Hanan Jacoby

Risk, Financial Markets, and Human Capital in a Developing Country

This paper explores the link between financial market incompleteness and human capital accumulation. We examine how child school attendance responds to seasonal fluctuations in the income of agrarian households using panel data from rural India. To pinpoint market imperfections, we study responses to aggregate and idiosyncratic, as well as to anticipated and unanticipated, income shocks. Our main finding is that seasonal fluctuations in school attendance are a form of self-insurance, but one which does not result in a substantial loss of human capital on average.

Productivity of men and women and the sexual division of labor in peasant agriculture of the Peruvian Sierra

Abstract This paper estimates the productivity of men and women in the peasant agriculture of the Peruvian Sierra, using recent household survey data. A sexual division of labor on the farm implies that male and female labor are not perfectly substitutable. Evidence is found for female specialization on livestock production. A translog production function reveals that the use of animal traction and land affect the marginal productivity of male and female labor differently, suggesting that the two types of labor cannot be aggregated. Overall, adult male labor is found to contribute more to farm output at the margin than adult female labor, though the extent of the difference is sensitive to how farm output and the labor inputs are measured.

Delayed primary school enrollment and childhood malnutrition in Ghana : an economic analysis

Education is one of the cornerstones of economic development. Similarly, improving child health is a critical objective of development. Yet there are relatively few studies which examine the interaction between education and health. This paper investigates why children in low income countries often delay primary school enrollment, despite the prediction of human capital theory that schooling will begin at the earliest possible age. The authors explore a number of explanations for delayed enrollment, but focus on the hypothesis that delays are rational responses to early childhood malnutrition. They test these alternative hypotheses using recent data from Ghana. Their estimates, which address a number of previously ignored econometric issues, strongly support the notion that childhood malnutrition causes delayed enrollment. The authors find no support for alternative explanations based on borrowing constraints and the rationing of places in school.