South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. This paper examines the effect of weather shocks on various types of crime. Using a 12-year panel data set at monthly resolution on the police ward level, we observe a short-term effect of temperatures on violent crime, supporting the...

South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, incurring high cost for society. The present paper examines the effect of weather shocks on various types of crime. Using a 12-year panel data set at monthly resolution on the police ward level, we demonstrate a short-term effect of...

South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. This paper examines the effect of weather shocks on various types of crime. Using a 12-year panel data set at a monthly resolution on the police ward level, we observe a short-term effect of temperatures on violent crime. Furthermore,...

When properly implemented, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) can achieve a high degree of internal validity. Yet, if an RCT is to inform policy interventions that extend beyond the experimental population, it is critical to establish external validity. In this paper, we first present a...

When properly implemented, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) achieve a high degree of internal validity. Yet, if an RCT is to inform policy, it is critical to establish external validity. This paper systematically reviews all RCTs conducted in developing countries and published in leading...

Nighttime lights are increasingly used by social scientists as a proxy for economic activity and economic development in subnational spatial units. However, so far, our understanding of what nighttime lights capture is limited. We construct local indicators of household wealth, education and...

Oil spills can lead to irreversible environmental degradation and pose hazards to human health. We are the first to study the causal effects of onshore oil spills on neonatal and infant mortality rates. We use spatial data from the Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor and the Demographic and Health...

Vocational training programmes, like South Africa's learnership programme, which combine classroom learning and on-the-job training seem like the type of intervention which can create skills, get young people into jobs quicker, and reduce youth unemployment. This paper uses a longitudinal...

The economic consequences of COVID-19 lockdowns were significant for poor households in the Global South. In this crisis period, we investigate the very long-run impacts of a randomized cash grant in Uganda on three pre-specified outcomes, including a heterogeneity analysis by gender. In 2008,...

Household air pollution from biomass cooking is the most significant environmental health risk in the Global South. Interventions to address this risk mostly promote less-polluting stoves and clean fuels, but their diffusion proves difficult. This paper assesses the potentially complementary...