Publication: So You Want to Quit Smoking: Have You Tried a Mobile Phone?
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Date
2011
ISSN
13504851
Published
2011
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Using spatially coded data on mobile phone coverage and panel data from 2100 households in 135 communities of the Philippines, we estimate the impact of mobile phone ownership on tobacco consumption. Purchasing a mobile phone leads to a 17.1% decrease in tobacco consumption per adult over the age of 15.
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Publication So You Want to Quit Smoking : Have You Tried a Mobile Phone?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-06)Tobacco use, which is rising quickly in developing countries, kills 5.4 million people a year worldwide. This paper explores the impacts of mobile phone ownership on tobacco consumption. Indeed, mobile phone ownership could affect tobacco consumption because individuals might pay for their communication with money they would have spent on tobacco. Using panel data from 2,100 households in 135 communities of the Philippines collected in 2003 and 2006, the analysis finds that mobile phone ownership leads to a 20 percent decline in monthly tobacco consumption. Among households in which at least one member smoked in 2003, purchasing a mobile phone leads to a 32.6 percent decrease in tobacco consumption per adult over the age of 15. This is equivalent to one less pack of 20 cigarettes per month per adult. The results are robust to various estimation strategies. Further, they suggest that this impact materializes through a budget shift from tobacco to communication.Publication Who Is at the Wheel When Communities Drive Development? Evidence from the Philippines(2009)Community-driven development (CDD) approaches have become an important part of development operations. Using data from 1,200 households in 66 communities participating in a CDD project in the Philippines, we analyze how communities select their proposals and how resources are allocated across villages. Resources flow to the poorest and more politically active villages. Controlling for poverty, more unequal villages are more likely to receive funding. This surprising result is because in more unequal villages, the elected village leader is more likely to override community preferences, and to influence inter-village competition such that project resources flow to their villages.Publication A Road to Trust(2010)We explore the relationship between transaction costs and generalized trust. Using panel data from 2100 households in 135 poor rural communities of the Philippines, we show that where costs of interactions are reduced there is an increase in generalized trust. These results have implications for the literature on the links between trust and growth. Indeed, rather than being an input to economic growth, trust might be a product of reduced costs of interactions which also favors growth. Specifically, we find that the individuals most likely to engage in exchange exhibit an increase in trust after road construction.Publication The Power of Information : The Impact of Mobile Phones on Farmers’ Welfare in the Philippines(2009-07-01)The authors explore the impact of access to information on poor farmers consumption. The analysis combines spatially coded data on mobile phone coverage with household panel data on farmers from some of the poorest areas of the Philippines. Both the ordinary least squares and instrumental variable estimates indicate that purchasing a mobile phone has a large, positive impact on the household-level growth rate of per capita consumption. Estimates range from 11 to 17 percent, depending on the sample and the specification chosen. The authors perform a range of reliability tests, the results of which all suggest that the instruments are valid. They also present evidence consistent with the argument that easier access to information allows farmers to strike better price deals within their existing trading relationships and to make better choices in terms of where they choose to sell their goods.Publication The Impact of Migration on Food Consumption Patterns : The Case of Vietnam(2011)This paper explores the relationship between migration and consumption patterns using panel data from the 2004 and 2006 Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys. Employing an instrumental variable approach to control for the endogeneity of migration, our results indicate that short-term migration has a positive effect on overall per capita food expenditures, per capita calorie consumption and food diversity. Long-term migration also appears to be positively related to consumption, but impacts are often insignificant and of a lesser magnitude than short-term migration. The results provide no evidence of negative effects of migration, and support the view that short-term migration is a mechanism by which households maintain food security. The results suggest that to improve food security the Vietnamese government should enact policies that facilitate short-term migration flows as well as the transferring of remittances.
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