Chapter 2 examines how violent and property crime respond to temperature, rainfall and drought in South Africa. Based on a 12-years panel data set of detailed crime records and weather data, it confirms the plausibility of a heat-aggression mechanisms, and finds evidence for a...

Chapter 3 studies the effect of access to grid electricity on the performance of rural micro-enterprises in Nepal. It analyses survey data from 627 enterprises in 26 electrified and to be electrified communities. Electricity access does not raise the performance of individual enterprises on...

Chapter 1 studies the effects of onshore oil spills on neonatal and infant mortality, and on child health, in Nigeria. It uses geo-referenced data from the Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor and the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2013. Nearby oil spills are found to double the neonatal...

Chapter 4 has a regional focus on Africa and explores whether nighttime lights, calculated from weather satellite recordings, are a useful proxy for human development at the local level. Indicators of household wealth, education and health are constructed from geo-coded Demographic and Health...