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
African DevelopmentResearch Methodology
croke-et-al-2024-meta-analysis-and-public-policy-reconciling-the-evidence-on-deworming.pdf

Croke, Kevin, et al. (2024) “Meta-analysis and public policy: Reconciling the evidence on Deworming.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 121, no. 25, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2308733121.

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 meta-analysis of the effect of multiple-dose MDA rejects the hypothesis of a common zero effect on child weight, mid-upper arm circumference, and height, and estimates significant average impacts. Estimates of implied treatment effect on infected children with MDA are not significantly different than those found for test and treat trials. These results suggest that MDA is a cost-effective intervention, particularly in the settings recommended by the WHO.

Human Capital Affects Religious Identity: Causal Evidence from Kenya

Livia Alfonsi, Michal Bauer, Julie Chytilova, Edward Miguel
2024
African DevelopmentEducation and Human Capital
1-s2.0-S0304387823001712-main.pdf

Alfonsi, Livia, Michal Bauer, Julie Chytilova, Edward Miguel. (2024) “Human capital affects religious identity: Causal evidence from Kenya.” Journal of Development Economics, vol. 167, p. 103215, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103215.

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 over twenty years, in tandem with a randomized experiment (deworming) that has exogenously boosted education and living standards. The main finding is that the program reduces the likelihood of membership in a Pentecostal denomination up to 20 years later when respondents are in their mid-thirties, while there is a comparable increase in membership in traditional Christian denominations. The effect is concentrated and statistically significant among a sub-group of participants who benefited most from the program in terms of increased education and income. The effects are unlikely due to increased secularization, because the program does not reduce measures of religiosity. The results help explain why the global growth of the Pentecostal movement, sometimes described a “New Reformation”, is centered in low-income communities.

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 Johannesson, Andreas Kotsadam, Edward Miguel, Yamil Velez, Lauren Young
2024
brodeur-et-al-2024-promoting-reproducibility-and-replicability-in-political-science.pdf

Brodeur, A., Esterling, K., Ankel-Peters, J., Bueno, N. S., Desposato, S., Dreber, A., Genovese, F., Green, D. P., Hepplewhite, M., Hoces de la Guardia, F., Johannesson, M., Kotsadam, A., Miguel, E., Velez, Y. R., & Young, L. (2024). “Promoting Reproducibility and Replicability in Political Science. Research & Politics”, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20531680241233439

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 availability policies for 28 leading political science journals and present the results from a survey of editors about their willingness to publish comments and replications. We discuss new initiatives that seek to promote and generate high-quality reproductions and replications. Finally, we make the case for standards and practices that may help increase data availability, reproducibility, and replicability in political science.

Reproductions and replications at scale

Abel Brodeur, Anna Dreber, Fernando Hoces de la Guardia & Edward Miguel
2024
s41562-023-01807-2.pdf

Brodeur, Abel, Anna Dreber, Fernando Hoces de la Guardia & Edward Miguel. (2024). “Reproduction and replication at scale.” Nat Hum Behav 8, 2–3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01807-2

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 approach to reproduction and replication is collaborative and fosters an enjoyable experience for replicators.

Money or Power? Choosing Covid-19 aid in Kenya

Susanna Berkouwer, Pierre Biscaye, Eric Hsu, Oliver Kim, Kenneth Lee, Edward Miguel, Catherine Wolfram
African DevelopmentHealth
1-s2.0-S0140988323005340-main-1.pdf

Berkouwer, Pierre Biscaye, Eric Hsu, Oliver Kim, Kenneth Lee, Edward Miguel, Catherine Wolfram. (2023) “Money or Power? choosing Covid-19 aid in Kenya.” Energy Economics, vol. 127, p. 107036, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2023.107036.

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, transport, and mobile money. During times of crisis, do people prefer in-kind transfers or cash, and why? In this paper, we compare electricity transfers against a benchmark of cash transfers (mobile money) among 2000 rural and urban residents of Kenya with pre-paid electricity meter connections. We offer participants an incentivized choice between electricity transfers or mobile money, totaling approximately USD 10 to 15, and then implement their choice over three months. We generate three main findings. First, participants overwhelmingly prefer cash, with three-quarters of participants opting for mobile money even when offered electricity tokens with a cash value that is 40 percent higher, possibly due to the flexibility in expenditures or credit constraints. Second, despite relatively low baseline electricity consumption, preference for cash is slightly lower in rural areas, possibly due to higher transaction costs for purchasing electricity, lower mobile money penetration, or savings constraints. Third, electricity tokens transfers generate a larger increase in electricity consumption than equivalent cash transfers, suggesting a role for mental accounting; however, we estimate no impact of either electricity or cash transfers on a broad set of socioeconomic outcomes. These patterns suggest that mobile money transfers generate larger welfare gains than electricity credit, at least in settings with high mobile money penetration.

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
African DevelopmentHealth
igad111.pdf

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. (2023) “Development of the Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK)” Innovation in Aging, vol. 7, no. Supplement_1, 1 Dec. 2023, pp. 1155–1155, https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igad104.3706.

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 Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK) to generate novel data to address the health and economic consequences of this demographic transition. Specifically, LOSHAK will investigate the social, economic, environmental, biological, and policy processes that shape late-life health and economic well-being in Kenya. Modeled on the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS), LOSHAK joins a network of harmonized studies on aging in >45 countries worldwide; however, LOSHAK will be only the 2nd such study in SSA. The current feasibility and pilot phase of LOSHAK will validate measures and data collection procedures in a purposive sample of Kenyan adults aged ≥45 years. We have linguistically and culturally translated instruments while aiming to maintain harmonization with both existing HRS network studies and the ongoing Kenya Life Panel Survey. The current phase of LOSHAK is nested within the Kaloleni/Rabai Community Health and Demographic Surveillance System on the coast of Kenya. LOSHAK will advance population aging research in low- and middle-income countries through the study of (a) biomarkers and physiological measures; (b) the impacts of air pollution and climate vulnerability; (c) Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, mental health, disability, caregiving, and psychosocial wellbeing; and (d) economic security, including the impact of social welfare. LOSHAK will inform future public health and economic policy to address challenges related to rapid aging in Kenya and throughout SSA. Accordingly, this paper aims to introduce and provide a description of LOSHAK and its aims and objectives, as well as to inform the scientific community of current study activities being used to build toward the full population-representative study.

Replication games: how to make reproducibility research more systematic

Abel Brodeur, Anna Dreber, Fernando Hoces de la Guardia & Edward Miguel
Research Methodology
d41586-023-02997-5.pdf

Brodeur, Abel, Anna Dreber, Fernando Hoces de la Guardia & Edward Miguel. (2023) “Replication games: How to make reproducibility research more systematic.” Nature, vol. 621, no. 7980: 684–686, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02997-5.

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
Research Methodology
s41467-023-41111-1.pdf

Ferguson, Joel, Rebecca Littman, Garret Christensen, Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Nicholas Swanson, Zenan Wang, Edward Miguel, David Birke & John-Henry Pezzuto. (2023) “Survey of open science practices and attitudes in the social sciences”, Nature Communications, vol. 14, no. 1, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41111-1.

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 practices remain unknown. This study provides an assessment of attitudes toward, use of, and perceived norms regarding open science practices from a sample of authors published in top-10 (most-cited) journals and PhD students in top-20 ranked North American departments from four major social science disciplines: economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. We observe largely favorable private attitudes toward widespread lifetime usage (meaning that a researcher has used a particular practice at least once) of open science practices. As of 2020, nearly 90% of scholars had ever used at least one such practice. Support for posting data or code online is higher (88% overall support and nearly at the ceiling in some fields) than support for pre-registration (58% overall). With respect to norms, there is evidence that the scholars in our sample appear to underestimate the use of open science practices in their field. We also document that the reported lifetime prevalence of open science practices increased from 49% in 2010 to 87% a decade later.

Long-Run Effects of Aid: Forecasts and Evidence from Sierra Leone

Katherine Casey, Rachel Glennerster, Edward Miguel, Maarten Voors
African DevelopmentHealth
uead001.pdf

Casey, Katherine, Rachel Glennerster, Edward Miguel, Maarten Voors. (2023) “Long-run effects of aid: Forecasts and evidence from Sierra Leone.” The Economic Journal, vol. 133, no. 652: 1348–1370, https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uead001.

We evaluate the long-run effects of a decentralised approach to economic development called community-driven development-a prominent strategy for delivering foreign aid-by revisiting a randomised community-driven development program in Sierra Leone 11 years after launch. We estimate large persistent gains in local public goods and market activity, and modest positive effects on institutions. There is suggestive evidence that community-driven development may have slightly improved the communities’ response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic. We compare estimates to the forecasts of experts from Sierra Leone and abroad, working in policy and academia, and find that local policymakers are overly optimistic about the effectiveness of community-driven development.

The Syrian Refugee Life Study: First Glance

Sarah Stillman, Sandra V. Rozo, Abdulrazzak Tamim, I. Bailey Palmer, Emma Smith, and Edward Miguel
2022
African Development
grac023.pdf

Stillman, Sarah, Sandra V. Rozo, Abdulrazzak Tamim, I. Bailey Palmer, Emma Smith, and Edward Miguel. (2022). “The Syrian Refugee Life Study: First Glance”. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, vol. 38, no. 3: 625–653, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/grac023.

This paper presents descriptive statistics from the first wave of the Syrian Refugee Life Study (S-RLS), which began in 2020. S-RLS is a longitudinal study that tracks a representative sample of approximately 2,500 registered Syrian refugee households in Jordan. It collects comprehensive data on sociodemographic variables, health and well-being, preferences, social capital, attitudes, and safety and crime perceptions. We use these data to document the sociodemographic characteristics of Syrian refugees in Jordan and compare them to representative populations in the 2016 Jordan Labor Market Panel Survey (JLMPS). Our findings point to lags in basic service access, housing quality, and educational attainment for Syrian refugees relative to non-refugees. The impacts of the pandemic may partially explain these disparities. The data also show that most Syrian refugees have not recovered economically after COVID-19 and have larger gender disparities in income, employment, prevalence of child marriage, and gender attitudes than their non-refugee counterparts. Finally, mental health problems were common for Syrian refugees in 2020, with depression indicated among more than 45 percent of the phone survey sample and 61 percent of the in-person survey sample.

The illusion of stable fertility preferences

Maximilian W. Müller, Joan Hamory, Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, Edward Miguel
2022
The-illusion-of-stable-fertility-preferences.pdf

Müller, Maximilian, Joan Hamory, Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, Edward Miguel. (2022) “The illusion of stable fertility preferences”, Population Studies, 76(2): 169-189, doi: 10.1080/00324728.2022.2057577.

Fertility preferences have long played a key role in models of fertility differentials and change. We examine the stability of preferences over time using rich panel data on Kenyan women’s fertility desires, expectations, actual fertility, and recall of desires in three waves over a nine-year period, when respondents were in their 20s. We find that although desired fertility is quite unstable, most women perceive their desires to be stable. Under hypothetical future scenarios, few expect their desired fertility to increase over time but, in fact, such increases in fertility desires are common. Moreover, when asked to recall past desires, most respondents report previously wanting exactly as many children as they desire today. These patterns of bias are consistent with the emerging view that fertility desires are contextual, emotionally laden, and structured by identity.

End COVID-19 in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, Edward Miguel, Jason Abaluck, Amrita Ahuja, Marcella Alsan, Abhijit Banerjee, Emily Breza, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, James Dzansi, Denise Garrett, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Gregg S. Gonsalves, Muhammad Masqud Hossain, Aleksandra Jakubowski, Gagandeep Kang, Arjun Kharel, Michael Kremer, Niccolo Meriggi, Carol Nekesa, Benjamin A. Olken, Saad B. Omer, Firdausi Qadri, Helen Rees, Babatunde Salako, Maarten Voors, Shana Warren, and Witold Wiecek
2022
African DevelopmentHealth
science.abo4089.pdf

Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq, Edward Miguel, Jason Abaluck, Amrita Ahuja, Marcella Alsan, Abhijit Banerjee, Emily Breza, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, James Dzansi, Denise Garrett, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Gregg S. Gonsalves, Muhammad Masqud Hossain, Aleksandra Jakubowski, Gagandeep Kang, Arjun Kharel, Michael Kremer, Niccolo Meriggi, Carol Nekesa, Benjamin A. Olken, Saad B. Omer, Firdausi Qadri, Helen Rees, Babatunde Salako, Maarten Voors, Shana Warren, Witold Wiecek. (2022). “End COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries”, Science, 375(6586), doi: 10.1126/science.abo4089

Vaccines are changing the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but in grossly uneven ways. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) face considerable obstacles in both receiving and distributing doses. To limit virus transmission, its devastating impacts, and opportunities for further mutations, this must change. Until it does, nonpharmaceutical interventions such as masking must remain a priority. Science invited global experts to highlight research and innovations aimed at quickening the end of COVID-19 in LMICs.