We investigate the impact of increases in wheat flour prices on household food security using unique nationally-representative data collected in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008. We use a new estimator, the Unconditional Quantile Regression (UQR) estimator, based on influence functions to examine...

Long-term follow-up of early childhood health interventions is important for human capital accumulation. We provide experimental evidence on child health and human capital outcomes from the longer-term follow-up of a school-based nutrition intervention in India. Using panel data, we examine the...

In low-income settings, women are vulnerable to the psychological distress caused by the social and economic impact of large-scale shocks (e.g., pandemics, natural disasters, political). This paper evaluates a randomized over-the-phone counseling intervention aimed at mitigating the mental...

Many development programs are based on short-term interventions, either because of external funding constraints or because it is assumed that impacts persist post program termination ("sustainability"). Using a novel randomized phase-out research method, we provide experimental tests of the...

Cash transfers successfully alleviate poverty in many developing countries. South Africa is a case in point, implementing one of the largest unconditional cash transfer programmes internationally, and with substantial benefits to household well-being along multiple dimensions. Yet, grants...

A society that believes wealth to be determined by random "luck", rather than by merit, demands more redistribution. We present evidence of this behavior by exploiting a natural experiment provided by the L'Aquila earthquake in 2009, which hit a large area of Central Italy through a series of...

Nutritious eating habits contribute to a stronger immune system necessary for prevention and easier recovery from illnesses. A job loss, experienced by millions of Americans during the Covid-19 pandemic, is expected to negatively affect food security of families. This research explores the...

Food production and distribution is essential for human well-being, but the food sector has experienced a number of difficulties maintaining worker health and productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine employment status changes of persons recently employed in the U.S. food sector with...

Worldwide, most farms are small and family-operated. This study discusses the future of smallholder agriculture in China, where most farms are small, and farms' parcels are fragmented. The study puts forward a framework of vertical division of labor and specialized production in agriculture. We...

This paper aims to study the relationship between women's land ownership and household food security in Tanzania, using data from three waves of the Tanzanian National Panel Survey. The analysis focuses on the Household Dietary Diversity Scale (HDDS) as a measure of food security, and we...