BENJAMIN MARX
bmarx@mit.edu
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
OFFICE CONTACT INFORMATION
MIT Department of Economics
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E52-301
Cambridge, MA 02139
857-928-1574
bmarx@mit.edu
http://economics.mit.edu/grad/bmarx
HOME CONTACT INFORMATION
49 Garden Street, Unit C
Boston, MA 02114
Mobile: 857-928-1574
MIT PLACEMENT OFFICER
Professor Ben Olken
bolken@mit.edu
617-253-6833
MIT PLACEMENT ADMINISTRATOR
Ms. Eva Konomi
evako@mit.edu
617-253-8787
Mr. Thomas Dattilo dattilo@mit.edu
617-324-5857
DOCTORAL
STUDIES
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
PhD, Economics, Expected completion June 2017
DISSERTATION: “Essays on Political Economy and Democratization in Africa”
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE AND REFERENCES
Professor Ben Olken
MIT Department of Economics
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E52-542
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-253-1000
bolken@mit.edu
Professor Daron Acemoglu
MIT Department of Economics
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E52-446
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-253-1000
daron@mit.edu
Professor Tavneet Suri
MIT Sloan School of Management
100 Memorial Drive, E62-517
Cambridge, MA 02142
tavneet@mit.edu
PRIOR
EDUCATION
Ecole Polytechnique / ENSAE / Sciences Po Paris
Master in Economics and Public Policy, summa cum laude
2010
Columbia University
Master of International Affairs
2009
Sciences Po Paris
Master in Public Affairs, summa cum laude
2009
CITIZENSHIP
France
LANGUAGES
English (fluent), French (fluent), German (proficient)
GENDER:
Male
BENJAMIN MARX
SEPTEMBER 2016 -- PAGE 2
FIELDS
Primary Fields: Development, Political Economy
Secondary Fields: Econometrics, Industrial Organization
TEACHING
EXPERIENCE
RELEVANT
POSITIONS
FELLOWSHIPS,
HONORS, AND
AWARDS
PROFESSIONAL
ACTIVITIES
14.32 Econometrics
Teaching Assistant to Professor Damian Pouzo
Average Student Rating: 6.7/7
2016
14.74/740 Foundations of Development Policy
Teaching Assistant to Professors David Atkin and Esther Duflo
Average Student Rating: 6.8/7
2016
MIT Economics Undergraduate Teaching Assistant of the Year
2016
Research Assistant (Project Coordinator)
to Rachel Glennerster (MIT) and Tavneet Suri (MIT Sloan)
MIT J-PAL, Cambridge, MA
2011-13
Research Assistant (Project Associate)
to Rachel Glennerster (MIT) and Tavneet Suri (MIT Sloan)
Innovations for Poverty Action, Freetown, Sierra Leone
2010-11
Research Grants for “A Market Equilibrium Approach to Reduce
the Incidence of Vote-Buying” (with Chris Blattman, Horacio
Larreguy, and Otis Reid)
J-PAL Governance Initiative (USD 300k)
Wellspring (USD 130k)
International Growth Centre (GBP 126k)
2015
Research Grants for “Informing and Mobilizing Voters by Text
Message: Evidence from a Countrywide Experiment in Kenya”
(with Vincent Pons and Tavneet Suri)
J-PAL Governance Initiative (USD 53k)
MIT Sloan School of Management (USD 100k)
2013
Research Grant for “The Growth Impacts of Diamond Mining in
Sierra Leone” (with Tavneet Suri)
International Growth Centre (GBP 14k)
2012
Refereeing: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (4), Economic
Journal (1), International Journal of Urban Sciences (1), Population &
Environment (1), Regional Science and Urban Economics (1).
Seminars and Presentations: Annual APSA Meeting (2016), Harvard
Political Economy Seminar (2014), Working Group in African Political
Economy (2013).
Fieldwork: Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda.
BENJAMIN MARX
SEPTEMBER 2016 -- PAGE 3
PUBLICATIONS
“The Economics of Slums in the Developing World”, with Thomas Stoker
and Tavneet Suri, Journal of Economic Perspectives 27(4): 187-210.
The global expansion of urban slums poses questions for economic research as
well as problems for policymakers. We provide evidence that the type of poverty
observed in contemporary slums of the developing world is characteristic of that
described in the literature on poverty traps. We document how human capital
threshold effects, investment inertia, and a "policy trap" may prevent slum
dwellers from seizing economic opportunities offered by geographic proximity
to the city. We test the assumptions of another theory -- that slums are a just
transitory phenomenon characteristic of fast-growing economies -- by
examining the relationship between economic growth, urban growth, and slum
growth in the developing world, and whether standards of living of slum
dwellers are improving over time, both within slums and across generations.
Finally, we discuss why standard policy approaches have often failed to mitigate
the expansion of slums in the developing world. Our aim is to inform public
debate on the essential issues posed by slums in the developing world.
RESEARCH
PAPERS
“The Ribbon-Cutting Effect: Policy Timing, Foreign Aid and Election
Cycles in Sub-Saharan Africa” (Job Market Paper)
This paper explores how democratic institutions are shaping policy outcomes in
Sub-Saharan Africa. To measure the responsiveness of policy choice to electoral
incentives, I estimate the effect of upcoming elections on the inception and the
completion of policy projects. Causal estimates are obtained from a novel
instrument that predicts national electoral calendars using variation in
constitutional rules at the beginning of the democratization period. I show that
the timing of a particular type of government policy (investment projects funded
by concessional loans from the World Bank) tracks the election cycle. The actual
completion of these projects, as opposed to their inception or expected
completion date ex ante, coincides with years preceding major elections. These
effects are stronger in democratic regimes, and within countries, in the regions
of birth of country leaders. I also provide suggestive evidence that the
endogenous timing of projects benefits incumbents in the subsequent election,
with voters rewarding actual completion as opposed to project initiation.
“The Perils of Building Democracy in Africa” (with Vincent Pons and
Tavneet Suri)
Prior to the 2013 elections in Kenya, the Electoral Commission sent 11 million
non-partisan text messages to registered voters in an effort to boost electoral
participation. The messages had a positive effect on turnout but also decreased
trust in Kenyan electoral institutions. We show that the information campaign
backfired because the Electoral Commission failed to deliver a transparent and
peaceful election. This failure, combined with the signal of high institutional
capacity sent by the campaign, led treated individuals to negatively update their
beliefs about the fairness of the election, as we show in a simple model. The
decrease in trust is stronger in areas that experienced election-related violence,
and for individuals affiliated (via their ethnicity) with the side that lost the
BENJAMIN MARX
SEPTEMBER 2016 -- PAGE 4
presidential election. These results highlight the trade-offs associated with
mobilizing voters in fragile democracies. In particular, sending signals of high
institutional capacity may inadvertently affect voters’ beliefs about the fairness
of the election if the electoral outcome fails to match their expectations.
“The Effect of Administrative Unit Creation on Electoral Behavior:
Evidence from Senegal” (with Guy Grossman, Horacio Larreguy, and Jessica
Gottlieb)
Numerous studies emphasize political economy factors behind the recent wave
of decentralization and redistricting reforms in the developing world. However,
this literature has generally overlooked voters’ preferences as a central driver of
administrative unit proliferation, and in particular it has yet to investigate
rigorously the electoral consequences of redistricting. In this paper, we provide
evidence that voters reward incumbents for the creation of new administrative
units in Senegal, even if the delivery of public goods has yet to be improved.
Constituents with higher expected returns from redistricting reforms are more
likely to vote for the incumbent in the subsequent election. We provide a simple
theoretical framework to explain these results: voters support reforms that
increase administrative attention towards their communities, as these reforms
imply increased administrative capacity and signal a long-term commitment of
increased public transfers.
“There Is No Free House: Ethnic Patronage in a Kenyan Slum” (with Thomas
Stoker and Tavneet Suri)
We show evidence of ethnic patronage in the housing market in a large Kenyan
slum. Slum residents pay higher rents, and live in lower quality housing
(measured via satellite pictures) when the landlord and the locality chief belong
to the same tribe. Conversely, rents are lower, and investments higher when
households and chiefs are co-ethnics. These effects are partially offset in more
ethnically diverse areas, and in areas with high youth unemployment, where
gangs restrain the power of chiefs. Our identification relies on the exogenous
appointment of chiefs and is supported by several tests, including a regression
discontinuity design.
RESEARCH IN
PROGRESS
“A Market Equilibrium Approach to Reduce the Incidence of VoteBuying” (with Chris Blattman, Horacio Larreguy, and Otis Reid)
Politicians in many developing countries win elections by purchasing votes,
undermining political accountability and public goods provision. We present the
results from a randomized experiment designed to reduce the prevalence of votebuying in the 2016 election in Uganda. The intervention consisted of a largescale grassroots campaign aimed at convincing voters and communities to
collective renounce vote-buying. Our design allows us to estimate how
candidates and their political brokers respond to the campaign in treatment and
spillover areas, how voters coordinate their actions as a result of the campaign,
and how these effects vary with local treatment intensity. While the campaign
did not reduce vote-buying, it had sizable effects on electoral outcomes, with
BENJAMIN MARX
SEPTEMBER 2016 -- PAGE 5
opposition candidates benefiting from the campaign at the expense of incumbent
candidates. We present evidence that on the supply side of the market for votes,
the campaign convinced some voters to vote in their conscience, regardless of
any gifts received. On the demand side, incumbent candidates and their brokers
responded to the campaign by attempting to buy more votes in areas neighboring
treatment villages (spillover areas), while opposition candidates increased both
their campaigning efforts and vote-buying efforts in treatment and spillover
areas. This led to an increase in vote-buying, campaigning and turnout in
spillover villages in equilibrium, which account for the effects of the campaign
on electoral outcomes.
“Islamic Institutions, Elites, and Structural Change: Evidence from
Indonesia” (with Samuel Bazzi and Gabriel Koehler-Derrick)
We exploit the aborted Indonesian land reform of 1960 to estimate the long-term
economic impact of an institution present throughout the Islamic world – the
waqf. In Islamic law, the waqf (plural awqaf) is an inalienable religious
endowment established to encourage the provision of public goods and charitable
services in perpetuity. Kuran (2001) argues that this institution was a major factor
leading to economic stagnation in predominantly Muslim societies, because it
hindered the reallocation of capital in periods of structural change. We provide
preliminary evidence that in anticipation of the planned land redistribution,
landowners with holdings above the maximum threshold allowed by the 1960
Agrarian Law transferred a large fraction of their land into waqf status to avoid
seizure by the local government. We use plausibly exogenous regional variation
in the intensity of the planned reform to identify the effect of awqaf on long-term
agricultural and economic development, and to test Kuran’s hypothesis on the
relationship between awqaf and resource misallocation.
“Pre-Colonial Institutions, Ethnic Voting and Clientelism in Sub-Saharan
Africa” (with Horacio Larreguy)
A recent literature shows that pre-colonial political centralization fosters public
goods provision in contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper, we show that
differences in public goods provision across areas with varying pre-colonial
centralization results from more transfers of resources from governments, in
exchange for electoral support, in areas where chiefs have a historical advantage
in mobilizing their communities. We first provide a simple model where an
incumbent politician garners support through targeted transfers. The electoral
efficiency of these transfers depends on the ability of chiefs to mobilize voters,
and increases when these are co-ethnics of the incumbent. We successfully test
the distinct predictions the model generates using a newly constructed
constituency-level dataset combining electoral outcomes and satellite lights from
35 Sub-Saharan African countries.