Ameek Singh

Abstract. The output of household work is rarely observed, particularly for individual members, making gendered comparative advantage difficult to measure. I develop a model-based test using household consumption per minute of domestic work: lower opportunity cost alone cannot raise this measure, whereas productive capacity can. I exploit rainfall-induced variation in household-production demand in rural India to study how such capacity forms. A one-standard-deviation rainfall increase at ages 4–7 raises girls' domestic work at ages 12–17 by 5.3 minutes daily. The estimate for boys is 1.0 minute and insignificant; infancy rainfall has no persistent effect for either gender. Effects concentrate among eldest daughters. Households whose eldest daughter experienced favourable early-childhood rainfall obtain 4–10 percent more consumption per minute, depending on current rainfall. Despite lower study time, I find little evidence of adverse effects on enrolment, grade progression, or measured learning. The results are consistent with early domestic-work engagement building task-specific productive capacity.

JEL codes: D13, J24, J16, J22, J13, O15, O12.

Abstract. How can firms build relational contracts with smallholder suppliers at scale? Partnering with a leading global coffee buyer in Rwanda, we evaluate a low-cost relationship-building training delivered through the firm's existing extension staff, using randomized phone-call-versus-SMS invitations as an instrument for attendance. Attendance sharply improves the traceability of farmers' deliveries and strengthens their relationship with the firm. The central test is take-up of a tree-stumping contract that pays farmers conditional on delivering coffee cherries the following harvest, so that signing it means trusting the firm to honor a future promise. Attendance more than triples signing and raises verified compliance, while leaving take-up of an otherwise-identical, paid-on-the-spot contract unchanged.

Exploring potential mechanisms, we find the training moved the trust margins our framework identifies — farmers' clarity about the terms of cooperation and, more modestly, the credibility of the firm's promises. Various robustness checks find no detectable effect on agricultural knowledge, practice adoption, or stable personality traits. Scalable relationship-building can thus create the trust that sustains relational contracts, and the costly investments they support, in agricultural supply chains.

Abstract. Automation is rapidly transforming manufacturing in developing countries. While it raises firm productivity, it has reduced labor's share of the gains and now threatens the livelihoods of low-skilled workers. Automation-induced mass layoffs are increasingly common, yet their consequences remain understudied in low-income settings, where formal insurance is scarce and labor markets are highly informal. Working with a multinational exporter in Burundi that will lay off approximately 2,500 low-skilled female workers, we study the labor market, welfare, and behavioral consequences of mass layoffs, from reskilling and reintegration to potential reputational backlash for the automating firm. We ask three questions. How do workers form beliefs about automation risk, and how do these beliefs shape labor supply, job search, and reskilling? How do social networks and informal insurance buffer or amplify the shock, and which social protection schemes work best? And can firm-led interventions, such as information signals, job matching, or partial job retention, mitigate the welfare losses of displaced workers?

Abstract. Agroforestry turns farms into carbon sinks, shields coffee from extreme weather, and diversifies farmer income, yet adoption in poorer countries remains low. Payment-for-ecosystem-services (PES) schemes struggle with weak take-up when payments are delayed, poor incentives when they are front-loaded, and the cost of verifying that trees are planted and survive. With one of the world's largest coffee buyers, which sources directly from over 30,000 farmers in Rwanda, we embed an agroforestry PES scheme in its sourcing relationships. In a randomized controlled trial with 3,711 farmers across five washing stations, farmers receive free seedlings and no subsidy, an upfront payment per tree planted, or a relational contract paying less upfront plus a survival bonus conditional on delivering part of the harvest to the buyer.

We also study verification on both sides of the contract: whether low-cost call-center monitoring can cut the buyer's verification costs without weakening incentives or paying non-compliant farmers, and whether an officially stamped booklet recording each completed step, a portable record of farmers' own compliance, makes the buyer's promises more credible. Preliminary evidence indicates that the booklet raises take-up by 20%, mostly among women farmers.

Abstract. Coffee trees need to be stumped every 8–12 years, leaving them fallow for 2–3 years but increasing future productivity. In Rwanda, small farms make this temporary income loss difficult to absorb, while downstream buyers hesitate to finance rejuvenation without credible future delivery commitments. We compare a delivery-contingent contract, in which farmers receive support conditional on later delivery to the buyer, with an upfront contract for farm-upgrading actions alone. The delivery-contingent contract has lower take-up, but increases subsequent delivery, making supply-chain investment more self-enforcing and scalable. A second trial tests whether frictions in hiring workers to do the stumping (search, but also trust and contracting) impose an independent barrier to farm upgrading, one that cash subsidies alone do not address.

Abstract. I harmonise 250+ nationally representative datasets from 50+ countries to measure legal employment across countries and over time. Lawyers per capita rise with development, both across countries and within countries, driven primarily by the legal-services sector rather than public-sector or in-house legal employment. Lawyers' wages keep pace with expanded supply, suggesting that the pattern is not explained only by education. I rationalise these facts with a model in which legal services provide knowledge of regulatory boundaries.

(Project on the bench — data collection complete.)