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Information and Communication Technologies, Agricultural Profitability, and Child Labor in Rural Peru

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  • Diether W. Beuermann

    (Office of Evaluation and Oversight, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, USA)

Abstract

We estimate the impact of access to information and communication technologies on agricultural profitability and child labor among isolated villages in rural Peru. We exploit an intervention that provided at least one public (satellite) payphone to 6,509 rural villages that did not previously have any kind of communication services (either landlines or cell phones). We show that the timing of the intervention was uncorrelated with baseline outcomes and exploit it using a panel dataset of treated villages. Consistent with theoretical expectations, we find that profitability increased by 19.5 percent. Moreover, this income shock translated into a reduction in the likelihood of child market work of 13.7 percentage points and a reduction in child agricultural work of 9.2 percentage points. Overall, the evidence suggests a dominant income effect in the utilization of child labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Diether W. Beuermann, 2011. "Information and Communication Technologies, Agricultural Profitability, and Child Labor in Rural Peru," OVE Working Papers 0211, Inter-American Development Bank, Office of Evaluation and Oversight (OVE).
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:ovewps:0211
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Q16 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - R&D; Agricultural Technology; Biofuels; Agricultural Extension Services
    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate

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