In many emerging democracies women are less likely to vote than men and, when they do vote, are likely to follow the wishes of male household and clan heads.
... See More + We assess the impact of a voter awareness campaign on female turnout, candidate choice and party vote shares.Geographic clusters within villages were randomly assigned to treat mentor control, and within treated clusters, some households were not targeted. Compared to women in control clusters, both targeted and untargeted women in treated clusters are 11 percentage points more likely to vote, and are also more likely to exercise independence in candidate choice, indicating large spillovers. Data from polling stations suggests that treating 10 women increased female turnoutby about seven votes, resulting in a cost per vote of US 3.1 dollars. Finally,a 10 percent increase in the share of treated women at the polling station led to a 7 percent decrease in the share of votes of the winning party.
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The authors study the role of traditional norms in land allocation and human capital investment. The authors exploit a policy experiment in Ghana that increased the land that children from matrilineal groups can inherit from their fathers.
... See More + Boys exposed to the reform received 0.9 less years of education - an effect driven by landed households, for whom the reform was binding. The authors find no effect for girls, whose inheritance was de facto unaffected. These patterns suggest that before the reform matrilineal groups invested more in education than they will if unconstrained, to substitute for land inheritance, underscoring the importance of cultural norms.
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The authors report an experiment in 3,000 villages that tested whether incentives improve aid efficacy. Villages received block grants for maternal and child health and education that incorporated relative performance incentives.
... See More + Sub-districts were randomized into incentives, an otherwise identical program without incentives, or control. Incentives initially improved preventative health indicators, particularly in underdeveloped areas, and spending efficiency increased. While school enrollments improved overall, incentives had no differential impact on education, and incentive health effects diminished over time. Reductions in neonatal mortality in non-incentivized areas did not persist with incentives. The authors find no systematic scoring manipulation or funding reallocation toward richer areas.
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Journal Article 92933 OCT 01, 2014
Olken, Benjamin A.; Onishi, Junko; Wong, SusanDisclosed
The authors report an experiment in 3,000 villages that tested whether incentives improve aid efficacy. Villages received block grants for maternal and child health and education that incorporated relative performance incentives.
... See More + Sub districts were randomized into incentives, an otherwise identical program without incentives, or control. Incentives initially improved preventative health indicators, particularly in underdeveloped areas, and spending efficiency increased. While school enrollments improved overall, incentives had no differential impact on education, and incentive health effects diminished over time. Reductions in neonatal mortality in non-incentivized areas did not persist with incentives. The authors find no systematic scoring manipulation or funding reallocation toward richer areas.
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The authors use an original panel dataset of migrant departures from the Philippines to identify the responsiveness of migrant numbers and wages to gross domestic product (GDP) shocks in destination countries.
... See More + The authors find a large, significant response of migrant numbers to GDP shocks at destination, but no significant wage response. This is consistent with binding minimum wages for migrant labor. This result implies that labor market imperfections that make international migration attractive also make migrant flows more sensitive to global business cycles. Difference-in-differences analysis of a minimum wage change for maids confirms that minimum wages bind and demand is price sensitive without these distortions.
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This paper examines the consequences of rapid disinflation for downward wage rigidities in two emerging countries, Brazil and Uruguay. Although wage rigidities are altered by disinflation, in neither of the two countries does price stability eliminate frictions in wage-setting mechanisms.
... See More + In a context of individual wage negotiations and weak unions, disinflation in Uruguay puts an end to its history of indexation, but strong resistance to nominal wage cuts emerges. In strongly unionized Brazil, wage indexation is highly persistent, but the introduction of inflation targeting by the Central Bank in 1999 moves the focal point of wage negotiations to expected inflation.
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The authors show that pregnant women whose first clinic visit coincides with the nurses attendance are 58 percentage points more likely to test for HIV and 46 percent more likely to deliver in a hospital.
... See More + Furthermore, women with high pretest expectations of being HIV positive, whose visit coincides with nurse attendance, are 25 and 7.4 percentage points more likely to deliver in a hospital and receive PMTCT medication and 9 percentage points less likely to breast-feed than women whose visit coincides with nurse absence. The shortcomings that prevent pregnant women from testing on a subsequent visit are common in sub-Saharan Africa.
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A field experiment in Sri Lanka provides informal firms incentives to formalize. Information about the registration process and reimbursement of direct costs does not increase registration.
... See More + Payments equivalent to one-half to one month (alternatively, two months) of the median firms profits leads to registration of around one-fifth (alternatively, one-half) of firms. Land ownership issues are the most common reason for not registering. Follow-up surveys 15 to 31 months later show higher mean profits, but largely in a few firms that grew rapidly. The authors find little evidence for other changes in behavior, but formalized firms express more trust in the state.
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Empirical studies of the relationship between school inputs and test scores typically do not account for household responses to changes in school inputs.
... See More + Evidence from India and Zambia shows that student test scores are higher when schools receive unanticipated grants, but there is no impact of grants that are anticipated. The authors show that the most likely mechanism for this result is that households offset their own spending in response to anticipated grants. Our results confirm the importance of optimal household responses and suggest caution when interpreting estimates of school inputs on learning outcomes as parameters of an education production function.
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Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of nonsystematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product.
... See More + Demand is significantly price sensitive, but widespread take-up would not be achieved even if the product offered a payout ratio comparable to US insurance contracts. The authors present evidence suggesting that lack of trust, liquidity constraints, and limited salience are significant non-price frictions that constrain demand. The authors suggest possible contract design improvements to mitigate these frictions.
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Enforcement of labor regulations in the formal sector may drive workers to informality because they increase the costs of formal labor. But better compliance with mandated benefits makes it attractive to be a formal employee.
... See More + The authors show that, in locations with frequent inspections, workers pay for mandated benefits by receiving lower wages. Wage rigidity prevents downward adjustment at the bottom of the wage distribution. As a result, lower paid formal sector jobs become attractive to some informal workers, inducing them to want to move to the formal sector.
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Cash transfer programs have become extremely popular in the developing world. A large literature analyzes their effects on schooling, health and nutrition, but relatively little is known about possible impacts on child development.
... See More + This paper analyzes the impact of a cash transfer program on early childhood cognitive development. Children in households randomly assigned to receive benefits had significantly higher levels of development nine months after the program began. There is no fade-out of program effects two years after the program ended. Additional random variation shows that these impacts are unlikely to result from the cash component of the program alone.
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