In many rural areas of low- and middle-income countries, weekly gatherings of buyers and sellers are the most tangible manifestation of the market economy. Identifying and tracking these markets could provide insights into economic activity in data-scarce settings. However, because these markets are informal and dispersed across often-remote regions, systematic data are sparse. We develop, test, and apply a method that leverages distinctive temporal patterns…
Publication Author: Anna Tompsett
Bridges
Bridges are critical but sparse links in land transport networks. I exploit quasi-experimental variation in bridge construction over major rivers in the U.S. to measure the causal effects of land transport infrastructure. Bridges are more often built upstream than downstream of tributary confluences—where smaller rivers join larger rivers—generating local differences in connectivity. Local connectivity advantages have negative effects on per capita income. In contrast, more…
A robot-assisted pipeline to rapidly scan 1.7 million historical aerial photographs
During the 20th Century, aerial surveys captured hundreds of millions of high-resolution photographs of the Earth’s surface. These images, the precursors to modern satellite imagery, represent an extraordinary visual record of the environmental and social upheavals of the 20th Century. However, most of these images currently languish in physical archives where retrieval is difficult and costly. Digitization could revolutionize access, but manual scanning is slow…
Training caretakers to clean community wells is a highly cost-effective way to reduce exposure to coliform bacteria
Existing strategies for improving global access to safe drinking water have met only limited success. We consider an unglamorous and often neglected dimension of drinking water infrastructure provision: cleaning. We randomly assigned caretakers of community wells to participate in a training workshop about how to clean wells. Thirteen to seventeen months later, wells with caretakers assigned to receive training have negligible rates of contamination with Escherichia…
Pathways from research to sustainable development: Insights from ten research projects in sustainability and resilience
Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three challenges comprise: (i) converting knowledge produced during research projects into successful knowledge application; (ii) scaling up knowledge…
How to clean a tubewell: The effectiveness of three approaches in reducing coliform bacteria
Access to safe drinking water in rural Bangladesh remains a perpetual challenge. Most households are exposed to either arsenic or faecal bacteria in their primary source of drinking water, usually a tubewell. Improving tubewell cleaning and maintenance practices might reduce exposure to faecal contamination at a potentially low cost, but whether current cleaning and maintenance practices are effective remains uncertain, as does the extent to which best practice approaches…
Transparency, governance, and water and sanitation: Experimental evidence from schools in rural Bangladesh
Can transparency interventions improve WASH service provision? We use a randomized experiment to evaluate the impacts of a transparency intervention, a deliberative multi-stakeholder workshop initiated with a community scorecard exercise, in schools in rural Bangladesh. To measure impacts, we combine survey data, direct observations, and administrative data. The intervention leads to moderate but consistent improvements in knowledge of WASH standards and practices, and institutions for WASH service…