Limited access to reliable financial instruments makes it difficult for rural households to manage daily cash flows. Selling goods through cooperatives can improve savings, but cooperative income is not easily accessible when facing an emergency.
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This paper reports on a randomized experiment conducted among Malawian agricultural households to study nonclassical measurement error (NCME) in self-reported plot area, and farmers' responses to new information — the objective plot area measure —
Random digit dial surveys with mobile phones risk under-representation of women. To address this, we compare the characteristics of women recruited directly with those of women recruited through referrals from male household members.
Addressing public health externalities often requires community-level collective action. Due to social norms, each person’s sanitation investment decisions may depend on the decisions of neighbors.
Measuring consumption over the phone: Evidence from a survey experiment in urban Ethiopia
The paucity of reliable, timely household consumption data in many low- and middle-income countries have made it difficult to assess how global poverty has evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We use plant level census data to identify spillovers from FDI in Ethiopia's manufacturing sector.
Misperceiving and misreporting input quality: Implications for input use and productivity
Farmers in developing countries routinely misperceive or misreport input quality for various reasons, which introduces substantial measurement error in farm survey data.
As development and humanitarian agencies increasingly advance the objective of ‘building resilience’, three resilience measurement methods have come into especially widespread use: the Resilience Indicators for Measurement and Analysis approach de
Land market distortions and aggregate agricultural productivity: Evidence from Guatemala
A theoretical framework to model the optimal size distribution of farms and assess to what extent market imperfections can explain non-optimal land allocation and output inefficiency. (Guatemala)
How light is too light touch: The effect of a short training-based intervention on household poultry production in Burkina Faso
This paper reports on the effects of a training-based intervention seeking to increase household engagement in poultry production in Burkina Faso, analyzing data from a large-scale cluster randomized trial in which 1798 households in 60 communes w
Cheap talk and coordination in the lab and in the field: Collective commercialization in Senegal
In Senegal, revealing farmers’ intentions improves collective commercialization, & learning in the lab transfers to day-to-day behaviors.
Are we done yet? Response fatigue and rural livelihoods
Lengthy surveys where designated respondents provide information about their household members can lead to both losses & biases as fatigue grows during interviews.
“Moving umbrella”: Bureaucratic transfers and the comovement of interregional investments in China
This paper studies the pattern of interregional investment after bureaucratic transfers across Chinese cities.
We examine an indirect but potentially deadly consequence of the “missing girls” phenomenon. A shortage of brides causes many parents with sons of marriageable age to work harder and seek higher-paying but dangerous jobs.
Information, technology, and market rewards: Incentivizing aflatoxin control in Ghana
The quality of agricultural products can affect both farm incomes and the healthfulness of farm families’ diets.
Provision of low-cost credit to the poor through self-help groups (SHGs) has been embraced as a key poverty-reduction strategy in developing countries, but evidence on the impact of this approach is thin.
A substantial literature has analyzed the challenges around weather index insurance, yet an important design issue has been generally overlooked.
Cash transfers, polygamy, and intimate partner violence: Experimental evidence from Mali
Cash transfer programs primarily targeting women in Latin America and East Africa have been shown to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV), but knowledge gaps remain on how impacts differ by program features and context.