Devis Decet

This paper investigates how the spatial organization of a tax authority shapes fiscal capacity. I study a reform of the Brazilian tax authority that closed one-fourth of its local offices tasked with tax enforcement, and consolidated tax agents and decision-making power in fewer, larger offices. Leveraging regional variation in the reform and geographically disaggregated data on tax collection and local office organization, I find that consolidation increased tax revenues by 3.3%. The increase was largest where the reform allowed for more efficient utilization of enforcement and managerial resources. However, the reform led to a divergence in tax revenues within consolidated regions, particularly in peripheral areas farther from their new office and with weaker third-party reporting. My findings suggest that consolidation can lead to efficiency gains but also to amplified geographic inequality in tax enforcement.

How does the geography of water resources shape violent conflict? We assemble a georeferenced panel spanning the entire African continent from 1997 to 2023, combining detailed data on hydrology and conflict. Leveraging the spatial inequality in surface water resources and the structure of the river network, we show that heat shocks trigger conflict in nearby water-rich areas and that they propagate upstream along rivers, but not downstream. These effects are more pronounced when shocks cross ethnic boundaries along the river, in countries with weak national institutions, and in areas with persistent heat and declining water availability. Our findings highlight the geography of water resources as a key mechanism through which climatic shocks propagate into violence.

In contexts where child labour is pervasive, household decisions about allocating children's time between school and work involve a trade-off: current returns from child labour versus future returns from education. This paper tests for the existence of a third factor: future returns from child labour, as parents view farm work as an investment in agricultural skills. We provide evidence on each component of this trade-off in the context of rural Ghana by leveraging four waves of survey data on 5,000 households, exogenous shocks to agricultural productivity, and a vignette survey design to elicit parental beliefs.