Publications

Testing Willingness to Pay Elicitation Mechanisms in the Field: Evidence from Uganda

Researchers frequently use variants of the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism to elicit willingness to pay (WTP). These variants involve numerous incentive-irrelevant design choices, some of which carry advantages for implementation but may deteriorate participant comprehension or trust in the mechanism, which are well-known problems with the BDM. We highlight three such features and test them in the field in rural Uganda, a relevant population for many recent applications. Comprehension is very high, and 86 percent of participants bid optimally for an induced-value voucher, with little variation across treatments. This gives confidence for similar applications, and suggests the comprehension-expediency trade-off is mild. 

Moral Hazard: Experimental Evidence from Tenancy Contracts

Agricultural productivity is particularly low in developing countries. Output sharing rules that make farmers less-than-full residual claimants are seen as a potentially important driver of low agricultural productivity. We report results from a field experiment designed to estimate and understand the effects of sharecropping contracts on agricultural input choices, risk-taking, and output. The experiment induced variation in the terms of sharecropping contracts. After agreeing to pay 50% of their output to the landlord, tenants were randomized into three groups: (i) some kept 50% of their output; (ii) others kept 75%; (iii) others kept 50% of output and received a lump sum payment at the end of their contract, either fixed or stochastic. We find that tenants with higher output shares utilized more inputs, cultivated riskier crops, and produced 60% more output relative to control. Income or risk exposure have at most a small effect on farm output; the increase in output should be interpreted as an incentive effect of the output sharing rule.

Working Papers

The Monetary Value of Externalities: Experimental Evidence from Ugandan Farmers (under review)

Understanding the value of the externalities associated with a technology is crucial to correctly estimate the welfare benefits of public policies and investments. Suboptimal adoption rates of agricultural technologies in low-income countries partly result from farmers not fully internalizing the positive externalities of adoption. This paper designs an experiment to measure the monetary value of the externalities of an agricultural pest-control technology; it elicits a farmer’s willingness-to-pay for another farmer to adopt the technology, as a measure of the externalities generated by the other farmer. The findings show that externalities are large, as mean willingness-to-pay for others is equal to two days’ wage, or half the willingness-to-pay for themselves. Willingness-to-pay for another farmer depends on social proximity (as it is easier to learn about the technology from closer connections), and the distance between their two plots (as pest-control is more beneficial for plot neighbors). Targeting the technology to farmers with geographically central plots and more socially connected farmers generates greater positive externalities and more social value than targeting farmers with the highest willingness-to-pay for themselves. 

Assets or Education? A Multifaceted Education Intervention That Fights Poverty 

Rewriting, new draft coming soon!

Work in Progress

Liquidity Constraints and Capital Allocation: Evidence from a Selective Trial with Ugandan Farmers

Fostering human capital development through school feeding and teacher incentives: evidence from The Gambia

More vegetables, healthier lifestyle? School meals improve children's behavior in Jordan

Livelihood packages and poverty graduation programs: evidence from Malawi