The ties that bind us: Social networks and productivity in the factory
EfD Authors:
This study analyzes high frequency productivity data from Indian garment manufacturing, exploring how caste-based social networks affect individual and group productivity. With nearly 35,000 worker-days, a 1 percentage point increase in the same-caste workers boosts daily individual productivity by at least 0.09 points. Notably, the least efficient worker's productivity rises by almost 0.17 points with a 1 point increase in caste homogeneity. These findings, robust to unobservable factors, suggest production externalities driven by within-network peer effects as potential explanations.
Saving Mexico's Blue Agave: Tequila, bats, and farmers aligning for sustainability
Tequila conjures images of lime wedges, salt, and late nights. The popular spirit is deeply connected to the blue agave plants it's made from - and, perhaps surprisingly, to bat populations in Mexico.
Uganda’s Post-COVID Recovery Strategy and NDC Implementation
EfD Authors:
This paper analyses the climate-friendliness of Uganda’s post-COVID-19 recovery strategy and, specifically, its alignment with the country’s targets in its Nationally Determined Contributions
(NDCs). The recovery strategy has the potential to provide effective climate change response and meet the NDCs. However, there are several gaps related to the marginalisation of climate
Two EfD centers collaborate towards a fisheries management plan for Nigeria
Ghana and EfD Nigeria are implementing a joint project that aims to transfer knowledge and best practices from Ghana to Nigeria, leading to the development and implementation of Nigeria’s first…
Heterogeneous effects from integrated farm innovations on welfare in Rwanda
EfD Authors:
Using a multinomial endogenous switching regression model, this study examined the factors that influence farmers’ decisions to adopt multiple integrated technologies and then estimated the effects of adopting integrated farm technologies on farm yield, farm income, and household food expenditure. The results showed that adopting higher-order suites of technologies provides higher dividends to farmers in terms of farm yield and income relative to a single technology adoption.
Context, welfare sensitivity, and positional preferences among fisherfolks in a developing country
EfD Authors:
It is well established in the empirical literature that people care about relative status or positionality. Hence, any policy that makes someone better off imposes a negative externality on their peers. However, the effectiveness of public policy aimed at mitigating positional externality hinges on the drivers of relative concerns, which are individual and context-specific, requiring empirical analysis.
Small-scale gold miners’ preferences on formalization: first steps toward sustainable supply chains in Colombia
EfD Authors:
Key Messages
- Artisanal and small-scale gold miners in remote areas of Colombia are willing to try formalization (obtaining a legal title to extract gold). However, they perceive costs can hinder the adoption of this formalization
- Bundles of preferences about benefits and costs of formalization are not uniform across commodities and depend upon previous experience with formalization and the strength of social capital formation.
- Gender seems to play an effect on preferences, but this impact is not consistent across the communities studied
Perceptions of the seriousness of major public health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic in seven middle-income countries
EfD Authors:
Abstract
Introduction
Public perception of the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to six other major public health problems (alcoholism and drug use, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, lung cancer and respiratory diseases caused by air pollution and smoking, and water-borne diseases like diarrhea) is unclear. We designed a survey to examine this issue using YouGov’s internet panels in seven middle-income countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in early 2022.