What’s the Latest Economic Research on Africa? A Round-up of Human Capital Studies from CSAE 2022

Free primary education in Ghana “led to a decrease in the probability of smoking, fertility behaviour,” and sexually transmitted infections, and an increase in “healthy eating, antenatal visits and the risk of obesity.” (Aboyadana) #RD

A survey of 900+ senior government officials in 35 low- and middle-income countries finds that policymakers largely prioritize vocational education over foundational skills (like literacy), but they also “dramatically overestimate foundational learning levels in their country.” (Crawfurd et al.; summary blog post) #SurveyExperiment

Does free primary education hurt learning outcomes? In Lesotho, free primary education improved academic performance at the university level by “at least 4 percent.” (Moshoeshoe) #DID

Conditional cash transfers to “girls attending secondary schools in Punjab, Pakistan” led to a higher likelihood of completing secondary school (1.3 percent), a lower likelihood of early marriage (3.5percent), and in the next generation, less stunting (1.2 percent) and fewer underweight children (1.7 percent). (Musaddiq and Said) #FE #DID

Providing SMS messages with practice problems and phone calls to parents boosted learning among children in Botswana while schools were closed for COVID-19. (Angrist, Bergman, and Matsheng) #RCT

Providing better toilet facilities and menstrual health education in Bangladesh reduced both girls’ absenteeism and their dropout rates, both by 5 percentage points. Coupling it with a parental education program further reduced absenteeism (but not dropout). (Sol, Nillesen, and Smeets) #RCT

Giving a certificate to head teachers in Pakistan who did well in their training didn’t boost their performance. But putting them on a list that qualifies them for future career opportunities did. (Mansoor) #RCT

A nationwide program in Peru that provided training sessions and monitoring tools to school heads improved reporting of incidence of school violence by 37 percentage points. Students also switched schools less. (Smarrelli) #RD

School reopenings in Kenya boosted the hours parents worked in a week by 21 percent. The effect is there for both women and men. (Biscaye, Egger, and Pape) #DID

Providing sexual harassment awareness training for undergraduate women in Delhi, India, made them “less likely to accept job offers to work in male majority teams.” (Sharma) #RCT

Showing “a video of successful relatable female role models” to female undergraduate students at public colleges in Pakistan increased their likelihood of working by 4 to 6 percentage points 18 months after graduating. (Ahmed et al.) #RCT

“Can governments leverage existing service-delivery platforms to scale early childhood development programs?” Integrating a home visiting intervention into Bangladesh’s national nutrition program led to improvement in both children’s cognitive development and their nutrition. (Bos et al.) #RCT

In the face of high COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Papua New Guinea, “a message that emphasized the relative safety of the vaccine by highlighting that severe side effects are rare, while also emphasizing the dangers of COVID-19, increased intention to get vaccinated by around 50 percent.” (Hoy, Wood, and Moscoe) #SurveyExperiment

In rural Bangladesh, providing information by phone and an unconditional cash transfer reduced “the number of reported deaths by about 50 percent” in participating villages. (Chowdhury et al.) #RCT

In urban Pakistan, expanding the scope of services covered by health insurance and offering telehealth services (virtual doctor’s appointments) was associated with better self-reported health and more (and earlier) doctor consultations. (Ahmad, Hussain, and Nazif) #Matching

Providing “pregnant and immediate postpartum women with improved access to family planning through counseling, free transport to a clinic, and financial reimbursement for family planning services over a two-year period” reduced stunting among children in Malawi. (Maggio, Kara, and Canning) #RCT

When food aid in a large refugee camp in Uganda was cut by 50 percent, refugees experienced "a 56 percent reduction in weekly caloric intake.” (Vintar and Sterck) #RD

In India, women call the shots on toilet finance: "Households where the woman perceives the benefit of the toilet to be similar or higher than the man are around four times more likely to take" a loan to build a toilet. (Augsburg et al.) #RCT

In Côte d'Ivoire, there is no inequality between foster children and biological children ages 6-10 in terms of how much they consume. For older kids, "parents are less likely to forgo some of their consumption of adult goods for foster boys." (Olié) #FE

In Nigeria, “burning off the gas coming out of oil wells” (called “gas flaring”) is associated with more respiratory diseases and fevers among kids under five years old. (Alimi and Gibson) #FE

Drawing on data from 36 African countries, “being born in a village located downstream an opened mine increases the mortality rates under 2 years old by 7.9 percentage points.” (Gittard and Hu) #DID

Drawing on data from 25 African countries, “a 10 percentage point increase in mobile network coverage is associated with a 0.45 percentage point reduction in infant mortality.” (Mensah, Tafere, and Abay) #IV

In Ethiopia, health workers diverge in their motivations: some are motivated principally by salary and others are motivated by seeing good health outcomes. Understanding this can help health systems to structure jobs to keep workers motivated. (Arora et al.) #SurveyExperiment

Are health workers more motivated by the nature of the work they’re doing or because they value their organization’s mission? Among medical students in Burkina Faso, being engaged in interesting tasks drives motivation much more than a charitable mission.  (Banuri, Keefer, and de Walque) #LabInField

Free primary education in Ghana “led to a decrease in the probability of smoking, fertility behaviour,” and sexually transmitted infections, and an increase in “healthy eating, antenatal visits and the risk of obesity.” (Aboyadana) #RD*

Providing better toilet facilities and menstrual health education in Bangladesh reduced both girls’ absenteeism and their dropout rates, both by 5 percentage points. Coupling it with a parental education program further reduced absenteeism (but not dropout). (Sol, Nillesen, and Smeets) #RCT*

In Burkina Faso, a quarter of women offered use of community childcare centers enrolled their children, showing high unmet demand for childcare. Women’s employment, financial outcomes, and self-reported well-being all improved. So did child development. (Ajayi, Dao, and Koussoubé) #RCT

“Can governments leverage existing service-delivery platforms to scale early childhood development programs?” Integrating a home visiting intervention into Bangladesh’s national nutrition program led to improvement in both children’s cognitive development and their nutrition. (Bos et al.) #RCT*

Providing cash grants and financial training to 1,000 poor women in Tunisia increased income-generating activities by 3.4 percentage points. Inviting the husbands in the training session actually reduced the effect. (Gazeud et al.) #RCT

Providing a cash grant and psychosocial support to women in Niger produced large impacts on economic welfare and well-being six months later. Providing only the psychosocial support (life skills training and a community discussion about values) initially produced smaller effects than providing only the cash grant, but effects were similarly large by 18 months. (Bossuroy et al.) #RCT

It's common to try and target social programs to people who are most “deprived” (e.g., they have the least wealth or the least food). But do the poorest of the poor gain the most from the programs? In a cash transfer program in Kenya, they often don’t, so whether or not targeting the poorest makes sense will depend on whether the program focus is principally on having the biggest impact or on redistributing to the poorest. (Haushofer et al.) #MachineLearning

How do business grants perform relative to unconditional cash transfers in Somalia? It's like the story of Goldilocks: the effects of small grants didn't persist, big grants weren't cost effective, but medium-sized grants were just right. (Abdullahi et al.) #RCT

An unconditional cash transfer program to farmers in Malawi led to 75 percent higher harvests after one year. The additional cash allowed them to work more on their own farms (by 27 percent) instead of providing labor to other farms for cash. (Sirma) #RCT

Providing grants to households with children in Zambia increased the likelihood that a household would have a non-farm business (by 17 percent) and increased the proportion of women with savings by 25 percent. (Viberti et al.) #RCT

In a lab-in-the-field experiment in Nigeria, most women deferred "decision-making to their spouse." If women were receiving cash transfers, they still deferred, unless they knew their husbands wouldn't find out about it. (Bakhtiar et al.) #LabInField

COVID-19 increased the poverty in Zambia from 56 to 58 percent over the course of a year, driven by the pandemic's impact on urban areas. Simulations show a social cash transfer program could reduce poverty by up to 6 percentage points. (Paul et al.) #Simulation

When food aid in a large refugee camp in Uganda was cut by 50 percent, refugees experienced "a 56 percent reduction in weekly caloric intake.” (Vintar and Sterck) #RD*

In rural Bangladesh, providing information by phone and an unconditional cash transfer reduced “the number of reported deaths by about 50 percent” in participating villages. (Chowdhury et al.) #RCT*

Providing “pregnant and immediate postpartum women with improved access to family planning through counseling, free transport to a clinic, and financial reimbursement for family planning services over a two-year period” reduced stunting among children in Malawi. (Maggio, Kara, and Canning) #RCT

Promoting women garment workers to supervisory positions in Bangladesh increased remittances (often to other family members taking care of their children) from 6 percent of household income to 9.5 percent. (Uckat) #RD #Matching

The economic shock caused by extensive flooding in Bangladesh in 2017 "led women to engage more in market activities, to decrease their time spent in domestic work, and to be more empowered." Men, on the other hand, "decreased their time spent at work and they engaged more in housework substituting for women’s domestic work." (Vitellozi) #DID

Based on data from 30 countries across Africa, women who have their first child born before they get married tend to put off marriage longer if the child is a girl. But women who have their first child after marriage are more likely to divorce if the child is a girl. (Genicot and Hernandez-de-Benito) #IV

Providing grants to households with children in Zambia increased the likelihood that a household would have a non-farm business (by 17 percent) and increased the proportion of women with savings by 25 percent. (Viberti et al.) #RCT

"Female-led firms were, on average, 4 percentage points more likely to close their business than male-led firms in 2020" based on a survey across 50 middle- and high-income countries, partly driven by school closures and increased domestic work burden on women. (Goldstein et al.) #Matching

Women entrepreneurs in urban Bangladesh who attended counseling on goal setting, time management, and problem-solving strategies are "11 percentage points less likely to be depressed and 23 percent less likely to lose an hour of work to solve problems at home." (Lopez-Pena) #RCT

Across matchmaking websites in India, "women who signal wanting to work after marriage receive up to 22 percent less interest from men than those of women who have never worked." (Dhar) #RCT

Women’s employment has been disproportionately affected by the COVID crisis. A commonly proposed reason for this is that women had to take on even more work of caring for people at home during the crisis, but among young women in Peru and Vietnam, that only explains 11 percent of the increased employment gap. In India, it explains even less. (Scott et al.) #FE

Street safety in urban Indonesia and India is associated with more women working: women in very safe neighborhoods are 8.5 percentage points more likely to be in the labor force relative to women in unsafe neighborhoods. (Cahill) #PSM

During COVID, companies in Ethiopia lost a lot of business and so had to lay off lots of workers. But even after companies recovered, many of those laid off—mostly women and migrants from rural areas—remained unemployed. (Hardy et al.) #DID

Across Ethiopia, Malawi, and Tanzania, women are less likely to have full rights to sell, rent, or bequeath their land and more likely to need permission or consent from someone else to exercise those rights than men. (Hasanbasri et al.) #MachineLearning

Providing better toilet facilities and menstrual health education in Bangladesh reduced both girls’ absenteeism and their dropout rates, both by 5 percentage points. Coupling it with a parental education program further reduced absenteeism (but not dropout). (Sol, Nillesen, and Smeets) #RCT*

Providing cash grants and financial training to 1,000 poor women in Tunisia increased income-generating activities by 3.4 percentage points. Inviting the husbands in the training session actually reduced the effect. (Gazeud et al.) #RCT*

Providing a cash grant and psychosocial support to women in Niger produced large impacts on economic welfare and well-being six months later. Providing only the psychosocial support (life skills training and a community discussion about values) initially produced smaller effects than providing only the cash grant, but effects were similarly large by 18 months. (Bossuroy et al.) #RCT*

In India, women call the shots on toilet finance: "Households where the woman perceives the benefit of the toilet to be similar or higher than the man are around four times more likely to take" a loan to build a toilet. (Augsburg et al.) #RCT*

In Burkina Faso, a quarter of women offered use of community childcare centers enrolled their children, showing high unmet demand for childcare. Women’s employment, financial outcomes, and self-reported well-being all improved. So did child development. (Ajayi, Dao, and Koussoubé) #RCT*

In a lab-in-the-field experiment in Nigeria, most women deferred "decision-making to their spouse." If women were receiving cash transfers, they still deferred, unless they knew their husbands wouldn't find out about it. (Bakhtiar et al.) #LabInField*

Providing sexual harassment awareness training for undergraduate women in Delhi, India, made them “less likely to accept job offers to work in male majority teams.” (Sharma) #RCT*

Showing “a video of successful relatable female role models” to female undergraduate students at public colleges in Pakistan increased their likelihood of working by 4 to 6 percentage points 18 months after graduating. (Ahmed et al.) #RCT*