Sleep Around the World.”
    Listed reading
  • Fehr, Ernst and Haushofer, Johannes (2014). “On the Psychology of Poverty.” Science 344, 862–867.
    Listed reading
  • Ridley, Matthew, Gautam Rao, Frank Schilbach, and Vikram Patel (2020). “Poverty, Depression, and Anxiety: Causal Evidence and Mechanisms.” Science 370(6522).
    Listed reading
  • Patel, Vikram, Neerja Chowdhary, Atif Rahman, and Helen Verdeli (2011). “Improving Access to Psychological Treatments: Lessons from Developing Countries.” Behavior Research and Therapy , 49, pp. 523-528.
    Listed reading
  • Singla, Daisy, Brandon Kohrt, Laura Murrary, Arpita Anand, Bruce Chorpita, and Vikram Patel (2017). “Psychological Treatments for the World: Lessons from Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 13: 149-181.
    Listed reading
  • Blattman, C, JC Jamison, M Sheridan (2017): “Reducing crime and violence: Experimental evidence from cognitive behavioral therapy in Liberia.” American Economic Review , 107(4): 1165-1206.
    Listed reading
  • Baranov, Victoria, Sonia Bhalotra, Pietro Biroli, and Joanna Maselko (2020): “Maternal Depression, Women’s Empowerment, and Parental Investment: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial.” American Economic Review . 110(3): 824-59.
    Listed reading
  • Angelucci, Manuela and Daniel Bennett (2021): “The Economic Impact of Depression Treatment in India.”
    Listed reading
  • Lund, Crick, et al. (2018). “Economic Impacts of Mental Health Interventions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.”
    Listed reading
  • McKelway, Maddie (2021). “Women’s Employment in India: Intra-Household and Intra-Personal Constraints”.
    Listed reading
  • General Readings on Education (Review Articles)
    Listed reading
  • Muralidharan, Karthik (2017). “Field Experiments in Education in Developing Countries.” Draft prepared for the Handbook of Field Experiments.
    Listed reading
  • The Neo-Classical Model: Returns, Costs, and Budget Constraints
    Listed reading
  • *** Banerjee, Abhijit (2004). “ Educational Policy and the Economics of the Family. ” Journal of Development Economics , 74 3-32. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Becker, Gary (1981). A Treatise on the Family. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674906990.
    Listed reading
  • Barro, Robert (1974). “Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?” Journal of Political Economy 82 (6) 1095-117.
    Listed reading
  • Loury, Glenn (1981). “Intergenerational Transfers and the Distribution of Earnings.” Econometrica , 49 (4) 843-867.
    Listed reading
  • Strauss, John and Duncan Thomas (1995). “Human Resources: Empirical Modeling of Household and Family Decisions.” In Behrman, Jere and T.N. Srinivasan, eds., Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 3 . pp. 1885-2023.
    Listed reading
  • Evidence—What do household respond to?
    Listed reading
  • Duflo, Esther (2001), “Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment.” American Economic Review , Vol. 91 (4), pp 795-813.
    Listed reading
  • Perceived Returns and Benefits
    Listed reading
  • *** Jensen, Robert (2010). “ The Perceived Return to Education and the Demand for Schooling .” Quarterly Journal of Economics 125 (2), p 515-548. ↗
    Listed reading
  • *** Jensen, Robert (2012). “ Do Labor Market Opportunities Affect Young Women’s Work and Family Decisions? Experimental Evidence from India .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 127(2), p. 753-792. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Nguyen, Trang (2008). “Information, Role Models and Perceived Returns to Education: Experimental Evidence from Madagascar.” MIT.
    Listed reading
  • *** Jayachandran, Seema and Adriana Lleras-Muney (2009). “ Life Expectancy and Human Capital Investments: Evidence from Maternal Mortality Declines .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol 124 (1) pp. 349-397. ↗
    Listed reading
  • *** Qian, Nancy (2008). “ Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 123(3), 1251-1285. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Costs and opportunity costs: School building and Conditional Cash transfers
    Listed reading
  • Benhassine, Najy, Florencia Devoto, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, and Victor Pouliquen (2015). “Turning a shove into a nudge? A ’labeled cash transfer’ for education.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 7, no. 3: 86-125.
    Listed reading
  • Baird, Sarah, Craig McIntosh, and Berk Özler (2011). “Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment.” Oxford University Press, vol. 126(4), pages 1709-1753.
    Listed reading
  • Intra-family information gap and behavioral issues
    Listed reading
  • Bursztyn, Leonardo and Lucas C. Coffman (2012). “The Schooling Decision: Family Preferences, Intergenerational Conflict, and Moral Hazard in the Brazilian Favelas.” Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 120, No. 3, pp. 359-397.
    Listed reading
  • *** Dizon-Ross, Rebecca (2019). “ Parents’ beliefs about their children’s academic ability: Implications for educational investments .” American Economic Review 109, no. 8: 2728-65. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Evidence (Part 2)—Private and Social returns to education
    Listed reading
  • *** Duflo, Esther, Pascaline Dupas, and Michael Kremer (2021). “ The impact of free secondary education: Experimental evidence from Ghana .” No. w28937. National Bureau of Economic Research. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Other papers
    Listed reading
  • Chou, Shin-Yi, Jin-Tan Liu, Michael Grossman, and Ted Joyce (2010). “Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 2(1): 33-61.
    Listed reading
  • Duflo, Esther, Pascaline Dupas, and Michael Kremer (2015). “Education, HIV, and early fertility: Experimental evidence from Kenya.” American Economic Review 105, no. 9: 2757-97.
    Listed reading
  • *** Duflo, Esther (2004). “ The Medium Run Effects of Educational Expansion: Evidence from a Large School Construction Program in Indonesia .” Journal of Development Economics , 74(1), 163-197. ↗
    Listed reading
  • ***Banerjee, Abhijit, Rukmini Banerji, James Berry, Esther Duflo, Harini Kannan, Shobhini Mukerji, Marc Shotland, and Michael Walton (2017). “ From proof of concept to scalable policies: Challenges and solutions, with an application .” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 4: 73-102. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Duflo Esther, Pascaline Dupas, and Michael Kremer (2011). “Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya.” American Economic Review , Vol.101(5), pp. 1739-74.
    Listed reading
  • *** Glewwe, Paul and Michael Kremer (2006). “ Schools, Teachers, and Education Outcomes in Developing Countries .” in Handbook of the Economics of Education , Elsevier. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Duflo, Esther and Michael Kremer (2003). “Use of Randomization in the Evaluation of Development Effectiveness.” MIT-Harvard. Proceedings of the Conference on Evaluating Development Effectiveness, July 15-16, 2003, World Bank Operations Evaluation Department (OED) Washington, D.C.
    Listed reading
  • *** Angrist, Joshua and Victor Lavy (1999). “ Using Maimonides’ Rule to Estimate the Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement ,” Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol 114 (2), pp. 533-575. ↗
    Listed reading
  • *** Urquiola, Miguel and Eric Verhoogen, (2009). “ Class Size Caps, Sorting, and the Regression Discontinuity Design .” American Economic Review . Vol. (99)1: 179–215. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Muralidharan, Karthik and Venkatesh Sundararaman (2011). “Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India.” Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 119, No. 1, pp. 39-77.
    Listed reading
  • Glewwe, Paul, Nauman Ilias, and Michael Kremer (2010). “Teacher incentives.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2, no. 3: 205-27.
    Listed reading
  • Kremer, Michael, Edward Miguel, and Rebecca Thornton. “Incentives to learn.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 91, no. 3 (2009): 437-456.
    Listed reading
  • Duflo, E., Hanna, R., & Ryan, S. P. (2012). “Incentives Work: Getting Teachers to Come to School.” The American Economic Review , 102(4), 1241-1278.
    Listed reading
  • Teacher Absence
    Listed reading
  • Chaudhury, Nazmul, Jeffrey Hammer, Michael Kremer, Karthik Muralidharan, and F. Halsey Rogers (2005).“Teacher Absence in India: A Snapshot.” Journal of the European Economic Association . 3, No. 2-3, Pages 658-667.
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2006). “Addressing Absence.” Journal of Economic Perspectives , 20(1) 117-132.
    Listed reading
  • Curriculum, Pedagogy, Tracking, Inputs, etc.
    Listed reading
  • ***Duflo Esther, Pascaline Dupas and Michael Kremer (2011). “Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya.” American Economic Review , Vol.101(5), pp. 1739-74.
    Listed reading
  • Glewwe, Paul, Michael Kremer and Sylvie Moulin (2009). “Many Children Left Behind? Textbooks and Test Scores in Kenya.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , Vol.1(1)112-135.
    Listed reading
  • Muralidharan, Karthik and Venkatesh Sundararaman (2013). “Contract Teachers: Experimental Evidence from India.”
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit, Shawn Cole, Esther Duflo and Leigh Linden (2007). “Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , Vol. 122 (3) 1235-1264.
    Listed reading
  • Dillon, Moira R., Harini Kannan, Joshua T. Dean, Elizabeth S. Spelke, and Esther Duflo (2017). “Cognitive science in the field: A preschool intervention durably enhances intuitive but not formal mathematics.” Science 357, no. 6346: 47-55.
    Listed reading
  • School Choice
    Listed reading
  • Angrist, Joshua, Eric Bettinger, and Michael Kremer, (2006). “Long-Term Educational Consequences of Secondary School Vouchers: Evidence from Administrative Records in Colombia.” American Economic Review. Volume 96(3) 847-862.
    Listed reading
  • Angrist, Joshua, Eric Bettinger, Erik Bloom, Michael Kremer and Elizabeth King (2002). “Vouchers for Private Schooling in Colombia: Evidence from Randomized Natural Experiments.” The American Economic Review , December, Volume 92(5) 1535-1558.
    Listed reading
  • Urquiola, Miguel and Chang-Tai Hsieh, (2006). “The Effects of Generalized School Choice on Achievement and Stratification: Evidence from Chile’s School Voucher Program.” Journal of Public Economics , 90 (8-9) 1477-1503.
    Listed reading
  • Foster, Andrew and Mark Rosenzweig (1996). “Technical Change and Human-Capital Returns and Investments: Evidence from the Green Revolution.” American Economic Review , 86(4) 931-953.
    Listed reading
  • Hyperbolic Discounting/Time Preferences, Demand for commitment
    Listed reading
  • Mahajan, Aprajit, Christian Michel, and Alessandro Tarozzi. “Identification of time-inconsistent models: The case of insecticide treated nets.” No. w27198. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2020.
    Listed reading
  • Andreoni, James, Michael Callen, Karrar Jaffar, Yasir Khan, and Charles Sprenger (2020). “Using Preference Estimates to Customize Incentives: An Application to Polio Vaccination Drives in Pakistan.” NBER.
    Listed reading
  • Schilbach, Frank (2019). “Alcohol and Self-Control: A Field Experiment in India.” American Economic Review . 109(4): 1290-1322.
    Listed reading
  • Blumenstock, Joshua, Michael Callen, and Tarek Ghani (2018). “Why do defaults affect behavior? Experimental evidence from Afghanistan.” American Economic Review 108, no. 10: 2868-2901.
    Listed reading
  • Dupas, Pascaline, and Jonathan Robinson (2013). “Savings constraints and microenterprise development: Evidence from a field experiment in Kenya.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5, no. 1: 163-92.
    Listed reading
  • Dupas, Pascaline, and Jonathan Robinson (2013). “Why don’t the poor save more? Evidence from health savings experiments.” American Economic Review 103, no. 4: 1138-71.
    Listed reading
  • Dupas, Pascaline, Dean Karlan, Jonathan Robinson, and Diego Ubfal (2018). “Banking the unbanked? Evidence from three countries.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10, no. 2: 257-97.
    Listed reading
  • Schaner, Simone (2018). “The persistent power of behavioral change: Long-run impacts of temporary savings subsidies for the poor.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10, no. 3: 67-100.
    Listed reading
  • The demand for health
    Listed reading
  • *** Banerjee, Abhijit, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, and Matthew O. Jackson (2019). “Using gossips to spread information: Theory and evidence from two randomized controlled trials.” The Review of Economic Studies 86, no. 6: 2453-2490.
    Listed reading
  • *** Chernozhukov, Victor, Mert Demirer, Esther Duflo, and Ivan Fernandez-Val (2020). “Generic Machine Learning Inference on Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in Randomized Experiments, with an Application to Immunization in India.” No. w24678. National Bureau of Economic Research.
    Listed reading
  • Other readings
    Listed reading
  • *** Dupas, Pascaline (2014). “ Short-Run Subsidies and Long-Run Adoption of New Health Products: Evidence from a Field Experiment. ” Econometrica 82(1), pp. 197-28. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Cohen, Jessica and Pascaline Dupas (2010). “Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence from a Randomized Malaria Prevention Experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 125 (1), pp.1-45.
    Listed reading
  • Cohen, Jessica, Pascaline Dupas, and Simone Schaner (2015). “Price Subsidies, Diagnostic Tests, and Targeting of Malaria Treatment. American Economic Review 105, no. 2. (February 2015): 609–645.
    Listed reading
  • Dupas, Pascaline and Edward Miguel (2017). “Impacts and Determinants of Health Levels in Low-Income Countries.” Draft prepared for the Handbook of Field Experiments .
    Listed reading
  • Ashraf, Nava, James Berry, and Jesse M. Shapiro (2010). “Can Higher Prices Stimulate Product Use? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Zambia.” American Economic Review , 100(5): 2383-2413.
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster, Dhruva Kothari (2010). “Improving Immunisation Coverage in Rural India: Clustered Randomised Controlled Evaluation of Immunisation Campaigns With and Without Incentives.” BMJ , 340:c2220.
    Listed reading
  • Thornton, Rebecca L. (2008). “The Demand for, and Impact of, Learning HIV Status.” American Economic Review , 98(5): 1829-63.
    Listed reading
  • *** Das, Jishnu, Alaka Holla, Aakash Mohpal, and Karthik Muralidharan (2016). “ Quality and accountability in health care delivery: audit-study evidence from primary care in India. ” American Economic Review 106, no. 12: 3765-99. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Das, Jishnu, Alaka Holla, Veena Das, Manoj Mohanan, Diana Tabak, and Brian Chan (2012). “In urban and rural India, a standardized patient study showed low levels of provider training and huge quality gaps.” Health Affairs 31, no. 12: 2774-2784.
    Listed reading
  • Das J, and P. Gertler (2007). “Variations in Practice Quality in Five Low-Income Countries: A Conceptual Overview.” Health Affairs , 26(3):w296-w309.
    Listed reading
  • *** Das, Jishnu, Jeffrey Hammer, and Kenneth Leonard (2008). “ The Quality of Medical Advice in Low-Income Countries .” Journal of Economic Perspectives , 22(2): 93–114. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Leonard, K.L (2009). “The Cost of Imperfect Agency in Health Care: Evidence from Rural Cameroun.” Journal of Development Economics , 88 (2).
    Listed reading
  • ***Leonard, K.L. (2008), “ Is Patient Satisfaction Sensitive to Changes in the Quality of Care? An Exploitation of the Hawthorne Effect .” Journal of Health Economics , Volume 27, Issue 2, Pages 444-459. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee A, A. Deaton, E. Duflo (2004). “Health Care Delivery in Rural Rajasthan.” Economic and Political Weekly , 15(2):153-57.
    Listed reading
  • Das, Jishnu and Jeffrey Hammer (2005). “Which Doctor? Combining Vignettes and Item Response to Measure Clinical Competence.” Journal of Development Economics , Volume 78, Issue 2, December 2005, Pages 348-383.
    Listed reading
  • *** Das, Jishnu and Jeffrey Hammer (2007). “Location, Location, Location: Residence, Wealth and the Quality of Medical Care in Delhi, India .” Health Aff. 2007; 26(3); w338-w351. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Chaudhury, Nazmul, Jeffrey Hammer, Michael Kremer, Karthik Muralidharan, and F. Halsey Rogers (2006). “Missing in Action: Teacher and Health Worker Absence in Developing Countries.” Journal of Economic Perspectives , 20(1): 91–116.
    Listed reading
  • Das, Jishnu and Hammer, Jeffrey (2007). “Money for Nothing: The Dire Straits of Medical Practice in Delhi, India.” Journal of Development Economics , Volume 83, Issue 1, May 2007, Pages 1-36.
    Listed reading
  • Olken, Benjamin, Junko Onishi, and Susan Wong (2014). “Should Aid Reward Performance? Evidence From a Field Experiment on Health and Education in Indonesia.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics6 (4) .
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit V., Esther Duflo, and Rachel Glennerster (2008). “Putting a band-aid on a corpse: incentives for nurses in the Indian public health care system.” Journal of the European Economic Association 6, no. 2-3: 487-500.
    Listed reading
  • Infrastructure and the Environment [for reference only]
    Listed reading
  • Kremer, Michael, Jessica Leino, Edward Miguel, and Alix Peterson Zwane (2011). “Spring Cleaning: Rural Water Impacts, Valuation, and Institutions.” Quarterly Journal of Economics . Vol. 126: 145-205.
    Listed reading
  • Kremer, Michael, Alix Peterson Zwane and Amrita Ahuja (2010). “Providing Safe Water: Evidence from Randomized Evaluations.” Annual Review of Resource Economics , Volume 2.
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  • Almond, Douglas, Yuyu Chen, Michael Greenstone, and Hongbin Li (2009). “Winter Heating or Clean Air? Unintended Impacts of China’s Huai River Policy.” American Economic Review , 99(2): 184–90.
    Listed reading
  • Burgess, Robin, Dave Donaldson, Olivier Deschenes and Michael Greenstone (2017). “Weather and Death in India: Mechanisms and Implications for Climate Change.”
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  • Buchmann, Nina, Erica M. Field, Rachel Glennerster, and Reshmaan N. Hussam (2019). “Throwing the baby out with the drinking water: unintended consequences of arsenic mitigation efforts in Bangladesh.” No. w25729. National Bureau of Economic Research.
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  • Udry, Christopher (1996). “ Gender, Agricultural Production and the Theory of the Household. ” Journal of Political Economy . 104(5), 1010-1046. ↗
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  • Other Readings
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  • *** Browning, Martin and Pierre-André Chiappori (1998). “ Efficient Intra-Household Allocations: A General Characterization and Empirical Tests. Econometrica , 66 (6): 1241-1278. ↗
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  • *** Duflo, Esther and Christopher Udry (2004). “ Intra-household Resource Allocation in Côte d’Ivoire: Social Norms, Separate Accounts and Consumption Choices .” NBER Working Paper No. 10498. ↗
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  • *** Duflo, Esther (2003). “ Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old Age Pension and Intra-household Allocation in South Africa .” The World Bank Economic Review , 17(1): 1-25. ↗
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  • Basu, Kaushik (2006). “Gender and Say: A Model of Household Behaviour with Endogenously Determined Balance of Power.” The Economic Journal , 116(511): 558-580.
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  • Chiappori, Pierre-André, Bernard Fortin and Guy Lacroix (2002). “Marriage Market, Divorce Legislation, and Household Labor Supply.” Journal of Political Economy , 110(1): 37-72.
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  • Angrist, Josh (2002). “How Do Sex Ratios Affect Marriage and Labor Markets? Evidence from America’s Second Generation.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 117(3)997-1038.
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  • Lundberg, Shelly J., Robert A. Pollak, and Terence J. Wales (1997). “Do Husbands and Wives Pool their Resources? Evidence from the United Kingdom Child Benefit.” Journal of Human Resources , 32(3): 463–480.
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  • Ashraf, Nava (2009). “Spousal Control and Intra-Household Decision Making: An Experimental Study in the Philippines.” American Economic Review , 99(4): 1245-1277.
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  • Robinson, Jonathan (2012). “Limited Insurance Within the Household: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 4(4): 140–164.
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  • Schaner, Simone (2015). “Do Opposites Detract? Intrahousehold Preference Heterogeneity and Inefficient Strategic Savings.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 7(2): 135-74.
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  • Schaner, Simone (2016). “The Cost of Convenience? Transaction Costs, Bargaining Power, and Savings Account Use in Kenya.” Journal of Human Resources , 52(4): 919-45
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  • Field, Erica, Rohini Pande, Natalia Rigol, Simone Schaner, and Charity Troyer Moore (2021). “On Her Own Account: How Strengthening Women’s Financial Control Impacts Labor Supply and Gender Norms.” American Economic Review , 111(7): 2342-75.
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  • Bursztyn, Leonardo, Alessandra L. González, and David Yanagizawa-Drott (2020). “Misperceived social norms: Women working outside the home in Saudi Arabia.” American Economic Review 110, no. 10: 2997-3029.
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  • Diva Dhar, Tarun Jain, and Seema Jayachandran (2021). “Reshaping Adolescents’ Gender Attitudes: Evidence from a School-Based Experiment in India.”
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  • *** Qian, Nancy (2008). “ Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 123(3), 1251-1285. ↗
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  • McKelway, Madeline (2021). “Women’s employment in India: Intra-household and intra-personal constraints.”
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  • Conlon, John J., Malavika Mani, Gautam Rao, Matthew W. Ridley, and Frank Schilbach (2021). “Learning in the Household.” No. w28844. National Bureau of Economic Research.
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  • Ashraf, Nava, Erica Field, and Jean Lee (2014). “Household bargaining and excess fertility: an experimental study in Zambia.” American Economic Review 104, no. 7: 2210-37.
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  • Munshi, Kaivan, and Jacques Myaux (2006). “Social norms and the fertility transition.” Journal of Development Economics 80, no. 1: 1-38.
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  • Miller, Grant (2010). “Contraception as development? New evidence from family planning in Colombia.” The Economic Journal 120, no. 545: 709-736.
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  • Jayachandran, Seema, and Rohini Pande (2017). “Why are Indian children so short? The role of birth order and son preference.” American Economic Review 107, no. 9: 2600-2629.
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  • Duflo, Esther (2012). “Women empowerment and economic development.” Journal of Economic Literature 50, no. 4: 1051-79.
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  • Jayachandran, Seema (2015). “The Roots of Gender Inequality in Developing Countries.” Annu. Rev. Econ 7: 63-88.
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  • Jayachandran, Seema, and Ilyana Kuziemko (2011). “Why do mothers breastfeed girls less than boys? Evidence and implications for child health in India.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 126, no. 3: 1485-1538.
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  • Banerjee, Abhijit, Eliana La Ferrara, and Victor H. Orozco-Olvera (2019). “The entertaining way to behavioral change: Fighting HIV with MTV.” No. w26096. National Bureau of Economic Research.
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  • **Burchardi, Konrad B., Selim Gulesci, Benedetta Lerva, and Munshi Sulaiman (2019), “ Moral Hazard: Experimental Evidence from Tenancy Contracts .” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 134(1): 281-347. ↗
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  • Laffont, Jean-Jacques, and Mohamed Salah Matoussi (1995). “Moral Hazard, Financial Constraints and Sharecropping in El Oulja.” Review of Economic Studies , 62(3): 381-399.
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  • Banerjee, Abhijit (2000). “Prospects and Strategies for Land Reforms.” in B. Pleskovic and J. Stiglitz (eds), Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 1999. Washington, DC: World Bank, 253-284.
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  • Besley, Timothy, and Robin Burgess (2000). “Land Reform, Poverty Reduction, and Growth: Evidence from India.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 115(2): 389-430.
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  • Property Rights and Investment Decisions
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  • ** Goldstein, Markus and Christopher Udry (2008). “ The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana .” Journal of Political Economy , 116 (6): 981-1022. ↗
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  • ** Field, Erica (2007). “ Entitled to Work: Urban Property Rights and Labor Supply in Peru .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 122(4): 1561-1602. ↗
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  • Goldstein, Markus, Kenneth Houngbedji, Florence Kondylis, Michael O’Sullivan, and Harris Selod (2018). “Formalization without certification? Experimental evidence on property rights and investment.” Journal of Development Economics, 132: 57-74.
    Listed reading
  • De Janvry, Alain, Kyle Emerick, Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, and Elisabeth Sadoulet (2015). “Delinking Land Rights from Land Use: Certification and Migration in Mexico.” American Economic Review , 105(10), 3125-49.
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  • Galán, JS (2020). “Tied to the Land? Intergenerational Mobility and Agrarian Reform in Colombia.” Submitted to Quarterly Journal of Economics.
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  • Banerjee, Abhijit, Paul J. Gertler, and Maitreesh Ghatak (2002). “Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal.” Journal of Political Economy , 110(2): 239-280.
    Listed reading
  • Do, Quy‐Toan and Lakshmi Iyer (2008). “Land Titling and Rural Transition in Vietnam.” Economic Development and Cultural Change , 56(3): 531-579.
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  • Field, Erica and Maximo Torero (2006). “Do Property Titles Increase Credit Access Among the Urban Poor? Evidence from a Nationwide Titling Program.”
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  • Leight, Jessica (2016). “Reallocating Wealth? Insecure Property Rights and Agricultural Investment in Rural China.” China Economic Review, 40: 207-227.
    Listed reading
  • Montero, Eduardo (2021). “Cooperative Property Rights and Development: Evidence from a Land Reform in El Salvador.”
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  • Land Market Frictions and Reallocation
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  • Ravallion, Martin, and Dominique van de Walle (2006). “Land Reallocation in an Agrarian Transition.” The Economic Journal, 116(514): 924-942.
    Listed reading
  • Bleakley, Hoyt, and Joseph Ferrie (2015). “Land Openings on the Georgia frontier and the Coase Theorem in the Short-and Long-Run.”
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  • Restuccia, Diego and Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis (2017). “Land Misallocation and Productivity.”
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  • *** Alatas, Vivi, Abhijit Banerjee, Rema Hanna, Benjamin A. Olken, and Julia Tobias (2012). “ Targeting the Poor: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia. ” American Economic Review , 102(4): 1206-1240. ↗
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  • *** Alatas, Vivi, Abhijit Banerjee, Rema Hanna, Benjamin A. Olken, Ririn Purnamasari, and Matthew Wai-Poi (2016). “ Self-Targeting: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Indonesia .” Journal of Political Economy 124(2): 371-427. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Hanna, Rema and Benjamin A. Olken (2018). “Universal Basic Incomes vs. Targeted Transfers: Anti-Poverty Programs in Developing Countries*.” Journal of Economic Perspectives.* 32(4): 201-226.
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  • Nichols, Albert L. and Richard J. Zeckhauser (1982). “Targeting Transfers through Restrictions on Recipients.” American Economic Review , 72(2): 372-377.
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  • Olken, Benjamin A. (2006). “Corruption and the Costs of Redistribution: Micro evidence from Indonesia.” Journal of Public Economics , 90(4-5): 853-870.
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  • Elbers, Chris, Jean O. Lanjouw, and Peter Lanjouw (2003). “Micro-Level Estimation of Poverty and Inequality.” Econometrica , 71(1): 355-364.
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  • Niehaus, Paul, Antonia Atanassova, Marianne Bertrand, and Sendhil Mullainathan (2013). “Targeting with Agents.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy , 5(1): 206-238.
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  • The Form of Transfers: Conditionality, Cash vs In-Kind, Workfare
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  • *** Banerjee, Abhijit, Rema Hanna, Benjamin A. Olken, Elan Satriawan, and Sudarno Sumarto (2021). “ Food vs. Food Stamps: Evidence from an At-Scale Experiment in Indonesia .” ↗
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  • Gadenne, Lucie, Samuel Norris, Monica Singhal, and Sandip Sukhtankar (2021). “In-Kind Transfers as Insurance.”
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  • Cunha, Jesse M. (2014). “Testing Paternalism: Cash versus In-kind Transfers.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 6(2): 195-230.
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  • Coate, Stephen, Stephen Johnson, and Richard Zeckhauser (1994). “Pecuniary Redistribution Through In-Kind Programs.” Journal of Public Economics , 55(1): 19-40.
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  • Banerjee, Abhijit V. (2016). “Policies for a Better-Fed World.” Review of World Economics , 152 (1): 3-17.
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  • Besley, Timothy and Ravi Kanbur (1988). “Food Subsidies and Poverty Alleviation.” The Economic Journal , 98(392): 701-719.
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  • Big Push Programs, Business Programs, Cash Transfers
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  • *** Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Nathanael Goldberg, Dean Karlan, Robert Osei, William Parienté, Jeremy Shapiro, Bram Thuysbaert, and Christopher Udry (2015). “ A Multifaceted Program Causes Lasting Progress for the Very Poor: Evidence from Six Countries .” Science , 348(6236): 772-790. ↗
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  • Blattman, Chris, Nathan Fiala, and Sebastian Martinez (2014). “Generating Skilled Self-Employment in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from Uganda.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 129 (2): 697-752.
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  • Blattman, Christopher, Eric P. Green, Julian Jamison, M. Christian Lehmann, and Jeannie Annan (2016). “The Returns to Microenterprise Support Among the Ultrapoor: A Field Experiment in Postwar Uganda.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 8(2): 35-64.
    Listed reading
  • ***Haushofer, Johannes, and Jeremy Shapiro (2016). “ The Short-Term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: Experimental Evidence from Kenya .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 131(4): 1973-2042. ↗
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  • Bandiera, Oriana, Robin Burgess, Narayan Das, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul, and Munshi Sulaiman (2017). “Labor Markets and Poverty in Village Economies.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 132(2): 811-870.
    Listed reading
  • Taxes and the Informal Sector
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  • *** Jensen, Anders (2019). “ Employment Structure and the Rise of the Modern Tax System .” NBER Working Paper 25502. ↗
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  • *** Basri, M. Chatib, Mayara Felix, Rema Hanna, and Benjamin A. Olken (2019). “ Tax Administration vs. Tax Rates: Evidence from Corporate Taxation in Indonesia .” NBER Working Paper 26150. ↗
    Listed reading
  • *** Khan, Adnan Q., Asim Khwaja, and Benjamin A. Olken (2016). “ Tax Farming Redux: Experimental Evidence on Performance Pay for Tax Collectors .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 131(1): 219-271. ↗
    Listed reading
  • ***Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen, Claus Thustrup Kreiner, and Emmanuel Saez (2016). “ Why Can Modern Governments Tax So Much? An Agency Model of Firms as Fiscal Intermediaries .” Economica , 83: 219–246. ↗
    Listed reading
  • Naritomi, Joana (2019). “Consumers as Tax Auditors.” American Economic Review, 109(9): 3031-72*.*
    Listed reading
  • Kumler, Todd, Eric Verhoogen, and Judith Frías (2020). “Enlisting Employees in Improving Payroll-Tax Compliance: Evidence from Mexico.”
    Listed reading
  • Gordon, Roger and Wei Li (2009). “Tax Structure in Developing Countries: Many Puzzles and a Possible Explanation.” Journal of Public Economics , 93(7-8): 855-866.
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  • Fisman, Raymond and Shang-Jin Wei (2004). “Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from ‘Missing Imports’ in China.” Journal of Political Economy , 112(2): 471-496.
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  • Mishra, Prachi, Arvind Subramanian, and Petia Topalova (2008). “Tariffs, Enforcement, and Customs Evasion: Evidence from India.” Journal of Public Economics , 92(10-11): 1907-1925.
    Listed reading
  • Olken, Benjamin A., and Monica Singhal (2011). “Informal Taxation.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 3(4): 1-28.
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  • De Paula, Áureo and José A. Scheinkman (2010). “Value-Added Taxes, Chain Effects, and Informality.” American Economics Journal: Macroeconomics , 2(4): 195-221.
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  • Carrillo, Paul, Dina Pomeranz, and Monica Singhal (2017). “Dodging the Taxman: Firm Misreporting and Limits to Tax Enforcement.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 9(2): 144-164.
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  • Gadenne Lucie, Tushar K. Nandi, Roland Rathelot (2019). “Taxation and Supplier Networks: Evidence from India.” International Growth Centre S-89450-INC-1.
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  • Brockmeyer, Anne, Alejandro Estefan, Karina Ramírez Arras, Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato (2020). “Taxing Property in Developing Countries: Theory and Evidence from Mexico.” 112 th Annual Conference on Taxation .
    Listed reading
  • Bachas, Pierre, Lucie Gadenne, and Anders Jensen (2020). “Informality, Consumption Taxes, and Redistribution.” NBER Working Paper 27429.
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  • Londoño-Vélez, Juliana and Javier Ávila-Mahecha (2021). “Enforcing Wealth Taxes in the Developing World: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Colombia.” American Economic Review: Insights , 3(2): 131-48.
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  • Almunia, Miguel, Jonas Hjort, Justine Knebelmann, and Lin Tian (2021). “Strategic or Confused Firms? Evidence from ‘Missing’ Transactions in Uganda.”
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  • Labor Supply: Testing for Separation
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  • *** LaFave, Daniel and Duncan Thomas (2016). “ Farms, Families, and Markets: New Evidence on Completeness of Markets in Agricultural Settings .” Econometrica, 84(5): 1917-1960. ↗
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  • LaFave, Daniel R., Evan D. Peet, and Duncan Thomas (2020). “Farm Profits, Prices and Household Behavior,” National Bureau of Economic Research.
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  • Classical Labor Supply
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  • Jayachandran, Seema (2006). “Selling Labor Low: Wage Responses to Productivity Shocks in Developing Countries.” Journal of Political Economy , 114(3): 538-575.
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  • Imbert, Clément and John Papp (2015). “Labor Market Effects of Social Programs: Evidence from India’s Employment Guarantee.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(2): 233-263.
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  • Goldberg, Jessica (2016). “Kwacha Gonna Do? Experimental Evidence about Labor Supply in Rural Malawi.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 8(1): 129-149.
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  • Nominal Rigidities, Behavioral Issues, and Labor Supply
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  • Breza, Emily, Supreet Kaur, and Yogita Shamdasani (2019). “Labor Rationing: A Revealed Preference Approach from Hiring Shocks.”
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  • Kaur, Supreet (2019). “Nominal Wage Rigidity in Village Labor Markets.” American Economic Review . 109(10): 3588-3616.
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  • Breza, Emily, Supreet Kaur, and Nandita Krishnaswamy (2018). “Scabs: The Social Suppression of Labor Supply.”
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  • Schultz, Theodore W. “The Doctrine of Agricultural Labor of Zero Value.” Chapter 4 in Transforming Traditional Agriculture . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
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  • Hussam, Reshmaan, Erin M. Kelley, Gregory Lane, and Fatima Zahra (2021). “The Psychosocial Value of Employment.” NBER Working Paper No. 28924.
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  • Agness, Daniel, Travis Baseler, Sylvain Chassang, Pascaline Dupas, and Erik Snowberg (2020). “Valuing the Time of the Self-Employed.”
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  • Oh, Suanna (2020). “Does Identity Affect Labor Supply.” CDEP-CGEG Working Paper Series.
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  • Kaur, Supreet, Sendhil Mullainathan, Suanna Oh, and Frank Schilbach (2021). “Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?”
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  • Frictions in Labor Demand
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  • Fink, Günther, B. Kelsey Jack, and Felix Masiye (2018). “Seasonal Liquidity, Rural Labor Markets and Agricultural Production.” NBER Working Paper No. 24564.
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  • Urban Labor Markets, Search, and Frictions
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  • ***Blattman, Christopher and Stefan Dercon (2018). “ The Impacts of Industrial and Entrepreneurial Work on Income and Health: Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia .” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 10(3): 1-38*.* ↗
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  • Derenoncourt, Ellora, François Gérard, Lorenzo Lagos, and Claire Montialoux (2021). “Racial Inequality, Minimum Wage Spillovers, and the Informal Sector.” NBER Summer Institute Development Economics.
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  • Hjort, Jonas, Xuan Li, and Heather Sarsons, (2020), “Across-Country Wage Compression in Multinationals.”
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  • Besley, Timothy and Robin Burgess (2004). “Can Labor Regulation Hinder Economic Performance? Evidence from India.” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 119(1): 91-134.
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  • Alfonsi, Livia, Oriana Bandiera, Vittorio Bassi, Robin Burgess, Imran Rasul, Munshi Sulaiman, and Anna Vitali (2020). “Tackling Youth Unemployment: Evidence from a Labor Market Experiment in Uganda.” Econometrica , 88(6): 2369-2414.
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  • Bertrand, Marianne, Chang-Tai Hsieh, and Nick Tsivanidis (2017). “Contract Labor and Firm Growth in India.”
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  • Carranza, Eliana, Robert Garlick, Kate Orkin, and Neil Rankin (2020). “Job Search and Hiring with Two-Sided Limited Information about Workseekers’ Skills*,”* CID Faculty Working Paper No. 383.
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  • Wheeler, Laura, Robert Garlick, Eric Johnson, Patrick Shaw, and Marissa Gargano (2021). “LinkedIn(to) Job Opportunities: Experimental Evidence from Job Readiness Training.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (forthcoming) . Working Paper.
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  • *** Boudreau, Laura (2020). “ Multinational enforcement of labor law: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh’s apparel sector .” Working Paper. ↗
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  • Boudreau, Laura, Rocco Macchiavello, Virginia Minni, and Mari Tanaka (2021). “Union Leaders: Experimental Evidence from Myanmar.” Columbia Business School. Working Paper.
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  • Sources of Credit Constraints: Adverse Selection, Moral Hazard, and Monitoring
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  • *** Banerjee, Abhijit (2004)." Contracting Constraints, Credit Markets, and Economic Development” (PDF) . In M. Dewatripont, L. Hansen and S. Turnovsky, eds. Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications , Eight World Congress of the Econometric Society, Volume III. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-46. ↗
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  • ****Karlan, Dean and Jonathan Zinman (2009). “ Observing Unobservables: Identifying Information Asymmetries with a Consumer Credit Field Experiment .” Econometrica , 77(6): 1993-2008. ↗
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  • Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2010). “Giving Credit Where it is Due.” Journal of Economic Perspectives , 24(3): 61-80.
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  • Aleem, Irfan (1990). “Imperfect Information, Screening and the Costs of Informal Lending: A Study of a Rural Credit Market in Pakistan.” World Bank Economic Review , 4(3): 329-349.
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  • Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2014). “Do Firms Want to Borrow More? Testing Credit Constraints Using a Directed Lending Program.” Review of Economic Studies, 81 (2): 572-607.
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  • Estimating Credit Constraints, and What Happens When You Relax Them
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  • *** McKenzie David, Suresh de Mel, and Christopher Woodruff (2008). “ Returns to Capital in Microenterprises: Evidence from a Field Experiment .” Quarterly Journal of Economics , 123(4): 1329-72. ↗
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  • McKenzie, David, Suresh de Mel, and Christopher Woodruff (2012). “One-Time Transfers of Cash or Capital Have Long-Lasting Effects on Microenterprises in Sri Lanka.” Science , 335(6071): 962-66.
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  • *** Townsend, Robert M. and Joseph P. Kaboski (2011), “ A Structural Evaluation of a Large-Scale Quasi-Experimental Microfinance Initiative .” Econometrica , 79(5): 1357-1406. ↗
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  • Karlan, Dean, Robert Osei, Isaac Osei-Akoto and Christopher Udry (2014). “Agricultural Decisions After Relaxing Credit and Risk Constraints.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 129 (2): 597-652.
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit and Esther Duflo (2014). “Do Firms Want to Borrow More? Testing Credit Constraints Using a Directed Lending Program.” Review of Economic Studies , 81(2): 572-607.
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  • Keniston, Daniel E. (2011). “Experimental vs. Structural Estimates of the Return to Capital in Microenterprises.” Mimeo, Yale.
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  • Blouin, Arthur, and Rocco Macchiavello (2013). “Tropical Lending: International Prices, Strategic Default and Credit Constraints among Coffee Washing Stations.”
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  • Bernhardt, Arielle, Erica Field, Rohini Pande, and Natalia Rigol (2019). “Household Matters: Revisiting the Returns to Capital among Female Microentrepreneurs,” American Economic Review: Insights , 1(2): 141-60.
    Listed reading
  • Microfinance: Impacts and Mechanisms
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  • ***Meager, Rachael (2019). “ Understanding the Average Impact of Microcredit Expansions: A Bayesian Hierarchical Analysis of Seven Randomized Experiments .” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 11(1): 57-91. ↗
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  • *** Hussam, Reshmaan, Natalia Rigol, and Benjamin N. Roth (2020). “ Targeting High Ability Entrepreneurs Using Community Information: Mechanism Design in The Field .” PEDL Research Paper. ↗
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  • *** Field, Erica, John Papp, Rohini Pande and Natalia Rigol (2013). “ Does the Classic Microfinance Model Discourage Entrepreneurship Among the Poor? Experimental Evidence from India .” American Economic Review , 103(6): 2196-2226. ↗
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  • *** Karlan, Dean (2007). “ Social Connections and Group Banking .” The Economic Journal , 117(517): F52-F84. ↗
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  • *** Feigenberg, Benjamin, Erica Field and Rohini Pande (2013). “ The Economic Returns to Social Interaction: Experimental Evidence from Microfinance .” Review of Economic Studies , 80(4): 1459-1483. ↗
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  • Bryan, Gharad, Dean Karlan, and Jonathan Zinman (2015). “Referrals: Peer Screening and Enforcement in a Consumer Credit Field Experiment.” American Economic Journal: Microeconomics , 7(3): 174-204.
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  • Giné, Xavier and Dean Karlan (2014). “Group versus Individual Liability: Short and Long Term Evidence from Philippine Microcredit Lending Groups.” Journal of Development Economics , 107: 65–83.
    Listed reading
  • Field, Erica and Rohini Pande (2008). “Repayment Frequency and Default in Micro-finance: Evidence from India.” Journal of the European Economics Association Papers and Proceedings 6(2-3): 501-509.
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  • Banerjee, Abhijit, Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman (2015). “Six Randomized Evaluations of Microcredit: Introduction and Further Steps.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 1-21.
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  • Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster, and Cynthia Kinnan (2015). “The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 22-53.
    Listed reading
  • Tarozzi, Alessandro, Jaikishan Desai, and Kristin Johnson (2015). “The Impacts of Microcredit: Evidence from Ethiopia.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 54-89.
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  • Attanasio, Orazio, Britta Augsburg, Ralph De Haas, Emla Fitzsimons, and Heike Harmgart (2015). “The Impacts of Microfinance: Evidence from Joint-Liability Lending in Mongolia.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 90-122.
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  • Crépon, Bruno, Florencia Devoto, Esther Duflo, and William Parienté (2015). “Estimating the Impact of Microcredit on Those Who Take It Up: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Morocco.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 123-50.
    Listed reading
  • Angelucci, Manuela, Dean Karlan, and Jonathan Zinman (2015). “Microcredit Impacts: Evidence from a Randomized Microcredit Program Placement Experiment by Compartamos Banco.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 151-82.
    Listed reading
  • Augsburg, Britta, Ralph De Haas, Heike Harmgart, and Costas Meghir (2015). “The Impacts of Microcredit: Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , 7(1): 183-203.
    Listed reading
  • Karlan, Dean and Jonathan Zinman (2010). “Expanding Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts.” The Review of Financial Studies , 23(1): 433-464.
    Listed reading
  • Banerjee, Abhijit (2013). “Microcredit under the Microscope: What Have We Learned in the Past Two Decades, and What Do We Need to Know?” Annual Review of Economics 5: 487-519.
    Listed reading
  • Karlan, Dean and Jonathan Zinman (2008). “Credit Elasticities in Less Developed Countries: Implications for Microfinance.” American Economic Review, 98(3): 1040-1068 .
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: 14.121 and 14.122 G (Fall) 5-0-7 units

Sources