Here are some recent papers which I’m looking forward to reading!
Daron Acemoglu, Suresh Naidu, Pascual Restrepo, and James A. Robinson. 2019. “Democracy Does Cause Growth.” Journal of Political Economy.
We provide evidence that democracy has a significant and robust positive effect on GDP per capita. Our empirical strategy controls for country fixed effects and the rich dynamics of GDP, which otherwise confound the effect of democracy on economic growth. To reduce measurement error, we introduce a new dichotomous measure of democracy that consolidates the information from several sources. Our baseline results use a dynamic panel model for GDP, and show that democratizations increase GDP per capita by about 20% in the long run. We find similar effects of democratizations on annual GDP when we control for the estimated propensity of a country to democratize based on past GDP dynamics. We obtain comparable estimates when we instrument democracy using regional waves of democratizations and reversals. Our results suggest that democ- racy increases GDP by encouraging investment, increasing schooling, inducing economic reforms, improving the provision of public goods, and reducing social unrest. We find little support for the view that democracy is a constraint on economic growth for less developed economies.
Donald P. Green, Anna Wilke, and Jasper Cooper. 2019. “Countering violence against women at scale: A mass media experiment in rural Uganda.” Working paper.
Violence against women (VAW) is widespread in East Africa, with almost half of married women experiencing physical abuse. Those seeking to address this policy issue confront two challenges. First, some forms of domestic violence are widely condoned; majorities of men and women believe that a husband is justified in beating his wife in a variety of scenarios. Second, victims and bystanders are often reluctant to report incidents to authorities. Building on a growing literature showing that education-entertainment can change norms and behaviors, we present experimental evidence from a media campaign attended by over 10,000 Ugandans in 112 villages. In randomly assigned villages, video dramatizations discouraged VAW and encouraged reporting. Results from interviews conducted several months after the intervention show no change in attitudes condoning VAW yet a substantial increase in willingness to report to authorities, especially among women, and a decline in the share of women who experienced violence.
Ken Ochieng’ Opalo. 2019. “Constrained Presidential Power in Africa? Legislative Independence and Executive Rule Making in Kenya, 1963–2013.” British Journal of Political Science.
Do institutions constrain presidential power in Africa? Conventional wisdom holds that personalist rule grants African presidents unchecked powers. Consequently, there is very little research on African institutions such as legislatures and their impact on executive authority. In this article, the author uses original data on the exercise of presidential authority (issuance of subsidiary legislation) to examine how legislative independence conditions presidential rule making in Kenya. The study exploits quasi- exogenous changes in legislative independence, and finds that Kenyan presidents issue relatively more Legal Notices under periods of legislative weakness, but are constrained from doing so under periods of legislative independence. These findings shed new light on institutional politics in Kenya, and illustrate how executive–legislative relations in the country conform to standard predictions in the literature on unilateral executive action.
Marius Siebert and Anna Mbise. 2018. “Toilets Not Taxes: Gender Inequity in Dar es Salaam’s City Markets.” International Centre for Tax and Development.
In this paper we examine market taxation in Dar es Salaam from a gender perspective. We do not find any evidence of gender bias in the way market traders are taxed, but we do find a major gender issue that we did not expect – toilet fees. Female traders pay up to 18 times more for their daily use of the market toilets than they pay as market tax. High toilet fees have a differential and adverse impact on women, who require toilets more frequently than men, and have fewer alternatives. This shows that a focus on formal taxation systems does not reveal all complex linkages between gender and taxation in the informal sector of developing countries. A gender-aware perspective on market taxation requires us to look holistically at gender-differentiated patterns of use and funding of collective goods and services.
Mustafa Mahmoud Yousif. 2018. “The Vices of Discrimination: The Impacts of Vetting and Delays in the Issuance of ID cards in Kenya.” Namati.
This policy brief aims to highlight the plight of Kenyans who face difficulties in getting identity cards due to their ethnicity. It sheds light on how the discretionary and discriminatory processes they endure delay the issuance of their ID cards and further demonstrates how these delays endanger the wellbeing of the applicants and their families. The brief reveals that these delays have worsened over the past five years.