2024 Theses Doctoral

Essays in Development and Environmental Economics

Grosset, Florian

Over the past two decades, economic change in sub-Saharan Africa has been characterized by the persistent importance of small and informal activities. Unlike South East Asia, economic growth has not been accompanied by an expansion of the formal manufacturing sector.

Chapters 1 and 2 of this dissertation examine social factors with the potential to dampen labor supply to the formal sector. Chapter 1 demonstrates the presence of strong complementarities in labor supply among social networks, driven by the value of commuting together with friends and neighbors to work. Chapter 2 shows that informal redistributive arrangements act as a tax on earned income, thereby dampening incentives to exert effort at work. Both of these chapters are based on field experiments, implemented in urban Cote d'Ivoire in partnership with private companies.

The third chapter of this dissertation focuses on environmental factors. It demonstrates that a large-scale forestation program in the 1930s across the US Midwest changed the climate, both locally and downwind. This policy-induced change in the climate is then used to the effects of climate change on the agricultural sector, with a specific focus on the role of adaptation. Taken together, these three chapters pave the way for future research on the green transition in lower-income countries.