Unanticipated spikes in food prices can increase malnutrition among the poor, with lasting consequences; however, livelihood strategies that include producing food for home consumption are expected to offer a measure of protection. Using anthropometric and consumption data from Indonesia...

Economists and other social scientists are increasingly using big data analytics to address longstanding economic questions and complement existing information sources. Big data produced by online platforms can yield a wealth of diverse, highly granular, multidimensional information with a...

Did the rise in food prices have a long-term impact on agricultural production? Using household-level panel data from seven provinces of Indonesia, this paper finds that the price shock created a forward-looking incentive to invest, which can dynamically enhance productivity in agriculture. It...

This paper aims to estimate the impact of school-based management on students' test scores in the Philippines. Estimation results using double differencing combined with propensity score matching show that school-based management increases the average national achievement test score by 4.2...

This paper examines inequality patterns of school and teacher resources as well as student performance in the Philippines. School and teacher resources, measured by pupil classroom and teacher ratios and per-pupil teacher salary, became more unequal over time. Strikingly, a large portion of the...

This paper uses household panel data from rural Indonesia to examine the impact of road quality on labor supply and wages. First, road projects are found to increase transportation speed. Second, the empirical results from intra-village variations of household endowments and labor market...

This paper uses farm panel data from China to examine the dynamics of land transactions, machine investments, and the demand for machine services. Recently, China's agriculture has experienced a large expansion of machine rentals and machine services provided by specialized agents, which has...

This paper examines the impact of a large supply-side education intervention in the Philippines, the Third Elementary Education Project, on students' national achievement test scores. It finds that the program significantly increased student test scores at grades 4 to 6. The estimation indicates...

This paper examines the long-term impacts of improved school quality at the elementary school stage on subsequent schooling investments and labor market outcomes using unique data from a recent survey that tracked students in the Philippines. The empirical results, which are based on a...

This paper uses farm panel data from Indonesia to examine dynamic patterns of land use, capital investments, and wages in agriculture. The empirical analysis shows that an increase in real wages has induced the substitution of labor by machines among relatively large farmers. Large farmers tend...