We conduct an interactive online experiment framed as an employment contract. Subjects from the US, India, and Africa are matched within and across countries. Employers make a one-period offer to a worker who can either decline or choose a high or low effort. The offer is restricted to be from a variable set of possible contracts. High effort is always efficient. Some observed choices are well predicted by self-interest, but others are better explained by conditional reciprocity or intrinsic motivation. Subjects from India and Africa follow intrinsic motivation and provide high effort more often. US subjects are more likely to follow self-interest and reach a less efficient outcome on average, but workers earn slightly more. We find no evidence of stereotypes across countries. Individual characteristics and stated attitudes toward worker incentives do not predict the behavioral differences observed between countries, consistent with cultural differences in the response to labor incentives.
When and how do autocrats use violence to win elections? Why don't they always use violence? This talk uses the past 25 years of elections in Zimbabwe to argue that autocrats try to avoid election violence and often use it as a last resort because it carries the risk of both backfire from citizens and holdup by organized agents of violence. Citizens’ reactions to repression are high variance and difficult for autocrats to predict because they depend in part on internal psychological characteristics that shape emotional reactions to violence. When electoral repression is used as a last resort, it has implications for how and where it can be organized. However, autocrats cannot always scale back election violence, particularly when it is perpetrated by state security forces.
She studies political violence and collective action. Her main research agenda is on election violence, including how it affects voter behavior and how elites strategize and organize violent elections. She began this research in Zimbabwe. She is currently researching how contextual factors like party strength shape the causes and effects of election violence, and doing research with policy partners on how to prevent and mitigate its effects. Her second research agenda is on collective action after violent crime. This work, based primarily in Mexico, tries to explain when citizens demand punitive responses to crimes and when they mobilize around vigilante action.
Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Room E-008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Virtual to Public. If prompted for a password, use: 123456 Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E-008 Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Lauren Young
Associate Professor of Political Science
Presenter
University of California, Davis
Climate change is among the most contentious issues of the 21st century. Without a shared understanding of its consequences, securing support for climate policies remains difficult. We hypothesize that exposure to tailored opportunities to trade in financial markets, particularly in energy stocks that are central to the green transition, can induce experiential learning and greater policy support for climate mitigation efforts. We test our hypothesis using a randomized controlled trial. We find that randomly assigned exposure to trade in green and brown energy stocks leads treated individuals to express stronger agreement with the view that climate change is driven by human activity, that it will affect quality of life in the U.S., and that the U.S. government and U.S. companies should do more to reduce emissions. Treated respondents also exhibit a greater tendency to donate to climate causes and factor climate change into personal decisions regarding where to live, work, and invest. These attitudinal changes are particularly pronounced among individuals identifying as Republicans, who are more likely to be skeptical of climate change at baseline. In line with our primary theoretical argument, our findings suggest exposure to financial markets incentivizes learning, which in turn shapes climate-related beliefs, preferences, and behaviors.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Saumitra Jha is an associate professor of political economy at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and a professor of economics and of political science by courtesy. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, in the Freeman-Spogli Institute, and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Prior to joining the GSB, Saumitra was an Academy Scholar at Harvard University. He has been a fellow of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University. He received the Michael Wallerstein Award for best published article in political economy from the American Political Science Association for his research on ethnic tolerance. Saumitra has consulted on economic and political risk issues for the United Nations/ WTO and the World Bank. He holds a BA from Williams College, master’s degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in economics from Stanford University.
Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to the William J. Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Virtual to Public. If prompted for a password, use: 123456 Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to the William J. Perry Conference Room may attend in person.
Graduate School of Business
655 Knight Way
Stanford, CA 94305
(650) 721 1298
0
saumitra@stanford.edu
Associate Professor of Political Economy, GSB
Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Economics and of Political Science
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Along with being a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Saumitra Jha is an associate professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and convenes the Stanford Conflict and Polarization Lab.
Jha’s research has been published in leading journals in economics and political science, including Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Development Economics, and he serves on a number of editorial boards. His research on ethnic tolerance has been recognized with the Michael Wallerstein Award for best published article in Political Economy from the American Political Science Association in 2014 and his co-authored research on heroes with the Oliver Williamson Award for best paper by the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics in 2020. Jha was honored to receive the Teacher of the Year Award, voted by the students of the Stanford MSx Program in 2020.
Saum holds a BA from Williams College, master’s degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. Prior to rejoining Stanford as a faculty member, he was an Academy Scholar at Harvard University. He has been a fellow of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University, and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. Jha has consulted on economic and political risk issues for the United Nations/WTO, the World Bank, government agencies, and for private firms.
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Dan C. Chung Faculty Scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Although much work examines foreign aid’s impact on development outcomes, its effect on bureaucracies — institutions that are key to development and profoundly influenced by aid interventions—remains understudied. I argue that project-based aid alters financial and social aspects of work over which bureaucrats hold salient preferences, generating tradeoffs that drive bureaucrats to redirect effort from routine functions toward donor-funded initiatives. Drawing on interviews, surveys, and survey experiments with more than 600 Ugandan bureaucrats, I find that, despite preferring government funding and autonomy, bureaucrats are drawn to better-paid aid projects, thus diverting effort away from regular duties. They also prefer departments with substantial donor funding, although it undermines the equity and teamwork they value. These findings reveal why aid can weaken bureaucracies: the same incentives that boost performance on donor projects divert effort from government programming and erode the organizational cohesion needed for lasting bureaucratic capacity.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Maria Nagawa is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Maria earned her PhD in Public Policy and Political Science from Duke University and was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. Maria studies state building and development in the Global South, with a substantive focus on the consequences of foreign interventions, the resilience of civil society, and the organization of state authority. Her book project investigates how foreign aid reshapes bureaucracies in developing countries. Prior to starting her PhD, Maria was a Research Associate at the Economic Policy Research Centre and a Lecturer at Makerere University Business School in Kampala, Uganda. In addition, Maria was a Visiting Researcher at the BRICS Policy Research Center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Colorado’s School of Public Affairs in Denver, Colorado.
Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Conference Room E-008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Virtual to Public. If prompted for a password, use: 123456 Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Conference Room E-008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Encina Hall, E105 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
mnagawa@stanford.edu
CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2025-26
marianagawa_photo_-_maria_nagawa.jpeg
Maria Nagawa is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. She studies governance and development in the Global South with a particular focus on aid and bureaucracy. She employs mixed methods and a range of data sources, including survey, experimental, interview, and administrative data.
In her book project, she examines how international aid affects the performance of bureaucrats in aid recipient countries. Her work shows how, in incentivizing select bureaucrats to work on aid projects, aid diverts bureaucrats from routine government programming and erodes organizational cohesion. This work draws on months of fieldwork in Uganda, including interviews with diverse actors in the public and aid sectors and a survey of bureaucrats in Uganda's central government.
Prior to starting her fellowship at CDDRL, Maria was a postdoctoral fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. She has worked in both the private and public sectors and received her PhD in Public Policy and Political Science from Duke University in 2024.
Women’s political participation remains persistently lower than men’s worldwide. This study evaluates whether a group-based training intervention can enhance women’s engagement in local governance. In a randomized controlled trial across 300 communities in southwest Nigeria, we recruited 3,900 politically unaffiliated women into newly formed women’s action committees (WACs). Control WACs received basic civic education, while treatment WACs received additional training aimed at strengthening women’s collective efficacy. Leveraging baseline and endline surveys, as well as behavioral data from a community grant competition, we find that the intervention significantly increased both the level and quality of women’s political participation. It also improved women’s perceptions of community leaders’ responsiveness. Such gains appear to be driven by increased perceptions of individual and collective agency. These findings underscore the potential of addressing both psychological and structural barriers to advance women’s political engagement.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Claire Adida is a Senior Fellow at FSI (CDDRL), Professor (by courtesy) of Political Science, and faculty co-director at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University. She is also a faculty affiliate with the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) group, the Policy Design and Evaluation Lab (PDEL), and the Future of Democracy Initiative at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). She is an invited researcher with J-PAL’s Humanitarian Protection and Displaced Livelihoods Initiatives and an international advisory board member with CFREF’s Bridging Divides research program.
Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to the Philippines Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Virtual to Public. If prompted for a password, use: 123456 Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to the Philippines Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Encina Hall 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
cadida@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor (by courtesy) of Political Science
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Claire Adida is Senior Fellow at FSI (CDDRL), Professor (by courtesy) of Political Science, and faculty co-director at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University. She is also a faculty affiliate with the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) group, the Policy Design and Evaluation Lab (PDEL), and the Future of Democracy Initiative at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). She is an invited researcher with J-PAL’s Humanitarian Protection and Displaced Livelihoods Initiatives and an international advisory board member with CFREF’s Bridging Divides research program.
Adida uses quantitative and field methods to investigate how countries manage new and existing forms of diversity, what exacerbates or alleviates outgroup prejudice and discrimination, and how vulnerable groups navigate discriminatory environments. She has published two books on immigrant integration and exclusion: Immigrant exclusion and insecurity in Africa; Coethnic strangers (Cambridge University Press, 2014); and Why Muslim integration fails in Christian-heritage societies (with David Laitin and Marie-Anne Valfort, Harvard University Press, 2016). Her articles are published in the American Political Science Review, Science Advances, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Population Economics, the Journal of Experimental Political Science, and Political Science Research & Methods, among others.
Prior to joining Stanford, she was Assistant Professor (2010-2016), Associate Professor (2016-2022), and Professor of Political Science at UC San Diego, where she also served as the co-Director and Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (2018-2024). In 2021-2022, she served as Research Advisor to the Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the U.S. Government’s Department of Health & Human Services. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University in 2010, her Master's in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (2003), and her Bachelor's in political science and communication studies from Northwestern University (2000).
In 2025, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) celebrated the 20th year of its Fisher Family Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program. This summer, 27 democracy leaders from across the developing world convened at Stanford for an intensive three-week training focused on democracy, good governance, and rule of law reform. Chosen from a highly competitive applicant pool, the fellows represent a diverse range of professional backgrounds and geographical regions, spanning civil society, public service, social enterprise, media, and technology. Launched in 2005, the program was previously known as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program. It was renamed in 2023 in recognition of a gift from the Fisher family — Sakurako (Sako), ‘82, and William (Bill), MBA ‘84 — that endowed the program and secured its future.
Fellows were instructed by a leading Stanford faculty team composed of FSI Director and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul; CDDRL Mosbacher Director Kathryn Stoner; Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Francis Fukuyama; Senior Fellow in Global Democracy Larry Diamond; and Erik Jensen, Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School on new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote good governance, accountable politics, and find new ways to achieve economic development in their home countries.
Esteemed guest lectures were also presented by individuals from the greater FSI and Stanford communities, as well as by Damon Wilson, President of the National Endowment for Democracy; Joshua Achiam, Head of Mission Alignment at OpenAI; Austin Mejia, Product Manager and Head of AI for Wearables at Google and a founding member of the AI for Developing Countries Forum, which advocates for equitable AI development globally; and various speakers from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, the leading think tank focused on the most critical economic and policy issues facing the nine-county Bay Area region.
During the program, the fellows delivered "TED"-style talks during our Fellow Spotlight Series, sharing personal stories about the struggles in their home countries, stories of their fight for justice, equality, and democracy, and stories of optimism and endurance. You can watch their talks in the playlist below:
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Announcing the 20th Anniversary Cohort of the Fisher Family Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program
In July 2025, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law will welcome a diverse cohort of 27 experienced practitioners from 18 countries who are working to advance democratic practices and economic and legal reform in contexts where freedom, human development, and good governance are fragile or at risk.
Confronting Repression: Strategies for Supporting Political Prisoners
A panel discussion featuring 2025 Fisher Family Summer Fellows Lilian Tintori and Waleed Shawky, along with Gulika Reddy, Director of the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School, explored the human cost of political imprisonment, the barriers advocates face, and the strategies available to combat them.
Ukrainian Leaders Advance Postwar Recovery Through Stanford Fellowship
Meet the four fellows participating in CDDRL’s Strengthening Democracy and Development Program and learn how they are forging solutions to help Ukraine rise stronger from the challenges of war.
The Fellow Spotlight Series is an inspiring and moving series of "TED"-style talks given by each of our 2025 Fisher Family Summer Fellows to share their backstories and discuss their work.
Encina Hall, E105 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
mnagawa@stanford.edu
CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2025-26
marianagawa_photo_-_maria_nagawa.jpeg
Maria Nagawa is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. She studies governance and development in the Global South with a particular focus on aid and bureaucracy. She employs mixed methods and a range of data sources, including survey, experimental, interview, and administrative data.
In her book project, she examines how international aid affects the performance of bureaucrats in aid recipient countries. Her work shows how, in incentivizing select bureaucrats to work on aid projects, aid diverts bureaucrats from routine government programming and erodes organizational cohesion. This work draws on months of fieldwork in Uganda, including interviews with diverse actors in the public and aid sectors and a survey of bureaucrats in Uganda's central government.
Prior to starting her fellowship at CDDRL, Maria was a postdoctoral fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. She has worked in both the private and public sectors and received her PhD in Public Policy and Political Science from Duke University in 2024.
Virtual participation available via Zoom using the link above. Zoom Meeting ID: 997 4878 4037, Passcode: 998456
We invite our virtual participants to join in celebrating Marcel Fafchamps' distinguished career. Following the keynote address, at 10:00 AM PST, there will be an opportunity for online attendees to offer brief remarks or words of appreciation to honor Professor Fafchamps and his many contributions to scholarship, mentorship, and our academic community. Your reflections are a valued part of this special occasion.
Join us for a full-day academic symposium celebrating the career and contributions of economist Marcel Fafchamps, Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, on the occasion of his retirement. Featuring a keynote by Marcel himself, this tribute brings together colleagues, collaborators, and students to engage with the themes and ideas that have shaped his influential work in development economics, labor markets, and social networks.
The day will feature in-depth paper presentations, rapid-fire research talks, and engaging discussions with scholars, including Stefano Caria (University of Warwick), Pascaline Dupas (Princeton University), and Simon Quinn (Imperial College London), with more speakers to be announced soon. Topics span management practices, persuasion and diffusion, strategic reasoning, and mutual aid—from field experiments to economic theory.
Come celebrate the distinguished research career of Marcel Fafchamps with us.
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.
The symposium will be held in person, by invitation only. Professor Fafchamps' keynote will be livestreamed via Zoom.
This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and the King Center on Global Development.
8:30 AM — Continental Breakfast available in 2nd Floor Lobby, Encina Hall Central
8:45 AM — General Welcome, Kathryn Stoner
9:00 AM — Keynote Address, Marcel Fafchamps: Behavioral Markets
10:00 AM— Virtual Attendees may join to share brief remarks and words of appreciation
10:15 AM — Morning Break
10:45 AM — Session Speaker: Stefano Caria,Competition and Management
11:45 AM — Rapid Fire Speaker: Tom Schwantje, Management Style Under the Spotlight: Evidence from Studio Recordings
12:15 PM — Lunch Break
1:15 PM — Session Speaker Pascaline Dupas: Keeping Up Appearances: Socioeconomic Status Signaling to Avoid Discrimination
2:15 PM — Rapid Fire Speaker: Deivy Houeix,Eliciting Poverty Rankings from Urban or Rural Neighbors
2:45 PM — Afternoon Break
3:00 PM — Session Speaker: Simon Quinn,Matching, Management and Employment Outcomes: A Field Experiment with Firm Internships
Marcel Fafchamps is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a professor of economics. His research focuses on development economics, particularly how institutions, social networks, and market failures impact economic outcomes in low-income countries. He has published extensively on topics like agriculture, labor markets, and entrepreneurship, and has held academic positions at Oxford and Stanford. Fafchamps is known for combining rigorous empirical analysis with an understanding of real-world development challenges.
Stefano Caria is a Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick, affiliated with J‑PAL, CEPR, CAGE, and the IGC, serving as lead academic for Ethiopia. He earned his DPhil (and MPhil) in Economics from the University of Oxford and previously held positions at Oxford’s Department of International Development and the University of Bristol. He combines experimental and structural methods to study labor market frictions, refugee employment, childcare support, and firm-worker matching in low-income settings across Africa and the Middle East.
Tom Schwantje is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Bocconi University, where he is affiliated with IGIER and FINAFRICA. In his research, he focuses on the organizational economics and management of firms and banks in low-income countries. He is particularly interested in how managers operate in these settings, and how this is shaped by their environment. Most recently, he has started working on an exciting new research agenda on the organizational economics of banking in Ethiopia. Tom received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Oxford University.
Deivy Houeix is a Prize Fellow at the Center for History and Economics at Harvard University. His primary field is Development Economics, with secondary interests in Organizational Economics. His research focuses on technology's role in lower-income countries, particularly in West Africa. Houeix explores how digital technologies reshape economic relationships and contract structures within and between firms, uncovering some key drivers and barriers to their adoption. Houeix is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has conducted research projects in Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Togo. In 2027, Houeix will join Columbia Business School as an Assistant Professor of Economics.
Pascaline Dupas is Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She joined the Princeton faculty in July 2023. She was previously the Kleinheinz Family Professor of International Studies at Stanford University, where she spent 12 years on the faculty. She has also held faculty positions at Dartmouth College and UCLA. Dupas is a development economist studying the challenges facing poor households in lower-income countries and their root causes. Her goal is to identify interventions and policies that can help overcome these challenges and reduce global poverty. She conducts extensive fieldwork. Her ongoing research includes studies of education policy in Ghana, family planning policy in Burkina Faso, and government-subsidized health insurance in India, among others.
Simon Quinnis an Associate Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School and Academic Director of its MSc in Economics & Strategy for Business. His research lies at the intersection of development and labor economics, with a focus on firms, markets, and institutions in low-income countries, especially in Africa. A Rhodes Scholar, he earned his MPhil and DPhil in Economics from Oxford, where he was also an Examination Fellow at All Souls College. Simon’s work includes field experiments on credit, management, and labor markets.
Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.
Katherine Casey is a professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Faculty Director of the King Center on Global Development. Her research explores the interactions between economic and political forces in developing countries, with particular interest in the role of information in enhancing political accountability and the influence of foreign aid on economic development. Her work has appeared in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy and Quarterly Journal of Economics, among others. She teaches a course in the MBA program focused on firm strategy vis a vis government in emerging markets.
Melanie Morton, Faculty Affiliate, King Center on Global Development, is a development economist and associate professor in the department of economics at Stanford University. She is a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the National Bureau for Economic Research. Dr. Morten is interested in how households respond to risk in developing countries, including using short term and temporary migration. Her work has been published in numerous journals including the Journal of Police Economy and the World Bank Economic Review. She received her PhD from Yale and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve.
The symposium will be held in the William J. Perry Conference Room, 2nd Floor, Encina Hall.
Event Location:
William J. Perry Conference Room Encina Hall, 2nd Floor, C-231 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6165
Visitor Parking
There is no free parking on campus. Visitor and hourly parking permits are required through the ParkMobile app. Please download the app ahead of your visit and follow directions. Pay-by-space parking is available throughout campus; availability is limited. Please note that parking is monitored Monday - Friday, 8 am - 4 pm.
The parking areas closest to Encina Hall are located on surrounding streets and in the following parking garages:
Knight Management Center Parking Garage
Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), 655 Knight Way, Stanford, CA 94305
Manzanita Field Garage
742 Campus Drive, Stanford, CA 94305
For parking information, contact the Parking and Transportation Department's Visitor Parking page.
Rideshare Drop-off / Pick-up Address
The closest drop-off location is: Gunn Building, 366 Galvez St., Stanford, CA 94305
From Galvez, walk South towards the Hoover Tower, and turn left at the intersection, onto Jane Stanford Way. Encina Hall is the large four-story building on your right. Enter through the main door, at the top of the stairs, and head up to the 2nd floor. An accessible entrance and ramp are located on the right side of Encina Hall, at the West Entrance.
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
fafchamp@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Economics
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Marcel Fafchamps is a Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a member of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. Previously, he was the Satre Family Senior Fellow at FSI. Fafchamps is a professor (by courtesy) for the Department of Economics at Stanford University. His research interests include economic development, market institutions, social networks, and behavioral economics — with a special focus on Africa and South Asia.
Prior to joining FSI, from 1999-2013, Fafchamps served as professor of development economics in the Department of Economics at Oxford University. He also served as deputy director and then co-director of the Center for the Study of African Economies. From 1989 to 1996, Fafchamps was an assistant professor with the Food Research Institute at Stanford University. Following the closure of the Institute, he taught for two years at the Department of Economics. For the 1998-1999 academic year, Fafchamps was on sabbatical leave at the research department of the World Bank. Before pursuing his PhD in 1986, Fafchamps was based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for 5 years during his employment with the International Labour Organization, a United Nations agency that oversees employment, income distribution, and vocational training in Africa.
He has authored two books: Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Theory and Evidence (MIT Press, 2004) and Rural Poverty, Risk, and Development (Elgar Press, 2003), and has published numerous articles in academic journals.
Fafchamps served as the editor-in-chief of Economic Development and Cultural Change until 2020. Previously, he had served as chief editor of the Journal of African Economies from 2000 to 2013, and as associate editor of the Economic Journal, the Journal of Development Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and the Revue d'Economie du Développement.
He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an affiliated professor with J-PAL, a senior fellow with the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, a research fellow with IZA, Germany, and with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, UK, and an affiliate with the University of California’s Center for Effective Global Action.
Fafchamps has degrees in Law and in Economics from the Université Catholique de Louvain. He holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
We experimentally test two seminal hypotheses on the impact of competition on firms' management upgrading. In a first experiment, we protect firms from labor market competition by reducing the risk that a freshly trained manager would be poached by a rival firm. We find that this protection does not increase firms' investment in management training. In a second suite of experiments, we boost perceived product market competition by informing firms either that rival firms have received management training or that foreign firms are gaining easier access to the domestic market. Again, we find no evidence that this increases firms' average willingness to invest in management training. To explain why firms do not feel threatened by competition, we present evidence suggesting that, in contrast to commonly held assumptions, firm managers in our setting hold a mental model of competition that posits positive — instead of negative — spillovers, arising primarily from differentiation.
Public sectors that are plagued by corruption and poor performance hinder the development of low-income countries. Populations globally tend to perceive the police as the most corrupt sector of government, partly due to their frequent interactions with citizens. Only once corruption is reduced can trust in institutions be restored, enabling the development of countries.
Therefore, Associate Professor Danila Serra at Texas A&M University and her collaborators decided to investigate whether a training program could incentivize traffic officers to behave more ethically. Their study, presented by Serra at a recent CDDRL seminar, was conducted in Ghana, where almost 60% of people perceive the police as corrupt.
The program, titled “Proud to Belong,” focused on creating a new group identity of officers as ‘agents of change.' It also prompted the officers to focus on their original reasons for joining the police, rebuilding their intrinsic motivations to ultimately reduce their participation in corruption. The training was implemented through a randomized control trial in randomly selected traffic police districts in the Greater Accra Region.
The researchers first measured the program’s effectiveness through an incentivized cheating game played by officers both prior to the training and 20 months afterward. The study found a significant reduction in the unethical behavior of officers playing the game, indicating that the program successfully strengthened their values.
To understand whether these impacts extend to field behavior, Serra and her team measured police field activity in the months before and after the program’s implementation. They analyzed administrative data such as the number of drivers sent to court, those required to pay a fine, and the fine amounts. The team hypothesized that if bribes were acting as substitutes for formal law enforcement, an increase in field activity would indicate a decline in officer corruption.
This data demonstrated that the program had a significant positive impact on officer behavior, but only during the first 3 months post-training. To reconcile the limits of this short-term impact with the long-term benefits implied by the cheating game, researchers determined that this may be because of the need for reinforcements following the program. For example, an award ceremony honoring the officers’ participation in the program, 9 months post-training, revived the positive impact on field behavior. Evidence also suggests that, 20 months after the training, low-rank officers in treatment districts were less likely to have been promoted, hinting at structural problems preventing the end of corruption.
The program designed by Serra and her collaborators demonstrates that it is possible to encourage more ethical behavior among bureaucrats through targeted training, offering a promising tool for reducing corruption. However, sustained training, ongoing reinforcement, and support from higher-ranking officers are necessary to maintain these behavioral changes and ensure lasting impact.
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“No Peace in Sight:” Ideology, Territory, and the Stalemate in the Russo-Ukraine War
In a recent REDS Seminar, Syracuse University Professor of Political Science Brian Taylor examined the state of the war, the prospects for peace, and the political dynamics shaping both Ukrainian resistance and Russian aggression.
How Transnational Repression Impacts Exiled Opposition
CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow Ivetta Sergeeva’s research on the Russian diaspora’s willingness to donate to oppositional organizations demonstrates that the criminalization of groups can incentivize greater donor support among emigrants, contrary to the Putin regime’s intentions.
Does Electoral Affirmative Action Worsen Candidate Quality?
In the wake of widespread challenges to affirmative action policy, Stanford Political Scientist Soledad Artiz Prillaman’s research challenges the notion that electoral quotas for minority representation weaken candidate quality.
Danila Serra presented her research in a CDDRL seminar on May 8, 2025. | Soraya Johnson
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Subtitle
Associate Professor at Texas A&M University Danila Serra’s field research on the impacts of police ethics training provides hope for reducing corruption and restoring public faith in state institutions.
