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Building Fiscal Capacity and State Accountability in Fragile Settings

Jensen A and Weigel JL. 2026. “No Taxation Without Administration: Bringing the State Back into the Public Finance of Developing Countries.” Journal of Economic Literature. Working Paper. AEA highlight.
Balan P, Bergeron A, Tourek G, Weigel JL. 2026. “Property Rights and Social Institutions in Urban Africa: Experimental Evidence from a Land Formalization Program in the DRC.” Cond. Accepted, Comparative Political Studies. Paper
Bergeron A, Tourek G, and Weigel JL. 2024. “The State Capacity Ceiling on Tax Rates: Evidence from Randomized Tax Abatements in the D.R. Congo.” Econometrica 92(4): 1163-1193. Paper. JPAL Summary.
Ngindu EK, Weigel JL. 2023. “The Taxman Cometh: A Virtuous Cycle of Compliance and State Legitimacy in the D.R. Congo.” Economica (100th Anniversary Edition) 12489: 1-35. Working Paper
Balan P, Bergeron A, Tourek G, Weigel JL. 2022. “Local Elites as State Capacity: How Local Information Increases Tax Compliance in the D.R. Congo.” American Economic Review 112(3): 1-36. Paper. VoxDev.
Weigel JL. 2020. “The Participation Dividend of Taxation: How Citizens in Congo Engage More with the State when It Tries to Tax Them.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 135(4): 1849-1903. Paper. Appendix. Related links: Vox Dev, ICTD, Law360, World Ban k.

Working Papers / In Progress

Tourek G, Laroche A, Bergeron A, Naritomi J, Weigel JL, Ngoma M “Does Progressivity Raise Tax Capacity? Experimental Evidence from DR Congo.” Working Paper.
Bergeron A, Weigel JL, Tourek G, Ngindu EK “Does Collecting Taxes Erode the Responsiveness of Informal Leaders? Evidence from the DRC” Winner of IIPF Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize 2023. Working Paper.
Ahrenshop M, Bergeron A, Paler L, Tourek G, Weigel JL. “Delegating Tax Collection Does Not Adversely Aﬀect Demand for Accountability: Evidence from an Experiment in the D.R. Congo.” Working Paper.
de la O A et al. “Making Citizens Legible to the State: A Six-country Randomized Experiment to Increase Formalization by Reducing Transaction Costs.” PDF
Bergeron A, Davoine E, Granato G, Ngoma M, Robinson JA, Weigel JL. “Legal Antecedents of Fiscal Capacity: Experimental Evidence from Congo.” [fieldwork ongoing]
Bergeron A, Boyer C, Kapon S, Weigel JL. “Does Tax Bargaining Cause State Building? Evidence from the DRC” [fieldwork ongoing]
Danner S, Ngoma M, Pomeranz D, Tourek G, Weigel JL. “Can Mobile Money Aid Tax Administration? Evidence from the DRC” [fieldwork ongoing]
Danner S, Ngoma M, Pomeranz D, Tourek G, Weigel JL. “Home Eﬀects in Tax Collection: Evidence from the DRC” [fieldwork ongoing]
Benshaul-Tolonen A, Cheung C, Miguel E, Mudenda D, Weigel JL. “Extractives and African Development: Evidence from the Largest Copper Discovery in a Century.” [fieldwork ongoing]

Political Economy of State Building and Institutional Change

Published and Accepted

Callen M, Levy G, Muthukumaran S, Weigel JL, Yuchtman N. 2026. “Detecting Critical Junctures in Real Time: Foundations, Measurement, and Applications from 120 Years of Reporting,” Forthcoming in the Handbook of Political Economy (eds. Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson)
Callen M, Weigel JL, Yuchtman N. 2024. “Experiments about Institutions.” Annual Review of Economics 16:105-31 Paper

Working Papers / In progress

Callen M, Fiorin S, Pande R, Prillaman S, Weigel JL, Yuchtman N. 2026. “Institutional Uncertainty and State Building: National-Scale Evidence from Nepal.” [working paper coming soon]
Callen M, Pande R, Weigel JL, Yuchtman N. “Procedural Justice and State Capacity: Evidence from Birth Registration in Nepal.” [fieldwork ongoing]
Callen M, Kanz M, Quiviger Z, Weigel JL, Yuchtman N. “Coordinating Beliefs and Critical Junctures: Experimental Evidence from 18 Countries.” [fieldwork ongoing]

Published and accepted

Bergeron A, Carvalho JP, Henrich J, Nunn N, Weigel JL. “Zero-Sum Thinking, the Evolution of Eﬀort- Suppressing Beliefs, and Economic Development.” Cond. accepted, Review of Economic Studies. Working Paper.
Lang M et al. 2019. “Moralizing Gods, Extended Prosociality, and Religious Parochialism Across 15 Societies.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 286: 20190202. PDF.
van Dorp et al. 2019. “The Genetic Legacy of State Centralization in the Kuba Kingdom of the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(2): 593-598. PDF. BBC Inside Science.
Lowes S, Nunn N, Robinson JA, and Weigel JL. 2017. “The Evolution of Culture and Institutions: Evidence from the Kuba Kingdom.” Econometrica 85(4): 1065-1091. PDF. Appendix. Related links: Cato Institute.

Working Papers

Ngoma M, Sievert C, Jaravel X, Nunn N, Weigel JL r ⃝. “How Market Access Shapes Wellbeing and Values: Experimental Evidence from the D.R. Congo.” [working paper coming soon]
Cerkez N, Hartman A, Weigel JL, Zay Ya K. “Can Mental Health Programs Have Social Externalities? Experimental Evidence from Myanmar.” Working Paper.

Bergeron A, Carvalho JP, Henrich J, Nunn N, Weigel JL. “The Dynamics of Development in a Zero-Sum World.” Cond. accepted, Econometric Society Monographs, Vol. 3 (Ch. 5).
Naritomi J, Sequeira S, Weigel JL, Weinhold D. 2019. “RCTs as an opportunity to promote interdisciplinary, inclusive, and diverse quantitative development research.” World Development 127:104832. Paper
Lowes S, Nunn N, Robinson JA, and Weigel JL. 2015. “Understanding Ethnic Identity in Africa: Evidence from the Implicit Association Test (IAT).” American Economic Review: P&P 105(5):1-8. PDF Appendix. VoxEU.
Kapepula GT, Konshi MM, Weigel JL. 2022. “Prosociality and Pentecostalism in the D.R. Congo.” Religion, Brain, and Behavior 12: 150-170. Paper.
Farmer P et al. 2013. “Reduced Premature Mortality in Rwanda: Lessons from Success.” British Medical Journal 346:f65. Paper.