When the Tanzanian government formalized over 200,000 informal land claims by granting leasehold titles to residents of unplanned settlements in Dar es Salaam in 2004, a few neighborhoods in the initial plan were excluded due to missing satellite photos. We examine the impact of this low-cost,...

This paper examines the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and the demand for formal land tenure in urban Tanzania. Using a unique census of two highly-fractionalized unplanned settlements in Dar es Salaam, I show that households located near coethnics are significantly less likely to...

This paper examines the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and the demand for formal land tenure in urban Tanzania. Using a unique census of two highly-fractionalized unplanned settlements in Dar es Salaam, I show that households located near coethnics are significantly less likely to...

What is the relationship between entrepreneurial saving practices and reinvestment? We develop a model of entrepreneurial finance and show that entrepreneurial reinvestment decisions depend on the efficiency of saving practices. Utilizing a novel micro & small enterprise survey from Tanzania we...

The returns to education remain a central concern for development policy. In developed countries there is evidence that the returns to education have been rising. Evidence for changes over this period for developing countries is limited. In this paper we use data from Kenya and Tanzania to...

A funeral is a costly occasion. This paper studies indigenous insurance institutions developed to cope with the high costs of funerals, based on evidence from rural areas in Tanzania and Ethiopia. These institutions are based on well-defined rules and regulations, often offering premium-based...

We report on a randomized field experiment using price incentives to address both economic and gender inequality in land tenure formalization. During the 1990s and 2000s, nearly two dozen African countries proposed de jure land reforms extending access to formal, freehold land tenure to millions...