Three Essays In Development Economics And Policy

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three essays answering questions with implications for our understanding of how policy decisions affect economic outcomes of people in developing countries. The first essay examines the local effects of large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) in Cambodia, large tracts of land governments in the global South lease to private companies for development into agribusiness projects. I find that LSLAs cause a shift away from independent agricultural production towards employment in agricultural labor in a narrow adjacent region to the LSLAs. Additionally, I find that LSLAs result in a decline in household spending, and little evidence that LSLAs result in local agricultural technology adoption. The second essay examines the effects of refugee camps on host populations in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). My coauthor and I find being within 10 kilometers of a camp decreases children’s weight-for-age z-scores by 10 percent of the sample mean. Children with married household heads experience improved nutrition outcomes relative to children with non-married household heads near camps, and camps cause an increase in local employment. The third essay returns to the subject of the first, LSLAs, but examines the phenomenon of LSLAs at a broader level, and analyzes several of the determinants of global flows of LSLA-based investment. I find that a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) between countries is associated with a 55 to 125 percent increase in land deals and that a ten-point increase in a recipient country’s environmental protection index is associated with a 30 percent decrease in the number of LSLA deals in that country. Most estimates of whether BITs act as complements or substitutes for local institutions are statistically insignificant and inconclusive, although difference-in-differences estimates provide limited evidence that BITs act as complements for strong rule of law and government effectiveness in recipient countries.