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This article uses a novel identification strategy to measure power in the household. Our strategy is to elicit women's willingness to pay to receive a cash transfer instead of their spouse receiving it. We selected participants from a sample of women who had already participated in a policy intervention in Macedonia offering poor households cash transfers conditional on having their children attending secondary school. The programme randomised transfers at the municipality level to either household heads (generally a male) or mothers. We show that women who were offered the transfer on average have stronger measured empowerment. Here, IV estimation confirms this result.

We examine the role of FM radio in mitigating violent conflict. We collect original data on radio broadcasts encouraging defections during the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency. This constitutes the first quantitative evaluation of an active counterinsurgency policy that encourages defections through radio messages. Exploiting random topography-driven variation in radio coverage along with panel variation at the grid-cell level, we identify the causal effect of messaging on violence. Broadcasting defection messages increases defections and reduces fatalities, violence against civilians, and clashes with security forces. Income shocks have opposing effects on both the conflict and the effectiveness of messaging.

Natural resources can have a negative impact on the economy through corruption and civil conflict. This paper tests whether information can counteract this political resource curse. We implement a large-scale field experiment following the dissemination of information about a substantial natural gas discovery in Mozambique. We measure outcomes related to the behavior of citizens and local leaders through georeferenced conflict data, behavioral activities, lab-in-the-field experiments, and surveys. We find that information targeting citizens and their involvement in public deliberations increases local mobilization and decreases violence. By contrast, when information reaches only local leaders, it increases elite capture and rent-seeking.

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems globally. Although it is so widespread, only 43% of people suffering from anxiety disorders receive help. A systematic review was conducted of 39 studies for a better understanding of the help seeking behaviors and influencers. Help seeking is associated with sociodemographic data (such as ethnicity), level of mental health literacy, financial status, perceived stigma, and other factors. The most vulnerable regarding help seeking and treatment receiving mental health help for anxiety are minority groups. There is a paucity of studies regarding how to influence the factors associated with help seeking behaviors. More research is needed so that mental health care providers can provide help adapted to patients’ specific needs.

Working Paper No. 21717 This paper studies how targeted cash transfers to women affect their empowerment. We use a novel identification strategy to measure women's willingness to pay to receive cash transfers instead of their partner receiving it. We apply this among women living in poor households in urban Macedonia. We match experimental data with a unique policy intervention (CCT) in Macedonia offering poor households cash transfers conditional on having their children attending secondary school. The program randomized whether the transfer was offered to household heads or mothers at municipality level, providing us with an exogenous source of variation in (offered) transfers. We show that women who were offered the transfer reveal a lower willingness to pay, and we show that this is in line with theoretical predictions.

Evidence on the exact mechanism linking in utero shocks with early-childhood outcomes remains scarce because biological factors are often tangled with changes in parental inputs. This paper addresses this issue by exploiting exogenous variation in the ocean's productivity resulting from water acidification, a consequence of climate change that is negatively affecting marine life and has been largely ignored in the literature. Ocean acidification provides a unique setting to study prenatal nutritional deprivation as water chemistry affects fish stocks, but is not directly observed or felt by mothers. This isolates the channel of transmission to the availability of resources. We estimate the causal impact of the ocean's acidity while in utero on early-childhood mortality and development at a global scale, analyzing more than 1.5 million geocoded births taking place over the last 50 years in 36 developing countries. We compare children, including siblings, born in the same location but on different dates, controlling for a set of high-dimensional fixed effects. In coastal areas, a 0.01 unit increase in acidity causes 2 additional neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births. Using a novel measure of fishing pressure that combines local and industrial fishing, we show that the effect is strictly related to reduced access to nutrients during gestation. We find no evidence of parental adaptation on other inputs. Deprivation selectively affects the weakest children, creating small differences in child development. These results provide the first quantitative evidence linking the exploitation of renewable natural resources with malnutrition and neonatal selection.

Fish stocks have decreased substantially over the last decades due to human exploitation of the ocean. This declining trend has been exacerbated by climate change, with acidifying waters harming marine life. This paper exploits exogenous variation in water acidity across time and space to study how the ocean impacts early-childhood mortality. We collate and analyze more than 1.5 million births between 1972 and 2018 in communities near the shore of 36 developing countries. By comparing children born in the same location but on different dates and controlling for a set of high-dimensional fixed effects, we identify the causal impact of in utero exposure to the ocean’s acidity on mortality. In coastal areas, a 0.01 unit increase in acidity causes 2 additional neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births. This result is robust to within-siblings comparisons. It is selectively affecting the weakest children as the effect gradually vanishes after the first month of life. Mothers do not compensate with any additional health investment during the gestation period. Reduced access to nutrients derived from fish that are essential to fetal growth is the key mechanism behind our findings. While fish is critical to global food security, humanity’s relationship with the ocean remains poorly understood. This paper provides the first quantitative evidence linking the exploitation of natural resources with malnutrition and neonatal selection.

Fish stocks have decreased substantially over the last decades due to human exploitation of the ocean. This declining trend has been exacerbated by climate change, with acidifying waters harming marine life. This paper exploits exogenous variation in water acidity across time and space to study how the ocean impacts early-childhood mortality. We collate and analyze more than 1.5 million births between 1972 and 2018 in communities near the shore of 36 developing countries. By comparing children born in the same location but on different dates and controlling for a set of high-dimensional fixed effects, we identify the causal impact of in utero exposure to the ocean’s acidity on mortality. In coastal areas, a 0.01 unit increase in acidity causes 2 additional neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births. This result is robust to within-siblings comparisons. It is selectively affecting the weakest children as the effect gradually vanishes after the first month of life. Mothers do not compensate with any additional health investment during the gestation period. Reduced access to nutrients derived from fish that are essential to fetal growth is the key mechanism behind our findings. While fish is critical to global food security, humanity’s relationship with the ocean remains poorly understood. This paper provides the first quantitative evidence linking the exploitation of natural resources with malnutrition and neonatal selection.

Poorly maintained public infrastructure is common in low- and middle-income countries, with consequences for service delivery and public health. By experimentally identifying the impact of incentives for local maintenance for both providers and potential users, this paper provides one of the ?rst economic analyses of provider–user dynamics in the presence of local coordination failure. Focusing on shared sanitation facilities for slum residents in two major Indian cities, we randomly allocate facilities to either a control or two treatments. The ?rst treatment incentivizes maintenance of the facility among providers, while the second treatment adds a sensitization campaign about the returns of a well-maintained facility among potential users. Using surveys, behavioral and objective measurements for both providers and potential users, we show that incentivizing maintenance does not favor collective action. The treatments raise the quality of facilities and reduce free riding, but at the cost of user selection. Providers improve routine maintenance, but also respond strategically to the newly-introduced incentives. While slum residents’ private willingness to pay and cooperation are unaffected, their demand for public intervention increases. The second treatment raises aware-ness, but does not affect behavior.

Poorly maintained public infrastructure is common in low- and middle-income countries, with consequences for service delivery and public health. By experimentally identifying the impact of incentives for local maintenance for both providers and potential users, this paper provides one of the first economic analyses of providerâ??user dynamics in the presence of local coordination failure. Focusing on shared sanitation facilities for slum residents in two major Indian cities, we randomly allocate facilities to either a control or two treatments. The first treatment incentivizes maintenance of the facility among providers, while the second treatment adds a sensitization campaign about the returns of a well-maintained facility among potential users. Using surveys, behavioral and objective measurements for both providers and potential users, we show that incentivizing maintenance does not favor collective action. The treatments raise the quality of facilities and reduce free riding, but at the cost of user selection. Providers improve routine maintenance, but also respond strategically to the newly-introduced incentives. While slum residents' private willingness to pay and cooperation are unaffected, their demand for public intervention increases. The second treatment raises awareness, but does not affect behavior.