[Pre-analysis plan and trial registry: Leaver, Ozier, Serneels, and Zeitlin 2018. "Recruitment, effort, and retention effects of performance contracts for civil servants: Experimental evidence from Rwandan primary schools." AEA RCT Registry. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2565-5.0. ]

[2018 BITSS + Development Impact blog post on the associated pre-analysis plan: Power to the Plan (Development Impact link) (BITSS link) ]

Abstract:  This paper reports on a two-tiered experiment designed to separately identify the selection and effort margins of pay-for-performance (P4P). At the recruitment stage, teacher labor markets were randomly assigned to a 'pay-for-percentile' or fixed-wage contract. Once recruits were placed, an unexpected, incentive-compatible, school-level re-randomization was performed, so that some teachers who applied for a fixed-wage contract ended up being paid by P4P, and vice versa. By the second year of the study, the within-year effort effect of P4P was 0.16 standard deviations of pupil learning, with the total effect rising to 0.20 standard deviations after allowing for selection.

Abstract:  Critics of randomized control trials (RCTs) in development economics argue that this methodology lends itself to ‘smaller’ questions with limited relevance to policy or economics. Using the seminal work of Miguel and Kremer (2004) on a school-based deworming intervention in Kenya as a case study, we argue that RCTs can spearhead policy change, serve as a laboratory to test economic theories and develop cutting-edge empirical methods, or do both. This does not happen in a vacuum, but through thoughtful design embedded in a broader research and policy agenda. Here, we describe a family of studies built on Miguel and Kremer (2004), shedding light on factors that supported the generation of evidence and insights far beyond the near-term RCT result. As in any piece of social sciences research, this descriptive evidence may not be externally valid in all settings. We nevertheless hope the lessons it offers will inspire others to examine these possibilities in their own research.

Featured in May 2017 World Bank Research e-Newsletter: "Deworming in early childhood can benefit younger siblings and the community"

January 2017 ASSA presentation

September 2015 World Bank Evidence to Policy note: KENYA: Do Infants Benefit When Older Siblings are Dewormed? (also available in French)

August 2015 VOX article: Mass deworming: (Still) a best buy for international development

July 2015 Center for Global Development blog post discussion: Mapping the Worm Wars: What the Public Should Take Away from the Scientific Debate about Mass Deworming

July 2015 GiveWell blog post discussion: New deworming reanalyses and Cochrane review

Featured in World Bank DECRG November 2014 Research Highlights

October 2014 blog post and video on Africa Can End Poverty: Deworming improves child cognition. Eventually.

IPA project page

Abstract:  I estimate the impacts of secondary school on human capital, occupational choice, and fertility for young adults in Kenya. Probability of admission to government secondary school rises sharply at a score close to the national mean on a standardized 8th grade examination, permitting me to estimate causal effects of schooling in a regression discontinuity framework. I combine administrative test score data with a recent survey of young adults to estimate these impacts. My results show that secondary schooling increases human capital, as measured by performance on cognitive tests included in the survey. For men, I find a drop in the probability of low-skill self-employment, as well as suggestive evidence of a rise in the probability of formal employment. The opportunity to attend secondary school also reduces teen pregnancy among women.

Featured in World Bank Development Research Human Development Quarterly Update 2015 Q3

Featured in World Bank DECRG September 2015 Research Highlights

Blog coverage by David Evans on Development Impact: Regression Discontinuity Porn

Coverage in the Daily Nation (Kenya)

Abstract:  This paper measures the economic impacts of social pressures to share income with kin and neighbors in rural Kenyan villages. We conduct a lab experiment in which we randomly vary the observability of investment returns to test whether subjects reduce their income in order to keep it hidden. We find that women adopt an investment strategy that conceals the size of their initial endowment in the experiment, though that strategy reduces their expected earnings. This effect is largest among women with relatives attending the experiment. Parameter estimates suggest that women anticipate that observable income will be "taxed" at a rate above four percent; this effective tax rate nearly doubles when kin can observe income directly. At the village level, we find a robust association between willingness to forgo expected return to keep income hidden in the laboratory experiment, and worse economic outcomes outside the laboratory. Though this paper provides experimental evidence from a single African country - Kenya - observational studies suggest that similar kin pressures may be prevalent in many parts of the developing world.

Online Appendix

Coverage by Nurith Aizenman for NPR's Goats and Soda blog: An Experiment Gives Cash Aid To The Poor. Is That Ethical?

Featured in World Bank Development Research Human Development Quarterly Update 2015 Q3

Blog coverage by Markus Goldstein on Development Impact: Pull him down? How about pull her down...

Abstract:  An increasing number of countries in Africa and elsewhere are developing national plans for the control of neglected tropical diseases. A key component of such plans is school-based deworming (SBD) for the control of soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) and schistosomiasis. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of national programmes is essential to ensure they are achieving their stated aims and to evaluate when to reduce the frequency of treatment or when to halt it altogether. The article describes the M&E design of the Kenya national SBD programme and presents results from the baseline survey conducted in early 2012.

Coverage in The Telegraph, NPR Morning Edition, NPR Goats and Soda, TODAY, Yahoo

Blog at CGD: Doing Well in Life? Thank Your Big Sister

Coverage in El País (Spain)

October 2018 video of DEC Policy Research Talk: Gendered Language.

Blog coverage by Markus Goldstein at Development Impact: Is grammar holding back efficiency and growth?

Presentation at ASSA 2018

2017 IZA GLMLIC Policy Brief: Girls Empowered by Microfranchising: Estimating the Impacts of Microfranchising on Young Women in Nairobi

2017 PEDL Research Note: Estimating the Impacts of Microfranchising on Young Women in Nairobi

Abstract:  Large-scale simulation-based studies rely on at least three properties of pseudorandom number sequences: they behave in many ways like truly random numbers; they can be replicated; and they can be generated in parallel. There has been some divergence, however, between empirical techniques employing random numbers, and the standard battery of tests used to validate them. A random number generator that passes tests for any single stream of random numbers may fail the same tests when it is used to generate multiple streams in parallel. The lack of systematic testing of parallel streams leaves statistical software with important potential vulnerabilities. This paper shows one such vulnerability in Stata's rnormal function that went unnoticed for almost four years, and how to detect it. It then shows practical implications for the use of parallel streams in existing software.

December 2018 blog post Development Impact: Power to the Plan. (joint with Clare Leaver, Pieter Serneels, and Andrew Zeitlin.) Also cross-posted on the BITSS blog.

February 2018 blog post on Development Impact: How to attract and motivate passionate public service providers.

Owen Ozier