Calendrier du 25 mai 2022
Development Economics Seminar
Du 25/05/2022 de 16:30 à 17:45
Salle R2.01, Campus Jourdan
MONEKE Niclas (Oxford University)
The Heterogeneous Effects of Rural Electrification: Evidence from Zambia
écrit avec with Torsten Figueiredo Walter)
Electrification is crucial for economic development. However, where and how it may have transformative effects remains unclear. In light of recent microeconomic evidence on electrification’s disappointing effects, we study the potential sources of heterogeneity underlying these results in the context of Zambia, where a large, country-wide rural electrification program is being rolled out. We develop a novel measure of electrification with high temporal and spatial coverage derived from administrative records on the universe of Zambian primary
schools and health centres. We can confirm, first, that hundreds of localities have gained access to the electric grid since 2006. Second, our best estimate of a local average treatment effect derived from accidentally electrified localities is indeed virtually zero across a wide range of outcomes. Third, exploiting two full rounds of the Zambian Population & Housing Census, we uncover two relevant sources of heterogeneity: variation in pre-existing locality size and productive capacity. Electrification’s effects are most pronounced in localities
with between 2,000 and 5,000 inhabitants, and any beneficial effects of electrification are concentrated on localities that have at least one non-residential building in commercial use before electrification, even
conditional on locality size. In line with classic theories of agglomeration, we conclude that indivisible investments, such as pre-existing productive building capacity, may determine if rural electrification will cause economic development.
Macroeconomics Seminar
Du 25/05/2022 de 16:00 à 17:15
PSE- 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris, salle R2-21
TELES Pedro (Catolica Lisboa)
Self Fulfilling Debt Crises with Long Stagnations
Economic History Seminar
Du 25/05/2022 de 14:00 à 15:30
On Line
JUHASZ Reka (UBC)
Technology Adoption and Productivity Growth:Evidence from Industrialization in France
écrit avec Mara P. Squicciarini (Bocconi and CEPR), Nico Voigtländer (UCLA, NBER, and CEPR)
New technologies tend to be adopted slowly and – even after being adopted – take time to be reflected in higher aggregate productivity. One prominent explanation for these patterns is the need to reorganize production, which often goes hand-in-hand with major technological breakthroughs. We study a unique setting that allows us to examine the empirical relevance of this explanation: the adoption of mechanized cotton spinning during the First Industrial Revolution in France. The new technology required reorganizing production by moving workers from their homes to the newly-formed factories. Using a novel hand-collected plant-level dataset from French archival sources, we show that productivity growth in mechanized cotton spinning was driven by the disappearance
of plants in the lower tail – in contrast to other sectors that did not need to reorganize when new technologies were introduced. We provide evidence that this was driven by the need to learn about optimal ways of organizing production. This process of ‘trial and error’ led to initially low and widely dispersed productivity, and – in the subsequent decades – to high productivity growth as knowledge diffused through the economy and new entrants adopted improved methods of organizing production.