Politics, Culture, and Values: Evidence from the DRC
Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026 2:30 PM - 4:30 PM (EST)
- Chair: Sara Lowes, University of California-San Diego
The Consequences of Urban Market and Church Access in Rural DRC.
Abstract
Throughout the world, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, cities are the centers of innovation, entrepreneurship, social connections, and economic growth. This project seeks to provide causal evidence about the effects of access to cities in rural Africa on individuals' behaviors, beliefs, and economic wellbeing. We study the randomized rollout of a program increasing urban access in rural villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This "City Access Program" provides regular weekly transportation to the city of Kananga -- a city of about 1.7 million people -- to individuals living in rural villages surrounding the city. Focusing on the differentiating features of cities in our setting, one treatment arm provides weekly transportation directly to markets and encourages villagers to buy or sell goods there as they please. The second treatment arm provides weekly transportation to the city along with an invitation to attend a church group. The study compares the economic and psychosocial wellbeing of participants across each of the two treatment arms, as well as the control group. Thus, we gain an understanding of the effects of cities working through market integration and religious social networks.Wage Inequality in Institutions : A Great Divergence in the DRCongo
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to study the extent of inter-institutional inequalities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). More specifically, we document the dynamics of inter-institutional inequalities in public administration in the DRC. To do this, we first construct series on average salaries in each institutional entity in the DRC covering the period 2010-2022. On the basis of this data, we studied the evolution of wage dynamics within Congolese institutions. More specifically, we used the Phillips and Sul (2007)’s convergence test method that involves identifying convergence clubs. It begins by testing for overall convergence and then applies a club merging algorithm to form initial clubs. These clubs represent groups of observations that exhibit similar convergence patterns, providing insights into the dynamics of regional or sectoral convergence. We find that institutional wages do not converge into a single common equilibrium. However, there are four significant convergence clubs grouped based on Functional Similarities.Moral Violence: Unbundling Social Preferences at the Heart of a Major Armed Group in Congo
Abstract
Economists generally view prosociality as fostering cooperation. Yet, other disciplines suggest it can also fuel lethal violence, shaping the composition of violent organizations. Theoretically, we establish that prosociality inhibits violence when preferences over the outcomes of violence and the act of violence are bundled, but can enable it when unbundled, as societal morality drives the most committed to suppress aversion to the act of violence. Empirically, a challenge is that studying violent organizations is difficult due to secrecy. We built access inside a major militia in the DRC, embedding a notification system within its HR division and surveying joiners before enlistment alongside non-joiners. Three patterns reveal how prosociality fuels violence. First, non-joiners are averse to violence against the collective but inclined to violence toward enemy. In comparison, before enlistment, joiners exhibit both greater outcome-prosociality toward their collective and inclination to the act of violence against the enemy. Psychophysiological data and militia supervisor evaluations validate this pattern. Second, the expression of these social preferences is shaped by a ‘morality of genocidal war’ that defines enlisting as outcome-prosocial for collective defense and killing the enemy—even genocidal acts—as a moral duty of collective retaliation and liberation. Third, after enlistment, joiners become further desensitized to enemy suffering. These findings suggest that prosociality, shaped first by moral values and later by violent organizations, can fuel lethal violence via the human capacity for selective empathy suppression, and challenge the conventional view of conflict as inefficient.Age Sets, Accountability, and the Balance of Power: Evidence from Villages in Rural Congo
Abstract
Across Africa, village chiefs are the foundation of village-level politics. They are typically older and, as a consequence, less educated. This, along with concerns of despotism, has led to initiatives aimed at empowering younger individuals or creating committees that provide checks on the village chief. We study the consequences of these efforts, explicitly accounting for the fact that the effects of empowering younger cohorts is likely contingent on the underlying social structure of the village. Particularly relevant is that across Africa, age sets, which comprise initiation rituals for young men, are common. A documented consequence of age sets is that they generate a balance of power by creating a cohesive group of young men that provided a check on older political elites. Our study, working within a randomized intervention, shows that the effects of empowering young men and checking the power of the chief depends critically on the underlying social structure of the village -- namely, whether age sets are present. In villages without age sets, empowering young men is ineffective and leads to more capture by the village elite. In villages with age sets, young men do indeed work more effectively together to provide more political oversight. However, the increased cohesion generates outcomes that are similar to the status quo. Thus, we find that in a gerontocratic setting such as ours, empowering young men can backfire, especially if social structures that unify young men -- namely, age sets -- are not present.JEL Classifications
- Z1 - Cultural Economics; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology
- O1 - Economic Development