Thanks to all the participants for a fantastic development economics workshop!

The 2025 Bristol Applied Economics Meetings (BÆM) are not over yet. Tomorrow we continue with the meeting on “Gender, Diversity, and Human Capital.” www.baem.info

Last up is Devesh Rustagi @warwickecon.bsky.social showing that managing the commons may require both formal rules and civic capital. In managing forests in Ethiopia, combining civic capital with rules deters free-riding and improves cooperation.

Paper: drive.google.com/file/d/1u1lF...

Do training and data provision help local decision-makers target beneficiaries of social policies? Not necessarily. @violaasri.bsky.social finds that targeting in Bangladesh only improved along easily observable traits, and if committees had educated chairs.

Paper: docs.iza.org/dp17365.pdf

Can public infrastructure investments boost tax morale? @climent.bsky.social shows that randomized street paving in Mexico increased local tax compliance by 5.5% via both public goods provision and improved beliefs about government efficiency.

Paper: econ.hkust.edu.hk/sites/econom...

Jorge Garcia Hombrados presents evidence from Nigeria that fast internet reduces female genital mutilation. Not by spreading anti-FGM content, but by reshaping women’s broader identity with less stigma around promiscuous behaviors and premarital sex.

Paper: docs.iza.org/dp17194.pdf

Karmini Sharma shows that job seekers in India would trade 5-13% of their salary for safety from anti-sexual harassment. But firms misjudge both anti-harassment legislation and worker demand and underinvest in such amenities, even after being provided with more information.

Does mass media shape identity? @deanyang.bsky.social presents evidence that the Ramayan TV show, a popular adaptation of the Hindu epic broadcast in India in 1987-88, led to stronger Hindu identity, more communal violence, and long-run BJP electoral gains.

Paper: www.nber.org/system/files...

@clementminaudier.bsky.social shows that digitizing land records in Punjab reduced agricultural tax collection. Digitization did not lower the tax base but weakened state capacity to collect taxes by disrupting the bureaucracy’s organization.

Paper: www.clementminaudier.com/ARM_Digitiza...

@maxposch.bsky.social shows that increased market access induced by railroad expansion and population growth in the US between 1850 and 1920 fostered a set of cultural traits associated with cooperation. Mechanism: economic interdependence.

Shunsuke Tsuda shows that interethnic proximity fosters long-run political and economic development in Malaysia. Communities exposed to Chinese ethnic camps set up by the colonial government display more economic prosperity and less ethnonationalism: stsuda.github.io/mypolitics_K...

@saralowes.bsky.social delivers a keynote lecture on "Culture and Development Policy" discussing how culture shapes incentives, persists and evolves, and documenting cultural mismatches between policymakers and target populations

@andregroeger.bsky.social estimates a dynamic structural model of farm production using high-quality data from Vietnam to quantify the relative importance of market frictions and technological constraints in limiting farmers’ ability to adjust production to changing conditions.

Masahiro Kubo uncovers the historical origins of Islamist insurgencies in West Africa. Jihad violence is concentrated along the trans-Saharan caravan routes, where landlocked cities played a key role before European colonization.
Paper: stsuda.github.io/draft_IslamH...

Natalia Guerrero Trinidad shows that a non-state security arrangement in Peru—the Peasant Rounds—generated long-lasting reductions in criminality and conflict by fostering social capital. The research highlights the importance of bottom-up structures in weak state capacity settings.

Héctor Paredes Castro looks at the effects of a land expropriation and redistribution process in Peru on local political competition. The reform increased the number of contesting parties, voter turnout, and the participation of more educated, older, and indigenous candidates.

First up is @andreaslink.bsky.social, who finds that preventing “conflict diamonds” from entering world markets reduces armed conflicts in Africa, underscoring the importance of international initiatives in fostering peace.

Paper: bit.ly/3PgdeHL