IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/duk/dukeec/10-78.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bednets, Information and Malaria in Orissa

Author

Listed:
  • Aprajit Mahajan
  • Alessandro Tarozzi
  • Joanne Yoong
  • Brian Blackburn

Abstract

We study the identification and estimation of key parameters in a basic model of technology adoption when specifically collected information on subjective beliefs and expectations about the technology’s impact is available. We discuss identification with both non-parametrically and parametrically specified utility as well as parametric and semi-parametric specifications for unobserved heterogeneity. We propose parametric and semi-parametric estimation methods to recover underlying preferences and use the model to study the adoption of bednets among poor households in rural Orissa (India). We carry out counterfactual exercises to examine the effects of price and belief changes on net ownership decisions. The results suggest that net purchase decisions are relatively insensitive to changes from current prices and beliefs. The methods proposes here should have applicability to other discrete choice settings with non-linear indices.

Suggested Citation

  • Aprajit Mahajan & Alessandro Tarozzi & Joanne Yoong & Brian Blackburn, 2009. "Bednets, Information and Malaria in Orissa," Working Papers 10-78, Duke University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:duk:dukeec:10-78
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1695120
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pierre-Andre Chiappori & Amit Gandhi & Bernard Salanie & Francois Salanie, 2009. "Identifying Preferences under Risk from Discrete Choices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 356-362, May.
    2. Jessica Cohen & Pascaline Dupas, 2008. "Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence from a Malaria Prevention Experiment," NBER Working Papers 14406, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Jeff Dominitz, 1998. "Earnings Expectations, Revisions, And Realizations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 374-388, August.
    4. Luseno, Winnie K. & McPeak, John G. & Barrett, Christopher B. & Little, Peter D. & Gebru, Getachew, 2003. "Assessing the Value of Climate Forecast Information for Pastoralists: Evidence from Southern Ethiopia and Northern Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 1477-1494, September.
    5. Matzkin, Rosa L, 1991. "Semiparametric Estimation of Monotone and Concave Utility Functions for Polychotomous Choice Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(5), pages 1315-1327, September.
    6. Arellano, Manuel & Honore, Bo, 2001. "Panel data models: some recent developments," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 53, pages 3229-3296, Elsevier.
    7. Adeline Delavande, 2008. "Pill, Patch, Or Shot? Subjective Expectations And Birth Control Choice," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(3), pages 999-1042, August.
    8. Manski, Charles F, 1987. "Semiparametric Analysis of Random Effects Linear Models from Binary Panel Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 357-362, March.
    9. Hyslop, Dean R & Imbens, Guido W, 2001. "Bias from Classical and Other Forms of Measurement Error," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(4), pages 475-481, October.
    10. Charles F. Manski, 2004. "Measuring Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1329-1376, September.
    11. Agyepong, Irene Akua, 1992. "Malaria: Ethnomedical perceptions and practice in an Adangbe farming community and implications for control," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 131-137, July.
    12. Lance Lochner, 2007. "Individual Perceptions of the Criminal Justice System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 444-460, March.
    13. Adeline Delavande & Hans-Peter Kohler, 2009. "Subjective expectations in the context of HIV/AIDS in Malawi," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 20(31), pages 817-875.
    14. Hoyt Bleakley, 2010. "Malaria Eradication in the Americas: A Retrospective Analysis of Childhood Exposure," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 1-45, April.
    15. Michael D. Hurd & Kathleen McGarry, 1995. "Evaluation of the Subjective Probabilities of Survival in the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30, pages 268-292.
    16. Michael D. Hurd & James P. Smith & Julie M. Zissimopoulos, 2004. "The effects of subjective survival on retirement and Social Security claiming," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(6), pages 761-775.
    17. McKenzie, David & Gibson, John & Stillman, Steven, 2013. "A land of milk and honey with streets paved with gold: Do emigrants have over-optimistic expectations about incomes abroad?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 116-127.
    18. David Cutler & Winnie Fung & Michael Kremer & Monica Singhal & Tom Vogl, 2007. "Mosquitoes: The Long-term Effects of Malaria Eradication in India," NBER Working Papers 13539, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Jason Abrevaya & Jian Huang, 2005. "On the Bootstrap of the Maximum Score Estimator," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1175-1204, July.
    20. Lybbert, Travis J. & Barrett, Christopher B. & McPeak, John G. & Luseno, Winnie K., 2007. "Bayesian Herders: Updating of Rainfall Beliefs in Response to External Forecasts," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 480-497, March.
    21. Matzkin, Rosa L, 1992. "Nonparametric and Distribution-Free Estimation of the Binary Threshold Crossing and the Binary Choice Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 239-270, March.
    22. Tülin Erdem & Susumu Imai & Michael Keane, 2003. "Brand and Quantity Choice Dynamics Under Price Uncertainty," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 5-64, March.
    23. Yaw Nyarko & Andrew Schotter, 2002. "An Experimental Study of Belief Learning Using Elicited Beliefs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 971-1005, May.
    24. Jessica Cohen & Pascaline Dupas, 2010. "Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence from a Randomized Malaria Prevention Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 1-45.
    25. Delavande, Adeline & Giné, Xavier & McKenzie, David, 2011. "Measuring subjective expectations in developing countries: A critical review and new evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 151-163, March.
    26. Hoffmann, Vivian, 2008. "Psychology, Gender, and the Intrahousehold Allocation of Free and Purchased Mosquito Nets," Working Papers 55282, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    27. Tülin Erdem & Michael Keane & T. Öncü & Judi Strebel, 2005. "Learning About Computers: An Analysis of Information Search and Technology Choice," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 207-247, September.
    28. Manski, Charles F., 1975. "Maximum score estimation of the stochastic utility model of choice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 205-228, August.
    29. Füsun Gönül & Kannan Srinivasan, 1996. "Estimating the Impact of Consumer Expectations of Coupons on Purchase Behavior: A Dynamic Structural Model," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(3), pages 262-279.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gine,Xavier & Jacoby,Hanan G. & Gine,Xavier & Jacoby,Hanan G., 2016. "Markets, contracts, and uncertainty in a groundwater economy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7694, The World Bank.
    2. Delavande, Adeline & Giné, Xavier & McKenzie, David, 2011. "Measuring subjective expectations in developing countries: A critical review and new evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 151-163, March.
    3. Armand, Alex & Carneiro, Pedro & Locatelli, Andrea & Mihreteab, Selam & Keating, Joseph, 2017. "Do public health interventions crowd out private health investments? Malaria control policies in Eritrea," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 107-115.
    4. Bhattacharya, Debopam & Dupas, Pascaline, 2012. "Inferring welfare maximizing treatment assignment under budget constraints," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 167(1), pages 168-196.
    5. Eddie Dekel & Barton L. Lipman, 2010. "How (Not) to Do Decision Theory," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 257-282, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adeline Delavande & Hans-Peter Kohler, 2009. "Subjective expectations in the context of HIV/AIDS in Malawi," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 20(31), pages 817-875.
    2. Adeline Delavande & Jinkook Lee & Seetha Menon, 2017. "Eliciting Survival Expectations of the Elderly in Low-Income Countries: Evidence From India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 673-699, April.
    3. Delavande, Adeline & Giné, Xavier & McKenzie, David, 2011. "Measuring subjective expectations in developing countries: A critical review and new evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 151-163, March.
    4. Kettlewell, Nathan & Walker, Matthew J. & Yoo, Hong Il, 2024. "Alternative Models of Preference Heterogeneity for Elicited Choice Probabilities," IZA Discussion Papers 16821, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. McKenzie, David & Gibson, John & Stillman, Steven, 2013. "A land of milk and honey with streets paved with gold: Do emigrants have over-optimistic expectations about incomes abroad?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 116-127.
    6. Adeline Delavande & Xavier Giné & David McKenzie, 2011. "Eliciting probabilistic expectations with visual aids in developing countries: how sensitive are answers to variations in elicitation design?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 479-497, April.
    7. Gizem Koşar & Cormac O'Dea, 2022. "Expectations Data in Structural Microeconomic Models," NBER Working Papers 30094, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Orazio Attanasio & Britta Augsburg, 2016. "Subjective Expectations and Income Processes in Rural India," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(331), pages 416-442, July.
    9. Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2012. "On the Use of Expectations Data in Estimating Structural Dynamic Choice Models," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(3), pages 521-554.
    10. Eyting, Markus & Schmidt, Patrick, 2021. "Belief elicitation with multiple point predictions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    11. Joan Costa-Font & Cristina Vilaplana-Prieto, 2022. "Biased survival expectations and behaviours: Does domain specific information matter?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 285-317, December.
    12. Basit Zafar, 2011. "How Do College Students Form Expectations?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(2), pages 301-348.
    13. Adeline Delavande, 2008. "Measuring revisions to subjective expectations," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 43-82, February.
    14. Asher A. Blass & Saul Lach & Charles F. Manski, 2010. "Using Elicited Choice Probabilities To Estimate Random Utility Models: Preferences For Electricity Reliability," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 51(2), pages 421-440, May.
    15. Jason R. Blevins, 2013. "Non-Standard Rates of Convergence of Criterion-Function-Based Set Estimators," Working Papers 13-02, Ohio State University, Department of Economics.
    16. Gong, Yifan & Stinebrickner, Ralph & Stinebrickner, Todd, 2022. "Marriage, children, and labor supply: Beliefs and outcomes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 148-164.
    17. Agarwal, Sandip Kumar, 2017. "Subjective beliefs and decision making under uncertainty in the field," ISU General Staff Papers 201701010800006248, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    18. Agarwal, Sandip & Jacobs, Keri L. & Weninger, Quinn, 2016. "Elicitation of Subjective Beliefs: A Pilot study of farmers' nitrogen management decision-making in Central Iowa," ISU General Staff Papers 201601010800001005, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    19. Basit Zafar, 2011. "Can subjective expectations data be used in choice models? evidence on cognitive biases," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 520-544, April.
    20. Adeline Delavande & Susann Rohwedder, 2008. "Eliciting Subjective Expectations in Internet Surveys," Working Papers 589, RAND Corporation.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Malaria; Expectations; Bednets; Identification; Median Restrictions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:duk:dukeec:10-78. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Department of Economics Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://econ.duke.edu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.