Changing Preferences Through Experimental Games

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Changing Preferences Through Experimental Games

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Author : Stopnitzky, Yaniv
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2016-12-16

Changing Preferences Through Experimental Games written by Stopnitzky, Yaniv and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-12-16 with Political Science categories.

Much policy interest in sanitation and hygiene promotion focuses on changing behavior and increasing demand for these goods. Yet the effectiveness of large-scale interventions has been mixed, in large part because of the difficulty of changing attitudes on deeply rooted behaviors. This study tests whether an experiential learning exercise structured around an experimental game can be used to shift preferences around sanitation and hygiene. A minimum coordination game is adapted to the sanitation and hygiene setting by linking game choices to real-world investment decisions and payoffs in terms of health and status. Individuals from 20 villages in rural Tamil Nadu were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one that played a game in which communication between rounds was allowed, another that played a game in which communication was prohibited, and a control group that only completed a survey. Based on a comparison of survey responses across treatment arms, the game improved stated preferences in relation to sanitation and hygiene. This effect was larger when communication was allowed, and men responded on average more strongly than women across both versions of the game. These results suggest that experimental games can be a valuable tool not only for the study of decision making but for improving participants’ knowledge and pro-sanitation preferences.

Bounded Rational Behavior In Experimental Games And Markets

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Author : Reinhard Tietz
language : en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date : 2012-12-06

Bounded Rational Behavior In Experimental Games And Markets written by Reinhard Tietz and has been published by Springer Science & Business Media this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-12-06 with Business & Economics categories.

The book reports on recent experimental research on expectations and decision making in bargaining, markets, auctions, or coalition formation situations. The investi- gated topics deliver building stones for a bounded rational theory as an approach to explain behavior and interpersonal interactions in economic and social relationships.

Strengthening And Harmonizing Food Policy Systems To Achieve Food Security

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Author : Babu, Suresh Chandra
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-02-15

Strengthening And Harmonizing Food Policy Systems To Achieve Food Security written by Babu, Suresh Chandra and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-02-15 with Political Science categories.

Understanding how various entities in a policy system at the national level can contribute to improved use of evidence in policy making. Yet little research has focused in developing countries on how various actors and players in a policy system work together to achieve a set of policy goals. In this paper, we study the factors contributing to the effectiveness of a policy system. The process of policy design, adoption, implementation, and refinement requires an effective policy system as well as a capacitated and supportive institutional structure. External actors both through technical and financial assistance often support policy systems in developing countries. Poor coordination and harmonization of such assistance among various actors and players within the country can often result in undermining the very policy systems they try to strengthen. This is typical in the African agricultural development process. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for understanding the policy and institutional architecture of food and agriculture policy system and for improving the coordination and harmonization of the roles of policy actors and players. Applying the framework to Ghana, we map and analyze the organizational contributions of various actors and their functional characteristics. We show how such analysis can aid various policy actors in setting priorities and strategies for increasing their capacity and the effectiveness of their roles. Finally, we draw lessons for strengthening the food policy systems in developing countries through effective coordination among local and external actors.

Entitlement Fetching Or Snatching Effects Of Arbitrage On India S Public Distribution System

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Author : Chakrabarti, Suman
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2016-12-22

Entitlement Fetching Or Snatching Effects Of Arbitrage On India S Public Distribution System written by Chakrabarti, Suman and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-12-22 with Political Science categories.

Would households be able to buy more subsidized grains from a food-based safety-net program if the difference between prices in the program and in the open market were to increase? This is an important question for safety-net programs anywhere in the world, but particularly so for the public distribution system (PDS) of grains in India—the largest food-based safety-net program in the world. The standard economic intuition suggests that price controls distort signals and create incentives for unintended transactions. Price difference between the PDS and the open market compromise entitlements and divert grains to open markets—an entitlement-snatching effect. Drèze and Sen (2013), however, posit the opposite—an entitlement-fetching effect, where an increase in arbitrage increases the value of PDS entitlement. This raises the stakes in the PDS for eligible beneficiaries, resulting in a rise in accountability and ultimately an increase in household purchases of grains from the PDS. We test these two competing hypotheses using multiple datasets: consumer expenditure surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization, and panel datasets from the India Human Development Survey and the Village Dynamics in South Asia. Depending on the context, we find both entitlement-snatching and entitlement-fetching effects. In states where welfare programs are better governed, the Drèze and Sen (2013) conjecture holds. Conversely, in states like Bihar and Jharkhand—where welfare programs are poorly run—the opposite pattern holds; that is, households’ purchase of subsidized grains recedes with greater arbitrage.

The Role Of Learning In Technology Adoption Evidence On Hybrid Rice Adoption In Bihar India

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Author : Gars, Jared
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2016-12-22

The Role Of Learning In Technology Adoption Evidence On Hybrid Rice Adoption In Bihar India written by Gars, Jared and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-12-22 with Political Science categories.

Much empirical research has shown that individuals’ decisions to adopt a new technology are the result of learning–both through personal experimentation through observing the experimentation of others. Yet even casual observation would suggest significant heterogeneity of learning processes, manifesting itself in widely varying patterns of adoption over space and time. This paper explores this heterogeneity in the context of early adoption of hybrid rice in rural India. Using specially designed experiments conducted as part of a primary survey in the field, we identify which of four broad learning heuristics most accurately reflects individuals’ information processing strategies. Linking these learning heuristics with observed use of rice hybrids, we demonstrate that pure Bayesian learning is well suited for the tinkering and marginal adjustments that are required to learn about a technology like hybrid rice, but it is also more cognitively taxing than other learning styles requiring a longer memory and more complex updating processes. Consequently, only about 25 percent of the farmers in our sample can be characterized as pure Bayesian learners. Present-biased learning and relying on first impressions will likely hinder adoption of a technology like hybrid rice, even after controlling for access to credit and a rudimentary proxy for intelligence.

Imputing Nutrient Intake From Foods Prepared And Consumed Away From Home And Other Composite Foods

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Author :
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-01-06

Imputing Nutrient Intake From Foods Prepared And Consumed Away From Home And Other Composite Foods written by and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-01-06 with Political Science categories.

This paper assesses the Subramanian and Deaton (S–D) approach for imputing the caloric intake of households from food prepared away from home (FAFH) and composite foods (CF) by juxtaposing it with the imputations of alternative approaches, and extends these approaches to four additional nutrients—vitamin A, iron, zinc, and calcium. The apparent relative nutritional insignificance of FAFH and CF in Bangladesh obfuscates our efforts to assess alternatives to the S–D approach to imputation, and we remain uncertain about the relative value of the alternative imputation approaches examined. FAFH and CF—although widely consumed in Bangladesh—constitute a relatively unimportant source of nutrients, regardless of how the nutrient content of FAFH and CF is imputed.

The Impact Of Ethiopia S Productive Safety Net Programme On The Nutritional Status Of Children 2008 2012

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Author : Berhane, Guush
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-02-03

The Impact Of Ethiopia S Productive Safety Net Programme On The Nutritional Status Of Children 2008 2012 written by Berhane, Guush and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-02-03 with Political Science categories.

Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) is a large-scale social protection intervention aimed at improving food security and stabilizing asset levels. The PSNP contains a mix of public works employment and unconditional transfers. It is a well-targeted program; however, several years passed before payment levels reached the intended amounts. The PSNP has been successful in improving household food security. However, children’s nutritional status in the localities where the PSNP operates is poor, with 48 percent of children stunted in 2012. This leads to the question of whether the PSNP could improve child nutrition. In this paper, we examine the impact of the PSNP on children’s nutritional status over the period 2008–2012. Doing so requires paying particular attention to the targeting of the PSNP and how payment levels have evolved over time. Using inverse-probability-weighted regression-adjustment estimators, we find no evidence that the PSNP reduces either chronic undernutrition (height-for-age z-scores, stunting) or acute undernutrition (weight-for-height z-scores, wasting). While we cannot definitively identify the reason for this nonresult, we note that child diet quality is poor. We find no evidence that the PSNP improves child consumption of pulses, oils, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, or animal-source proteins. Most mothers have not had contact with health extension workers nor have they received information on good feeding practices. Water practices, as captured by the likelihood that mothers boil drinking water, are poor. These findings, along with work by other researchers, have informed revisions to the PSNP. Future research will assess whether these revisions have led to improvements in the diets and anthropometric status of preschool children in Ethiopia.

Can Better Targeting Improve The Effectiveness Of Ghana S Fertilizer Subsidy Program

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Author : Houssou, Nazaire
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-02-10

Can Better Targeting Improve The Effectiveness Of Ghana S Fertilizer Subsidy Program written by Houssou, Nazaire and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-02-10 with Political Science categories.

Despite improvements to the implementation regime of Ghana’s fertilizer subsidy program, this paper shows that considerable challenges remain in ensuring that the subsidy is targeted to farmers who need fertilizer the most. Currently, larger-scale and wealthier farmers are the main beneficiaries of subsidized fertilizer even though the stated goal is to target smallholder farmers with fertilizer subsidies. The experience of other African countries suggests that the effectiveness of fertilizer subsidies can improve with effective targeting of resource-poor smallholders. However, targeting smallholder farmers entails significant transaction costs and may even be infeasible in some cases. Faced with such challenges, Ghanaian policy makers must ponder the question of how to improve the targeting of input subsidy programs in the country. Further research is needed to identify more cost-effective approaches for achieving the goal of targeting.

Cities And Rural Transformation A Spatial Analysis Of Rural Youth Livelihoods In Ghana

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Author : Diao, Xinshen
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-01-27

Cities And Rural Transformation A Spatial Analysis Of Rural Youth Livelihoods In Ghana written by Diao, Xinshen and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-01-27 with Political Science categories.

Urbanization has had a major impact on livelihoods in Ghana and throughout Africa as a whole. However, much research on urbanization has focused on effects occurring within cities, while there is insufficient understanding of its effects on rural areas. This paper examines the impact of urbanization—through a typology of districts—on rural livelihoods in Ghana. The country’s districts are classified into seven spatial groups according to the size of the largest city in each district in southern and northern Ghana. The paper does not address rural–urban migration but instead focuses on the livelihoods of rural households. In contrast to the extensive literature focusing on the effects of urbanization on individuals, we assess its impacts on individual rural households as a whole, with a particular focus on youth-headed households. Many rural households have shifted their primary employment from agriculture to nonagriculture, especially in the more urbanized South. In contrast, change in livelihood diversification within rural households with family members’ primary employment in both agriculture and nonagriculture appears much less rapid. Rural youth-headed households are significantly more associated with the transition away from agriculture than households headed by other adults, and such trends are stronger in locations closer to larger cities, particularly in the South. Although the nonagricultural economy is becoming increasingly important for rural households, contrary to expectations, the probit model analysis in this paper shows that agricultural production does not appear to be more intensified—in terms of modern input use—in the more urbanized South, and youth do not show greater agricultural technology adoption than other adults, indicating that the constraints against modern input adoption may be binding for all farmers, including youth and farmers in more urbanized locations. We also find that rural poverty rates are consistently lower among nonagricultural households, and the share of middle-class population is also disproportionally higher among rural nonagricultural households than agricultural households. While the probit analysis confirms the positive relationship between being a nonagricultural household and being nonpoor or becoming middle class after controlling for all other factors, education seems to play the biggest role. As rural youth become more educated and more households shift from agriculture to the rural nonfarm economy, a different range of technologies for agricultural intensification is necessary for agriculture to be attractive for youth. A territorial approach and related policies that integrate secondary cities and small towns with the rural economy deserve more attention such that the diversification of rural livelihoods can become a viable alternative or complement to rural–urban migration for youth.

The Changing Structure Of Africa S Economies

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Author : Diao, Xinshen
language : en
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Release Date : 2017-01-13

The Changing Structure Of Africa S Economies written by Diao, Xinshen and has been published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-01-13 with Political Science categories.

In recent years, some counties in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) have experienced growth in their economies and improvements in living standards. Although there is some debate, it is clear that the share of the population living below the poverty line fell significantly over the past decade and a half; there has been a general decline in infant mortality rates and increased access to education; in some of the fastest-growing economies, average growth rates have been positive for the first time in decades; and since the early 1990s, real consumption in SSA has grown between 3.4 and 3.7 percent per year. The reasons behind this so-called “African growth miracle” are not well understood, and to our knowledge, this paper is the first to connect these improvements in living standards to important occupational changes. Using data from the Groningen Growth and Development Center’s Africa Sector Database and the Demographic and Health Surveys, we show that much of SSA’s recent growth and poverty reduction has been associated with a substantive decline in the share of the labor force engaged in agriculture. This decline is most pronounced for rural females over the age of 25 who have a primary education. This has been accompanied by a systematic increase in the productivity of the labor force, as it has moved from low productivity agriculture to higher productivity services and manufacturing. We also show that although the employment share in manufacturing is not expanding rapidly, in most of the low-income SSA countries, the employment share in manufacturing has not peaked and is still expanding, albeit from very low levels. Although these patterns are encouraging, more work is needed to understand the implications of these shifts in employment shares for future growth and development in SSA.