Fairness, technology adoption, water sanitation and pandemic control : Six essays on four topics in Development Economics

Abstract: Contribution Requirements and Redistribution Decisions: Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh uses a controlled experiment to assess the effects of requiring co-funding to development programs on the efficiency and distribution of benefits within the community.Market Access and Quality Upgrading: Evidence from Randomized Experiments tests if increasing reward to quality produce improves profits, agricultural productivity, and input use, using a randomized experiment in Uganda. How do community contribution requirements affect local public good provision? Experimental evidence from safe water sources in Bangladesh evaluates how community contribution requirement –in cash and labour– change take-up and impact of a development intervention through a randomized experiment of water source construction.Do community water sources provide safe drinking water? Evidence from a randomized experiment in rural Bangladesh exploits a random experiment to analyse how effectively the construction of community water sources improves drinking water quality.Predicted COVID-19 fatality rates based on age, sex, comorbidities, and health system capacity extrapolates adjustments to estimate COVID-19 fatality rates from high-income to lower-income regions.The Macroeconomics of Pandemics in Developing Countries: an Application to Uganda models how optimal pandemic containment varies from high- to lower-income countries.