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Studying inclusive innovation with the right data: An empirical illustration from Ethiopia
No full textInternational audienceCONTEXTAgricultural innovations are inclusive when they are used by any member of society who wants to use them. Conversely, agricultural innovations that can only be used by a specific privileged group within society can be characterized as “exclusive”.OBJECTIVEThe first objective of this paper is to examine the inclusivity of agricultural innovations in Ethiopia, using national representative data and considering a wide portfolio of innovations resulting from the collaborative research between CGIAR and its national partners. Second, we also examine how measurement error may affect how we characterize the inclusivity of agricultural innovations.METHODSWe use nationally-representative survey data from Ethiopia (collected in 2018/19) in which best-practice measures of the adoption of a large number of agricultural innovations were embedded, including the adoption of CGIAR-related improved maize varieties measured using two different approaches: subjective, self-reported survey data; and objective DNA fingerprinting of crop samples taken from the same farmers' plots. A rich set of household variables is also collected in the survey, which allows characterizing the types of farmers that are adopting different innovations, and the extent to which conclusions regarding the inclusivity of innovations depends on the measurement of the latter.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONSMany innovations are not disproportionately more likely to be adopted by male, larger, richer, or more connected farmers. When using self-reported data on adoption of improved maize varieties, adoption appears positively correlated with having larger landholdings and households with lower female participation in agriculture, and negatively correlated with poorer households (being among the bottom 40% of consumption distribution). Substituting survey responses with the results of DNA fingerprinting these correlations disappear, with farm size, gender and poverty status no longer predictive of adoption.SIGNIFICANCEThe results suggest the potential value of offering a menu of innovations to farmers to increase inclusivity, as it allows each farmer to be a critical consumer of potential innovations and select those that best correspond to their own needs and constraints. We also highlight how important data quality is in ensuring we have correct information about inclusive innovation
Voter coordination in elections: A case for approval voting
No full textInternational audienceWe study how voting rules shape voter coordination in large three-candidate elections. We consider three rules, that differ on the number of candidates that voters can support: Plurality (one), Anti-Plurality (two) and Approval Voting (one or two). We show that the Condorcet winner is always elected at some equilibrium under Approval Voting, and that this rule provides better welfare guarantees than Plurality. We then numerically study a dynamic process of political tâtonnement which delivers rich insights. The Condorcet winner is virtually always elected under Approval Voting, but not under the other rules. The dominance of Approval Voting is robust to several alternative welfare criteria and the introduction of expressive voters
Can affirmative action policies be inefficiently persistent?
No full textInternational audienceWe develop a dynamic model where successive, decentralized policy makers must decide whether to implement affirmative action policies aimed at improving the performance of future generations of a targeted group. Employers do not perfectly observe if a worker benefited from affirmative action, but take that possibility into account, resulting in the devaluation of the worker’s credentials and an associated feeling of injustice. We establish that, in equilibrium, affirmative action is implemented perpetually by benevolent policy makers, despite the feeling of injustice that eventually dominates the anticipated benefits. This contrasts with the first best, which requires affirmative action to be temporary
Repeated Majority Voting
No full textWe propose a general model of repeated voting in committees and study equilibrium behavior under alternative majority rules. We find that repetition may significantly increase the efficiency of majority voting through a mechanism of intertemporal logrolling, agents sometimes voting against their immediate preference to benefit the group’s long-term interest. In turn, this affects the comparison of majority rules, which may differ significantly relative to the static setting. The model provides a rationale for the use of super-majority rules, while accounting for the prevalence of consensus in committee voting
Sperner's lemma and competitive equilibrium with incomplete financial markets
No full textInternational audienceWe establish the existence of a competitive equilibrium in a two-period stochasticeconomy with incomplete financial markets by using Sperner’s lemma. Our existenceresult covers (but is not limited to) several results in the literature, including the casesof nominal and numéraire assets. Moreover, there may exist a continuum of equilibriumprices
Culture, institutions and the long divergence
No full textInternational audienceDuring the medieval and early modern periods the Middle East lost its economic advantage relative to the West. Recent explanations of this historical phenomenon—called the Long Divergence—focus on these regions’ distinct political economy choices regarding religious legitimacy and limited governance. We study these features in a political economy model of the interactions between rulers, secular and clerical elites, and civil society. The model induces a joint evolution of culture and political institutions converging to one of two distinct stationary states: a religious and a secular regime. We then map qualitatively parameters and initial conditions characterizing the West and the Middle East into the implied model dynamics to show that they are consistent with the Long Divergence as well as with several key stylized political and economic facts. Most notably, this mapping suggests non-monotonic political economy dynamics in both regions, in terms of legitimacy and limited governance, which indeed characterize their history
On the resolution of cross-liabilities
No full textInternational audienceIn a variety of systems, in particular in a financial system, entities hold liabilities on each other. The reimbursement abilities are intertwined, thereby potentially generating coordination failures and cascades of defaults calling for orderly resolution. With a single indebted firm, a bankruptcy law organizes such an orderly resolution. With cross-liabilities, a resolution rule should be defined at the system level to account for all those affected, directly or indirectly. This paper investigates such rules assuming their primary goal is to avoid defaults on creditors external to the system, say banks’ defaults on customers’ deposits. I define and characterize the constrained-proportional rule building on two approaches: the minimization of an inequality measure on the reimbursements (made and received) and the axiomatization through desirable properties
Évaluation des aides à la décarbonation du plan France Relance
No full textCe projet documente et analyse l’impact des aides à la décarbonation sur trois volets : le ciblage et le recours aux aides du plan France Relance, les effets économiques et environnementaux des précédentes vagues d’aides à la décarbonation et en particulier du Fonds Chaleur administré par l’Ademe, et les premiers effets rétrospectifs des impacts économiques des aides à la décarbonation du plan France Relance
How Early Career Choices Adjust to Economic Crises
No full textWe study how students adjust their early career choices in response to economic crises, and how this behavioral response affects their long-run labor market outcomes. We specifically examine the context of the severe recession that struck Sweden in the early 1990s, which disproportionally affected the manufacturing and construction sectors. We find that students who experienced paternal job loss in these heavily affected sectors were more likely to choose high school programs linked to sectors less impacted by the recession. As a result, these individuals achieved better labor market outcomes in adulthood, including higher employment rates and career earnings. Our findings are consistent with informational frictions being a key obstacle to structural change, and we identify career choice as an important mechanism through which recessions reshape labor markets in the very long run
Experimental Evidence from a Conditional Cash Transfer Program: Schooling, learning, fertility and labor market outcomes after 10 years
No full textInternational audienceConditional cash transfer programs are the anti-poverty program of choice in manydeveloping countries, aiming to improve human capital and break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. A decade after a randomized 3-year CCT program began, earlier exposure during primary school ages when children were at risk of dropout led to higher labor market participation for young men and women and higher earnings for men. Results highlight the roles of the different program components with variation in timing of access to nutrition, health and education investments translating into substantial differential effects on learning for men and reproductive health outcomes for women