Jonathan L. Weigel

2020. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 135; 4: 1849–1903. Paper. Appendix. Related links: Vox Dev, ICTD, Law360, World Bank.

This paper provides evidence from a fragile state that citizens demand more of a voice in the government when it tries to tax them. I examine a field experiment randomizing property tax collection…

with Balan P, Bergeron A, Tourek G. 2022. American Economic Review 112(3): 136. Paper. VoxDev.

We study a randomized policy experiment assigning neighborhoods of a Congolese city — spanning 45,162 properties — to tax collection by state agents or by city chiefs. Chief collection raised property tax compliance by 3.3 percentage points, increasing revenues by 43%.…

with Bergeron A, Tourek G. 2024. Econometrica 92(4): 1163-1193. Paper. JPAL Summary.

We study a policy experiment in the D.R. Congo that randomly assigned 38,028 property owners to the status quo tax rate or to a rate reduction. This variation in tax liabilities reveals that the status quo rate lies above the revenue-maximizing tax rate…

with Bergeron A, Bessone P, Kabeya JK, and Tourek G. Working Paper. VoxDev Summary. R&R American Economic Review.

This paper investigates whether a low-capacity state can raise more tax revenue through the optimal assignment of its tax collectors. We study the two-stage random assignment of property tax collectors (i) into teams, and (ii) to neighborhoods in a large Congolese city…

with Bergeron A, Ngindu EK, Tourek G. Working Paper. Winner of IIPF Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize 2023.

Delegating tax collection to informal leaders could raise revenue but runs the risk of undermining the local accountability of those leaders. We investigate this possibility by exploiting whether city chiefs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were randomly assigned to collect property taxes in 2018.

with Ahrenshop M, Bergeron A, Paler L, Tourek G, Weigel JL. Working Paper. While past scholarship finds that taxation catalyzes citizen participation, little is known about how the delegation of tax collection to local non-state actors—a common practice in developing countries—affects the fiscal contract between citizens and the state…

with Callen M and Yuchtman. 2024. Annual Review of Economics. 16:105-31. Paper.

We review an emerging experimental literature studying institutional change. Institutions are a key determinant of economic growth, but the “critical junctures” in which institutions can change are not precisely defined. For example, such junctures are often identified ex post, raising methodological problems: selection on the outcome of institutional change; an inability to study beliefs, central to coordination and thus the process of institutional change; and an in- ability to conduct experiments to identify causal effects...

with Balan P, Bergeron A, Tourek G. Paper.

Formalization always takes place against a backdrop of social institutions. Yet, whether social institutions are an asset or a constraint for formalization remains unclear….

with Kabue E. 2023. Economica. Ungated version. Published version.

How might fragile states escape a low-capacity trap in which citizens refuse to pay taxes and the government has too little revenue to increase enforcement or provide public goods? We argue that governments can initiate a virtuous cycle in which non-coercive and systematic tax collection improves perceptions of government legitimacy and increases intrinsic motivation to pay taxes.

with Kabasubabu JT, Mukendi RF, Reid O. Working Paper. AEA Registration.

This randomized controlled trial explores citizen bribe payment at roadway tolls in Kananga, D.R. Congo. We offer financial and social incentives to motorcycle taxi drivers to bring receipts proving that they paid the legal toll. Observing a 7 to 10 percentage point increase in legal transactions due to financial incentives, we estimate an elasticity of citizen supply of bribes ranging from -0.45 to -0.95.

with Bergeron A, Carvalho JP, Henrich J, and Nunn N. Working Paper. R&R, Review of Economic Studies.

We study the evolution of belief systems that suppress productive effort. These include concerns about the envy of others, beliefs in the importance of luck for success, disdain for competitive effort, and traditional supernatural beliefs in witchcraft or the evil eye…

with Sara Lowes, Nathan Nunn, and James A. Robinson. 2017. Econometrica, 85, 4, Pp. 1065-1091. PDF. Appendix. Related links: Cato Institute.

We use variation in historical state centralization to examine the impact of institutions on cultural norms. The Kuba Kingdom, established in Central Africa in the early 17th century by King Shyaam, had more developed state institutions than the other independent villages and chieftaincies in the region. It had an unwritten constitution, separation of political powers, a judicial system with courts and juries, a police force and military, taxation, and significant public goods provision…

with Sara Lowes, Nathan Nunn, and James A. Robinson. 2015. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 105, 5, Pp. 1-8. PDF Appendix. VoxEU.

Despite the salience of ethnicity in African politics, recent experimental research finds little evidence of intrinsic coethnic bias. We develop a new measure of ethnic bias that is less sensitive to experimenter demand effects and other forms of measurement error. Specifically, we argue that a tablet-based implicit association test (IAT) mitigates measurement error concerns associated with studying interethnic preferences…

with L. van Dorp, et al. 2019. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(2):593-598. PDF. BBC Inside Science.

Few phenomena have had as profound or long-lasting consequences in human history as the emergence of large-scale centralized states in the place of smaller-scale and more-local societies. This study examines a fundamental, and yet, unexplored consequence of state formation: its genetic legacy…

with Lang, M. et al. 2019. Proceedings of the Royal Academy B286: 20190202. PDF.

Explaining the emergence of large-scale cooperation during the Holocene remains a central problem in the evolutionary literature. Among several contributing mechanisms, one hypothesis points to culturally evolved beliefs in punishing, interventionist gods that facilitate the extension of cooperative behavior toward geographically distant co-religionists who are unlikely to reciprocate…

with Gilbert Tshiebue Kapepula and Max Mbosho Konshi. Religion, Brain and Behavior, 12, 150–170. doi: 10.1080/2153599X.2021.2006289. Paper.

This paper explores an empirical puzzle: individuals in urban D.R. Congo who were unsure if they would be able to provide sufficient food for their families gave more of their money away to anonymous receivers in behavioral games. They were especially likely to share money evenly. We argue that this surprising prosocial behavior reflects sharing norms associated with informal insurance, for which more materially insecure individuals presumably have higher demand. We further argue that such sharing norms are sustained in urban Congo by Pentecostal churches…