Age Sets, Accountability, and the Balance of Power: Evidence from Villages in Rural Congo
There is increasing evidence of the importance of tailoring development interventions to the local context. We implement an RCT in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there is variation in the presence of age sets, a mode of social organization that creates cohesive groups of young men who provide a check on the power of the older political elite. We provide villages chiefs with cash to purchase health products and form oversight committees. Some villages are randomly assigned to form a diverse committee and other villages are randomly assigned to form a young male committee. We ask whether young male committees in villages with age sets are more effective due to the match between the structure of the intervention and the social structure in the village. We find that young male committees in villages with age set are more cohesive, participate in more oversight tasks, and generated a more equitable distribution of products. In particular, we find that the chiefs and those within their network received fewer products. We find no effects on graft – project funds that are not spent on health products.
Date: 29 April 2025, 11:30
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Skills Lab
Speaker: Nathan Nunn (University of British Columbia)
Organising department: Department of Economics
Part of: Political Economy Seminar
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editors: Emma Heritage, Edward Clark