Research

Abstract: Social interactions could contribute to early childhood development (ECD) as both children and caregivers are often affected by their own respective peers. However, the role of social interactions in ECD has rarely been examined empirically. This paper studies the role of social interaction in child development using a random experiment of ECD intervention in rural China. The intervention promotes social interactions by providing both infants and caregivers of infants free access to an indoor playground in rural villages. After one year, the intervention improved the language skills of infants, by 0.15 standard deviation (SD) and the parenting awareness of their caregivers, by 0.21 SD. Evidence suggests infants and their parents benefited from the intervention through social interactions: children benefited from the intervention through their own interactions with other similar-age children as well as their caregivers’ interactions with caregivers of other similar-age children; caregivers improved parenting awareness by learning from other experienced caregivers. These findings contribute to the policy discussion about how to effectively deliver ECD interventions at scale.

Abstract: Cluster randomized experiment is widely used to understand the causal mechanism of economic behaviors. When there is partial compliance to the intervention — the intervention is not fully taken up, the local average treatment effect (LATE) estimator has been applied in the literature to understand the effect of the actual intervention take-up. However, when the nature of interventions introduces interference in cluster randomized experiments, i.e. presenting spillover effects or affecting the general equilibrium of clusters, the traditional LATE estimator is not well identified. In this paper, we propose an analogous causal estimator of LATE in clustered randomized experiments with interference and partial compliance. Specifically, we adopt a difference-in-difference (DID) style estimator to identify the overall treatment effect on the treated. Similarly, we also identify the spillover effect of the intervention for individuals who never take up the intervention. We illustrate our method in our empirical analysis of a microcredit program in rural Morocco. Our estimates of the overall treatment effect on the treated are different from LATE estimates of the microcredit program in Crepon et al., 2015, suggesting potential spillover effects in the microcredit program.

Abstract: Combining cross-area differences in pre-program kerosene usage rate with the rollout of the Indonesian “Conversion to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Program”, we show that a subsidy for household use of LPG, a labor- and time-saving cooking technology, that replaced the existing kerosene subsidy, increased female labor force participation. The program also increased household consumption expenditure and the decision-making power of women in the household, especially in financial matters. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the benefits of switching to LPG far outweighed the costs to the households. Based on previous research, we conjecture that intra-household externalities and gender differences in preferences drive low rates of adoption of the cost-effective technology. The program’s impact on the financial decision-making power of women suggests that subsidies that empower women, even if temporary, can encourage the adoption and sustained use of beneficial technology.