Gustav Agneman forsvarer sin ph.d.-afhandling

Gustav Agneman forsvarer sin ph.d.-afhandling :"Essays on the Political Economy of Development: Determinants of Political and Economic Behavior"

Kandidat

Gustav Agneman

Titel:"Essays on the Political Economy of Development: Determinants of Political and Economic Behavior"

Tid og sted: 15. december 2020 kl. 16:00. Link til at logge på overværelse af forsvaret følger her:https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/9536476672

Bedømmelsesudvalg

• Professsor John Rand , Økonomisk Institut, Københavns Universitet, Danmark (formand)
• Professor Peter Martinson, Göteborg Universitet, Sverige
• Profesor James Robinseon, Chicago Universitet, USA

Abstract:

This thesis is composed of four self-contained chapters investigating determinants of political and economic decision-making in developing contexts. The first chapter studies the role of prospective economic evaluations in shaping preferences for and against political independence. In a nationally representative survey conducted in Greenland, I embed an information prime to induce an exogenous shift in economic expectations and to study how this shift influences voter behavior. The results reveal substantial information susceptibility, in that exposure to the prime impacts voters’ economic expectations of independence as well as their likelihood of opposing immediate secession. The effect is, however, much smaller among respondents with stronger Greenlandic identity, consistent with a model in which voters trade off identity and pecuniary motives when voting on independence.
 
The second chapter presents a novel methodology to measure state capacity at sub-national levels where relevant data are lacking. We create an index of local state capacity based on survey data on states' ability to uphold law and order, collect taxes and provide services at the local level. Next, we predict this index using spatial data on structural factors which correlate with local state capacity. Lastly, we extrapolate the resulting prediction to construct a spatially disaggregated measure of state capacity across Sub-Saharan Africa. To showcase the usefulness of measuring state capacity at a local level, we employ the resulting proxy as a moderating variable in the oil-conflict relationship.
 
The third chapter investigates the influence of food scarcity on economic cooperation. We leverage quasi-experimental variation in food scarcity induced by the Msimu harvest in rural Tanzania by conducting framed investment games with farmers before and after the harvest. Participants are both more likely to experience food scarcity and to refrain from investing in socially efficient cooperation during the lean period prior to, compared to after, the harvest. The detrimental effect is more pronounced among relatively poorer farmers. These results highlight the need to consider seasonal scarcity as a force that might itself perpetuate poverty.

The fourth and final chapter studies the prevalence and determinants of parochial honesty, the tendency to behave more honestly toward members of the ingroup relative to members of the outgroup. To this end, we conduct experiments on honesty in Greenland, where small and geographically isolated communities provide for a natural demarcation between ingroup and outgroup. The results reveal significant group differentiation in moral decision-making. While participants cheat the outgroup, they consistently refrain from cheating their own group. The baseline differentiation is entirely driven by participants operating in the traditional economy, who are less exposed to market institutions and daily transactions with outsiders. This finding renders support to the Market Integration Hypothesis, which posits that economic and social integration reinforce one another.