2026-27 Workshops

Friday, August 28, 2026 – 10:00 AM (Central Daylight Time, US)

Title: Thinking Like a Small Firm

Speaker: Jonathan J. Morduch, New York University

Topic: Small firms often operate in unsteady environments. Two related projects—the Global Small Firm Diaries and the US Small Firm Diaries—document business decisions driven by concern with profit and revenues in the face of instability and liquidity constraints. The need for flexible cash management strategies makes structured loan contracts and formalization less appealing. Instability makes short-term labor contracts and piece rates more appealing. As a result, many firms remain optimally informal or semi-formal, and workers absorb much of the firms’ risk.

Friday, September 25, 2026 – 10:00 AM (Central Daylight Time, US)

Title: Not Whether, but Where: How Political Incentives Reshape Firms' Mandated CSR Allocation

Speaker: June Huang, University of Texas at Dallas

Abstract: We examine how political incentives reshape firms' allocation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) under India's CSR mandate. In voluntary settings, firms choose whether to engage in CSR -- a mandate fixes this extensive margin and shifts the firm's decision to where CSR is allocated. Leveraging staggered state elections and granular CSR data, we find that firms reallocate CSR towards districts represented by the state’s majority political party during election years. The reallocation favors visible projects, such as health and education, offset by cuts to less visible projects, such as central-government funds, in opposition districts. Firms directing more election-year CSR to a district subsequently obtain greater credit from local bank branches, consistent with reallocation cultivating political benefits. Incumbents win more seats in districts receiving more CSR, and majority districts experience measurable improvements in living standards. Overall, mandatory CSR shifts strategic behavior from participation decisions to allocation choices.

PART A: Friday, October 9, 2026 – 10:00 AM (Central Daylight Time, US)

PART B: Friday, October 16, 2026 – 10:00 AM (Central Daylight Time, US)

Topic: Why Accounting? Origins, Evolution, and Implications for Development

Speaker: Sudipta Basu, Temple University

Topic: Accounting is one of humanity's oldest technologies, yet most empirical research treats it as a feature of modern, machine-readable economies. This two-session workshop steps back to ask foundational questions: Why was accounting invented? Where and when did it first appear, and what did access to it change? Why did double-entry bookkeeping emerge thousands of years later, and what made it superior to what came before? Drawing on archaeological data from Mesopotamia, a cross-country cross-time ethnographic sample, and a working paper on the origins of double-entry, the speaker argues that the history of accounting is directly relevant to development today—particularly for rural economies where literacy and numeracy are limited and simple, well-designed accounting systems could meaningfully improve decision-making among the poor. A secondary aim is to introduce ADF participants to archaeological, ethnographic, experimental, and neuroscientific methods that accounting researchers rarely use but that open promising avenues for interdisciplinary research.

Friday, December 11, 2026 – 10:00 AM (Central Standard Time, US)

Title: Corporate Tax Policy in Developed Countries and Economic Activity in Africa

Speaker: Rebecca Lester, Stanford University

Abstract: We study whether corporate tax policies in developed countries generate investment in developing economies. Exploiting a major U.K. corporate tax cut, we document a 20% increase in African subsidiaries of U.K. multinational firms relative to similar non-U.K. firms following the reduction of the corporate tax rate. Using nighttime lights and household surveys, we estimate an approximately 5% increased local economic activity and employment near U.K.-owned subsidiaries relative to areas near non-U.K. subsidiaries. Effects are concentrated in lower-skilled jobs and are not accompanied by gains in educational attainment. The findings highlight that developed-country tax policy can spur economic activity abroad, while immediate changes in broader socioeconomic outcomes appear limited.

Friday, January 15, 2026 – 11:00 AM (Central Standard Time, US)

Title: TBD

Speaker: Sally Sadoff, University of California, San Diego

Abstract: TBD

Friday, February 26, 2026 – 10:00 AM (Central Standard Time, US)

Title: Digital Traceability for Deforestation-Free Supply Chains: Evidence from Cocoa Production in Ghana

Speaker: Erik Katovich, University of Connecticut

Abstract: Global commodity supply chains face mounting pressure to verify deforestation-free status through property-level traceability, yet feasibility and effectiveness in low-income settings remain uncertain. We conduct a randomized controlled trial across 90 villages in Ghana's cocoa belt, partnering with a large farmers' cooperative to evaluate satellite-based deforestation monitoring. We develop a mobile application that digitalizes the cooperative's supply chain, automates data collection, and verifies farmers' deforestation status at the point of sale using high-resolution satellite alerts. Villages are randomized to (i) control, (ii) monitoring with visible certification, or (iii) monitoring with price premiums, isolating transparency effects from financial incentives. To quantify leakage, we measure deforestation at three spatial scales: inside mapped properties, buffer zones around properties, and village boundaries. Surveys capture cocoa output and quality, farmer awareness and understanding of monitoring, and willingness to participate under alternative contract designs. The experiment identifies compliance effects, spatial leakage, and farmer demand for certification in a major cocoa-producing region, informing the design of scalable deforestation-free supply chain policies.

Friday, March 5, 2026 – 10:00 AM (Central Standard Time, US)

Title: Process Innovation and Firm Productivity: Evidence from a Global Survey of Firms

Speaker: Vishal Baloria, University of Connecticut

Abstract: This study examines whether and how internal supply chain process innovations translate into higher firm productivity for SMEs. Using 137,725 establishment-level observations from 148 countries surveyed as part of the World Bank Enterprise Survey (2012–2024), we find that firms adopting internal supply chain process innovations exhibit significantly higher labor productivity. This effect remains robust when employing the 2015 Digital India initiative as a DID shock and tariffs as an instrumental variable in 2SLS. Internal innovations strengthen firms' power over external supply chain partners as well as in the product market. The productivity benefits of process innovation are present in firms with more developed management incentives and in emerging Asian economies but not in developed North American economies. These findings contribute to the productivity literature by identifying internal supply chain capability as a distinct driver of efficiency gains, extend the supply chain literature with large sample, cross-country evidence beyond individual technologies, and inform accounting and operations management research on how organizational information and governance mechanisms shape firm productivity.