David Yanagizawa
PhD Candidate

Contact Information IIES Universitetsvägen 10 Stockholm University SE–106 91 Stockholm Sweden Office: Room A874 Phone: + 46-8-162326 Mobile: +46-767-884442 Fax: + 46-8-161443 E-mail: yana[at]iies.su.se

Research Fields Development Economics Political Economy Applied Microeconomics CV [pdf] Publications "The Strategic Determinants of U.S. Human Rights Reporting: Evidence from the Cold War” (with Nancy Qian, Yale) Journal of the European Economic Association, Papers & Proceedings, April-May 2009, Vol. 8 (2-3) [pdf] "Getting Prices Right: The Impact of the Market Information System in Uganda” (with Jakob Svensson, IIES) Journal of the European Economic Association, Papers & Proceedings, April-May 2009, Vol. 8 (2-3) [pdf] "Social Capital vs Institutions in the Growth Process" (with P. Ahlerup and O. Olsson, U Gothenburg) European Journal of Political Economy, March 2009, Vol. 25, Issue 1, p.1-14 [pdf] Job Market Paper “Propaganda and Conflict: Theory and Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide” [pdf] [appendix] Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of propaganda on participation in violent conflict. I examine the effects of the infamous "hate radio" station Radio RTLM that called for the extermination of the Tutsi ethnic minority population before and during the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. I develop a model of participation in ethnic violence where radio broadcasts a noisy public signal about the value of violence. I then test the model’s predictions using a nation-wide village-level dataset on radio coverage and prosecutions for genocide violence. To identify causal effects, I exploit arguably exogenous variation in radio coverage generated by hills in the line-of-sight between radio transmitters and villages. Consistent with the model under strategic complements in violence, I find that Radio RTLM increased participation in violence, that the effects were decreasing in ethnic polarization, highly non-linear in radio coverage, and decreasing in literacy rates. Finally, the estimated effects are substantial. Complete village radio coverage increased violence by 65 to 77 percent, and a simple counter-factual calculation suggests that approximately 9 percent of the genocide, corresponding to at least 45 000 Tutsi deaths, can be explained by the radio station. A short column in The New York Times/Freakonomics blog about my paper is found here. Working Papers “Watchdog or Lapdog? Media and the U.S. Government” [pdf] Joint with Nancy Qian, Yale Abstract: This paper investigates the extent to which strategic objectives of the U.S. government influenced news coverage during the latter part of the Cold War (1976-88). We establish two reduced form relationships: 1) strategic objectives of the U.S. government causes the State Department to under-report human rights violations of political allies; and 2) these objectives reduce news coverage of human rights abuses for political allies in U.S. newspapers. To establish causality, we exploit plausibly exogenous variation in a country’s strategic value to the U.S. from the interaction of its political alliance to the U.S. and membership on the United Nations Security Council. Work in Progress “Tuning in the Market Signal: Contracting and Efficiency under Asymmetric Price Information in Uganda’s Agricultural Market” Joint with Jakob Svensson, IIES Outline: The Market Information Service project in Uganda collected data on prices for the main agricultural commodities in major market centers and disseminated the information through local FM radio stations in various districts. Using variation in exposure over time, across space, and between crops, we study the effects of provision of market price information on small-scale farmers' market activity. Consistent with a simple contract model, we find that better-informed farmers are more likely to engage in market exchange, they sell larger shares of their output, and they receive higher prices for their crops. These effects are more pronounced when the market price is more volatile, making uninformed farmers' predictions of current market price less precise, and when the degree of competition between traders is lower. Together, our results indicate that the provision of price information reduced market failures due to asymmetric information between farmers and traders, and lead to increased market activity and incomes for the informed farmers. “Economic Rents and State Repression: Evidence from the Indonesian Occupation of East Timor” Outline: Basic political economy theory suggests that the level of state repression and human rights abuses increases with economic rents associated with the government. I test this prediction by exploiting a natural experiment from the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Shortly after the Indonesian invasion in 1975, the government imposed a coffee monopoly in East Timor that required all coffee farmers to sell their produce, at domestically fixed prices, through a private company closely associated with the Indonesian army. This created economic rents when the company resold the coffee in the international coffee market. I use quarterly, district-level, data on human rights violations and international coffee prices during the monopoly period to test whether increased monopoly rents increased civilian killings by the Indonesian army. The paper exploits variation in international coffee prices, and test whether price shocks increase civilian killings more in coffee-producing districts than in non-coffee producing districts. The preliminary results show that there was a positive and significant increase in killings due to coffee price shocks. Furthermore, there is no effect on killings after the monopoly was abolished. The evidence therefore suggests that the killings were driven by the rents associated with the coffee monopoly. “Living Goods: A Cluster Randomized Trial of Impact of Sustainable Community Health Promoters in Uganda” Joint with Jakob Svensson (IIES) and Martina Björkman (Bocconi) Outline: The medical know-how needed to defeat the deadly afflictions of malaria, diarrhoea and malnutrition has been available for many years. Yet, billions of dollars and a half-century of effort have failed to prevent 10 million children from dying every year from these easily preventable diseases. This simple fact suggests that medical solutions are not the core of the problem, but the lack of efficient and sustainable means of delivering them. Public health facilities across much of sub-Saharan Africa not only suffer chronic shortages, but while there are thousands of independent drug sellers in Africa, private drug shops frequently stock counterfeit or out of date medicines. This suggests that the market for key health products is subject to a market-of-lemons equilibrium. We investigate the market for health products and the impact of an innovative business model, the Living Goods/BRAC model, aimed at solving part of the service delivery problem. In particular, we estimate the effects of introducing high quality health products at below-market prices on market and health outcomes. The trial is ongoing. Policy Report "Growth and Poverty Reduction: Evaluating Rwanda's First PRS" [pdf] Report for Sida, 2005 (with A. Bigsten, U Gothenburg)

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