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Identifying Heterogeneity in Rural D...

Tjernstrom, Beda Emilia.

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Identifying Heterogeneity in Rural Development Impacts: the Effects of Time, Space, and Selection.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Identifying Heterogeneity in Rural Development Impacts: the Effects of Time, Space, and Selection./
Author:	Tjernstrom, Beda Emilia.
Published:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2015,
Description:	160 p.
Notes:	Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 77-04(E), Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertation Abstracts International77-04A(E).
Subject:	Economics. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3736993
ISBN:	9781339260600

Identifying Heterogeneity in Rural Development Impacts: the Effects of Time, Space, and Selection.
Tjernstrom, Beda Emilia.

Identifying Heterogeneity in Rural Development Impacts: the Effects of Time, Space, and Selection. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2015 - 160 p.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 77-04(E), Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Davis, 2015.

This dissertation is broadly motivated by the importance of understanding when and for what populations development interventions are effective. Impact evaluations can help policy-makers understand whether development projects achieve their objectives of improving average welfare in a target population, but oftentimes we care about more than the difference in average outcomes between a treatment and a control group. The three essays in this dissertation move beyond examining average impacts, and study the role of heterogeneity in development interventions in Nicaragua and Kenya.

ISBN: 9781339260600Subjects--Topical Terms:

517137
Economics.

Identifying Heterogeneity in Rural Development Impacts: the Effects of Time, Space, and Selection.
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245 1 0 $a Identifying Heterogeneity in Rural Development Impacts: the Effects of Time, Space, and Selection.
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300 $a 160 p.
500 $a Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 77-04(E), Section: A.
500 $a Adviser: Michael R. Carter.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Davis, 2015.
520 $a This dissertation is broadly motivated by the importance of understanding when and for what populations development interventions are effective. Impact evaluations can help policy-makers understand whether development projects achieve their objectives of improving average welfare in a target population, but oftentimes we care about more than the difference in average outcomes between a treatment and a control group. The three essays in this dissertation move beyond examining average impacts, and study the role of heterogeneity in development interventions in Nicaragua and Kenya.
520 $a The first essay studies how the returns to an agricultural technology -- fertilizer -- are affected by underlying heterogeneity in soil quality. Subsidy programs and extension services often promote mineral fertilizers based on blanket recommendations that overlook important dimensions of heterogeneity. If these larger regions hide substantial soil quality variability, the returns to applied nutrients can vary dramatically. The essay aims to strengthen the evidence on the spatial heterogeneity in returns to inputs. Our data reveal marked variability in soil quality, both within and between villages. The estimated returns to inorganic fertilizer are towards the lower range found in the literature, and the returns vary substantially with key soil characteristics. Ignoring this variability could lead to misleading recommendations for farmers not well-represented by regional averages. Using experimental data, we find that the returns to high-quality fertilizer are quite high, suggesting that low-quality store-bought fertilizer could be a contributing factor to the low adoption rates in the region.
520 $a The second essay examines the dynamics and impact heterogeneity of a rural business development (RBD) program in Nicaragua, a case where the heterogeneity arises due to recipient characteristics interacting with the program to modify its impacts. In it, we report the impacts of a program designed to boost the income of the small-farm sector in Nicaragua. Using continuous treatment estimation techniques, we examine the evolution of program impacts over time and find that incomes in the activities targeted by the program as well as farm capital rise significantly over time. Because of the temporal pattern of impacts, shorter-term binary treatment estimators do not fully capture the impacts of the program. Additionally, panel quantile methods reveal striking heterogeneity of impacts across the sample, suggesting that differences in individual ability interact with the program design to limit its effectiveness for a substantial proportion of the population.
520 $a The third essay studies the role of social networks for poor households learning about a new agricultural technology, and how heterogeneity in the ease of information extraction affects individuals' ability to learn from their peers. Social networks could constitute a useful tool for companies and institutions wanting to spread information about innovations when barriers to adoption and learning exist. The essay examines the influence of social networks on knowledge about and adoption of a new agricultural technology in rural Kenya. Taking advantage of experimental variation in the information available to farmers through their social networks, we find that networks affect farmers' familiarity with the new technology, their willingness to pay for the product, and their likelihood of adopting it. However, by examining how village-level variability in soil quality (unobserved to the farmers) influences social network effects, we show that unobserved heterogeneity makes individuals less likely to respond to their peers' experiences. This finding suggests that the extent to which social networks can be relied upon to transmit information depends on the information environment in which individuals operate. Policies that attempt to leverage social learning therefore need to take into account the complex learning process that farmers face. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).
590 $a School code: 0029.
650 4 $a Economics. $3 517137
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710 2 $a University of California, Davis. $b Agricultural and Resource Economics. $3 1676824
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