This is a recurring event: View all events in the series “Research Seminar in Economics”
The Research Seminar in Economics is a platform for invited speakers to present their current research, thereby facilitating the exchange between speakers and faculty members of the City University of London.
It covers empirical as well as theoretical contributions across all fields of economics. The Research Seminar in Economics is usually held weekly during the academic term.
This event is open to Department of Economics faculty and postgraduate students. Please contact doruk.cetemen@city.ac.uk or nicolas.Navarrete-Hernandez@city.ac.uk for any enquiries.
Speaker
Professor Wendy Janssens (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
Abstract
Women may face systematically greater benefits than men from adopting certain technologies, for example some health-improving technologies. Yet women often hold lower bargaining power, such that men’s preferences may constrain household adoption in households containing men.
Introducing a version of the technology that is less effective, but has lower perceived costs or higher perceived benefits to men, may increase adoption and household welfare compared to no adoption at all.
This paper contributes the first explicit model and test of the trade-offs when introducing such an intermediate technology. We conduct a field experiment introducing female condoms – which are less effective than male condoms, but perceived by men as more pleasurable and less stigmatising – in an area with high HIV prevalence.
We find strongest adoption of female condoms among women with lower bargaining power, who were previously having unprotected sex. We also observe an increase in the likelihood that women have sex.
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