Person: Topalova, Petia
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Topalova
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Petia
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Topalova, Petia
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Publication Barriers to Household Risk Management: Evidence from India(American Economic Association, 2013) Cole, Shawn; Gine, Xavier; Tobacman, Jeremy; Topalova, Petia; Townsend, Robert; Vickery, JamesWhy do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product. Demand is significantly price sensitive, but widespread take-up would not be achieved even if the product offered a payout ratio comparable to U.S. insurance contracts. We present evidence suggesting that lack of trust, liquidity constraints, and limited salience are significant non-price frictions that constrain demand. We suggest contract design improvements to mitigate these frictions.Publication Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce Bias?(Center for International Development at Harvard University, 2008-07) Beaman, Lori; Chattopadhyay, Raghabendra; Duflo, Esther; Pande, Rohini; Topalova, PetiaWe exploit random assignment of gender quotas across Indian village councils to investigate whether having a female chief councillor affects public opinion towards female leaders. Villagers who have never been required to have a female leader prefer male leaders and perceive hypothetical female leaders as less effective than their male counterparts, when stated performance is identical. Exposure to a female leader does not alter villagers' taste preference for male leaders. However, it weakens stereotypes about gender roles in the public and domestic spheres and eliminates the negative bias in how female leaders' effectiveness is perceived among male villagers. Female villagers exhibit less prior bias, but are also less likely to know about or participate in local politics; as a result, their attitudes are largely unaffected. Consistent with our experimental findings, villagers rate their women leaders as less effective when exposed to them for the first, but not second, time. These changes in attitude are electorally meaningful: after 10 years of the quota policy, women are more likely to stand for and win free seats in villages that have been continuously required to have a female chief councillor.