About

David E. Sahn is a professor affiliated with Cornell University, holding multiple roles including FERDI Senior Fellow at the Foundation for International Development Study and Research in France, IZA Research Fellow in Germany, and various faculty fellowships at Cornell's institutes focused on social sciences, inequality, health economics, and food, agriculture, and development. His research primarily concentrates on development economics, with a significant focus on health, nutrition, education, and poverty in Africa and other developing regions. Sahn's work explores the socioeconomic determinants of health and education, the impact of household shocks, weather, and policies on human capital formation, and the measurement of inequality and poverty. He has contributed extensively to understanding the roles of food, agriculture, and targeted policies in combating hunger and malnutrition, as well as analyzing the effects of family background, schooling, and demographic factors on various development outcomes. Sahn has authored numerous publications in reputable journals and edited volumes, and he teaches courses related to microeconomics of development, health, poverty, and inequality.

Research topics

• Economic growth
• Statistics
• Psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Demographic economics
• Geography
• Economics
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• Posh Spice or Scary Spice? Resource Booms, Wealth, and Human Capital Across Ages

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Starting Strong: Investigating the Importance of Early Academic Performance for Adult Human Capital

  Journal of African Economies · 2023-09-26 · 2 citations

  article

  Abstract We use a production function approach to investigate the factors that determine young adults' human capital outcomes in Madagascar and Senegal. Our study relies on unique and comparable panel data spanning over 15 years for both countries. We find that second-grade students' test scores are strong indicators of their French and math skills, as well as their educational attainment in their early twenties. Moreover, we observe that the association between second-grade skills and later-life outcomes is stronger among girls than boys, and in math test scores compared with French test scores. Our results emphasise the critical role of performing well during the early school years, as it predicts long-term outcomes, especially for vulnerable populations such as girls.

  PublisherDOI

• Posh spice or scary spice? The impacts of Madagascar's vanilla boom on household well-being

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Cognitive Achievement Production in Madagascar: A Value-Added Model Approach

  2021-06-19

  bookOpen accessSenior author

  In this paper, we measure the contribution of an additional year of schooling on skills acquisition for a cohort of young adults in Madagascar. We estimate a value-added model of learning achievement that includes test scores measured at adolescence, thereby reducing the potential for omitted variable bias. We demonstrate that schooling increases cognitive skills among young adults. The value-added of a year of schooling during adolescence is 0.15 to 0.26 standard deviation. Our results show the skills gap widens in adolescence, as students with higher cognitive skills complete more grades, accumulating more skills in their transition to adulthood.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Heterogeneity in Migration Responses to Climate Shocks: Evidence from Madagascar

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Cognitive achievement production in Madagascar: a value-added model approach

  Education Economics · 2021 · 10 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Statistics

  In this paper, we measure the contribution of an additional year of schooling on skills acquisition for a cohort of young adults in Madagascar. We estimate a value-added model of learning achievement that includes test scores measured at adolescence, thereby reducing the potential for omitted variable bias. We demonstrate that schooling increases cognitive skills among young adults. The value-added of a year of schooling during adolescence is 0.15 to 0.26 standard deviation. Our results show the skills gap widens in adolescence, as students with higher cognitive skills complete more grades, accumulating more skills in their transition to adulthood.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Heterogeneity in Migration Responses to Climate Shocks: Evidence from Madagascar

  HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · 2021-01-01

  other

  We analyze the impact of climate events on migration among a cohort of young adults residing in rural Madagascar. We find a strong negative impact of drought on the decision of youth to migrate in the year after the adverse weather shock. Household assets and access to savings institutions attenuate this impact, consistent with the notion that wealth and savings cushion the blow of the shock on the resources required to finance migration. We also find that households that report more social connections outside their villages are more likely to have their young adult members migrate. Our findings suggest that the liquidity constraints from climate shocks that prevent youth migration are more binding for young women who migrate largely for reasons of marriage and education. Males, in contrast, are more likely to migrate in search of employment, which often has higher economic returns than migration motivated by marriage and education. These factors likely explain why drought deters migration of young women, but not so for young men who still choose to migrate in search of a job.

  Publisher

• Childhood Determinants of Internal Youth Migration in Senegal

  RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 2020-01-01

  preprintSenior author

  BACKGROUND: Internal migration, mostly composed of young adults and the poor, constitutes the largest flow of people in developing countries. Few studies document the patterns and determinants of internal youth migration in sub-Saharan Africa. OBJECTIVES: This paper analyzes the socioeconomic determinants of the decisions among young adults to internally migrate in Senegal. We focus on whether their decisions to migrate are influenced by individual characteristics, as well as the circumstances in the households and communities where young adults grew up, and whether these factors are differentiated by gender. METHODS: Using a unique migration household survey in Senegal, we estimate multinomial logit models to analyze the role of childhood socioeconomic determinants in later youth migration decisions to rural and urban areas. RESULTS: We find that young people undertake mostly rural-to-rural and urban-to-urban migrations, and over half of them are temporary migrants. We also find that the determinants are heterogeneous by gender and destination. The higher the fathers' education, the more (less) likely are their daughters to move to urban (rural) areas. Young individuals who spend their childhood in betteroff households are more likely to move to urban areas. The presence of younger siblings during childhood increases the propensity of moving to rural areas. Access to primary schools from the childhood residence decreases the likelihood of migrating to urban areas for both men and women. CONTRIBUTION: We contribute to the sparse literature on internal youth migration in developing countries by highlighting the relevance of the family- and community-level characteristics during childhood in predicting later migration in life.

  Publisher

• Childhood Determinants of Internal Youth Migration in Senegal

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Childhood determinants of internal youth migration in Senegal

  Demographic Research · 2020 · 7 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Geography
  • Demographic economics
  • Economic growth

  Internal migration, mostly composed of young adults and the poor, constitutes the largest flow of people in developing countries. Few studies document the patterns and determinants of internal youth migration in sub-Saharan Africa.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Stephen D. Younger

  80 shared

• Peter Glick

  Millennium Challenge Corporation

  32 shared

• Jean‐Yves Duclos

  Université Laval

  27 shared

• Gilles Postel-Vinay

  27 shared

• Francesca Marchetta

  Université Clermont Auvergne

  20 shared

• Paul A. Dorosh

  15 shared

• David Stifel

  Lafayette College

  15 shared

• Peter Glick

  Government of the United States of America

  15 shared

Awards & honors

• Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA…
• Senior Fellow at the Fondation for International Development…
• Chaire d’Excellence at Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur…