Eu sou artivista: the impact of digital art in the awareness of Portuguese young adults

The development of new technologies and the creation of the internet have changed the way humanity behaves and lives everyday life. Social networks, made popular in the recent past, are nowadays part of the routine of a high percentage of the world population, mainly in developed countries. They have therefore become one of the main means of communication, not only between humans at a distance, but also in the dissemination of information to the masses, in some cases replacing television, magazines and newspapers, which have also transitioned to digital form throughout the years. The digital world thus allows for a transformation in the way citizens practice activism and how they organize to protest. This report intends to assess the situation allowed by the development of social networks as a space of freedom to express opinions. The Eu Sou Artivist project aims to assess how this range of possibilities on social networks impacts (positively or negatively) the practices of social intervention and what is the role of digital art in an attempt to spread awareness and information, encouraging more active Portuguese youth in society and in Portuguese political life.O desenvolvimento das novas tecnologias e a criação da internet vieram alterar a forma como a humanidade se comporta e vive a vida quotidiana. As redes sociais, popularizadas no passado recente, fazem parte hoje em dia da rotina de uma elevada percentagem da população mundial, principalmente nos países mais desenvolvidos. Desta forma, tornaram-se num dos principais meios de comunicação, não apenas entre humanos à distância, mas também na difusão de informação às massas, em alguns casos substituíndo a televisão, revistas e jornais, que também se foram transportando para o digital ao longo dos anos. O mundo digital permite, desta forma, uma transformação na forma como os cidadãos praticam o ativismo e como se organizam para protestar. Este artigo pretende avaliar a conjuntura permitida pelo desenvolvimento das redes sociais como espaço de liberdade para exprimir opiniões. O projeto Eu Sou Artivista visa avaliar de que forma este leque de possibilidades nas redes sociais impactam (positiva ou negativamente) as práticas de internvação social e qual é o papel da arte digital na tentativa de difundir consciencialização e informação, formando jovens portugueses mais ativos na sociedade e na vida política nacional

Testing classic theories of migration in the lab

We use incentivized laboratory experiments to investigate how potential migrants make decisions between working in different destinations in order to test the predictions of different classic theories of migration. We test theories of income maximization, migrant skill-selection, and multi-destination choice and how the predictions and behavior under these theories vary as we vary migration costs, liquidity constraints, risk, social benefits, and incomplete information. We show how the basic income maximization model of migration with selection on observed and unobserved skills leads to a much higher migration rate and more negative skill-selection than is obtained when migration decisions take place under more realistic assumptions. Second, we find evidence of a home bias, where simply labelling a destination as “home” causes more people to choose that location. Thirdly, we investigate whether the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) assumption holds. We find it holds for most people when decisions just involve wages, costs, and liquidity constraints. However, once we add a risk of unemployment and incomplete information, IIA no longer holds for about 20 percent of our sample.authorsversionpublishe

Migrant Remittances and Information Flows: Evidence from a Field Experiment*

Do information flows matter for remittance behavior? We design and implement a randomized control trial to quantitatively assess the role of communication between migrants and their contacts abroad on the extent and value of remittance flows. In the experiment, a random sample of 1,500 migrants residing in Ireland was offered the possibility of contacting their networks outside the host country for free over a varying number of months. We find a sizable, positive impact of our intervention on the value of migrant remittances sent. Our results exclude that the remittance effect we identify is a simple substitution effect. Instead, our analysis points to this effect being a likely result of improved information via factors such as better migrant control over remittance use, enhanced trust in remittance channels due to experience sharing, or increased remittance recipients’ social pressure on migrants.NORFACE Research Programme “Migration in Europe - Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics”, Department of Economics and the Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund at Trinity College Dublin, Nova Forum at Nova University of Lisbo

Introducing Mobile Money in Rural Mozambique: Evidence from a Field Experiment*

The limitations of access to finance in Africa, together with the recent boom in cell phone use in that continent, created high expectations regarding the introduction of mobile money in many African countries. The success story of M-PESA in Kenya raised the bar further. We designed and conducted a field experiment to assess the impact of randomized mobile money dissemination in rural Mozambique. For this purpose we benefit from the fact that mobile money was only recently launched in the country, allowing for the identification of a pure control group. This paper reports on the first results of this ongoing project after the first wave of dissemination efforts in rural locations, which included the recruitment and training of mobile money agents, community meetings and theaters, as well as individual rural campaigning. Administrative and behavioral data both show clear adherence to the services in the treatment group. Financial literacy and trust outcomes are also positively affected by the treatment. We present behavioral evidence that the marginal willingness to remit was increased by the availability of mobile money. Finally, we observe a tendency for mobile money to substitute traditional alternatives for both savings and remittances.International Growth Centre (IGC), INOVA, Nova Forum, NOVAFRIC

Evidence from a field experiment

What is the economic impact of newly introducing mobile money in rural areas underserved by financial services? This study is the first to use a randomized controlled trial to answer this research question. Following a sample of rural communities in Southern Mozambique, our experimental results show that the availability of mobile money translated into clear adoption of these services, measured through administrative data on mobile money transactions. We find that mobile money improved consumption smoothing by treated households, i.e., they became less vulnerable to adverse weather and self-reported shocks. However, we also observe that mobile money led to reduced investment, especially in agriculture. We document increases in the number of migrants in a household and in the migrant remittances received by rural households particularly in presence of adverse shocks, while there are no clear effects on savings. We interpret these results as evidence that, by drastically reducing the transaction costs associated with migrant remittances and improving migration-based insurance possibilities, mobile money acted as a facilitator of migration from rural to urban areas.publishersversionpublishe

Evidence from a lab in the field experiment

Illegal migration to Europe through the sea, though risky, remains one of the most popular migration options for many Sub-Saharan Africans. This study aims at improving our understanding of the determinants of the willingness to migrate illegally from West Africa to Europe. We implemented an incentivized lab-in-the field experiment in rural Gambia, the country with the highest rate of illegal migration to Europe in the region. Sampled male youths aged 15 to 25 were given hypothetical scenarios regarding the probability of dying en route to Europe, and of obtaining asylum or legal residence status after successful arrival. According to our data, potential migrants overestimate both the risk of dying en route to Europe, and the probability of obtaining legal residency status. The experimental results suggest that the willingness to migrate illegally is affected by information on the chances of dying en route and of obtaining a legal residence permit. Our estimates show that providing potential migrants with official numbers on the probability of obtaining a legal residence permit decreases their likelihood of migration by 2.88 percentage points (pp), while information on the risk of migrating increases their likelihood of migration by 2.29pp – although the official risk information provided may be regarded as a lower bound to actual mortality. Follow up data collected one year after the experiment show that the migration decisions reported in the lab experiment correlate well with actual migration decisions and intentions. Overall, our study indicates that the migration decisions of potential migrants are likely to actively respond to relevant information.otherpublishe

evidence from an experiment in rural Africa

Who uses mobile money, and what do people do with it? This paper describes mobile money adoption patterns following the experimental introduction of mobile money for the first time in rural areas of Southern Mozambique. We use administrative and household survey data to characterize adopters as well as their mobile money usage patterns over three years. Adopters of mobile money (and early adopters in particular) are more educated than nonadopters, and they are also more likely to already hold a bank account. Positive self-selection of adopters should be considered when introducing mobile money as a tool for rapid financial inclusion.authorsversionpublishe

Assessing the role of social networks on migrant labor market outcomes: evidence from a representative immigrant survey

What role do social networks play in determining migrant labor market outcomes? We examine this question using data from a random sample of 1500 immigrants living in Ireland. We propose a theoretical model formally predicting that immigrants with more contacts have additional access to job offers, and are therefore better able to become employed and choose higher paid jobs. Our empirical analysis confirms these findings, while focusing more generally on the relationship between migrants’ social networks and a variety of labor market outcomes (namely wages, employment, occupational choice and job security), contrary to the literature. We find evidence that having one more contact in the network is associated with an increase of 11pp in the probability of being employed and with an increase of about 100 euros in the average salary. However, our data is not suggestive of a network size effect on occupational choice and job security. Our findings are robust to sample selection and other endogeneity concerns

experimental evidence from African smallholder farmers

Investment in improved agricultural inputs is infrequent for smallholder farmers in Africa. One barrier may be limited access to formal savings. This is the first study to use a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of using mobile money as a tool to promote agricultural investment. For this purpose, we designed and conducted a field experiment with a sample of smallholder farmers in rural Mozambique. This sample included a set of primary farmers and their closest farming friends. We work with two cross-randomized interventions. The first treatment gave access to a remunerated mobile savings account. The second treatment targeted closest farming friends and gave them access to the exact same interventions as their primary farmer counterparts. We find that the remunerated mobile savings account raised mobile savings, but only while interest was being paid. It also increased agricultural investment in fertilizer, although there was no change in investment in other complementary inputs that were not directly targeted by the intervention, unlike fertilizer. These results suggest that fertilizer salience in the remunerated savings treatment may have been important to focus farmers’ (limited) attention on saving some of their harvest proceeds, rather than farmers being financially constrained by a lack of alternative ways to save. Our results also suggest that the network intervention where farming friends had access to non-remunerated mobile money accounts decreased incentives to save and invest in agricultural inputs, likely due to network free-riding because of lower transfer costs within the network. Overall this research shows that tailored mobile money products can be used effectively to improve modern agricultural technology adoption in countries with very low agricultural productivity like Mozambique.authorsversionpublishe

Directed Giving: Evidence from an Inter-Household Transfer Experiment*

We investigate the determinants of giving in a lab-in-the-field experiment with large stakes. Study participants in urban Mozambique play dictator games where their counterpart is the closest person to them outside their household. Dictators share more with counterparts when they have the option of giving in kind (in the form of goods), compared to giving that must be in cash. Qualitative post-experiment responses suggest that this effect is driven by a desire to control how recipients use gifted resources. Standard economic determinants such as the rate of return to giving and the size of the endowment also affect giving, but the effects of even large changes in these determinants are significantly smaller than the effect of the in-kind option. Our results support theories of giving where the utility of givers depends on the composition (not just the level) of gift-recipient expenditures, and givers thus seek control over transferred resources.International Growth Centre (IGC), Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI