We examine the impact of a six-fold increase in the global vanilla price on smallholder vanilla-farming households in Madagascar. The price increase leads to sizable gains in household assets and significant improvements in adult psychological well-being, cognitive performance, and optimism about the economy. In contrast, we find no significant effects on children's health or schooling. Given substantial evidence from the literature that improvements in household economic resources can have large effects on children over the long run, the lack of shorterterm effects in this setting may reflect the time-varying nature of the impact or the need for additional complementary investments.

We use a production function approach to investigate the factors that determine young adults' human capital outcomes in Madagascar and Senegal. Our study relies on unique and comparable panel data spanning over 15 years for both countries. We find that second-grade students' test scores are strong indicators of their French and math skills, as well as their educational attainment in their early twenties. Moreover, we observe that the association between second-grade skills and later-life outcomes is stronger among girls than boys, and in math test scores compared with French test scores. Our results emphasise the critical role of performing well during the early school years, as it predicts long-term outcomes, especially for vulnerable populations such as girls.

We examine the consequences of the nearly six-fold increase in the global price of vanilla on vanilla farming communities in Madagascar. We find a substantial increase in wealth for smallholder vanilla farmers, in the form of asset accumulation and higher informal savings. This increase in wealth is accompanied by improvements across several non-monetary dimensions of well-being, including improved performance on cognitive tests, increases in psychological well-being, and greater levels of optimism regarding the country's economic trajectory. There is little evidence of adverse impacts: while there is some evidence of increased crop theft, we observe no increases in other types of crime or even fear of crime. The high prevalence of smallholder vanilla production in the vanilla-growing areas of the country means that these benefits are widely shared. At the same time, we find no evidence of spillover benefits on non-producing households. These results contribute to the debate on the impact of price fluctuations of export commodities on economic development and indicate that higher returns on cash crop production can improve the well-being of producers across multiple dimensions.

We analyze the impact of climate events on migration among a cohort of young adults residing in rural Madagascar. We find a strong negative impact of drought on the decision of youth to migrate in the year after the adverse weather shock. Household assets and access to savings institutions attenuate this impact, consistent with the notion that wealth and savings cushion the blow of the shock on the resources required to finance migration. We also find that households that report more social connections outside their villages are more likely to have their young adult members migrate. Our findings suggest that the liquidity constraints from climate shocks that prevent youth migration are more binding for young women who migrate largely for reasons of marriage and education. Males, in contrast, are more likely to migrate in search of employment, which often has higher economic returns than migration motivated by marriage and education. These factors likely explain why drought deters migration of young women, but not so for young men who still choose to migrate in search of a job.

In this paper, we measure the contribution of an additional year of schooling on skills acquisition for a cohort of young adults in Madagascar. We estimate a value-added model of learning achievement that includes test scores measured at adolescence, thereby reducing the potential for omitted variable bias. We demonstrate that schooling increases cognitive skills among young adults. The value-added of a year of schooling during adolescence is 0.15 to 0.26 standard deviation. Our results show the skills gap widens in adolescence, as students with higher cognitive skills complete more grades, accumulating more skills in their transition to adulthood.

Background: Internal migration, mostly composed of young adults and the poor, constitutes the largest flow of people in developing countries. Few studies document the patterns and determinants of internal youth migration in sub-Saharan Africa. Objective: This paper analyzes the socioeconomic determinants of the decisions of young adults to internally migrate in Senegal. We focus on whether their decisions to migrate are influenced by individual characteristics, as well as the circumstances in the households and communities where they grew up, and whether these factors are differentiated by gender. Methods: Using a unique migration household survey in Senegal, we estimate multinomial logit models to analyze the role of childhood socioeconomic determinants in decisions to later migrate to rural and urban areas. Results: We find that young people undertake mostly rural-to-rural and urban-to-urban migrations, and more than half of them are temporary migrants. We also find that the determinants are heterogeneous by gender and destination. The higher the fathers' education, the more (less) likely are their daughters to move to urban (rural) areas. Young individuals who spend their childhood in better-off households are more likely to move to urban areas. The presence of younger siblings during childhood increases the propensity of moving to rural areas. Access to primary schools from the childhood residence decreases the likelihood of migrating to urban areas for both men and women. Contribution: We contribute to the sparse literature on internal youth migration in developing countries by highlighting the role of family- and community-level characteristics during childhood in predicting later migration.

We examine the impact of rainfall variability and cyclones on schooling and work among a cohort of teens and young adults in Madagascar. We estimate a bivariate probit model using a panel survey conducted in 2004 and 2011 in this poor island nation, which is frequently affected by extreme weather events. Our results show that negative rainfall deviations and cyclones reduce the probability of attending school and encourage young men and, to a greater extent, women to enter the work force, and they reduce their French and math test scores. Less wealthy households are most likely to experience this school- to-work transition in the face of rainfall shocks. The finding is consistent with poorer households having less savings and more limited access to credit and insurance, which reduces their ability to cope with rainfall shortages. We also find that there are both contemporaneous and lagged effects of the weather shocks, and that they are of a similar magnitude. Our findings are robust to the use of a linear probability model, as well as a wide range of definitions of rainfall variations.

Women represent the majority of informal workers in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is also the case that the region is characterised by high adolescent pregnancy rates. Little empirical evidence exists concerning the causal relationship between teen fertility and the likelihood of informal employment. Using longitudinal data from Madagascar designed to capture the transition from adolescence to adulthood, we estimate a multinomial logit model to capture the effect of the timing of first birth on female selection into four categories: non-participation, informal employment, formal employment, and student. To address the endogeneity of fertility and labor market outcomes, we instrument timing of first birth using women's community-level access, and duration of exposure to family planning. Our results suggest that motherhood increases the probability of employment and that women whose first birth occurs during adolescence are mostly employed into low-quality informal jobs. This effect is partially, but not entirely, mediated by the effect of teen childbearing on schooling.

Despite the resultant disutility, some people, in particular, the poor, are engaged in behaviors that carry social stigma. Empirical studies on stigmatized behavior are rare, largely due to the formidable challenges of collecting data on stigmatized goods and services. In this paper, we add to this limited empirical evidence by examining the behavior of donating blood plasma in exchange for cash rewards in China. We do so using two primary data sets: the first is a three-wave, census‐type household survey that enables us to examine the evolving patterns and determinants of donating plasma. The second is data on detailed gift exchange records of all households.The data allow us to define reference groups, measure the intensity of social interactions, and identify peer effects using a novel network structure‐based instrumental variable strategy. We find that peer effects influence decisions to donate plasma. For example, a one‐standard‐deviation increase in income from donating plasma in the peer group increases the value of own plasma donation by 0.15 standard deviations. Families with sons have more incentives to donate plasma to offset the escalated costs of getting their sons married in a tight marriage market that favors girls.

We study the determinants of educational and cognitive outcomes of young adults in Madagascar and Senegal employing a production function approach. Using unique and comparable long-term panel data sets from both countries, we find that cognitive skills measured using test scores in second grade are strong predictors of school attainment and cognitive skills of a cohort of individuals surveyed in their early twenties. The inclusion of early life household wealth, parental education and other household characteristics in the model does not diminish the impact of early cognitive ability on educational and cognitive outcomes in young adult life. Additionally, we find that both early life cognitive ability and health seem to have independent effects on educational attainment and adult cognition. In Senegal, both math and French scores are strong predictors of adult cognitive skills, whereas in Madagascar math plays a relatively stronger role. We find suggestive evidence that the association between early life cognitive ability and later life outcomes is stronger among girls as compared to boys. We also show significant differences in the relationship between early ability and later life test scores for those cohort members according to their height, which we consider a proxy for health status – shorter individuals show a stronger relationship between second grade performance and later life outcomes. These findings highlight the importance of how falling behind in early life may be critical in determining longterm outcomes, particularly for vulnerable groups, that is girls and shorter individuals.

We examine the impact of rainfall variability and cyclones on schooling and work among a cohort of teens and young adults by estimating a bivariate probit model, using a panel survey conducted in 2004 and 2011 in Madagascar a poor island nation that is frequently affected by extreme weather events. Our results show that negative rainfall deviations and cyclones reduce the current and lagged probability of attending school and encourage young men and, to a greater extent, women to enter the work force. Less wealthy households are most likely to experience this school-to-work transition in the face of rainfall shocks. The finding is consistent with poorer households having less savings and more limited access to credit and insurance, which reduces their ability to cope with negative weather shocks.

Download This Paper Open PDF in Browser Add Paper to My Library Share: Permalink Using these links will ensure access to this page indefinitely Copy URL Social Interactions and Stigmatized Behavior: "Donating" Blood Plasma in Rural China 49 Pages Posted: 2 Apr 2018 See all articles by Xi ChenXi ChenYale School of Public Health - Department of Health Policy and Management; Yale University - Department of Economics; Yale University - Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies; IZADavid E. SahnCornell UniversityXiaobo ZhangInternational Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Abstract Despite the resultant disutility, some people, in particular, the poor, are engaged in behaviors that carry social stigma. Empirical studies on stigmatized behavior are rare, largely due to the formidable challenges of collecting data on stigmatized goods and services. In this paper, we add to this limited empirical evidence by examining the behavior of "donating" blood plasma in exchange for cash rewards in China. We do so using two primary data sets: the first is a three-wave, census‐type household survey that enables us to examine the evolving patterns and determinants of "donating" plasma. The second is data on detailed gift exchange records of all households.The data allow us to define reference groups, measure the intensity of social interactions, and identify peer effects using a novel network structure‐based instrumental variable strategy. We find that peer effects influence decisions to "donate" plasma. For example, a one‐standard‐deviation increase in income from "donating" plasma in the peer group increases the value of own plasma "donation" by 0.15 standard deviations. Families with sons have more incentives to "donate" plasma to offset the escalated costs of getting their sons married in a tight marriage market that favors girls. Keywords: social stigma, social networks, peer influence, plasma "donation", China JEL Classification: O1, Z1, R2, D8 Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation Chen, Xi and Sahn, David E. and Zhang, Xiaobo, Social Interactions and Stigmatized Behavior: "Donating" Blood Plasma in Rural China. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3153377 Xi Chen (Contact Author) Yale School of Public Health - Department of Health Policy and Management ( email ) 60 College StNew Haven, CT 06520United States Yale University - Department of Economics ( email ) 28 Hillhouse AveNew Haven, CT 06520-8268United States Yale University - Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies ( email ) 77 Prospect StreetNew Haven, CT 06520United States HOME PAGE: http://isps.yale.edu/team/xi-chen IZA ( email ) David E. Sahn Cornell University ( email ) B16 MVR HallIthaca, NY 14853United States607-255-8931 (Phone)607-255-0178 (Fax) HOME PAGE: http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/des16 Xiaobo Zhang International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) ( email ) 2033 K Street, NWWashington, DC 20006United States202-862-5677 (Phone)202-467-4439 (Fax) Download This Paper Open PDF in Browser Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN? Place job opening Paper statistics Downloads 18 Abstract Views 250 35 References PlumX Metrics Related eJournals IZA Institute of Labor Economics Discussion Paper Series Follow IZA Institute of Labor Economics Discussion Paper Series Subscribe to this free journal for more curated articles on this topic FOLLOWERS 7,540 PAPERS 14,412 This Journal is curated by: Klaus F. 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Female secondary school attendance has recently increased in sub-Saharan Africa, and so has the risk of becoming pregnant while attending school. We analyze the impact of teenage pregnancy on young women's human capital using longitudinal data in Madagascar that capture the transition from adolescence to adulthood for a cohort aged 21-24 in 2012, first interviewed in 2004. We find that early childbearing increases the likelihood of dropping out of school and decreases the chances of completing secondary school. This pregnancy-related school dropout also has a detrimental impact on standardized test scores in math and French. We instrument early pregnancy with the young woman's community-level access and her exposure to condoms since age 15 after controlling for pre-fertility socioeconomic conditions. Our results are robust to different specifications that address potential endogeneity of program placement and instrument validity.

Women represent the majority of informal sector workers in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa where adolescent pregnancy rates are high. Little empirical evidence exists concerning the relationship between teen fertility and the likelihood that a woman will be employed in the informal sector. Using a panel survey in Madagascar designed to capture the transition from adolescence to adulthood, we estimate a multinomial logit model to capture the effect of the timing of first birth on female selection into four categories: non-participation, informal, formal, and student. To address the endogeneity of fertility and labor market outcomes, we instrument the timing of first birth using young women's community-level access, and duration of exposure to family planning. Our results suggest that motherhood increases the probability of employment for young women and that women whose first birth occurs during adolescence largely select into low-quality informal jobs. This effect is partially, but not entirely, mediated by the effect of teen pregnancy on schooling.