Working papers and policy briefs

Governance Structure and Household Investment in Education:
Evidence from a Recentralization Experiment in Vietnam

Abstract

Despite the enhanced significance of the optimal design of institutions, relatively less is known about the role of governance structures in shaping household-level development outcomes. In this paper, we study the link between type of governance (centralized v/s decentralized) and households’ allocation decisions towards education. We exploit a unique policy experiment in Vietnam in 2009 that recentralized provincial administration by abolishing district peoples’ councils and re-allocating administrative control to the sub-national authorities in select provinces. Employing a quasi-experimental identification strategy, we find that education expenditure for households in recentralized provinces increased by 1 pp (15% relative to the mean), primarily for households with children enrolled in public schools. We also find that education subsidies received by the average households decline as a result of the policy, suggesting a potential mechanism that households’ out-of-pocket expenditure on education may have increased. This is supported by supplementary evidence that enrolment rates and school choice remain unchanged.

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Building Hope for the Poor

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Partisan effects of information campaigns in competitive authoritarian elections: Evidence from Bangladesh

Abstract

To study the effects of non-partisan information and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns on the partisan composition of the voting population in competitive authoritarian elections, we conducted a large-scale field experiment prior to the 2018 Bangladeshi general election. Our two treatments highlight that high turnout increases the winning party's legitimacy and that election outcomes matter for policy outcomes. Both treatments increase turnout (measured by ink marks) in government strongholds but decrease turnout in opposition strongholds. We explain the withdrawal of treated opposition supporters and conclude that non-partisan information and GOTV campaigns can further tilt the uneven playing  field in competitive authoritarian elections.

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Financial Diaries and Women’s Money Management

Abstract

We conduct a randomized controlled trial among women in rural Bangladesh to compare the efficacy of teaching a standard financial curriculum with maintaining a financial diary. We find that keeping a financial diary to track spending is largely as effective as financial education in improving financial test scores and downstream financial behavior. Using incentivized experiments, we also show that participants who maintained a financial diary exhibited significantly higher household bargaining power. The findings suggest that maintaining a financial diary can be a cost-effective alternative to financial education in improving the financial wellbeing of women in developing countries.

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Improving Health and Safety in the Informal Sector: Evidence from a Randomized Trial in Bangladesh

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On the poverty line

Abstract

While poverty lines are indispensable for poverty measurement, there exist a variety of approaches to the specification of poverty lines, including absolute, relative, weakly relative and subjective poverty lines. This chapter briefly reviews the conceptual and normative distinctions underlying different approaches, the commonly-used poverty lines around the world, the potential purposes they serve and some practical issues in the empirical applications of poverty lines for poverty comparisons.

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Corruption in cyclone relief and reconstruction: Evidence from a public fund distribution in Bangladesh

Abstract

After the 2009 cyclone ‘Aila’, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh announced a special assistance of Tk. 20,000 (~$300) to rebuild the houses of the affected households. We examine the role of networks in determining the incidence and extent of corruption associated with this grant by using two rounds of a household-level survey collected before and after the announcement and distribution of the grant. Our results inform that although corruption was bribery and missing grants were considerably lower in the rebuilding grant than the generally perceived level of corruption, networks played an important role in the grant allocation and distribution process. In fact, households endogenously developed political networks to be able to bribe for enlistment for and receipt of the grant, as evident from the positive and significant influence of political networks on the probabilities and amounts of bribes and missing grants. Consequently, although the fund was channeled to disaster-affected villages, household-level allocation and distribution may have suffered from considerable irregularities. Our research may provide guidance for curbing corruption as it highlights the hindering yet central role of political connections in the distribution of post-disaster relief funds.

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Is Female Labor Immobility Holding Back Industrialization in Pakistan?

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Emotional and Behavioral Impacts of Telementoring and Homeschooling Support on Children

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Forced Displacement, Mental Health, and Child Development: Evidence from the Rohingya Refugees

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Delivering Remote Learning Using a Low-tech Solution: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Bangladesh

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Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy using Local Ambassadors: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Indonesia

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Non-price Energy Conservation Information and Household Energy Consumption in a Developing Country: Evidence from an RCT

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Centrality-Based Spillover Effects

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Can public recognition reward backfire? Field experimental evidence on the retention and performance of volunteers

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Deadweight losses or gains from in-kind transfers? Experimental evidence from India

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Coal plants, air pollution and anemia: evidence from India

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of pollution from coal–fired power units on the anemic status of children and women in India. The number of coal units in the district at the time of birth significantly increases the incidence of anemia in young children; in utero exposure and exposure after birth also matters for child anemia. The number of coal units in the district has effects on anemia among women as well, although the magnitude of the impacts are smaller than in the case of young children. We find that impacts are driven by the increase in PM2.5 pollution generated by coal–fired units. Anemia is established as a significant health cost of coal–fired power generation in rapidly growing economies that use this fuel source to meet increasing energy demands.

Authors

• Gaurav Datt
• Pushkar Maitra
• Nidhiya Menon
• Ranjan Ray

With

• Sagnik Dey
• Sourangsu Chowdhury

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The COVID-19 pandemic and migrant workers from rural Bihar

Abstract

Based on phone interviews with more than 1600 households in rural Bihar, this study provides rapid survey-based evidence on the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on casual and migrant workers from rural Bihar. The evidence shows that more than half of rural households had at least one migrant worker prior to the pandemic, and for 94 percent of these households, their migrant workers’ livelihood was adversely affected. There was large-scale reverse migration with a large fraction of returning migrants spending as much as 4-5 months in native villages with limited opportunities for alternative work (including MGNREGA employment). The disruption of employment among migrant workers who stayed in destination areas led to drastic cuts in their remittances back home. About one-fifth of the migrant workers who had gone back to the destination areas were still to resume work at destination sites at the time of the survey.

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Selection and Behavioral Responses of Health Insurance Subsidies in the Long Run: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Ghana

Abstract

We conduct a randomized experiment that varies one-time health insurance subsidy amounts (partial and full) in Ghana to study the impacts of subsidies on insurance enrollment and health care utilization. We find that both partial and full subsidies promote insurance enrollment in the long run, even after the subsidies expired. Although the long run enrollment rate and selective enrollment do not differ by subsidy level, long-run health care utilization increased only for the partial subsidy group. We provide evidence that this can plausibly be explained by stronger behavioral changes (learning-through-experience) in the partial subsidy group.

Authors

• Patrick Opoku
• Hyuncheol Bryant Kim
• Armand Sim

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Gender inequality and caste: field experimental evidence from India

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Telementoring and homeschooling during school closures: A randomized experiment in rural Bangladesh

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Awareness of ethical dilemmas enhances public support for the principle of saving more lives in the US

Abstract

Recommendations by public health experts to deal with public health emergencies, including the Covid-19 pandemic, are primarily guided by the principle of saving more lives (SML). This study investigated which principle is perceived to be most legitimate by the general public for allocating scarce ventilators during public health emergencies.

Authors

• Birendra Rai
• Liang Choon Wang
• Simone Pandit
• Toby Handfield
• Chiu Ki So

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Improving women's mental health during a pandemic

Abstract

This paper evaluates a randomized telecounseling intervention aimed at mitigating the mental health impact of COVID-19 on a sample of 2,402 women across 357 villages in Bangladesh.

Authors

• Michael Vlassopoulos
• Abu Siddique
• Tabassum Rahman
• Debayan Pakrashi
• Asad Islam
• Firoz Ahmed

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Raising COVID-19 awareness in rural communities

Abstract

Effective health information campaigns play an important role in raising public awareness and encouraging preventive and health-promoting behavior. We study the extent to which awareness campaigns promoting simple COVID-19 precautionary measures foster
health-preserving behavior among people in rural communities.

Authors

• Abu Siddique
• Tabassum Rahman
• Debayan Pakrashi
• Asad Islam
• Firoz Ahmed

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Myopia and investment decisions

Authors

• Kazi Iqbal
• Asad Islam
• John List
• Vy Nguyen

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Income loss and wellbeing during COVID-19 lockdown in rural Bangladesh

Abstract

We conducted a large household survey immediately after the lockdown was imposed in response to COVID-19 outbreak in Bangladesh. We then followed up a random subset of households to examine the changing circumstances of rural households as the pandemic evolves. We find that nearly 90 percent of these households experienced a negative income shock. Households that had lost their income completely were more worried about their finance and food, while households with no income loss were mostly concerned about the health of their family members.

Authors

• Firoz Ahmed
• Asad Islam
• Debayan Pakrashi
• Tabassum Rahman
• Abu Siddique

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Food insecurity and mental health of women during COVID-19

Abstract

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has caused significant psychological pressure, with women being more likely than men to have experienced negative impacts. The situation is acute in poor areas in developing countries due to income loss and resulting in food insecurity.

This study examines the association between food insecurity and the mental health of women during the COVID-19 pandemic using panel data from two waves of 2402 household surveys first conducted after three weeks of the lockdown in Bangladesh.

Authors

• Tabassum Rahman
• MD Golam Hasnain
• Asad Islam

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A spatial stochastic SIR model for transmission networks with application to COVID-19 epidemic in China

Abstract

We evaluate the effect of mobility restriction policies on the spread of COVID-19 across 33 provincial regions in China, using data on daily human mobility across regions. The results show that the spread of the disease in China was predominantly driven by community transmission within regions and the lockdown policy introduced by local governments curbed the spread of the pandemic. Further, we document that Hubei was only the epicenter of the early epidemic stage. Secondary epicenters had already become established by late January 2020. The transmission from these epicenters substantially declined following the introduction of human mobility restrictions across regions

Authors

• Tatsushi Oka
• Wei Wei
• Dan Zhu

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Financing of fiscal response to COVID-19: A pragmatic alternative

Abstract

As governments around the world, including the Indian government, mount a fiscal response to the Covid-19 crisis, the question of how to finance the fiscal response has risen to prominence.  We argue that the option of the central bank monetizing the additional government debt and then writing it off offers a pragmatic way out.

Authors

• Ayushi Bajaj
• Gaurav Datt

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Determinants and dynamics of food insecurity during COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 has threatened the food security of the poor due to the lockdown of markets amidst poor institutions and lack of social safety nets in the developing world. Research shows that food security has already worsened since the crisis hit and would presumably worsen further in the future unless rapid measures are taken to attenuate it at the earliest.

Authors

• Firoz Ahmed
• Asad Islam
• Debayan Pakrashi
• Tabassum Rahman
• Abu Siddique

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