Community-driven development programs are a popular model for service delivery and socioeconomic development, especially in countries reeling from civil strife. Despite their popularity, the evidence on their impact is mixed at best. Most studies thus far are based on data collected during, or...

Existing research suggests a strong link between mining and local conflict but makes no distinction between artisanal and industrial mining. We exploit variation in mineral prices and the granting of industrial mining concessions to investigate how the mode of extraction affects conflict in...

We examine whether gender quotas introduced by development agencies empower women. As part of a development program, an international organization created community management committees in 661 villages to oversee village level program expenditures. In a randomly selected half of these villages...

We empirically investigate the role of natural resources, and bad governance in explaining variation in the intensity of conflict during the 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone. As a proxy for governance quality we exploit exogenous variation in political competition at the level of the...

We study a randomized Community Driven Reconstruction (CDR) intervention that provided two years of exposure to democratic practices in 1,250 villages in eastern Congo. To assess impacts, we examine behavior in a later village-level unconditional cash transfer project that distributed $1,000 to...

Community-driven development programs are a popular model for service delivery and socioeconomic development, especially in countries reeling from civil strife. Despite their popularity, the evidence on their impact is mixed at best. Most studies thus far are based on data collected during, or...

We assess the role of traditional authorities during an acute health crisis, the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. We exploit plausible exogenous variation in the political competition for local chieftaincy positions and find evidence that traditional leaders helped shape the course of...

We examine whether gender quotas introduced by development agencies empower women. As part of a development program, an international organization created community management committees in 661 villages to oversee village level program expenditures. In a randomly selected half of these villages...

Can development aid empower women? We randomly assigned 1,250 Congolese communities to a development program that distributed development funds and included women in project selection and implementation, with the goal of empowering women. In 2010 and 2011, we revisited 816 treatment and control...