Publications des chercheurs de PSE

Learning About Opportunity: Spillovers of Elite School Admissions in Peru

Ce chapitre traite de deux enjeux majeurs auxquels sont confrontés les ménages ruraux en zone tropicale : préserver les ressources naturelles et assurer la sécurité alimentaire. Relever ces deux défis simultanément requiert de développer des systèmes de production efficaces, capables à la fois de garantir la sécurité alimentaire des agriculteurs et d’assurer une gestion durable des ressources naturelles. Pour ce faire, il convient de s’interroger sur les liens directs et indirects entre la sécurité alimentaire des ménages et la biodiversité à l’échelle de l’exploitation agricole et à celle du paysage.

We examine the effects of a subsidy program in Haiti that provided smallholders subsidies for inputs (rice seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and specific labor tasks) using a randomized control trial. The program led to lower input use and lower yields in the year subsidies were received, and the decline in input use and yields persisted through the following year. Using data from a complementary information intervention in which randomly selected farmers were provided clarification regarding their future receipt of vouchers, we find evidence suggesting that incorrect expectations of future transfers partially explain the disappointing outcomes. In addition, instead of increasing input use, the subsidies seem to have led farmers to pay off their loans and take fewer new ones. In complex post-emergency environments such as the one in which this program took place, input subsidies may need to be avoided, as they require considerable information to optimally design and careful coordination by many actors to achieve the expected gains.

We study how the admission of a student to an elite secondary school changes the schooling outcomes of younger cohorts in the student’s school of origin. The context of the rapid establishment and expansion of a nationwide system of highly selective and free-of-charge secondary schools in Peru allows us to investigate information diffusion with low financial barriers. Using a sharp regression discontinuity design, our analysis shows that the admission of an older schoolmate increases the number of younger students who apply (by 16%) and are admitted (47%) to this elite school system. The effect is concentrated among students whose parents have low education levels. Moreover, admissions of older schoolmates to a selective school gives younger students the opportunity to learn about elite schools, but does not seem to encourage them to improve their learning achievement or provide an advantage in preparing the admission assessments. Our findings show that selective schools can have effects that go beyond their own students and indicate that schoolmates can be an effective channel for increasing the demand from high-achieving, low-income students for high-quality education.

This chapter deals with two major issues rural households face in tropical areas: preserving natural resources and guaranteeing food security. Tackling these two challenges simultaneously may require developing profitable production systems that can both guarantee food security for farmers, while also ensuring sustainable management of natural resources.

We examine the effects of a subsidy program in Haiti which provided smallholders subsidies for modern inputs (rice seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and specific labor tasks) through a randomized control trial. The program led to lower input use and lower yields in the year subsidies were received, and the decline in input use and yields persisted through the following year. Using data from a complementary information intervention in which randomly selected farmers were provided clarifications regarding their status in the program, we find evidence suggesting that incorrect expectations of future transfers help explain the disappointing outcomes. In addition, instead of increasing input use, subsidies seem to have led farmers to pay off their loans and take fewer new ones. In a complex postemergency environment as the one in which this program took place, input subsidies may need to be avoided, as they require considerable information to optimally design and careful coordination by many actors to achieve the expected gains.

This series was shot on October 28-31, 2019, in Jambi province (Sumatra), during visits I conducted, together with CIRAD researchers Jean Ollivier and Alexis Thoumazeau and partners from rural development NGOs and Jambi University professors, of several places and projects related to agronomic practices in the local oil palm production sector. I also visited, with the invitation of professor Aiyen Tjoa (universities of Jambi and Palu), the EFForTS research project of universities of Jambi and Gottingen, on the effects of landscape transformation associated with the development of rubber and oil palm plantations. The subjects include the warehouse of a local input supplier, a plant nursury, an oil palm mill, the plantation of an independent smallholder (in the area, many of the recent plantations are installed not by firms, but by independent farmers), the delivery of fresh fruits by smallholders to an intermediate collector with his truck, a meteorological station installed for the EFForTS project, plantation workers transported in a truck. I coordinate the research project EXPALMIND on the effects of plantation agriculture on land use and food security, funded by the Mutalim CNRS-INRAE fund in 2019-2021, and this project involved geographers from CNRS-LETG and CIRAD-Systèmes de pérennes, and my participation was part of that project.

This series of photographs was shot on October 29-30, 2019, in Jambi province (Sumatra). I was invited by CIRAD researchers, Jean Ollivier and Alexis Thoumazeau, to attend a workshop in Agronomy they organized in Petaling Jaya, about 50 kilometers South of Jambi city, as part of one of their research projects on the environmental effects of different oil palm cultivation practices in the area. The workshop gathered smallholders from a cooperative, rural development NGO field workers, and University professors. The pictures show participants going through in-class discussions of the stakes of agronomic analysis and presentations of methods to analyze soils and plants, and then participating to on-field demonstrations of these methods. I coordinate the research project EXPALMIND on the effects of plantation agriculture on land use and food security, funded by the Mutalim CNRS-INRAE fund in 2019-2021, and this project involved geographers from CNRS-LETG and CIRAD-Systèmes de pérennes, and my participation was part of that project.

This series was shot on October 28-31, 2019, in Jambi province (Sumatra), during visits I conducted, together with CIRAD researchers Jean Ollivier and Alexis Thoumazeau and partners from rural development NGOs and Jambi University professors, of several places and projects related to agronomic practices in the local oil palm production sector. I also visited, with the invitation of professor Aiyen Tjoa (universities of Jambi and Palu), the EFForTS research project of universities of Jambi and Gottingen, on the effects of landscape transformation associated with the development of rubber and oil palm plantations. The subjects include the warehouse of a local input supplier, a plant nursury, an oil palm mill, the plantation of an independent smallholder (in the area, many of the recent plantations are installed not by firms, but by independent farmers), the delivery of fresh fruits by smallholders to an intermediate collector with his truck, a meteorological station installed for the EFForTS project, plantation workers transported in a truck. I coordinate the research project EXPALMIND on the effects of plantation agriculture on land use and food security, funded by the Mutalim CNRS-INRAE fund in 2019-2021, and this project involved geographers from CNRS-LETG and CIRAD-Systèmes de pérennes, and my participation was part of that project.

This series was shot on October 28-31, 2019, in Jambi province (Sumatra), during visits I conducted, together with CIRAD researchers Jean Ollivier and Alexis Thoumazeau and partners from rural development NGOs and Jambi University professors, of several places and projects related to agronomic practices in the local oil palm production sector. I also visited, with the invitation of professor Aiyen Tjoa (universities of Jambi and Palu), the EFForTS research project of universities of Jambi and Gottingen, on the effects of landscape transformation associated with the development of rubber and oil palm plantations. The subjects include the warehouse of a local input supplier, a plant nursury, an oil palm mill, the plantation of an independent smallholder (in the area, many of the recent plantations are installed not by firms, but by independent farmers), the delivery of fresh fruits by smallholders to an intermediate collector with his truck, a meteorological station installed for the EFForTS project, plantation workers transported in a truck. I coordinate the research project EXPALMIND on the effects of plantation agriculture on land use and food security, funded by the Mutalim CNRS-INRAE fund in 2019-2021, and this project involved geographers from CNRS-LETG and CIRAD-Systèmes de pérennes, and my participation was part of that project.

This series of photographs was shot on October 29-30, 2019, in Jambi province (Sumatra). I was invited by CIRAD researchers, Jean Ollivier and Alexis Thoumazeau, to attend a workshop in Agronomy they organized in Petaling Jaya, about 50 kilometers South of Jambi city, as part of one of their research projects on the environmental effects of different oil palm cultivation practices in the area. The workshop gathered smallholders from a cooperative, rural development NGO field workers, and University professors. The pictures show participants going through in-class discussions of the stakes of agronomic analysis and presentations of methods to analyze soils and plants, and then participating to on-field demonstrations of these methods. I coordinate the research project EXPALMIND on the effects of plantation agriculture on land use and food security, funded by the Mutalim CNRS-INRAE fund in 2019-2021, and this project involved geographers from CNRS-LETG and CIRAD-Systèmes de pérennes, and my participation was part of that project.

This series was shot on October 28-31, 2019, in Jambi province (Sumatra), during visits I conducted, together with CIRAD researchers Jean Ollivier and Alexis Thoumazeau and partners from rural development NGOs and Jambi University professors, of several places and projects related to agronomic practices in the local oil palm production sector. I also visited, with the invitation of professor Aiyen Tjoa (universities of Jambi and Palu), the EFForTS research project of universities of Jambi and Gottingen, on the effects of landscape transformation associated with the development of rubber and oil palm plantations. The subjects include the warehouse of a local input supplier, a plant nursury, an oil palm mill, the plantation of an independent smallholder (in the area, many of the recent plantations are installed not by firms, but by independent farmers), the delivery of fresh fruits by smallholders to an intermediate collector with his truck, a meteorological station installed for the EFForTS project, plantation workers transported in a truck. I coordinate the research project EXPALMIND on the effects of plantation agriculture on land use and food security, funded by the Mutalim CNRS-INRAE fund in 2019-2021, and this project involved geographers from CNRS-LETG and CIRAD-Systèmes de pérennes, and my participation was part of that project.