Patrick Ward

Subjective well-being, willingness to accept COVID policies, and vulnerability: Evidence from China

Impacts of an innovative credit + insurance bundle for marginalized farmers: Evidence from a cluster randomized trial in Odisha, India

Smallholder farmers often lack documented land rights to serve as collateral for formal loans, with livelihoods inextricably linked to weather conditions. Resulting credit and risk constraints prevent them from investing in their farms. We implemented a randomized evaluation of KhetScore, an innovative credit scoring approach that uses remote sensing to unlock credit and insurance for smallholders including landless farmers in Odisha, a state in eastern India. In our treatment group, where we offered KhetScore loans and insurance, farmers – and especially women – were more likely to be insured and borrow from formal sources without substituting formal for informal loans. Despite increased borrowing, treated households faced less difficulty in repaying loans, suggesting that insured KhetScore loans transferred risk and eased the burden of repayment. Moreover, the treatment enhanced agricultural profitability by increasing revenues during the monsoon season and reducing costs in the dry season. Positive and significant effects are found among both farmers with unconstrained baseline credit access, and quantity rationed farmers, suggesting that KhetScore helps address supply-side credit constraints. Finally, the treatment significantly enhanced women’s empowerment and mental health. In conclusion, remote sensing-enabled financial products can substantially improve landless farmers’ access to agricultural credit, risk management, resilience, and well-being.

Intrahousehold preference heterogeneity and demand for labor-saving agricultural technology

Evaluations of agricultural technologies rarely consider the implications of how adoption may alter the labor allocation of different individuals within a household. We examine intrahousehold decision-making dynamics that shape smallholder households’ decision to use mechanical rice transplanting (MRT), a technology that disproportionately influences demand for women’s labor. To study the adoption decision, we experimentally estimate the willingness to pay for MRT services both at the individual and household level. We find that women value MRT more than men, especially when they participate in transplanting on their own farms. This preference heterogeneity is evident in the unconditional differences between women’s and men’s valuation and differences conditional on their individual observable characteristics. Despite having stronger preferences for MRT, women have less influence on the household’s technology adoption decision than men. This differential influence over the MRT adoption decision reflects the intrahousehold power structure: in households where women have less control over assets, they also have less influence over the MRT adoption decision. Our results highlight how technological changes interact with unobserved, gender-based intrahousehold power relations to influence agricultural production decisions and, by extension, the gendered allocation of labor and welfare of women.