During the period December 2019-March 2019, it has been performed a fieldwork data collection employing social science experiments regarding the following variables: trust and cooperation with strangers; preferences for redistribution; altruism; risk preferences; land related litigation and conflicts experienced; moral preferences for utilitarianism vs. deontologism (using the "Moral Machine Experiment"). In addition, survey data has been collected regarding socio-demographic characteristics and asking questions taken from the World Value Survey.
The fieldwork was performed in the Beninese villages included in the RCT and involved 576 subjects in 32 villages. In each village an experimental laboratory was built to make possible to run controlled experiments on decision-making. In parallel, a team of local data collector run the survey.
The main findings and results achieved so far can be summarized as follows:
1) Formalized property rights increase trust and cooperation with strangers outside the close-knit circle of kith and kin.
2) Formal property increases utilitarian moral choices.
3) Formal property rights increases the acceptance of inequality generated by luck, but not by merit.
4) Formal property rights reduce stealing from unknown strangers.
5) Land rights formalization increases land-related (non-violent) litigation.
6) In the analysis above, o differential effect has been identified across genders. Further analysis is currently investigating whether there was a differential impact in some ethnic groups where gender discrimination in the pre-reform period was stronger or weaker.
The following writing or the articles and dissemination of results took several avenues.
1) All the articles and data have been published and can be accessed for free through Gold Open Access publication or through the Social Science Research Network.
2) The preliminary results have been circulated to the scientific community via several conference participation, invited seminars and presentations at national and international universities (among others, Tel Aviv University; Maastricht University; Bologna University; Pompeu Fabra University; Lijubiana University; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Boston University; Aarhus University; University of Barcelona).
3) The findings from this project have been taught during invited lectures held at the European Master in Law and Economics.
4) The findings from the project has been integrated in the curriculum and taught during the academic year 2020/2021 in the Master in International Economics, course "Institutions, Organizations, and Markets" at University Pompeu Fabra Barcelona.
5) While it was impossible to organize face-to-face fora with the civil society in Benin due to the pandemic situation, I managed to coordinate with Prof. Roch Mongbo of the NGO CEBEDES and with Anne Floquet, the co-director of the Gender Innovation Lab in Cotonou (Benin) to further the investigation of the gender dimension of the research and to activate initiative for the dissemination of the results that we plan to develop in late 2021/beginning of 2022.
6) While it was not possible to held the public audition with the Benin Ministry of Justice and Legislation due to the pandemic situation, we reached an agreement to deepen the investigation regarding the effects of the reform on land-related conflicts and litigation. Specifically, the ministry have authorized myself and prof. Arrunada from University Pompeu Fabra to access historical records regarding reported crimes in the villages included in the PFR. We are currently working on the data collection and will inform the policymakers of the results in the upcoming months.