Essays on information and training in developing countries

• Main Author: Bassi, V.
• Published: University College London (University of London) 2017
• Subjects: 330
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.746596

This PhD thesis focuses on the role of information and training in developing countries. Chapter 1 studies the persuasive impacts of non-informative communication on the short-run beliefs and long-run behavior of individuals. This is done in the context of the Papal visit to Brazil in October 1991, in which persuasive messages related to fertility were salient in Papal speeches. The analysis measures how persuasion shifts short-run beliefs, such as intentions to contracept, and long-term fertility outcomes, such as the timing and total number of births. The last two chapters center around the evaluations of novel large-scale randomized control trials (RCTs) implemented in the Ugandan labor market. Chapter 2 provides experimental evidence on the presence of both credit and labor constraints among a sample of small firms operating in urban Uganda. The RCT evaluated in Chapter 2 is designed to relax specific constraints related to access to skilled and unskilled workers (through matching workers and firms); access to working capital (through wage subsidies); and access to formal credit (through promotion of existing credit programs). Finally, Chapter 3 studies information frictions on the skills of workers during the hiring process in firms, by presenting the results of a matching and signalling intervention between small firms and young workers in the Ugandan labor market.