Temperature and Economic Performance of Chinese Manufacturing Firms

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on
EfD Authors:

This paper uses year-to-year fluctuations in temperature within counties to identify its effects on economic outcomes of Chinese manufacturing firms. We find four primary results. First, profit exhibits nonlinear responses to temperature. Profit decreases with higher summer temperatures and increases with higher winter temperatures. With temperature bins as temperature variables, profit increases with temperature up to 12-15°C, and then declines at higher temperatures.

Policy Design

Passive Learning and Incentivized Communication-A Randomized Controlled Trial in India Yonas Alem

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on
EfD Authors:

In order to understand the extent of the information barrier to adoption of a household technology, we designed a randomized controlled trial on willingness to pay (WTP) for solar lanterns in India. We gave high quality solar lanterns to randomly selected `seed' households in a non-electri ed region of the state of Uttar Pradesh. Three friends of the seed household were randomly assigned to one of the following three groups: control, passive learning and incentivized communication. We elicit WTP from the control group when the seed receives the solar lantern.

Experiments, Policy Design

The estimate of world demand for Pangasius catfish (Pangasiusianodon hypopthalmus)

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on
EfD Authors:

This research described in this article aimed to investigate international market potentials for Pangasius catfish (Pangasianodon hypopthalmus). The monthly export data from Vietnam, which accounts for more than 95% of the global export value, in the period 2007 to 2014, were used to estimate a non-linear Inverse Almost Ideal Demand System of the seven market regions.

Policy Design

Modelling the Effect of Chronic Wasting Disease on Recreational Hunting Site Choice Preferences and Choice Set Formation over Time

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease that affects deer, elk and other cervid wildlife species. Although there is no known link between the consumption of CWD affected meat and human health, hunters are advised to have animals from CWD affected areas tested and are advised against consuming meat from CWD infected animals (Government of Alberta 2010). We model hunter response to the knowledge that deer in a wildlife management unit have been found to have CWD in Alberta, Canada.

Health, Policy Design

Post-harvest losses reduction by small-scale maize farmers: The role of handling practices

Submitted by Salvatory Macha on
EfD Authors:

Concerns about food insecurity have grown in Sub-Saharan Africa due to rapidly growing population and food price volatility. Post-harvest Losses (PHL) reduction has been identified as a key component to complement efforts to address food security challenges and improve farm incomes, especially for the rural poor.

Agriculture, Policy Design

Dynamics versus optimization in non-convex environmental economics problems with a single welfare function

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on
EfD Authors:

Economics has a well-defined notion of equilibrium. Unlike mechanics or thermodynamics, economics does not include explicit theories of dynamics describing how equilibria are reached or whether they are stable. However, even simple economics problems such as maximization of a welfare function might sometimes be interpreted as dynamics problems. Here we consider when dynamics is relevant to welfare optimization problems involving a single decision-maker, for example, a social decision-maker maximizing a social welfare function.

Policy Design

Women Political Leaders, Corruption and Learning: Evidence from a Large Public Program in India

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on
EfD Authors:

We use the nation-wide policy of randomly allocating village council headships to women to identify the impact of female political leadership on the governance of projects implemented under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in India. Using primary survey data, we find more program inefficiencies and leakages in village councils reserved for women heads: political and administrative inexperience make such councils more vulnerable to bureaucratic capture. When using a panel of audit reports, governance improves as female leaders accumulate experience.

Policy Design, Gender

Caste, Female Labor Supply, and the Gender Wage Gap in India: Boserup Revisited

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on

The gender wage gap is notable not just for its persistence and ubiquity but also for its variation across regions and countries. A natural question is how greater workforce participation by women matters to female wages and the gender wage gap. Within India, a seeming paradox is that gender differentials in agricultural wages are the largest in southern regions of India that are otherwise favorable to women. Ester Boserup hypothesized that this is due to greater labor force participation by women in these regions.

Policy Design, Gender

Environment & Forests Book Chapter-India- Three Year Action Plan Agenda, 2017-18 to 2019-20

Submitted by Eugenia Leon on
EfD Authors:

The Three Year Action Agenda, a NITI Aayog document, is based on extensive discussions with and inputs from the central ministries and State governments. The Governing Council of the NITI Aayog, consisting of the Prime Minister as its Chairperson and several Union Ministers and State Chief Ministers as Members, extensively deliberated on the document in its draft form at its meeting on 23rd April 2017. 

Conservation, Forestry, Policy Design