Digital Information Provision and Behavior Change: Lessons from Six Experiments in East Africa Raissa Fabregas, Michael Kremer, Matthew Lowes, Robert On, Giulia Zane Abstract Mobile phone-based informational programs are popular worldwide, though there is little consensus on how effective they are at changing behavior. We present causal evidence on the effects of six mobile-based […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 602, November 2021
Water Treatment and Child Mortality: Evidence from Kenya Johannes Haushofer, Michael Kremer, Ricardo Maertens and Brandon Joel Tan Abstract Each year, around 500,000 children under 5 die from diarrhea, making it the third- leading cause of death in this age group. More than 80 percent of these deaths are attributable to unsafe drinking water. […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 591, June 2021
The Impact of Free Secondary Education: Experimental Evidence from Ghana Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas and Michael Kremer Abstract: Following the widespread adoption of free primary education, African policymakers are now considering making secondary school free, but little is known about the private and social benefits of free secondary education. We exploit randomized assignment to secondary […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 590, June 2021
Could Vaccine Dose Stretching Reduce COVID-19 Deaths? Witold Wiecek, Amrita Ahuja, Michael Kremer, Alexandre Simoes Gomes, Christopher M. Snyder, Alex Tabarrok, and Brandon Joel Tan Abstract We argue that alternative COVID-19 vaccine dosing regimens could potentially dramatically accelerate global COVID-19 vaccination and reduce mortality, and that the costs of testing these regimens are dwarfed […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 530, November 2017
Preventives Versus Treatments Redux: Tighter Bounds on Distortions in Innovation Incentives with an Application to the Global Demand for HIV Pharmaceuticals Michael Kremer, Christopher M. Snyder Abstract Kremer and Snyder (2015) show that demand curves for a preventive and treatment may have different shapes though they target the same disease, biasing the pharmaceutical manufacturer toward […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 544, September 2018
Worst-Case Bounds on R&D and Pricing Distortions: Theory and Disturbing Conclusions if Consumer Values Follow the World Income Distribution Michael Kremer, Christopher M. Snyder Abstract We prove that, for general demand and cost conditions and market structures, the fraction of first- best surplus that a monopolist is unable to extract in a market provides a […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 551, December 2018
Using RCTs to Estimate Long-Run Impacts in Development Economics Adrien Bouguen, Yue Huang, Michael Kremer, Edward Miguel Abstract We assess evidence from randomized control trials (RCTs) on long-run economic productiv- ity and living standards in poor countries. We first document that several studies estimate large positive long-run impacts, but that relatively few existing RCTs have […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 555, July 2018
Borrowing Requirements, Credit Access, and Adverse Selection: Evidence from Kenya William Jack, Michael Kremer, Joost de Laat, Tavneet Suri Abstract Do the stringent formal sector borrowing requirements common in many developing countries restrict credit access, technology adoption, and welfare? When a Kenyan dairy’s savings and credit cooperative randomly offered some farmers the opportunity to replace […]
BREAD Working Paper No. 574, March 2020
Optimal Subsidies for Prevention of Infectious Disease Matthew Goodkin-Gold, Michael Kremer, Christopher M. Snyder, Heidi Williams Abstract Most economists would agree that the positive externalities caused by prevention of infectious disease create a prima facie case for subsidies. However, little is known about the appropriate magnitude of these subsidies, or about whether the level of […]