Household demand persistence for child micronutrient supplementation.

Addressing early-life micronutrient deficiencies can improve short- and long-term outcomes. In most contexts, private supply chains will be key to effective and efficient preventative supplementation. With established vendors, we conducted a 60-week market trial for a food-based micronutrient supplement in rural Burkina Faso with randomized price and non-price treatments. Repeat purchases - critical for effective supplementation - are extremely price sensitive. Loyalty cards boost demand more than price discounts, particularly in non-poor households where the father is the cardholder. A small minority of households achieved sufficient supplementation for their children through purely retail distribution, suggesting the need for more creative public-private delivery platforms informed by insights into household demand persistence and heterogeneity

Savings Constraints and Microenterprise Development: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya

Does limited access to formal savings services impede business growth in poor countries? To shed light on this question, we randomized access to non-interest-bearing bank accounts among two types of self-employed individuals in rural Kenya: market vendors (who are mostly women) and men working as bicycle-taxi drivers. Despite large withdrawal fees, a substantial share of market women used the accounts, were able to save more, and increased their productive investment and private expenditures. We see no impact for bicycle-taxi drivers. These results imply significant barriers to savings and investment for market women in our study context. Further work is needed to understand what those barriers are, and to test whether the results generalize to other types of businesses or individuals.

La tempestad y el progreso : una aproximación a la sociedad global de la información

En las últimas décadas, la sociedad de la información se ha convertido en una cuestión de debate. Es un paradigma emergente sobre los nuevos modelos de ciencia, de producción de conocimiento e innovación tecnológica. Complejidad y cambio son dos características definidoras de este fenómeno sistémico. El autor propone una aproximación a los desafíos y problemas más importantes en la era de la información. Según los pensadores analizados, esta área de investigación comprende el conjunto de nuevas tecnologías en un proceso multidimensional relacionado con el desarrollo del capitalismo global, y particularmente con la expansión de las empresas multinacionales. La sociedad de la información representa un nuevo orden mundial, sustentado en el mito ideológico y hegemónico del progreso. El artículo tiene dos objetivos: a) identificar algunas de las principales categorías y conceptos utilizados en la discusión; b) presentar un esquema desarrollado para el examen de sus impactos y consecuencias.In recent decades, the information society has become a topic of debate. It is an emerging paradigm about new models of science, production of knowledge and technological innovation. Complexity and change are the two defining characteristics of this systemic phenomenon. The author proposes an approach about the challenges of the information age. According to the thinkers mentioned, this field of research involves a set of new technologies, plus a multidimensional process related with the development of global capitalism, particularly, the expansion of the multinational enterprises. The inforrnation society represents a new world order based on an ideological and hegemonical myth of progress. The article has two objectives: a) to identity the main categories and concepts used in this issue; b) to present a scheme developed for assess on its impacts and consecuences.Fil: Masera, Gustavo Alberto. Universidad de Mendoz

Do informed citizens receive more...or pay more ? the impact of radio on the government distribution of public health benefits

The government provision of free or subsidized bed nets to combat malaria in Benin allows the identification of new channels through which mass media affect public policy outcomes. Prior research has concluded that governments provide greater private benefits to better-informed individuals. This paper shows, for the first time, that governments can also respond by exploiting informed individuals'greater willingness to pay for these benefits. Using a"natural experiment"in radio markets in northern Benin, the paper finds that media access increases the likelihood that households pay for the bed nets they receive from government, rather than getting them for free. Households more exposed to radio programming on the benefits of bed nets and the hazards of malaria place a higher value on bed nets. Local government officials exercise significant discretion over bed net pricing and respond to higher demand by selling bed nets that they could have distributed for free. Mass media appears to change the private behavior of citizens -- in this case, to invest more of their own resources on a public health good (bed nets) -- but not their ability to extract greater benefits from government.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Population Policies,Knowledge Economy,Education For All,Malaria

Community-Based Well Maintenance in Rural Haiti

Under the Haiti Outreach (HO) model, HO asks communities for proposals to drill or refurbish a well. Then, they will only do so if the community agrees to form a maintenance committee; deposit a set amount per month for operation and maintence (committees decide who forms the community and how to set user fees); hire a guard (to enforce hours of operation, set by committees); and disseminate information through public meetings. These researchers found a unique opportunity to test the effectiveness of this community-based model as compared to standard well maintenance: following the earthquake in 2010, HO was asked to repair 158 wells and then turn them over to other groups. These wells did not receive the community-based management training, and thus serve as a comparison group. Although there are some weakness to this methodology, the author notes that it is difficult to imagine better data becoming available for evaluating alternative well maintenance approaches in rural Haiti. This paper also presents a model to quantify the tradeoff between equity and sustainabilty that characterizes the choice of whether or not to charge user fees