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Mark Rosenzweig (economist)
Arbraxan: New entry Mark Rosenzweig
'''Mark Richard Rosenzweig''' is an [[economist]] and the Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics at [[Yale University]], where he also directs the [[Economic Growth Center]].<ref>[http://ift.tt/2FlwT3Y Profile of Mark Rosenzweig on the website of Yale University. Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref> Rosenzweig belongs to the world's most prominent [[agricultural economics|agricultural]]<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oCABzD Rosenzweig is ranked 1st among the economists listed in the field of agricultural economics on IDEAS/RePEc. Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref> and [[development economics|development economists]]<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t8uRCn Rosenzweig is ranked 11th among the economists listed in the field of development economics on IDEAS/RePEc. Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref> as well as one of the leading scholars on the subjects of [[insurance|the economics of insurance]]<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F60dyW Rosenzweig is ranked 5th among the economists listed in the field of insurance economics on IDEAS/RePEc. Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref> and [[migration]].<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t9JmWn Rosenzweig is ranked 10th among the economists listed in the field of the economics of human migration on IDEAS/RePEc. Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref>
== Biography ==
Mark Rosenzweig earned a [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] from [[Columbia College, Columbia University|Columbia College]] in 1969 as well as an [[Master of Arts|M.A.]] and [[Ph.D.]] from [[Columbia University]] in 1971 and 1973, respectively. Following his graduation, Rosenzweig worked first as an assistant professor (1973-78) and later as an associate professor of economics at [[Yale University]] (1978-79) before moving to the [[University of Minnesota]], where he was made a full professor in 1982 and became co-director of the university's Economic Development Center. In 1990, Rosenzweig moved further as a professor of economics to the [[University of Pennsylvania]] (1990-2001), at whose Population Studies Center he has since then been a research associate and where he became the Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences (2001-02). Thereafter, he briefly held the position of Mohamed Kamal Professor of Public Policy at the [[Kennedy School of Government]] at [[Harvard University]] (2002-05) and serving as director of the [[Center for International Development]] (2004-05). Finally, Rosenzweig returned to [[Yale University]] in 2005 as the Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics and has led Yale's [[Economic Growth Center]] as its director since 2006. Additionally, Rosenzweig has held visiting appointments at [[Princeton University]], the [[University of Chicago]], and [[Standford University]].<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6owwW Curriculum vitae of Mark Rosenzweig from the website of IZA (dated October 2014). Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref>
Mark Rosenzweig maintains affiliations with various institutions, including [[National Bureau of Economic Research|NBER]] and has worked for several national and international agencies, including the [[International Monetary Fund]], [[RAND Corporation]], and the [[National Institutes of Health]]. In terms of professional service, Rosenzweig served in different roles in the [[American Economic Association]], including on its Executive Committee. Moreover, he has performed editorial duties for academic journals such as the ''[[Review of Economics and Statistics]]'', ''[[Journal of Economic Literature]]'', ''[[World Bank Economic Review]]'', ''[[Journal of Development Economics]]'', and, more recently, the ''[[Pakistan Development Review]]'' and ''[[China Economic Review]]''. Finally, Rosenzweig's research has been recognized with distinctions such as the NIH Research Service Award (1976-77), the Award for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship in Population from the [[American Sociological Association|ASA]] (2009), the Yangtze River Scholarship (2014), and fellowships of the [[Econometric Society]] (1994), [[Society of Labor Economists]] (2006), and [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] (2013).<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6owwW Curriculum vitae of Mark Rosenzweig from the website of IZA (dated October 2014). Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref>
== Research ==
Mark Rosenzweig's research interests include [[economic development]], the causes and consequences of economic development, and [[international migration]]. Geographically, his research tends to be concentrated in [[South Asia]] and more recently in [[China]].<ref>[http://ift.tt/2FlwT3Y Profile of Mark Rosenzweig on the website of Yale University. Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref> According to [[IDEAS/RePEc]], he ranks among the most cited 1% of economists.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t9Jntp Rosenzweig ranked 114th among 52,073 economists listed on IDEAS/RePEc in March 2018. Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref> Moreover, he is one of the current co-editors of the ''Handbook of Development Economics''<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oyfQ8k Rosenzweig, M.R., Rodrik, D. (eds.) (2010). ''Handbook of Development Economics'', vol. 5. Amsterdam: Elsevier.]</ref> (with [[Dani Rodrik]]) as well as the creator of the ''Handbook of Population and Family Economics'' (with [[Oded Stark]]),<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t9Joxt Rosenzweig, M.R., Stark, O. (eds.) (1997). ''Handbook of Population and Family Economics''. Amsterdam: Elsevier]</ref> both of which serve as references for researchers in their respective fields. Much of Rosenzweig's research exploits [[natural experiment]]s such as [[twin study|twin studies]]; nonetheless, Rosenzweig has criticized the literature of natural experiments for often not making explicit the set of behavioral, market and technological assumptions necessary to justify the studies' interpretations of estimates, resulting in findings that are sometimes highly sensitive to relaxing some of these assumptions.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6DkvC Wolpin, K.I., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2000). Natural "Natural Experiments" in Economics. ''Journal of Economic Literature'', 38(4), pp. 827-874.]</ref>
=== The fertility decisions of rural households===
Since the mid-1970s, much of Rosenzweig's research has focused on [[family economics]], including [[fertility]] and intra-household decisions. For example, research conducted by Rosenzweig and Robert Evenson underlines the importance of the economic contributions of children to households for households in rural [[India]]: in particular, they find fertility and [[child labour]] to increase in the financial returns to child labour and to decrease in the wage rates of adult women.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GYDnpJ Rosenzweig, M.R., Evenson, R.E. (1977). Fertility, Schooling, and the Economic Contribution of Children in Rural India: An Econometric Analysis. ''Econometrica'', 45(5), pp. 1065-79.]</ref> In further work with [[Kenneth Wolpin]], Rosenzweig studies how female labour supply over the life-cycle is affected by their fertility; using twins in women's first pregnancies as an unanticipated and thus exogenous variation in fertility, they find that the ratio of births to pregnancies has no effect on women's lifetime labour supply.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F5cxzL Rosenzweig, M.R., Wolpin, K.I. (1980). Life-Cycle Labor Supply and Fertility: Causal Inferences from Household Models. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 88(2), pp. 328-348.]</ref> In a similar vein, Rosenzweig and Wolpin demonstrate how twins can be used to test the hypothesis of a tradeoff between fertility and the "quality" of a household's offspring.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GVW3WS Rosenzweig, M.R., Wolpin, K.I. (1980). Testing the Quantity-Quality Fertility Model: The Use of Twins as a Natural Experiment. ''Econometrica'', 48(1), pp. 227-240.]</ref>
=== The economics of intrahousehold resource allocation and child health ===
In a body of research closely related to his study of (poor) households' fertility decisions, Rosenzweig has analysed the allocation of resources within households and that allocation's consequences. Together with [[T. Paul Schultz]], Rosenzweig examines how the allocation of resources within families responds to changes in economic conditions as well as to differences in children's genetic endowments by estimating the determinants of variations in the differentials between the survival rates of male and female children in rural India. In particular, they find that female children receive a larger share of household resources relative to male children the higher women's expected labour market participation and earnings prospects.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6DmDK Rosenzweig, M.R., Schultz, T.P. (1982). Market Opportunities, Genetic Endowments, and Intrafamily Resource Distribution: Child Survival in Rural India. ''American Economic Review'', 72(4), pp. 803-815.]</ref> In another study with Schultz, Rosenzweig documents how households' demand for medical care, smoking or fertility are determined by individual heterogeneity, and thereby ultimately significantly affect fetal growth and birth weight.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GUp5Gy Rosenzweig, M.R., Schultz, T.P. (1983). Estimating a Household Production Function: Heterogeneity, the Demand for Health Inputs, and Their Effects on Birth Weight. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 91(5), pp. 723-746.]</ref> By contrast, Rosenzweig, Mark Pitt and Mohammed Hassan investigate the impact of the inequality in the distribution of food within [[Bangladesh]]i households on household members' productivity and health; they find that both the higher level and greater variance in male calorie consumption can partly be explained by men's engagement in activities wherein productivity depends more on health status than this is generally the case for women. Finally, in a study with [[Jere Behrman]], Rosenzweig offers evidence that returns in terms of adult schooling attainment (and partly also in terms of higher earnings) to increasing birthweight are high, being underestimated by up to 50% if genetics and family background aren't controlled for. However, they also find that differences in birthweights don't play a large role in determining the world distribution of income.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oyfSgs Behrman, J.R., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2004). Returns to Birthweight. ''Review of Economics and Statistics'', 86(2), pp. 586-601.]</ref>
=== Risk coping mechanisms of rural households ===
In the late 1980s, Rosenzweig's research also came to address the question how rural households cope with risk. Therein, Rosenzweig highlights the role of household structure in mitigating income volatility risks in rural areas with underdeveloped formal credit markets through implicit contracts and how this ability of households to mitigate risk ex post in turn affects households' willingness to bear ante through its selection of formal tenancy contracts.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t8mTt1 Rosenzweig, M.R. (1988). Risk, Implicit Contracts and the Family in Rural Areas of Low-income Countries. ''Economic Journal'', 98(393), pp. 1148-1170.]</ref> Another risk coping mechanism prevalent in underdeveloped rural areas that has been studied by Rosenzweig is nuptial migration, wherein families marry their daughters to dispersed, yet kinship-related households in order to create and strengthen a network of implicit interhousehold contractual arrangements that enables them to diversify income risks.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F7HTpd Rosenzweig, M.R. (1989). Consumption Smoothing, Migration, and Marriage: Evidence from Rural India. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 97(4), pp. 905-926.]</ref> A non-social mechanism to smoothe consumption in rural India that Rosenzweig and Wolpin find are [[bullock]]s, which present the advantage of also being usable as (durable) production assets but for which there isn't a permanently liquid market.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2tcR9mA Rosenzweig, M.R., Wolpin, K.I. (1993). Credit Market Constraints, Consumption Smoothing, and the Accumulation of Durable Production Assets in Low-Income Countries: Investment in Bullocks in India. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 101(2), pp. 223-244.]</ref> Finally and more recently, Rosenzweig and Andrew D. Foster examine income transfers within families among altruistic and selfish agents under imperfect commitment using South Asian data and find that imperfect commitment substantially constrains informal transfer arrangments among both kin and unrelated individuals, which confers an important role to altruism in terms of ameliorating commitment constraints and thus facilitating risk sharing.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6Dovm Foster, A.D., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2001). Imperfect Commitment, Altruism, And The Family: Evidence From Transfer Behavior In Low-Income Rural Areas. ''Review of Economics and Statistics'', 83(3), pp. 389-407.]</ref>
=== Human capital decisions of households ===
Another strand of Rosenzweig's research deals with households' decision how much to invest in whose [[human capital]]. Using twin experiments, Rosenzweig, [[Jere Behrman]] and [[Paul Taubman]] find that 27% of the variance in income and 42% of the variance in obesity between individuals in the [[United States]] can be explained by individuals' unique endowments. The effect of these individual endowments are further reinforced through schooling, though somewhat diluted as men with high individual endowments tend to marry less educated wives.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t9dXDz Behrman, J.R., Rosenzweig, M.R., Taubman, P. (1994). Endowments and the Allocation of Schooling in the Family and in the Marriage Market: The Twins Experiment. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 102(6), pp. 1131-1174.]</ref> In another study using twins, Behrman and Rosenzweig find that increasing the schooling of women doesn't increase the schooling of their children once heritable ability and assortative matching are taken into account, and instead reduces the time mothers spent at home.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6Dp2o Behrman, J.R., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2002). Does Increasing Women's Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation? ''American Economic Review'', 92(1), pp. 323-334.]</ref> In research with [[Kaivan Munshi]] on the interactions between caste, gender and schooling choice under the influence of [[globalization]] in [[Mumbai]], Rosenzweig finds that male working-class and lower-caste networks keep channelling boys into local language schools, which lead to traditional occupations with comparatively low wages; by contrast, lower caste girls, who didn't and don't benefit from the network, have switched to a much higher degree to English schools and are taking advantage of the thus broadened labour market opportunities.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GV4oKw Munshi, K., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2006). Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World: Caste, Gender, and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy. ''American Economic Review'', 96(4), pp. 1225-1252.]</ref> Finally, in a study with Junsen Zhang, Rosenzweig uses twins to investigate whether China's [[one-child policy]] increased parents' investments into human capital. Even though they find that an unexpected child significantly decreases the schooling progress, expected college enrollment, school grades and assessed health of all children in the household, the decrease isn't large enough to warrant the conclusion that the contribution of the one-child policy to the development of China's capital was substantial.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6Dq6s Rosenzweig, M.R., Zhang, J. (2009). Do Population Control Policies Induce More Human Capital Investment? Twins, Birth Weight and China's "One-Child" Policy. ''Review of Economic Studies'', 76(3), pp. 1149-1174.]</ref>
=== Agricultural investments and technological change in agriculture ===
Another major body of research by Rosenzweig has been the study of agricultural investments (generally with [[Hans Binswanger]]) and of the diffusion of technology in agriculture (mostly with Andrew D. Foster). With Binswanger, Rosenzweig has developed an influential model of agricultural production and its behavioural and material determinants that facilitates the analysis of barriers to the emergence of rural financial markets and efficient agricultural factor markets, along further implications.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t81j7L Binswanger, H.P., Rosenzweig, M.R. (1986). Behavioural and material determinants of production relations in agriculture. ''Journal of Development Studies'', 22(3), pp. 503-539.]</ref> In another study, Rosenzweig and Binswanger describe how agricultural output is developed in a "complex interactive process" between farmers, government and financial intermediaries. The availability of education infrastructure and rural banks are strong determinants of agricultural investment and agricultural output's responsiveness to prices, with public infrastructure investments in turn being determined by agroclimatic potential and bank locations being influenced by public infrastructure investments.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oyfUoA Binswanger, H.P., Khandker, S.R., Rosenzweig, M.R. (1993). How infrastructure and financial institutions affect agricultural output and investment in India. ''Journal of Development Economics'', 41(2), pp. 337-366.]</ref> Finally, Rosenzweig and Binswanger document how farmers adapt the composition of their agricultural investments in response to the exposure of the profitability of their agricultural activities to weather risk.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GW2dGw Rosenzweig, M.R., Binswanger, H.P. (1993). Wealth, Weather Risk and the Composition and Profitability of Agricultural Investments. ''Economic Journal'', 103(416), pp. 56-78.]</ref>
In his work on technical change in agriculture, Rosenzweig and Foster analyse the adoption and profitability of [[high-yielding variety|high-yielding varieties]] (HYVs) in rural India during the [[Green Revolution]]; they find that farmers' lack of knowledge of how to manage the seeds was initially a major barrier to thier adoption but gradually diminished over time as farmers' own experience as well as the experience of their fellow farmers with HYVs increased the profitability of HYVs through mutual learning; had farmers taken these learning spillovers into account in their decisions to adopt HYVs, the process of HYV diffusion would have been faster.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oC2p75 Foster, A.D., Rosenzweig, M.R. (1995). Learning by Doing and Learning from Others: Human Capital and Technical Change in Agriculture. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 103(6), pp. 1176-1209.]</ref> In another study in rural India, Foster and Rosenzweig later assess how technological change during the Green Revolution affected returns to human capitals and investments; they find that the returns to (primary) schooling increased along with technical change and that the increases in these returns then induced households to invest more into schooling and fostered the availability of schools, which in turn increased the population's level of schooling.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t9dYY9 Foster, A.D., Rosenzweig, M.R. (1996). Technical Change and Human-Capital Returns and Investments: Evidence from the Green Revolution. ''American Economic Review'', 86(4), pp. 931-953.]</ref> Reviewing the literature on the [[microeconomics]] of technological diffusion with a focus on developing countries, Foster and Rosenzweig identify the financial and nonfinancial returns to the adoption of technologies, one's own learning and social learning about technology use, [[externality|technological externalities]], [[economies of scale]], schooling, credit constraints, risk and incomplete insurance, and "irrational" behaviour as factors affecting economic agents' adoption of new technologies and/or inputs complementary with such new technologies.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oyfVJa Foster, A.D., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2010). Microeconomics of Technology Adoption. ''Annual Review of Economics'', 2(1), pp. 395-424.]</ref>
== References ==
== External links ==
[http://ift.tt/2FlwT3Y Profile of Rosenzweig on the website of Yale University]
[[Category:20th-century economists]]
[[Category:21st-century economists]]
[[Category:Development economists]]
[[Category:Agricultural economists]]
[[Category:Columbia University alumni]]
[[Category:Yale University faculty]]
== Biography ==
Mark Rosenzweig earned a [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] from [[Columbia College, Columbia University|Columbia College]] in 1969 as well as an [[Master of Arts|M.A.]] and [[Ph.D.]] from [[Columbia University]] in 1971 and 1973, respectively. Following his graduation, Rosenzweig worked first as an assistant professor (1973-78) and later as an associate professor of economics at [[Yale University]] (1978-79) before moving to the [[University of Minnesota]], where he was made a full professor in 1982 and became co-director of the university's Economic Development Center. In 1990, Rosenzweig moved further as a professor of economics to the [[University of Pennsylvania]] (1990-2001), at whose Population Studies Center he has since then been a research associate and where he became the Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Social Sciences (2001-02). Thereafter, he briefly held the position of Mohamed Kamal Professor of Public Policy at the [[Kennedy School of Government]] at [[Harvard University]] (2002-05) and serving as director of the [[Center for International Development]] (2004-05). Finally, Rosenzweig returned to [[Yale University]] in 2005 as the Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics and has led Yale's [[Economic Growth Center]] as its director since 2006. Additionally, Rosenzweig has held visiting appointments at [[Princeton University]], the [[University of Chicago]], and [[Standford University]].<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6owwW Curriculum vitae of Mark Rosenzweig from the website of IZA (dated October 2014). Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref>
Mark Rosenzweig maintains affiliations with various institutions, including [[National Bureau of Economic Research|NBER]] and has worked for several national and international agencies, including the [[International Monetary Fund]], [[RAND Corporation]], and the [[National Institutes of Health]]. In terms of professional service, Rosenzweig served in different roles in the [[American Economic Association]], including on its Executive Committee. Moreover, he has performed editorial duties for academic journals such as the ''[[Review of Economics and Statistics]]'', ''[[Journal of Economic Literature]]'', ''[[World Bank Economic Review]]'', ''[[Journal of Development Economics]]'', and, more recently, the ''[[Pakistan Development Review]]'' and ''[[China Economic Review]]''. Finally, Rosenzweig's research has been recognized with distinctions such as the NIH Research Service Award (1976-77), the Award for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship in Population from the [[American Sociological Association|ASA]] (2009), the Yangtze River Scholarship (2014), and fellowships of the [[Econometric Society]] (1994), [[Society of Labor Economists]] (2006), and [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] (2013).<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6owwW Curriculum vitae of Mark Rosenzweig from the website of IZA (dated October 2014). Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref>
== Research ==
Mark Rosenzweig's research interests include [[economic development]], the causes and consequences of economic development, and [[international migration]]. Geographically, his research tends to be concentrated in [[South Asia]] and more recently in [[China]].<ref>[http://ift.tt/2FlwT3Y Profile of Mark Rosenzweig on the website of Yale University. Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref> According to [[IDEAS/RePEc]], he ranks among the most cited 1% of economists.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t9Jntp Rosenzweig ranked 114th among 52,073 economists listed on IDEAS/RePEc in March 2018. Retrieved March 1st, 2018.]</ref> Moreover, he is one of the current co-editors of the ''Handbook of Development Economics''<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oyfQ8k Rosenzweig, M.R., Rodrik, D. (eds.) (2010). ''Handbook of Development Economics'', vol. 5. Amsterdam: Elsevier.]</ref> (with [[Dani Rodrik]]) as well as the creator of the ''Handbook of Population and Family Economics'' (with [[Oded Stark]]),<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t9Joxt Rosenzweig, M.R., Stark, O. (eds.) (1997). ''Handbook of Population and Family Economics''. Amsterdam: Elsevier]</ref> both of which serve as references for researchers in their respective fields. Much of Rosenzweig's research exploits [[natural experiment]]s such as [[twin study|twin studies]]; nonetheless, Rosenzweig has criticized the literature of natural experiments for often not making explicit the set of behavioral, market and technological assumptions necessary to justify the studies' interpretations of estimates, resulting in findings that are sometimes highly sensitive to relaxing some of these assumptions.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6DkvC Wolpin, K.I., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2000). Natural "Natural Experiments" in Economics. ''Journal of Economic Literature'', 38(4), pp. 827-874.]</ref>
=== The fertility decisions of rural households===
Since the mid-1970s, much of Rosenzweig's research has focused on [[family economics]], including [[fertility]] and intra-household decisions. For example, research conducted by Rosenzweig and Robert Evenson underlines the importance of the economic contributions of children to households for households in rural [[India]]: in particular, they find fertility and [[child labour]] to increase in the financial returns to child labour and to decrease in the wage rates of adult women.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GYDnpJ Rosenzweig, M.R., Evenson, R.E. (1977). Fertility, Schooling, and the Economic Contribution of Children in Rural India: An Econometric Analysis. ''Econometrica'', 45(5), pp. 1065-79.]</ref> In further work with [[Kenneth Wolpin]], Rosenzweig studies how female labour supply over the life-cycle is affected by their fertility; using twins in women's first pregnancies as an unanticipated and thus exogenous variation in fertility, they find that the ratio of births to pregnancies has no effect on women's lifetime labour supply.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F5cxzL Rosenzweig, M.R., Wolpin, K.I. (1980). Life-Cycle Labor Supply and Fertility: Causal Inferences from Household Models. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 88(2), pp. 328-348.]</ref> In a similar vein, Rosenzweig and Wolpin demonstrate how twins can be used to test the hypothesis of a tradeoff between fertility and the "quality" of a household's offspring.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GVW3WS Rosenzweig, M.R., Wolpin, K.I. (1980). Testing the Quantity-Quality Fertility Model: The Use of Twins as a Natural Experiment. ''Econometrica'', 48(1), pp. 227-240.]</ref>
=== The economics of intrahousehold resource allocation and child health ===
In a body of research closely related to his study of (poor) households' fertility decisions, Rosenzweig has analysed the allocation of resources within households and that allocation's consequences. Together with [[T. Paul Schultz]], Rosenzweig examines how the allocation of resources within families responds to changes in economic conditions as well as to differences in children's genetic endowments by estimating the determinants of variations in the differentials between the survival rates of male and female children in rural India. In particular, they find that female children receive a larger share of household resources relative to male children the higher women's expected labour market participation and earnings prospects.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6DmDK Rosenzweig, M.R., Schultz, T.P. (1982). Market Opportunities, Genetic Endowments, and Intrafamily Resource Distribution: Child Survival in Rural India. ''American Economic Review'', 72(4), pp. 803-815.]</ref> In another study with Schultz, Rosenzweig documents how households' demand for medical care, smoking or fertility are determined by individual heterogeneity, and thereby ultimately significantly affect fetal growth and birth weight.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GUp5Gy Rosenzweig, M.R., Schultz, T.P. (1983). Estimating a Household Production Function: Heterogeneity, the Demand for Health Inputs, and Their Effects on Birth Weight. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 91(5), pp. 723-746.]</ref> By contrast, Rosenzweig, Mark Pitt and Mohammed Hassan investigate the impact of the inequality in the distribution of food within [[Bangladesh]]i households on household members' productivity and health; they find that both the higher level and greater variance in male calorie consumption can partly be explained by men's engagement in activities wherein productivity depends more on health status than this is generally the case for women. Finally, in a study with [[Jere Behrman]], Rosenzweig offers evidence that returns in terms of adult schooling attainment (and partly also in terms of higher earnings) to increasing birthweight are high, being underestimated by up to 50% if genetics and family background aren't controlled for. However, they also find that differences in birthweights don't play a large role in determining the world distribution of income.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oyfSgs Behrman, J.R., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2004). Returns to Birthweight. ''Review of Economics and Statistics'', 86(2), pp. 586-601.]</ref>
=== Risk coping mechanisms of rural households ===
In the late 1980s, Rosenzweig's research also came to address the question how rural households cope with risk. Therein, Rosenzweig highlights the role of household structure in mitigating income volatility risks in rural areas with underdeveloped formal credit markets through implicit contracts and how this ability of households to mitigate risk ex post in turn affects households' willingness to bear ante through its selection of formal tenancy contracts.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t8mTt1 Rosenzweig, M.R. (1988). Risk, Implicit Contracts and the Family in Rural Areas of Low-income Countries. ''Economic Journal'', 98(393), pp. 1148-1170.]</ref> Another risk coping mechanism prevalent in underdeveloped rural areas that has been studied by Rosenzweig is nuptial migration, wherein families marry their daughters to dispersed, yet kinship-related households in order to create and strengthen a network of implicit interhousehold contractual arrangements that enables them to diversify income risks.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F7HTpd Rosenzweig, M.R. (1989). Consumption Smoothing, Migration, and Marriage: Evidence from Rural India. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 97(4), pp. 905-926.]</ref> A non-social mechanism to smoothe consumption in rural India that Rosenzweig and Wolpin find are [[bullock]]s, which present the advantage of also being usable as (durable) production assets but for which there isn't a permanently liquid market.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2tcR9mA Rosenzweig, M.R., Wolpin, K.I. (1993). Credit Market Constraints, Consumption Smoothing, and the Accumulation of Durable Production Assets in Low-Income Countries: Investment in Bullocks in India. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 101(2), pp. 223-244.]</ref> Finally and more recently, Rosenzweig and Andrew D. Foster examine income transfers within families among altruistic and selfish agents under imperfect commitment using South Asian data and find that imperfect commitment substantially constrains informal transfer arrangments among both kin and unrelated individuals, which confers an important role to altruism in terms of ameliorating commitment constraints and thus facilitating risk sharing.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6Dovm Foster, A.D., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2001). Imperfect Commitment, Altruism, And The Family: Evidence From Transfer Behavior In Low-Income Rural Areas. ''Review of Economics and Statistics'', 83(3), pp. 389-407.]</ref>
=== Human capital decisions of households ===
Another strand of Rosenzweig's research deals with households' decision how much to invest in whose [[human capital]]. Using twin experiments, Rosenzweig, [[Jere Behrman]] and [[Paul Taubman]] find that 27% of the variance in income and 42% of the variance in obesity between individuals in the [[United States]] can be explained by individuals' unique endowments. The effect of these individual endowments are further reinforced through schooling, though somewhat diluted as men with high individual endowments tend to marry less educated wives.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t9dXDz Behrman, J.R., Rosenzweig, M.R., Taubman, P. (1994). Endowments and the Allocation of Schooling in the Family and in the Marriage Market: The Twins Experiment. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 102(6), pp. 1131-1174.]</ref> In another study using twins, Behrman and Rosenzweig find that increasing the schooling of women doesn't increase the schooling of their children once heritable ability and assortative matching are taken into account, and instead reduces the time mothers spent at home.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6Dp2o Behrman, J.R., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2002). Does Increasing Women's Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation? ''American Economic Review'', 92(1), pp. 323-334.]</ref> In research with [[Kaivan Munshi]] on the interactions between caste, gender and schooling choice under the influence of [[globalization]] in [[Mumbai]], Rosenzweig finds that male working-class and lower-caste networks keep channelling boys into local language schools, which lead to traditional occupations with comparatively low wages; by contrast, lower caste girls, who didn't and don't benefit from the network, have switched to a much higher degree to English schools and are taking advantage of the thus broadened labour market opportunities.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GV4oKw Munshi, K., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2006). Traditional Institutions Meet the Modern World: Caste, Gender, and Schooling Choice in a Globalizing Economy. ''American Economic Review'', 96(4), pp. 1225-1252.]</ref> Finally, in a study with Junsen Zhang, Rosenzweig uses twins to investigate whether China's [[one-child policy]] increased parents' investments into human capital. Even though they find that an unexpected child significantly decreases the schooling progress, expected college enrollment, school grades and assessed health of all children in the household, the decrease isn't large enough to warrant the conclusion that the contribution of the one-child policy to the development of China's capital was substantial.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2F6Dq6s Rosenzweig, M.R., Zhang, J. (2009). Do Population Control Policies Induce More Human Capital Investment? Twins, Birth Weight and China's "One-Child" Policy. ''Review of Economic Studies'', 76(3), pp. 1149-1174.]</ref>
=== Agricultural investments and technological change in agriculture ===
Another major body of research by Rosenzweig has been the study of agricultural investments (generally with [[Hans Binswanger]]) and of the diffusion of technology in agriculture (mostly with Andrew D. Foster). With Binswanger, Rosenzweig has developed an influential model of agricultural production and its behavioural and material determinants that facilitates the analysis of barriers to the emergence of rural financial markets and efficient agricultural factor markets, along further implications.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t81j7L Binswanger, H.P., Rosenzweig, M.R. (1986). Behavioural and material determinants of production relations in agriculture. ''Journal of Development Studies'', 22(3), pp. 503-539.]</ref> In another study, Rosenzweig and Binswanger describe how agricultural output is developed in a "complex interactive process" between farmers, government and financial intermediaries. The availability of education infrastructure and rural banks are strong determinants of agricultural investment and agricultural output's responsiveness to prices, with public infrastructure investments in turn being determined by agroclimatic potential and bank locations being influenced by public infrastructure investments.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oyfUoA Binswanger, H.P., Khandker, S.R., Rosenzweig, M.R. (1993). How infrastructure and financial institutions affect agricultural output and investment in India. ''Journal of Development Economics'', 41(2), pp. 337-366.]</ref> Finally, Rosenzweig and Binswanger document how farmers adapt the composition of their agricultural investments in response to the exposure of the profitability of their agricultural activities to weather risk.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2GW2dGw Rosenzweig, M.R., Binswanger, H.P. (1993). Wealth, Weather Risk and the Composition and Profitability of Agricultural Investments. ''Economic Journal'', 103(416), pp. 56-78.]</ref>
In his work on technical change in agriculture, Rosenzweig and Foster analyse the adoption and profitability of [[high-yielding variety|high-yielding varieties]] (HYVs) in rural India during the [[Green Revolution]]; they find that farmers' lack of knowledge of how to manage the seeds was initially a major barrier to thier adoption but gradually diminished over time as farmers' own experience as well as the experience of their fellow farmers with HYVs increased the profitability of HYVs through mutual learning; had farmers taken these learning spillovers into account in their decisions to adopt HYVs, the process of HYV diffusion would have been faster.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oC2p75 Foster, A.D., Rosenzweig, M.R. (1995). Learning by Doing and Learning from Others: Human Capital and Technical Change in Agriculture. ''Journal of Political Economy'', 103(6), pp. 1176-1209.]</ref> In another study in rural India, Foster and Rosenzweig later assess how technological change during the Green Revolution affected returns to human capitals and investments; they find that the returns to (primary) schooling increased along with technical change and that the increases in these returns then induced households to invest more into schooling and fostered the availability of schools, which in turn increased the population's level of schooling.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2t9dYY9 Foster, A.D., Rosenzweig, M.R. (1996). Technical Change and Human-Capital Returns and Investments: Evidence from the Green Revolution. ''American Economic Review'', 86(4), pp. 931-953.]</ref> Reviewing the literature on the [[microeconomics]] of technological diffusion with a focus on developing countries, Foster and Rosenzweig identify the financial and nonfinancial returns to the adoption of technologies, one's own learning and social learning about technology use, [[externality|technological externalities]], [[economies of scale]], schooling, credit constraints, risk and incomplete insurance, and "irrational" behaviour as factors affecting economic agents' adoption of new technologies and/or inputs complementary with such new technologies.<ref>[http://ift.tt/2oyfVJa Foster, A.D., Rosenzweig, M.R. (2010). Microeconomics of Technology Adoption. ''Annual Review of Economics'', 2(1), pp. 395-424.]</ref>
== References ==
== External links ==
[http://ift.tt/2FlwT3Y Profile of Rosenzweig on the website of Yale University]
[[Category:20th-century economists]]
[[Category:21st-century economists]]
[[Category:Development economists]]
[[Category:Agricultural economists]]
[[Category:Columbia University alumni]]
[[Category:Yale University faculty]]
March 02, 2018 at 11:07AM
