Does Africa Need a Rotten Kin Theorem? Experimental Evidence From Village Economies 2009

Kenya, 2009

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Reference ID

KEN_2009_RKT_v01_M

Producer(s)

Pamela Jakiela, Owen Ozier

Metadata

Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON

Created on

Aug 24, 2016

Last modified

Aug 24, 2016

Page views

16839

Downloads

1928

Identification

Survey ID number

KEN_2009_RKT_v01_M

Title

Does Africa Need a Rotten Kin Theorem? Experimental Evidence From Village Economies 2009

Country/Economy

Name	Country code
Kenya	KEN

Study type

Other Household Survey

Abstract

The survey data accompanies the paper, "Does Africa Need a Rotten Kin Theorem? Experimental Evidence From Village Economies," published in the Review of Economic Studies, (2016) 83 (1): 231-268. The paper measures the economic impacts of social pressures to share income with relatives and neighbors in rural African villages within a controlled laboratory environment. The researchers conduct a lab experiment in which they randomly vary the observability of positive income shocks resulting from risky investments. In some treatments, they allow participants to pay a price to avoid announcing anything about their income in the game. They vary the price offered to participants, and find that 28 percent of participants choose to pay to avoid the announcement, at a price that is on average 16 percent of their gross earnings in the game. Further, the researchers find that 10 percent of women forced to announce a portion of their income shock adopt an investment strategy that conceals the size of their initial endowment in the experiment, though that strategy reduces their expected earnings. Both findings are suggestive of the economic drag that social pressures may create on investment in SubSaharan Africa.

Kind of Data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Unit of Analysis

Individuals
Households
Villages

Coverage

Geographic Coverage

Experiments were conducted in 26 rural, predominantly agricultural communities in western Kenya.

Geographic Unit

Village

Universe

Rural, predominantly agricultural communities in western Kenya.
Respondents ranged in age from 18 to 85. In terms of educational attainment,10 percent of subjects had no formal schooling, while 11.6 percent had finished secondary school

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators

Name	Affiliation
Pamela Jakiela	University of Maryland
Owen Ozier	World Bank DECRG

Funding Agency/Sponsor

Name	Role
Weidenbaum Center	Funding
Center for Research in Economics and Strategy (Washington University - St Louis)	Funding

Other Identifications/Acknowledgments

Name	Role
Felipe Dizon	Research Assistance
IPA-Kenya	Fieldwork

Sampling

Sampling Procedure

Before beginning subject recruitment, research assistants met with community leaders - head teachers and local headmen - in selected villages to introduce the project. Villages were selected to be at least five kilometers apart from one another, to prevent overlap in subject populations. One day prior to each experimental session, the survey team conducted a door-to-door recruitment campaign, visiting as many households within the village as possible. All households within each village were invited to send members to participate in the experimental economic game session the following day.

Response Rate

80.1 percent of individuals surveyed prior to the sessions chose to participate.

Data collection

Dates of Data Collection

Start	End
2009-08-03	2009-10-01

Depositor information

Depositor

Name	Affiliation
Development Research Group	The World Bank

Data Access

Citation requirements

Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:

the Identification of the Primary Investigator
the title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
the survey reference number
the source and date of download

Example:

Jakiela, Pamela and Owen Ozier. 2009. Does Africa Need a Rotten Kin Theorem? Experimental Evidence from Village Economies Review of Economic Studies (2016) 83 (1): 231-268. Ref. KEN_2009_RKT_v01_M. Dataset downloaded from [url] on [date]

Contacts

Name	Affiliation	Email
Owen Ozier	World Bank DECRG	oozier@worldbank.org

Metadata production

DDI Document ID

DDI_KEN_2009_RKT_v01_M_WB

Producers

Name	Affiliation	Role
Development Economics Data Group	The World Bank	Documentation of the DDI

Date of Metadata Production

2016-08-23

Metadata version

DDI Document version

Version 01 (August 2016)

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