War and Local Collective Action in Sierra Leone: A Comment on the Use of Coefficient Stability Approaches

Felipe Gonzalez and Edward Miguel
2015
African DevelopmentPolitical Economy and ConflictResearch Methodology
1-s2.0-S0047272715000997-main.pdf
In a study of the  effect  of civil war  exposure on local  collective action outcomes in Sierra Leone,  Bellows and Miguel (2009) employ a coefficient stability approach to assess the importance of omitted variable bias building on Altonji et al. (2005a). Here  we  clarify  the econometric assumptions underlying Bellows and  Miguel (2009), and  extend their analysis using data on  dependent variable reliability ratios and  the method developed in Oster (2015).

Research Transparency Methods in the Social Sciences – Spring 2015

Spring
2015
Economics 270D

Felipe Gonzalez (fgonzalez@econ.berkeley.edu)
Garret Christensen (garret@berkeley.edu)

Econ-270D-Syllabus S15-01-20.pdf

This interdisciplinary methodology course introduces students to tools and resources in the conduct of transparent research within all social science fields, with specific applications to Economics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Demography. The class addresses principles, issues, and practices around research openness and integrity including: meta-analysis, multiple testing corrections, differential privacy data concerns and frontier topics and next steps in research transparency. This course is taught at the Ph.D. level.

Climate and Conflict

Burke, Marshall, Solomon M. Hsiang, and Edward Miguel
2015
Environment and ClimatePolitical Economy and ConflictResearch Methodology
We review the emerging literature on climate and conflict.We consider multiple types of human conflict, including both interpersonal conflict, such as assault and murder, and intergroup conflict, including riots and civil war. We discuss key methodological issues in estimating causal relationships and largely focus on natural experiments that exploit variation in climate over time. Using a hierarchical meta-analysis that allows us to both estimate the mean effect and quantify the degree of variability across 55 studies, we find that deviations from moderate temperatures and precipitation patterns systematically increase conflict risk. Contemporaneous temperature has the largest average impact, with each 1 sd increase in temperature increasing interpersonal conflict by 2.4% and intergroup conflict by 11.3%.We conclude by highlighting research priorities, including a better understanding of the mechanisms linking climate to conflict, societies’ ability to adapt to climatic changes, and the likely impacts of future global warming.

Electrification for ‘Under Grid’ Households in Rural Kenya

Kenneth Lee, Eric Brewer, Carson Christiano, Francis Meyo, Edward Miguel, Matthew Podolsky, Javier Rosa, and Catherine Wolfram
2015
African DevelopmentEnvironment and Climate
DEV-ENG-1-s2.0-S235272851530035X-main.pdf
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 600 million people live without electricity. Despite ambitions of governments and donors to invest in rural electrification, decisions about how to extend electricity access are being made in the absence of rigorous evidence. Using a novel dataset of 20,000 geo-tagged structures in rural Western Kenya, we provide descriptive evidence that electrification rates remain very low despite significant investments in grid infrastructure. This pattern holds across time and for both poor and relatively well-off households and businesses. We argue that if governments wish to leverage existing infrastructure and economies of scale, subsidies and new approaches to financing connections are necessary.

The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya

Robin Burgess, Remi Jedwab, Edward Miguel, Ameet Morjaria, and Gerard Padró i Miquel
2015
African DevelopmentPolitical Economy and Conflict
aer 2E20131031.pdf
Ethnic favoritism is seen as antithetical to development. This paper provides credible quantification of the extent of ethnic favoritism using data on road building in Kenyan districts across the 1963-2011 period. Guided by a model it then examines whether the transition in and out of democracy under the same president constrains or exacerbates ethnic favoritism. Across the 1963 to 2011 period, we Â…find strong evidence of ethnic favoritism: districts that share the ethnicity of the president receive twice as much expenditure on roads and have four times the length of paved roads built. This favoritism disappears during periods of democracy.

Incorporating Climate Uncertainty into Estimates of Climate Change Impacts

Marshall Burke, John Dykema, David Lobell, Edward Miguel, and Shanker Satyanath
2015
Environment and ClimateOtherResearch Methodology
rest a 00478.pdf
Quantitative estimates of the impacts of climate change on economic outcomes are important for public policy. We show that the vast majority of estimates fail to account for well-established uncertainty in future temperature and rainfall changes, leading to potentially misleading projections. We reexamine seven well-cited studies and show that accounting for climate uncertainty leads to a much larger range of projected climate impacts and a greater likelihood of worst-case outcomes, an important policy parameter. Incorporating climate uncertainty into future economic impact assessments will be critical for providing the best possible information on potential impacts.