Habiba Djebbari

Faculty ,  Aix-Marseille Université , Faculté d'économie et de gestion (FEG)

Development and political economy
Djebbari
Status
Professor
Research domain(s)
Development economics, Econometrics
Thesis
2004, University of Maryland
Download
CV
Contact
habiba.djebbari[at]univ-amu.fr
+33(0)4 13 55 25 44 / +33(0)4 13 94 20 10
Address

AMU - AMSE
5-9 Boulevard Maurice Bourdet, CS 50498
​13205 Marseille Cedex 1

Abstract A large proportion of adults in the developing world remain without access to formal banking. We assess the effectiveness of a network‐based information delivery strategy in fostering interest to learn about and subscribe to mobile money services in rural and peri‐urban communities in Peru. We posit that lack of information about mobile money technology is a barrier to financial inclusion, which can be mitigated through social proximity. We designed a randomized controlled trial where workshops were led by individuals personally known to participants (local ambassadors–treatment) or by external agents (control). We find that attendance and BiM subscription rates were twice as high in the local ambassadors' group, especially among low‐trust individuals.
Keywords Financial inclusion, Network-based information experiment, Asymmetric information, Trust
Publication HAL Google Scholar
Abstract Experts argue that the adoption of healthy sanitation practices, such as hand washing and latrine use, requires focusing on the entire community rather than individual behaviors. According to this view, one limiting factor in ending open defecation lies in the capacity of the community to collectively act toward this goal. Each member of a community bears the private cost of contributing by washing hands and using latrines, but the benefits through better health outcomes depend on whether other community members also opt out of open defecation. We rely on a community-based intervention carried out in Mali as an illustrative example (Community-Led Total Sanitation or CLTS). Using a series of experiments conducted in 121 villages and designed to measure the willingness of community members to contribute to a local public good, we investigate the process of participation in a collective action problem setting. Our focus is on two types of activities: (1) gathering of community members to encourage public discussion of the collective action problem, and (2) facilitation by a community champion of the adoption of individual actions to attain the socially preferred outcome. In games, communication helps raise public good provision, and both open discussion and facilitated ones have the same impact. When a community member facilitates a discussion after an open discussion session, public good contributions increase, but there are no gains from opening up the discussion after a facilitated session. Community members who choose to contribute in the no-communication treatment are not better facilitators than those who choose not to contribute.
Keywords Public good provision, Behavioral experiments, Community-based development, Sanitation
Publication HAL Google Scholar
Abstract We survey the recent, fast-growing literature on peer effects in networks. An important recurring theme is that the causal identification of peer effects depends on the structure of the network itself. In the absence of correlated effects, the reflection problem is generally solved by network interactions even in nonlinear, heterogeneous models. By contrast, microfoundations are generally not identified. We discuss and assess the various approaches developed by economists to account for correlated effects and network endogeneity in particular. We classify these approaches in four broad categories: random peers, random shocks, structural endogeneity, and panel data. We review an emerging literature relaxing the assumption that the network is perfectly known. Throughout, we provide a critical reading of the existing literature and identify important gaps and directions for future research.
Keywords Measurement errors, Randomization, Causal effects, Identification, Peer effects, Social networks
Publication HAL Google Scholar
Abstract Basic sanitation facilities are still lacking in large parts of the developing world, engendering serious environmental health risks. Interventions commonly deliver in-kind or cash subsidies to promote private toilet ownership. In this paper, we assess an intervention that provides information and behavioral incentives to encourage villagers in rural Mali to build and use basic latrines. Using an experimental research design and carefully measured indicators of use, we find a sizeable impact from this intervention: latrine ownership and use almost doubled in intervention villages, and open defecation (OD) was reduced by half. Our results partially attribute these effects to increased knowledge about cheap and locally available sanitation solutions. They are also associated with shifts in social norms governing sanitation. Taken together, our findings, unlike previous evidence from other contexts, suggest that a progressive approach that starts with ending OD and targets whole communities at a time can help meet the United Nations’ 2015 Sustainable Development Goal of ending OD.
Keywords Social norm, Community-based intervention, Behavioral change, Sanitation
Publication HAL Google Scholar
Abstract Community-led total sanitation (CLTS) uses participatory approaches to mobilise communities to build their own toilets and stop open defecation. Our aim was to undertake the first randomised trial of CLTS to assess its effect on child health in Koulikoro, Mali. We did a cluster-randomised trial to assess a CLTS programme implemented by the Government of Mali. The study population included households in rural villages (clusters) from the Koulikoro district of Mali; every household had to have at least one child aged younger than 10 years. Villages were randomly assigned (1:1) with a computer-generated sequence by a study investigator to receive CLTS or no programme. Health outcomes included diarrhoea (primary outcome), height for age, weight for age, stunting, and underweight. Outcomes were measured 1·5 years after intervention delivery (2 years after enrolment) among children younger than 5 years. Participants were not masked to intervention assignment. The trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01900912. We recruited participants between April 12, and June 23, 2011. We assigned 60 villages (2365 households) to receive the CLTS intervention and 61 villages (2167 households) to the control group. No differences were observed in terms of diarrhoeal prevalence among children in CLTS and control villages (706 [22%] of 3140 CLTS children vs 693 [24%] of 2872 control children; prevalence ratio [PR] 0·93, 95% CI 0·76–1·14). Access to private latrines was almost twice as high in intervention villages (1373 [65%] of 2120 vs 661 [35%] of 1911 households) and reported open defecation was reduced in female (198 [9%] of 2086 vs 608 [33%] of 1869 households) and in male (195 [10%] of 2004 vs 602 [33%] of 1813 households) adults. Children in CLTS villages were taller (0·18 increase in height-for-age Z score, 95% CI 0·03–0·32; 2415 children) and less likely to be stunted (35% vs 41%, PR 0·86, 95% CI 0·74–1·0) than children in control villages. 22% of children were underweight in CLTS compared with 26% in control villages (PR 0·88, 95% CI 0·71–1·08), and the difference in mean weight-for-age Z score was 0·09 (95% CI –0·04 to 0·22) between groups. In CLTS villages, younger children at enrolment (\textless2 years) showed greater improvements in height and weight than older children. In villages that received a behavioural sanitation intervention with no monetary subsidies, diarrhoeal prevalence remained similar to control villages. However, access to toilets substantially increased and child growth improved, particularly in children \textless2 years. CLTS might have prevented growth faltering through pathways other than reducing diarrhoea.
Keywords Economie quantitative
Publication HAL Google Scholar
Abstract We provide the first empirical application of a new approach proposed by Lee (Journal of Econometrics 2007; 140(2), 333–374) to estimate peer effects in a linear-in-means model when individuals interact in groups. Assumingsufficient group size variation, this approach allows to control for correlated effects at the group level and to solve the simultaneity (reflection) problem. We clarify the intuition behind identification of peer effects in the model. We investigate peer effects in student achievement in French, Science, Mathematics and History in secondary schools in the Province of Québec (Canada). We estimate the model using conditional maximum likelihood and instrumental variables methods. We find some evidence of peer effects. The endogenous peer effect is large and significant in Mathematics but imprecisely estimated in the other subjects. Some contextual peer effects are also significant. In particular, for most subjects, the average age of peers has a negative effect on own test score. Using calibrated Monte Carlo simulations, we find that high dispersion in group sizes helps with potential issues of weak identification. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Keywords Economie quantitative
Publication HAL Google Scholar
Abstract Experts argue that the adoption of healthy sanitation practices, such as hand washing and latrine use, requires focusing on the entire community rather than individual behaviors. According to this view, one limiting factor in ending open defecation lies in the capacity of the community to collectively act toward this goal. Each member of a community bears the private cost of contributing by washing hands and using latrines, but the benefits through better health outcomes depend on whether other community members also opt out of open defecation. We rely on a community-based intervention carried out in Mali as an illustrative example (Community-Led Total Sanitation or CLTS). Using a series of experiments conducted in 121 villages and designed to measure the willingness of community members to contribute to a local public good, we investigate the process of participation in a collective action problem setting. Our focus is on two types of activities: (1) gathering of community members to encourage public discussion of the collective action problem, and (2) facilitation by a community champion of the adoption of individual actions to attain the socially preferred outcome. In games, communication helps raise public good provision, and both open discussion and facilitated ones have the same impact. When a community member facilitates a discussion after an open discussion session, public good contributions increase, but there are no gains from opening up the discussion after a facilitated session. Community members who choose to contribute in the no-communication treatment are not better facilitators than those who choose not to contribute.
Keywords Public good provision, Behavioral experiments, Community-based development, Sanitation
Download HAL Google Scholar
Abstract Basic sanitation facilities are still lacking in large parts of the developing world, engendering serious environmental health risks. Interventions commonly deliver in-kind or cash subsidies to promote private toilet ownership. In this paper, we assess an intervention that provides information and behavioral incentives to encourage villagers in rural Mali to build and use basic latrines. Using an experimental research design and carefully measured indicators of use, we find a sizeable impact from this intervention: latrine ownership and use almost doubled in intervention villages, and open defecation (OD) was reduced by half. Our results partially attribute these effects to increased knowledge about cheap and locally available sanitation solutions. They are also associated with shifts in social norms governing sanitation. Taken together, our findings, unlike previous evidence from other contexts, suggest that a progressive approach that starts with ending OD and targets whole communities at a time can help meet the United Nations’ 2015 Sustainable Development Goal of ending OD.
Keywords Social norm, Community-based intervention, Behavioral change, Sanitation
Publication HAL Google Scholar
Abstract We survey the recent, fast-growing literature on peer effects in networks. An important recurring theme is that the causal identification of peer effects depends on the structure of the network itself. In the absence of correlated effects, the reflection problem is generally solved by network interactions even in non-linear, heterogeneous models. By contrast, microfounda-tions are generally not identified. We discuss and assess the various approaches developed by economists to account for correlated effects and network endogeneity in particular. We classify these approaches in four broad categories: random peers, random shocks, structural endogeneity and panel data. We review an emerging literature relaxing the assumption that the network is perfectly known. Throughout, we provide a critical reading of the existing literature and identify important gaps and directions for future research.
Keywords Randomization, Measurement errors, Causal effects, Identification, Peer effects, Social networks
Download HAL Google Scholar
Abstract We test the existence of cheap talk between husbands and wives working together in a family business. Our setting is the farm household. We designed an experiment, contextualized as an input allocation game, in which the husband chooses the amount of resources to invest on his own plot and on his wife's land. The return from the land managed by the wife is higher. We experimentally vary whether the returns from the wife's plot are communicated to the husband (i) by the experimenter, (ii) by the wife herself, and (iii) by the wife herself but with the possibility for the husband to verify the accuracy of the information from the experimenter after he makes his allocation decision. Male producers allocate too few inputs to their wife's plot across all experimental conditions. We rationalize these ndings in a setting with limited enforcement of marital agreements and derive additional predictions. First, allocative ineciencies in production are worse when women hold private information compared to the full information treatment. This eect is stronger for households for which resource-sharing under full information is lower. Second, communication between spouses can only compensate for damages from private information when the information is veriable ex post.
Keywords Household production and intra-household allocation, Non-cooperative game theory, Asymmetric and private information, Lab-in-the-field experiment, Farm households
Download HAL Google Scholar
Abstract Basic sanitation facilities are still lacking in large parts of the developing world, engendering serious environmental health risks. Interventions commonly deliver in-kind or cash subsidies to promote private toilet ownership. In this paper, we assess an intervention that provides information and behavioral incentives to encourage villagers in rural Mali to build and use basic latrines. Using an experimental research design and carefully measured indicators of use, we find a sizeable impact from this intervention: latrine ownership and use almost doubled in intervention villages, and open defecation was reduced by half. Our results partially attribute these effects to increased knowledge about cheap and locally available sanitation solutions. They are also associated with shifts in the social norm governing sanitation. Taken together, our findings, unlike previous evidence from other contexts, suggest that a progressive approach that starts with ending open defecation and targets whole communities at a time can help meet the new Sustainable Development Goal of ending open defecation.
Keywords Sanitation, Behavioral change, Community-based intervention, Social norm
Download HAL Google Scholar
Abstract When one's treatment status affects the outcomes of others, experimental data are not sufficient to identify a treatment causal impact. In order to account for peer effects in program response, we use a social network model. We estimate and validate the model on experimental data collected for the evaluation of a scholarship program in Colombia. By design, randomization is at the student-level. Friendship data reveals that treated and untreated students interact together. Besides providing evidence of peer effects in schooling, we find that ignoring peer effects would have led us to overstate the program actual impact.
Keywords Education, Social network, Impact evaluation
Download HAL Google Scholar