The Bargaining Power of Missing Women: Evidence from a Sanitation Campaign in India

Female bargaining power in rural Haryana, as in much of northern India, is constrained by widespread discrimination against women. In recent years, however, women successfully demand private sanitation facilities from potential husbands as a precondition for marriage. I study this manifestation of bargaining power by modeling latrine adoption as an investment that males can make to improve their desirability on the marriage market, and I show that increasing proportions of females with strong sanitation preferences drive male investment in toilets. Moreover, I demonstrate women’s ability to secure latrines increases when they are relatively scarce in a marriage market. I test these predictions empirically by studying a sanitation program in Haryana, India, known colloquially as “No Toilet, No Bride”. Using a triple difference empirical strategy based on households with and without marriageable boys, in Haryana and comparison states, before and after program exposure, I provide evidence that male investment in sanitation increased by 15% due to the program. Further, the program effect is four times larger in marriage markets where women are scarce (26%) as compared to marriage markets where women are abundant (6%). These results suggest the relative scarcity of women in Haryana has, conditional on women surviving to marriageable age, improved the ability of the remaining women to secure valuable goods

Household Sanitation, Social Norms, and Public Policy in India

Female bargaining power in rural Haryana, as in much of northern India, is constrained by widespread discrimination against women. In recent years, however, women successfully demand private sanitation facilities from potential husbands as a precondition for marriage. I study this manifestation of bargaining power by modeling latrine adoption as an investment that males can make to improve their desirability on the marriage market, and I show that increasing proportions of females with strong sanitation preferences drive male investment in toilets. Moreover, I demonstrate women's ability to secure latrines increases when they are relatively scarce in a marriage market. I test these predictions empirically by studying a sanitation program in Haryana, India, known colloquially as "No Toilet, No Bride". Using a triple difference empirical strategy based on households with and without marriageable boys, in Haryana and comparison states, before and after program exposure, I provide evidence that male investment in sanitation increased by 15% due to the program. Further, the program effect is four times larger in marriage markets where women are scarce (26%) as compared to marriage markets where women are abundant (6%). These results suggest the relative scarcity of women in Haryana has, conditional on women surviving to marriageable age, improved the ability of the remaining women to secure valuable goods. Building on this work, I turn to an analysis of the impacts of latrine adoption in rural India on child diarrhea. I use a variety of fixed effects and instrumental variables approaches to address concerns about the potential endogeneity of latrines. The evidence suggests that household-level unobservables are not a serious concern in the context of latrine adoption and child diarrhea. Village-level unobservables, however, both time-invariant and time-varying, appear to be much more important. I then turn to an instrumental variables strategy that exploits the "No Toilet, No Bride" campaign in Haryana, which, I argue, generates exogenous pressure on rural households with boys of marriageable age to construct an improved latrine. I provide two-stage least squares and limited information maximum likelihood estimates of the causal impact of household latrine adoption on reported child diarrhea, and I find limited evidence that household latrine ownership causes any improvement in child health. Both ordinary least squares and fixed effects regressions suggest that latrine ownership is associated with an 8% to 15% decline in reported diarrhea. Instrumental variables estimates, on the other hand, are inconclusive due to imprecision, but provide suggestive evidence of a positive association between presence of latrine and child diarrhea. This dissertation goes on to evaluate the impact of the Total Sanitation Campaign's subsidy program on household latrine adoption. This investigation sheds light on a central debate in contemporary sanitation policy: whether social drivers or subsidies are more effective measures for increasing sanitation coverage. My analysis of the subsidy program uses three distinct and complementary approaches to identify the effects of subsidy eligibility on latrine ownership. The first uses linear regression with fixed effects that address unobserved heterogeneity in capacity and corruption across Indian administrative units. The second approach uses propensity score matching at the household level to estimate the causal effect of access to the subsidy program on latrine ownership. Finally, I again utilize the successful "No Toilet, No Bride" information campaign, which focused exclusively on social drivers of latrine ownership, to test whether the information campaign was differentially effective for BPL cardholders. Results from all three empirical strategies suggest negligible or very small increases in latrine ownership due to the costly subsidy program, yielding new insights into the sanitation debate regarding the relative importance of social pressure versus subsidies. (Abstract shortened by UMI.

Changing preferences through experimental games: Evidence from sanitation and hygiene in Tamil Nadu

Much policy interest in sanitation and hygiene promotion focuses on changing behavior and increasing demand for these goods. Yet the effectiveness of large-scale interventions has been mixed, in large part because of the difficulty of changing attitudes on deeply rooted behaviors. This study tests whether an experiential learning exercise structured around an experimental game can be used to shift preferences around sanitation and hygiene. A minimum coordination game is adapted to the sanitation and hygiene setting by linking game choices to real-world investment decisions and payoffs in terms of health and status. Individuals from 20 villages in rural Tamil Nadu were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one that played a game in which communication between rounds was allowed, another that played a game in which communication was prohibited, and a control group that only completed a survey. Based on a comparison of survey responses across treatment arms, the game improved stated preferences in relation to sanitation and hygiene. This effect was larger when communication was allowed, and men responded on average more strongly than women across both versions of the game. These results suggest that experimental games can be a valuable tool not only for the study of decision making but for improving participants’ knowledge and pro-sanitation preferences

Changing preferences through experimental games: Evidence from sanitation and hygiene in Tamil Nadu

Much policy interest in sanitation and hygiene promotion focuses on changing behavior and increasing demand for these goods. Yet the effectiveness of large-scale interventions has been mixed, in large part because of the difficulty of changing attitudes on deeply rooted behaviors. This study tests whether an experiential learning exercise structured around an experimental game can be used to shift preferences around sanitation and hygiene. A minimum coordination game is adapted to the sanitation and hygiene setting by linking game choices to real-world investment decisions and payoffs in terms of health and status. Individuals from 20 villages in rural Tamil Nadu were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one that played a game in which communication between rounds was allowed, another that played a game in which communication was prohibited, and a control group that only completed a survey. Based on a comparison of survey responses across treatment arms, the game improved stated preferences in relation to sanitation and hygiene. This effect was larger when communication was allowed, and men responded on average more strongly than women across both versions of the game. These results suggest that experimental games can be a valuable tool not only for the study of decision making but for improving participants’ knowledge and pro-sanitation preferences.Non-PRIFPRI1; F Strengthening institutions and governance; Experimental games for strengthening collective actionEPTDCGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE

The influence of hidden researcher decisions in applied microeconomics

Researchers make hundreds of decisions about data collection, preparation, and analysis in their research. We use a many-analysts approach to measure the extent and impact of these decisions. Two published causal empirical results are replicated by seven replicators each. We find large differences in data preparation and analysis decisions, many of which would not likely be reported in a publication. No two replicators reported the same sample size. Statistical significance varied across replications, and for one of the studies the effect\u27s sign varied as well. The standard deviation of estimates across replications was 3-4 times the mean reported standard error

The influence of hidden researcher decisions in applied microeconomics

Researchers make hundreds of decisions about data collection, preparation, and analysis in their research. We use a many‐analysts approach to measure the extent and impact of these decisions. Two published causal empirical results are replicated by seven replicators each. We find large differences in data preparation and analysis decisions, many of which would not likely be reported in a publication. No two replicators reported the same sample size. Statistical significance varied across replications, and for one of the studies the effect's sign varied as well. The standard deviation of estimates across replications was 3-4 times the mean reported standard error