Anders Olofsgård
Biographic Data
| ID | 1220733 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anders Olofsgård |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anders |
| FAMILY NAME | Olofsgård |
| SIGNATURE | OLOFSGÅRD A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0455-0822 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Foreign Aid and Female Empowerment
We estimate the community-level impact of foreign aid projects on women’s empowerment in the country with the most complete recent record of geo-coded aid project placement, Malawi. Our estimates can thus be interpreted as the average impact of aid from many different donors and diverse projects. We find that aid in general has a positive impact, in particular on an index of female agency and women’s sexual and fertility preferences. Gender-targe…
Incentivising Textbooks for Self-Study
We designed and randomly evaluated the impact of textbooks for a self-study scheme in eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo targeting student achievement in primary schools. Students in treatment schools were 7 percentage points more likely to pass the national exam, and those who passed obtained higher scores. We also evidence higher scores on a French language test. The effects are primarily driven by student interest in textboo…
The middle class and the modalities of political protest
Objective The middle class has historically played a decisive role in mass movements and rebellions against the status quo, including in both peaceful and violent protests that spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa following the events of the Arab Spring. Yet, we know little about why the middle class tends to be over‐represented in protest movements, or why that protest takes nonviolent versus violent forms. Methods We develop a mod…
Can the poor organize? Public goods and self-help groups in rural India
Aid Effectiveness in Times of Political Change
The Costs of Political Influence
Arrangements by which politically connected firms receive economic favors are a common feature around the world, but little is known of the form or effects of influence in business-government relationships. We present a simple model in which influence requires firms to provide goods of political value in exchange for economic privileges. We argue that political influence improves the business environment for selected firms, but restricts their ab…
The Logic of Authoritarian Bargains
Dictatorships do not survive by repression alone. Rather, dictatorial rule is often explained as an “authoritarian bargain” by which citizens relinquish political rights for economic security. The applicability of the authoritarian bargain to decision‐making in non‐democratic states, however, has not been thoroughly examined. We conceptualize this bargain as a simple game between a representative citizen and an autocrat who faces the threat of in…
Foreign aid
In this paper, we test the argument that the sizeable reduction in aggregate aid levels in the 1990s was due to the end of the Cold War. We test two different models using a dynamic econometric specification on a panel of 17 donor countries, spanning the years 1970–97. We find aid to be positively related to military expenditures in the former Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, but not in the 1990s, suggesting that the reductions in aid disburseme…
Democracy, Inequality, and Inflation
Do democracies suffer higher inflation than nondemocracies? We identify two competing hypotheses regarding the impact of democracy on inflation. In the "populist" approach, inflation is the result of public demands for transfers financed by the inflation tax, suggesting that electoral competition will increase inflation. In the "state-capture" approach, inflation is a result of pressure from elites who derive private benefits from money creation,…
Democracy, Inequality, and Inflation
Do democracies suffer higher inflation than nondemocracies? We identify two competing hypotheses regarding the impact of democracy on inflation. In the "populist" approach, inflation is the result of public demands for transfers financed by the inflation tax, suggesting that electoral competition will increase inflation. In the "state-capture" approach, inflation is a result of pressure from elites who derive private benefits from money creation,…
The Costs of Political Influence
Arrangements by which politically connected firms receive economic favors are a common feature around the world, but little is known of the form or effects of influence in business-government relationships. We present a simple model in which influence requires firms to provide goods of political value in exchange for economic privileges. We argue that political influence improves the business environment for selected firms, but restricts their ab…
Can the poor organize? Public goods and self-help groups in rural India
Aid Effectiveness in Times of Political Change
The middle class and the modalities of political protest
Objective The middle class has historically played a decisive role in mass movements and rebellions against the status quo, including in both peaceful and violent protests that spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa following the events of the Arab Spring. Yet, we know little about why the middle class tends to be over‐represented in protest movements, or why that protest takes nonviolent versus violent forms. Methods We develop a mod…
Democracy, Inequality, and Inflation
Do democracies suffer higher inflation than nondemocracies? We identify two competing hypotheses regarding the impact of democracy on inflation. In the "populist" approach, inflation is the result of public demands for transfers financed by the inflation tax, suggesting that electoral competition will increase inflation. In the "state-capture" approach, inflation is a result of pressure from elites who derive private benefits from money creation,…
Foreign aid
In this paper, we test the argument that the sizeable reduction in aggregate aid levels in the 1990s was due to the end of the Cold War. We test two different models using a dynamic econometric specification on a panel of 17 donor countries, spanning the years 1970–97. We find aid to be positively related to military expenditures in the former Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, but not in the 1990s, suggesting that the reductions in aid disburseme…
The Logic of Authoritarian Bargains
Dictatorships do not survive by repression alone. Rather, dictatorial rule is often explained as an “authoritarian bargain” by which citizens relinquish political rights for economic security. The applicability of the authoritarian bargain to decision‐making in non‐democratic states, however, has not been thoroughly examined. We conceptualize this bargain as a simple game between a representative citizen and an autocrat who faces the threat of in…
The Costs of Political Influence
Arrangements by which politically connected firms receive economic favors are a common feature around the world, but little is known of the form or effects of influence in business-government relationships. We present a simple model in which influence requires firms to provide goods of political value in exchange for economic privileges. We argue that political influence improves the business environment for selected firms, but restricts their ab…
Aid Effectiveness in Times of Political Change
Can the poor organize? Public goods and self-help groups in rural India
The middle class and the modalities of political protest
Objective The middle class has historically played a decisive role in mass movements and rebellions against the status quo, including in both peaceful and violent protests that spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa following the events of the Arab Spring. Yet, we know little about why the middle class tends to be over‐represented in protest movements, or why that protest takes nonviolent versus violent forms. Methods We develop a mod…
Foreign Aid and Female Empowerment
We estimate the community-level impact of foreign aid projects on women’s empowerment in the country with the most complete recent record of geo-coded aid project placement, Malawi. Our estimates can thus be interpreted as the average impact of aid from many different donors and diverse projects. We find that aid in general has a positive impact, in particular on an index of female agency and women’s sexual and fertility preferences. Gender-targe…
Incentivising Textbooks for Self-Study
We designed and randomly evaluated the impact of textbooks for a self-study scheme in eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo targeting student achievement in primary schools. Students in treatment schools were 7 percentage points more likely to pass the national exam, and those who passed obtained higher scores. We also evidence higher scores on a French language test. The effects are primarily driven by student interest in textboo…
Economics (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Democracy (4 works) · Economic growth (4 works) · Developing country (3 works) · Development economics (3 works) · International Development and Aid (3 works) · Law (3 works)