We study the relative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and interaction of family- and school-based learning interventions using a randomized controlled trial in Colombia that assigns children to a parental engagement program, a teacher professional development program, both, or a control group. Both interventions are grounded in a child-centered learning approach that emphasizes active engagement and the progression from informal to formal mathematical understanding. Each intervention independently generates sizable and statistically similar gains in early numeracy (0.17σ and 0.20σ). Combining them produces no additional learning gains, suggesting that the two interventions act as substitutes over the time horizon and skill domain we study. When benefits accruing to future cohorts are taken into account, the teacher development program becomes at least as cost-effective as, and potentially more cost-effective than, the parental engagement intervention. Our results suggest that, in this setting, strategically concentrating resources on a single binding constraint – either at home or in school – maximizes the short-run learning gains per dollar spent.

We experimentally evaluate whether an interest-based negotiation training for community leadersin Liberia improves their ability to strike beneficial deals related to their land and forests. Weuse environmental assessments, lab-in-the-field, and surveys and find that trainees are 27% morelikely to reach a beneficial agreement, and it raises the total surplus earned by $2.74 USD, whichis a 42% increase. Our exploration of mechanisms indicates that the training increases trainees’capacity to identify valuable deals, but does not improve their appraisal of their outside option. Wefind a reduction (0.27 standard deviations) in the exploitation of communal forestland in treatedcommunities. (JEL: D72, H00, C72, C82)

This paper investigates the intergenerational transmission of socio-emotional skills during childhood, using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) in the United Kingdom. This dataset enables us to measure two dimensions of socio-emotional development: internalising and externalising skills. More importantly, we can use multiple measures of parents’ skills collected during both their childhood and their adulthood. Whereas parent–child skills are strongly related when both are measured contemporaneously, they remain correlated when both are measured in childhood, with a stronger transmission observed from mothers to their children. The BCS70 data finally enable us to estimate the correlation between the grandmother’s internalising skill and the grandchildren’s skills, after accounting for parental skills.

Over 150 countries have laws allowing expatriate citizens to vote in their country of origin. Yet, little is known about their voting behavior and how this is affected by their host countries. Using unique micro-data on Chilean expatriates living in Europe and exploiting increases in the cost of voting caused by rainfall during the 2014 European Parliament election day in districts where Chileans reside, we show that 1 percentage point increase in the host-country local turnout decreases expatriates’ electoral participation in their home-country elections by nearly 1 percentage point. The result is driven by expatriates who were better integrated in the host-country societies. Evidence from surveys shows that higher host turnout promotes expatriates’ participation in host-country organizations and less in home-country organizations. Overall, our results suggest that in communities with high-political participation, migrants engage more with the local politics at the expense of their home-country politics.