G’day!
I am a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability (CDES) at Monash University
My research draws on insights from behavioral economics and employs econometrics, field-, and lab-in-the-field experiments to examine a variety of topics in development economics. I also think a lot about heterogeneity: how it shapes the success and optimal design of public policy, and how heterogeneous returns affect individual decision-making.
PhD, 2015
University of California, Davis
BA in Economics, 2006
Colby College
Publications
Working papers
Relaxing multiple agricultural productivity constraints at scale
A previous version circulated under the title Can Smallholder Extension Transform African Agriculture?
with Joshua Deutschmann, Maya Duru and Kim Siegal (NBER Working Paper No. 26054)
Under review
Abstract
No single constraint can explain the stagnant agricultural productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Most interventions that relax individual barriers to productivity have delivered disappointing results. We evaluate an at-scale program that targets several productivity constraints with a bundled intervention, using a randomized controlled trial in western Kenya. Program participation increases maize yields by 26%, total maize output by 24%, and profits by 17%. While we cannot directly test whether the program's success is due to its bundled nature, we find patterns in the data that are consistent with this hypothesis.Media and Motivation: the Effect of Performance Pay on Writers and Content
with Ivan Balbuzanov and Jared Gars
Abstract
We study how incentives for journalists affect the quantity, quality, and composition of online media content. We report results from a field experiment within an online news firm in Kenya. Writers were randomly allocated to earn a piece-rate per article published or to a pay-per-view (PPV) contract. The PPV contract induced writers to produce more "popular" articles, but writers chose to submit fewer articles. Specifically, the PPV contract resulted in a 120% increase in total pageviews, a 180% increase in pageviews per article, and a 40% reduction in the number of articles produced. In line with our theoretical predictions, the effect on article quantity is concentrated among risk averse writers. Further, when given a choice, risk-averse writers tend to select out of the output-based contract. We also document changes along multiple non-incentivized dimensions of news production: writers shift away from producing local news towards national-level news. We see limited changes in article quality or in the prevalence of clickbait. Our study suggests that output-based incentive contracts have substantial implications for journalists' effort and content choices, and more broadly for selection into risky "gig work."{#grc} Comment on Suri (2011) “Selection and Comparative Advantage in Technology Adoption”: A Group Random Coefficient Alternative with Weak-Identification Robust Inference
with Oscar Barriga Cabanillas, Dalia Ghanem, Travis Lybbert, Jeffrey D. Michler, and Aleksander Michuda
Abstract
Our paper illustrates and addresses identification concerns in the correlated random coefficient (CRC) model that Suri (2011) uses to study agricultural technology adoption. Using the publicly available version of the same data, we are unable to replicate the main CRC model results in Suri (2011). To understand why, we recast the CRC model as a more general random-coefficient model in which the returns to hybrid adoption are restricted to be linear in comparative advantage. This reveals that the key structural parameter, $\phi$, is prone to a weak identification problem. We then propose a procedure to conduct weak-identification robust inference on $\phi$ using test inversion. Only with this robust procedure to account for weak identification are we able to replicate the original Suri (2011) results.Learning from Others in Heterogeneous Environments
(being revised)
Seeds of Uncertainty: Information, Subjective Expectations, and Technology Adoption
with Jared Gars
Contact me
I sometimes lose track of emails. Please nudge me if I have not replied in a few days.