Legacies of Conflict: Self-efficacy and the Formation of Conditional Trust
joint with Niklas Buehren (World Bank), Markus Goldstein (World Bank) and Andrea Smurra (UCL)
May 2026

Abstract Exposure to armed conflict in early life is a traumatic experience, affecting 400 million children worldwide. We combine theory, measurement and evidence to study how psychological legacies of conflict mediate the relationship between exposure to conflict and the long-term formation of trust preferences. We do so in a sample of 3900 women born during the Sierra Leonean civil war and surveyed 14 years later. We first develop a framework describing the link between exposure to conflict and trust. This makes precise what individuals have in mind when expressing conditional trust in others, and establishes the role of self-efficacy in linking conflict and trust. Our empirical analysis shows that exposure to conflict significantly increases self-efficacy, and through this channel, conflict leads conditional trust to rise and for outright trust of others to fall, relative to those never exposed to conflict. To microfound how exposure to conflict translates into psychological legacies, we construct a granular typology of experiences of conflict, combining information on age of exposure to conflict and recall of victimization. We use this to show how direct exposure, memories and trauma, and narratives of conflict from others each distinctively shape self-efficacy. Finally, we show how our model can help reconcile heterogeneous findings across conflict scenarios, and suggest avenues for future work on the more general role of psychological legacies from traumatic shocks early in life on the long-term formation of economic preferences.

Firm Responses to Aggregate Shocks and Implications for Workers: Lessons from the Pandemic
joint with Livia Alfonsi (HBS), Vittorio Bassi (USC) and Elena Spadini (UCL)
April 2026

Abstract Developing countries frequently face aggregate shocks. We use the lens of the pandemic to understand how such shocks propagate through labor markets, from firm responses through to implications for workers. Our analysis uses a panel of Ugandan firms and workers, tracked with high frequency from 2012 to 2022. We find that firms' response to the fall in product demand due to the pandemic was to reduce labor demand and change the skills composition of retained workers. Firms disproportionately laid off skilled employees, namely those that received vocational training (VT) before joining the firm, rather than lay off non-VT workers who instead are trained on-the-job. We calibrate a model of firm profits to assess the relevance of three mechanisms driving such VT-biased responses: laying off non-VT workers is more costly because future hires need to be trained on-the job, non-VT workers are socially tied to firm owners, and the demand for goods/services produced by VT workers falls more than for those produced by non-VT workers. We then study the impacts of firms' VT-biased responses on workers' labor market trajectories, exploiting the fact that we randomly assigned individuals to the offer of VT in 2013. We confirm that VT workers are more likely to be laid off early in the downturn, but document that VT workers remain resilient, with the returns to VT remaining positive over the downturn. The mechanisms driving VT workers resilience are the certifiability of their skills and their greater accumulation of sector-specific experience pre-pandemic, enabling them to switch firms in the same sector later in the downturn. Our findings provide new insights for low-income labor markets on firm responses to aggregate shocks and consequences for workers across the skills distribution.

Big Push Pro-poor Transfers and Perceptions of the Rich and Poor
joint with Adnan.Q.Khan (LSE), Nicolas Cerkez (UCL) and Anam Schoaib (CERP)
February 2026

Abstract Does exposure to big push pro-poor interventions impact household perceptions of their own economic standing, village inequality, and their views towards the rich and poor? We study the issue using a field experiment tracking 15,000 households over four years in rural Pakistan. Villages are randomly assigned to receive an intervention where the poor are either offered a one-time asset transfer of value $620 or an equivalent valued one-time unconditional cash transfer. In treated villages we randomize which of the poor receive the transfer, and then track treated poor, not treated poor and not poor households at two and four years post-intervention. The transfers cause large and persistent economic gains to the treated poor, and reduce village-level consumption inequality. Despite these measurable changes, we document a wedge between economic reality and household's perceptions of their own economic standing and village inequality. On perceptions towards broader classes of households, two years post-intervention, all households, irrespective of their beneficiary status, are more likely to view the rich as deserving, and are significantly less likely to view poverty as being driven by structural factors that the poor are helpless against. Results four years post-intervention highlight how exposure to economically effective big push pro-poor interventions is however unlikely to persistently shift perceptions, even as economic gains to the treated poor are sustained.

Ideas Generation in Hierarchical Bureaucracies: Evidence from a Field Experiment and Qualitative Data
joint with Margherita Fornasari (World Bank), Daniel Rogger (World Bank)
and Martin J.Williams (Michigan)
November 2025

Abstract We study ideas generation in bureaucracies, combining qualitative and quantitative evidence. We do so at-scale, using data from bureaucrats in all ministries staffed by the Ghanaian Civil Service. Our qualitative evidence shows these organizations have strong hierarchical cultures, where juniors feel unable to raise innovative ideas, and the norm is to cite Civil Service-wide resourcing issues as the main bottleneck to raising productivity. Within the confines of these hierarchical cultures, our quantitative evidence comes from a field experiment training bureaucrats how to identify simple innovations in work processes and raise these ideas with colleagues. We implemented training at the individual level, and at the division-level to bureaucrats working together day-to-day. Our key finding is that individual trainings were more effective in shifting perceived climates towards innovation, leading treated individuals to be more likely to raise and share new ideas with colleagues. This ultimately improved administrative processes and public service delivery. Division-level training was ineffective on all margins. We document the key reason for this was that divisions failed to take on board core learnings from the intervention when it was delivered collectively. Rather, division-level training led teams to suggest ideas reflecting pre-existing workplace norms, falling back on unrealistically aiming for resource intensive Civil Service-wide change. Our findings highlight the impact of interventions promoting innovation in organizations can depend critically on pre-existing hierarchical workplace cultures.