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Research Interests: Business and Agriculture
We investigate the effectiveness of upper intergenerational transmission of knowledge (from children to parents) to promote awareness and behavior changes among adults. We designed and implemented a field experiment in a rural high school... more
We investigate the effectiveness of upper intergenerational transmission of knowledge (from children to parents) to promote awareness and behavior changes among adults. We designed and implemented a field experiment in a rural high school in the northern highlands of Peru, where we screened agricultural extension videos to students in the school's computer lab. We separately interview the parents of these high school students to assess their knowledge about the agricultural practices taught to their children. We find that, even when the information was not directly available to them, the information provided to the teenagers increased parents' knowledge of agricultural practices by 26%-34%. We also find that our intervention increased parents' adoption of the agricultural practices in the videos by 14-18%. Our intervention highlights the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to deliver information to children and reach adult populations (who are ...
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The role of agricultural transport costs in core-periphery structures has habitually been ignored in New Economic Geography (NEG) models. This is due to the convention of treating the agricultural good as the numéraire, thus implying that... more
The role of agricultural transport costs in core-periphery structures has habitually been ignored in New Economic Geography (NEG) models. This is due to the convention of treating the agricultural good as the numéraire, thus implying that agricultural transportation costs are assumed to be zero in these models. For more than three decades, this has been the standard setting in spatial equilibrium analysis. The paper examines the effects of agricultural transport costs on the spatial organisation of regional structures in Peru. In doing so, the Krugman’s formulation of iceberg transport costs is modified to introduce the agricultural transport costs into the dynamic of the NEG models. We use exploratory spatial flow data analysis methods and non-spatial and spatial origin-destination flow models to explore how the regional spatial structure change when real transportation data for agricultural goods is included into the iceberg transport costs formulation. We show that agricultural t...
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We investigate the extent to which economic experiments and choice models can characterize individual preferences in the presence of decision error and/or confusion. To do this, we use standard experimental methods to collect choices over... more
We investigate the extent to which economic experiments and choice models can characterize individual preferences in the presence of decision error and/or confusion. To do this, we use standard experimental methods to collect choices over risky outcomes in a representative sample of over 9,600 poor rural Peruvians, including couples and single individuals. Standard methods are challenging to implement in these populations because of low literacy and numeracy, but choice-based modelling can help purge these biases. Estimates of preferences that account for these biases are significantly correlated with field behavior across several domains (e.g. participating in formal or informal credit markets, agricultural production decisions, timing of first pregnancy) and personal characteristics while naive measures that ignore measurement error are not. We also find that a participant’s propensity to choose at random predicts field behavior and is less frequent among those experiencing recent...
Action Track 2 works to catalyse a shift in consumer behaviour that will create and build demand for sustainably produced agriand ocean food products, strengthen shorter value chains, promote circular use of food resources, helping to... more
Action Track 2 works to catalyse a shift in consumer behaviour that will create and build demand for sustainably produced agriand ocean food products, strengthen shorter value chains, promote circular use of food resources, helping to reduce waste and improve nutrition, especially among the most vulnerable. This Action Track recognises that current food consumption patterns, often characterised by higher levels of food waste and a transition in diets towards higher energy, more resource-intensive foods, need to be transformed. At the same time we recognise that context is everything, and the perils and problems of different countries in terms of a nutrition transition will need to be evaluated and solved with an array of different solutions appropriate to their local conditions, culture and values.
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Reducing postharvest losses (PHLs) of food crops is a critical component of sustainably increasing agricultural productivity. Many PHL reduction interventions have been tested, but synthesized information to support evidence-based... more
Reducing postharvest losses (PHLs) of food crops is a critical component of sustainably increasing agricultural productivity. Many PHL reduction interventions have been tested, but synthesized information to support evidence-based investments and policy is scarce. In this study, PHL reduction interventions for 22 crops across 57 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia from the 1970s to 2019 were systematically reviewed. Screening of the 12,907 studies identified resulted in a collection of 334 studies, which were used to synthesize the evidence and construct an online open-access database, searchable by crop, country, postharvest activity and intervention type. Storage technology interventions mainly targeting farmers dominated (83% of the studies). Maize was the most studied crop (25%). India had the most studies (32%), while 25 countries had no studies. This analysis indicates an urgent need for a systematic assessment of interventions across the entire value chain over mul...
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The increasing pressure on agricultural production systems to achieve global food security and prevent environmental degradation necessitates a transition towards more sustainable practices. The purpose of this scoping review is to... more
The increasing pressure on agricultural production systems to achieve global food security and prevent environmental degradation necessitates a transition towards more sustainable practices. The purpose of this scoping review is to understand how the incentives offered to farmers motivate the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices and, ultimately, how and whether they result in measurable outcomes. To this end, this scoping review examines the evidence of nearly 18,000 papers on whether incentive-based programmes lead to the adoption of sustainable practices and their effect on environmental, economic and productivity outcomes. We find that independent of the incentive type, programmes linked to short-term economic benefit have a higher adoption rate than those aimed solely at providing an ecological service. In the long run, one of the strongest motivations for farmers to adopt sustainable practices is perceived benefits for either their farms, the environment or both. Beyo...
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Research Interests: Environmental Science, Natural Resources, Indoor Air Quality, Energy, Recycling, and 15 moreEconomic Theory, Regulation, Air pollution, Public Health, Hazardous Waste, Applied Economics, Electricity, Noise, Electrification, Pollution, Population Growth, Environmental Economics Management, Environment, Kerosene, and ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT
Do nutritional deficiencies contribute to the intergenerational persistence of poverty by reducing the earnings potential of future generations? To address this question, we made available supplemental iron pills at a health center in... more
Do nutritional deficiencies contribute to the intergenerational persistence of poverty by reducing the earnings potential of future generations? To address this question, we made available supplemental iron pills at a health center in rural Peru and encouraged adolescents to take them via media messages. School administrative data provide novel evidence that reducing iron deficiency results in a large and significant improvement in school performance and aspirations for anemic students. Our findings demonstrate that combining low-cost outreach efforts and local supplementation programs can be an affordable and effective method of reducing rates of adolescent iron deficiency anemia. (JEL I21, I23, I26, J24, J31, Q51, Q53)
Research Interests: Poverty, Human Capital, Iron Deficiency, Medicine, Applied Economics, and 4 moreAnemia, Outreach, Earnings, and pill
Research Interests: Geography and Humanities
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A key question in development economics is whether nutritional deficiencies generate in-tergenerational poverty traps by reducing the earnings potential of children born into poverty. To assess the causal influence on human capital of one... more
A key question in development economics is whether nutritional deficiencies generate in-tergenerational poverty traps by reducing the earnings potential of children born into poverty. To assess the causal influence on human capital of one of the most widespread micronutrient deficiencies, supplemental iron pills were made available at a local health center in rural Peru and adolescents were encouraged to take them up via classroom media messages. Re-sults from school administrative records provide novel evidence that reducing iron deficiency results almost immediately in a large and significant improvement in school performance. For anemic students, an average of 10 100mg iron pills over three months improves average test scores by 0.4 standard deviations and increases the likelihood of grade progression by 11%. Supplementation also raises anemic students' aspirations for the future. Both results indicate that cognitive deficits from iron-deficiency anemia contribute to a nutrit...
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Research Interests: Geography, Cognitive development, Cognition, Economic Growth, Economic Development, and 15 moreHuman Capital, Tanzania, Medicine, Applied Economics, Social Science Research Network, Developing Country, Gender Difference, Infant Mortality, Cognitive Ability, Learning Disabled, Brain Damage, Iodine Deficiency, Regression estimator, Growth pattern, and In Utero
Research Interests: Economics, Higher Education, Peru, Public sector, Labour Economics, and 15 moreFirm Performance, Panel Data, Legislation, Small Firms, Profitability, Collective Bargaining, Econometric analysis, Firm Size, Bargaining Power, Manufacturing Sector, Labor Productivity, Household Survey, Fixed Effects, Structural Reform, and Time Consistency
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Cognitive damage from iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) has important implications for economic growth through its effect on human capital. To gauge the magnitude of this influence, we evaluate the impact on schooling of reductions in IDD... more
Cognitive damage from iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) has important implications for economic growth through its effect on human capital. To gauge the magnitude of this influence, we evaluate the impact on schooling of reductions in IDD from intensive iodine supplementation in Tanzania. Our findings suggest a large effect of in utero iodine on cognition and human capital: treated children attain an estimated 0.35–0.56 years of additional schooling relative to siblings and older and younger peers. Furthermore, the effect appears to be substantially larger for girls, consistent with laboratory evidence indicating greater cognitive sensitivity of female fetuses to maternal thyroid deprivation. (JEL I12, I21, J16, O15)
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Resilience at the individual, community, government and global food system levels must be built in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for current and future generations are... more
Resilience at the individual, community, government and global food system levels must be built in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for current and future generations are not compromised anywhere in the world. We present opportunities for diversification of production, diversification at the household level, and diversification through the global, regional and local trading systems for resilient food systems. There are a number of trade-offs which must be navigated as we strive to achieve greater food system resilience. These include the need to deliver short-term humanitarian aid without jeopardizing long run development, mitigation of rising global temperatures even as the food system adapts to the inevitable changes in the earth’s climate, taking advantage of the benefits of globalization while avoiding the downsides, and encouraging agricultural production and boosting rural incomes while also protecting the env...
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While the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) remains a hotly debated issue in all five Central American countries that are part of the treaty, most discussions are based on preconceived opinions rather than grounded in... more
While the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) remains a hotly debated issue in all five Central American countries that are part of the treaty, most discussions are based on preconceived opinions rather than grounded in research-based results. The point of departure of the paper is that the provisions in the agreement concerning the textile maquila industry are likely to have a significant impact on household welfare, despite the already existing preferential access of textile maquila exports to the U.S. market under the rules of origin set by the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and the U.S.–Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA). What CAFTA does for maquila production in Central America is to make permanent and expand the liberalized rules of origin (granted temporarily and unilaterally by the United States and likely to be revoked in 2008) for inputs to the maquila industry. Therefore, to assess the true impact of the maquila provisions in CAFTA, we need to compar...
Research Interests: Economics, Economic Growth, Value Chain, Literature Review, Socially-responsible Investing, and 14 moreComputable General Equilibrium, United States, Textile industry, Comparative Advantage, Treaty, Qualitative Analysis, Rules of Origin, Market Share, Socially Responsible Investing, Household Survey, Productivity Growth, Free Trade Agreement, International Agreements, and Agreement on Textiles and Clothing
Behavioral experiments and structural estimation afford us identification of two important components of individual choice: risk preferences and decision quality. Using a large, representative sample of households living in poverty and... more
Behavioral experiments and structural estimation afford us identification of two important components of individual choice: risk preferences and decision quality. Using a large, representative sample of households living in poverty and extreme poverty in Peru, we show that both components predict a variety of field behaviors and affect estimation results. The quality of decision-making improves after experiencing a bad shock, and households in which decision quality is high are more likely to be economically efficient. When decision quality is ignored, gender differences in risk aversion are overestimated, and the large negative impact of risk aversion on asset accumulation is underestimated. JEL codes: C93, D81, D13, D91, C10
We conduct framed trust games using contract dairy farmers in Vietnam as first movers to assess the impact of potential collusion on trust. Disaggregated analysis suggests that female farmers are more likely to trust overall, but are also... more
We conduct framed trust games using contract dairy farmers in Vietnam as first movers to assess the impact of potential collusion on trust. Disaggregated analysis suggests that female farmers are more likely to trust overall, but are also more responsive to the addition of a third party and potential collusion. A third party induces them to trust at higher levels, but potential collusion between the trustee and the third party also induces them to trust at lower levels. Our findings corroborate well with existing studies on gender differences in decision making, which suggest that women's social preferences are more context-specific than men's.
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Research Interests: Economics, Peru, Human Capital, Race Discrimination, Perú, and 15 moreMinorities, Wage differentials, Population, Social Science Research Network, Demographic economics, Public Service, Earnings, Ethnic Group, Wage, Physical Capital, Wage Differential, Ingreso, Indigenous, Racial differences, and Ciencias económicas
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to take stock of the current state of knowledge about inclusive value-chain development (VCD) in the context of international agricultural research; and second, to draw out the... more
Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to take stock of the current state of knowledge about inclusive value-chain development (VCD) in the context of international agricultural research; and second, to draw out the implications for future research and action. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a review of recent research papers authored by professionals affiliated with international agricultural research centers and their partners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Findings The studies reviewed in the paper identify the opportunities emerging from new and expanding markets for agricultural products and challenges to smallholder participation in these markets. It identifies key attributes of successful value-chain interventions, emphasizing the importance of combining value-chain approaches with other approaches, including those emerging from innovation systems and rural livelihoods frameworks. Methods are offered for evaluating complex value-chain int...
