This study assesses how pandemic-related job losses and social protection impacted food security in South Africa using five waves of data from the NIDS-CRAM survey of 794 individuals. Job loss increased food insecurity by 5.2% (14%), consistent across five methods and lasting for 12 months....

This paper presents a novel method for estimating treatment effects in cases where prior knowledge of the exogeneity of the treatment variable is limited. We employ a machine learning technique, double selection via Lasso, to identify a robust set of control variables without requiring prior...

We study the role of mayoral gender in attracting public funding in Italian municipalities. We exploit a novel administrative dataset containing detailed information on all projects aimed at the digitalisation of local public administrations and funded under Italy's National Recovery and...

Researchers typically collect experimental data sequentially, allowing early outcome observations and adaptive treatment assignment to reduce exposure to inferior treatments. This article reviews multi-armed-bandit adaptive experimental designs that balance exploration and exploitation. Because...

We study the role of mayoral gender in attracting public funding in Italian municipalities. We exploit a novel administrative dataset containing detailed information on all projects aimed at the digitalisation of local public administrations and funded under Italy's National Recovery and...

Researchers typically collect experimental data sequentially, allowing early outcome observations and adaptive treatment assignment to reduce exposure to inferior treatments. This article reviews multiarmed-bandit adaptive experimental designs that balance exploration and exploitation. Because...