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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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- Asymmetric Information (5)
- Credit Markets (5)
- Microfinance (4)
- Credit Bureaus (2)
- Experimental Economics (2)
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- Guatemala (2)
- Program evaluation (2)
- African stock markets (1)
- Aspirations (1)
- Bank Lending Channel (1)
- Central America (1)
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- Child Sponsorship (1)
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- Commercial Public Goods (1)
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- Credit markets (1)
- Cross-Border Banking (1)
- Dairy cow (1)
- Development of financial institutions (1)
- Disabilities (1)
- Economic Development (1)
- Economic Growth (1)
- Education (1)
- El Salvador (1)
- Emerging stock markets (1)
- Event studies (1)
- Exchange Rates (1)
- Female competition; sexual selection; affirmative action (1)
- Field experiment (1)
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Articles 1 - 30 of 34
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
An Economic Growth Analysis Of Native American Reservations In California, Mahsa Ashabi
An Economic Growth Analysis Of Native American Reservations In California, Mahsa Ashabi
Economics
A history of institutional oppression and genocide has shaped Native American communities across the United States today, reflected in large disparities of socioeconomic outcomes and productivity. Due to a lack of comprehensive data and macroeconomic research, alternative forms of spatial data and theories regarding human settlement develop a lens of understanding of this stagnation.In our efforts to better understand growth on Native American reservations, we utilize nighttime lights data to proxy for economic output in these geographic areas, measuring the settlement characteristics of reservations themselves and against surrounding U.S. regions. Through a series of log-log regressions that focus on Zipf’s …
Wheels Of Fortune: The Economic Impacts Of Wheelchair Provision In Ethiopia, Justin L. Grider, Bruce Wydick
Wheels Of Fortune: The Economic Impacts Of Wheelchair Provision In Ethiopia, Justin L. Grider, Bruce Wydick
Economics
Although approximately 1 billion people in the world live with physical disabilities, there is a lack of rigorous research on the economic impacts of providing assistive devices for persons with disabilities. This study involves 261 people with disabilities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where 121 had received wheelchair donations through nonprofit organisations. Using covariate matching (CVM), seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) and a series of robustness checks for endogeneity, it is found that those given access to a wheelchair devoted 1.75 more hours per day to work, 1.40 fewer hours per day to street begging and realised a 77.5 per cent increase …
Competitive Mothers: Comparing Competitiveness In Spheres That Matter, Alessandra Cassar, F Wordofa, Y J. Zhang
Competitive Mothers: Comparing Competitiveness In Spheres That Matter, Alessandra Cassar, F Wordofa, Y J. Zhang
Economics
Recent advances have highlighted the evolutionary significance of female competition, with the sexes pursuing different competitive strategies and females reserving their most intense competitive behaviors for the benefit of offspring (1-3). Influential economic experiments using cash incentives, however, have found evidence suggesting that women have a lower desire to compete than men (4-7). We hypothesize that the estimated gender differences critically depend on how we elicit them, especially on the incentives used. We test this hypothesis through an experiment with adults in China (n=358). Data show that, once the incentives are switched from monetary to childbenefitting, gender differences disappear. This …
Developing Hope: The Impact Of International Child Sponsorship On Self-Esteem And Aspirations, Paul Glewwe, Phillip H. Ross, Bruce Wydick
Developing Hope: The Impact Of International Child Sponsorship On Self-Esteem And Aspirations, Paul Glewwe, Phillip H. Ross, Bruce Wydick
Economics
Recent research (Wydick, Glewwe, and Rutledge, 2013) finds positive and statistically significant impacts on adult life outcomes from child sponsorship, including large impacts on schooling outcomes, the probability and quality of employment, occupational choice, and community leadership. This paper uses data from two countries to explore whether these impacts may be due not only to a relaxation of external constraints, but also to higher aspirations among sponsored children. We use survey data from Kenya and Indonesia, and psychological data from Indonesian children’s self-portraits, to test whether sponsorship significantly affects psychological variables in children that are likely to foster better economic …
Measuring Microfinance: Analyzing The Conflict Between Practitioners And Researchers With Evidence From Nepal, Ram D. Rajbanshi, Meng Huang, Bruce Wydick
Measuring Microfinance: Analyzing The Conflict Between Practitioners And Researchers With Evidence From Nepal, Ram D. Rajbanshi, Meng Huang, Bruce Wydick
Economics
What accounts for the discrepancy between the microfinance impact claims of development practitioners and the far smaller impacts found in experimental studies? We demonstrate in a simple theoretical framework why "before-and-after" observations of practitioners overstate microfinance impacts and why estimations in some recent randomized trials understate the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT). Our empirical study uses a unique data set from eastern Nepal to study the impact of microfinance in villages where microfinance did not previously exist. We find that approximately three-fourths of the apparent impact of microfinance observed by practitioners is an illusion driven by correlated unobservable …
Do In-Kind Transfers Damage Local Markets? The Case Of Toms Shoe Donations In El Salvador, Bruce Wydick, Elizabeth Katz, Brendan Janet
Do In-Kind Transfers Damage Local Markets? The Case Of Toms Shoe Donations In El Salvador, Bruce Wydick, Elizabeth Katz, Brendan Janet
Economics
We carry out a cluster randomized trial among 979 households in rural El Salvador to test whether shoe donations exhibit negative impacts on local shoe markets. Households in half of our communities were given a pair of children’s shoes at baseline (treatment communities), while all households were given coupons that could be used for shoe purchases at a local shoe store. Although point estimates on coupon redemption and difference-in-difference estimations indicate shoe purchases to be slightly lower among households receiving the donated shoes, we find no statistically significant difference in market shoe purchases between treatment and control households.
Got Milk? The Impact Of Heifer International's Livestock Donation Programs In Rwanda On Nutritional Outcomes, Rosemary Rawlins, Svetlana Pimkina, Christopher B. Barrett, Sarah Pedersen, Bruce Wydick
Got Milk? The Impact Of Heifer International's Livestock Donation Programs In Rwanda On Nutritional Outcomes, Rosemary Rawlins, Svetlana Pimkina, Christopher B. Barrett, Sarah Pedersen, Bruce Wydick
Economics
International animal donation programs have become an increasingly popular way for people living in developed countries to transfer resources to families living in developing countries. We evaluate the impact of Heifer International’s dairy cow and meat goat donation programs in Rwanda. We find that the program substantially increases dairy and meat consumption among Rwandan households who were given a dairy cow or a meat goat, respectively. We also find marginally statistically significant reductions in weight-for-height z-scores and weight-for-age z-scores of about 0.4 standard deviations among children aged 0-5 years in households that were recipients of meat goats, and reductions in …
Does New Information Technology Lower Media Quality? The Paradox Of Commercial Public Goods, Man-Lui Lau, Bruce Wydick
Does New Information Technology Lower Media Quality? The Paradox Of Commercial Public Goods, Man-Lui Lau, Bruce Wydick
Economics
We define commercial public goods as goods that are broadcast via television, radio, newsprint, or websites for which consumption is non-rival and non-exclusive, and revenue is generated mainly through advertising alongside a product in a two-sided market. With new information technology the fixed cost of entry in these markets has substantially declined. We demonstrate that as fixed costs of entry decline in a competitive media market, lower industry concentration results in lower resources to each firm for the production of commercial public goods. The counterintuitive result of new information technology is that it may result in lower quality news reporting …
Does Child Sponsorship Pay Off In Adulthood? An International Study Of Impacts On Income And Wealth, Bruce Wydick, Paul Glewwe, Laine Rutledge
Does Child Sponsorship Pay Off In Adulthood? An International Study Of Impacts On Income And Wealth, Bruce Wydick, Paul Glewwe, Laine Rutledge
Economics
We estimate the impact of international child sponsorship on adult income and wealth of formally sponsored children using data on 10,144 individuals in six countries. To identify causal effects, we utilize an age-eligibility rule followed from 1980 to 1992 that limited sponsorship to children 12 years old or younger when the program was introduced in a village, allowing comparisons of sponsored children with older siblings who were slightly too old to be sponsored. Estimations indicate that international child sponsorship increased monthly income by $13-19 over an untreated baseline of $75, principally from inducing higher future labor market participation. We also …
Do Risky Microfinance Borrowers Really Invest In Risky Projects? Experimental Evidence From Bolivia., Eliana Zeballos, Alessandra Cassar, Bruce Wydick
Do Risky Microfinance Borrowers Really Invest In Risky Projects? Experimental Evidence From Bolivia., Eliana Zeballos, Alessandra Cassar, Bruce Wydick
Economics
This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to test a fundamental assumption in Stiglitz and Weiss (1981) model of credit rationing, that defaulting borrowers are associated with investment in risky projects. Through an artefactual field experiment with 200 Bolivian microfinance borrowers, we observe that subjects from real-world delinquent borrowing groups do not prefer risky projects to safer ones significantly more than subjects from repaying groups. Moreover, when faced with the choice between two options framed as consumption or a relatively safe investment project, risky borrowers significantly opt more for consumption, supporting more recent behavioral theories of credit market …
Is Us Bank Lending Sensitive To Exchange Rates? A Panel Data Investigation, Michael R. Jonas
Is Us Bank Lending Sensitive To Exchange Rates? A Panel Data Investigation, Michael R. Jonas
Economics
The goal of this paper is to examine the sensitivity of US bank lending to movements in the exchange rate. Using a panel of quarterly bank-level balance sheet observations, I show that there exists significant and meaningful exchange rate sensitivity of cross-border lending activity and total domestic loans. This relationship operates through traditional net export channels, as well as mechanisms specific to banks engaged in international lending. Further, I show that exchange rate innovations represent a source of long run lending volatility equivalent to monetary policy shocks for small banks. Lastly, exchange rate movements are shown to be associated with …
Institutional Quality, Culture, And Norms Of Cooperation: Evidence From Behavioral Field Experiments, Alessandra Cassar, G D'Adda, P Grosjean
Institutional Quality, Culture, And Norms Of Cooperation: Evidence From Behavioral Field Experiments, Alessandra Cassar, G D'Adda, P Grosjean
Economics
We examine the causal effect of legal institutional quality on informal norms of cooperation and study the interaction of institutions and culture in sustaining economic exchange. A total of 346 subjects in Italy and Kosovo played a market game under different and randomly allocated institutional treatments, which generated different incentives to behave honestly, preceded and followed by a noncontractible and nonenforceable trust game. Significant increases in individual trust and trustworthiness followed exposure to better institutions. A 1- percentage-point reduction in the probability of facing a dishonest partner in the market game, which is induced by the quality of legal institutions, …
Does International Child Sponsorship Work? A Six-Country Study Of Impacts On Adult Life Outcomes, Bruce Wydick, Paul Glewwe, Laine Rutledge
Does International Child Sponsorship Work? A Six-Country Study Of Impacts On Adult Life Outcomes, Bruce Wydick, Paul Glewwe, Laine Rutledge
Economics
Child sponsorship is a leading form of direct aid from wealthy country households to children in developing countries. Over 9 million children are supported through international sponsorship organizations. Using data from six countries, we estimate impacts on several outcomes from sponsorship through Compassion International, a leading child sponsorship organization. To identify program effects, we utilize an age-eligibility rule implemented when programs began in new villages. We find large, statistically significant impacts on years of schooling; primary, secondary, and tertiary school completion; and the probability and quality of employment. Early evidence suggests that these impacts are due, in part, to increases …
Keeping The Doctor Away: Experimental Evidence On Investment In Preventative Health Products, Jennifer Meredith, Jonathan Robinson, Sarah Walker, Bruce Wydick
Keeping The Doctor Away: Experimental Evidence On Investment In Preventative Health Products, Jennifer Meredith, Jonathan Robinson, Sarah Walker, Bruce Wydick
Economics
Household investment in preventative health products in developing countries is typically low even though the returns to such products are high. In this paper, we experimentally estimate demand curves for health products and test whether (1) information about health risk, (2) cash liquidity, (3) peer effects, and (4) intra-household differences in preferences affect demand. In our main experiment in Kenya involving children’s shoes - critical for preventing hookworm infection - price is by far the most important predictor of purchase. Providing liquidity and targeting women also increased demand. Information had no effect even though we find that genuine learning occurred. …
Credit Rationing With Behavioral Foundations: Revisiting Stiglitz And Weiss, Alessandra Cassar, Bruce Wydick
Credit Rationing With Behavioral Foundations: Revisiting Stiglitz And Weiss, Alessandra Cassar, Bruce Wydick
Economics
The seminal credit market model of Stiglitz and Weiss (1981) proposes that asymmetric information between borrowers and lenders creates a moral hazard in which borrowers to have an incentive to invest in risky projects, creating the basis for a rationing equilibrium in credit markets. Other recent behavioral work, argues that a different type of behavior is more central to credit market risk: the temptation for borrowers to use borrowed capital to meet short-term consumption needs rather than for productive investment (Banerjee and Mullainathan, 2010). In this note, we present a simple model that is able to explain credit rationing where …
Social Networks, Neighborhood Effects, And Credit Access: Evidence From Rural Guatemala, Bruce Wydick, Harmony Karp Hayes, Sarah Hilliker Kempf
Social Networks, Neighborhood Effects, And Credit Access: Evidence From Rural Guatemala, Bruce Wydick, Harmony Karp Hayes, Sarah Hilliker Kempf
Economics
We measure the extent to which social networks determine sources of credit from a survey of 465 households in western Guatemala. We estimate correlated, contextual and endogenous effects of networks at the neighborhood, church, and village levels, finding that church networks display endogenous effects in credit access. We calculate an elasticity of social imitation (ESI) indicating if the percentage of people accessing microfinance in a church network doubles, the probability of an individual household accessing microfinance increases by 14.1 percent, a magnitude similar to our estimated ESIs for televisions and cell phones within church and neighbor networks.
Microfinance And Home Improvement: Using Retrospective Panel Data To Measure Program Effects On Fundamental Events, Craig Mcintosh, Gonzalo Villaran, Bruce Wydick
Microfinance And Home Improvement: Using Retrospective Panel Data To Measure Program Effects On Fundamental Events, Craig Mcintosh, Gonzalo Villaran, Bruce Wydick
Economics
Rigorously estimating the effects of development programs is notoriously difficult. In this paper we present a methodology that borrows from "event studies" commonly used in the finance literature to ascertain the impacts of corporate mergers. In our RETRAFECT methodology a retrospective panel data set is created based on “fundamental” events in the history of surveyed households, events that are discrete, unforgettable, and important to welfare. Based on the relationship between the changes in the estimated probabilities of these events and the timing of the introduction and uptake of a treatment, it is possible to ascertain if the probability of these …
The Economics Of Parenting, Self-Esteem, And Academic Performance: Theory And A Test, Rajeev Darolia, Bruce Wydick
The Economics Of Parenting, Self-Esteem, And Academic Performance: Theory And A Test, Rajeev Darolia, Bruce Wydick
Economics
This paper develops a theory about how signals sent to a child by an altruistic parent affect a child's self-esteem, effort and long-term performance when a parent has better information about child ability than children do themselves. We carry out OLS, 2SLS, and 3SLS estimations of our model on a sample of 651 college students. Our results show some complementary actions before college, such as parental praise, foster academic achievement above what natural ability would predict. Conversely, we find some substitutionary actions before college, such as providing them cars as gifts, are associated with lower effort in college and underachievement. …
Does Social Capital Matter? Evidence From A Five-Country Group Lending Experiment, Alessandra Cassar, Bruce Wydick
Does Social Capital Matter? Evidence From A Five-Country Group Lending Experiment, Alessandra Cassar, Bruce Wydick
Economics
Does social capital matter to economic decision-making? We address this broad question through an artefactual group lending experiment carried out in five countries: India, Kenya, Guatemala, Armenia, and the Philippines, obtaining data from 10,673 contribution decisions on simulated group loans from 1,554 participants in 259 experimental borrowing groups. We carry out treatments for social homogeneity, group monitoring, and group self-selection. Results show that societal trust has a positive and significant impact on group loan contribution rates, that group lending appears to create as well as harness social capital, and that peer monitoring can have perverse as well as beneficial effects.
What Do Credit Bureaus Do? Understanding Screening, Incentive, And Credit Expansion Effects, Craig Mcintosh, Bruce Wydick
What Do Credit Bureaus Do? Understanding Screening, Incentive, And Credit Expansion Effects, Craig Mcintosh, Bruce Wydick
Economics
We develop a theoretical model that explains the primary empirical results emanating from a multi-year study of the impact of credit bureaus in Guatemala. Our theory derives “screening” and “incentive” effects of credit information systems that mitigate problems of adverse selection and moral hazard in credit markets. We also derive a “credit expansion” effect in which borrowers with clean credit records receive larger and more favorable equilibrium loan contracts. The credit expansion effect increases default rates, partially counteracting the first two effects. We create a simulation model that allows us to examine the relative magnitudes of these effects in relation …
Ranking Economics Journals, Economics Departments, And Economists Using Teaching-Focused Research Productivity, Melody Lo, M.C. Sunny Wong, Franklin G. Mixon Jr.
Ranking Economics Journals, Economics Departments, And Economists Using Teaching-Focused Research Productivity, Melody Lo, M.C. Sunny Wong, Franklin G. Mixon Jr.
Economics
This paper constructs new rankings of economics journals, economics departments, and economists that employ a measure of teaching-focused research productivity, an area of growing importance in recent years. The ranking methodologies presented here use information from articles that were published from 1991 through the early part of 2005 within the "Journal of Economic Literature'"s "economic education" classifications (A200-A290). The "Journal of Economic Literature" tops the list of journals, followed by the "Review of Economics and Statistics and the American Economic Review". Among the top institutions are Vanderbilt University, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin. Others that rank high here, …
The Effect Of Social Capital On Group Loan Repayment: Evidence From Field Experiments, Alessandra Cassar, Luke Crowley, Bruce Wydick
The Effect Of Social Capital On Group Loan Repayment: Evidence From Field Experiments, Alessandra Cassar, Luke Crowley, Bruce Wydick
Economics
An important question to microfinance is the relevance of existing social capital in target communities to the performance of group lending. This research presents evidence from field experiments in South Africa and Armenia, in which subjects participate in trust and microfinance games. We present evidence that personal trust between group members and peer homogeneity are more important to group loan repayment than general societal trust or acquaintanceship between members. We also find some evidence of reciprocity: those who have been helped by other group members in the past are more likely to contribute in the future.
Grandma Was Right: Why Cohabitation Undermines Relational Happiness, But Is Increasing Anyway, Bruce Wydick
Grandma Was Right: Why Cohabitation Undermines Relational Happiness, But Is Increasing Anyway, Bruce Wydick
Economics
This paper uses a game theoretic model to explain empirical research which has revealed higher relational satisfaction among married couples than cohabiting couples, as well as among married couples who did not cohabit before marriage. Despite these findings, in recent decades cohabitation rates have dramatically increased in both Europe and the United States. Instrumental variables estimations on data from 28 industrialized countries and 50 U.S. states show cohabitation strongly correlated with increases in women’s labor force participation, where a 10 percent increase in women’s labor force participation results in a 6.4 to 14.6 percent increase in cohabitation.
Credit Information Systems In Less Developed Countries: A Test With Microfinance In Guatemala, Jill Luoto, Craig Mcintosh, Bruce Wydick
Credit Information Systems In Less Developed Countries: A Test With Microfinance In Guatemala, Jill Luoto, Craig Mcintosh, Bruce Wydick
Economics
Increases in formal sector lending among the poor have created a need for credit information systems that provide potential lenders both positive and negative data about borrowers. In this paper we provide an overview of the development and use of credit information systems in industrialized and developing countries. The paper subsequently presents a test of the effects of a newly implemented credit information system using fixed effects estimation on panel data from Guatemala. Results indicate that improved screening effects from the system caused the level of portfolio arrears to decline between 2 and 3.5 percentage points six months after it …
Testing Monetary Policy Intentions In Open Economies, Jim Granato, Melody Lo, M.C. Sunny Wong
Testing Monetary Policy Intentions In Open Economies, Jim Granato, Melody Lo, M.C. Sunny Wong
Economics
Temple (2002) argues that the inflation level used in Romer (1993) lacks power in revealing the policy intentions of monetary authorities. Temple also points out that Romer's use of the openness--inflation correlation cannot be explained by time consistency theory. In this article, we demonstrate that more open economies experience less inflation volatility and persistence. We attribute our findings to the hypothesis that monetary authorities in more open economies adopt more aggressive monetary policies. This pattern emerges strongly after 1990. Our results indicate that the near-universal regime shift in 1990 is not just a simple process of increased monetary policy aggressiveness, …
Competition And Microfinance, Craig Mcintosh, Bruce Wydick
Competition And Microfinance, Craig Mcintosh, Bruce Wydick
Economics
Competition between microfinance institutions (MFIs) in developing countries has increased dramatically in the last decade. We model the behavior of non-profit lenders, and show that their non-standard, client-maximizing objectives cause them to cross-subsidize within their pool of borrowers. Thus when competition eliminates rents on profitable borrowers, it is likely to yield a new equilibrium in which poor borrowers are worse off. As competition exacerbates asymmetric information problems over borrower indebtedness, the most impatient borrowers begin to obtain multiple loans, creating a negative externality that leads to less favorable equilibrium loan contracts for all borrowers.
Microfinance Among The Maya: Tracking The Progress Of Borrowers, Bruce Wydick
Microfinance Among The Maya: Tracking The Progress Of Borrowers, Bruce Wydick
Economics
Microfinance has become an increasingly widespread tool for fostering economic growth among the poor in developing countries. This study tracks the progress of 239 borrowers in a Guatemalan microfinance institution from 1994 to 1999. Results from the study show that rapid gains in employment within the sample enterprises after initial credit access were followed by a protracted period of stagnation in employment growth. Other results highlight gender differences in response to credit access, showing — surprisingly — that the long–run growth in hired labour for female entrepreneurs was slightly greater than that for male entrepreneurs.
How Efficient Are Africa’S Emerging Stock Markets?, Magnus Arni Magnusson, Bruce Wydick
How Efficient Are Africa’S Emerging Stock Markets?, Magnus Arni Magnusson, Bruce Wydick
Economics
The development of financial institutions has been viewed in recent years as critical to the economic development process. This research uses recent data from the eight largest African stock markets to test whether these markets meet the criterion of weak-form stock market efficiency with returns characterised by a random walk. Results are then compared with similar tests on emerging stock markets in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Conclusions from the research indicate that test results for weak-form efficiency in the emerging African stock markets compare favorably with those performed on other emerging stock markets.
Affirmative Action In College Admissions: Examining Labor Market Effects Of Four Alternative Policies, Bruce Wydick
Affirmative Action In College Admissions: Examining Labor Market Effects Of Four Alternative Policies, Bruce Wydick
Economics
A rancorous debate continues to rage over the use of affirmative action policies in college admissions. This paper uses a simple signaling model to evaluate the labor market impacts of four types of affirmative action admissions policies. Race-based preferential policies and policies guaranteeing admission based on high school academic rank may induce discrimination in labor markets when there exists strong heterogeneity in socio-economic disadvantage within the under-represented minority group. Under such conditions, it may also be difficult to realize ethnic diversity with disadvantage-based preferential policies. The paper argues instead for affirmative action policies emphasizing intensive college preparation for targeted groups.
Microenterprise Lending To Female Entrepreneurs: Sacrificing Economic Growth For Poverty Alleviation?, Michael Kevane, Bruce Wydick
Microenterprise Lending To Female Entrepreneurs: Sacrificing Economic Growth For Poverty Alleviation?, Michael Kevane, Bruce Wydick
Economics
This research compares the performance of female and male entrepreneurs in a microenterprise credit program in Guatemala. Previous research and field practice has suggested that targeting credit at female borrowers allows for more substantial increases in household welfare, but that male entrepreneurs may more aggressively expand enterprises when given access to credit. In this paper, we develop a model that shows that increases in value of home time during childbearing years for women may substantially account for gender differences in responses to credit access. Empirical results from Guatemalan survey data yield estimations consistent with the predictions from our model.