This paper provides new empirical insights on the joint distribution of consumption, income, and wealth in three of the poorest countries in the world — Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda — all located in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The first finding is that while income inequality is similar to...

This paper provides new empirical insights on the joint distribution of consumption, income, and wealth in three of the poorest countries in the world - Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda - all located in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The first finding is that while income inequality is similar to that of...

Using detailed household-level data from Malawi on physical quantities of outputs and inputs in agricultural production, we measure total factor productivity (TFP) for farms controlling for land quality, rain, and other transitory shocks. We find that operated land size and capital are...

Incumbency advantage is a well known phenomenon in developed countries such as the US. Recent work on Brazil and India has suggested that incumbents are disadvantaged when seeking reelection in developing countries. Most of the research on developing countries has focused on estimating...

Incumbents have a potential advantage not only when running for reelection, but also when pursing other political offices. So far, the literature has mostly ignored these effects. We use evidence from Brazilian elections to show that this `extended incumbency advantage' is an important political...

Using novel micro data, we explore lifecycle consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We find that households' ability to smooth consumption over the lifecycle is large, particularly, in rural areas. Interestingly, consumption in old age is sustained by shifting to self-farmed staple food, as...