• Busting the myth that private schools are only for the elite in Pakistan. Our Learning and Educational Achievements in Pakistan Schools (LEAPS) research on Pakistan’s education sector found that 89% of the private schools in the country are extremely low-cost, catering to the bottom of the pyramid. Yet, they are on average outperforming public schools by significant margins. 

• Bride and prejudice: the price of education. Bride price, or the custom by which the groom makes a payment to the family of the bride, may influence girls’ level of education attainment. Research co-authored by Nathan Nunn identified that bride price increases with education. Hence, girls from bride price ethnic groups were more likely to be enrolled in school. The findings suggest that policymakers must consider how proposed policies interact with cultural traditions.  

• Changing gambling behavior through experiential learning. How can adult learning be influenced by their own experiences? In a randomized field experience in South Africa, a simple dice rolling game was used to inform participants about the odds of winning the national lottery. The research, co-authored by Shawn Cole, showed that individuals who need many attempts to roll two sixes play the lottery significantly less than the control group, while those who need fewer attempts adopt the opposite behavior. These findings provide practical guidance for correcting biases in beliefs through interventions that promote brief and real experiences.  

• Energy efficiency and electricity reliability: externality impacts of compact fluorescent lamps.  Eliana Carranza co-authored research on the adoption of energy-efficient technology, such as compact fluorescent lamps and light emitting diodes (LEDs). She found that they can reduce the stress on the distribution infrastructure and result in a more reliable electricity supply for everyone. 

• How climate shocks trigger inter-group conflicts: evidence from Africa's transhumant pastoralis. Droughts provoked by climate change have forced farmers and pastoralists to compete for resources, triggering violent clashes. Analysis conducted by Nathan Nunn and Eoin McGuik using geocoded conflict data showed how weather events in one area can prompt conflict in another, providing lessons that may be helpful for estimating the effects of climate change.  

• Texts don’t nudge: An adaptive trial to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in India. In this adaptive trial, EPoD Affiliate Sebastian Bauhoff and PhD Student Affiliates Dev Patel and James Potter examined whether SMS text messages can encourage the adoption of preventive health behaviors. The findings suggest no detectable impact on knowledge or adoption of distancing or handwashing. 

• Comparison of knowledge and information-seeking behavior after general COVID-19 public health messages and messages tailored for black and latinx communities. Could the scarcity of public health messages that directly address communities of color contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in behavior related to COVID-19? A study co-authored by Emily Breza identified that physician-delivered messages increased knowledge of COVID-19 symptoms and prevention methods. The desire for additional information increased with race-concordant messages for Black, but not for Latinx respondents.  

• Can transparency and accountability programs improve health? Experimental evidence from Indonesia and Tanzania. Dan Levy and the Transparency for Development Team evaluated if access to high quality care for pregnant women and infants is impacted by programs that encourage community participation to address local barriers.  Although participation in program meetings was substantial, on average, it did not have a statistically significant impact on the use or content of maternal and newborn health services. 

• Effects of a large-scale social media advertising campaign on holiday travel and COVID-19 infections: a cluster randomized controlled trial. Emily Breza et al. examined the effects of a large-scale social media campaign aimed at reducing holiday travel and resulting COVID-19 infections. The randomized control trial found that messages recorded by health professionals led to a significant reduction in holiday travel and subsequent COVID-19 infections.  

• The challenges of universal health insurance in developing countries: experimental evidence from Indonesia's national health insurance. Weak administrative capacity can create challenges for achieving widespread health insurance coverage in developing countries. Rema Hanna co-authored a study in which Indonesian households received time-limited subsidies and registration assistance to enroll in a government health insurance program. Both strategies increased enrollment, but over half of the households who attempted to enroll did not successfully do so, due to challenges with the government’s online enrollment system.  

• The insurance cascade framework to diagnose bottlenecks and improve the effectiveness of health insurance programs: an application to India. Despite the rollout of state and national health insurance schemes in India, out-of-pocket spending is still high. Sebastian Bauhoff examined bottlenecks to the effectiveness of such health insurance schemes, and identified substantial opportunities for improvement across all steps, from enrolling eligible households to delivering their benefits. 

• Diversity and team performance in a kenyan organization. An RCT conducted by Vincent Pons and colleagues in Kenya demonstrates that horizontal ethnic diversity (between teammates) decreases team performance, while vertical diversity (between teammates and their supervisor) often improves performance.  Findings suggest that horizontally homogeneous teams organized tasks in a more efficient way, while vertically homogeneous teams exerted lower effort.  

• The psychosocial value of employment. In settings where employment opportunities are scarce, the inability to work may generate psychosocial harm. A study by Reshmaan Hussam et al. measures the impact of employment on mental health among refugees, and shows that the benefits go far beyond those of income alone.  

• Information, loss framing, and spillovers in pay-for-performance contracts. This field experiment conducted by Sebastian Bauhoff et al. in primary health facilities in Nigeria assessed the impact of incentives and information on workers’ performance. Results suggest that a small incentive captures most of the impact, implying that pay-for-performance contracts can be made significantly more cost-effective. 

• Immigration and occupational comparative advantage. Gordon Hanson and Chen Liu found that the job choice of highly skilled foreign-born workers in the US correlates strongly with their country of origin. In the paper, they evaluate the causes of immigrant sorting across jobs.  

• Search and information frictions on global e-commerce platforms: evidence from AliExpress. Research by Jie Bai and co-authors shows that the mass of firms operating on e-commerce platforms can congest consumer search, and hinder market allocation towards better firms. The consequence is that initial demand shocks (‘luck’) can determine a firms’ growth and market allocation, rather than productivity or product quality. 

• On the persistence of the China shock. The China trade shock plateaued in 2010, and this study by Gordon Hanson et al. evaluates its impact on a wide range of outcomes over the period 2000 to 2019. Findings indicate that import competition from China induced changes in income per capita across local labor markets. The effect holds even when estimating consumer benefits of rising trade. 

• Targeting high ability entrepreneurs using community information: mechanism design in the field. Identifying high-growth microentrepreneurs in low-income countries remains a challenge, due to a scarcity of verifiable information. A cash grant experiment in India conducted by Reshmaan Hussam, Natalia Rigol, and Benjamin N. Roth, demonstrates that community knowledge can help target high-growth microentrepreneurs. However, there is evidence that community members distort their predictions when they can influence the distribution of resources.  

• Employment structure and the rise of the modern tax system. Using evidence from a new micro-database, Anders Jensen establishes three stylized facts explaining how intimately connected the expansion of the income tax base is to a country’s development. 

• Tax administration vs. Tax rates: evidence from corporate taxation in Indonesia. Which has better outcomes for developing countries—improving tax administration or increasing tax rates? Based on reforms of corporate taxation in Indonesia, a study by Rema Hanna, Post-Doctoral Fellow Mayara Felix and colleagues shows that improved tax administration is equivalent to raising top rates by 8 percentage points. Ultimately, the findings suggest that improved tax administration can have significant returns for developing countries.  Watch a video about the research below. 

• Food vs. Food stamps: evidence from an at-scale experiment in Indonesia  Rema Hanna co-authored research that sought to identify the difference in impact between welfare programs that provide food vs. programs that provide food-vouchers. Their analysis was based on the Indonesian government’s randomly phased transition from in-kind delivery of subsidized rice to equivalent vouchers. The results indicate that vouchers led to greater impacts on poverty, whilst substantially decreasing the administrative costs of benefits delivery.  

• The economic consequences of increasing sleep among the urban poor. A study from Gautam Rao o et al. concluded that short afternoon naps at the workplace improve outcomes in low-income urban workers, with significant increases in productivity, psychological well-being, and cognition, but a decrease in work time.  

• Encouragement and distortionary effects of conditional cash transfers. While conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are designed to encourage some desirable behavior, an unintended consequence may be to distort recipients’ actions in ways that lower social welfare. Post-Doctoral Fellow Joeri Smits and co-authors designed an experiment to study the role of the transfer size in shaping distortion, and implemented it in a cash transfer program conditional on seasonal labor migration in rural Indonesia. They found that when the transfer size exceeds the amount required for travel, distortionary effects dominate and migration earnings decrease.

• Changes in social network structure in response to exposure to formal credit markets. Research co-authored by Emily Breza with Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo et al found that formal financial institutions can have far-reaching and long-lasting impacts on informal lending and information networks. Studies in villages in Karnataka and Hyderabad, in India, discovered that exposure to credit access was associated with subsequent fewer social relationships between households.  

• After the burning: the economic effects of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre resulted in the looting, burning, and leveling of a once-thriving Black neighborhood. Research co-authored by Nathan Nunn showed that it not only led to economic losses, but also to declines in home ownership and occupational status – especially in areas with more newspaper coverage of the massacre or in communities that, like Tulsa, had high levels of racial segregation.  

• Borrower leakage from costly screening: evidence from SME lending in Peru. Commercial lenders in Peru suffer leakages in their loan approval process. Research by Ben Roth et al. highlights that information spillovers between lenders may operate outside of credit registries.  

• Learning to navigate a new financial technology: evidence from Bangladesh. How do consumers learn to use new financial technology? As more people access mobile money, there has been concern that financial middlemen can exploit mobile money customers. Emily Breza et al. find evidence from Bangladesh that experience helps consumers navigate this new financial technology, shedding light on where traditional financial training and education interventions would have the highest marginal effect.   

• The political economy of state employment and social unrest in China. State employment is used to pacify social unrest in China. Jaya Wen uses variation in a conflict between Uyghur separatists and the government to establish that, in years and counties with a higher threat of unrest spillover, state-owned firms hire more male minorities (the demographic most likely to participate in ethnic conflict). The research also found that state employment increases after natural disasters and poor trade shocks, indicating that public jobs play a more general stabilizing role as well.  

• Public disclosure as a political incentive: evidence from municipal elections in India. Insights from a study co-authored by Michael Walton suggest a positive relationship between public disclosure of performance and investments, and between investments and voter support. Analyzing council election in urban Delhi, India, the authors found that councilors who anticipated that performance reports would be published before an election invested more in infrastructure, with positive impacts on re-election.  

• Voter mobilisation and trust in electoral institutions: evidence from Kenya. Text messages that intended to mobilize voters in Kenya were successful in increasing electoral participation. However, they also decreased trust in electoral institutions after the election - especially for individuals on the losing side and in areas that experienced election-related violence. The large-scale experiment conducted with Kenya’s Electoral Commission by Vincent Pons and colleagues raised potential mechanisms that could account for the intervention’s unexpected effects. 

• New executive course on policy responses to COVID shock, in partnership with the African Development Bank. EPoD collaborated with the African Development Bank to train the Bank’s Country Economists on effective post-COVID-19 responses and recovery strategies for Africa. The new course focused on a multidimensional curriculum that included fiscal and macro policy, trade, tax and resource mobilization, labor markets, and social protection systems – lending on EPoD’s Smart Policy Design and Implementation (SPDI) framework. Between January and February 2021, seventy economists from the Bank participated in the interactive program and have since contributed to guiding member countries on their fiscal and social policy responses to the crisis. Program faculty included Rema Hanna (program chair), Matt Andrews, Hakeem Belo-Osagie, Bruno Crépon, Karen Dynan, Anders Jensen, Asim Khwaja, Rob Lawrence, and Dani Rodrik.  

• In collaboration with the World Bank, EPoD conducted a training for Sri Lankan policymakers on the use of RCTs for program and policy evaluation. The goal was to build a common understanding around the goals and methods of the kind of research EPoD does, focusing on why and how RCTs are useful in evidence creation. Professors Rema Hanna and Ben Olken led the training, with instruction by EPoD staff members Alexa Weiss and Charlotte Tuminelli. 

• Our BCURE training program is aimed at empowering policymakers and civil servants with the knowledge and motivation to generate, use, and communicate data and evidence for more effective policymaking. The BCURE program is centered around our Training of Trainers (ToT) model – in which EPoD trains civil service academies and universities to incorporate BCURE content into their syllabi. Our 2021 efforts on this front included continued partnerships for scaling trainings in Pakistan, India, and Morocco. 

  • Civil servants in Pakistan and India were trained using EPoD’s curriculum, through continued collaboration with CERP and Inclusion Economics, respectively. 

  • Through the Morocco Employment Lab, EPoD hosted a series of workshops for over 50 instructors from Moroccan government agencies and universities. The rollout of this program was more than an expansion to another country – it was also the first time the BCURE curriculum was delivered completely in French. The final recipients of training were both graduate students and government officials from a range of different ministries. 

In 2021, our Leading Smart Policy Design Executive Education program prepared 75 leaders to design and implement policies that address social and economic problems around the world. Using EPoD’s Leading Smart Policy Design framework, the program provided practical frameworks for analysis and hands-on experience using a smart, systematic, and collaborative approach to theory- and data- driven innovation. This year’s final presentations covered digital financial tools for the poor in Nigeria, education quality during crises in Lebanon, and addressing US racial wealth disparities at the local level. Read more >> 

EPoD affiliate Anders Jensen and co-authors conducted research analyzing the association between technology use and property tax billing, collection and enforcement by local governments in Ghana. The project randomized the use of a new revenue collection technology and found that investments in technology alleviate information constraints and improve the progressivity of the tax system (making it more likely that people with high income-assets pay property taxes), thereby increasing tax collection. The team presented their findings to the Ministry of Finance and to the Vice-President’s Office, who has since officially encouraged all local governments to adopt technology for property tax collection purposes. Additionally, the local institution with whom the researchers were collaborating was invited to join the effort of setting up an electronic procurement platform that would enable scaling technology to the country’s 256 local governments. 

The LEAPS team launched a large-scale post-COVID Targeted Instruction Intervention in 1,500 public schools in Pakistan, in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Provincial Education Department. The program is designed to address student learning gaps, exacerbated by COVID-19 induced school closures, and help students catch up grade levels by building foundational skills in language and math. The program introduces a remedial curriculum and associated pedagogy targeted at students’ current learning levels, implemented by existing public school teachers with the help of an easy-to-use technology tool. The technology is designed to take the administrative burden of targeted instruction off teachers, automating processes like sorting children according to learning levels, analyzing test score data, and recommending what to teach next.   

The Targeted Instruction Program (TIP) was piloted with 16 NGO-run schools serving approximately 3,000 children, before being taken to 1,250 public schools in KP and around 250 federally administered public schools, impacting over 300,000 children. Thus far, over 6,000 public school teachers, head teachers and education officials have been trained in how to implement the program, including the curriculum, pedagogy, and technology use. If successful, the government has expressed interest in scaling up the program to over 32,000 schools in KP with a projected impact on over 4 million children, as well as to other provinces in the country. 

This is a significant achievement: as policymakers searched for viable responses to an education emergency brought on by the global pandemic, LEAPS used intensive policy engagement and relationship-building to seize the opportunity created by this favorable policy environment and launch TIP. While the team anticipates that the results of this intervention will inform further policy action in Pakistan, they also hope their findings will be relevant and insightful for the entire global education community.  

Asim Khwaja and co-PIs are collaborating with the Government of Punjab to evaluate a series of reforms that enables taxpayers to better and more credibly express preferences for local urban services and strengthens the link between these services with the taxes they pay. The objective is to improve tax collection rates and strengthen citizen faith in the government’s ability to deliver services. The impact evaluation has led to the expanded role of employees at the Excise, Taxation & Narcotics Control (ET&NC) Department of the Punjab Government from tax collectors to liaisons between citizens and the state. Beyond simply collecting taxes, they now elicit taxpayer preferences for services and inform them about the tax-service link to encourage voluntary tax compliance. This has generated considerable excitement in the government. These reforms offer the possibility of reframing a conventionally transactional engagement into a long-term, sustainable relationship based on mutual respect and voluntary compliance. 

J-PAL Southeast Asia and EPoD are evaluating the program effects on labor, consumption smoothing, and financial behaviors of a vocational training and cash transfer program to inform future program delivery.  The program, Kartu Prakerja, is a novel governmental program run by Manajemen Pelaksana Program Kartu Prakerja (PMO) that combines vocational training with cash transfers to develop work skills, promote employment, sustain families, and promote digital financial inclusion. Launched in early 2020, it is a key component of Indonesia’s social protection policy, with millions already enrolled. In order to help inform program implementation in 2022, the team presented their preliminary findings of the impact evaluation to government officials and outside researchers, and then on a public webinar hosted by the PMO. The executive summary of the research findings is also posted on the PMO’s website.  

J-PAL Southeast Asia and EPoD researchers evaluated the transition of the largest social assistance program in Indonesia providing subsidized food to the poor, from in-kind delivery of rice to electronic food voucher distribution, studying program effectiveness and also relative delivery costs. After conducting a randomized impact evaluation, the results were presented to the Government of Indonesia and at a public webinar hosted by J-PAL SEA. Throughout 2021, the Indonesia’s e-voucher program for food assistance formed a key part of Indonesia’s social safety net during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Asim Khwaja and co-PIs are collaborating with the Government of Punjab to evaluate a series of reforms that enables taxpayers to better and more credibly express preferences for local urban services and strengthens the link between these services with the taxes they pay. The goal is to improve tax collection rates and strengthen citizen faith in the government’s ability to deliver services. The impact evaluation has led to the expanded role of employees at the Excise, Taxation & Narcotics Control (ET&NC) Department of the Punjab Government from tax collectors to liaisons between citizens and the state. Beyond simply collecting taxes, they now elicit taxpayer preferences for services and inform them about the tax-service link to encourage voluntary tax compliance. This has generated considerable excitement in the government. These reforms offer the possibility of reframing a conventionally transactional engagement into a long-term, sustainable relationship based on mutual respect and voluntary compliance. 

National Media Coverage 

• Retailers’ latest headache: shutdowns at their Vietnamese suppliers. The Delta variant has forced factories in Vietnam to close down, disrupting the global supply chain. This New York Times article included insights from Gordon Hanson on the disruption. 

• Only 7% of urban Indian women have paid jobs. Natalia Rigol co-authored research cited in The Economist, whose findings reveal that giving women control over their wages increased their bargaining power with their husbands, which in turn won them more freedom to work.  Listen to learn more about the research below.  

• Can trade work for workers? Gordon Hanson explored how trade policy can and cannot be used to help workers hurt by globalization in this article for Foreign Affairs. He advocates that rather than adopting protectionist measures, the U.S. Government should focus on providing robust direct assistance and creating a stronger safety net for future generations of workers. 

• How American leaders failed to help workers survive the 'China Shock'. Gordon Hanson’s latest study on the China Shock was covered by NPR’s Planet Money. His research suggests that even though China reached the limits of its model of economic growth in 2010, the impacts its expansion had on American communities that relied heavily on manufacturing persists.  

• Development economists get training at the intersection of research and practice. EPoD’s Research Fellows Program was highlighted by Harvard Kennedy School’s website. The program, that already mentored over 120 research fellows since 2008, brings early-career development economists to Harvard Kennedy School to work with faculty on research engagements. 

• HKS faculty reimagine the world of work. Morocco Employment Lab’s research and capacity building efforts were featured among significant initiatives of HKS Faculty and Researchers on shaping the future of the workforce.  

• Incentivizing higher-quality agricultural outputs. Jie Bai’s research about Asymmetric Information, Consumer Learning and Seller Reputation was cited on J-PAL's article on opportunities for higher-quality agricultural outputs in low- and middle-income countries. 

• Why are informal safety nets holding back women's productivity in Côte d'Ivoire? Eliana Carranza wrote on a World Bank Blog about how redistributive pressure from community and family members undermines savings, particularly for female workers. 

• The Analytical Angle: how Pakistan can learn from the Covid crisis in India. As part of CERP’s SCALE consortium to promote containment plans for COVID-19 spread in Pakistan, Asim I. Khwaja collaborated with an article published at Dawn.com. The article identifies the conditions that led to the COVID-19 outbreak in India, and demonstrates how Pakistan could avoid the same fate.  

• The Analytical Angle: do children really learn in schools in Pakistan?. What does 'normal' learning mean for children in Pakistan? The idea that children drop out because they are not learning is not supported by the findings from the LEAPS project initiated by Jishnu Das, Tahir Andrabi, and Asim Ijaz Khwaja. 

• Resurfacing from an economic downturn. The Morocco Employment Lab's work assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the country’s labor force was featured in the World Islamic Economic Forum Foundation’s In Focus Magazine. According to EPoD Senior Researcher Samia Sekkarie, the informal, female, low-skilled and youth workforce was most affected. 

• How has Covid-19 affected children and teachers in non-state schools in Pakistan? The Oxford Policy Management Podcast interviewed LEAPS’ Director Zainab Qureshi about the implications of the pandemic for non-state schools, students and teachers in Pakistan. Low-fee private schools are a significant source of employment for women, and with school closures their salaries and employment are at risk.  

• COVID-19 & low-fee private schools in Pakistan: have schools closed, girls dropped out, and women lost jobs? LEAPS' Director Zainab Qureshi was interviewed for Global Schools Forum on the impact of COVID on low-fee private schools in the country. Initial data suggests that COVID-19 related school dropout rates in Pakistan may be higher for boys, who were more easily absorbed into the workforce.  

• Holding up half the sky. Data on Pakistani school enrollment and student achievement from the LEAPS was cited in this Op-Ed by Dr. Ayesha Razzaque for the Pakistani newspaper The News. Using data collected by LEAPS, Dr. Ayesha Razzaque debunks the myth that private schools in Pakistan are only accessible to the elite. 

• EPoD affiliates participated in several of Harvard Kennedy School’s Faculty Webinar Series. On “Using Data to Create Effective Policy in Uncertain Times”, EPoD Faculty Director Rema Hanna moderated a panel featuring Matthew Andrews, Asim I. Khwaja, and Karen Dynan on how to use data effectively in making policy decisions, especially in the context of the COVID-19 recovery.  

• Professor Teddy Svoronos taught effective digital techniques for building online learning and communities in "Data-Driven Digital Delivery: Lessons from Virtual Teaching". On “Evidence for Equity”, Drs. Zoe Marks and Teddy Svoronos discuss how data and evidence can be used to describe and diagnose social, economic, and political inequalities.  

• EPoD Faculty Director Rema Hanna moderated a panel on “Incorporating Evidence in U.S. Development Policy & Programming”, hosted by Harvard’s Center for International Development to discuss how evidence can be better incorporated in USAID programming and development policy more broadly.

• The Morocco Employment Lab hosted a webinar in which Prof. Bruno Crépon discussed active labor market policies, its potential and limitations, in an economy with low job creation.