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Trial Title
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Before
Conventions, Information Asymmetry, and Flow of Information in Households:
Theory and Experiment in Liberia
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After
Conventional Roles, Information Asymmetries and the Intergenerational Flow of Agricultural Innovations: Evidence from a School-based Agricultural Education Program in Liberia
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Abstract
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Before
It remains a puzzle how collective decisions upon private information are made in households and communities in developing countries. Recent evidence points to the interplay of social roles and individual incentives to transmit information. In the spirit of Akerlof (1970), this paper proposes a framework to understand three essential aspects of information aggregation, when there are information asymmetries about changes in attributes of individuals under social conventions: (1) acquisition of attributes (e.g. skills); (2) efforts in interactions (e.g. communication); and (3) resulting flow of new information. The framework suggests tradeoffs for communities in achieving societal and micro-level objectives, and highlights tradeoffs in different approaches to informational interventions considering the possibilities of miscoordination among agents. Within the context of a school-based agricultural education program in Liberia that aims to empower students as agents of knowledge diffusion, I design a household-level experiment to study intergenerational information flow. The experiment (1) tests the existence of information asymmetries in crucial decisions; and (2) contrasts different approaches that induce information transmission in students' households and communities.
This experiment is embedded in the context of a general randomized evaluation of the program (AEARCTR-0006671).
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After
The convenient benchmark of Pareto efficiency in intra-household resource allocation faces empirical challenges when household members have disincentives to share information in decisions such as savings, fertility and investments (Ashraf, 2009; Ashraf et al, 2014; Ozier and Jakiela, 2015). While barriers to information flows caused by conflicting preferences present a challenge for efficient household models, there are no clear policy recommendations because lifting these barriers involves difficult tradeoffs. For instance, when discussing whether contraceptives should be delivered to women in a manner that is concealed from their husbands, Ashraf et al (2014) note that there is a tradeoff between privately improving women's set of choices and lowering the conjugal value of marriage. This paper explores barriers to information flows in production that are not caused by conflicts in preferences. Instead, these barriers are caused by miscoordination of expectations due to an interplay of conventional roles and asymmetric information about changes in one party's production expertise; and thus, through interventions that tackle the information asymmetry, mutually agreeable interactions between household members can be exploited to achieve policy objectives.
I study the flow of information about agricultural innovations across generations in a school-based agricultural education (SBAE) program in Liberia. A shift away from students' conventional roles as assistants on farms is needed as the program leverages students (aged 12-20) as agents of diffusion. I hypothesize that given an information asymmetry between students and their household elders about students' learning activities in schools, both parties form expectations about opponent behavior that are influenced by the status quo in production, thus failing to coordinate on costly interactions that foster information diffusion, including efforts in communicating and learning promoted practices (Hanna et al, 2014; BenYishay and Mobarak, 2019) and application of promoted practices on students' farms. I implement household-level randomized interventions to identify the effects of interventions tackling (i) information barriers facing elders; and (ii) \emph{additional} barriers to information flows due to students' 2nd-order uncertainty about elders' expectations about whether they have relevant farming attributes, holding constant elders' expectations and preferences for interactions with students.
This experiment is embedded in a general randomized evaluation of the school-based agricultural education program (AEARCTR-0006671).
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Trial End Date
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December 31, 2022
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December 31, 2023
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Last Published
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August 19, 2021 12:18 AM
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July 25, 2022 12:11 AM
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Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
Our primary outcomes are in 7 categories: (i) students' participation in the program; (ii) students' major rainy season farming activities outside schools; (iii) students' minor rainy season farming activities outside schools; (iv) students' knowledge, skills, and aspirations; (v) students' usage of new agricultural practices outside schools; (vi) elders' knowledge and skills; (vii) elders' usage of new agricultural practices outside schools. Multiple inference corrections will be implemented across outcomes within the same category.
(i) In the category of students' participation in the program, we have the following outcomes:
(1) a binary indicator of whether students work in the school garden (self-reported in the post-rainy-season survey);
(2) a binary indicator of whether students enroll in 4-H Clubs (self-reported in the post-rainy-season survey and monitored by program);
(3) a binary indicator of whether students have started home entrepreneurship projects (self-reported in the post-rainy-season survey and monitored by program);
(4) a binary indicator of whether students are in the leadership of development clubs (including presidents, vice-presidents, secretaries, treasuries, and chaplains; self-reported in the post-rainy-season survey and monitored by program);
(5) a binary indicator of whether students have participated in national networking events (including 4-H leadership camps and 4-H agriculture fairs; self-reported in the post-rainy-season survey and monitored by program).
(ii) In the category of students' major rainy season farming activities outside schools, we have the following outcomes:
(1) a binary indicator of whether students managed at least one independent farm plot during the major rainy season (self-reported, verified by reports of elders and enumerators in the post-rainy-season survey);
(2) binary indicators of whether students chose planting method in at least one farm plot during the major rainy season (aggregated into an index of multiple planting methods promoted by the program; self-reported and verified by reports of elders in the post-rainy-season survey);
(3) a binary indicator of whether students chose which crops to plant in at least one farm plot during the major rainy season (self-reported and verified by reports of elders in the post-rainy-season survey);
(4) a binary indicator of whether students chose whether to sell their crops in at least one farm plot during the major rainy season (self-reported and verified by reports of elders in the post-rainy-season survey);
(5) total area of students' farm plots during the major rainy season (self-reported, verified by enumerators in the post-rainy-season survey);
(6) binary indicators of whether students use hired labor / family labor / communal (kuu) labor during the major rainy season (aggregated into an index; self-reported, verified by reports of elders and enumerators in the post-rainy-season survey);
(7) binary indicators of whether students used fertilizer / irrigation / pesticide during the major rainy season (aggregated into an index; self-reported, verified by reports of elders and enumerators in the post-rainy-season survey).
(iii) In the category of students' minor rainy season farming activities outside schools, we have the following outcomes:
(1) a binary indicator of whether students managed at least one independent farm plot during the minor rainy season (self-reported, verified by reports of elders and enumerators in the post-rainy-season survey);
(2) binary indicators of whether students chose planting method in at least one farm plot during the minor rainy season (aggregated into an index of multiple planting methods promoted by the program; self-reported and verified by reports of elders in the post-rainy-season survey);
(3) a binary indicator of whether students chose which crops to plant in at least one farm plot during the minor rainy season (self-reported and verified by reports of elders in the post-rainy-season survey);
(4) a binary indicator of whether students chose whether to sell their crops in at least one farm plot during the minor rainy season (self-reported and verified by reports of elders in the post-rainy-season survey);
(5) total area of students' farm plots during the minor rainy season (self-reported, verified by enumerators in the post-rainy-season survey);
(6) binary indicators of whether students use hired labor / family labor / communal (kuu) labor during the minor rainy season (aggregated into an index; self-reported, verified by reports of elders and enumerators in the post-rainy-season survey);
(7) binary indicators of whether students used fertilizer / irrigation / pesticide during the minor rainy season (aggregated into an index; self-reported, verified by reports of elders and enumerators in the post-rainy-season survey).
(iv) In the category of students' knowledge, skills, and aspirations, we have the following outcomes:
(1) a standardized measure of students' knowledge of promoted farm management practices and agricultural innovations (measured in a 20-question test during the post-rainy-season survey);
(2) a standardized measure of students' knowledge of promoted entrepreneurial skills and financial literacy (measured in a 20-question test during endline survey in 2022);
(3) binary indicators of whether students can correctly use specific promoted practices (aggregated into an index; tested by enumerators during the post-rainy-season survey);
(4) binary indicator of whether students want to be a farmer, a scientist, or an agriculturalist after finishing school (self-reported without giving choices during the post-rainy-season survey).
(v) In the category of students' usage of new agricultural practices outside schools, we have the following outcomes:
(1) binary indicators of whether students have applied promoted practices outside schools in their farms (aggregated into an index; self-reported and verified by enumerators during the post-rainy-season survey);
(2) fraction of farms where at least one farming practice has been applied (verified by enumerators during the post-rainy-season survey).
(vi) In the category of elders' knowledge and skills, we have the following outcomes:
(1) a standardized measure of elders' knowledge of promoted farm management practices and agricultural innovations (measured in a 20-question test during the post-rainy-season survey);
(2) a standardized measure of elders' knowledge of promoted entrepreneurial skills and financial literacy (measured in a 20-question test during endline survey in 2022);
(3) binary indicators of whether elders can correctly use specific promoted practices (aggregated into an index; tested by enumerators during the post-rainy-season survey).
(vii) In the category of elders' usage of new agricultural practices outside schools, we have the following outcomes:
(1) binary indicators of whether elders have applied promoted practices outside schools in their farms (aggregated into an index; self-reported and verified by enumerators during the post-rainy-season survey);
(2) fraction of farms where at least one farming practice has been applied (verified by enumerators during the post-rainy-season survey).
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After
Please refer to our pre-analysis plans.
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Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
There are two classes of secondary outcomes:
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