Ted’s main research focus is African economic development, including work on the economic causes and consequences of violence; the impact of ethnic divisions on local collective action; interactions between health, education, environment, and productivity for the poor; and methods for transparent social science research. He has conducted field work in Kenya, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and India. Many of the datasets used in his research are posted online, either on the relevant article page (on this website) or on Dataverse.
Featured Research
Twenty Year Economic Impacts of Deworming
Hamory, Joan, Edward Miguel, Michael Walker, Michael Kremer, and Sarah Baird
2021
Published Paper
Education and Human CapitalHealth
This study exploits a randomized school health intervention that provided deworming treatment to Kenyan children and utilizes longitudinal data to estimate impacts on economic outcomes up to 20 years
Meta-Analysis and Public Policy: Reconciling the Evidence on Deworming
Croke, Kevin, Joan Hamory Hicks, Eric Hsu, Michael Kremer, Ricardo Maertens, Edward Miguel, Witold Więcek
Published Paper
African DevelopmentResearch Methodology
The WHO recommends mass drug administration (MDA) in areas with >20% prevalence. Recent Cochrane meta-analyses endorse treatment of infected individuals but recommend against MDA. A theory-agnostic
Destructive behavior, economic decision-making, and judgment under thermal stress
Ingvild Almås, Maximilian Auffhammer, Tessa Bold, Ian Bolliger, Aluma Dembo, Solomon M. Hsiang, Shuhei Kitamura, Edward Miguel & Robert Pickmans
Working Paper
Accumulating evidence indicates that environmental temperature substantially affects economic outcomes and violence, but the reasons for this linkage are only partially understood. While factors exter
Human Capital Affects Religious Identity: Causal Evidence from Kenya
Livia Alfonsi, Michal Bauer, Julie Chytilova, Edward Miguel
2024
Published Paper
African DevelopmentEducation and Human Capital
We study how human capital and economic conditions causally affect the choice of religious denomination. We utilize a longitudinal dataset monitoring the religious history of more than 5,000 Kenyans o
Promoting Reproducibility and Replicability in Political Science
Brodeur, Abel , Kevin Esterling, Jörg Ankel-Peters, Natália Bueno, Scott Desposato, Anna Dreber, Federica Genovese, Donald Green, Matthew Hepplewhite, Fernando Hoces de la Guardia, Magnus Johannesso
2024
Published Paper
This article reviews and summarizes current reproduction and replication practices in political science. We first provide definitions for reproducibility and replicability. We then review data availab
Reproductions and replications at scale
Abel Brodeur, Anna Dreber, Fernando Hoces de la Guardia & Edward Miguel
2024
Published Paper
In 2022, one of us (A.B.) founded the Institute for Replication (I4R) with the primary objective of making reproduction and replication commonplace in the social sciences. Our initial focus was on prominent economics and political science journals. As of December 2023, we have reproduced and replicated over 250 studies published in several leading outlets. Our …
Preparing for an Aging Africa: Data-Driven Priorities for Economic Research and Policy
Madeline Duhon, Edward Miguel, Amos Njuguna, Daniela Pinto Veizaga, Michael Walker
Working Paper
African Development
The over-60 population in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow rapidly in the coming decades, tripling between 2020 and 2050. Despite this explosive projected growth, few countries in the region hav
Money or Power? Choosing Covid-19 aid in Kenya
Susanna Berkouwer, Pierre Biscaye, Eric Hsu, Oliver Kim, Kenneth Lee, Edward Miguel, Catherine Wolfram
Published Paper
African DevelopmentHealth
In response to the Covid-19 crisis, 186 countries implemented direct cash transfers to households, and 181 introduced in-kind programs that lowered the cost of utilities such as electricity, water, tr
Development of the Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK)
Niranjani Nagarajan, Shane D Burns, Roselyter M Riang’a, Eunice Muthoni Mwangi, Shaheen Sayed, Muthoni Gichu, Kenneth M Langa, Edward Miguel, Anthony K Ngugi, Joshua R Ehrlich
Published Paper
African DevelopmentHealth
In Kenya, the number of adults aged ≥60 is expected to nearly quadruple by 2050, making it one of the most rapidly aging countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Accordingly, we designed the Longitudi
Replication games: how to make reproducibility research more systematic
Abel Brodeur, Anna Dreber, Fernando Hoces de la Guardia & Edward Miguel
Published Paper
Research Methodology
In some areas of social science, around half of studies can’t be replicated. A new test-fast, fail-fast initiative aims to show what research is hot — and what’s not.
Survey of open science practices and attitudes in the social sciences
Joel Ferguson, Rebecca Littman, Garret Christensen, Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Nicholas Swanson, Zenan Wang, Edward Miguel, David Birke & John-Henry Pezzuto
Published Paper
Research Methodology
Open science practices such as posting data or code and pre-registering analyses are increasingly prescribed and debated in the applied sciences, but the actual popularity and lifetime usage of these
Scaling Agricultural Policy Interventions
Lauren Falcao Bergquist, Benjamin Faber, Thibault Fally, Matthias Hoelzlein, Edward Miguel, Andres Rodriguez-Clare
African DevelopmentResearch Methodology
Policies aimed at raising agricultural productivity have been a centerpiece in the fight against global poverty. We propose a new approach for quantifying large-scale agricultural policy counterfactua
Donor contracting conditions and public procurement: Causal evidence from Kenyan electrification
Catherine D. Wolfram, Edward Miguel, Eric Hsu, Susanna B. Berkouwer
Working Paper
African Development
There is limited causal evidence on the effects of different public procurement regulations on project quality and value-for-money for projects funded both by national governments and foreign aid dono