Dr Jonathan Weigel

Jonathan Weigel is an assistant professor in the Department of International Development at the LSE, an affiliate of STICERD, CEPR, and EGAP, and an invited researcher of the J-PAL Governance Initiative. His research interests are at the intersection of political economy, development, and public economics. His primary research agenda explores the role of state capacity in development with a focus on taxation. A second agenda explores the relationship between culture (especially religion) and institutions. His field work is based in the D.R. Congo, where he runs a research organization called Odeka, as well as Tanzania and Haiti. He completed a PhD in Political Economy and Government at Harvard in 2018. He also worked as a researcher at Partners In Health from 2010-2012.

Selected Publications

• The participation dividend of taxation: how citizens in congo engage more with the state when it tries to tax them 2020. Quarterly journal of economics. Qjaa019, doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaa019.
• l. Van dorp, et al. 2019. The genetic legacy of state centralization in the kuba kingdom of the democratic republic of the congo Proceedings of the national academy of sciences 116(2):593-598.
• Lowes, Sara, Nathan Nunn, James A. Robinson, and Jonathan Weigel. 2017. The Evolution of Culture and Institutions: Evidence From the Kuba Kingdom. Econometrica, 85 (4): 1065–1091

Expertise

Political economy of development; taxation; corruption; state building; culture and institutions; Central Africa