Staggered rollout of a titling program enabled a natural experiment in Peru

Evidence

To avoid this problem, the study exploited the variation created by the fact that the titling program was carried out in different stages. It began in certain neighborhoods in Lima and in subsequent years spread in a staggered pattern to other neighborhoods of the capital and to other cities. Rather than compare those households that obtained property titles with those that did not, the study compared the number of hours worked in the year 2000 by households eligible to obtain title (whether or not they actually obtained it) in neighborhoods already reached by the program, with hours worked by those eligible in neighborhoods the program had not yet reached. As a precaution, the author also compared the difference in working hours between those ineligible to obtain title (because they possessed formal title before the program began) in neighborhoods reached by the program and those ineligible in neighborhoods not yet reached, and subtracted this difference from the first. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1938

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom’s natural-experiment logic and to the reader’s broader interest in empirical identification strategies in institutional economics. — connects to: Peruvian property titling failed to boost credit but raised work effort — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1925; Peru’s titling experiment was entangled with other state interventions, contaminating its results — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1978; Natural experiments use policy changes to produce quasi-random variation in data — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1936 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Peru’s titling experiment was entangled with other state interventions, contaminating its results #complicates (0.88) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1978
• Natural experiments use policy changes to produce quasi-random variation in data #exemplifies (0.82) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1936
• Economic ‘natural experiments’ depend on prior policy programs, not nature #exemplifies (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1985
• Peruvian property titles shifted household labor toward outside work and adults #expands (0.78) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1926
• Economists’ natural experiments depend on infrastructure built by real-world projects #exemplifies (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1940
• Field’s titling study results may reflect political context rather than property effects #qualifies (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1929
• Interpretation of experiments depends on the history of their implementation #exemplifies (0.74) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1956
• Peru’s titling program was itself a large-scale neoliberal project #expands (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1976