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During survey data collection, respondents' answers may be influenced by the behavior and characteristics of the enumerator, the so-called enumerator effect. Using a large-scale experiment in Uganda randomly pairing enumerators and respondents, the study explores for which types of questions the enumerator effect may exist. It is found that the enumerator effect is minimal in many questions, but is large for political preference questions, for which it can account for over 30 of the variation in responses. The study then explores which enumerator characteristics, and which of their combination with respondent characteristics, could account for this effect. Finally, the conclusion provides some practical suggestions on how to minimize enumerator effects, and potential bias, in various types of data collections.

Occupational surveys.

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A Ugandan government program allowed groups of young people to submit proposals to start skilled enterprises. Among 535 eligible proposals, the government randomly selected 265 to receive grants of nearly $400 per person. Blattman et al. (2014) showed that, after four years, the program raised employment by 17% and earnings 38%. This paper shows that, rather than rewarding the government in elections, beneficiaries increased opposition party membership, campaigning, and voting. Higher incomes are associated with opposition support, and we hypothesize that financial independence frees the poor to express political preferences publicly, being less reliant on patronage and other political transfers.

Zonder onderwerpscode: economie

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Can cash transfers promote employment and reduce poverty in rural Africa? Will lower youth unemployment and poverty reduce the risk of social instability? The authors experimentally evaluate one of Uganda's largest development programs, which provided thousands of young people nearly unconditional, unsupervised cash transfers to pay for vocational training, tools, and business start-up costs. Mid-term results after two years suggest four main findings. First, despite a lack of central monitoring and accountability, most youth invest the transfer in vocational skills and tools. Second, the economic impacts of the transfer are large: hours of non-household employment double and cash earnings increase by nearly 50 percent relative to the control group. The authors estimate the transfer yields a real annual return on capital of 35 percent on average. Third, the evidence suggests that poor access to credit is a major reason youth cannot start these vocations in the absence of aid. Much of the heterogeneity in impacts is unexplained, however, and is unrelated to conventional economic measures of ability, suggesting we have much to learn about the determinants of entrepreneurship. Finally, these economic gains result in modest improvements in social stability. Measures of social cohesion and community support improve mildly, by roughly 5 to 10 percent, especially among males, most likely because the youth becomes a net giver rather than a net taker in his kin and community network. Most strikingly, we see a 50 percent fall in interpersonal aggression and disputes among males, but a 50 percent increase among females. Neither change seems related to economic performance nor does social cohesion a puzzle to be explored in the next phase of the study. These results suggest that increasing access to credit and capital could stimulate employment growth in rural Africa. In particular, unconditional and unsupervised cash transfers may be a more effective and cost-efficient forming of large-scale aid than commonly believed. A second stage of data collection in 2012 will collect longitudinal economic impacts, additional data on political violence and behavior, and explore alternative theoretical mechanisms.

Accounting --- Bonds --- Bounded Rationality --- Control Groups --- Decision Making --- Developing Countries --- Discount Rate --- Economics --- Educational Attainment --- Employment --- Employment and Unemployment --- Exchange Rates --- Financial Development --- Gender --- Group Dynamics --- Human Capital --- Inflation --- Insurance --- Interpersonal Relationships --- Labor Market --- Labor Policies --- Leadership --- Literacy --- Local Government --- Mental Health --- Microcredit --- Microenterprises --- Microfinance Institutions --- Moneylenders --- Opportunity Cost --- Poverty Reduction --- Productivity --- Public Spending --- Risk Aversion --- Schools --- Social Capital --- Social Protections and Labor --- Terrorism --- Unemployment --- Vocational & Technical Education --- Wages --- Youth

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Early childhood is a crucial period for the cognitive, social, emotional, physical, and language development of children. Of the 200 million children who do not reach their developmental potential worldwide, 66 percent live in South Asia. This paper explores gaps in knowledge among educators in Eastern Nepal about the importance of early childhood. The results of a survey headteachers and teachers show that teachers often do not place enough weight on the importance of behaviors that contribute to the growth and development of children in early childhood. There are also large gaps in teachers' understanding and practice of classroom accommodations for children with disabilities. The paper illustrates that educators, who play a large role in children's lives during early years, may be uninformed about the importance of early childhood development. The paper provides policy recommendations that can help policymakers target areas that lack understanding and improve early childhood development education and understanding among educators.

Cognitive Development --- Cognitive Skills --- Disability --- Early Childhood Development --- Early Childhood Education --- Education --- Education Quality --- Educational Sciences --- Effective Schools and Teachers --- Non-Cognitive Skills --- Social Protections and Labor --- Teacher Training

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We conducted a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of an innovative police patrol program on sexual harassment in public spaces in Hyderabad, India. In collaboration with the Hyderabad City Police, we randomized both exposure to police patrols and the visibility of officers by deploying both uniformed and undercover personnel to hotspots. We implemented a novel, high-frequency observation exercise to measure sexual harassment at 350 hotspots, where enumerators took note of all observed instances of sexual harassment and women's responses in real time. We find that although police patrols had no impact on overall street harassment, the visible policing patrols reduced severe forms of harassment (forceful touching, intimidation) by 27 percent and reduced the likelihood of women leaving the hotspot due to sexual harassment. We uncovered the underlying mechanisms and found that both police visibility and officers'attitudes oward sexual harassment are key to understanding its incidence. While the performance of undercover officers was similar to that of uniformed officers, harassment did not decrease when undercover officers were on patrol. This suggests that the visibility of police officers is critical in deterring perpetrators. Additionally, using lab experiments we find that, on average, police officers were more tolerant of mild street harassment and less inclined to punish offenders in such cases. Correspondingly, we observed in uniformed hotspots a decline in all types of harassment only when assigned officers held stronger personal views on harassment.