DOI: 10.3886/icpsr38556
title: The Effects of Roads on Indigenous People's Well-Being and Use of Natural Resources. A Natural Experiment in Lowland Bolivia, 2010-2013
title: Archival Version

description: This study looks to improve estimates of the effects of the road on the well-being of indigenous peoples and on their use of natural resources. The investigators use a natural experiment based on the construction of a road through a national park inhabited by three native Amazonian groups in Bolivia. The research lasted three years (1/2010-12/2012) and took place in villages in Parque Nacional Isiboro-Secure inhabited by native Amazonians (Tsimane, Yuracare, and Moxenos). The study includes a baseline or pre-intervention study during 2010 (before the road was built) and two annual follow-up surveys (2011 and 2012) immediately after the construction of the road (2011).
The variables in the data indicate measures of well-being and natural resource extraction. The measures of well-being include: (a) village income and status inequality, (b) intra-household disparities, and (c) individual cash income, (d) social capital, and (e) emotions. The measures of use of natural resources include the extraction of natural resources used for sale and for own consumption.
The units of analysis are villages, households, and individuals.
description: This study looks to improve estimates of the effects of the road on the well-being of indigenous peoples and on their use of natural resources. In the proposed research, the investigators use a natural experiment based on the construction of a road through a national park inhabited by three native Amazonian groups in Bolivia. The data collected indicates the expected effects of the road on different levels of socio-cultural organization: ethnic groups, villages, households, and individuals.
 The specific objectives of this study are to (a) test hypotheses from cultural anthropology about the immediate effects of road building on the well-being and use of natural resources of native Amazonians; (b) Offer to other cultural anthropologists the opportunity to add modules of interests to them for measurement by the study research team at baseline and in the two immediate follow up surveys of this research, so third parties can track (at their own cost) their outcomes in the medium and long-run, after this research project ends; (c) Use the research project to train three PhD students in cultural anthropology so they can use project data for their dissertations.
description: The research lasted three years (1/2010-12/2012) and took place in villages in Parque Nacional Isiboro-Secure inhabited by native Amazonians (Tsimane, Yuracare, and Moxenos). The research team included cultural anthropologists and an economist that had been working together in the area since 1999. The study includes a baseline or pre-intervention study during 2010 (before the road was built) and two annual follow-up surveys (2011 and 2012) immediately after the construction of the road (2011).
description: Measures of well-being include: (a) village income and status inequality, (b) intra-household disparities, and (c) individual cash income, (d) social capital, and (e) emotions. Measures of use of natural resources include the extraction of natural resources used for sale and for own consumption.
description: The sample consists of two groups of villagers - treatment and control - which (before the construction of the road) are similar to each other on observed features. The research team began fieldwork by conducting a baseline village-level census and survey among all the Tsimane, Yuracaré, and Moxeños villages in the TIPNIS. Preliminary evidence suggests that there are about 45 villages in the TIPNIS or about 1500 households: five Tsimane villages (~500 people), about 20 Yuracaré villages (~3000 people), and about 20 Moxeño villages (~3000 people).
description: Datasets: 
DS1: README File
description: Indigenous tribes in Lowland Bolivia.
description: face-to-face interview