Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev) 2021

About the Conference

The Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev) is one of the major annual conferences dedicated to development economics. The event brings together researchers and practitioners to present and discuss work that enhances our understanding of economic development, advances theoretical and empirical methods, and improves development interventions and policy.

UC San Diego is virtually hosting PacDev 2021 on Zoom (with logistical support from CEGA). The date is Friday, March 12.

Organizers: Sam Bazzi and Tom Vogl

Selection Committee: Sam Bazzi, Prashant Bharadwaj, Gaurav Khanna, Naveen Kumar, Teevrat Garg, Munseob Lee, Sara Lowes, Elizabeth Lyons, Craig McIntosh, Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, Manaswini Rao and Tom Vogl

Coordinator: Michelle Galvez

Technical Support: Dustin Marshall

Registration

Please register for the conference at https://forms.gle/NixBYwvfpf6hgeMb9 (linked at the top right as well).

Conference Schedule

The conference will take place on Friday, March 12, from 9:00 am to 4:50 pm PST. It will have four sets of parallel sessions across six Zoom rooms, plus a keynote session. All times are PST.

Session 1: 9:00 am – 10:20 am
Session 2: 10:30 am – 11:50 am
Keynote: 12:30 pm – 1:50 pm
Session 3: 2:00 pm – 3:20 pm
Session 4: 3:30 pm – 4:50 pm

Keynote Session: Social Programs and Distributive Politics in Africa

Lecture

Rightful Shares and the Claims of Presence: Distributive Claims beyond Labor and Citizenship
James Ferguson (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University)

Panel

James Ferguson (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University), panelist
Tavneet Suri (Sloan School of Management, MIT), panelist
Leonard Wantchekon (Department of Politics, Princeton University), panelist
Paul Niehaus (Department of Economics and GPS, UCSD), moderator

Room 1: Health and Education
Coordinator: Vivian Aluoch

Session 1 (9:00-10:20 PST): Education
Chair: Karthik Muralidharan

Learning to Teach by Learning to Learn
Vesall Nourani, Nava Ashraf, Abhijit Banerjee

The Impact of Religious Diversity on Students’ Academic and Behavioral Outcomes
Serena Canaan, Antoine Deeb and Pierre Mouganie

Too Little, Too Late: Improving Post-Primary Learning Outcomes in India
Diva Dhar, Gaurav Chiplunkar, Radhika Nagesh

Private School Entry, Sorting, and Performance of Public Schools: Evidence from Pakistan
Catherine Michaud Leclerc

Session 2 (10:30-11:50 PST): Trust in the Time of Pandemics
Chair: Sara Lowes

Profile of a Conspiracy Theorist: The Role of Government Trust and Technology on Misinformation during an Epidemic
Robert Gonzalez, Elisa Maffioli

The Epidemic Effect: Global Governance Institutions Can Mitigate the Effects of Epidemics
Belinda Archibong, Francis Annan, Uche Ekhator-Mobayode

How COVID-19 Risk Information Affects Beliefs and Behaviors: Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh
Md Ferdous Sardar

Persuasion and Public Health: Evidence from an Experiment with Religious Leaders during COVID-19 in Pakistan
Kate Vyborny

Session 3 (2:00-3:20 PST): Incentives in Health Care
Chair: Manaswini Rao

Can Price Discrimination Incentivize Behavior Change? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
Ariel Zucker, Rebecca Dizon-Ross

The Impact of Self or Social-Regarding Messages: Experimental Evidence on Antibiotics Purchases in China
Jianan Yang, Daixin He, Fangwen Lu

Increasing the Take-up of Public Services: Evidence from a Field Experiment at Scale
Sebastian Gallegos, Ana Cuesta, Sebastián Gallegos, Benjamin Roseth, Mario Sánchez

Managerial Practices and Altruism in Health Care Delivery
Paul Gertler, David Conteras and Ada Kwan

Session 4 (3:30-4:50 PST): Population Health
Chair: Tom Vogl

Intergenerational Persistence in Maternal Bereavement
Frances Lu, Tom Vogl

Missing Patients: Gender Disparities in Government Health Insurance in India
Radhika Jain, Pascaline Dupas

Biased Memory and the Intergenerational Transmission of Fertility Norms
Maximilian Mueller

Cost-Sharing in Medical Care Can Increase Adult Mortality Risk
Grant Miller, Giancarlo Buitrago, Marcos Vera-Hernández

Room 2: Cash, Consumption, and Gender
Coordinator: Diana Martinez

Session 1 (9:00-10:20 PST): Social Programs
Chair: Manaswini Rao

Should The Government Sell You Goods? Evidence from the Milk Market in Mexico
Diego Jimenez Hernandez, Enrique Seira

Unconditional Cash-Based Assistance to the Poor: What Do At-Scale Programs Achieve?
Stephen O’Connell, Onur Altindag

The Effects of Cash Transfers on Formal Labor Markets: Evidence from Brazil
Joana Naritomi, François Gerard, Joana Silva

The Effects of Better Houses on Infant Health
Laisa Rachter, Cecilia Machado

Session 2 (10:30-11:50 PST): Finance
Chair: Elizabeth Lyons

Learning to Navigate a New Financial Technology: Evidence from Payroll Accounts
Martin Kanz, Emily Breza, Leora Klapper

Towards a Cashless Economy? Evidence from the Elasticity of Cash Deposits of Mexican Firms
Sean Higgins, Pierre Bachas, Anders Jensen

Liquidity or Convenience? Heterogeneous Impacts of Mobile Airtime Loans on Communication Expenditure
Oscar Barriga-Cabanillas, Travis Lybbert

The Moneylender as Middleman: Formal Credit Supply and Informal Loans in Rural India
Vaishnavi Surendra

Session 3 (2:00-3:20 PST): Consumption
Chair: Tom Vogl

The More the Poorer? Resource Sharing and Scale Economies in Large Families
Jake Penglase, Rossella Calvi, Denni Tommasi, Alexander Wolf

Estimating Within-Household Pareto Weights from Individual Food Consumption
Ethan Ligon

Budget Neglect in Consumption Smoothing: A Field Experiment on Seasonal Hunger
Nicholas Swanson, Ned Augenblick, Kelsey Jack, Supreet Kaur, Felix Masiye

Anticipation and Consumption
Linh Tô, Neil Thakral

Session 4 (3:30-4:50 PST): Gender
Chair: Sara Lowes

Women’s Job Opportunities and Marriage Quality
Rachel Heath, Jagori Chatterjee

Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Women’s Employment
Madeline McKelway

Managing the Second Shift: The Impact of Noncognitive Skills on Female Entrepreneurs’ Time Allocation and Mental Health
Paula Lopez-Pena

Spousal Communication and Information Sharing: Evidence from Migrants and their Spouses
Obeid Ur Rehman

Room 3: Climate and Agriculture
Coordinator: Radhika Goyal

Session 1 (9:00-10:20 PST): Climate Change
Chair: Gordon McCord

Coordination and Commitment in International Climate Action: Evidence from Palm Oil
Allan Hsiao

Climate Change, Rural Livelihoods and Urbanization: Evidence from the Permanent Shrinking of Lake Chad
Federico Haslop, Remi Jedwab, Takaaki Masaki, Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán

Climate Change in Developing Countries: Global Warming Effects, Transmission Channels and Adaptation Policies
Thibault Lemaire, Olivier de Bandt, Luc Jacolin

Socio-Economic and Environmental Effects of Eco-Tourism
Santiago Saavedra

Session 2 (10:30-11:50 PST): Energy Efficiency and Air Pollution
Chair: Teevrat Garg

Theoretical and Empirical Evaluation of a Competitive Energy Rebate Program
Chi Ta

Consuming Perishable Goods in the Presence of Transaction Costs and Liquidity Constraints
Megan Lang

Forecasts: Consumption, Production, and Behavioral Responses
Arman Rezaee, Husnain F. Ahmad, Matthew Gibson, Fatiq Nadeem, Sanval Nasim

Sustainable Agriculture, Residue Burning, and Urban Infant Mortality: Evidence from Mexico
Joel Ferguson, Bram Govaerts

Session 3 (2:00-3:20 PST): Credit, Risk and Technology Adoption
Chair: Craig McIntosh

Credit and Attention in the Adoption of Profitable Energy Efficient Technologies in Kenya
Susanna Berkouwer, Joshua Dean

Are Informal Transfers Driven by Strategic Risk-Sharing or Fairness? Evidence from an Experiment in Kenya
Prachi Jain, Margaret J. Lay

The Effects of Relaxing Information and Credit Constraints on Productivity: 5-Year Experimental Evidence from Self-Reported, GPS-Based, and Remotely Sensed Data
Abdulrazzak Tamim, Aurélie P. Harou, Marshall Burke, David Lobell, Malgosia Madajewicz, Christopher Magomba, Hope Michelson, Cheryl Palm, Jenny Xue

Autonomy and Specificity in Agricultural Technology Adoption: Evidence from Mexico
Xavier Gine, Carolina Corral, Aprajit Mahajan, Enrique Seira

Session 4 (3:30-4:50 PST): Complementarities in Agriculture
Chair: Craig McIntosh

Filling a Niche? The Maize Productivity Impacts of Adaptive Breeding by a Local Seed Company in Kenya
Michael Carter, Samuel Bird, Travis Lybbert, Mary Mathenge, Timothy Njagi, Emilia Tjernstrom

Cash Crop Price Stabilization, Land Use Change, and Forest Loss: Evidence from Ghana
Kwabena Krah

Agricultural Labor Exits Increase Crop Fires
Maulik Jagnani, Teevrat Garg, Hemant Pullabhotla

Misattribution and Multiple Priors Prevent Learning
Ben Norton, Jessica Hoel, Victor Manyong, Hope Michelson

Room 4: Labor, Trade, and Firms
Coordinator: Alejandro Nakab

Session 1 (9:00-10:20 PST): Worker Productivity, Search, and Matching
Chair: Gaurav Khanna

An Adaptive Targeted Field Experiment: Job Search Assistance for Refugees in Jordan
Stefano Caria, Grant Gordon, Max Kasy, Simon Quinn, Soha Shami, Alex Teytelboym

Do Financial Concerns Make Workers Less Productive?
Suanna Oh, Supreet Kaur, Sendhil Mullainathan, Frank Schilbach

What Do Jobseekers Want? Comparing Methods to Estimate Reservation Wages and the Value of Job Attributes
Brian Feld, Adam Osman, AbdelRahman Nagy

Politics at Work
Edoardo Teso, Emanuele Colonnelli, Valdemar Pinho Neto

Session 2 (10:30-11:50 PST): Trade, Productivity, and Welfare
Chair: Munseob Lee

Land Market Frictions in Developing Countries: Evidence from Manufacturing Firms in India
Aradhya Sood

Global Prices, Trade Protection, and Internal Migration: Evidence from Indonesia
Rizki Nauli Siregar

Unfair Trade? Market Power in Agricultural Value Chains
Lucas Zavala

Measuring the Cost of Living in Mexico and the US
Munseob Lee, David Argente, Chang-Tai Hsieh

Session 3 (2:00-3:20 PST): Technology, Management and Firm Outcomes
Chair: Elizabeth Lyons

Religious Divisions, Production Technology and Firm Productivity: Experimental Evidence from India
Arkadev Ghosh

Road Traffic Bundles Product Demand and Pollution Exposure for Small Firms in Developing Cities
Vittorio Bassi, Matt Kahn, Nancy Lozano Gracia, Tommaso Porzio, Jeanne Sorin

Technology Transfer and Early Industrial Development: Evidence from the Sino-Soviet Alliance
Michela Giorcelli, Bo Li

Hiring Frictions in Small Firms: Evidence from an Internet Platform-Based Experiment
Niharika Singh, A. Nilesh Fernando, Gabriel Tourek

Session 4 (3:30-4:50 PST): Macro Labor
Chair: Gaurav Khanna

The Agricultural Wage Gap within Rural Villages
Ceren Baysan, Kyle Emerick, Elisabeth Sadoulet

Self-Employment and Development
Juan Herreno, Sergio Ocampo

Labor Market Power, Selection and Informality in Peru
Monica Morlacco, Francesco Amodio, Pamela Medina

The Impact of Labor Law Reforms in Frictional Labor Markets
Gaurav Chiplunkar, Ritam Chaurey, Vidhya Soundararajan

Room 5: Political Economy
Coordinator: Weilin Chen

Session 1 (9:00-10:20 PST): Institutions and Governance
Chair: Samuel Bazzi

The Value of Names – Civil Society, Information, and Governing Multinationals on the Global Periphery
Nathaniel Lane, David Kreitmeir, Paul A. Raschky

Does Revolution Work? Evidence from the Birth of Nepal’s Federal Democracy
Michael Callen, Bhishma Bhusal, Saad Gulzar, Rohini Pande, Soledad Prillaman, Deepak Singhania

Development via Administrative Redistricting: Evidence from Brazil
Ricardo Dahis, Christiane Szerman

Do Local Governments have Electoral Incentives to Build Infrastructure? Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Mexico
Wayne Sandholtz, Francisco Garfias, Bruno Lopez-Videla

Session 2 (10:30-11:50 PST): Institutional Capacity
Chair: Manaswini Rao

Judicial Independence and Development: Evidence from Pakistan
Sultan Mehmood

Can Party Elites Shape the Rank and File? Evidence from a Recruitment Campaign in India
Sarah Thompson, Saad Gulzar, Durgesh Pathak, Aliz Tóth

Whither Justice?: Judicial Capacity Constraints Worsens Trial and Litigants’ Outcomes
Manaswini Rao

Can Training Improve Organizational Culture? Experimental Evidence from Ghana’s Civil Service
Michel Azulai, Imran Rasul, Daniel Rogger, Martin Williams

Session 3 (2:00-3:20 PST): Public Political Economy
Chair: Paul Niehaus

The Race Between Tax Enforcement and Tax Planning: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Chile
Dina Pomeranz, Sebastian Bustos, Juan Carlos Suarez Serrato, Jose Vila-Belda, Gabriel Zucman

Electricity Subsidy Programs in Practice: Evidence from COVID-19 Relief in Ghana
Pierre Biscaye, Susanna Berkouwer, Steven Puller, Catherine Wolfram

Cash Transfers and Community Participation in Public Affairs: A Village-Level Randomized Controlled Trial in Kenya
Michael Walker, Kate Orkin

Political Time Horizons and Government Investments: Evidence from Mexico
Bruno Lopez-Videla

Session 4 (3:30-4:50 PST): Corruption
Chair: Paul Niehaus

Service Delivery, Corruption, and Information Flows in Bureaucracies: Evidence from the Bangladesh Civil Service
Martin Mattsson

The Workforce of Clientelism: The Case of Local Officials in the Party Machine
Ajay Shenoy, Laura Zimmermann

Using Mobile Salary Payments to Reduce Corruption and Promote Financial Development in Afghanistan
Anastasiia Faikina, Joshua Blumenstock, Michael Callen, Stefano Fiorin, Tarek Ghani

Externalities in Politicians’ Malfeasance
Gustavo J. Bobonis, Anke Kessler, Xin Zhao

Room 6: Culture and Conflict
Coordinator: Christian Bechler

Session 1 (9:00-10:20 PST): Culture
Chair: Sara Lowes

The Cultural Origins of Educational Success
Thang Dang

Christian Missions and Anti-Gay Attitudes in Africa
Michael Poyker, Maxim Ananyev

Heroes and Villains: The Effects of Combat Heroism on Autocratic Values and Nazi Collaboration in France
Saumitra Jha, Julia Cage, Anna Dagorret, Pauline Grosjean

Economic Consequences of Kinship: Evidence from US Bans on Cousin Marriage
Munir Squires, Arkadev Ghosh, Sam Hwang

Session 2 (10:30-11:50 PST): Causes of Crime and Conflict
Chair: Samuel Bazzi

Agricultural Modernization and Contested Land: Evidence from Brazil
Stefano Falcone, Michele Rosenberg

Nomadic Pastoralism, Climate Change and Conflict in Africa
Eoin McGuirk, Nathan Nunn

Spatial Mobility, Economic Opportunity, and Crime
Daniel Ramos-Menchelli, Gaurav Khanna, Carlos Medina, Anant Nyshadham, Jorge Tamayo, Audrey Tiew

Delta Boys: Bargaining, War, and Black Market Oil in Nigeria
Jonah Rexer, Even Hvinden

Session 3 (2:00-3:20 PST): Diversity
Chair: Samuel Bazzi

Can Competition Reduce Conflict?
Teevrat Garg, Caterina Gennaioli, Stefania Lovo, Gregor Singer

Within-Group Heterogeneity in a Multi-Ethnic Society
Miriam Artiles

Colonial Structures, Local Majorities, and Economic Development
Richard Bluhm, Roland Hodler, Paul Schaudt

Residential Segregation in Urban India
Sam Asher, Anjali Adukia, Paul Novosad, Brandon Tan

Session 4 (3:30-4:50 PST): Conflict and the Economy
Chair: Samuel Bazzi

The Economic Victims of Violence: Local Exports During the Mexican Drug War
Bernardo Ricca, Jesús Gorrín, José Morales-Arilla

Market Structure and Extortion: Evidence from 50,000 Extortion Payments
Carlos Schmidt-Padilla, Zach Brown, Eduardo Montero, María Micaela Sviatschi

Reparations as Development: Evidence from the Victims of the Colombian Armed Conflict
Arlen Guarin, Juliana Londoño-Velez, Christian Posso

Collateral Damage: The Legacy of the Secret War in Laos
Juan Felipe Riaño Rodríguez, Felipe Valencia Caicedo