Papers - Esther Duflo

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Leigh Linden

Cited by*: 2 Downloads*: 54

This note presents the results obtained after the first year of a two-year randomized evaluation of a computer assisted learning (CAL) program in Vadodara, India. The CAL program, implemented by a NGO, took advantage of the donation of four computers to each municipal primary school in Vadodara by the state government. The program provided each child in the fourth standard with two hours of shared computer time in which students played educational games that reinforced mathematics competencies ranging from the standard 1 to the standard 3 level. We find the program to be quite effective. On average, it increased math scores by 0.37 standard deviations. The program effect is slightly higher at the bottom of the distribution but persists throughout the distribution. The program had no apparent spillover on language competencies.

Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, Michael Kremer, Samuel Sinei

Cited by*: 15 Downloads*: 26

We report results from a randomized evaluation comparing three school-based HIV/AIDS interventions in Kenya: 1) training teachers in the Kenyan Government's HIV/AIDS-education curriculum; 2) encouraging students to debate the role of condoms and to write essays on how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS; and 3) reducing the cost of education. Our primary measure of the effectiveness of these interventions is teenage childbearing, which is associated with unprotected sex. We also collected measures of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior regarding HIV/AIDS. After two years, girls in schools where teachers had been trained were more likely to be married in the event of a pregnancy. The program had little other impact on students' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior, or on the incidence of teen childbearing. The condom debates and essays increased practical knowledge and self-reported use of condoms without increasing self-reported sexual activity. Reducing the cost of education by paying for school uniforms reduced dropout rates, teen marriage, and childbearing.

Abhijit Banerjee, Angus Deaton, Esther Duflo

Cited by*: 23 Downloads*: 44

There is surprisingly little information about the delivery of health care in rural India, and about the relationship, if any, between health care and health status. Some, such as the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health of the World Health Organization (2001), have argued that better health care is the key to improving health as well as economic growth in poor countries, but there is little systematic evidence that gives us a sense of how easy it is to impact the quality of health care delivery in developing countries and through these improvements to impact the health of the population. This paper reports on a recent survey in a poor rural area of the state of Rajasthan in India intended to shed some light on this issue, where we use a set of interlocking surveys to collect data on health and economic status, as well as the public and private provision of health care.

Esther Duflo, Rema Hanna

Cited by*: 5 Downloads*: 17

In the rural areas of developing countries, teacher absence is a widespread problem. This paper tests whether a simple incentive program based on teacher presence can reduce teacher absence, and whether it has the potential to lead to more teaching activities and better learning. In 60 informal one-teacher schools in rural India, randomly chosen out of 120 (the treatment schools), a financial incentive program was initiated to reduce absenteeism. Teachers were given a camera with a tamper-proof date and time function, along with instructions to have one of the children photograph the teacher and other students at the beginning and end of the school day. The time and date stamps on the photographs were used to track teacher attendance. A teacher's salary was a direct function of his attendance. The remaining 60 schools served as comparison schools. The introduction of the program resulted in an immediate decline in teacher absence. The absence rate (measured using unannounced visits both in treatment and comparison schools) changed from an average of 42 percent in the comparison schools to 22 percent in the treatment schools. When the schools were open, teachers were as likely to be teaching in both types of schools, and the number of students present was roughly the same. The program positively affected child achievement levels: a year after the start of the program, test scores in program schools were 0.17 standard deviations higher than in the comparison schools and children were 40 percent more likely to be admitted into regular schools.

Abhijit Banerjee, Shawn Cole, Esther Duflo, Leigh Linden

Cited by*: 25 Downloads*: 14

This paper presents the results of two randomized experiments conducted in schools in urban India. A remedial education program hired young women to teach students lagging behind in basic literacy and numeracy skills. It increased average test scores of all children in treatment schools by 0.28 standard deviation, mostly due to large gains experienced by children at the bottom of the test-score distribution. A computer-assisted learning program focusing on math increased math scores by 0.47 standard deviation. One year after the programs were over, initial gains remained significant for targeted children, but they faded to about 0.10 standard deviation.

Esther Duflo, William Gale, Jeffrey Liebman, Peter Orszag, Emmanuel Saez

Cited by*: 7 Downloads*: 7

This paper analyzes the effects of a large randomized field experiment carried out with H&R Block, offering matching incentives for IRA contributions at the time of tax preparation. About 14,000 H&R Block clients, across 60 offices in predominantly low- and middle-income neighborhoods in St. Louis, were randomly offered a 20 percent match on IRA contributions, a 50 percent match, or no match (the control group). The evaluation generates two main findings. First, higher match rates significantly raise IRA participation and contributions. Take-up rates were 3 percent for the control group, 8 percent in the 20 percent match group, and 14 percent in the 50 percent match group. Average IRA contributions (including non-contributors, excluding the match) for the 20 percent and 50 percent match groups were 4 and 7 times higher than in the control group, respectively. Second, several additional findings are inconsistent with the full information, rational-saver model. In particular, we find much more modest effects on take-up and amounts contributed from the existing Saver's Credit, which provides an effective match for retirement saving contributions through the tax code; we suspect that the differences may reflect the complexity of the Saver's Credit as enacted, and the way in which its effective match is presented. Taken together, our results suggest that the combination of a clear and understandable match for saving, easily accessible savings vehicles, the opportunity to use part of an income tax refund to save, and professional assistance could generate a significant increase in contributions to retirement accounts, including among middle- and low-income households.

Raghabendra Chattopadhyay, Esther Duflo

Cited by*: 3 Downloads*: 33

No abstract available

Esther Duflo, Emmanuel Saez

Cited by*: 320 Downloads*: 30

This paper analyzes a randomized experiment to shed light on the role of information and social interactions in employees' decisions to enroll in a Tax Deferred Account (TDA) retirement plan within a large university. The experiment encouraged a random sample of employees in a subset of departments to attend a benefits information fair organized by the university, by promising a monetary reward for attendance. The experiment multiplied by more than five the attendance rate of these treated individuals (relative to controls), and tripled that of untreated individuals within departments where some individuals were treated. TDA enrollment five and eleven months after the fair was significantly higher in departments where some individuals were treated than in departments where nobody was treated. However, the effect on TDA enrollment is almost as large for individuals in treated departments who did not receive the encouragement as for those who did. We provide three interpretations-differential treatment effects, social network effects, and motivational reward effects-to account for these results.

Esther Duflo, Petia Topalova

Cited by*: 14 Downloads*: 54

This paper studies the impact of reservation for women on the performance of policy makers and on voters' perceptions of this performance. Since the mid 1990's, one third of Village Council head positions in India have been randomly reserved for a woman: In these councils only women could be elected to the position of chief. Village Councils are responsible for the provision of many local public goods in rural areas. Using a data set which combines individual level data on satisfaction with public services with independent assessments of the quality of public facilities, we compare objective measures of the quantity and quality of public goods, and information about how villagers evaluate the performance of male and female leaders. Overall, villages reserved for women leaders have more public goods, and the measured quality of these goods is at least as high as in non-reserved villages. Moreover, villagers are less likely to pay bribes in villages reserved for women. Yet, residents of villages headed by women are less satisfied with the public goods, including goods that are beyond the jurisdiction of the Panchayat. This may help explain why women rarely win elections even though they appear to be at least as effective leaders along observable dimensions, and are less corrupt.

Abhijit Banerjee, Angus Deaton, Esther Duflo

Cited by*: 28 Downloads*: 482

What are the determinants of the health and of well-being? Income and wealth are clearly part of the story, but does access to health-care have a large independent effect, as the advocates of more investment in health-care, such as the World Health Organization's Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (2001)), have argued? This paper reports on a recent survey in a poor rural area of the state of Rajasthan in India intended to shed some light on this issue, where there was an attempt to use a set of interlocking surveys to collect data on health and economic status, as well as the public and private provision of health care.