Essays on the Political Economy of Development

Abstract

This dissertation examines how variation in institutions, such as property rights, and cultural norms, such as trust, affect development in Central America and Central Africa. The first chapter of the dissertation examines cooperative property rights and their implications for development. In cooperative property rights systems, workers jointly own and manage production, whereas in outside ownership systems, an owner contracts laborers. Cooperatives are particularly prevalent in Latin America, where the majority of countries attempted land reforms to create agricultural cooperatives. I examine the land reform of El Salvador in 1980, where properties owned by individuals with cumulative landholdings over 500 hectares were reorganized into cooperatives but properties below this ownership threshold remained as privately-owned \textit{haciendas}. Using a regression discontinuity design, I present causal evidence on the effects of cooperative property rights on agricultural productivity and economic development. The second chapter examines the legacy of colonial medical campaigns in central Africa and their impacts on trust in medicine. Between 1921 and 1956, French colonial governments organized medical campaigns to treat sleeping sickness. Villagers were forcibly examined and injected with medications with severe side effects. We find that greater exposure to the campaigns reduces trust in medicine. We examine relevance for policy and find that World Bank projects in the health sector are less successful in areas with greater exposure to the campaigns. The third chapter examines the lasting impacts of colonial rubber concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These concessions were often characterized by extreme violence and the co-option of local leaders. We use the arbitrarily defined borders of concessions granted in the north of the DRC to examine the causal effects of the concession system. Historical exposure to the concessions is associated with worse economic outcomes. We collected survey and experimental data near a former concession boundary and find that individuals from the concessions are more pro-social, but that local leaders are less accountable and provide fewer public goods. The results of the dissertation provide important evidence on how specific culture and institutional arrangements are important for understanding the political economy of development.