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Information and Communication Technologies, Agricultural Profitability, and Child Labor in Rural Peru

Author

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  • Diether W. Beuermann

    (Office of Evaluation and Oversight, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, USA)

Abstract

We estimate the impact of access to information and communication technologies on agricultural profitability and child labor among isolated villages in rural Peru. We exploit an intervention that provided at least one public (satellite) payphone to 6,509 rural villages that did not previously have any kind of communication services (either landlines or cell phones). We show that the timing of the intervention was uncorrelated with baseline outcomes and exploit it using a panel dataset of treated villages. Consistent with theoretical expectations, we find that profitability increased by 19.5 percent. Moreover, this income shock translated into a reduction in the likelihood of child market work of 13.7 percentage points and a reduction in child agricultural work of 9.2 percentage points. Overall, the evidence suggests a dominant income effect in the utilization of child labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Diether W. Beuermann, 2011. "Information and Communication Technologies, Agricultural Profitability, and Child Labor in Rural Peru," OVE Working Papers 0211, Inter-American Development Bank, Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE).
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:ovewps:0211
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ximena V. Del Carpio & Karen Macours, 2010. "Leveling the intra-household playing field: compensation and specialization in child labor allocation," Research in Labor Economics, in: Child Labor and the Transition between School and Work, pages 259-295, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information technology; rural development; child labor; Peru; Latin America;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Q16 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - R&D; Agricultural Technology; Biofuels; Agricultural Extension Services
    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate

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