papers
papers by year
Working Papers
- Grouped Fixed-EffectsEstimating Long Run Welfare Outcome in Rotating Panel with Grouped Fixed Effects: Application to Poverty Dynamics in PeruHongdi Zhao and Seungmin Lee
Household poverty dynamics are often difficult to investigate in many low- and middle-income countries because survey data rarely follow the same households over long periods due to high implementation costs. Existing methods, such as pseudo-panel and synthetic panel, offer widely used solutions based on repeated cross-section designs, but they do not exploit within-household variation in rotating panel designs, which provide very useful information for estimating long-run dynamics. This paper applies grouped fixed effects (GFE) to estimate poverty mobility and persistence in a rotating panel setting, using Peru’s National Household Survey on Living Conditions and Poverty (ENAHO). The method assigns households to the number of latent groups with distinct time patterns and uses estimated group-time components to construct welfare trajectories and poverty transition estimates over an extended period. In the Peru application, the algorithm assigned latent groups that correspond to clear baseline socioeconomic differences and exhibit distinct welfare paths. Using observed transitions, we show that GFE-implied poverty transitions closely track the data. In a one-step-ahead validation that holds out each household’s final observed year, predicted transition shares remain close to realized transition shares, indicating that the method captures short-run entry and exit dynamics out of sample. When benchmarked against synthetic panel point estimates, the GFE approach delivers transition measures that are closer to observed transitions on average, while also providing an interpretable grouping structure that supports richer descriptions of poverty persistence and mobility.
- Child MarriageImpact of Minimum Marriage Age Law on Child Marriage: Evidence from Nigeria’s Child Rights ActHongdi Zhao, Ene Ikpebe, Nneka Osadolor, and 1 more author
Child marriage, defined as marriage before the age of 18, remains a challenge worldwide. This study examines whether Nigeria’s Child Rights Act, which included a minimum marriage age of 18, has reduced early marriage since its introduction and staggered adoption across states in Nigeria. Using four rounds of the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey and a staggered difference-in-differences design that compares states before and after they adopt the law, the analysis constructs a state-year panel of marriage outcomes for women aged 15-29 years old. Our results show that the Child Rights Act led to a 2.3 percentage point reduction in child marriage, and a 0.121-year increase in the average age at first marriage. The effects strengthen gradually rather than appearing immediately, consistent with slow diffusion of the law and differences in enforcement capacity across states. The findings suggest that the Child Rights Act played a meaningful role in delaying marriage among young women in Nigeria, although its full impact may depend on sustained enforcement and other complementary interventions to support girls.
Work in Progress
- Adaptive DesignAdaptive Mechanism Design: Optimal Incentives for a Sustainable Drought Insurance ProgramHongdi Zhao, Karlijn Morsink, and Anouk van Veldhove
- Adaptive SamplingOptimal Dynamic Adaptive Sampling To Minimize Child Malnutrition in Kenya
Publications
2023
- Income ShocksThe Gendered Impacts of Income Fluctuations on Household Departure, Labor Supply, and Human Capital Decisions: Evidence from KyrgyzstanFeminist Economics, 2023
How do fluctuations in income affect labor supply decisions, and how do their effects differ by gender? This study analyzes data from a thirteen-year rolling panel in Kyrgyzstan spanning 2004–16. It addresses the endogeneity of fluctuations in income to labor supply decisions by employing shift share instruments that exploit region-level changes over time in growth rates of different sources of revenue and production costs. Estimating a household fixed effects model, the study finds that reductions in income relative to the median spur departure from the household (for example, due to migration), with smaller impacts on women than men. However, women’s labor supply at the origin is affected significantly more, with short-term increases in hours of employment and declines in home production and other activities. Reductions in income also fuel temporary migration for both genders, with larger effects for men, and widen the gender gap in pursuit of non-compulsory education.
@article{kosec2023gendered, title = {The Gendered Impacts of Income Fluctuations on Household Departure, Labor Supply, and Human Capital Decisions: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan}, author = {Kosec, Katrina and Song, Jie and Zhao, Hongdi and Holtemeyer, Brian}, journal = {Feminist Economics}, pages = {205--235}, year = {2023}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, doi = {10.1080/13545701.2022.2101680}, }
2022
- AspirationsAspirations and women’s empowerment: Evidence from KyrgyzstanKatrina Kosec, Kamiljon Akramov, Bakhrom Mirkasimov, and 2 more authorsEconomics of Transition and Institutional Change, 2022
There is an enormous interest in development interventions aimed at reducing behavioural poverty traps, including by raising women’s and girls’ aspirations, or future-oriented goals. However, little is known about how women’s aspirations influence their gender attitudes, the marriages into which they select and their involvement in intra-household decision-making. We find that women in Kyrgyzstan with higher aspirations are more likely to espouse egalitarian gender attitudes, as are their husbands, and their husbands have higher aspirations. They also live in households in which women play a greater role in decision-making, and in which spouses are more likely to agree about women’s roles in decision-making.
@article{kosec2022aspirations, title = {Aspirations and women's empowerment: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan}, author = {Kosec, Katrina and Akramov, Kamiljon and Mirkasimov, Bakhrom and Song, Jie and Zhao, Hongdi}, journal = {Economics of Transition and Institutional Change}, volume = {30}, number = {1}, pages = {101--134}, year = {2022}, publisher = {Wiley Online Library}, doi = {10.1111/ecot.12302}, } - ATIOIntroducing the Agrifood Systems Technologies and Innovations Outlook (ATIO)Christopher B. Barrett, Shamaila Ashraf, Jessica Fanzo, and 13 more authorsFAO, 2022
Agrifood system transformation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals requires increased attention to developing, adapting and diffusing impactful science, technology and innovation (STI). Current levels and patterns of STI uptake are inadequate to facilitate needed agrifood system transformations, especially in today’s low- and middle-income countries. Moreover, the descriptive and evaluative evidence on current and emergent STI is also insufficiently well understood to permit intentional management of STI to meet the multiple objectives of future agrifood systems: efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable. This report introduces the vision, rationale, scope and methods for new knowledge products FAO will launch as part of a new Agrifood System Technologies and Innovations Outlook (ATIO). ATIO’s objective is to curate existing information on the current, measurable state of STI and upcoming changes, as well as their transformative potential, to inform evidence-based policy dialogue and decisions, including on investments.
@article{fao2022atio, title = {Introducing the Agrifood Systems Technologies and Innovations Outlook (ATIO)}, author = {Barrett, Christopher B. and Ashraf, Shamaila and Fanzo, Jessica and Herrero, Mario and Mason-D’Croz, Daniel and Narayanan, Sudha and Porciello, Jaron and Bulumulla, Medha and Hart, Jackson and Higo, Jasmin and Kugler, Cody and Li, Jialu and Lynch, Claire and Sharma, Shivanshu and Vergara, Juan and Zhao, Hongdi}, journal = {FAO}, year = {2022}, publisher = {FAO}, doi = {10.4060/cc2506en}, }
2021
- NutritionCan nutrition education mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on dietary quality? Cluster-randomised controlled trial evidence in Myanmar’s Central Dry ZoneCatherine Ragasa, Isabel Lambrecht, Kristi Mahrt, and 3 more authorsMaternal & Child Nutrition, 2021
We evaluate the immediate impact of a nutrition and gender behaviour change communication on dietary quality in rural communities in Myanmar and assess whether the communication helped mitigate the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on dietary quality. The intervention was designed and implemented as a cluster-randomised controlled trial in which 15 villages received the intervention and 15 control villages did not. The intervention was implemented from June to October 2020. This paper provides an assessment of the intervention’s impact on dietary quality based on the results of two phone surveys conducted in August and October 2020. Immediate impacts of the intervention indicate an improvement in women’s dietary diversity scores by half a food group out of 10. At baseline, 44% of women were likely to have consumed inadequately diverse diets; results indicate that 6% (p-value: 0.003, SE: 0.02) fewer sample women were likely to have consumed inadequately diverse diets. More women in treatment villages consumed pulses, nuts, eggs and Vitamin A-rich foods daily than in control villages. In response to economic shocks related to COVID-19, households in the treatment villages were less likely to reduce the quantity of meat and fish consumption than in control villages. The long-term impacts of the intervention need to be continuously evaluated.
@article{ragasa2021can, title = {Can nutrition education mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on dietary quality? Cluster-randomised controlled trial evidence in Myanmar's Central Dry Zone}, author = {Ragasa, Catherine and Lambrecht, Isabel and Mahrt, Kristi and Zhao, Hongdi and Aung, Zin Wai and Scott, Jessica}, journal = {Maternal \& Child Nutrition}, volume = {17}, number = {4}, pages = {e13259}, year = {2021}, publisher = {Wiley Online Library}, doi = {10.1111/mcn.13259}, }