Mobile phones, women's physical mobility, and contraceptive use in India.

Women's economic and social empowerment is facilitated by their ability to move around independently and safely. However, in many developing countries women's physical mobility is restricted by social norms, structural impediments related to poor quality of roads and transport systems, and security issues. Restrictions on female physical mobility and low levels of empowerment can also have negative implications for women's access to healthcare services. Mobile phones could help connect women to information and social networks and thus also strengthen their bargaining power within the household. Here, we use nationally representative data from 39,523 women in India collected in 2011-12 to analyse associations between women's use of mobile phones and selected indicators of female autonomy and empowerment. Results indicate that women's mobile phone use is positively associated with their physical mobility range and use of non-surgical contraceptives, whereas it is negatively associated with surgical contraceptive methods. We also analyse to what extent these associations are influenced by other socioeconomic and cultural factors. Our findings suggest that mobile phones can play an important positive role for women's empowerment in India.

COVID-19 and distortions in urban food market in India.

In this paper, we study the effects of the spread of COVID-19 on retail and wholesale prices of urban markets in India, as well as price distortion between markets and the mark-up between retail and wholesale prices. Using fixed-effects panel regression models, we find that with the spread of COVID-19, prices increased for commodities with longer shelf-life such as pulses and processed items, while prices of vegetables such as onions and tomatoes declined substantially at the onset of the pandemic. Further, market distortions increased significantly for most commodities. Pulses experienced large price distortions between markets as well as mark-ups between retail and wholesale prices. We, however, do not see any major price distortions in the market for rice and wheat, which are controlled by Government's minimum support prices. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41775-022-00130-3.

Personalized digital extension services and agricultural performance: Evidence from smallholder farmers in India.

Productivity growth in smallholder agriculture is an important driver of rural economic development and poverty reduction. However, smallholder farmers often have limited access to information, which can be a serious constraint for increasing productivity. One potential mechanism to reduce information constraints is the public agricultural extension service, but its effectiveness has often been low in the past. Digital technologies could enhance the effectiveness of extension by reducing outreach costs and helping to better tailor the information to farmers' individual needs and conditions. Using primary data from India, this study analyses the association between digital extension services and smallholder agricultural performance. The digital extension services that some of the farmers use provide personalized information on the types of crops to grow, the types and quantities of inputs to use, and other methods of cultivation. Problems of selection bias in the impact evaluation are reduced through propensity score matching (PSM) combined with estimates of farmers' willingness to pay for digital extension. Results show that use of personalized digital extension services is positively and significantly associated with input intensity, production diversity, crop productivity, and crop income.