Developement and Economic Growth

• Sponsor: FSR Global Partnership
• Promoter: David de la Croix

Project Description

 How were academic networks configured in the premodern world, and how did they change? This doctoral project seeks to offer a data-driven answer by computing networks at and around the Old University of Louvain (1425-1797), a crucial hub for the transfer of knowledge in late medieval and early modern Europe. Drawing upon datasets under construction from the teams of the PIs at KU Leuven and UCLouvain, this project sets out to plot and visualize networks of students, scholars and their ‘books’ over almost four centuries, thus integrating data from demographic, prosopographical and book historical datasets. This will lead to a better understanding of how academic communities evolved in the past, and it will help to assess how their organization and structure promoted or hindered the creation and transfer of knowledge in premodern Europe. Hence, the doctoral research project offers an innovative test case to develop novel understandings of networks (e.g.. new tested ways to define nodes and edges) in datasets on scholars and ‘literati’, and it will be able to compare these new results to interpretations of human capital indices in the past. As such, the project creates a pioneering pilot for integrating data science into the field of intellectual and early modern history. This enhanced collaboration between KU Leuven and UCLouvain on a theme related to their common past is timely in view of 600 years Leuven/Louvain in 2025.  

• Sponsor: FNRS
• Promoter: Joseph Gomes
• Start date: 2023
• End date:  2025

Project description

In the face of a growing backlash against globalization, there is increasing interest in identifying the groups and locations that are left behind by globalization. Using high-resolution geocoded grid-cell level as well as individual-level data, this project will investigate the deleterious effects of globalization in perpetuating the marginalisation of ethnic minorities, thereby encouraging violent conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. We will rely on the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that, during the 2000s, lowered US trade barriers for most African countries and led to substantial increases in international trade. Because not all African countries were part of the AGOA, and because accession occurred in a staggered manner, there is cross-country temporal variation in trade openness. With this we will combine the natural level of openness to trade at a local level using information on travel time from the closest port to generate sub-national variation in trade exposure. Further combining this with a novel dataset on local ethnic composition at a spatial resolution of 5 sq. km, we will particularly gauge the role of ethnic remoteness, as opposed to ethnic diversity, in mediating the effects of 
trade shocks on conflict. Deploying cutting edge econometric methods on grid-cell- and individual-level data, we will be able to estimate causal effects more convincingly than is usual in the state of the art. We will provide unprecedented insights into the potential marginalization of ethnic minorities in the face of trade liberalization and its effects on intergroup relations and violent conflict. 

• Sponsor: IFPRI
• Promoter: Jean-François Maystadt
• Start date: September 2024
• End date: 2026

Project Description

The project seeks to generate evidence, including rigorous evaluations, on effective immediate responses to conflict and displacement. Specifically, we will exploit within-country data on internal migration to improve our understanding of conflict hotspots and migration corridors in space and time

• Sponsor: World Bank
• Promoter: Jean-François Maystadt

Project description

With the University of Antwerp and a NGO, called Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB), we assess the impact of skilled-worker visas on refugees and their families. Refugee talents remain a largely untapped resource: many have skills that are demanded in high-income countries and aspire to migrate; yet they are often locked out of skilled migration systems due to administrative barriers. Our research will examine how facilitating access to skilled-worker visas can unlock skilled migration pathways for refugees and displaced people. Our innovative solution is implemented by TBB, a charity that has built the “Talent Catalog”, a database and software platform to enable refugees to upload their profiles, qualifications, skills and experience. TBB uses this repertoire of more than 75,000 skilled refugees to match talents with employers in need of their skills. TBB then works with employers, governments, civil society, refugee organisations, and global mobility partners to address administrative and practical barriers to migration. Employers gain valuable talent and displaced people have a chance to rebuild their careers and lives. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, our research will assess the impact of skilled-worker visas on refugees and their families. We will identify the enabling factors and challenges that influence the success or failure of the program.

Sponsor: ARC

IRES Promoter: Fabio Mariani

Start date : 2021

End date: 2026

Description

The OSTIUM project aims to understand, through the study of the ancient city of Ostia, how, with what means and for what purpose humanity has transformed, over the centuries, the urban space in which it lives, to adapt it to the changing needs of its existence, the available resources and the historical contingencies. [...] The project is structured according to three main axes, each of which exploits the methods of the disciplines involved. [...] The second axis intends, through an economic approach, to build a new dataset describing the evolution of the structure, the organization and the demographic features of urban space in Ostia, which is an interesting example of pre-industrial socio-economic system whose transformation can be followed through several centuries. By using the existing information on the Ostian population (epigraphy, osteological remains, historic sources) progressively enriched by the data gathered by the first axis, we will explore the dynamic interplay between
economic development, environmental constraints and relevant socio-economic outcomes such as urban growth, inequality in the access to urban space, social segregation, the evolution of urbanism and architectural forms and the formation of corporate groups. The data made available by the project will also allow to understand whether the economy of Roman Ostia obeyed Malthusian principles, and look into the main mechanisms governing the relationship between economic, demographic and urban transformation

Sponsor: ERC

Promotor: David de la Croix

Start date: 2021

End date: 2025

Project description

The aim is to determine the role of elite knowledge and upper-tail human capital (UTHC) in triggering the rise of the West. I propose to build a database of a large sample of academic scholars in Europe over the period 1000CE1800CE. Sources will be primary (published cartularia and matricula), secondary (books on the history of universities & academies), and tertiary (biographical dictionaries). To measure the quality of scholars, these data will be matched with the existing catalogues of publications. Second, we will build a geographical grid of the density, composition, and quality of the UTHC across time, and correlate the UTHC at the cell level with the adoption of new techniques and better institutions, and the development of literacy, numeracy, and urbanization. The individual character of the data will allow basing causal identification on exogenous variations in the European network of both individuals and universities. The migration pattern of scholars will be used to identify sorting and agglomeration forces, witnessing the functioning of an academic market in the medieval and early modern periods. Families of scholars will be identified to assess the importance of nepotism vs human capital transmission. Third, we will develop a new theory of the complementarity between sciences and techniques, to determine the incentives under which codified knowledge and practical skills interact, and ideas spread. A second new theoretical model will be devoted to revealing the dynamic interactions between conservative and modern forces within universities and learned societies; the key trade-off here is between vested interests and new paradigms, letting scholarly elites develop a culture of growth. With the data gathered, we will be able to measure the importance of these theoretical mechanisms and how the UTHC and society interact. Overall, I intend to rethink economic growth by unravelling the rich interactions between scholars & literati and its emergence. 

Sponsor: FNRS-CDR

IRES Promoter: Sandy tubeuf

Start date: 2022

End date: 2024

Project description:

Understanding the behavioural and institutional origin of learning poverty is critical for effective design of remedial policies. Building upon the ethical concept of equality-of-opportunity, which draws a distinction between sources of inequality related to consequences of effort within one’s control and sources related to circumstances beyond one’s responsibility, this project focuses on the role of effort in school attainment. We argue that effort, construed as a broad and multidimensional concept combining effort exerted at school along with cognitive and non-cognitive skills, is a critical factor for educational performance. We also hypothesize that effort is malleable and not innate. Using rural Bangladesh as a case study, we propose to expand an existing large-scale survey in secondary school with an additional wave and include a larger set of measures of behavioural traits as well as time investment of pupils and their parents. Furthermore, we intend to undertake a lab-in-the-field experiment randomly allocating nudge-type interventions encouraging effort to some of the schools and estimate their causal effects on effort as well as student test scores in several subjects.

Sponsor: J-PAL

IRES promoter:  William Parienté

Start date: 2021

End date: 2024

Project description

One reason for poor integration outcomes of immigrants can be a lack of information about local integration support programs, language courses, job offers and other relevant local information. This pilot evaluates the feasibility of an RCT that aims at studying the effectiveness of providing local information for immigrants to improve their economic and social integration outcomes. The information is provided by the app Integreat, developed by our partner NGO Tür an Tür - Digitalfabrik in collaboration with German municipalities. Our project will randomly select immigrants who have recently arrived in Germany and introduce them to the Integreat app. We will evaluate if and how much they use the app, and whether it improves their integration outcomes, as measured in administrative data and complementary surveys.

Sponsor: SFSD

IRES promoter: William Parienté

Start date: 

End date: 

Project description

Governments and development organizations expend a lot of effort trying to help the poorest of the poor. Oftentimes, this segment of the population requires significant assistance in the form of consumption support (i.e. cash transfer), but also complimentary services like healthcare, savings support, mentorship as well as training and capital to help them start and maintain an income generating activity (IGA). This is the idea of the internationally admired “graduation program” that was started by BRAC International and has a strong base of rigorous evidence that showcases its success across a variety of countries.
Arguably the most important (and the most expensive) part of their program is their support of the poor in pursuing an income generating activity (IGA). This often takes the form of some kind of livestock transfer or capital to start a microbusiness (like a fruit-stand, or barbershop, etc.) in addition to some basic training. There are many open questions about the best way to help get this income generating activity off the group and how to make sure it is efficient, pro table and sustainable.
For instance, does it make more sense to restrict the options people have and, for instance, train everyone on how to raise livestock so that they can help each other when problems arise and work together to get the best prices for their goods? Or is it better to give people more options to choose what they think they will be best at, even if this is more costly due to the costs of sending more specialists out to the eld to provide a variety of skills and support?
Another important question is how this type of support for the poor affects the overall economy. In particular, does providing assistance to the poor help others in the village and how does it change village-level outcomes? One could imagine that helping the poor lead more productive lives could have positive spillover effects on others in the community. It could lead to more wealth generation, more work for the village and less of a need for others in the village to support the poor freeing up resources to go towards investment in other businesses or into public goods or education. By measuring these spillovers we will be able to showcase how helping the poor could be a good strategy for helping others and for growing the overall economy.

Sponsor: IPA

IRES Promoter: William Parienté

Start date: 

End date:

Project description

We use an RCT in rural Morocco to test whether matching loan repayments more closely with expected entrepreneurial cash ows increases the take-up and poverty impact of microcredit. The RCT combines subsequent interventions at the individual level (an estimated 3,600 participants across 40 branches) and the village level (320 villages). We introduce two new forms of individual-liability ‘tailored’ microcredit. The rst loan contract has a repayment schedule split into three equal periods. The borrower and loan of cer jointly decide on the monthly amount that the borrower repays in each of these three periods. The second contract is one where the borrower only pays interest during a 5-month grace period (and both interest and capital thereafter). The control loan has a standard, rigid contract. The main outcome variables at the individual level are credit access, loan quality (repayment behavior), incidence and profitability of self-employment, household income and consumption, and hours worked by household members. The main outcome variables at the village level are loan take-up and repayment quality.

Sponsor: FNRS - CDR
Promoter: Fabio Mariani
Start Date: 2022
End Date: 2025

Project description

This project tries to shed light on the determinants of the economic success of migrants. In particular, it focuses on the role of the proximity to other migrants with same origin and characteristics in driving economic performance. To address this issue we take advantage of a particular episode of the Italian history, namely the settlement – between 1932 and 1941 – of about 3800 families in the Pontine Marshes, a rural area that was the object of a vast reclamation project by the fascist government. Settlers came from different regions, started working on a sharecropping agreement, and were quasi-randomly assigned to the 3000 available plots of land. Starting from 1941, they were given the option to redeem the land. By using information on the universe of settlers, we find that: (i) the presence of same-province neighbors enhances the likelihood of remaining in the area until 1941, and eventually buying the land; (ii) diversity has a detrimental impact on settlers' outcomes. These effects are related to the cooperation between common-origin households. Network has a non-monotonic effect: too much homogeneity prevents settlers from benefiting from the agricultural expertise of neighboring families of different origin.
Our empirical work is based on the construction of an exceptional dataset covering
all the settler families. We interpret the purchase of land by settlers as an indicator
of economic success and investigate whether it is explained by the proximity to other families from the same places or with similar cultural characteristics. Such proximity may in fact translate into gains from network effects and homogeneity. We will rely on multiple measures of distance from other settler families, and characterize diversity by looking at the geo-cultural characteristic of the settlers’ places of origin. By using information on the variation of the value of land, we will check whether the proximity with common-origin settlers affects the decision to buy the land through a productivity effect, rather than through social preferences.
Finally, one may speculate whether a possible positive effect of cultural homogeneity in agricultural production may turn negative as the economy develops and rely more intensively on human capital. Depending on the availability of data on second- and third-generation migrants, this might be studied within the current project.

Sponsor: FNRS - CDR
Promoter: Fabio Mariani
Start date: 2025
End date: 2027

Project description

This research consists of two interrelated projects focusing on the socio-cultural and economic significance of religion. The first project examines the 1986 Church reform that reduced the number of Italian dioceses from 325 to 228, through mergers. Municipalities in suppressed dioceses – despite potential benefits from rationalized pastoral activities – saw increased distance from religious power (the diocesan seat). Using a diff-in-diff design, we aim to identify (i) the reform’s impact on religiosity and secularization at the municipal level, (ii) the role of changing distance from religious authority, and (iii) subsequent effects on outcomes like growth, education, and gender equality. We define treatment and control groups using precise information on dioceses initially planned for mergers but ultimately not merged, despite their comparability to the treated ones. We further analyze supply-side mechanisms using data on clergy, seminaries, and religious public goods. 

The second project also considers Italian municipalities and studies (i) how the cult of patron saints – sometimes established as early as the Middle Ages – contributed to the formation and persistence of local identity and civic values, and (ii) why this matters for contemporary outcomes. We use machine-learning techniques to extract defining characteristics of patron saints (values, life themes, motives, etc.) from hagiographic material like the Bibliotheca Sanctorum. We then try to understand the geo-historical determinants of devotion, and investigate whether saints’ characteri tics crystallized into the civic culture of a community, influencing outcomes such as political preferences, economic specialization, entrepreneurship, gender equality, social capital, tax compliance, etc. We also explore whether elections held soon after a patron’s festival day saw more favorable results for the Catholic Party (DC), highlighting the political significance of public religion.

Sponsor: FNRS - CDR
Promoter:  Joseph Gomes
Start date: 2022
End date: 2024
Project description

A rising tide of majoritarian politics has swept across much of the world in the past decade. Drawing on frontier research examining the psychological effects of poverty, as well as recent work examining the effect of government policies on ethnic identity, we investigate how rising Hindu majoritarianism shapes cognitive outcomes and social identity choices among India’s Muslim minority. We suggest that, much like poverty-related constraints, facing constraints when pursuing identity-driven beliefs or practices may consume mental resources, thus reducing cognitive outcomes among marginalized minorities. In addition, we suggest that such identity-driven constraints may
enhance ethnic salience and in-group attachment among minorities, further deepening ethnic divides between groups in society. We propose a lab-in-the-field approach that will combine (i) researcher-led manipulation of an identity threat, generated by making two recent government policies that discriminate against the Muslim minority salient, and (ii) a natural experiment generated by elections in the Indian state of West Bengal (scheduled for May 2021), where several constituencies are expected to witness close elections between the BJP and other political parties (allowing a regression discontinuity design). Comparing attitudinal and behavioural outcomes in a sample of approximately 1500 Muslim respondents across 40 state assembly constituencies, we will identify the causal effects of (a) the salience of an identity-based political threat and (b) the transfer of power to a majoritarian party in the local context, on our outcomes of interest. Our study will provide novel insights into how ethnic minorities respond to ethno-nationalist exclusion and will contribute to a richer understanding of the psychological underpinnings of identity threat and social conflict in fractured societies.

Sponsor: FSR
Promoter: William Parienté
Start date: 2022
End date: 2024

Project description

The main limitation of many empirical studies is the lack of generalization of their results beyond the context studied. The objective of this research project is to develop new methods based on Bayesian hierarchical models to improve the external validity of empirical analyses. It will build on individual micro-data from a large number of experimental evaluations in development economics and apply and develop Bayesian meta-analysis methods to measure treatment effect heterogeneity and predicts impacts to other contexts. Similar application to labor economics results will also be considered.

Sponsor: ARC
Promoter: Joseph Gomes, William Parienté, Amma, Panin
Start date: 2024
End date: 2029

Project description

Our aim in this ARC project is to explore the interplay between the role of ‘social’ identities in economics and public policies. While specifically addressing the malleability and the multiplicity of various identities, we will focus on how multiple or evolving identities affect the outcomes of public policies, as well as how public policies do not only affect the social norms and roles associated with a particular identity but also the salience or the relevance of particular identities in particular contexts of action. This project therefore follows the recent theoretical advances in our understanding of the role of identities in economics, from the economics literature as well as from other social sciences. To facilitate the comparison of outcomes across various work packages, and for informational purposes, we will restrict ourselves on two key dimensions of identity, gender and religion. These identities are salient economically and politically in most societies. Given the diversity of the context that we will be studying, these results will bear relevance for the design of public policies in various settings, thereby alleviating concerns that our findings may only be internally valid. Our team gives us the opportunity to explore these questions with a diversity of methods: theoretical, empirical (including randomized control trials - RCT, lab experiments, natural experiments, metaanalyses); as well as across a range of contexts. Our approach is quantitative, and throughout this project, we are making a specific effort to propose novel ways of measuring the role of identity. To do so, we take advantage of the latest developments in quantitative methods and notably – but not only – natural language processing and very large datasets.

Sponsor: FNRS - PDR
Promoter: Jean-François Maystadt
Start date: 2022
End date: 2025

Project description

Road deficiencies are recognized as a major impediment to economic development, in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the ecological footprint of road investment has also been a source of concern. The proposed project seeks to better understand the complex consequences of road infrastructure in terms of sustainable development. First, we will quantify the impact of road infrastructure on food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on geo referenced Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and the digitalization of Michelin topographical maps, we will quantify how road accessibility affects child malnutrition, a standard health indicator. In that way, our research project will contribute to the second UN Sustainable Development Goal to end hunger, achieve food security, and improved nutrition. Second, we will unpack that relationship by looking at the role of deforestation and shed light on potential tradeoffs between economic and sustainable development. We will first test the hypothesis that road-induced renewed economic activities are accompanied by higher rates of deforestation. We will then focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a case in point of the potential trade-off between economic development and environmental sustainability. We will explore how diet diversity and the sectoral composition of the local economy have changed when both road construction and deforestation co-exist.