Every year, the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE) hosts a conference brings together actors from across the development economics community to present and discuss research on Africa.
This year, ISDC was represented by Behavior Research Program Director Wolfgang Stojetz and Dorothee Weiffen from our Welfare Research Program. Each presented a research paper and collected valuable feedback from the conference attendees.
Doro presented work on behavioral and welfare impacts of one-off cash transfers under extreme uncertainty. With a case study from a population of internally displaced people in South Sudan that is prone to multiple shocks, they demonstrate that treated households spent the extra cash received at the start of the floods to strengthen their flood protection, decreasing the short-term severe negative impacts of the floods by 14%. However, this impact did not translate into improved welfare outcomes after the flood period.
Wolfgang gave the participants insights into his research into the impact of conflict and climatic shocks on human behavior and welfare. More specifically, his paper dives into the joint impact of conflict and climate shocks on households’ social safety nets, based on panel survey data from 1,293 households in North-east Nigeria. His research suggests that violence shocks (without simultaneous drought shocks) increase social safety nets. Conversely, simultaneous violence and drought shocks seem to reduce social safety net strength.
We thank the organisers and participants of the CSAE Conference for their valuable input.
