Age Sets, Accountability, and the Balance of Power: Evidence from Villages in Rural Congo
◈ 주 제 : Age Sets, Accountability, and the Balance of Power: Evidence from Villages in Rural Congo
◈ 발표자 : Nathan Nunn (UBC)
◈ 일 시 : 2026년 5월 27일 수요일 16:30 ~ 17:45
◈ 장 소 : 16동 654호
◈ 주 관 : 경제학부, 경제연구소 한국경제혁신센터, SSK, BK21
세미나 이전에 연사님과 개인면담을 원하시는 분은 아래 구글 스프레드시트에서 원하시는 시간에 성함을 기입해주시기 바랍니다. 개인면담 스프레드시트는 25일 오후 12시에 마감하도록 하겠습니다.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fwKtAIRI2G8B6nq94EOYRHyDE-p_r6tJ57vqmKF_6G4/edit?usp=sharing
- 본 세미나는 경제학부 BK21 관련 세미나 참석으로 인정됩니다.
경제학부 대학원생 중 세미나 참석 인정을 받기를 원하시는 학생은 세미나 종료 후 세미나실 내에 위치한 참석 명단을 기재해 주시기 바랍니다.
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Abstract
Across Africa, village chiefs are the foundation of village-level pol- itics. They are typically older and, as a consequence, less educated. This, along with concerns of despotism, has led to initiatives aimed at empowering younger individuals or creating committees that provide checks on the village chief. We study the consequences of these efforts, explicitly accounting for the fact that the effects of empowering younger cohorts are likely contingent on the underlying social structure of the village. Particularly relevant is that across Africa, age sets, which comprise initiation rituals for young men, are common. A documented consequence of age sets is that they generate a balance of power by creating a cohesive group of young men that provides a check on older political elites. Our study, working within a randomized intervention, shows that the effects of empowering young men and checking the power of the chief depend critically on the underlying social structure of the village – namely, whether age sets are present. In villages with age-set institutions, young male com- mittees report greater cohesion and engage in more oversight, and product allocations are less tilted toward chiefs and other advantaged households. In villages without age sets, the same committee assignment does not generate these accountability gains and can worsen elite capture. Across groups, we find little evidence of changes in overall coverage or average health outcomes, suggesting that the main effects operate through distribution and constraints on capture rather than aggregate provision. Thus, we find that in a gerontocratic setting such as ours, empowering young men can backfire, especially if social structures that unify young men – namely, age sets – are not present.