Saravana Ravindran

Abstract: Much less is known about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the provision of early childhood preschool services relative to research on school closures. We conducted surveys of more than 5000 early childhood service providers and leverage temporal and spatial variation in India’s intensity of lockdowns to quantify disruptions to preschool services under the world’s largest early childhood development program between areas with different strictness of lockdown measures. We document a 23 percentage point reduction in the provision of preschool services in red zone lockdown areas (strictest measures) relative to green zone lockdown areas (least strict measures). We find that pre-COVID measures of high worker locus of control and public service motivation offset the reduction in differential preschool service provision by 27–37%.

Abstract: Behavioral household finance shows that people are often more willing to spend when using less tangible forms of money like debit cards or digital payments than when spending in cash. We show that this "payment effect" cannot be generalized to mobile money. We surveyed families in rural Northwest Bangladesh, where mobile money is mainly received from relatives working in factories. The surveys were embedded within an experiment that allows us to control for the relationships between senders and receivers of mobile money. The finding suggests that the source of funds matters, and mobile money is earmarked for particular purposes and thus less fungible than cash. In contrast to the expectation of greater spending, the willingness to spend in the rural sample was lower by 24 to 31 percent. In urban areas, where the sample does not receive remittances on net, there are no payment effects associated with mobile money.

Abstract: Can governments leverage existing service-delivery platforms to scale early childhood development (ECD) interventions? We experimentally study a large-scale, low-cost home-visiting intervention — providing materials and counseling — integrated into Bangladesh's national nutrition program without extra financial incentives for service providers (SPs). We find SPs partially substitute away from nutritional to ECD counseling. Intent-to-treat estimates show positive impacts on child's cognition (0.17 SD), language (0.23 SD), and socio-emotional scores (0.12-0.14 SD). Wasting and underweight rates decline. Older siblings' primary school attendance increases as well. Improved maternal agency, complementary parental investments, and higher take-up of the pre-existing nutrition program are important mechanisms. We estimate a sizeable internal rate-of-return of 18.9%.

Abstract: Violence against women is a problem worldwide, with economic costs ranging from 1% to 4% of global gross domestic product. During the coronavirus disease 2019 lockdowns, the United Nations coined the term the Shadow Pandemic to describe the increase in global violence against women. Here, using variation in the intensity of government-mandated lockdowns in India, we show that domestic violence complaints increase significantly in districts with the strictest lockdown rules. We find similarly large increases in cybercrime complaints. However, rape and sexual assault complaints decrease in districts with the strictest lockdowns, consistent with decreased female mobility in public spaces, public transport and workplaces where they might be at greater risk for rape and sexual assault. Medium-term analysis shows that increases in domestic violence complaints persist 1 year later, while other complaints related to rape, sexual assault and cybercrimes return to pre-lockdown levels.

Abstract: Mobile banking and related digital financial technologies can make financial services cheaper and more widely accessible in low-income economies, but gender gaps persist. We present evidence from two connected eld experiments in Bangladesh designed to encourage the adoption and use of mobile banking by poor, illiterate households. The study focuses on migrants who live in Dhaka and send money back to their extended families. Despite large differences between female and male migrants in income and education, the first experiment shows that a training program led to similarly large, positive impacts on mobile banking use by female migrants (a 51 percentage point increase) and male migrants (46 percentage point increase), substantially narrowing the gender gap. However, the increases in adoption did not lead to similar patterns in usage: men increased digital remittances by 11 times as much as women. A second experiment tests whether introducing the technology in the context of family networks made an additional difference to gender gaps. The evidence suggests an 11 percentage point increase in adoption by women and just a 1 percentage point increase by men, although statistical power is low for this comparison and estimates are imprecise.

Abstract: Rapid urbanization is reshaping economies and intensifying spatial inequalities. In Bangladesh, we experimentally introduced mobile banking to very poor rural households and family members who had migrated to the city, testing whether mobile technology can reduce inequality by modernizing traditional ways to transfer money. One year later, for active mobile banking users, urban-to-rural remittances increased by 26% of the baseline mean. Rural consumption increased by 7.5% and extreme poverty fell. Rural households borrowed less, saved more, sent additional migrants, and consumed more in the lean season. Urban migrants experienced less poverty and saved more, but bore costs, reporting worse health.

Abstract: The initial spread of COVID-19 halted economic activity as countries around the world restricted the mobility of their citizens. As a result, many migrant workers returned home, spreading the virus across borders. We investigate the relationship between migrant movements and the spread of COVID-19 using district-day-level data from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan (the 1st, 6th, and 7th largest sources of international migrant workers). We find that during the initial stage of the pandemic, a 1 SD increase in prior international out-migration relative to the district-wise average in India and Pakistan predicts a 48% increase in the number of cases per capita. In Bangladesh, however, the estimates are not statistically distinguishable from zero. Domestic out-migration predicts COVID-19 diffusion in India, but not in Bangladesh and Pakistan. In all three countries, the association of COVID-19 cases per capita and measures of international out-migration increases over time. The results show how migration data can be used to predict coronavirus hotspots. More broadly, the results are consistent with large cross-border negative externalities created by policies aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19 in migrant-receiving countries.

Abstract: Using a randomized control trial, this paper studies an at-scale preschool construction program that serves poor communities in rural Mozambique. We show that the program significantly increased preschool enrollment in treated communities by 73 percentage points, from a small base of 2 percent of children enrolled in preschool in control communities. The program also had significant positive effects on enrollment in and progression through primary school, with an increase of 6 percentage points in enrollment in first grade at age 6, and a 0.16 standard deviation impact on an index of cognitive and social-emotional skills measured at primary school-age. The impacts are concentrated among children of less educated parents, in less poor households, and living closer to the preschools. We also find that enrollment in preschool is an important direct mechanism for primary school success. Finally, the program caused parents in treated communities to invest more time in supporting their primary school-aged children and increased preschool enrollment of younger siblings. Our paper shows that even in a context of extreme vulnerability, a preschool construction program can be implemented in a cost-effective way and significantly improve child development for the founding and future generations.

Abstract: This paper presents new evidence on the impact of bank branch expansion and credit access on human capital outcomes for children. Using a regression discontinuity design, we study a branch authorization policy by the Reserve Bank of India that encouraged banks to open branches in underbanked districts, where the population-to-branch ratio exceeded the national average. Bank presence, bank lending, and household borrowing increased. We find significant improvements in test scores: children in underbanked districts scored 0.16–0.22 SD higher on reading and math. We document three mechanisms. First, we find evidence for a demand-side channel where parents spent more on their children’s education and children spent more time on homework. Second, we document supply-side impacts in improvements in the quantity and quality of schools and teachers. Third, we find support for a labor market channel, with shifts away from agricultural employment and towards employment in manufacturing, while self-employed individuals expanded their businesses.

Abstract: Approximately 75% of children aged 2 to 4 worldwide are regularly subjected to violent discipline across the globe. We study the impact of a virtually-delivered intervention on positive parenting practices in Jamaica. We find the intervention improves caregiver knowledge (0.52 SD) and attitudes around violence (0.2 SD) and leads to meaningful changes in caregiver disciplining behaviors, with a 0.12 SD reduction in violence against children. Treatment children also experience fewer emotional problems (0.17 SD). When we return nine months later, we also find reductions in caregiver depression (0.12 SD), anxiety (0.16 SD), and parental stress (0.16 SD) for treatment caregivers. The virtual delivery has important scalable policy implications which could help decrease violence against children across the globe.

Abstract: Policy decisions often depend on evidence generated elsewhere. We take a decision theoretic approach to choosing where to experiment to optimize external validity. We frame external validity through a policy lens, taking a Bayesian approach and developing a prior specification for the joint distribution of site-level treatment effects using a microe- conometric structural model and allowing for other sources of heterogeneity. With data from South Asia, we show that, relative to basing policies on experiments in optimal sites, large efficiency losses result from instead using evidence from randomly-selected sites or, conversely, from sites with the largest expected treatment effects.

Abstract: Climate change-induced salinization (CCIS) has exacerbated the global crisis of safe drinking water, particularly in vulnerable coastal regions of low-income countries. However, the economic repercussions of increased salt intake resulting from CCIS remain under-researched. In this study, using 12 rounds of high-frequency longitudinal data collected from 615 Jute factory workers in Bangladesh, we examine the effects of high salt exposure on worker productivity along both intensive (worker efficiency conditional on showing up for work) and extensive (worker absenteeism due to sickness) margins. Leveraging within-worker variation in temporal water consumption with exogenous seasonal variation in groundwater salinity, we find that high salt intake is associated with a 1.69 percentage-point (pp) reduction in worker efficiency (3%) and a 0.5-day increase (96%) in sickness-related absenteeism among workers older than the median age. Exploiting a natural experiment framework provided by the hotter summer months, this impact intensifies to a 2.59 pp reduction in efficiency (4.3%) and a 0.8-day increase in absenteeism (150%). We document significant heterogeneity by gender and task type: efficiency losses and absenteeism are larger for male workers and those engaged in physically intensive tasks. We identify hypertension as the likely mechanism: above median-age workers exposed to high salt intake are 53% more likely to be hypertensive. Our simple cost estimates indicate that the Jute industry alone in Bangladesh could face a monthly revenue loss of USD 10.4 million due to CCIS, with an associated annual increase of 3.4 million hypertension cases, 123,000 Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), and approximately 5,300 deaths for the representative population. Nevertheless, consistent with medical literature, we observe that blood pressure responses to salt intake are immediate, suggesting that targeted public policy efforts could help mitigate the adverse effects of CCIS.

Abstract: The overall impacts of early childhood programs depend on the indirect impacts that arise due to intra-household reallocation of parental investments. Using historical administrative data from the rollout of the largest early childhood development program in the world, I find that adults exposed to the program when young showed significant improvements in various measures of health, education, and labor market outcomes. Parents reallocated their investments toward children exposed to an increase in program intensity, as evidenced by negative spillovers on siblings. Accounting for the negative spillovers on siblings reduces the internal rate of return of the program by 9%.