Jonathan L. Weigel

2020. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 135; 4: 1849–1903. Paper. Appendix. AEA Registration. 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. R&R, American Economic Review. AEA Registration. Working Paper. CEPR WP. 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. Working Paper. AEA Registration.

This paper investigates the claim that low government enforcement capacity sets a ceiling on the revenue- maximizing (Laffer) tax rate. In collaboration with the Provincial Government of Kasaï-Central, in the D.R. Congo, we evaluate a property tax campaign that randomly assigned 40,000 property owners to the status quo tax rate or to a reduction of 17%, 33% or 50%…

with Bergeron A, Ngindu EK, Tourek G. AEA Registration.

This project examines how working as a tax collector for the formal state affects the local accountability of informal elites (city chiefs) in D.R. Congo. Rather than leading to cooptation and `decentralized despotism,’ the results suggest that delegating formal tax collection responsibilities to informal elites can in fact strengthen their accountability to their local constituents.

with Balan P, Bergeron A, Tourek G. AEA Registration.

We study a randomized land titling program that cuts the ticket price of formal land titles by 90% as well as reducing transaction costs of acquiring a title. The program increases demand for land titles by 44 percentage points and causes a 13.7 percentage-point increase in the acquisition of titles…

with Kabue E. Working Paper.

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, 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 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, forthcoming. 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…