Urban Lab's two PhDs have received their doctorates

Urban Lab's two PhDs, Raoul van Maarseveen and Adrian Poignant, have now received their doctorates. Raoul van Maarseveen with the thesis "Urbanization and Education: The Effect of Childhood Urban Residency on Educational Attainment" and Adrian Poignant with "Gold, Coal and Iron: Essays on Industrialization and Economic Development".

Raoul's thesis consists of four essays and the theme is how a person's place of birth affects one's financial opportunities later in life. The microdata Raoul uses to explore this topic spans three continents and several historical periods.
 
The thesis primarily examines how migration from rural areas to cities affects life outcomes in Africa. Raoul identifies these urban exposure effects using children moving between urban and rural areas at different ages. The thesis shows that children who spend a greater part of their childhood in cities have higher literacy and higher completed education. This in turn leads to an improvement in their income and financial opportunities later in life. The effects are seen in a large number of developing countries and are particularly large for girls. Raoul's thesis constitutes an important contribution to our understanding of how urban-rural migration co-varies with economic development.

Adrian Poignant's thesis consists of three essays that deal with the individual consequences of fundamental economic changes in today's developing countries and even Sweden's economic history. Using microeconometric methods, the papers examine the role of electricity in female labor force participation in Tajikistan, how the expansion of small-scale mining affects local farmers in Tanzania, and how 19th-century ironworkers were affected by mill closures during the industrialization of the Swedish iron industry.