Do citizens view state and traditional authorities as substitutes or complements? Past work has been divided on this question. Some scholars point to competition between attitudes toward these entities, suggesting substitution, whereas others highlight positive correlations, suggesting...

At the onset of the United Nations' decade of ecosystem restoration, lessons from well-designed impact evaluations on land restoration programs are crucial for improving policymaking. This study presents findings from a systematic review of research on the socioeconomic impact of such...

Widespread acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines is crucial for achieving sufficient immunization coverage to end the global pandemic, yet few studies have investigated COVID-19 vaccination attitudes in lower-income countries, where large-scale vaccination is just beginning. We analyze COVID-19...

We assess the role of traditional authorities during an acute health crisis, the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. We exploit plausible exogenous variation in the political competition for local chieftaincy positions and find evidence that traditional leaders helped shape the course of...

We empirically investigate the role of natural resources, and bad governance in explaining variation in the intensity of conflict during the 1991-2002 civil war in Sierra Leone. As a proxy for governance quality we exploit exogenous variation in political competition at the level of the...

Do citizens view state and traditional authorities as substitutes or complements? Past work has been divided on this question. Some scholars point to competition between attitudes toward these entities, suggesting substitution, whereas others highlight positive correlations, suggesting...

Laboratory experiments offer an opportunity to isolate human behaviors with a level of precision that is often difficult to obtain using other (survey-based) methods. Yet, experimental tasks are often stripped of any social context, implying that inferences may not directly map to real world...