Working Papers
- [JMP] Does Performance Evidence Motivate? A Field Experiment in Guinea-Bissau’s Health Sector.
Abstract: This paper investigates how employees respond to evidence about their organization’s achievements in accomplishing its mission. In a randomized field experiment with the Ministry of Public Health of Guinea-Bissau, I provide front-line health workers with evidence of their program’s effectiveness in improving local health indicators. The intervention significantly enhanced healthcare service delivery performance, with treated workers providing 39 percent more healthcare time to recipients compared to the control group six months post-intervention. The intervention appears particularly effective in correcting inaccurate and over-optimistic prior beliefs about the status of health indicators. These results highlight the potential for organizations to employ mission achievement evidence for enhancing workers’ performance.
Winner of Weiss Family Distinguished Paper at NEUDC 2023, Harvard Kennedy School
- Presentations (including scheduled): NOVAFRICA Conference 2024 | CSAE Conference 2024 | Hong Kong University of Science and Technology | University of Glasgow | Navarra Center for International Development | Imperial College Business School | University of Leicester School of Business | IE University | University of Alicante | NEUDC 2023 at Harvard University | World Bank DIME-KDI School 4th Development Impact Conference | Nova SBE Applied Micro WG Seminar | University of St.Gallen | Oxford Development Economics Workshop (OXDEV) 2023 | Advances with Field Experiments (AFE) 2023 Conference at The University of Chicago | 2023 Annual Conference SITES at University of Naples Parthenope | Royal Economic Society Ph.D. Conference 2023 at The University of Glasgow | Transatlantic Doctoral Conference 2023 at London Business School | Yale-RISE Conference 2022 | NOVAFRICA Conference 2022 | NOVAFRICA Working Group | Lisbon Micro Group
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Publications
- Motivating Volunteer Health Workers in an African Capital City (with Teresa Molina-Millán and Pedro C. Vicente) – Journal of Development Economics, (2023) 163, 103096
Media: Interactive videos – R1, R2, R3 (Linear version – R1, R2, R3) - Let’s Call! Using the Phone to Increase Vaccine Acceptance (with Alex Armand and Pedro C. Vicente) – Health Economics (2023)
Coverage: IGC, RTP Africa - COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance and Hesitancy in Low and Middle Income Countries, and Implications for Messaging (with Solís Arce, J.S., Warren, S.S., Meriggi, N.F. et al.) – Nature Medicine (2021).
Coverage: Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism, Emergency Services, EurekAlert!, IGC Policy Brief, India Education Diary, IPA, Nature Medicine Editorial, TCD News, Visão
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Selected work in progress
- Evaluating Direct and Indirect Communication Strategies to Deliver Market Information (with Brais Álvarez-Pereira, Aliu Bá, Nério Cá, Aida Embaló, Matilde Grácio, Deoclécio Marinho, Adewusi Mendonça, Giulio Schinaia, and Dayvikson Tavares) – Data collection ongoing
Abstract: Access to timely market information can improve bargaining power in transactions. However, subscription services, requiring users to pay to access market information, reach only a small fraction of the potential market. Employing a randomized clustered control trial across 187 villages in Guinea-Bissau, we evaluate various models for disseminating market information. In about two-thirds of the villages, a focal point appointed by the village receives weekly market updates via phone calls from a team of market analysts based in the capital. These focal points are encouraged to share this information with other producers in their respective villages. Additionally, we randomly allocate half of the focal points with a list of buyers’ contacts to examine whether search barriers impede transactions in this market. In the remaining third of the villages, producers are offered direct access to weekly market updates via robocalls and an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system through a subscription service. Our study contributes to understanding the role of human intermediaries in facilitating market information access and provides insights for designing effective interventions to enhance market access for small-scale producers. - Malaria prevention in rural communities (with Brais Álvarez-Pereira, Teresa Molina-Millán, and Pedro C. Vicente) – Data collection ongoing
Abstract: In this paper, we study testing the impact of introducing a formal collaboration between progressive traditional healers in Guinea-Bissau and the formal health system. The study will focus on the delivery of actions for malaria prevention and treatment, in effect reaching out to traditional healers as the equivalent of Community Health Workers in this dimension of the supply of formal health services. In particular, the collaboration will concentrate on improving the implementation of community malaria Test & Treat, intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy, and the use of long-lasting impregnated mosquito nets.