IGNORE Flashcards
(9 cards)
What do Slough and Fariss (2021) examine?
The study examines a crucial human rights problem in Haiti: people being illegally detained without a trial. The problem stems from the fact that court system simply cannot handle all of the crime, so it simply takes time for convicted criminals to see a judge. To alleviate the problem with illegal and unnecessary long detention in Haiti, Slough and Fariss (2021) designed a field experiment. The idea was that free legal assistance could help avoid illegal detentions and, indeed, that is what Slough and Fariss (2021) showed. People in the treatment group receiving the free legal assistance had their cases advanced more frequently than those without the free legal assistance from the NGO.
To come to that conclusion, Slough and Fariss (2021) had to navigate some difficult non-compliance problems.
What does Olken (2007) examine?
In this very famous field experiment on monitoring corruption, Olken (2007) randomly assigned some municipalities in Indonesia to receive a notification that they would be audited. Tthe audits entailed digging core samples in the roads to check the quality of the road construction materials, ensuring that they were not watered down (which is akin to theft). Olken (2007) found that the threat of an audit reduced the number of issues with the road materials. In any case, a potential challenge is that information about the audit from one municipality to the next. To mitigate such an issue, Olken (2007) performed blocked/stratified random sampling, such that villages next to each other would be less likely to get picked. There is no relationship between distance and the theft dependent variable, so there do not appear to be spillover effects.
What do Kocher, Pepinsky, and Kalyvas (2011) examine?
Using data from the Vietnam War, they examine the effect of aerially bombing civilians (𝑋) on the territorial control of the Viet Cong insurgency (𝑌 ). To overcome the potential reverse causal relationship, they use past values of VC territorial control as instruments. Specifically, the authors use values of VC control in July (𝑄) and August (𝑅) for bombing in September (𝑋). Using that variation from the first stage, the authors then estimate whether that variation predicts VC control in December (𝑌 ) in each hamlet (𝑖).
Example of Random Standard Natural Experiments
Military draft
Example of As-if Random Standard Natural Experiments
Electoral redistricting
What do Balcells and Torrats-Espinosa (2018) examine?
Given that ETA perpetrated many terrorist attacks over time, Balcells and Torrats- Espinosa (2018) set out to study their electoral consequences. To do so, Balcells and Torrats-Espinosa (2018) approached the problem very cleverly. Ostensibly, terrorist attacks are not randomly assigned. However, the combination of terrorist attacks hap- pening and nationally-representative public opinion polls on whether people aim to vote in the next election could be construed as good as randomly assigned—i.e., a natural experiment. So what Balcells and Torrats-Espinosa (2018) did compare people’s interest in voting the next election in polls directly 1, 3, and 5 days after the terrorist attacks compared to public opinion polls conducted outside those windows from 1989-1997. As we can see below, the main results suggest that, on average, citizens were more likely to express an interest in participating in politics after terrorist attacks.
What do Alesina, Giuliano, and Nunn (2013) examine?
In this study, the authors show that countries that have historically relied on the plough for agriculture remains ones where gender roles are more divided and least progressive today. According to the authors, the reason is that the plough is very heavy to either pull or steer when animals are pulling it. Accordingly, societies that relied heavily on the plough were ones where men traditionally worked in the fields, women stayed home, and these gender norms have persisted over time.
What does Hyde (2007) examine?
In examining this question, I focus on one form of democracy promotion: international monitoring of elections. In order to examine the causal effect of international observers (who represent a prominent element of those efforts), I exploit a natural experiment in which observers were assigned to polling stations using a method that approximates randomization. The natural experiment provides a direct test of whether international observers influence the behavior of domestic political actors on election day. If the presence of international observers causes a reduction in election-day fraud, the effect of observers should be visible at the subnational level by comparing polling stations that observers visited with those that were not visited. More specifically, if international monitoring reduces election-day fraud directly, all else held equal, the cheating parties should gain less of their ill-gotten vote share in polling stations that international monitors visited. Using polling-station-level election results from the 2003 presidential elections in Armenia, the data show that in this case international observers caused a reduction in the vote share of the incumbent candidate who was widely expected to steal the election.
What do Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001) examine?
They exploit differences in European mortality rates to estimate the effect of institutions on economic performance. Europeans adopted very different colonization policies in different colonies, with different associated institutions. In places where Europeans faced high mortality rates, they could not settle and were more likely to set up extractive institutions. These institutions persisted to the present. Exploiting differences in European mortality rates as an instrument for current institutions, we estimate large effects of institutions on income per capita. Once the effect of institutions is controlled for, countries in Africa or those closer to the equator do not have lower incomes.
