This study examines longer-run usage frequency of Mirt improved biomass cookstoves (ICS), one of the most important ICS promoted in Ethiopia. Mirt has been shown to improve childhood health, and reduce fuelwood consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, but to generate those benefits, households must regularly use it over extended periods. Thus, this paper focuses on longer-run use using stove surface temperature data over five time intervals. We find that, close to its estimated lifespan, 63 per cent of households had their stoves in place after more than 3.5 years. Of those who abandoned their stoves, over 80 per cent did so due to breakage, indicating little abandonment of functional stoves. Among those who retained their stoves, despite the relatively long time frame, we observe no decline in regular usage, suggesting the ICS deliver long-term benefits. We find no correlation of dis-adoption with three randomly assigned monetary treatments and no effect of treatments on long-run usage frequency.
The farm household model, in which decisions about production and consumption are made simultaneously, lies at the heart of many models of development. Empirically modelling these simultaneous choices is not straightforward. The vast majority of empirical studies assume that farm households behave as if markets are complete in which case decision-making simplifies to a recursive system where consumption choices can be treated as if they are made after all production decisions. Previous empirical tests of this assumption have relied on restrictions on production decisions. We develop a new approach to testing based on household consumption choices and implement the procedure using data from rural Indonesia. Relative to production-side tests, the consumption-based test is well-suited to identifying those farm households in any setting whose behavior is consistent with complete markets and those for whom the assumption is rejected. We find the recursion assumption is not rejected for larger farmers but is rejected for small farmers. The tests are straightforward to implement and the results of the tests provide new opportunities to identify the behaviors that households adopt in the face of incomplete markets.
This paper reports on electronically-monitored improved use of the “Mirt” biomass stove in Ethiopia over a relatively long period of three-and-a-half years, using stove use data collected at five points in time. The results show that 62 percent of the households surveyed still retained their stoves after more than three years, which is a low level of abandonment, as the lifetime of the Mirt stove is approximately five years. Dis-adoption of the stove is not correlated with any of three monetary incentives provided at the time of distribution. With and without adjusting for dis-adoption, no longer-run differences in stove retention are found across treatments. Among those who retained their stoves, average regular stove use increased over time, but generally it is statistically the same toward the end of the first year. Thus, despite the relatively long timeframe, no decline is observed in regular usage. Comparing the persistence of the treatment effects, the paper finds that, in the longer run, subsidizing the cost most effectively promotes increased regular use over time.
There is a growing effort in the non-market valuation literature toward better understanding of the stability and evolution of preferences over time. The study uses a novel approach combining a repeated choice experiment with a randomized controlled trial on stove adoption in Ethiopia to analyze the stability and evolution of preferences. The treatment group in the randomized controlled trial received an improved fuelwood stove with less fuelwood use, whereas the control group continued to use traditional cooking methods. Respondents were given the exact same choice questions in 2013 and 2016. The study began with 504 households in 36 communities in 2013, and 486 of the same households participated in 2016 (a 96 percent retention rate). The results show that preferences of the respondents from the control group are stable over the study period, while preferences of the respondents from the treatment group evolve. Moreover, households in the treatment group still using the stoves have significantly higher willingness to pay for all the stove's attributes in 2016 compared with 2013, indicating how longer experience can increase the willingness to pay for technology with environmentally preferable attributes.
This paper presents the three-year impacts of an improved biomass cookstove on child and adult health in rural Ethiopia. After near complete stove adoption during an initial one-year randomized controlled trial, 60 percent of treatment households continued to use the improved stoves three-years on and experienced reductions in hazardous airborne particulate matter. The study finds that treatment status is associated with a precisely estimated 0.3-0.4 standard deviation improvement in height-for-age of young children exposed during their first years of life, compared with a control group of households that never used the improved stove. This is a substantial effect with implications for greater health and well-being throughout the life course. However, the study finds no changes in the respiratory symptoms or physical functioning of older children and adult cooks in treated households relative to control households. The results advance understanding of the health impacts of hazardous air pollution while also refining the design and implementation options for interventions geared toward improving well-being in similar environments.
Improved biomass cookstoves have been promoted as important intermediate technologies to reduce fuelwood consumption and possibly cut household air pollution in low-income countries. This study uses a randomized controlled trial to examine household air pollution reductions from an improved biomass cookstove promoted in rural Ethiopia, the Mirt improved cookstove. This stove is used to bake injera, which is very energy intensive and has a very particular cooking profile. In the overall sample, the Mirt improved cookstove leads to only minor reductions in mean household air pollution (10 percent on average). However, for those who bake injera in their main living areas, the Mirt improved cookstove reduces average mean household air pollution by 64 percent and median household air pollution by 78 percent -- although the resulting household air pollution levels are still many times greater than the World Health Organization's guideline. These large percentage reductions may reflect decreased emissions due to less use of fuelwood, given Mirt's energy-efficient design, and the likelihood that higher-emissions three-stone cooking is moved outside the main living area once a Mirt improved cookstove is installed. Households in the subsample who experience a greater decline in household air pollution tend to be less wealthy and more remotely located and burn less-preferred biomass fuels, like agricultural waste and animal dung, than households that cook in a separate area.
Between 1994 and 2013, Black head coaches of Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball programs were more likely to be terminated than their White counterparts, adjusting for performance and characteristics of the coach. Controlling for employment at a historically Black college or university, which accounts for approximately a quarter of the Black coaches in our sample, overturns this result. The findings highlight the importance of understanding institutional environments when assessing discrimination in labor market outcomes.
Rapid demographic change, economic growth, and evolving social norms have put increasing pressure on the traditional system of filial piety and family-based eldercare in China. This paper examines the current role of intergenerational transfers in providing old-age support using nationally representative data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. The analysis explores varied modes of care that exist in rural and urban areas, as well as the role of internal migration in influencing methods of old-age support. The results paint a rich description of the contemporary dynamics between filial obligations and economic development.
The behavior of noncoresident family members motivates much of the literature on consumption smoothing, risk-sharing, and informal networks, yet little is known empirically on the topic due to a lack of data simultaneously observing multiple households in an extended family. This study utilizes genealogically linked longitudinal data to examine how extended family networks insure against financial risks from severely limiting health conditions. We find that nonhealth consumption of unmarried households declines in response to worsening health, whereas married households smooth expenditures in a way that is consistent with full insurance. Families mitigate losses by reallocating home production, drawing down home equity, holding formal health insurance, collecting social security, and receiving transfers from noncoresident relatives. We illustrate that the costs of health shocks are transmitted throughout family networks, and that noncoresident children draw down their assets and consumption when responding to a parent's health decline.
The farm household model, in which decisions about production and consumption are made simultaneously, lies at the heart of many models of development. Empirically modelling these simultaneous choices is not straightforward. The vast majority of empirical studies assume that farm households behave as if markets are complete in which case decision-making simplifies to a recursive system where consumption choices can be treated as if they are made after all production decisions. Previous empirical tests of the complete markets assumption have relied on restrictions on production decisions. We develop a new approach to testing based on household consumption choices and implement the procedure using data from rural Indonesia. Relative to production-side tests, the consumption-based test is well-suited to identifying those farm households in any setting who behave as if markets are complete and those that do not. We find that larger farmers behave as if markets are complete but the behavior of small farmers is not consistent with the complete markets assumption. The tests are straightforward to implement and the results provide opportunities to identify the behaviors that household adopt when markets are not complete as well as interpret evidence from studies of development in rural settings. Peter Arcidiacono, Jean-Marie Baland, Dwayne Benjamin, Elizabeth Frankenberg, Amar Hamoudi, Joe Hotz, Daniel Keniston, Sylvie Lambert, David Margolis, Jean-Phillipe Platteau, Edy Purwanto, Marcos Rangel, Mark Rosenzweig, T. Paul Schultz, Cecep Sumantri, John Strauss, Alessandro Tarozzi, Zaki Wahhaj and Liam Wren Lewis have provided very helpful comments. Funding from NIA R01 AG020909 is gratefully acknowledged. Contact information: Daniel LaFave, Dept Economics, Colby College, Waterville, ME 04901. Email: daniel.lafave@colby.edu Evan Peet, RAND Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA. Email: epeet@rand.org Duncan Thomas, Dept Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27705. Email: dthomas@econ.duke.edu
The farm household model has played a central role in improving the understanding of small-scale agricultural households and non-farm enterprises. Under the assumptions that all current and future markets exist and that farmers treat all prices as given, the model simplifies households' simultaneous production and consumption decisions into a recursive form in which production can be treated as independent of preferences of household members. These assumptions, which are the foundation of a large literature in labor and development, have been tested and not rejected in several important studies including Benjamin (1992). Using multiple waves of longitudinal survey data from Central Java, Indonesia, this paper tests a key prediction of the recursive model: demand for farm labor is unrelated to the demographic composition of the farm household. The prediction is unambiguously rejected. The rejection cannot be explained by contamination due to unobserved heterogeneity that is fixed at the farm level, local area shocks, or farm-specific shocks that affect changes in household composition and farm labor demand. We conclude that the recursive form of the farm household model is not consistent with the data. Developing empirically tractable models of farm households when markets are incomplete remains an important challenge.
To date, 27 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws easing marijuana control. This paper examines the relationship between the legalization of medical marijuana, depenalization of possession, and the incidence of non-drug crime. Using state panel data from 1970 to 2012, results show evidence of 4-12% reductions in robberies, larcenies, and burglaries due to the legalization of medical marijuana, but that depenalization has little effect and may instead increase crime rates. These effects are supported by null results for crimes unrelated to the cannabis market and are consistent with the supply-side effects of medicinal use that are absent from depenalization laws as well as existing evidence on the substitution between marijuana and alcohol. The findings contribute new evidence to the complex debate surrounding marijuana policy and the war on drugs.
Taller workers earn more, particularly in lower income settings. It has been argued that adult height is a marker of strength which is rewarded in the labor market; a proxy for cognitive performance or other dimensions of human capital such as school quality; a proxy for health status; and a proxy for family background and genetic characteristics. As a result, the argument goes, height is rewarded in the labor market because it is an informative signal of worker quality to an employer. It has also been argued that the height premium is driven by occupational and sectoral choice. This paper evaluates the relative importance of these potential mechanisms underlying the link between adult stature and labor market productivity in a specific low income setting, rural Central Java, Indonesia. Drawing on twelve waves of longitudinal survey data, we establish that height predicts hourly earnings after controlling education, multiple indicators of cognitive performance and physical health status, measures of family background, sectoral and occupational choice, as well as local area market characteristics. The height premium is large and significant in both the wage and self-employed sectors indicating height is not only a signal of worker quality to employers. Since adult stature is largely determined in the first few years of life, we conclude that exposures during this critical period have an enduring impact on labor market productivity.
Whereas the extended family plays a central role in many models of economic behavior, particularly in developing countries, there is a paucity of empirical evidence on the extent and nature of resource sharing among non coresident family members. This is in sharp contrast with abundant evidence that the distribution of resources within households predicts household spending and savings patterns. To fill this gap, the collective model of household decision-making is extended to the family. The model is particularly appealing in this context because it places few restrictions on preferences of individual family members who may or may not be coresident and does not specify a specific bargaining mechanism that underlies negotiations. The model yields empirical tests of whether the behavior of family members is (Pareto) efficient.Evidence is presented on the relationship between three distinct measures of health- and education-related human capital of children and the distribution of wealth among extended family members using rich longitudinal survey data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS). The data are ideally suited for this research because the survey follows family members when they leave the family home and detailed information about individual-specific wealth is collected. We find that child human capital outcomes are affected by wealth of non coresident family members indicating that extended families do share resources. While the special case of the model in which all members are completely altruistic is rejected, the restrictions of the efficient model are not rejected, indicating that non co-resident family members are able to co-ordinate allocation decisions in such a way as to make no family member better off without another member being worse off.
We investigate local economic impacts of shale gas development using the natural experiment of the discontinuity in regulation caused by New York's 2008 moratorium on fracking. Using county- and zip-code-level data for 2001–2013 to examine differences in New York and Pennsylvania counties before and after the moratorium, we find that shale gas development has a positive local impact on employment and wages in the natural resource, mining, and construction sectors and an offsetting reduction in employment in the manufacturing sector. Overall, we find no statistically significant local effects on total employment or on wages.
The farm household model has played a central role in improving the understanding of small-scale agricultural households and non-farm enterprises. Under the assumptions that all current and future markets exist and that farmers treat all prices as given, the model simplifies households’ simultaneous production and consumption decisions into a recursive form in which production decisions can be treated as if they are independent of preferences of household members. These assumptions, which are the foundation of a large literature in labor and development have been tested and not rejected in several important studies, notably Benjamin (1992). Using new, longitudinal survey data from Central Java, Indonesia, this paper tests a key prediction of the recursive model: demand for farm labor is unrelated to the demographic composition of the farm household. This prediction is rejected. This rejection is not explained by contamination due to unobserved heterogeneity at the farm level, potential endogeneity of household demographic composition, nor differential monitoring costs for family and hired labor. The difference in conclusions can be attributed to implausibly low levels of family labor in the data used by Benjamin. Daniel LaFave 5243 Mayflower Hill Colby College Waterville, ME 04901 drlafave@colby.edu Duncan Thomas Department of Economics Duke University Box 90097 Durham, NC 27708 and NBER d.thomas@duke.edu
Under the assumption that markets are complete, the simultaneous production and consumption decisions made by farm households are substantially simplified into a recursive system with production choices preceding consumption decisions. This is a powerful assumption that lies at the heart of many empirical models of farm behavior in the literature. The majority of studies that have assessed the validity of the recursion assumption determine whether there is a link between labor demand on the farm and the demographic structure of the farm household. If markets are complete, there should be no links. Empirical implementation of these tests is complicated by endogenous behavioral responses of farm households and complex measurement challenges. Using extremely rich data that were designed for this research, we develop and implement a new test for market completeness that exploits the fact that, under recursion, farm profits only affect consumption through an income effect. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the local market prices of farm inputs, we test the implication using longitudinal survey data collected over six years from a large sample of farm households in rural Java, Indonesia, by estimating a flexible demand system and taking into account time invariant farmhousehold heterogeneity. Overall, the assumption that markets are complete is rejected but there is an important sub-group of better off households who behave as if markets are complete. † This paper has benefited from discussions with Peter Arcidiacono, Dwayne Benjamin, Amar Hamoudi, Joe Hotz, Marcos Rangel, John Strauss and Alessandro Tarozzi. Daniel LaFave, Dept Economics, Colby College, Waterville, ME 04901. Email: daniel.lafave@colby.edu Evan Peet, RAND Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA. Email: Evan_Peet@rand.org Duncan Thomas, Dept Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27705. Email: dthomas@econ.duke.edu
Evidence indicates that taller workers earn more, particularly in lower income settings. It is possible that stature is a marker of strength which is rewarded in the labor market, or that height is a proxy for other dimensions of health and human capital including cognition, early-life investments, and other family background characteristics. As such, height may be an informative signal of worker quality to an employer. This paper evaluates the relative importance of each of these potential mechanisms in a unified framework that treats human capital as multidimensional. We draw on twelve waves of a unique longitudinal survey collected in Central Java, Indonesia that includes measured height, multiple markers of cognition, physical health biomarkers, and extremely rich information on labor market outcomes including sectoral choice, occupations, hours, tenure, self-employed profits, and wages. We document a robust relationship between height and earnings after controlling cognition, other dimensions of health, family background, education, and occupational choice that exists for both formal wage work and informal selfemployment. The results illustrate that the height premium is not explained by the rich array of observed indicators of human capital and suggest height is appropriately treated as one dimension of a multi-dimensional array of human capital.
The farm household model has played a central role in improving the understanding of smallscale agricultural households and non-farm enterprises. Under the assumption that all current and future markets exist and that farmers treat all prices as given, the model simplifies households’ simultaneous production and consumption decisions into a recursive form. When the restrictions hold, production is independent of household characteristics and preferences, and may be analyzed separately from consumption choices. Important papers in the literature have failed to reject the predictions of these assumptions, and have served as the foundation for large literatures in development and labor economics. Using new, longitudinal data from Central Java, Indonesia, this paper rejects the validity of the commonly used recursive model and complete markets, and provides new empirical evidence on family behavior. I begin by testing if the demand for farm inputs is unrelated to the demographic composition of farm households, and reject the hypothesis. I then extend the literature by showing neither unobserved heterogeneity at the farm level, differential monitoring costs for family and hired labor, nor the potential endogeneity of household demographics can explain the relationship between household composition and labor demand on the farm. This motivates a model of resource allocation within farm households that allows for heterogeneity in the skills of household and farm laborers in on and off-farm work. I test an implication of this model and show it is consistent with the empirical evidence. The results are important not only for modeling farm-household decision making, but for the design and evaluation of development policy, and for understanding rural markets around the world. JEL Classification: J23, J24, J43, O12, O13, Q12 ∗This work is part of a larger research agenda analyzing agricultural household decision making with Evan Peet and Duncan Thomas, both of whom have provided invaluable input. I am also grateful to Alessandro Tarozzi, Amar Hamoudi, Peter Arcidiacono, V. Joseph Hotz, Andrew Foster, Pascaline Dupas, and participants in the Duke Development Reading Group, Labor Seminar, and International Population, Health, and Development Workshop for helpful comments and suggestions. †Contact: Department of Economics, Box 90097, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708. daniel.lafave@duke.edu