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Average vs. Marginal Risk Aversion: Reconciling Simultaneously Risk Averse and Risk Loving Behavior
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Essays on the Economic Impacts of Mobile Phones in Haiti
Get PDFThis dissertation adds to our understanding of how mobile phones play a role in improving development opportunities. They not only provide a channel to communicate with others, but generate troves of data about the economic lives of subscribers. I contribute to the literature by examining three aspects of the potential of cell phones as development tools. In chapter one, I study the most widespread form of digital credit: airtime loans. This service allows prepaid customers to borrow small airtime advances for a fee instead of purchasing recharges that must be paid upfront. Relying on rich administrative data from a mobile network operator in Haiti, I show access to loans increases total communication expenditure by 16% but with distinctly heterogeneous impacts. When airtime loans become available, poorer customers more than double their mobile communication spending, while access to loans leaves expenditure of the highest tercile unchanged. These differences exist despite relatively uniform patterns of loan usages between the poor and non-poor. I argue these differences are driven by distinct motivations for requesting airtime loans, with poorer customers using the loans to relax short-term liquidity constraints at critical communication times whereas non-poor customers primarily use these loans for convenience, as it gives them more discretion in when to visit airtime vendors.In chapter two, I build on the evidence that demonstrates mobile phone metadata, in conjunction with machine learning algorithms, can be used to estimate the wealth of individual subscribers, and to target resources to poor segments of society. This paper uses survey data from an emergency cash transfer program in Haiti, in combination with mobile phone data from potential beneficiaries, to explore whether similar methods can be used for impact evaluation. A conventional regression discontinuity-based impact evaluation using survey data shows positive impacts of cash transfers on household food security and dietary diversity. However, machine learning predictions of food security derived from mobile phone data do not show statistically significant effects; nor do the predictions accurately differentiate beneficiaries from non-beneficiaries at baseline. Our analysis suggests that the poor performance is likely due to the homogeneity of the study population; when the same algorithms are applied to a more diverse Haitian population, performance improves markedly. We conclude with a discussion of the implications and limitations for predicting welfare outcomes using big data in poor countries.In chapter three, I provide evidence on the determinants of the adoption of mobile money services. In contrast with previous research that centers on adoption after a service is launched, I study a mature platform that experiences a stagnating user base. I combine a survey with a randomized component with mobile money transaction logs to test if informational videos induce people to open an account and try new products. My results show that awareness of mobile money services is high and, even if having an account is free, many people use the service indirectly by asking others to make transactions for them. The intervention increased adoption by 5.4\%. However, a large share of new users came from the group that declined the opportunity to watch the videos, indicating more than simply information drove their decision to adopt. I do not find the videos increased the usage of additional services by people with an account at the time of the survey. Taken together, my results show further growth of the mobile money platform requires increasing the number of services available to attract additional customers and incentivize the daily usage of mobile money for economic transactions
Indian farmers' valuation of yield distributions: Will poor farmers value `pro-poor' seeds?
No full textIndian Farmers' Valuation of Crop Yield Distributions: Will poor farmers value 'pro-poor' seeds?
Get PDFPotential poverty traps among the rural poor suggest a need to reduce poor farmers' vulnerability by stabilizing crop yields and limiting yield losses. Advances in agricultural biotechnology enable breeders to address this need more directly than ever before with crops that reduce production risk by tolerating climate fluctuation or resisting biotic stresses. Will poor farmers who could benefit most from less vulnerability choose to purchase such risk-reducing seeds? I use data from a household survey and experiment involving farmers in India to infer their valuation of changes in the mean, variance, and skewness of yield distributions. I conclude that these farmers value increases in expected yield in the yield distribution but seem indifferent about changes in higher moments of the distribution. Farmer traits such as wealth and risk exposure affect farmers' valuation of changes in yield distributions only mildly
On assessing the cost of TRIPS implementation
No full textEfforts to ensure that intellectual property rights are respected and protected world-wide have met increasing resistance by critics who see extreme imbalances in the costs and benefits of implementing stronger intellectual property protection. The WTO s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) attracts particular criticism as an enforceable multilateral embodiment of these efforts. While few disagree that developed countries stand to benefit more in the short term from TRIPS implementation than developing countries, precisely estimating associated costs and benefits is challenging. This paper comments on an approach to estimating the indirect costs of implementing TRIPS proposed by McCalman (2001) and argues that the approach overestimates the costs born by developing countries. Specifically, this overestimation is due primarily to an inadequate representation of the TRIPS Agreement and a counterfactual assumption that countries would not have strengthened their intellectual property policies in the absence of the TRIPS Agreement.
Patent disclosure requirements and benefit sharing: A counterfactual case of Morocco's argan oil
No full textIndian Farmers' Valuation of Crop Yield Distributions: Will poor farmers value 'pro-poor' seeds?
No full textPotential poverty traps among the rural poor suggest a need to reduce poor farmers' vulnerability by stabilizing crop yields and limiting yield losses. Advances in agricultural biotechnology enable breeders to address this need more directly than ever before with crops that reduce production risk by tolerating climate fluctuation or resisting biotic stresses. Will poor farmers who could benefit most from less vulnerability choose to purchase such risk-reducing seeds? I use data from a household survey and experiment involving farmers in India to infer their valuation of changes in the mean, variance, and skewness of yield distributions. I conclude that these farmers value increases in expected yield in the yield distribution but seem indifferent about changes in higher moments of the distribution. Farmer traits such as wealth and risk exposure affect farmers' valuation of changes in yield distributions only mildly.Poverty, Risk, Biotechnology, Experimental Economics, Farm Management, C9, D8, O1, Q1,
Endogenous Technical Progress and Spillovers in a Vertically-Linked Model of Economic Geography
Get PDFWP 2003-31 October 2003JEL Classification Codes: O0; O3; O4; F2Technology has generated vast economic surpluses, but has also driven extreme and growing economic inequality due to the self-reinforcing nature of technical progress and technology diffusion. Economists have recently renewed their interest in the important role of geography in the creation and diffusion of technology – and hence in economic development and inequality. This paper contributes to this effort by introducing a simple endogenous growth process in which labor productivity increases with industry size and spillovers between regions are possible into a core-periphery vertically-linked model(1996). Rather than isolating their effect, this paper studies the implications of adding endogenous growth and spillovers to the existing vertical linkages of the Puga and Venables (1996) model. Multiple equilibria may obtain when endogenous growth with spillovers is added. While endogenous technical progress is generally an agglomeration forced and spillovers are a dispersion force, the strength of these forces is mediated by trade costs. Finally, the dispersion forces associated with increasing spillovers and relatively low, falling trade costs mostly operate independently, but there are critical values of trade costs at which the two are strong ‘dispersion complements’ such that a marginal increase in spillover scope significantly reduces the economic inequality between the two regions. The existence of such tipping points suggests that some countries attempting to increase technology spillovers into its economy may enjoy few development benefits while others may reap substantial gains
Endogenous Technical Progress and Spillovers in a Vertically-Linked Model of Economic Geography
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