Open Knowledge Repository

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Heuristics on Call: The Impact of Mobile-Phone-Based Business-Management Advice
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2024-02-22) Cole, Shawn; Joshi, Mukta; Schoar, Antoinette
There is growing evidence that business training for micro-entrepreneurs can be effective. However, in-person training can be expensive and imposes costs on the target beneficiaries. This paper presents the results of a two-site randomized evaluation of a light-touch, mobile-phone-based business-training service for microentrepreneurs in India and the Philippines. The results show that the training had a statistically significant impact on the adoption of improved business practices, with an increase of 0.06 to 0.12 standard deviation points when considering a binary indicator of business practices. The study finds no evidence of impacts on business sales or profits, though the confidence intervals are wide enough to include meaningful effect sizes (positive or negative). These results suggest that mobile-phone-based training can be a cost-effective and scalable way to impart business skills to micro-entrepreneurs.
Reducing Delay in Payments in Welfare Programs: Experimental Evidence from an Information Dissemination Intervention
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-04-29) Das, Upasak; Paul, Amartya; Sharma, Mohit
This paper assesses the impact of an information dissemination intervention on the local-level implementation of the rural public works program in India. One key feature of the intervention is to provide information to workers once their wages get credited into their accounts. Using administrative and survey data, its impact on delays in wage payments and days of work along with the awareness levels of the entitlements is evaluated. The findings indicate a substantial reduction in payment delays and in trips made for wage withdrawal, in addition to improvements in awareness. The decrease in the payment delays in the treated villages persists even beyond the intervention period. While a limited impact on work days is observed during the intervention, a significant increase in the post-intervention period is found. The findings substantiated through qualitative evidence provide a platform for an innovative and cost-effective intervention to improve the implementation of social protection programs.
Time for Clean Energy? Cleaner Fuels and Women’s Time in Home Production
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-01-11) Afridi, Farzana; Debnath, Sisir; Dinkelman, Taryn; Sareen, Komal
In much of the developing world, cooking accounts for the largest share of women’s time in home production. Does relying on solid fuels drive this time burden This study revisits a clean energy information experiment in rural India to assess the time savings’ potential of cleaner cooking technologies. Treatment villages were randomly assigned to receive information about negative health effects of cooking with solid fuels and about public subsidies for cleaner liquid petroleum gas (LPG). Time-use data indicate that primary cooks spend almost 24 hours cooking each week. Cleaner fuel use is correlated with about 140 minutes less cooking time each week. Yet households only reduce their weekly cooking time by about 35 minutes in response to the randomized clean energy information nudge. Factors limiting the impact of clean energy nudges on the choice of home production technologies and time use are discussed and an avenue for future research is suggested.
Saving for Dowry: Evidence from Rural India
(Elsevier, 2022-01) Anukriti, S.; Kwon, Sungoh; Prakash, Nishith
The ancient custom of dowry, i.e., bride-to-groom marriage payments, remains ubiquitous in many contemporary societies. Using data from 1986–2007, this paper examines whether dowry impacts intertemporal resource allocation and other household decisions in rural India. Utilizing variation in firstborn gender and dowry amounts across marriage markets, we find that the prospect of higher dowry payments at the time of a daughter’s marriage leads parents to save more in advance. The higher savings are primarily financed through increased paternal labor supply. This implies that people are farsighted; they work and save more today with payoff in the distant future.