Using a four-year post-endline followup survey of households from a cluster-randomized controlled trial of ANGeL, a nutrition-and-gender-sensitive agricultural intervention in Bangladesh, this study suggests that bundling nutrition and agriculture training may contribute to resilience as well as to sustained impacts on consumption, women’s empowerment, and asset holdings in the medium term.
This study examined shocks experienced by rural Nepali households during the COVID-19 pandemic and the results include that households mostly relied on credit, asset sales and savings to protect consumption, and that beneficiaries of a livestock livelihood program were 6 percentage points less likely to take out new loans as a means to cope.
This paper presents results of a RCT evaluating the 2.5-3.5-year impacts of a livelihoods program in Nepal that targets women and employs self-help groups, livestock transfers, and trainings.
This study tests whether a new financial product that offers guaranteed credit access after a shock allows households to insure themselves against risk with a large-scale RCT involving 300,000 subjects in Bangladesh with one of the country’s largest microcredit institutions.
This study evaluates the short-term (1.5 year) impacts of a multifaceted livestock transfer and training program in rural Nepal using a randomized control trial (RCT). Findings show that the program significantly increased financial inclusion and women’s empowerment after 1.5 years.
The lack and drive of aspiration has gained the attention of economists as a behavioral constraint to future-oriented behavior and investment. The research team explores the empirical evidence relating to aspirations and determine if the social phenomenon can stimulate development or reinforce poverty.
It is widely acknowledged that unmitigated risks provide a disincentive for otherwise optimal investments in modern farm inputs. This study assesses both the demand for and the effectiveness of an innovative index insurance product designed to help smallholder farmers in Bangladesh manage risk to crop yields and the increased production costs associated with drought.
The research team estimates the general-equilibrium labor market effects of a large-scale randomized intervention designed and markets a rainfall index insurance product across three states in India. Marketing agricultural insurance to both cultivators and to agricultural wage laborers allows the team to test a general-equilibrium model of wage determination in settings where households supplying labor and households hiring labor face weather risk.
In this paper we ask two questions: (1) What are the social drivers of aspirations formation?, and (2) How do aspirations influence future-oriented behavior? The difference between current status and aspirations drives future-oriented economic behavior as predicted by theory
