Essays on economic development, violence and infrastructure
File(s)
Author(s)
Gomez, Tamar
Type
Thesis
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between
economic development, infrastructure development - with a particular focus on roads and
electricity - and potentially mitigating factors such as insurrectional violence and corrup-
tion. My approach is empirical. For Chapters 1 and 2, I digitalised archival road maps and
collected satellite night light data to produce objective measures of development programs
output. In Chapter 3, we use household electricity consumption data of rural Rwandan
communities. Leveraging this data, I shed light on the effectiveness of development pro-
grams, public or private, local or regional, using various econometric approaches, ranging
from Instrumental Variable to OLS.
In the first chapter, I explore the link between infrastructure development programs and
violence. I examine empirically the direct and indirect effects of physical road building and
road spending programs on violence in Iraq from 2003 to 2016 using both an instrumental
variable (IV) and a first-difference and approach.
In the second chapter, I try to answer the following questions: does corruption affect
economic development? If so, to what extent and why? I delve into the Iraqi setting and
leverage the data collected for Chapter 1 to measure corruption. First, I build a novel in-
dex of corruption per district. Then I proceed to test the relationship between this index
of leakage and health and literacy outcomes. Using an event-study approach, I compare
the differential impact of development programs on illiteracy and child malnutrition in cor-
rupt and non-corrupt Iraqi districts and find that corruption alters development programs’
efficiency.
In the third and last chapter, we study electricity consumption behaviours of rural com-
munities connected to a distributed nanogrid system in Rwanda. We use a novel household
level electricity consumption dataset of over 4,000 users in close to 80 communities in Rwanda
collected by a solar nanogrid system provider to identify a sharing behaviour.
economic development, infrastructure development - with a particular focus on roads and
electricity - and potentially mitigating factors such as insurrectional violence and corrup-
tion. My approach is empirical. For Chapters 1 and 2, I digitalised archival road maps and
collected satellite night light data to produce objective measures of development programs
output. In Chapter 3, we use household electricity consumption data of rural Rwandan
communities. Leveraging this data, I shed light on the effectiveness of development pro-
grams, public or private, local or regional, using various econometric approaches, ranging
from Instrumental Variable to OLS.
In the first chapter, I explore the link between infrastructure development programs and
violence. I examine empirically the direct and indirect effects of physical road building and
road spending programs on violence in Iraq from 2003 to 2016 using both an instrumental
variable (IV) and a first-difference and approach.
In the second chapter, I try to answer the following questions: does corruption affect
economic development? If so, to what extent and why? I delve into the Iraqi setting and
leverage the data collected for Chapter 1 to measure corruption. First, I build a novel in-
dex of corruption per district. Then I proceed to test the relationship between this index
of leakage and health and literacy outcomes. Using an event-study approach, I compare
the differential impact of development programs on illiteracy and child malnutrition in cor-
rupt and non-corrupt Iraqi districts and find that corruption alters development programs’
efficiency.
In the third and last chapter, we study electricity consumption behaviours of rural com-
munities connected to a distributed nanogrid system in Rwanda. We use a novel household
level electricity consumption dataset of over 4,000 users in close to 80 communities in Rwanda
collected by a solar nanogrid system provider to identify a sharing behaviour.
Version
Open Access
Date Issued
2020-10
Date Awarded
2021-09
Copyright Statement
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial Licence
Advisor
Muuls, Mirabelle
Propper, Carol
Publisher Department
Business School
Publisher Institution
Imperial College London
Qualification Level
Doctoral
Qualification Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)