We examine the impact of a six-fold increase in the global vanilla price on smallholder vanilla-farming households in Madagascar. The price increase leads to sizable gains in household assets and significant improvements in adult psychological well-being, cognitive performance, and optimism...

Countries often use economic sanctions to coerce other countries to change certain policies of which they do not approve. However, if sanctioned countries smuggle goods over the border, use informal financial intermediaries, and develop black markets to trade sanctioned goods, sanctions end up...