Yuma Noritomo
I’m a fourth-year PhD student in development economics at Dyson, Cornell, advised by Chris Barrett, Brian Dillon, Johannes Haushofer, and Karlijn Morsink. I visited development reserach group at PSE and Wageningen.
My research studies challenges to human capital investment that hinder escape from poverty—such as child labor—in low-income, high-risk environments, and evaluates policies to reduce these forms of suffering.
Work in Progress
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Yuma Noritomo, Karlijn Morsink, and Kelvin Shikuku. Trading off human capital versus productive asset investment: perceptions of risk and return.
Funding
Chester O. McCorkle, Jr. Student Scholarship (AAEA), International Research Travel Grants (Einaudi Center), Research Travel Grant (Graduate School, Cornell University)*2, Academic Enrichment Program (Cornell CALS), Graduate Research Funding (The Center for the Study of Inequality)
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Barrett et al. Long-run effects of catastrophic drought insurance [slide] [World Bank blog] Submitted
Abstract
We study the long-run effects of catastrophic drought insurance on pastoralist households in Kenya and Ethiopia. Instrumenting with randomized premium discounts, we estimate the impacts of insurance coverage a decade later. Insurance coverage induced households to herd fewer small livestock like goats, typically used as precautionary savings in the short run, an effect which persisted in the long-run. Insurance also generated a significant long-run increase in children’s education. These effects are driven by households with small baseline herds, reflecting reduced child labor demand. We provide suggestive evidence that these impacts stem from reduced \textit{ex ante} risk exposure and the behavioral change it induces, rather than from \textit{ex post} indemnity payments.
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Yuma Noritomo. Does the timing of productivity shocks in childhood affect educational attainment? [Kanematsu Award, Nishijima Award] Submitted
Abstract
Poor households in developing countries often face trade-offs between children’s schooling and labor. Using data on pastoralist households in rural Kenya and Ethiopia–where livestock require care and generate within-household demand for child labor–I exploit quasi-random variation in rangeland grazing conditions that affects both household income and labor demand to estimate the impact of productivity shocks during childhood on educational attainment. Positive productivity shocks during preschool ages increase completed schooling, primarily by raising the probability of primary school entry, consistent with the relaxation of short-term liquidity constraints. In contrast, negative productivity shocks during primary school ages– when children are most likely to exit school and child labor productivity increases–are associated with higher educational attainment. This effect appears to operate through significant reductions in livestock holdings that lower subsequent demand for boys’ labor in animal husbandry and probably reinforce the effect by inducing sedentarization. These results highlight the importance of non-separable household production and human capital decisions in shaping educational outcomes during critical stages of childhood in low-income settings.
- Yoshito Takasaki, Yuma Noritomo, Oliver Coomes, and Christian Abizaid. Site selection causes bias in policy-oriented social science. Submitted
Publication
- Takuya Hasebe, Yuma Noritomo, and Bilesha Weeraratne. Restricting mothers' international migration and human capital investment. World Development, 2026, Vol. 200, 107284.
- Jensen et al. (2025). Index-based livestock insurance to support pastoralists against droughts. Food Policy, 137, 102909.
- Yuma Noritomo and Kazushi Takahashi (2020). Can insurance payouts prevent a poverty trap? Evidence from randomised experiments in northern Kenya, The Journal of Development Studies, 56(11), 2079-2096.
- Kazushi Takahashi, Yuma Noritomo, Munenobu Ikegami, and Nathaniel D. Jensen (2020). Understanding pastoralists' dynamic insurance uptake decisions: Evidence from four-year panel data in Ethiopia, Food Policy, 95, 101910.