Worms, Farms and Schools : Three Essays on Investment Choices in Uganda

Abstract: Quantifying Externalities in Technology Adoption: Experimental Evidence from Ugandan FarmersI investigate how positive externalities contribute to underadoption of agricultural technology among sub-Saharan African farmers. I focus on the adoption of pest-control technologies. A farmer can benefit in two ways if another adopts: i) she can learn about the technology, a knowledge externality and ii) she can face a lower infection probability, a contagion externality. My approach develops in four steps. First, I measure the value farmers attach to adopting pest-control technologies, and establish that pest-control technologies are desired. Second, I measure the value a farmer attaches to another farmer adopting pest control technologies, and document that farmers anticipate positive spillovers. Third, I show that farmers are responsive to changes in positive externalities. I generate random variation in a farmer's beliefs over knowledge and contagion externalities and find changes in beliefs affect the value she assigns to others' adoption. Finally, I estimate that the private benefit of technology adoption is lower than the cost of the technology, but the social benefit is larger than the cost. My results support the view that local economies may be caught in a low-adoption equilibrium which hinders agricultural productivity growth.A Multifaceted Education Program for the Poor and TalentedI study the impacts of the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program - a support program for pupils entering secondary school in Uganda. The program provides school fees, placement into a top-100 secondary education institution in the country, school inputs, a teacher mentor and a stipend. The program targets high-achieving students from a disadvantaged economic background. Exploiting the randomized assignment of eligible students to the program, I document program impacts on both individual recipients and their households. I find that the program has large positive effects on enrollment and the test scores of recipients. The program is also beneficial to a recipient’s household as consumption, assets, psychological wellbeing and nutrition increase; the impact on siblings is ambiguous. Overall, the two-year impacts of the program are in line with anti-poverty interventions that provide a similar monetary value to recipients.Moral Hazard: Experimental Evidence from Tenancy ContractsAgricultural productivity is particularly low in developing countries. Output sharing rules that make farmers less-than-full residual claimants are seen as a potentially important driver of low agricultural productivity. We report results from a field experiment designed to estimate and understand the effects of sharecropping contracts on agricultural input choices, risk-taking, and output. The experiment induced variation in the terms of sharecropping contracts. After agreeing to pay 50% of their output to the landlord, tenants were randomized into three groups: (i) some kept 50\% of their output; (ii) others kept 75%; (iii) others kept 50% of output and received a lump sum payment at the end of their contract, either fixed or stochastic. We find that tenants with higher output shares utilized more inputs, cultivated riskier crops, and produced 60% more output relative to control. Income or risk exposure have at most a small effect on farm output; the increase in output should be interpreted as an incentive effect of the output sharing rule.