Jonathan Robinson

Nudging Farmers to Use Fertilizer: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Kenya

While many developing-country policymakers see heavy fertilizer subsidies as critical to raising agricultural productivity, most economists see them as distortionary, regressive, environmentally unsound, and argue that they result in politicized, inefficient distribution of fertilizer supply. We model farmers as facing small fixed costs of purchasing fertilizer, and assume some are stochastically present-biased and not fully sophisticated about this bias. Even when relatively patient, such farmers may procrastinate, postponing fertilizer purchases until later periods, when they may be too impatient to purchase fertilizer. Consistent with the model, many farmers in Western Kenya fail to take advantage of apparently profitable fertilizer investments, but they do invest in response to small, time-limited discounts on the cost of acquiring fertilizer (free delivery) just after harvest. Later discounts have a smaller impact, and when given a choice of price schedules, many farmers choose schedules that induce advance purchase. Calibration suggests such small, time-limited discounts yield higher welfare than either laissez faire or heavy subsidies by helping present-biased farmers commit to fertilizer use without inducing those with standard preferences to substantially overuse fertilizer.

Transactional Sex as a Response to Risk in Western Kenya

Formal and informal commercial sex work is a way of life for many poor women in developing countries. Though sex workers have long been identified as crucial in affecting the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the nature of sex-for-money transactions remains poorly understood. Using a unique panel dataset constructed from 192 self-reported sex worker diaries which include detailed information on sexual behavior, labor supply, and health shocks, the authors find that sex workers adjust their supply of risky, better compensated sex to cope with unexpected health shocks, exposing themselves to increased risk of HIV infection. In particular, women are 3.1 percent more likely to see a client, 21.2 percent more likely to have anal sex, and 19.1 percent more likely to have unprotected sex on days in which a household member falls ill. Women also increase their supply of risky sex on days after missing work due to symptoms from a sexually transmitted infection. Given that HIV prevalence has been estimated at 9.8 percent in this part of Kenya, these behavioral responses entail significant health risks for sex workers and their partners, and suggest that sex workers are unable to cope with risk through other formal or informal consumption smoothing mechanisms.

Risk-Coping Through Sexual Networks: Evidence from Client Transfers in Kenya

Why do women engage in transactional sex? While much of the explanation is that sex-for-money pays more than other jobs, this paper uses a unique panel dataset constructed from 192 self-reported diaries of sex workers in Western Kenya to show that women who supply transactional sex develop relationships with regular clients, and that these clients send transfers in response to negative income shocks. Regular clients are the primary source of inter-person insurance that women receive, and women report in a separate survey that client transfers are an important reason that they participate in the market.

Grain today, gain tomorrow: Evidence from a storage experiment with savings clubs in Kenya

Many farmers in the developing world lack access to effective savings and storage devices. Such devices might be particularly valuable for farmers since income is received as a lump sum at harvest but expenditures are incurred throughout the year, and because grain prices are low at harvest but rise over the year. We experimentally provided two saving schemes to 132 ROSCAs in Kenya, one designed around communally storing maize and the other around saving cash for inputs. About 56% of respondents took up the products. Respondents in the maize storage intervention were 23 percentage points more likely to store maize (on a base of 69%), 37 percentage points more likely to sell maize (on a base of 36%) and (conditional on selling) sold later and at higher prices. We find no effects of the individual input savings intervention on input usage, likely because baseline input adoption was higher than expected.

Governance and the effectiveness of public health subsidies: Evidence from Ghana, Kenya and Uganda

Distributing subsidized health products through existing health infrastructure could substantially and cost-effectively improve health in sub-Saharan Africa. There is, however, widespread concern that poor governance - in particular, limited health worker accountability - seriously undermines the effectiveness of subsidy programs. We audit targeted bednet distribution programs to quantify the extent of agency problems. We find that around 80% of the eligible receive the subsidy as intended, and up to 15% of subsidies are leaked to ineligible people. Supplementing the program with simple financial or monitoring incentives for health workers does not improve performance further and is thus not cost-effective in this context.

Sex Markets: A Denied Industry

queer economics, and will likely challenge most readers through at least one article outside the reader’s disciplinary background. The juxtaposition of the articles provides ample fodder for new perspectives and new research. The volume lends itself to helping create prolonged study of the field, paving the way for future collaborative efforts. In relation to the field of feminist economics, the book provides necessary reading. It can hopefully encourage feminist economic practitioners to question their own biases with regard to heteroand gendernormativity and offer a method of re-envisioning relationships between women and men. At least one article from this text should be incorporated into any class on feminist economics or the economics of discrimination, so that future practitioners can incorporate sexual orientation as a fundamental (versus marginal) part of the field.

Success in Entrepreneurship: Doing the Math

This paper examines the association between entrepreneurial success and firm and owner characteristics, in the context of the small retail sector in Western Kenya. Earlier work finds very high rates of return to inventories. Inventories are positively associated with math skills. Since inventories and profits are positively correlated, math skills predict profits as well. Math skills are also robustly correlated with profits conditional on inventories.

The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from a FieldExperiment with Schoolchildren

Are home computers are an important input in the educational production function? To address this question, we conduct a field experiment involving the provision of free computers to schoolchildren for home use. Low-income children attending middle and high schools in 15 schools in California were randomly selected to receive free computers and followed over the school year. The results indicate that the experiment substantially increased computer ownership and total computer use among the schoolchildren with no substitution away from use at school or other locations outside the home. We find no evidence that the home computers improved educational outcomes for the treatment group. From detailed administrative data provided by the schools and a follow-up survey, we find no evidence of positive effects on a comprehensive set of outcomes such as grades, test scores, credits, attendance, school enrollment, computer skills, and college aspirations. The estimates also do not indicate that the effects of home computers on educational outcomes are instead negative. Our estimates are precise enough to rule out even modestly-sized positive or negative impacts. The lack of a positive net effect on educational outcomes may be due to displacement from non-educational uses such as for games, social networking, and entertainment. We find evidence that total hours of computer use for games and social networking increases substantially with having a home computer, and increases more than total hours of computer use for schoolwork.