Issues in African Economic Development – Spring 2014

Spring
2014
Economics 172

Pierre Bachas, bachas@econ.berkeley.edu

Jonas Tungodden, jonas@econ.berkeley.edu

Econ172-Syllabus-S14 2014-01-20.pdf

This course will examine leading issues in development economics, with a focus on how they relate to Sub-Saharan Africa.  This course will also explore the empirical methods used to rigorously measure the impact of development and anti-poverty programs.

Promoting Transparency in Social Science Research

E. Miguel, C. Camerer, K. Casey, J. Cohen, K. M. Esterling, A. Gerber, R. Glennerster, D. P. Green, M. Humphreys, G. Imbens, D. Laitin, T. Madon, L. Nelson, B. A. Nosek, M. Petersen, R. Sedlmayr, J. P. Simmons, U. Simonsohn, M. Van der Laan
2014
Research Methodology

We survey recent progress toward research transparency in the social sciences and make the case for standards and practices that help realign scholarly incentives with scholarly values. There is growing appreciation for the advantages of experimentation in the social sciences, but accompanying these changes is a growing sense that incentives, norms, and institutions under which social science operates undermine gains from improved research design. We describe promising, bottom-up innovations in the social sciences, including the three core practices of: disclosure; registration and preanalysis plans; and open data and materials. We also assess common objections to the move toward greater transparency, and argue that new practices need to be implemented in a way that does not stifle creativity or create excess burden.

[Link to abstract]      [Link to PDF reprint]      [Link to full text]

You’ve Earned It: Estimating the Impact of Human Capital on Social Preferences

Pamela Jakiela, Edward Miguel, and Vera L. te Velde
2014
African DevelopmentHealthEducation and Human CapitalResearch Methodology
gspverb 2014-05-12.pdf

We combine data from a randomized evaluation and a laboratory experiment to measure the causal impact of human capital on respect for earned property rights, a component of social preferences with important implications for economic growth and development. We find that higher academic achievement reduces the willingness of young Kenyan women to appropriate others' labor income, and shifts players toward a 50-50 split norm in a modified dictator game. This study demonstrates that education may have long-run impacts on social preferences, norms and institutions beyond the human capital directly produced.