Dean Karlan
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 1456841 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Dean Karlan |
| PRENOMES | Dean |
| SOBRENOME | Karlan |
| ASSINATURA | KARLAN D |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0164-1398 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 51 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 363 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 51 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2007 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Five-Year Impacts of Group-Based Financial Education and Savings Promotion for Ugandan Youth
We experimentally evaluate group-based financial education, savings account access, or both for members of Ugandan youth groups. We measure both short- and long-run impacts with one- and five-year endline household surveys. Education, but not account access, increases measured financial knowledge and trust at one year. At five years, knowledge effects essentially disappear, and trust effects weaken. However, savings and income increase for each t…
Access to digital credit for smallholder farmers
Social protection and social distancing during the pandemic
We randomized mobile money transfers to a sample of low-income Ghanaians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Treated households received eight transfers that sum to roughly one month’s income, while control households only received one transfer. The mere announcement of upcoming transfers has no effect. Once disbursed, transfers increase contemporaneous food expenditure by 8% and income by 20%, but do not affect psychological well-being. Over 40% of th…
Estimating impact with surveys versus digital traces
We study whether program impacts can be estimated using a combination of digital trace data and machine learning. In a randomized controlled trial of cash transfers in Togo, endline survey data indicate positive treatment effects on food security, mental health, and perceived economic status. However, estimates of impact based solely on predicted endline outcomes (generated using trace data and machine learning, which do successfully predict base…
Give Me a Pass
Although microcredit has reached millions, recent randomised evaluations find limited average business impacts. Contract rigidity, specifically the fixed and frequent instalments, may restrict moral hazard but limit productive risk-taking, thus limiting the impact. With a Colombian lender, we experimentally compared, for a sample of new borrowers, a standard rigid loan to a more flexible loan that included three “passes” with which borrowers coul…
Improving smallholder agriculture via video-based group extension
Providing agricultural advice at scale poses operational challenges. Technology may help if repeating content reinforces learning for recipients and thus improves adoption, but risks reducing efficacy given limited customization and human interaction. We tested videos shared with female farmers in India as a supplement to standard human-provided extension services promoting a climate-smart practice, System Rice Intensification. The average treatm…
Loose knots
Commitment devices offer an opportunity to restrict future choices. However, strict commitments may deter participation. Using a school-based commitment savings program for children to save for educational expenses in Uganda, we compare an account fully committed to school expenses to an account with a weaker commitment (funds withdrawn in cash, rather than a voucher). Children save more in the weaker commitment treatment arm, and when combined w…
Introduction to the journal of development economics special issue on methods and measurement
Passing the message
The Fading Treatment Effects of a Multi-Faceted Asset-Transfer Program in Ethiopia
How political insiders lose out when international aid underperforms
Falling living standards during the Covid-19 crisis
Income, employment, and food security fell sharply across low- and middle-income countries during the COVID crisis.
Covid-19 vaccine acceptance and hesitancy in low- and middle-income countries
Widespread acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines is crucial for achieving sufficient immunization coverage to end the global pandemic, yet few studies have investigated COVID-19 vaccination attitudes in lower-income countries, where large-scale vaccination is just beginning. We analyze COVID-19 vaccine acceptance across 15 survey samples covering 10 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Asia, Africa and South America, Russia (an upper-middle-inco…
Unpacking a multi-faceted program to build sustainable income for the very poor
Social protection amidst social upheaval
Targeting Ultra-Poor Households in Honduras and Peru
For policy purposes, it is important to understand the relative efficacy of various methods to target the poor. Recently, participatory methods have received particular attention. We examine the effectiveness of a hybrid two-step process that combines a participatory wealth ranking and a verification household survey, relative to two proxy means tests (the Progress out of Poverty Index and a housing index), in Honduras and Peru. The methods we ex…
Good identification, meet good data
Failing in the Field
All across the social sciences, from development economics to political science departments, researchers are going into the field to collect data and learn about the world. While much has been gained from the successes of randomized controlled trials, stories of failed projects often do not get told. This book delves into the common causes of failure in field research, so that researchers might avoid similar pitfalls in future work. Drawing on th…
The Goldilocks Challenge
Nonprofits, governments, and social enterprises face increasing pressure to prove that their programs are making a positive impact on the world. This focus on impact is positive: learning whether we are making a difference enhances our ability to effectively address pressing social problems, and is critical for wise stewardship of resources. However, measuring the impact of a program is not always possible, nor is impact evaluation always the rig…
Collecting High-Quality Data
Without high-quality data, even the best-designed monitoring and evaluation systems will collapse. Chapter 7 introduces some the basics of collecting high-quality data and discusses how to address challenges that frequently arise. High-quality data must be clearly defined and have an indicator that validly and reliably measures the intended concept. The chapter then explains how to avoid common biases and measurement errors like anchoring, social…
Short-term subsidies and seller type
Impact of savings groups on the lives of the poor
Significance We conducted a large randomized evaluation of a savings-led microfinance program across three countries. This evaluation provides important evidence on the impact of a popular development intervention on the lives of low-income households in rural communities by looking at its effects on usage of financial services, microenterprise activity, income, female empowerment, consumption, and the ability to cope with shocks.
Failing in the Field
All across the social sciences, from development economics to political science departments, researchers are going into the field to collect data and learn about the world. While much has been gained from the successes of randomized controlled trials, stories of failed projects often do not get told. In Failing in the Field, Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel delve into the common causes of failure in field research, so that researchers might avoid simi…
Price and control elasticities of demand for savings
Continued Existence of Cows Disproves Central Tenets of Capitalism
We examine the returns from owning cows and buffaloes in rural India. With labor valued at market wages, households earn large, negative median annual returns from holding cows and buffaloes, at −293% and −65%, respectively. Making the stark assumption of labor valued at zero, median returns are then −7% for cows and +17% for buffaloes (with 51% and 45% of households earning negative returns for cows and buffaloes, respectively). Why do household…
Does Corruption Information Inspire the Fight or Quash the Hope? A Field Experiment in Mexico on Voter Turnout, Choice, and Party Identification
Retrospective voting models assume that offering more information to voters about their incumbents’ performance strengthens electoral accountability. However, it is unclear whether incumbent corruption information translates into higher political participation and increased support for challengers. We provide experimental evidence that such information not only decreases incumbent party support in local elections in Mexico, but also decreases vot…
Social Connections and Group Banking
Lending to the poor is expensive due to high screening, monitoring and enforcement costs. Group lending advocates believe lenders overcome this by harnessing social connections. Using data from FINCA-Peru, I exploit a quasi-random group formation process to find evidence of peers successfully monitoring and enforcing joint-liability loans. Individuals with stronger social connections to their fellow group members (i.e., either living closer or be…
Female Empowerment
Group versus individual liability
Social and economic correlates of depressive symptoms and perceived stress in South African adults
OBJECTIVES: Adults in South Africa demonstrate rates of mental illness at or above levels elsewhere in the developing world. Yet there is a research gap regarding the social context surrounding mental health in this region. The objective of this analysis was to characterize the prevalence and correlates of depressive symptoms and perceived stress among a heterogeneous South African population. METHODS: Low-income adults (n = 257) in Capetown, Por…
List randomization for sensitive behavior
Get-Out-The-Vote Phone Calls
This article reports the results of a field experiment testing the effectiveness of different quality get-out-the-vote (GOTV) nonpartisan phone calls. During the week preceding the November 2004 election, we randomly assigned registered voters in North Carolina and Missouri to one of three live phone calls with varying length and content. The scripts are (1) standard GOTV, (2) interactive GOTV, and (3) interactive GOTV with a request for mobilizi…
Short-term subsidies and seller type
Price and control elasticities of demand for savings
The Impact of Financial Education for Youth in Ghana
Unpacking a multi-faceted program to build sustainable income for the very poor
Continued Existence of Cows Disproves Central Tenets of Capitalism
We examine the returns from owning cows and buffaloes in rural India. With labor valued at market wages, households earn large, negative median annual returns from holding cows and buffaloes, at −293% and −65%, respectively. Making the stark assumption of labor valued at zero, median returns are then −7% for cows and +17% for buffaloes (with 51% and 45% of households earning negative returns for cows and buffaloes, respectively). Why do household…
Improving smallholder agriculture via video-based group extension
Providing agricultural advice at scale poses operational challenges. Technology may help if repeating content reinforces learning for recipients and thus improves adoption, but risks reducing efficacy given limited customization and human interaction. We tested videos shared with female farmers in India as a supplement to standard human-provided extension services promoting a climate-smart practice, System Rice Intensification. The average treatm…
How political insiders lose out when international aid underperforms
Social protection amidst social upheaval
Follow the money not the cash
Estimating impact with surveys versus digital traces
We study whether program impacts can be estimated using a combination of digital trace data and machine learning. In a randomized controlled trial of cash transfers in Togo, endline survey data indicate positive treatment effects on food security, mental health, and perceived economic status. However, estimates of impact based solely on predicted endline outcomes (generated using trace data and machine learning, which do successfully predict base…
Good identification, meet good data
Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment
We conducted a natural field experiment to further our understanding of the economics of charity. Using direct mail solicitations to over 50,000 prior donors of a nonprofit organization, we tested the effectiveness of a matching grant on charitable giving. We find that the match offer increases both the revenue per solicitation and the response rate. Larger match ratios (i.e., $3:$1 and $2:$1) relative to a smaller match ratio ($1:$1) had no addi…
Social Connections and Group Banking
Lending to the poor is expensive due to high screening, monitoring and enforcement costs. Group lending advocates believe lenders overcome this by harnessing social connections. Using data from FINCA-Peru, I exploit a quasi-random group formation process to find evidence of peers successfully monitoring and enforcing joint-liability loans. Individuals with stronger social connections to their fellow group members (i.e., either living closer or be…
Small individual loans and mental health
Our findings suggest that a mechanism used to reduce the economic stress of extremely poor individuals can have mixed effects on their experiences of psychological stress and depressive symptomatology. Our data support the notion that mental health should be included as a measure of success (or failure) when examining potential tools for poverty alleviation. Further longitudinal research is needed in South Africa and other settings to understand …
Social and economic correlates of depressive symptoms and perceived stress in South African adults
OBJECTIVES: Adults in South Africa demonstrate rates of mental illness at or above levels elsewhere in the developing world. Yet there is a research gap regarding the social context surrounding mental health in this region. The objective of this analysis was to characterize the prevalence and correlates of depressive symptoms and perceived stress among a heterogeneous South African population. METHODS: Low-income adults (n = 257) in Capetown, Por…
Trust and Social Collateral
This paper builds a theory of trust based on informal contract enforcement in social networks. In our model, network connections between individuals can be used as social collateral to secure informal borrowing. We define network-based trust as the largest amount one agent can borrow from another agent and derive a reduced-form expression for this quantity, which we then use in three applications. (1) We predict that dense networks generate bondi…
Participation in a School Incentive Programme in India
Education policy has recently focused on improving accountability and incentives of public providers for actual learning outcomes, often with school-based reward programmes for high performers. The Learning Guarantee Programme in Karnataka, India, is prominent among such efforts, providing cash transfers to government schools that achieve learning at specified high levels. This study examines whether schools that self-selected into the incentive …
Does the Media Matter? A Field Experiment Measuring the Effect of Newspapers on Voting Behavior and Political Opinions
We conducted a field experiment to measure the effect of exposure to newspapers on political behavior and opinion. Before the 2005 Virginia gubernatorial election, we randomly assigned individuals to a Washington Post free subscription treatment, a Washington Times free subscription treatment, or a control treatment. We find no effect of either paper on political knowledge, stated opinions, or turnout in post-election survey and voter data. Howev…
Get-Out-The-Vote Phone Calls
This article reports the results of a field experiment testing the effectiveness of different quality get-out-the-vote (GOTV) nonpartisan phone calls. During the week preceding the November 2004 election, we randomly assigned registered voters in North Carolina and Missouri to one of three live phone calls with varying length and content. The scripts are (1) standard GOTV, (2) interactive GOTV, and (3) interactive GOTV with a request for mobilizi…
Commitment Devices
We review the recent evidence on commitment devices and discuss how this evidence relates to theoretical questions about the demand for, and effectiveness of, commitment. Several important distinctions emerge. First, we distinguish between what we call hard and soft commitments and identify how soft commitments, in particular, can help with various dilemmas, both in explaining empirical behavior and in designing effective commitment devices. Seco…
Expanding Credit Access
Expanding access to commercial credit is a key ingredient of financial development strategies. There is less consensus on whether expanding access to consumer credit helps borrowers, particularly when loans are extended at high interest rates. Popular skepticism about “unproductive,” “usurious” lending is fueled by research highlighting behavioral biases that may induce overborrowing. We estimate the impacts of expanding access to consumer credit…
Female Empowerment
Microcredit in Theory and Practice
A randomized controlled trial reveals both expected and surprising effects of microcredit.
Adaptive Experimental Design Using the Propensity Score
Many social experiments are run in multiple waves or replicate earlier social experiments. In principle, the sampling design can be modified in later stages or replications to allow for more efficient estimation of causal effects. We consider the design of a two-stage experiment for estimating an average treatment effect when covariate information is available for experimental subjects. We use data from the first stage to choose a conditional tre…
Teaching Entrepreneurship
Most academic and development policy discussions about microentrepreneurs focus on credit constraints and assume that subject to those constraints, the entrepreneurs manage their business optimally. Yet the self-employed poor rarely have any formal training in business skills. A growing number of microfinance organizations are attempting to build the human capital of microentrepreneurs in order to improve the livelihood of their clients and help …
Health education for microcredit clients in Peru
This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01047033
List randomization for sensitive behavior
Group versus individual liability
Savings by and for the Poor
The poor can and do save, but often use formal or informal instruments that have high risk, high cost, and limited functionality. This could lead to undersaving compared to a world without market or behavioral frictions. Undersaving can have important welfare consequences: variable consumption, low resilience to shocks, and foregone profitable investments. We lay out five sets of constraints that may hinder the adoption and effective usage of sav…
Agricultural Decisions after Relaxing Credit and Risk Constraints
The investment decisions of small-scale farmers in developing countries are conditioned by their financial environment. Binding credit market constraints and incomplete insurance can limit investment in activities with high expected profits. We conducted several experiments in northern Ghana in which farmers were randomly assigned to receive cash grants, grants of or opportunities to purchase rainfall index insurance, or a combination of the two.…
Microcredit Impacts
We use a clustered randomized trial, and over 16,000 household surveys, to estimate impacts at the community level from a group lending expansion at 110 percent APR by the largest microlender in Mexico. We find no evidence of transformative impacts on 37 outcomes (although some estimates have large confidence intervals), measured at a mean of 27 months post-expansion, across 6 domains: microentrepreneurship, income, labor supply, expenditures, so…
Six Randomized Evaluations of Microcredit
Causal evidence on microcredit impacts informs theory, practice, and debates about its effectiveness as a development tool. The six randomized evaluations in this volume use a variety of sampling, data collection, experimental design, and econometric strategies to identify causal effects of expanded access to microcredit on borrowers and/or communities. These methods are deployed across an impressive range of locations—six countries on four conti…
Promoting an open research culture
Author guidelines for journals could help to promote transparency, openness, and reproducibility
The Impact of Financial Education for Youth in Ghana
Follow the money not the cash
Does Corruption Information Inspire the Fight or Quash the Hope? A Field Experiment in Mexico on Voter Turnout, Choice, and Party Identification
Retrospective voting models assume that offering more information to voters about their incumbents’ performance strengthens electoral accountability. However, it is unclear whether incumbent corruption information translates into higher political participation and increased support for challengers. We provide experimental evidence that such information not only decreases incumbent party support in local elections in Mexico, but also decreases vot…
Economics (34 obras) · Business (26 obras) · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion (22 obras) · Political science (18 obras) · Economic growth (17 obras) · Computer Science (13 obras) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (13 obras) · Finance (12 obras) · Finance (11 obras) · Medicine (11 obras)