15 research outputs found
Can social marketing be a tool towards improved nutrition? Lessons from a field experiment in India
No full textMicronutrient deficiency, iron in particular, is a major health issue across India, affecting maternal and child health. Iron Folic Acid tablets are often distributed to pregnant women to address iron deficiency, however, recent data show a high prevalence of anemia within non-pregnant women too. Fortification powders have been found to improve child and maternal health in developing countries. The purpose of this paper, however, is to evaluate possibility of voluntary purchase of fortification powders by households when marketed by local women self-help groups at a price mutually agreed upon by the community. The paper tracks purchasing behavior of 5600 households across 15 villages in rural India for a period of close to 2 years and finds that the likelihood of a household making purchases increases by 55% because of its connectivity to local self help groups and other social networks, while other factors have no bearing at all
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Essays in development economics
No full textThis dissertation studies questions of economic and policy relevance in the field of development economics. I examine the impact of unconditional cash transfers on vulnerable populations in developing countries, often excluded by standard social safety net programs. I also study the effect of realized fertility on stated fertility preferences, shedding light on the effects of outcomes on preferences in general when measured retrospectively via survey instruments. In Chapter one, I elaborate on the effects of realized fertility on fertility preferences. Fertility preferences are critical in understanding fertility trends and in making reproductive policies. However, if fertility itself influences survey reports of preferences, then its usage in policy making gets complicated. This paper investigates whether there exists a causal effect of realized fertility on desired fertility. I exploit two separate sources of exogenous variation in realized fertility, robustly implementing two distinct identification strategies. The first uses the occurrence of twins while the second uses the birth of a female child at first birth to estimate the impact of realized fertility on desired fertility. Using data from 230 rounds of Demographic and Health Surveys from 74 developing countries, I find that having an additional birth causally increases desired fertility by 0.15-0.30. My main result is to identify this causal effect, but my data also allow me to investigate probable mechanism. I show that facts of timing rule out learning that could be consistent with a classical model of causally-prior preferences. Instead, supplementary evidence suggests a behavioral mechanism whereby outcomes influence stated preferences, which could be through reference-dependent preferences, ex-post rationalization, or another behavioral mechanism. The result has important policy and research implications specifically when using fertility preferences to estimate excess fertility, the need for family planning programs, son preference, or as proxies for intrahousehold bargaining. Chapter two, jointly written with Ana P. Cañedo & Raissa Fabregas, investigates the impact of emergency cash transfers in Mexico. Specifically, we study the effects of a sizeable ($526 PPP) one-time-only emergency cash transfer targeted at self-employed, sub-employed, and informal sector workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The transfers were processed on a first-come, first-served basis until program funds were depleted, creating a plausible source of exogenous variation in program participation. Combining this discontinuity with a purpose-built phone survey, we find substantial positive effects on measures of food security and psychological well-being three to four months after reception. The point estimates for summary measures of business health outcomes and support for lockdown measures are positive, but imprecisely estimated. Finally, Chapter three, jointly written with Stein et al., we investigate medium term effect of unconditional cash transfers to refugees in Uganda. Refugees in protracted displacement are often limited in their opportunities for income-generating activities and investments, making them dependent on aid for meeting basic needs. In the context of stretched humanitarian aid budgets, it is a necessary policy question to determine ways to increase refugees’ self-reliance. In this study, we combine a quantitative randomized controlled trial with rich longitudinal qualitative data to explore multidimensional impacts of a large, one-time, unconditional transfer of 1,000 USD to predominantly South Sudanese refugees living in protracted displacement in Uganda. An NGO made this transfer at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown, which was also a time of cuts to the monthly consumption support delivered by large aid agencies. Estimated after 19 months, we find that the transfer significantly increased households’ consumption, asset values, business ownership, business revenue, psychological well-being and self-reliance. We find positive but insignificant effects on food security, migration, employment, or female empowerment. Although our qualitative work uncovered some evidence of unintended consequences, we do not find systematic negative impacts including social cohesion, security, and domestic conflict. Overall, a large one-time cash transfer given in the context of shocks has multidimensional improvements in refugees’ lives. This suggests large one-off cash transfers for refugees in situations of protracted displacement allows them to make meaningful movements towards self-reliance through improved investments and asset accumulation. However, while large cash transfers should continue to be a key part of the humanitarian policy toolkit, the magnitude and mixed nature of our findings suggests that large one-time cash transfers alone are insufficient to deliver lasting self-reliance to those in protracted displacement, especially in the context of multiple shocks.Economic
An Era of 3D Printing
No full textIt’s better to accomplish a task in few hours rather than in months. The creation of 3D printed homes has brought a revolution in the construction industry. Using giant printers it takes only few hours to construct houses much quicker than the earlier methods which takes at least 3 months, moreover at reasonable cost. So this concept can reduce the burden from the pockets of a common man. Even construction waste is used in printers and then command is given to constructs the house layer by layer. This solves the purpose of recycling the waste and promotes sustainable development. This abstract overviews 3D printed home
Opportunistic routing using Wireless Sensor Networks
No full textWireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are used in our daily life for monitoring and controlling application because of it’s unique features such as low power consumption, reduced cost, and implementation with ease. To improve the lifetime of wireless sensor networks energy efficient routing protocol is very necessary to choose in the network layer of WSN. A comparative analysis based on performance and energy consumption referring to opportunistic routing algorithm is done. It is being evaluated in terms of energy consumed, packets lost, flow rate and throughput. We see that Opportunistic routing algorithm performs way better than the entire traditional routing algorithm. The results provided show that Opportunistic routing give significant improvement in power consumption
Minimum support prices in India: Distilling the facts
No full textIn recent years in India, minimum support price (MSP) and government procurement, especially of paddy and wheat, have been discussed widely, but these discussions have often drawn on evidence that is dated and incomplete. Consequently, such discussions have clouded the facts, resulting in a large number of factoids. According to these popular misconceptions, very few farmers (6 per cent only) benefit from MSP and government procurement, only large farmers benefit, and only farmers of Punjab and Haryana (and, to some extent, western Uttar Pradesh) benefit. In this article, we examine these three factoids and draw on multiple data sources to distil the facts. We argue that the existing evidence suggests a more complex picture: (1) MSP impacts 13 per cent of paddy sellers and 16 per cent of wheat sellers; (2) the geographies of procurement have expanded to new States including, notably, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha; and (3) although at the national level there is a bias towards large farmers, this does not imply exclusion of small and marginal farmers. In fact, a majority of the beneficiaries are marginal and small farmers on both the extensive and the intensive margins. Further, we find substantial heterogeneity by States. Haryana, for instance, has a bias in favour of small and marginal farmers. We conclude that debates on MSP and procurement must therefore take into account the changed geography of procurement and the profile of sellers, and recognise the diversity of experiences relating to procurement across States
Minimum Support Prices in India: Distilling the Facts
No full textIn recent years in India, minimum support price (MSP) and government procurement, especially of paddy and wheat, have been discussed widely, but these discussions have often drawn on evidence that is dated and incomplete. Consequently, such discussions have clouded the facts, resulting in a large number of factoids. According to these popular misconceptions, very few farmers (6 per cent only) benefit from MSP and government procurement, only large farmers benefit, and only farmers of Punjab and Haryana (and, to some extent, western Uttar Pradesh) benefit. In this article, we examine these three factoids and draw on multiple data sources to distil the facts. We argue that the existing evidence suggests a more complex picture: (1) MSP impacts 13 per cent of paddy sellers and 16 per cent of wheat sellers; (2) the geographies of procurement have expanded to new States including, notably, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha; and (3) although at the national level there is a bias towards large farmers, this does not imply exclusion of small and marginal farmers. In fact, a majority of the beneficiaries are marginal and small farmers on both the extensive and the intensive margins. Further, we find substantial heterogeneity by States. Haryana, for instance, has a bias in favour of small and marginal farmers. We conclude that debates on MSP and procurement must therefore take into account the changed geography of procurement and the profile of sellers, and recognise the diversity of experiences relating to procurement across States
Minimum Support Prices in India: Distilling the facts
No full textIn recent years, the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and government procurement especially of paddy and wheat have been discussed widely, but these discussions have often drawn on evidence that is dated and incomplete. Consequently, such discussions have clouded the facts, resulting in a large number of factoids. According to these popular beliefs, very few farmers benefit (6% only), and primarily large farmers of Punjab and Haryana (and to some extent western Uttar Pradesh) benefit. In this article, we examine these three factoids and draw on multiple data sources to distil the facts. We argue that existing evidence suggests a more complex picture – (1) the MSP impacts 13(16)% paddy (wheat) sellers; (2) the geographies of procurement have expanded to new states including notably, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, and (3) Although, at the national level, there is a large farmer bias, this doesn’t imply exclusion of small and marginal farmers. In fact, majority of the beneficiaries are marginal and small farmers on both the extensive and the intensive margins. Further, we find substantial heterogeneity by states. Haryana for instance has a bias in favour of small and marginal farmers. We conclude that debates on the MSP and procurement must therefore take into account the changed geography of procurement and the profile of sellers and recognize the diversity of experiences with procurement across states
Minimum support prices in India: Distilling the facts
No full textIn recent years in India, minimum support price (MSP) and government procurement, especially of paddy and wheat, have been discussed widely, but these discussions have often drawn on evidence that is dated and incomplete. Consequently, such discussions have clouded the facts, resulting in a large number of factoids. According to these popular misconceptions, very few farmers (6 per cent only) benefit from MSP and government procurement, only large farmers benefit, and only farmers of Punjab and Haryana (and, to some extent, western Uttar Pradesh) benefit. In this article, we examine these three factoids and draw on multiple data sources to distil the facts. We argue that the existing evidence suggests a more complex picture: (1) MSP impacts 13 per cent of paddy sellers and 16 per cent of wheat sellers; (2) the geographies of procurement have expanded to new States including, notably, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha; and (3) although at the national level there is a bias towards large farmers, this does not imply exclusion of small and marginal farmers. In fact, a majority of the beneficiaries are marginal and small farmers on both the extensive and the intensive margins. Further, we find substantial heterogeneity by States. Haryana, for instance, has a bias in favour of small and marginal farmers. We conclude that debates on MSP and procurement must therefore take into account the changed geography of procurement and the profile of sellers, and recognise the diversity of experiences relating to procurement across States.PRIFPRI3; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; DCASA
Large and unequal life expectancy declines during the COVID-19 pandemic in India in 2020
No full textGlobal population health during the COVID-19 pandemic is poorly understood because of weak mortality monitoring in low- and middle-income countries. High-quality survey data on 765,180 individuals, representative of one-fourth of India's population, uncover patterns missed by incomplete vital statistics and disease surveillance. Compared to 2019, life expectancy at birth was 2.6 years lower and mortality was 17% higher in 2020, implying 1.19 million excess deaths in 2020. Life expectancy declines in India were larger and had a younger age profile than in high-income countries. Increases in mortality were greater than expected based on observed seroprevalence and international infection fatality rates, most prominently among the youngest and older age groups. In contrast to global patterns, females in India experienced a life expectancy decline that was 1 year larger than losses for males. Marginalized social groups experienced greater declines than the most privileged social group. These findings uncover large and unequal mortality impacts during the pandemic in the world's most populous country
