Browsing by Author "Frankenberg, Elizabeth"

How households and individuals respond to adverse and unanticipated shocks is an important concern for both economists and policy makers. This is especially true in developing countries where poverty, weak infrastructure, and a lack of social safety nets often exacerbate the effects of adverse shocks on household welfare. My research addresses these issues in the context of three economic outcomes and behaviors - early life health and the accumulation of human capital, willingness to take on financial risk, and behavior in the labor market. The results of this research project both adds to our understanding of how life experiences shape individuals' well-being and behavior and how policy can help individuals achieve long-term improvements in the lives following adverse events.

My research focuses on households and individuals affected by a large-scale natural disaster, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. I utilize data from the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery (STAR), a unique longitudinal survey of individuals and households living in coastal communities in Aceh and North Sumatra, Indonesia, at the time of the tsunami. The STAR surveys were conducted annually for five years after the disaster and include a wide range of demographic, economic, and health measures.

In the first chapter, Child Height after a Natural Disaster, co-authored with Elizabeth Frankenberg, Duncan Thomas, and Jed Friedman, we investigate the immediate and long-run impacts on child health of in utero exposure to stress induced by the tsunami. We investigate whether in utero exposure to stress, as measured by tsunami-induced maternal posttraumatic stress, affected the growth of children born in the aftermath of the tsunami in the critical first five years of their lives. Although previous studies suggest that in utero exposure to stress is related to a number of adverse birth outcomes such as prematurity and lower birth weight, there is little evidence of the impact on linear growth, a strong correlate of later life income. We find evidence that children exposed to high levels of stress beginning in the second trimester experienced reduced growth in the first two years of their lives. We also find evidence that growth reductions largely disappear by age five. This suggests that significant catch-up growth is possible, particularly in the context of pronounced post-disaster reconstruction and economic rehabilitation.

In the second chapter, The Impact of a Natural Disaster on Observed Risk Aversion, I investigate the short and long-term impacts of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on attitudes toward risk. Attitudes toward risk are important determinants of economic, demographic, and health-related behaviors, but how these attitudes evolve after an event like a natural disaster remains unclear because past research has been confounded by issues of selective exposure, mortality, and migration. My study is the first to directly address these problems by utilizing exogenous variation in exposure to a disruptive event in a sample of individuals that is representative of the population as it existed at the time of the event. In addition, intensive efforts were made to track migrants in the sample population, which is important for this study because migration is common following events like natural disasters and is likely related to attitudes toward risk. I find that physical exposure to the tsunami (e.g., seeing or hearing the tsunami or being caught up in the tsunami) causes significant short-term decreases in observed aversion to risk, especially for the poor, but few longer-term differences. This finding has important implications for the design of effective post-disaster assistance policies. In particular, it implies that post-disaster assistance programs should include aid that is consistent with the observed risk attitudes of the survivors such as job training and capital to start-up businesses.

In the last chapter, Labor Market Outcomes following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, I investigate how labor market outcomes changed in coastal communities in Aceh and North Sumatra following the tsunami and the post-disaster recovery efforts. Although restoring the livelihoods of survivors of adverse events is critical for their long-term recovery, there is little evidence from developing countries of how labor market outcomes change after such events. Using the STAR data, I find a significant and persistent increase in paid employment for younger women in urban communities. The increase occurred in communities that were heavily damaged by the tsunami and those that were not, suggesting that the impacts of the disaster on livelihoods are likely long-lasting and extend beyond the communities that were directly stuck by the disaster.

In this dissertation I study the long-term effects of post-disaster reconstruction of infrastructure on economic and demographic outcomes. The effects on individuals and communities that result from shocks to existing infrastructure have not been widely explored in the economic and development literature. As some of the largest natural disasters in recent times have shown, massive destruction of infrastructure is followed by large influxes of resources aimed at the reconstruction of damaged property. For example, after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Indonesia alone received enough aid to deal with the estimated seven billion dollars in infrastructure losses. While there are studies that address how money was allocated, there is hardly any good empirical evidence that provides a causal estimate of the effect that large reconstruction programs have on targeted beneficiaries. In this dissertation I address this gap in the literature.

The context of my study is the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, one of the most devastating natural disasters in recent years. In particular, the location for this analysis is the Indonesian province of Aceh, which was the area hardest hit by the disaster (Chapter 2). One of the main reasons why long-term impacts of post-disaster reconstruction remain an understudied topic is the lack of access to data that tracks individuals over time and across space. Having longitudinal data of this type provides a more complete picture of beneficiaries of post-disaster aid, as well as the effects of reconstruction programs on economic outcomes and demographic processes, such as migration. My dissertation addresses this concern by using a unique, population representative panel of survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery (STAR), which collected extensive individual, household, and community data in Aceh, Indonesia, every year between 2005 and 2010, with an additional follow-up in 2015 (Chapter 3).

Using these data, the first question I explore empirically is an estimation of the causal effects of reconstruction of the housing stock on a multidimensional set of well-being measures (Chapter 4). First, I show that post-tsunami reconstruction was largely determined by the level of damage, regardless of pre-tsunami characteristics of communities, households, and individuals. Based on this finding, I identify the causal effects of housing reconstruction on post-disaster well-being using an individual fixed effects strategy. I show that housing reconstruction causes significant reductions in levels of post-traumatic stress reactivity, and significant increases in socioeconomic well-being. These effects are mainly concentrated after two years of housing tenure, and among those from highly damaged communities. Housing reconstruction has a positive relationship with self-rated physical health (although these estimates are not statistically significant). These results provide important causal evidence of how reconstruction of infrastructure after a natural disaster can have long-lasting, positive consequences for the recovery of survivors.

Next, I continue looking at the effects of rebuilding individual assets (i.e. the home) but turn to the analysis of migration, a key demographic process following natural disasters. Specifically, I look at migration and its relationship with housing reconstruction and well-being (Chapter 5). The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami displaced large numbers of people. In Aceh, Indonesia, an estimated 500,000 people left their communities after the disaster. In this research, we provide a demographic perspective on displacement and longer-term adaptation and recovery after a disaster. We describe patterns of mobility among tsunami survivors, including those who did not return to their origin communities, those who did return, and those who never left. We also consider mobility among those living in communities that did not suffer tsunami damage. We then examine how the likelihood of receiving housing aid varies across these subgroups. Finally, we consider how measures of subjective well-being evolve after the disaster. Results show that predictors of relocation vary significantly across individuals depending on the level of exposure of communities to the physical damage of the tsunami. Relocation decisions, and in particular staying in the pre-tsunami community, are highly related to the likelihood of benefiting from housing aid. And, changes in subjective well-being not only depend on receipt of housing aid but also on interactions between relocation decisions.

The last empirical analysis changes the focus from the reconstruction of individual assets to the reconstruction of community infrastructure (Chapter 6}), an important component of post-disaster rebuilding programs. In the aftermath of the tsunami, it is estimated that a total of 2,600 km of roads and 119 bridges needed rebuilding. In less than four years a total of 3,700 km of roads and all the destroyed (or damaged) bridges had been rebuilt \citep{indonesia2010provincial}. Roads can be an important gateway to economic development, so in this analysis I focus on estimating the economic effects of road reconstruction in post-tsunami Aceh. First, I exploit variation in timing of road reconstruction projects at the community level and, using a fixed effects strategy, I show that road reconstruction may not be enough to cause significant economic effects, but that quality of road construction matters, specifically access to all-weather roads. Further, I also show that road reconstruction that happens in combination with public works programs has additional positive effects. I provide further evidence on the effects of road reconstruction by looking at the specific case of the reconstruction of the Banda Aceh-Meulaboh road. The Banda Aceh-Meulaboh road is a good example of a project that seeks to restore large public infrastructure after a major shock to the built environment under the assumption that it would contribute to restore economic activity in the area. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I exploit changes in access to the road between 2005 and 2015. I show that gaining access to the road has positive and modest effects both on individuals and households and, in particular, on households in rural areas. I did not find any statistically significant negative effects of losing access to the road but results from this case study point that losing access may be hindering some progress, for example, to translate work opportunities into higher wages.

Taken together, results from the empirical analyses in this dissertation fill an important gap in our understanding of what happens to disaster victims in the long-run, how they benefit from reconstruction programs that rebuild both individual and community assets, and how these programs can have long-lasting consequences on economics and demographic trajectories of populations. As a result, my study not only represents an important contribution to existing literature, but it also underscores the importance of having data collection projects that account for the long-term nature of infrastructure reconstruction projects. Natural disasters are projected to become increasingly more common, and this type of data can result in empirical research, like this dissertation, that can improve our understanding of how disaster victims cope, which strategies work best and why, and create lessons that can inform disaster management and reconstruction policies that will result in successful post-disaster experiences.

This dissertation encompasses three essays that examine the extent to which parental loss and social programs affect the health, education and time allocation of children in developing countries.

The first chapter asks the question of whether early life public health interventions have lasting or long term impact on children's human capital development. In order to answer this question, this chapter investigates the long term impact of the safe motherhood program in Indonesia on later cognition and schooling outcomes of children when they are age 11 to 17 years. The paper further investigates this question by examining the impact of the program based on exposure that began during a particular year. The findings suggest that the safe motherhood program had an impact on adolescent cognition and schooling. In particular, the program impact is relatively large and significant for those children who began exposure to the program at age 2 or younger, or not yet conceived. These estimates are robust to a series of robustness and specification checks. The results are also in general consistent with the findings in biological literature that suggest the importance of the first two years of life in shaping outcomes later in life.

The second chapter examines the question of how parental loss or absence affects child well-being. While the strategy of many papers in the literature is to use parental death due to HIV/Aids to examine this question, this chapter uses the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami as a plausibly exogenous source of variation in parental death. In addition, the paper uses a unique longitudinal dataset that has baseline information on the same sample of individuals interviewed after the tsunami. Also, given rich data, the paper is able to look at various dimensions of child well-being which include school attendance, post-secondary aspirations, time allocation as well as educational attainment and marriage decisions for older children. The paper provides an in-depth analysis by examining the impact of parental death by age and gender of the child as well as looking at the impact in the short term and longer term. The results suggest that death of both parents, which has been little explored in the literature, has a large, negative impact on the human capital accumulation of both males and females. The loss of father alone led older males (aged 15 to 17 at the time of tsunami) to acquire less education compared to same age males whose both parents survived, while no effect is found on younger males aged 9 to 14. Furthermore, the results suggest that maternal death has little impact on schooling outcomes but does affect time allocation of children.

Finally, the third chapter examines the impact of a unique bilateral grant-aid program which provided typhoon-resistant schools and instructional equipment to the Philippines. The results suggest that the presence of both the typhoon-resistant schools and instructional equipment programs had a positive impact on the educational attainment of both men and women. The availability of instructional equipment program alone also increased the educational attainment of men but it does not seem to have had substantive effect on women. On the other hand, the availability of typhoon-resistant schools without the instructional equipment package did not have any impact on schooling outcomes of either the males or females. Except for the falsification exercise which suggests that there could be other underlying trends which may not be fully captured by the specifications, the estimates are in general robust to the inclusion of individual level characteristics, accounting of other concurrent national government's programs, restricting to municipalities in the typhoon belt region and accounting for municipality-specific trends. The findings suggest the importance of not only expanding access to schooling through increased availability of schools or classrooms (particularly, those that are resistant to natural disasters) but also the importance of improving the quality of learning through the availability of school resources that aide in students' learning in developing countries.

Ecological factors and the policy environment are central constraints on population well-being. This dissertation emphasizes the role of shocks to help understand the nature of such constraints, and explores the relationship between population, environment, and development in greater detail than is typically possible.

Chapter 1 opens by contributing to a growing body of evidence around the impacts of old-age pensions on the well-being of pension recipients and their families. I draw from the unique disbursement structure of a popular, widely utilized benefits program in rural Brazil, and data from two nationally representative surveys conducted in 2013 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. I first employ regression discontinuity design to measure the direct effect of the program’s age threshold on pension take-up. Second, I compare differences in reports of health and well-being among age-eligible and age-ineligible adults in rural areas to the same differences among populations that generally do not qualify for the benefit (i.e., urban populations). This difference-in-differences shows robust evidence of a beneficial pension effect, though along somewhat different dimensions by gender. I then show evidence of two credible mechanisms for improved health and well-being: first, improved food security within households that have eligible pension recipients; second, the cohabitation of younger family members, potentially providing support to aging family members. Taken together, this chapter demonstrates that the rural benefits program in Brazil leads to tangible health benefits for its recipients, through channels that are likely to complement rather than crowd out other public services.

Chapter 2 moves on to explore how a massive natural disaster affected smoking behavior, a common coping mechanism. External stressors are commonly hypothesized to play a role in the adoption of certain health behaviors, but understanding the role of exposure is frequently hampered by research designs and data that are inadequate for tracing causality. I use this study to evaluate the relationship between unanticipated exposure to a natural disaster and smoking behaviors using longitudinal data collected from families in Aceh, Indonesia before and after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Exposure to the tsunami is measured as a community indicator of physical proximity to damage, and as individual indicators of personal experiences at the time of the tsunami. My analysis indicates that the effect of exposure on smoking uptake varies considerably by age, and that most forms of exposure increase smoking volume. These effects appear to be temporary, but even in the context of Indonesia’s extraordinarily high smoking rates an impact is perceptible even ten years after the tsunami.

Chapter 3 delves further into the effects of the tsunami, exploring the distribution of resources after the broad destruction of infrastructure and subsequent, fast-paced reconstruction. I evaluate multiple aspects of water access for roughly 6,000 families through 2014. Logit regression analysis show increasing disparities in access to basic amounts of water, and multinomial logit regression analysis indicates that shifts are driven by a massive increase in the market for privately distributed bottled water. This study disentangles key distributional processes to show how reconstruction influenced a central social determinant of health among an already vulnerable population.

The chapters to follow aim to relate the well-being of individuals to the influences that arise from interconnected policy choices and ecological factors. The first chapter emphasizes a policy shock, the second an ecological shock, and the second seeks to identify a combined effect of the two. This original research is intended to help illuminate the role that institutions might play in improving population well-being.

Indonesia consistently records higher levels of maternal mortality than other countries in Southeast Asia with its same level of socioeconomic development. I use a quasi-experimental, difference-in-differences approach to understand whether the role of information on the risk of death in childbirth can change women’s reproductive behaviors. In the first two chapters, I use the Maternal Mortality Module from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) in Indonesia to examine fertility and reproductive behavior responses to a sister’s death in childbirth. Fertility desires remain relatively unchanged but women take up behaviors in subsequent births that avert the risk of maternal death. In the last chapter, I combine population-representative data from the DHS with a village-level census (PODES) on service availability to understand how a village-level intervention to improve obstetric service use using a birth preparedness and complications readiness (BPCR) approach may improve obstetric service use. In this study, I find that the Desa Siaga intervention in Indonesia improved knowledge of the danger signs of complications among women but not among men relative to villages that did not get the program while controlling for endogenous program placement. More women got antenatal care due to the program but use of a skilled birth attendant and postpartum care did not change as a result of the intervention. Both genders report discussing a blood donor in preparation for delivery.

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe or Sicangu Lakota Oyate, is one of nine federally recognized Native American tribes in South Dakota. The reservation currently has an 83% unemployment rate. The central question this project aims to answer is how can the Rosebud Economic Development Corporation (REDCO), the organization charged with creating economic opportunities for the Sicangu Oyate people, open up market access to Lakota artists and artisans to create a broader customer base to make the Lakota arts and crafts industry a more viable form of economic development?

The methodology used to answer this question was a mix of qualitative and quantitative research. The reason for high unemployment on South Dakota reservations was first researched to gain a better understanding of problem before looking for the solution. Two major recommendations emerged from this research as a result of recent Native American policy developments that REDCO should consider in the future. In addition, first person interviews were conducted with Native American artists and facilitators to figure out overhead costs, develop pricing schemes and quality metrics, and to learn more about the Native American arts and crafts industry. A number of international case studies were consulted to survey best practices of other indigenous groups focusing on REDCO’s role as a facilitator, the potential utilization of existing capacity like the Turtle Express store located on the Rosebud Reservation, logo and packaging, and website design. Additional economic projects and training workshops that might add value to this project were also explored. The Google Trends tool was used to conduct market and industry research. The South Dakota Tourism Office was interviewed and was helpful in determining the xisting competition REDCO may encounter in South Dakota and promotional events that REDCO might consider being a part of. This promotional information as well as marketing lessons learned from artist and facilitator interviews and international case study research was used to create a marketing plan. The following will describe the major findings that resulted from this research.

The first recommendation this paper makes to increase economic activity on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation is to take advantage of the HEARTH Act and formulating leasing regulations and submitting them to the Department of the Interior for approval so the tribe will be able to lease land on their own without going through the lengthy process of seeking prior approval from DOI. In addition, the tribe should adopt MTSTA to develop uniform commercial codes. Both of these recommendations will help increase private enterprise in Rosebud.

A total of seven high and low-end artists and artisans, were interviewed from South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Pine Ridge Sioux Tribe, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and Blackfeet Tribe. Artists mentioned the difficulty of living on a crafter’s salary, and many had a second job in addition to pursing their craft. For female artists a common constraint mentioned was child-care. Low-end artists sold most of their work through word of mouth and social media. High-end artists sold their work through art shows and galleries. Eight interviews with facilitators, stores that sell Native American arts and crafts, were conducted across South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Minnesota specifically from Rapid City, SD; Lower Brule, SD; Shakopee, MN; Browning, MT; Turtle Mountain, ND; and Crow Agency, MT. Two options exist for facilitators, buying the product outright from the artist and then selling it in their store or online, or holding the item on consignment until it sells, giving a percentage of thesale to the artist. The best time for sales are the tourism months, income tax return season, and hunting season. Promoting in-store or online holiday sales was found to be effective. Every facilitator aside from the one, online-only facilitator, said they sold more products in their store than online.

A survey of similar groups throughout the world in Australia, Eastern Caribbean, Kenya, South Africa, and Italy was conducted. The Australian and South African examples show that by acting as a facilitator, REDCO can greatly increase market access for Lakota artists. Case studies from Australia, the Eastern Caribbean, and Kenya noted that providing customers with an authentic experience that does not feel too staged is helpful in boosting sales. This is something REDCO could do at its Turtle Express store since the store is located on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. REDCO could hold a dream catcher-making workshop in or near the store or a tour of traditional plants in the area. Another Australian case study suggests a partnership with organizations off the reservation as potentially being beneficial. Case studies in Australia, Kenya, and Southern Italy, in addition to interviews with facilitators, show that including a story with an item along with the positive social impact purchasing that item will have for that indigenous group, either on the packaging or within the online website description, can have a positive effect on sales. A logo representing that particular indigenous group should also be attached to the product. An Australian example showed that low quality photos of the artwork should be used on a website to prevent unauthorized reproduction. On the website, products should also be organized into product type and include biographies of the artists and organization’s social mission.

REDCO would offer customers products such as moccasins, beaded and quilled earrings, necklaces, pouches, purses barrettes etc., star quilts, powwow regalia, small crafts like mini tipis, painted dolls, dream catchers etc., and paintings drawings, and prints. These items would be available through the online store and through the Turtle Express store on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. To help sales, REDCO could create tourist attractions like a tipi bed and breakfast, create a leather tanning facility, and for those who are not able to commit to the Sinte Gleska University Associate of Arts/Traditional Arts Degree program, REDCO could hold a training workshop for aspiring artists along with training on how to price items.

The Google Trends Tool was used to conduct market and industry analysis. This analysis showed people are more familiar with the word “Sioux” versus “Lakota” and there is likely a viable market for “Sioux” specific art when compared to other highly populated U.S. tribes. The best market for Native American art is within the U.S., however internationally Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, respectively, would likely be the next best markets. Within the U.S., the best markets for Native American art are located in South Dakota, New Mexico, Montana, Oklahoma, and Washington State. A list of competitors in South Dakota are located in Appendix D and a map illustrating the location of these competitors in relation to Rosebud is located under Section 9, Competition.

REDCO’s marking plan should include featuring a video of how to do a particular beading stitch for example to attract people interested in Lakota culture to the website. REDCO’s theory of change or social mission should also be included on the website along with artist biographies, a story of the item’s cultural significance or what the artist was thinking when they made the item. REDCO should also consider holding “meet the artist” events to draw more people to the Turtle Express store. REDCO should sponsor several artists to attend events in South Dakota such as the Governor’s Pheasant Hunt, the Annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism, the Northern Plains Indian Art Market, the Red Cloud Indian Art Show, and the Black Hills Powwow to raise recognition of the REDCO online store and its artists.

In regards to pricing schemes, a variety of pricing points for items online and in the store emerged as a good practice from the facilitator interviews. An interview with an accomplished crafter, beader, and artist, Linda Sewell, a Lower Brule Sioux Tribal member, provided quality metrics based on the product type, bead size, stitching used, and quality of material used to give REDCO an idea of what these quality metrics would look like when developing them for this project’s purposes.

After the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, there have been major strides in advancing the family planning agenda for low and middle-income countries worldwide. Much of the existing infrastructure and funding for family planning access is in the form of supplying free contraceptives to countries. While the average yearly value of donations since 2000 was over 170 million dollars for contraceptives procured for developing countries, an ongoing debate in the empirical literature is whether increases in contraceptive access and supply drive declines in fertility (UNFPA 2014).

This dissertation explores the fertility and behavioral effects of an increase in contraceptive supply donated to Zambia. Zambia, a high-fertility developing country, receives over 80 percent of its contraceptives from multilateral donors and aid agencies. Most contraceptives are donated and provided to women for free at government clinics (DELIVER 2015). I chose Zambia as a case study to measure the relationship between contraceptive supply and fertility because of two donor-driven events that led to an increase in both the quantity and frequency of contraceptives starting in 2008 (UNFPA 2014). Donations increased because donors and the Zambian government started a systematic method of forecasting contraceptive need on December 2007, and the Mexico City Policy was lifted in January 2009.

In Chapter 1, I investigate whether a large change in quantity and frequency of donated contraceptives affected fertility, using available data on contraceptive donations to Zambia, and birth records from the 2007 and 2013 Demographic and Health Surveys. I use a difference-in-difference framework to estimate the fertility effects of a supply chain improvement program that started in 2011, and was designed to ensure more regularity of contraceptive supply. The increase in total contraceptive supply after the Mexico City Policy was rescinded is associated with a 12 percent reduction in fertility relative to the before period, after controlling for demographic characteristics and time controls. There is evidence that a supply chain improvement program led to significant fertility declines for regions that received the program after the Mexico City Policy was rescinded.

In Chapter 2, I explore the effects of the large increase in donated contraceptives on modern contraceptive uptake. According to the 2007 and 2013 Demographic and Health Surveys, there was a dramatic increase in current use of injectables, implants, and IUDs. Simultaneously, declines occurred in usage of condoms, lactational amenorrhea method (LAM), and traditional methods. In this chapter, I estimate the effect of the increase in donations on uptake, composition of contraceptive usage, and usage of methods based on distance to contraceptive access points. The results show the post-2007 period is associated with an increase in usage of injectables and the pill among women living further away from access points.

In Chapter 3, I explore attitudes towards the contraceptive supply system, and identify areas for improvement, based on qualitative interviews with 14 experts and 61 Zambian users and non-users of contraceptives. The interviews uncover systemic barriers that prevent women from consistently accessing methods, and individual barriers that exacerbate the deficiencies in supply chain procedures. I find that 39 out of 61 women interviewed, both users and non-users, had personal experiences with stock out. The qualitative results suggest that the increase in contraceptives brought to the country after 2007 may have not contributed to as large of a decline in fertility because of bottlenecks in the supply chain, and problems in maintaining stock levels at clinics. I end the chapter with a series of four recommendations for improvements in the supply chain going forward, in light of recent commitments by the Zambian government during the 2012 London Summit on Family Planning.