Working Papers

“Information, Expectations and Preferences: Occupational Choices of Young Adults in Uganda” (with Iacopo Bianchi and Dominik Biesalski)

What drives young adults' occupational choices? Answering this question is especially relevant in Africa, where one-fifth of the world's youth reside. Through a survey of 1,003 young men and women in urban Uganda, we highlight the role of information, expectations and preferences for occupational choice.  First, we show that respondents are misinformed about population earnings and overoptimistic about their own prospects. Providing information lowers their expectations but does not affect their choices. Second, we isolate preferences by estimating a random utility model and find that financial returns and family approval are important determinants of occupational choice. Finally, we show that expectations and preferences translate into occupational sorting by gender, a major driver of the gender earnings gap. We investigate possible avenues to mitigate this sorting. Simulated counterfactuals suggest that relaxing perceived family approval constraints is associated with an 11% increase in the share of women choosing a male-dominated occupation.

“Male Unemployment and Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence from Uganda” (with Stefano Tripodi) [Misum Working Paper]

We examine the link between an adverse economic shock, husband unemployment, and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) against women in the context of Uganda. In a nationally representative sample of women aged 18-59, we find a positive and significant correlation between a woman's likelihood of experiencing abuse and her partner's employment status.  We complement this result by leveraging the unemployment shock resulting from the sudden implementation of the COVID-19 lockdown measures. We compare the incidence of violence for female food vendors who kept working in April and May 2020 but whose husband's occupational sectors were or were not shut down. We find that husband unemployment increases the likelihood of women experiencing physical violence (both sexual abuse and beating) by 4.9 percentage points (45%). The effect is immediate but vanishes after the economic shock is absorbed, and it is not driven by previous survivors of violence.

“The Role of Colonization in Shaping Attitudes Toward Homosexuals in Sub-Saharan Africa” (with Iacopo Bianchi and Dominik Biesalski)

Homophobic attitudes are pervasive across Sub-Saharan Africa. A widespread hypothesis states that colonization, and particularly the British colonial regime, promoted homophobic views by imposing and enforcing strict sodomy laws. In this paper, we test these claims by employing a border regression discontinuity design and comparing members of the same ethnic group residing on different sides of former colonial borders. First, focusing on the case study of Liberia, we find that individuals residing in formerly colonized states are more homophobic than their co-ethnics in uncolonized Liberia, and this effect is driven by French colonization. Second, moving to continent-wide evidence, we find that individuals in former British colonies are more likely to hold homophobic attitudes than individuals in former Portuguese countries, but are not different from individuals in former French ones. This evidence is confirmed by exploiting within-country variation in colonizer identity available in the case of Cameroon. We conclude that, while colonization affected attitudes toward homosexuals in Africa, we cannot support the hypothesis that the British colonial regime was more active in promoting homophobic views than other regimes.

“Distorted Beliefs, Pluralistic Ignorance, and Social Norms Persistence: an Application to Chhaupadi in Nepal” (with Salil Sharma)

We study how the high symbolic value associated with certain social norms induces individuals to hold distorted beliefs resulting in pluralistic ignorance and norms' persistence. The literature on social identity often assumes or derives conditions for conformity in behavior: individuals derive utility by minimizing the distance between their own compliance to a social norm and the average compliance of their respective group members. The underlying assumption is that, in expectation, individuals have a correct assessment of the average compliance. We assume that individuals also ascribe a symbolic value to the norm, and we allow endogenous noise in the agents' perceptions about others' actions. We show that this modification results in individuals exhibiting pluralistic ignorance, the phenomenon whereby they systematically make mistakes about the true average compliance level. We then examine the consequences that some policy prescriptions, such as fines/subsidies and availability of information, have on norms’ persistence. We apply the model to chhaupadi, a harmful menstruation-related practice in Nepal.

Work in Progress

“Direct and Indirect Impact of COVID-19 on Access to Basic Health Care: Evidence from Rural Uganda” (with Martina Björkman Nyqvist, Andrea Guariso and Jakob Svensson) - Analysis stage

“Different Return for the Same Agricultural Hired Labor: Evidence from Uganda” (with Iacopo Bianchi and Stefano Tripodi) [ATAI summary] - Analysis stage

Ongoing Fieldwork

“Increasing Agricultural Productivity by Hiring and Renting Agricultural Resources: How Can a Digital Solution Help?” (with Iacopo Bianchi) [ATAI summary] - Expected fieldwork end date: October 2024