Marie Christelle Mabeu
Marie Christelle Mabeu is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Princeton University. Her research interests are in Development Economics, Human Capital (health and education), Gender, Demography, Financial inclusion, and Political Economy. Some of her recent studies examine the long-term impact of historical and present-day institutions on health outcomes. Much of her current research focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. Before joining Princeton University, she worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University and was a Research fellow at the World Bank. Marie Christelle received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Ottawa, Canada.
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Marie Christelle Mabeu is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Princeton University. Her research interests are in Development Economics, Human Capital (health and education), Gender, Demography, Financial inclusion, and Political Economy. Some of her recent studies examine the long-term impact of historical and present-day institutions on health outcomes. Much of her current research focuses on sub-Saharan Africa. Before joining Princeton University, she worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University and was a Research fellow at the World Bank. Marie Christelle received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Ottawa, Canada.
In their own words…
IEA – Can you tell us a little bit about your life story, what got you interested in economics, and how you decided to pursue an academic career?
Marie – I grew up in Cameroon where I did most of my undergraduate studies. Coming into college I knew I was interested in quantitative studies but without a clear idea of the career path I would like to pursue. In my third year in college, I was fortunate to have a summer internship in an International Organization (United Nations Development Program) promoting development and poverty reduction in developing countries. I mainly learned how international organizations collaborate with governments to provide financial support to selected micro-entrepreneurs in underdeveloped regions. This exposure to financial decision-making and their impact on our communities and environment sparked my interest in studying Finance and later Economics. However, I was only truly convinced of my choice when I took my first microeconometric class. It was then that I realized that economics is less a subject than a lens through which I can analyze absolutely anything and everything. As I delved deeper into Economics as a Ph.D. student, I’ve realized how interdisciplinary the field is and all the different fields it could be used in, from policy work to academic research.
IEA – In your recent work you study how colonial reproductive policy shapes fertility behaviour in Africa. Can you summarize the main findings from this study? What made you interested in this topic?
Marie – I have always been interested in issues of gender equity. I grew up in a context where women did not enjoy the same rights and opportunities as men. At the same time, I was impressed to see that within Africa in general, this phenomenon varies a great deal across cultures and regions. As a doctoral student, I was very interested in understanding the origins of such variations and what can be done to improve women’s conditions in Africa. One big question that had remained unanswered was the question of why fertility choices seem to differ so much between Francophone and Anglophone women in Africa; Anglophone women have fewer children than their Francophone counterparts. I then settled to investigate this question by looking at the role that colonial population policies might have played in shaping the trajectory of fertility and more broadly reproductive health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.
In this working paper, we address this broad question first by examining the effect of British versus French colonial reproductive laws and policies on fertility, and second by examining how these colonial reproductive policies interact with market access to shape fertility behavior in Africa.
We use the partition of African ethnic groups across countries during colonial times to implement a Spatial Regression Discontinuity Design. This is a design that allows us to compare fertility level across women from the same cultural background who were exposed to different colonial reproductive policies. We find that women residing in former British colonies have fewer children compared to their counterparts in former French colonies. We show that this result is most likely explained by the lasting impact of different colonial reproductive policies on the timing of the introduction of family planning programs in former British and French colonies in Africa. In particular, the colonial French law of 1920 constrained the implementation of birth control policies in former French colonies until the early 1980s and resulted in lower reliance on modern contraception in these countries. By contrast, family planning programs were introduced in former British colonies in the late 1950s.
Interestingly, we also find that this main result masks important heterogeneities by market access. Market access denotes the ability of individuals to sell their products or services to the consumers across local areas, regions, and national borders. By creating new economic opportunities, market access is a proxy for the opportunity cost of childbearing. We construct measures of access to international and domestic markets and show that the fertility gap between Anglophone and Francophone women in Africa disappears in areas with higher market access. Market incentives cause these women to use modern birth control contraceptive methods, which minimizes differences in fertility behavior resulting from colonial population policies. The long-term effect of colonial origins on fertility only persists in areas with low market access.
Personally, I was surprised to see that the fertility gap between Anglophone and Francophone women in Africa in areas with low market access is not explained by differences in level of education or household income. Our analysis suggests that market incentives may overturn the long-term fertility effect of colonial origins.
IEA – Why is this research relevant today and how can understanding historical contexts impact policy decisions?
Marie – Historical research is important as understanding of history partly shapes understanding of the present. Over the past two decades, there has been a remarkable increase in the number of papers on topics related to economic history. Scholars working on Africa have adopted either a descriptive approach or a predictive approach. The descriptive approach has consisted of describing past events such as the slave trade, colonization, decolonization, and missionary activity. The predictive approach instead analyzes the short, medium and long-term socioeconomic and political impacts of these different events. These two approaches combined have yielded a great deal of knowledge on African economic history. They provide the general context and background to current policy issues, and they point to policies that can be implemented to change the impacts of factors that have been completely overlooked by policymakers owing to the fact that they are immutable. This can help policy-makers question accepted policy solutions and can open up more options for dealing with current policy problems.
My research in this area illustrates all this. For instance, my work on colonial origins of Fertility in Africa and my ongoing research on Colonial Forced Labor in Burkina Faso, identify the deep-rooted explanations of present-day Africa’s exceptional fertility trends. In another work looking at the interaction between colonial history and post-colonial institutions in Cameroon, we show how institutions inherited from the colonial past have been modified and even undermined by postcolonial institutions leading to differential economic development today.
IEA – In another recent paper you study how ethnic divisions influence policy in the context of COVID-19 pandemic response. You find that ethnic divisions rather than diversity reduce the efficacy of crisis response, can you briefly summarize your findings?
Marie – Beside working on the historical roots of human capital accumulation and economic development, another part of my research agenda aims to understand how structural factors such as ethnic and racial segregation affect the spread of infectious diseases that present high levels of externalities. It is now well accepted that ethnic composition affects a wide range of outcomes. However, there has been little emphasis given to how ethnic composition affects government crisis response.
In particular, it is hard to distinguish between ethnic diversity and ethnic divisions. We exploit the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, to show that ethnic divisions, rather than ethnic diversity, significantly reduced the efficacy of crisis response and spurred drastic differences in COVID-19’s impact. The analysis shows that U.S. counties with high levels of ethnic divisions fared worse than their less-divided counterparts after lockdowns in both COVID-19 cases and related deaths. Strikingly, the analysis also shows that ethnic diversity had little effect, except in areas with high racial segregation. Crisis-response policies led to smaller mobility reductions and less mask-wearing in ethnically divided counties. These results are not driven by a lack of physical public goods, socioeconomic differences, or by the prevalence of high-risk populations. A key implication of this work is that policies promoting ethnic and racial integration can allay the negative social and economic impacts of crises.
IEA – Why is it important for economic research to be racially diverse and inclusive?
Diversity and inclusion are essential for the economics profession to attract the best talent and foster ingenuity and innovation. As shown in many studies, demographic characteristics such as gender, country of origin etc. and personal living experience determine economists’ views on contemporary policy issues. Therefore, including diverse researchers might help reduce implicit biases that can influence research questions, methodologies, and interpretations of findings. Homogenous groups may be susceptible to groupthink while diverse teams can leverage a greater variety of perspectives and are likely to consider information more thoroughly and accurately. It is crucial to foster inclusion in all aspects of the economics profession including admitting diverse students to economics departments, diversifying faculty, promoting publications from diverse scholars in top journals, soliciting diverse sets of perspectives to design policies, and fostering the recognition of academic from diverse scholars through awards.