Benchmarking Development Programs: A Preference-Based Approach
This study proposes a preference-based benchmarking approach to assess trade-offs between alternative uses of aid dollars. We ask ~800 low-income Kenyans their valuation (in cash) for common aid and development…
Stress and Temporal Discounting: Do Domains Matter?
Recent work in behavioral economics has asked whether stress affects economic choice. Here we focus on the effects of stress on temporal discounting, for which previous studies have produced inconsistent…
How Soon Is Now? Evidence of Present Bias from Convex Time Budget Experiments
Empirically observed intertemporal choices about money have long been thought to exhibit present bias, i.e. higher short-term compared to long-term discount rates. Recently, this view has been called into question…
Risky Choices and Solidarity: Why Experimental Design Matters
Negative income shocks can either be the consequence of risky choices or random events. A growing literature analyzes the role of responsibility for neediness for informal financial support of individuals…
How to help poor informal workers to save a bit: Evidence from a field experiment in Kenya.
Worldwide, the majority of workers hold jobs in the informal sector that do not provide access to social insurance programs. We partnered with a savings product provider in Kenya to…
Peace of Mind: Health Insurance Reduces Stress and Cortisol Levels
We show that the provision of health insurance reduces levels of self-reported stress and the stress hormone cortisol using a randomized controlled trial among informal workers in Nairobi, Kenya. The…
Self-Efficacy as a Driver of Civic Participation in Uganda
We find that exposure to a self-efficacy intervention can motivate informationseeking action for environmental causes. Self-efficacy has been shown to be a powerful driver of behavior in a variety of…
Religion as a Stimulant of Political Participation: Experimental Evidence from Nairobi, Kenya
In this article we explore how certain religious messages may spur or constrain political participation. Specifically, we test whether religious messages that provide individuals a positive self-image can act as…
Redistribution and Group Participation: Experimental Evidence from Africa and the UK
We design an original laboratory experiment to investigate whether redistributive actions hinder the formation of Pareto-improving groups. We test, in an anonymous setting with no feedback, whether people choose to…