Does Electrification Supercharge Economic Development?

Lee, Kenneth, Edward Miguel, and Catherine Wolfram
2020
African DevelopmentEnvironment and Climate
jep.34.1.122.pdf
In this paper, we discuss what we can learn from the past decade of microeconomic research on the impacts of household electrification, with the goal of highlighting how future initiatives can be better designed. We begin with an overview of how household electrification has traditionally been captured in official statistics and then turn to some of the historical electrification programs from around the world, paying special attention to those that are most closely related to the settings that have been studied over the past decade or so. Our main point is that providing poor households with access to electricity alone is not enough to improve economic and noneconomic outcomes in a meaningful way. The literature documents large gains from electrification in a number of settings, but in many cases, we cannot rule out the possibility that other factors—either correlated with or visibly part of the electrification efforts—are driving economic outcomes. Universal energy access is arguably an important goal for global equity considerations. But large-scale contemporary initiatives to expand residential access to electricity may not produce meaningful economic impacts unless they are combined with complementary programs that will make electrical appliances more accessible, or they are targeted towards regions that already benefit from complementary factors.

General Equilibrium Effects of Cash Transfers: Experimental Evidence from Kenya

Dennis Egger, Johannes Haushofer, Edward Miguel, Paul Niehaus, and Michael Walker
2022
African DevelopmentOtherResearch Methodology
ecta200500.pdf

Egger, Dennis, Johannes Haushofer, Edward Miguel, Paul Niehaus, and Michael Walker. (2022). “General Equilibrium Effects of Cash Transfers: Experimental Evidence from Kenya”, Econometrica, 90 (6): 2603-2643, doi: 10.3982/ECTA17945.

How large economic stimuli generate individual and aggregate responses is a central question in economics, but has not been studied experimentally. We provided one-time cash transfers of about USD 1000 to over 10,500 poor households across 653 randomized villages in rural Kenya. The implied fiscal shock was over 15 percent of local GDP. We find large impacts on consumption and assets for recipients. Importantly, we document large positive spillovers on non-recipient households and firms, and minimal price inflation. We estimate a local transfer multiplier of 2.5. We interpret welfare
implications through the lens of a simple household optimization framework.

Using RCTs to Estimate Long-Run Impacts in Development Economics

Adrien Bouguen, Yue Huang, Michael Kremer, and Edward Miguel
2019
African DevelopmentEducation and Human CapitalHealthResearch Methodology
Bouguen-etal AR-2019 2018-12-02 Plain.pdf
We assess evidence from randomized control trials (RCTs) on long-run economic productivity and living standards in poor countries. We first document that several studies estimate large positive long-run impacts, but that relatively few existing RCTs have been evaluated over the long-run. We next present evidence from a systematic survey of existing RCTs, with a focus on cash transfer and child health programs, and show that a meaningful subset can realistically be evaluated for long-run effects. We discuss ways to bridge the gap between the burgeoning number of development RCTs and the limited number that have been followed up to date, including through new panel (longitudinal) data, improved participant tracking methods, alternative research designs, and access to administrative, remote sensing, and cell phone data. We conclude that the rise of development economics RCTs since roughly 2000 provides a novel opportunity to generate high-quality evidence on the long-run drivers of living standards.

Sell Low and Buy High: Arbitrage and Local Price Effects in Kenyan Markets

Burke, Marshall, Lauren Falcao Bergquist, and Edward Miguel
2019
African DevelopmentEnvironment and Climate
Burke-Bergquist-Miguel QJE 2018-11-19.pdf
Large and regular seasonal price fluctuations in local grain markets appear to offer African farmers substantial inter-temporal arbitrage opportunities, but these opportunities remain largely unexploited: small-scale farmers are commonly observed to "sell low and buy high" rather than the reverse. In a field experiment in Kenya, we show that credit market imperfections limit farmers' abilities to move grain inter-temporally. Providing timely access to credit allows farmers to buy at lower prices and sell at higher prices, increasing farm revenues and generating a return on investment of 29%. To understand general equilibrium effects of these changes in behavior, we vary the density of loan offers across locations. We document significant effects of the credit intervention on seasonal price fluctuations in local grain markets, and show that these GE effects shape individual level profitability estimates. In contrast to existing experimental work, the results indicate a setting in which microcredit can improve farm profitability, and suggest that GE effects can substantially shape microcredit's effectiveness. In particular, failure to consider these GE effects could lead to underestimates of the social welfare benefits of microcredit interventions.

Spillover effects in epidemiology: parameters, study designs, and methodological considerations

Jade Benjamin-Chung, David Berger, Benjamin F. Arnold, Alan E. Hubbard, Stephen P. Luby, Edward Miguel, John M. Colford Jr.
2017
HealthEducation and Human CapitalResearch Methodology

Many public health interventions provide benefits that extend beyond their direct recipients and impact people in close physical or social proximity who did not directly receive the intervention themselves. A classic example of this phenomenon is the herd protection provided by many vaccines. If these 'spillover effects' (i.e., 'herd effects') are present in the same direction as the effects on the intended recipients, studies that only estimate direct effects on recipients will likely underestimate the full public health benefits of the intervention. Causal inference assumptions for spillover parameters have been articulated in the vaccine literature, but many studies measuring spillovers of other types of public health interventions have not drawn upon that literature. In conjunction with a systematic review we conducted of spillovers of public health interventions delivered in low- and middle-income countries, we classified the most widely used spillover parameters reported in the empirical literature into a standard notation. General classes of spillover parameters include: cluster-level spillovers; spillovers conditional on treatment or outcome density, distance or the number of treated social network links; and vaccine efficacy parameters related to spillovers. We draw on high quality empirical examples to illustrate each of these parameters. We describe study designs to estimate spillovers and assumptions required to make causal inferences about spillovers. We aim to advance and encourage methods for spillover estimation and reporting by standardizing spillover parameter nomenclature and articulating the causal inference assumptions required to estimate spillovers.

Spillover effects on health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

Jade Benjamin-Chung, Jaynal Abedin, David Berger, Ashley Clark, Veronica Jimenez, Eugene Konagaya, Diana Tran, Benjamin F. Arnold, Alan E. Hubbard, Stephen P. Luby, Edward Miguel and John M. Colford Jr
2017
HealthEducation and Human CapitalResearch Methodology

Background: Many interventions delivered to improve health may benefit not only direct recipients but also people in close physical or social proximity. Our objective was to review all published literature about the spillover effects of interventions on health outcomes in low-middle income countries and to identify methods used in estimating these effects.  Methods: We searched 19 electronic databases for articles published before 2014 and hand-searched titles from 2010 to 2013 in five relevant journals. We adapted the Cochrane Collaboration’s quality grading tool for spillover estimation and rated the quality of evidence.  Results: A total of 54 studies met inclusion criteria. We found a wide range of terminology used to describe spillovers, a lack of standardization among spillover methods and poor reporting of spillovers in many studies. We identified three primary mechanisms of spillovers: reduced disease transmission, social proximity and substitution of resources within households. We found the strongest evidence for spillovers through reduced disease transmission, particularly vaccines and mass drug administration. In general, the proportion of a population receiving an intervention was associated with improved health. Most studies were of moderate or low quality. We found evidence of publication bias for certain spillover estimates but not for total or direct effects. To facilitate improved reporting and standardization in future studies, we developed a reporting checklist adapted from the CONSORT framework specific to reporting spillover effects.  Conclusions: We found the strongest evidence for spillovers from vaccines and mass drug administration to control infectious disease. There was little high quality evidence of spillovers for other interventions.

Should the WHO withdraw support for mass deworming?

Kevin Croke, Joan Hamory Hicks, Eric Hsu, Michael Kremer, and Edward Miguel
2017
African DevelopmentHealthEducation and Human CapitalResearch Methodology
journal.pntd .0005481.pdf

In April 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) department and Nutrition for Health and Development (NHD) department convened a Guidelines Development Group meeting to review the WHO’s recommendations for the control of soil-transmitted helminths in high-risk groups. Subsequent to this meeting, the WHO will announce whether it will reaffirm its long-standing recommendation of mass drug administration (MDA) in areas with more than 20% prevalence of soil-transmitted helminths (hookworm, whipworm, and roundworm). We recently released a new meta-analysis working paper focusing on the effect of MDA on weight gain for children, which was presented at this WHO convening. In light of the mounting evidence on both the short-run impacts on child weight and long-run educational and economic effects of deworming, we believe that the expected benefits of deworming are likely to greatly exceed the cost, and that the long-standing support of WHO and other international donors and organizations for mass deworming remains scientifically justified.

Reevaluating Agricultural Productivity Gaps with Longitudinal Microdata

Joan Hamory Hicks, Marieke Kleemans, Nicholas Y. Li, and Edward Miguel
2020
African DevelopmentHealthEducation and Human CapitalOther
Ag-Gap Text 2020-03-20-FINAL.pdf

Recent research has pointed to large gaps in labor productivity between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors in low-income countries, as well as between workers in rural and urban areas. Most estimates are based on national accounts or repeated cross-sections of micro-survey data, and as a result typically struggle to account for individual selection between sectors. This paper uses long-run individual-level panel data from two low-income countries (Indonesia and Kenya) to explore these gaps. Accounting for individual fixed effects leads to much smaller estimated productivity gains from moving into the non-agricultural sector (or urban areas), reducing estimated gaps by roughly 67 to 92%. Furthermore, gaps do not emerge up to five years after a move between sectors. We evaluate whether these findings imply a re-assessment of the conventional wisdom regarding sectoral gaps, discuss how to reconcile them with existing cross-sectional estimates, and consider implications for the desirability of sectoral reallocation of labor.

Commentary: Assessing long-run deworming impacts on education and economic outcomes: a comment on Jullien, Sinclair and Garner (2016)

Sarah Baird, Joan Hamory Hicks, Michael Kremer and Edward Miguel
2017
African DevelopmentHealthEducation and Human CapitalResearch Methodology
dyw350 2017.pdf
Jullien, Sinclair and Garner (2016) (henceforth JSG) state that they seek to ‘appraise the methods’ of three recent papers that estimate long-run impacts of mass deworming on educational or economic outcomes. This commentary focuses on their discussion of Baird, Hicks, Kremer and Miguel (2016) (henceforth Baird).We welcome scrutiny of our work, and appreciate the opportunity to discuss JSG. Baird finds evidence of gains in some educational and labour outcomes 10 years after a deworming programme in 75 Kenyan primary schools. Some gains are found in the full sample, and others among either males or females, in ways that are sensible given the context, e.g. there are gains in manufacturing employment among males but not females, fewer of whom work in this sector in Kenya. Below we discuss JSG’s claim that the evidence in Baird is unreliable. It is not surprising that any two scholars might interpret a body of results differently, but JSG make a series of claims that appear overstated or are somewhat misleading.

Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research

Garret S. Christensen, Edward Miguel
2018
OtherResearch Methodology
jel.20171350.pdf

There is growing interest in enhancing research transparency and reproducibility in economics and other scientific fields. We survey existing work on these topics within economics, and discuss the evidence suggesting that publication bias, inability to replicate, and specification searching remain widespread in the discipline. We next discuss recent progress in this area, including through improved research design, study registration and pre-analysis plans, disclosure standards, and open sharing of data and materials, drawing on experiences in both economics and other social sciences. We discuss areas where consensus is emerging on new practices, as well as approaches that remain controversial, and speculate about the most effective ways to make economics research more credible in the future.

Can War Foster Cooperation?

Michael Bauer, Christopher Blattman, Julie Chytilova, Joseph Henrich, Edward Miguel, and Tamar Mitts
2016
African DevelopmentPolitical Economy and Conflict
Can-War-Foster-Cooperation for NBER.pdf

In the past decade, nearly 20 studies have found a strong, persistent pattern in surveys and behavioral experiments from over 40 countries: individual exposure to war violence tends to increase social cooperation at the local level, including community participation and prosocial behavior. Thus while war has many negative legacies for individuals and societies, it appears to leave a positive legacy in terms of local cooperation and civic engagement. We discuss, synthesize and reanalyze the emerging body of evidence, and weigh alternative explanations. There is some indication that war violence especially enhances in-group or "parochial" norms and preferences, a finding that, if true, suggests that the rising social cohesion we document need not promote broader peace.

Appliance Ownership and Aspirations among Electric Grid and Home Solar Households in Rural Kenya

Kenneth Lee, Edward Miguel, and Catherine Wolfram
2016
African DevelopmentEnvironment and Climate
Lee Miguel Wolfram 2016a.pdf
In this paper, we summarize the results of a recent household appliance survey conducted in Western Kenya to provide descriptive evidence on how rural households with and without grid connections, and those with home solar systems, compare in terms of the appliances they own and the appliances they aspire to own. Our data indicate that home solar users own quite different appliances compared to grid-connected households, and suggest that home solar does not satisfy the full range of household energy needs, given current appliance technologies. We also document planned expansions in centralized electricity generating capacity in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries, including Kenya. We find that the environmental advantages of decentralized solar are likely to be relatively small in countries like Kenya, where a large proportion of existing and planned grid electricity is generated without fossil fuels.