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Ziparo

Publications

Sweet child of mine: Parental income, child health and inequalityJournal articleNicolas Berman, Lorenzo Rotunno and Roberta Ziparo, The Economic Journal, pp. ueaf036, 2025

How to allocate limited resources among children is a crucial household decision, especially in developing countries where it can have strong implications for children and family survival. We provide the first large scale study linking variations in parental income in the early life of children to subsequent child health and parental investments across siblings in developing countries, using data from multiple waves of the Demographic and Health Surveys spanning 54 countries. Variations in the world prices of locally suitable crops are used as measures of local income. We find that children born in periods of higher income receive better health investments and display persistently higher levels of health than their siblings. Children whose siblings were born during favourable income periods receive less investment and exhibit worse health. These findings are consistent with a model of sibling rivalry where parents invest in the child with the highest returns and complementarities in investment across periods. We also provide evidence that other investments (education, parental time use and child labour) react to sibling rivalry. Our results suggest that income shocks can enlarge disparities within households.
Intra-household bargaining in poor countriesBook chapterJean-Marie Baland and Roberta Ziparo, In: Towards Gender Equity in Development, S. Anderson, L. Beaman and J.-P. Platteau (Eds.), 2018-11, pp. 69-96, Oxford University Press, 2018

This paper is intended to bridge the theoretical literature describing efficient intra-household behaviour and the development literature that collects empirical regularities pointing toward the existence of strategic decision-making among spouses.
It examines the key elements of the collective model and discusses its relevance to analysing intra-household behaviour in poor countries. It explores the role that risk and uncertainty, information asymmetries, power imbalances, arranged marriages, strategic investment, gender norms, and extended households play in the attainment of efficiency.
Traditional Beliefs and Learning about Maternal Risk in ZambiaJournal articleNava Ashraf, Erica Field, Giuditta Rusconi, Alessandra Voena and Roberta Ziparo, American Economic Review: P&P, Volume 107, Issue 5, pp. 511-515, 2017

Maternal mortality remains very high in many parts of the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. While maternal deaths are observable, it may not be straightforward for individuals to learn about risk factors. This paper utilizes novel data on male and female perceptions of maternal risk in Zambia to document that superstitions about causes of maternal mortality are pervasive and to uncover evidence that such beliefs impede learning about maternal health risk levels and correlates. In our data, people who hold traditional beliefs disregard past birth complications completely in assessing future risk, unlike those who hold modern beliefs.
The economic consequences of mutual help in extended familiesJournal articleJean-Marie Baland, Isabelle Bonjean, Catherine Guirkinger and Roberta Ziparo, Journal of Development Economics, Volume 123, Issue C, pp. 38-56, 2016

In the absence of well-developed markets for credit and insurance, extended families play a major role as a traditional system of mutual help. However these arrangements have important consequences on economic choices. In this paper, we use first hand data from Western Cameroon to explore this question. We find that the large majority of transfers follow a given pattern whereby elder siblings support their younger siblings in the early stages of their lives who in turn reciprocate by supporting their elder siblings when they have children. We interpret this pattern as a generalised system of reciprocal credit within the extended family. We propose a simple overlapping generation model to investigate its welfare properties. We then explore the implications of this pattern on labour market outcomes and find evidence of large disincentive effects. This pattern of transfers also implies that younger siblings are more educated but have fewer and less educated children.
The Good Wife? Reputation Dynamics and Financial Decision-Making inside the HouseholdJournal articleNina Buchmann, Pascaline Dupas and Roberta Ziparo, American Economic Review, Volume 115, Issue 2, pp. 525-70, Forthcoming

The Good Wife? Reputation Dynamics and Financial Decision-Making inside the Household by Nina Buchmann, Pascaline Dupas and Roberta Ziparo. Published in volume 115, issue 2, pages 525-70 of American Economic Review, February 2025, Abstract: We study reputation dynamics within the household in a sett...