This exercise is open-book but independent. You may consult lecture materials, notes, or previous exercises. You may not consult other individuals. You may consult internet resources but you may not interact with others online regarding this exercise (e.g. discussion boards, etc.)
• Worldwide school closures
In the absence of in-person instruction, what is the advantage of online instruction over independent study and feedback on assigned work? You are planning to undertake a trial to answer this question. You will rely on a sample of middle and high school students, who will be randomly assigned at the individual level to three study arms: (i) independent study of assigned work with feedback, (ii) i + use of recorded video instruction, or (iii) i + real-time online instruction. You are planning to estimate the impact of instructional methods ii and iii relative to i. The outcome of interest is future standardized test scores.
• Based on the sample that is available (see student data), what is the smallest impact you will be able to detect in a hypothesis test for each treatment?
• Based on your power calculations, which share of the sample will you allocate to each study arm? Why? Use the sample data to conduct treatment assignment. Take into account that you will want to estimate heterogeneous effects by level of schooling (middle vs. high).
• Discuss considerations and steps that should be taken in the planning phase regarding research ethics and transparency.
Please keep your written answers succinct, not exceeding 500 words in total (for part A), plus a Stata dofile and a clean log file.
• Farm and Family Balance Study
In 2014, while conducting research in Kenya, a woman from western Kenya relayed to me the following challenge: The men are putting increasing amounts of land under sugarcane; the women have less land to grow the beans, potatoes, and kale that feed the family; the men get the money for the sugarcane and decide how to spend it; it not enough is used for food, health, and education the children are not well cared for.
In 2016 we launched the Farm and Family Balance study in eastern Uganda to test whether increasing women’s participation in sugarcane production, marketing, and sales in this region could improve the impact of agricultural commercialization on households.
We received from a large sugarcane company the roster of small-scale farmers from whom they buy harvested cane (outgrowers). Most outgrowers cultivate 2 to 4 plots of cane, each of which are contracted separately. From that roster, we enrolled all eligible and willing outgrowers in the study; these include 2,370 households across 301 villages. A baseline survey was conducted in late 2016.
We designed an intervention whereby officers of the company visited assigned households and informed outgrowers that it was acceptable and encouraged for cane contracts to be held by women as well as men. The officers offered the opportunity for each outgrower to transfer an existing contract into his wife’s name or register a new plot contract in her name. Note that the contract holder is entitled to all cash advances and final payments for cane, either in person or direct into a personal bank account.
The design was a 50/50, household level random assignment.
You will conduct an independent analysis of the impact of women’s cane holding on women’s control over the use of money in the household. For each of the questions below, combine your knowledge with analysis of the provided data to answer the question thoroughly. Unlike in problem sets, I’m not telling you exactly which steps to take or which variables to use. You should use your knowledge and judgement to decide these. You may note your reasoning for such decisions, if you wish.
• Was the random assignment successful?
• Is there a threat of attrition bias in this study?
• What is the impact of women’s cane holding on women’s control over household resources?
• Does the impact differ based on her bargaining power or involvement in cane production at baseline?
• Are the findings biased by treatment spillovers?
• What are your overall conclusions from these analyses?
Please keep your written answers succinct, not exceeding 1500 words in total (for part B), plus relevant tables, a Stata dofile, and a clean log file.
Data are intellectual property of Kate Ambler, Kelly Jones, and Michael O’Sullivan, principal investigators of the Farm and Family Balance Study. Please do not post, share, or use for purposes other than this exercise.
Guide to the FFB data
BL_bp “Wife has higher bargaining power over resources”
This is measured using a lab in the field experiment. Each spouse individually and privately plays a dictator game where s/he takes a household allocation and divides it between husband and wife. Then the couple completes the same exercise but together, making a joint decision. If the outcome of the joint decision (in terms of the shared allocated to the wife) is closer to her preference (as measured by the private dictator game) then she is deemed to have higher bargaining power over resources.
BL_spending “Discretionary spending”
This is the total spent last week on discretionary items, including clothing, shoes, jewelry, hair/beauty/grooming products, alcohol for self or others, or gifts to family. This is the household total, summed across husband and wife.
md_x “Decision making over money”
These are a set of questions asked to the wife about decision making in the household. For each question the answer codes are
1 wife makes the decision alone
2 wife makes the decision with input from husband
3 wife and husband make the decision equally
4 husband makes the decision with input from wife
5 husband makes the decision alone
The questions are the following
1 Who makes the decisions about how this household will earn money?
2 Who makes the decisions about how to spend your income?
3 Who makes the decisions about how to spend your husband’s income?
4 Who makes the decisions about major purchases for the household?
5 Who makes the decisions about minor purchases for the household?
6 Who makes the decisions about how to spend your cane profits?
7 Who makes the decision about how to spend your husband’s cane profits?