Projects

Public Health

Health Insurance In Uganda

Project record from IGREC's research portfolio. Further implementation and publication details will be added when available.

Agriculture & Food Systems

Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Digital Receipts in the Ugandan Dairy Chain

This project examines how reducing information asymmetries within Uganda's dairy value chain can improve market efficiency, transparency, and farmer welfare.

Governance, Land & Public Finance

Public reporting and property tax compliance: A field experiment in Kampala, Uganda (2020)

This project involved a randomised field experiment in Kampala, Uganda, in close collaboration with KCCA, to better understand the determinants of voluntary tax compliance and policy levers to improve this. Public disclosure policies have potential to raise tax compliance where alternative enforcement capacity is limited.

Governance, Land & Public Finance

How poverty is measured impacts who gets classified as impoverished

We test whether the classification of households into poverty categories is meaningfully influenced by the poverty measurement approach that is employed. These classification techniques are widely used by governments, non-profit organizations, and development agencies for policy design and implementation.

Labour Markets & Enterprise

Working Conditions, Occupational Choices, and Discrimination

This study investigates the impact of improved workplace safety on economic and health outcomes for workers in Uganda’s informal waste sector. In a randomized controlled trial with self-employed waste collectors, I first document that workers' willingness-to-pay for safety-enhancing personal protective equipment (PPE) was...

Governance, Land & Public Finance

Testing willingness to pay elicitation mechanisms in the field: Evidence from Uganda

Researchers frequently use variants of the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak (BDM) mechanism to elicit willingness to pay (WTP). These variants involve numerous incentive-irrelevant design choices, some of which carry advantages for implementation but may deteriorate participant comprehension or trust in the mechanism, which are...

Agriculture & Food Systems

An Evaluation of Contract Farming for Biofortified Crops

This project evaluates the effectiveness of combining contract farming with the adoption of biofortified iron-rich bean varieties among smallholder farmers in Uganda and Rwanda.

Labour Markets & Enterprise

Firm Dynamics and Worker Resilience to the COVID-19 Shock in Uganda

This project examined the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and workers across Uganda.

Governance, Land & Public Finance

The Economic Impact of Tax Compliance Interventions

This project investigates how different tax enforcement strategies influence business performance and tax compliance in Uganda.

Governance, Land & Public Finance

Government Demand and Domestic Firms Growth: Evidence from Uganda

This project examines how participation in public procurement influences the growth, investment decisions, and market behaviour of domestic firms in Uganda.

Public Health

Can Incentives Change Beliefs? Health Decisions of Caregivers of Young Children in Uganda: A Field Experiment in Uganda

This study investigates how financial incentives influence demand for preventive healthcare among caregivers of young children in Uganda.

Labour Markets & Enterprise

Improving Refugee Welfare and Integration

In order to answer to the recent prolonged refugee crises, governments and international institutions are focusing on the creation of economic opportunities (jobs and businesses) for refugees. Yet, refugees, especially in developing countries, may find it particularly hard to access local job markets for various reasons.

Labour Markets & Enterprise

Why do firms in Low-Income Countries grow Slowly? An investigation on demand side Mechanisms.

Project record from IGREC's research portfolio. Further implementation and publication details will be added when available.

Public Health

Health Cost vs. Social Gains: Perceptions of Misaligned Incentives in Health

This study explores how social beliefs influence health behaviours, with particular emphasis on attitudes toward body weight and obesity in Uganda.

Financial Inclusion

Root Capital SACCOs Impact Evaluation – Uganda

This study evaluates the short- and medium-term impacts of the Root Capital SACCO programme in Uganda, with particular emphasis on financial inclusion and gender outcomes.

Agriculture & Food Systems

Empowering Agriculturalists through Structural Experimentations (EASE)

Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa faces a problem of low adoption of modern inputs, technologies, and techniques. This has two important consequences.

Labour Markets & Enterprise

Do Firms in Emerging Sectors Know How to Hire? Interventions to Enhance Hiring of University-Educated Youth in Uganda

This study investigates hiring practices in Uganda's growing sectors, addressing the mismatch between educated youth and employer needs in a context where university educated youth face the highest unemployment rates. Through a randomized controlled trial with private firms, we examine the impact of better defining firm...

Labour Markets & Enterprise

Clustering at the Business Level: Micro-Firm Markets, Competitive Forces, and Innovation

In this research project, we to take a closer look into the competition forces at play in microfirm clusters. In a first step, we aim to quantify whether the perceptions among entrepreneurs about competition intensity are, in fact, matched by empirical evidence.

Climate, WASH & Infrastructure

Impact of Urban Flooding on Businesses in Kampala

This project examines the effects of extreme rainfall events and associated flooding on firms in Uganda, with a focus on Kampala. The primary population of interest is medium- to large-sized firms in the manufacturing, wholesale, and retail sectors.

Governance, Land & Public Finance

The Parallel Pandemic of Domestic Violence against Women in Uganda: is the Lockdown to Blame?

The project examines how changes in spouses’ relative economic conditions during Uganda’s COVID-19 lockdown influenced Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). It uses the lockdown measures introduced in March 2020 as a natural experiment, where some women continued earning income while their husbands’ work was temporarily...

Financial Inclusion

The Impact of Microcredit for Refugees and Host Communities

This project explores whether expanding access to credit for refugees can promote self-reliance, improve livelihoods, and support long-term integration into host communities. Although financial institutions often view refugees as high-risk borrowers due to limited collateral and concerns about mobility, the study argues that...

Labour Markets & Enterprise

“The nature of the firm” revisited: Documenting Relational Contracts within and between firms in Uganda

This project investigates why small firms in developing countries often remain separate instead of merging or expanding. It examines whether maintaining relational contracts between firms is easier, less risky, and more rewarding than expanding operations and coordinating work within a single larger firm.

Public Health

Ability and willingness to pay for voluntary medical male circumcision in Uganda: A mixed-methods study

This study investigates the willingness and ability of Ugandan men to pay for Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) as a strategy for ensuring the long-term sustainability of HIV prevention in the face of declining donor funding. Although VMMC is a highly cost-effective intervention that significantly reduces HIV...

Labour Markets & Enterprise

Cluster training for SME’s for increased productivity

This project examines how technical skills training, firm clustering, and access to shared or individual capital can improve the productivity and growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Uganda, particularly in capital-intensive sectors. SMEs account for the majority of private sector production in Uganda but often...

Financial Inclusion

Investment Readiness of High-Growth Firms in Uganda

This project examines how accounting and financial management practices influence access to finance, firm growth, and economic outcomes among small and growing businesses (SGBs) in Uganda. It has two components: a comprehensive survey of approximately 500 medium-sized firms (10–500 employees) to assess their accounting and...

Governance, Land & Public Finance

Improvement of Land Governance in Uganda

This study evaluated the impact of land governance interventions implemented under the GIZ-funded Improvement of Land Governance in Uganda (ILGU) pilot project.

Climate, WASH & Infrastructure

The health and well-being benefits of transitioning to piped water service: A prospective study in rural Uganda

This study evaluates the impacts of transitioning from unimproved water sources to piped water services in Eastern Uganda.

Strains on Trade: Frictions and Policy in the Ugandan Vehicle Sector

Trade Policy | Transport | Industrial Organization | Market Systems Principal Investigators Felix Forster and Dorothy Nakyambadde Project Status Completed

How Important are Investment Indivisibilities for Development? Understanding Land Investment and its Long-Run Impacts in Uganda

Research Theme Land Markets | Financial Inclusion | Poverty Reduction | Development Economics