Belinda Archibong

Columbia University | CU · Department of Economics (Barnard)

Institutions of justice, like prisons, can be used to serve economic and other extrajudicial interests, with lasting deleterious effects. We study the effects on incarceration when prisoners are used primarily as a source of labor using evidence from British colonial Nigeria. We digitized sixty-five years of archival records on prisons from 1920 to...

In 1996, following an epidemic, Pfizer tested a new drug on 200 children in Muslim Nigeria. 11 children died while others were disabled. We study the effects of the disclosure, in 2000, of the deaths of Muslim children in the Pfizer trials on vaccine compliance among Muslim mothers. Muslim mothers reduced routine vaccination of children born after...

Over three decades after market-oriented structural reforms termed “Washington Consensus” policies were first implemented, we revisit the evidence on policy adoption and the effects of these policies on socio-economic performance in sub-Saharan African countries. We focus on three key ubiquitous reform policies around privatization, fiscal discipli...

Background Population-level health and mortality data are crucial for evidence-informed policy but scarce in Nigeria. To fill this gap, we undertook a comprehensive assessment of the burden of disease in Nigeria and compared outcomes to other west African countries. Methods In this systematic analysis, using data and results of the Global Burden o...

Can citizen-led protests lead to meaningful economic redistribution and nudge governments to increase redistributive efforts of fiscal resources? We study the effects of protests on fiscal redistribution using evidence from Nigeria. We digitized twenty-six years of public finance data from 1988 to 2016 to examine the effects of protests on intergov...

What are the links between climate change, epidemics and socioeconomic inequality? While recent epidemics have focused attention on the effects of epidemics on economic outcomes, and a separate literature in climate science and environmental health has linked global environmental change to increased incidence of epidemics of infectious disease, the...

In this commentary, we examine existing models for SARS-Cov-2 in Africa and propose new avenues for modeling infectious disease, including useful lessons for policymakers during the pandemic.

Mental health disorders account for a significant share of the overall global disease burden and translate into staggeringly large economic losses, particularly in low-income countries, where people are faced with several unexpected shocks. We test whether improved communication can mitigate such mental health disorders. Partnering with a major tel...

Over three decades after market-oriented structural reforms, termed "Washington consensus" policies, were first implemented, we revisit the evidence on policy adoption and the effects of these policies on socioeconomic performance in sub-Saharan African countries. We focus on three key ubiquitous reform policies around privatization, fiscal discipl...

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has been most devastating to already-vulnerable populations. At the same time, it has brought our interconnectedness into sharp focus. Policies chosen in one jurisdiction affect conditions in others, and even regions isolated from each other are linked through third parties. This calls for harmonization of st...

Epidemics can negatively affect economic development except mitigated by global governance institutions. We examine the effects of sudden exposure to epidemic disease on human capital outcomes using evidence from the African meningitis belt. Meningitis shocks reduce child health outcomes, especially in periods when the World Health Organization (WH...

Epidemics can worsen social inequality by increasing gender gaps in educational attainment through raising the direct and opportunity costs of investing in girls, particularly in poorer countries. We investigate this hypothesis by examining the effects of sudden exposure to the 1986 meningitis epidemic in Niger on the gender gap in education. We do...

The goal of this chapter is to examine the role of climate-induced disease in widening the gender gap in human capital investment. This chapter reviews the literature on climate change, disease and gender gaps, and highlights evidence from a particular disease context—the meningitis belt in sub-Saharan Africa. It provides evidence that changes in t...

Although the literature has discussed the benefits of precolonial centralization for development in Africa, the findings and the mechanisms provided do not explain the heterogeneity in access to public services of formerly centralized regions. Using new survey data from Nigeria, a significant negative association between precolonial centralization...

Africa is often referred to as the world's youngest continent, with 60% of its population below the age of 25. How do these young citizens understand the "social contract" and view their roles in society, particularly in relation to their governments and interactions with other citizens? And what are the links between trust in government institutio...

This paper studies the role of labor coercion in fiscal capacity building in Nigeria during the colonial era. We estimate the value gained from labor coercion and compare this to other colonial expenditure using evidence from British colonial Nigeria. We use datasets on wages and prisoners from 1920 through 1938 to examine the evolution of value ga...

Horizontal inequality by ethnic group has remained remarkably persistent for wealth, education and access to certain public services in Nigeria. While there has been notable progress made towards improving access to, and reducing ethnic inequality in access to locally administered services like some sanitation services and potable water, outcomes a...

Research and writing are critical components of an undergraduate education. Partnerships between economics faculty and campus resources can improve student research and writing skills. Here, the authors describe programs at three different campuses that bridge department and campus resources: the Empirical Reasoning Lab at Barnard College, the Writ...

This paper examines whether disease burdens, especially prevalent in the tropics, contribute significantly to widening gender gaps in educational attainment. We estimate the impact of sudden exposure to the 1986 meningitis epidemic in Niger on girls' education relative to boys. Our results suggest that increases in meningitis cases during epidemic...

Is functionality of electricity, sanitation and water infrastructure at schools unequally distributed geographically in Nigeria? Are there significant disparities in infrastructure functionality between Northern and Southern geopolitical zones in the country as has been posited in previous studies? In this study, we answer these questions with an e...

Extremes of nature like hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes influence human welfare in a variety of ways. While it might seem counterintuitive, evidence from long run macro-economic data suggests that when natural extremes are especially destructive to human societies, and earn the title ``natural disaster'' they can actually have a beneficial eff...