PUBLICATIONS
Food Policy in a Warming World
(with Allan Hsiao and Karthik Sastry)
Updated: January 2026
Econometrica, forthcoming
Coverage and summaries: Diario Financiero (Chile), VoxDev Summary, CEPR Podcast, Econimate Video Summary
The Management of Aid and Conflict in Africa
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 17(4): 228-259. Publisher's Version.
Coverage and summaries: MIT News, VoxDev Summary.
Age Set vs. Kin: Culture and Financial Ties in East Africa
(with Awa Ambra Seck)
American Economic Review, 114(9): 2748–2791. Publisher's Version.
Coverage and summaries: MIT News, AEA Podcast, VoxDev Summary, Econimate Video Summary
Does Directed Innovation Mitigate Climate Damage? Evidence from US Agriculture
(with Karthik Sastry)
Quarterly Journal of Economics 138(2): 637-701. Editor's Choice. Publisher's Version.
Coverage and summaries: Harvard Gazette, Nature Climate Change
Segmentary Lineage Organization and Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa
(with Nathan Nunn and James A. Robinson)
Econometrica 88(5): 1999-2036. Publisher's Version.
Additional material: Supplementary Materials, Online Appendix, Theoretical Note
Coverage and summaries: VoxDev Summary, VoxEU Summary
Keeping it in the Family: Lineage Organization and the Scope of Trust in Sub-Saharan Africa
(with Nathan Nunn and James A. Robinson)
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 107(5): 565-571. Publisher's Version.
State Capacity and American Technology: Evidence from the 19th Century
(with Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson)
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 106(5): 61-67. Publisher's Version.
Coverage and summaries: Harvard Business Review, VoxEU Summary
WORKING PAPERS
Inappropriate Technology: Evidence from Global Agriculture
(with Karthik Sastry)
Updated: February 2025
Revise and Resubmit requested, American Economic Review
Coverage and summaries: Project Syndicate, VoxDev Summary, Econimate Video Summary
Appropriate Entrepreneurship: The Rise of China and the Developing World
(with Josh Lerner, Junxi Liu, and David Yang)
Updated: January 2026
Revise and Resubmit requested, Journal of Political Economy
Coverage and summaries: VoxDev Summary, VoxEU Summary, VoxChina Summary
Companion note: Case Studies of the Emulation of Chinese Entrepreneurial Business Models
Environmental Catastrophe and the Direction of Invention: Evidence from the American Dust Bowl
Updated: October 2025
Conditionally Accepted, Review of Economics and Statistics
Searching for Fish in Trees? Economic Development When Context Matters
Prepared for the Handbook of Development Economics, published by Elsevier
(with Nathan Nunn and James A. Robinson)
Updated: January 2026
The Economics of Climate Innovation: Technology, Climate Policy, and the Clean Energy Transition
Prepared for the Handbook of Climate Change Economics, Volume 2, published by Elsevier
(with Eugenie Dugoua)
Updated: December 2025
Public R&D Meets Economic Development: Embrapa and Brazil’s Agricultural Revolution
(with Ariel Akerman, Heitor S. Pellegrina and Karthik Sastry)
Updated: November 2025
Coverage and summaries: Globo Rural, Valor Econômico, VoxEU Summary, VoxDev Summary, NBER Digest
Climate Change, Deforestation, and the Expansion of the Global Agricultural Frontier
(with Allan Hsiao, Ben Olken, and Karthik Sastry)
Updated: January 2026
Foreign Political Risk and Technological Change
(with Joel Flynn, Antoine Levy, and Mai Wo)
Updated: November 2025
With or Without U? Binning Bias and the Causal Effects of Temperature Shocks
(with Ben Jones, Ben Olken, and Cristine von Dessauer)
Updated: January 2026
The Stata package to produce counterfactual temperature distributions can be found here.
Flowers of Invention: Patent Protection and Productivity Growth in US Agriculture
Updated: October 2024
Agricultural Development and Structural Change, Within and Across Countries
Updated: May 2019
Coverage and summaries: VoxDev Summary
Specializing in Cities: Density and the Pattern of Trade
(with Antoine Levy)
Updated: October 2022