Justin Sandefur
Justin Sandefur is a research fellow at the Center for Global Development. His research focuses on the interface of law and development in sub-Saharan Africa. From 2008 to 2010, he served as an adviser to the Tanzanian government to set up the country’s National Panel Survey to monitor poverty dynamics and agricultural production. He has also worked on a project with the Kenyan Ministry of Education to bring rigorous impact evaluation into the Ministry’s policymaking process by scaling up proven small-scale reforms. His recent papers concentrate on education in Kenya, and his research includes the examinations through randomized controlled trials of new approaches to conflict resolution in Liberia, efforts to curb police extortion and abuse in Sierra Leone, and an initiative to expand land titling in urban slums in Tanzania.
Content by Justin Sandefur
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Data Item
Data: Economic Impact of Urban Property Rights in Tanzania: The Role of Infrastructure
While multiple studies have shown that a woman’s control over land is positively associated with bargaining power outcomes, few have succeeded in highlighting successful methods for increasing this control. We report on a policy experiment in an unplanned settlement in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that provided access to formal land titles to informal settlers at randomized...
28 Feb 2019
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Blog post
Can poll results sway elite opinion on Tanzania's resource boom?
Even the most ardent defenders of democracy sometimes worry that populist pressure may lead to short-sighted (or populist) economic policy choices – especially in a low-income country in the midst of a resource boom. This is the third post in a three-part blog series on political transparency of natural resource management. Get caught up on the series with part I...
30 Aug 2016 | Justin Sandefur, Jennifer Richmond
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Blog post
The political paradox of cash transfers
Impact evaluations show cash transfers are effective. But polls show Tanzanians would rather have government services. This is the second post in a three-part blog series on political transparency of natural resource management. Cash transfers are all the rage among international development experts, and for good reason. In Tanzania, which is our focus...
25 Aug 2016 | Justin Sandefur, Nancy Birdsall, Mujobu Moyo
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Blog post
Can deliberative democracy cure Tanzania's resource curse?
Experts worry letting ordinary citizens manage resource windfalls will lead to populism. We ran a randomised trial in deliberative democracy in Tanzania to find out. This is the first post in a three-part blog series on political transparency of natural resource management and has a related podcast. Are low-income democracies doomed to squander their natural...
24 Aug 2016 | Justin Sandefur, Mujobu Moyo, Nancy Birdsall
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Project
Improving the justice sector: Law and institution-building in Sierra Leone
Efficient, fair, and low-cost legal systems can have a variety of positive effects. The legal system regulates personal actions and economic transactions, with the aim of resolving disputes, enforcing rules of conduct, providing certainty to economic actors and ‘justice’ to citizens. In providing quick and cheap resolution of welfare- and productivity-reducing disputes,...
13 May 2016 | Simeon Koroma, Bilal Siddiqi, Momo Turay, Alaina Varvaloucas, Justin Sandefur
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Project
Tanzania: Impact of low-cost urban land tenure formalisation
At close to 80%, Tanzania has one of the highest levels of urban informality world-wide. Informal land rights in urban areas are a major obstacle for sustainable urbanisation in a number of ways, in particular by (i) undermining the scope for generation of own-source revenue by local governments; (ii) raising the costs and reducing the benefits of forward-looking urban...
5 Oct 2015 | Klaus Deininger, Daniel Ayalew Ali, Justin Sandefur
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Project
Economic Impact of Urban Property Rights in Tanzania: The Role of Infrastructure
Formalising land rights is thought to reduce expropriation risk, encourage investment and, by enabling the collateral value of land, giving property owners increased access to credit. Despite these assumptions, few studies have examined the impact of property rights interventions in urban areas, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, while formal land titling is...
10 Oct 2014 | Christopher Adam, Stefan Dercon, Andrew Zeitlin, Justin Sandefur, Daniel Ayalew Ali
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Project
Law without lawyers: Improving access to justice in Liberia and Sierra Leone
Since the advent of peace, democratically elected governments in both Liberia and Sierra Leone, with support from international donors, have strengthened the rule of law by expanding the reach of the formal legal system and promulgating progressive new legislation, oftentimes at odds with local norms and customs. These measures have met with little success, in part because...
4 Sep 2014 | Paul Collier, Justin Sandefur, Bilal Siddiqi
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Project
The high returns to low-cost private schooling in a poor country
While research from the U.S., Latin America and Asia provides little evidence that private schooling leads to greater educational attainment relative to public schooling, new research from the developing world suggests the opposite. New research examining the case of private schooling in Kenya from Tessa Bold (University of Frankfurt), Mwangi Kimenyi (Brookings...
28 Aug 2014 | Andrew Zeitlin, Tessa Bold, Justin Sandefur, Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu, Mukhtar Abdi Ogle, Mwangi S. Kimenyi
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Publication - Policy Brief
Is land titling feasible in Tanzania's low-income urban areas? (Policy Brief)
4 Dec 2012 | Daniel Ayalew Ali, Matthew Collin, Klaus Deininger, Stefan Dercon, Justin Sandefur, Andrew Zeitlin
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Publication - Working Paper
Slum-Upgrading in Tanzania: Public Infrastructure and Private Property Rights (Working Paper)
4 Dec 2012 | Matthew Collin, Stefan Dercon, Simone Lombardini, Justin Sandefur, Andrew Zeitlin
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Publication - Policy Brief
Scaling-up Proven Education Interventions: Evidence from an RCT in Kenya (Policy Brief)
31 Mar 2012 | Tessa Bold, Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu, Justin Sandefur
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Publication - Working Paper
Scaling-up Proven Education Interventions: Evidence from an RCT in Kenya (Working Paper)
31 Mar 2012 | Tessa Bold, Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu, Alice Ng'ang'a, Justin Sandefur
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Publication - Working Paper
Citizen or Subject? Forum Shopping and Legal Pluralism in Rural Liberia (Working Paper)
11 Mar 2012 | Justin Sandefur, Bilal Siddiqi
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Publication - Policy Brief
Law Without Lawyers: Improving Access to Justice in Liberia and Sierra Leone (Policy Brief)
1 Mar 2012 | Justin Sandefur, Bilal Siddiqi, Alaina Varvaloucas
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Publication - Working Paper
The price of empowerment (Working Paper)
1 Mar 2012 | Daniel Ayalew Ali, Matthew Collin, Klaus Deininger, Stefan Dercon, Justin Sandefur, Andrew Zeitlin
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Publication - Policy Brief
The price of empowerment: can land titling programmes be gender-inclusive? (Policy Brief)
1 Mar 2012 | Daniel Ayalew Ali, Matthew Collin, Klaus Deininger, Stefan Dercon, Justin Sandefur, Andrew Zeitlin
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Publication - Policy Brief
The High Return to Low-Cost Private Schooling in a Developing Country (Policy Brief)
1 Mar 2012 | Tessa Bold, Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu, Justin Sandefur
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Publication - Working Paper
Private schooling cheaper and more effective than public alternative (Working Paper)
28 Feb 2012 | Tessa Bold, Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu, Justin Sandefur
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Publication - Working Paper
Poverty & Productivity: Small-Scale Farming in Tanzania, 1991-2007 (Working Paper)
29 Apr 2011 | Razack Lokina, Måns Nerman, Justin Sandefur
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Project
Agricultural Productivity Trends in Tanzania: A View from National Household and Farm Survey Data
The role of agriculture in economic growth and the wider structural transformation of Tanzania is a key concern for policy-makers. This paper tries to understand time trends in agricultural productivity. The main finding is that the most important source of consumption growth in Tanzania between 1991 and 2007 has been structural change, i.e. people moving out of...
1 Oct 2010 | Justin Sandefur, Razack Lokina, Måns Nerman, Stefan Dercon
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Project
Scaling-up Education Reforms in Kenya: An Evaluation of the Nationwide 'Teacher Internship Programme'
This project will evaluate the nationwide roll-out of a controversial education programme in Kenya that has already been shown to raise student performance in small-scale randomized trials. In the process the project will provide insights on the external validity of micro evaluations, and on the political economy of scaling-up effective interventions. In August 2009 the...
1 Apr 2010 | Justin Sandefur, Tessa Bold, Mwangi S. Kimenyi, Germano Mwabu, Mukhtar Abdi Ogle, Paul Wasanga
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Publication - Working Paper
The Returns to Formality and Informality in Urban Africa (Working Paper)
1 Nov 2009 | Paolo Falco, Neil Rankin, Justin Sandefur, Francis Teal,