Professor Murphy’s paper, recently accepted at The Review of Economics and Statistics, analyzes the important effects of one’s acquaintances in social spaces on the exchange of economically meaningful information. Using the case of churches and mosques in rural western Kenya, Murphy and his coauthors show that peers are significantly more likely to receive important agricultural advice from a peer attending the same religious institution compared with a peer who does not. The paper’s results are now especially relevant given the new limitations on gathering in social spaces due to the pandemic – suggesting the importance of substitutes to traditional meeting spaces to maintain social capital.
The paper titled “” is a coauthored with Vesall Nourani (MIT) and David Lee (Cornell) and is a “just accepted” paper at The Review of Economics and Statistics.