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on Development |
| By: | Amorim, Guilherme; Britto, Diogo; Fonseca, Alexandre; Sampaio, Breno |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of job loss and unemployment insurance (UI) on health among Brazilian workers. We construct a novel dataset linking individual-level administrative records on employment, hospital discharges, and mortality for a 17-year period, rarely available in the context of developing countries. Leveraging mass layoffs for identification, we find that job loss increases hospitalization (+33%) and mortality risks (+23%) for male workers, while women are not affected. These effects are pervasive over the distribution of age, tenure, income and education, and men's children are also negatively affected. Remarkably, about half of these impacts are driven by external causes associated with accidents and the violent Brazilian context. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that access to UI partially mitigates the adverse effects of job loss on health. Our results indicate that the health costs of job loss are only partially explained by the income losses associated with job displacement. |
| JEL: | I12 J63 J65 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20832 |
| By: | Barreto, Yuri; Britto, Diogo; Da Mata, Daniel; Emanuel, Lucas; Carrillo, Bladimir; Sampaio, Breno |
| Abstract: | Over 2 billion people worldwide travel long distances daily to fetch water that is often unsafe for human consumption. This paper studies how lack of water can limit economic development and how families adapt to permanent shifts in water provision in rural areas. It studies a policy providing 1 million rain-fed water cisterns in Brazil’s poorest and most drought-prone areas. Using unique individual-level administrative data and a difference-in-differences design, we show that the program substantially improved family welfare. In ten years, household dependency on cash transfers decrease by as much as 19 percentage points while formal labor earnings increase by 15% driven by an increase in off-farm jobs. In turn, hospitalizations due to waterborne diseases declined by 16% among adults and 37% among children, and compliance with cash transfer conditionalities on child health and education improved. Additional evidence suggests that these gains were driven by a relaxation of time constraints: cisterns markedly reduced the time burden of water collection, enabling beneficiaries to allocate more time to productive activities. A cost-benefit analysis indicates a high marginal value of public funds relative to a broad range of public policies. |
| Keywords: | climate adaptation |
| JEL: | Q54 Q25 Q58 J01 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20831 |
| By: | Berniell, Inés; Fernández, Raquel; Menduiña, Azul; Onofri, Milagros |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the sharp decline in fertility across Latin America using both period and cohort measures. Combining Vital Statistics, Census microdata, and UN population data, we decompose changes in fertility by age, education, and joint age–education groups. We show that the decline in period fertility between 2000 and 2022 is driven primarily by reductions in within-group birth rates rather than by changes in population composition, with the largest contributions coming from younger and less-educated women. Comparing the cohort born in the mid 1950s and the one born in the mid 1970s, we find that the decline in completed fertility reflects not only delayed childbearing but also substantial reductions in the average number of children per woman. This is driven primarily by lower fertility among mothers rather than by rising childlessness. Our findings provide new evidence on the nature of Latin America’s transition to below-replacement fertility and highlight several open questions for future research. |
| JEL: | J11 J13 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21071 |
| By: | Walker, Michael; Shankar, Nick; Miguel, Edward; Egger, Dennis; Killeen, Grady |
| Abstract: | We estimate the impacts of large-scale unconditional cash transfers on child survival. One-time transfers of USD 1000 were provided to over 10, 500 poor households across 653 randomized villages in Kenya. We collected census data on over 100, 000 births, including on mortality and cause of death, and detailed data on household health behaviors. Unconditional cash transfers (accounting for spillovers) lead to 48% fewer infant deaths before age one and 45% fewer child deaths before age five. Detailed data on cause of death, transfer timing relative to birth, and the location of health facilities indicate that unconditional cash transfers and access to delivery care are complements in generating mortality reductions: the largest gains are estimated in neonatal and maternal causes of death largely preventable by appropriate obstetric care and among households living close to physician-staffed facilities and those who receive the transfer around the time of birth, and treatment leads to a large increase in hospital deliveries (by 45%). The infant and child mortality declines are concentrated among poorer households with below median assets or predicted consumption. The transfers also result in a substantial decline of 51% in female labor supply in the three months before and the three months after a birth, and improved child nutrition. Infant and child mortality largely revert to pre-program levels after cash transfers end. Despite not being the main aim of the original program, we show that unconditional cash transfers in this setting may be a cost-effective way to reduce infant and child deaths. |
| Keywords: | Infant and child mortality; Unconditional cash transfers; Kenya |
| JEL: | I15 O1 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20995 |
| By: | Bénétrix, Agustín; Pallan, Hayley; Panizza, Ugo |
| Abstract: | This paper reassesses the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth in emerging and developing economies. Using cross-country data, it first shows that the relationship between FDI, growth, and local conditions such as financial depth and human capital is not stable over time: complementarities documented in studies based on data from the 1970s and 1980s largely disappear in more recent decades. It then builds a new dataset on sectoral FDI covering 112 emerging and developing economies and documents substantial heterogeneity in the association between FDI and sectoral growth. FDI inflows are positively associated with growth in the primary sector, show no robust relationship in the secondary sector, and are negatively associated with growth in the tertiary sector. To interpret these patterns, we examine the role of global value chains (GVCs). We find that FDI is most strongly associated with growth in country–sectors with low GVC participation, while this relationship weakens or disappears as GVC integration increases. Moreover, the growth effects of FDI depend critically on the type of GVC integration. Backward participation amplifies the positive growth effects of FDI in the primary sector but attenuates them in the secondary sector and worsens the negative effects in tertiary sector, whereas forward participation strengthens the association between FDI and growth in manufacturing. Taken together, the results suggest that the elusive aggregate relationship between FDI and growth reflects a structural transformation in how foreign investment is embedded in global production networks: in highly fragmented value chains, FDI can expand gross activity without generating commensurate domestic value-added growth. |
| JEL: | F21 F23 F14 C23 F60 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21021 |
| By: | Vanden Eynde, Oliver; Vargas, Juan |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how climate change and natural resource dynamics contribute to conflict, with a focus on the implications of the green transition. It reviews empirical evidence showing that extreme weather events - such as droughts, floods, and heatwaves - are linked to increased violence, particularly through economic disruptions, reduced agricultural productivity, and displacement. The analysis also explores the mechanisms through which climate shocks influence conflict, including opportunity costs, resource competition, and behavioral responses to environmental stress. The discussion then turns to the role of natural resource exploitation, especially in the context of rising demand for minerals essential to low-carbon technologies. The paper highlights how resource price and availability shocks can trigger conflict, often depending on the type of resource, extraction method, and local governance. It also addresses the overlap between climate- and resource-driven conflict risks, emphasizing that their interaction may amplify instability. Throughout, the paper identifies open research questions related to prediction, the effects of long-run environmental changes, and the design of policy responses. These include insurance schemes, climate adaptation strategies, infrastructure investment, and regulatory frameworks for resource governance. The findings point to the need for research that integrates climate and conflict dynamics, with the goal of informing policies that can mitigate the risks associated with environmental change and resource pressures. |
| Keywords: | Conflict; Climate shocks; Climate change; Natural resources |
| JEL: | D72 D74 L23 Q54 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21170 |
| By: | D'AGOSTINI, CECILIA (University of Florence); FERRONE, LUCIA (UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE); Giannelli, Gianna (University of Florence) |
| Abstract: | Egypt’s demographic trajectory has shifted markedly over recent decades, with fertility declines in the 1980s and 1990s followed by a reversal that peaked at 3.5 children per woman in 2014. While previous research has examined determinants such as women’s employment, contraceptive use, and migration, the role of housing policy remains largely unexplored. This study investigates the impact of Egypt’s 1996 rental market liberalization on fertility. Using four waves of the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS) combined with district-level housing data from the 2006 Census, we exploit geographic and temporal variation in exposure to the reform. We examine whether women of marriageable age in 1996 living in districts with greater availability of liberalized rental units experienced different fertility outcomes. Results show that exposure to the reform increased the likelihood of childbearing and positively affected other fertility measures, including age at first birth and parity at ages 25, 30, and 35. Evidence suggests that earlier marriage is the main mechanism, consistent with the reform lowering housing constraints for young couples. |
| Keywords: | Egypt, fertility, housing, liberalization |
| JEL: | J13 J16 O18 R21 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18734 |
| By: | Mohammad Abu-Zaineh (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France); Sahar F. Yousef (Doha Institute for Graduate Studies) |
| Abstract: | This article examines gender differences in early childhood capability deprivation in Algeria, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen. Using nationally representative surveys from the Pan Arab Project for Family Health, we estimate deprivation among children aged 0-4 in three latent dimensions: nutrition, sanitation, and access to information. The empirical strategy combines a capability-deprivation framework with multi-group structural equation modelling, measurement-invariance tests, and multidimensional aggregation. The results show that gendered deprivation is neither uniform nor always to the disadvantage of girls. Female children are more likely to be capability deprived on aggregate in Algeria, Morocco, and Yemen, while male children appear more deprived in Syria. Gender disparities also vary across dimensions: boys are more likely to be nutrition-deprived in Morocco and Syria, while girls are more likely to be sanitation-deprived in Algeria and Morocco and information-deprived in Morocco and Yemen. Rural residence and low household-head education are generally associated with weaker achievements in nutrition, sanitation, and information. The findings contribute to applied research on child poverty measurement and gender inequality by showing that gendered capability deprivation is observable before school age and is patterned by household and public-service conditions. |
| Keywords: | Early childhood deprivation; Gender inequality; Structural equation modelling; Multidimensional poverty; MENA; Capability approach |
| JEL: | C38 I15 I31 I32 J16 O15 O53 |
| Date: | 2026–05–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2621 |
| By: | Kaibalyapati Mishra |
| Abstract: | India's post-liberalisation higher education expansion was premised on widening credential access for historically excluded groups. We show that the groups most expected to benefit - Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) workers - instead bore a disproportionate share of the resulting wage cost, a pattern we term the double whammy. We merge eight rounds of the NSS Employment-Unemployment Survey (1987-2011) with a district-level measure of college-expansion intensity built from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) and estimate reduced-form triple- and quadruple-difference wage specifications across 91 districts in six states (N = 79, 904), interacting graduate status, expansion intensity, and post-expansion cohort. The human capital return to a degree remains large and positive throughout (about 1.08 log points), yet the graduate wage premium erodes for post-2004 cohorts in high-expansion districts: non-SC/ST graduates earn roughly 9 per cent less than comparable graduates in low-expansion districts at mean intensity, and SC/ST graduates face an additional penalty of about 34 per cent (a combined shortfall near 43 per cent). The SC/ST differential is statistically indistinguishable from zero before the expansion and emerges only afterwards. Non-graduate placebo and pre-trend tests are broadly consistent with a credential-signalling channel, though we flag the limits of the design rather than claim clean identification. The results suggest that expanding access without commensurate investment in institutional quality can deepen, rather than narrow, labour-market inequality for disadvantaged groups. |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2606.22620 |
| By: | Lombardo, Richard; Frankenberg, Elizabeth; Thomas, Duncan |
| Abstract: | Little is known about the impact on small-scale enterprises of a large negative shock that destroys assets and disrupts local markets. We document the short- and long-run impacts of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami using longitudinal household survey data. We leverage topography-driven variation in exposure to the tsunami in coastal Aceh and North Sumatra, Indonesia. There are large short-run declines in business ownership, real profits, and real business assets among those exposed to the tsunami relative to comparison individuals who were not directly exposed. The gap in ownership rates disappears within two years in the non-agricultural sector but persists for 15 years in the agricultural sector. Profits and business assets of the exposed remain substantially lower through the long-term. Tsunami exposure led to increased short-duration transitions into and out of business ownership. Housing aid is linked to higher rates of non-agricultural business ownership and profits. |
| JEL: | O10 O17 Q54 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21127 |
| By: | Yadav, Harsh; Goli, Srinivas |
| Abstract: | Standard cohort-component projection models for India omit one of the most durable behavioural drivers of fertility: son preference operating through Differential Stopping Behaviour (DSB). This paper addresses that gap by introducing son preference as an explicit stratification dimension alongside education and urban-rural residence extending the Vienna School’s multi-dimensional demographic framework to include gender norms as a structural modifier of fertility. Using a relational Gompertz framework estimated from a 300-cell state-by-residence-by-son-preference-category-by-NFHS-round panel, we find that son preference raises TFR by 15.4 per cent net of all socioeconomic controls and shifts the fertility schedule toward older ages. A 10 per cent permanent reduction in DSB-driven fertility from 2021 yields approximately 50–60 million fewer people across 15 major states by 2100; an SSP2-style counterfactual places the full demographic cost at 426 million. Shift-share decomposition reveals that in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, cultural momentum defined as cumulative population divergence from the sustained gap between observed and structurally expected fertility operates alongside demographic momentum as a binding constraint. These results suggest that projection models conditioned only on development covariates may understate long-run population size in high-preference states. |
| Keywords: | Population Projection, Son preference, Cultural momentum, Differential Stopping Behaviour, Relational Gompertz Model, Cohort-Component Projection, Fertility, India, Population, Demography |
| JEL: | J13 J16 O15 C53 J11 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:341571 |
| By: | KHAN, SANA (University of Florence); Giannelli, Gianna (University of Florence); FERRONE, LUCIA (University of Florence) |
| Abstract: | Education is widely associated with better health outcomes, but whether this relationship is causal remains unclear, especially in low-income countries. This study examines the causal effect of maternal education on child nutrition and dietary diversity in Kenya. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, with exposure to the 2003 school reform as an instrument for educational attainment, the analysis finds that an additional year of maternal schooling significantly improves children’s nutritional status and dietary diversity. Positive effects are observed for both boys and girls, although they are slightly stronger for boys. The results are robust to a range of sensitivity tests. Further analysis suggests that maternal education improves child health through several channels, including delayed first birth, fewer children under age five, higher paternal education, greater use of prenatal care, increased access to information through newspapers and television, improved literacy, and higher employment rates among mothers. These findings indicate that expanding educational opportunities for girls can be an effective policy tool for improving child nutrition and feeding practices in developing countries such as Kenya. |
| Keywords: | maternal education, education reform, child nutritional outcomes and dietary diversity, fuzzy regression discontinuity design, Kenya |
| JEL: | I1 I12 I21 I25 I28 O12 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18737 |
| By: | Dang, Hai-Anh (World Bank); Kilic, Talip (World Bank); Abanokova, Kseniya (Freelance researcher) |
| Abstract: | Can imputed poverty estimates be reliably disaggregated by population groups, especially when the interest is monitoring poverty levels for smaller, vulnerable groups that may not be represented as well in large-scale household surveys? The study tackles this question through a comprehensive literature review and empirical analysis that leverages 18 household surveys across four different low- and middle-income countries. The results suggest that the imputation accuracy widely varies by population group, with differences being as high as 10 percentage points in pairwise comparisons of groups. The imputation accuracy for the population groups of interest increases, on average, by 1.3 percentage points in response to increasing the sample size by 1, 000 observations for the target survey that is used for sourcing the predictors for the imputation model. The results are robust to extensive sensitivity analyses and also suggest that incorporating geospatial predictors into the imputation model can help increase imputation accuracy. The discussion provides useful inputs for future survey design. |
| Keywords: | consumption, poverty, survey-to-survey imputation, household surveys, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Vietnam |
| JEL: | C15 I32 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18743 |
| By: | Schling, Maja; Ortiz, María Camila; Perez Massard, Renee Gabriela; Saenz Somarriba, Magaly; Chang Huaita, Rodrigo Ysaac |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes trends in agricultural total factor productivity in Bolivia between 2008 and 2015 and the factors driving these trends using national agricultural surveys. On balance, the findings suggest that agricultural total factor productivity increased by 1.8% annually between 2008-2015. Among productive inputs, land shows the largest marginal effect on the value of agricultural production. Regarding temperature shocks, the study finds that each additional harmful degree day during the growing season is associated, on average, with a 9.8% decrease in the value of agricultural output. With regards to policy drivers, no statistically significant effect of land titling within the last two years is detected on productivity. Public irrigation infrastructure has a positive effect on productivity, though its magnitude decreases with rising incidence of precipitation. These findings underscore the importance of continuing to invest public resources efficiently in infrastructure that can boost agricultural productivity and prioritize investments targeting regions with the lowest productivity growth rates and with the smallest share of land and workers. |
| Keywords: | Bolivia;Agriculture;total factor productivity;Latin America |
| JEL: | O13 O33 Q12 Q16 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14632 |
| By: | Anne Brockmeyer; Francois Gerard; Gabriel Ulyssea; Linda Wu; Marcelo Bergolo; Rodrigo Ceni Gonzalez; Benard Kirui; Andrea Lopez-Luzuriaga; Leonardo Fabio Morales; Andrea Otero-Cortes; Nadine Riedel; Matıas Tapia; Tanisa Tawichsri; Verena Wiedemann |
| Abstract: | This paper studies formal employment dynamics using linked employer–employee data from eight countries spanning a wide income range from Kenya to Chile. First, we show that formality rates increase with development, both between and within countries, because more workers enter the formal sector, not because they spend more time in formal jobs. Second, formal labor market fluidity increases with development, as workers hold more formal jobs, spend less time in each job, and less time between jobs. Third, greater fluidity is associated with higher life-cycle wage growth, which is largely accounted for by within- rather than between-firm wage gains. |
| Keywords: | Formal employment; Labor market fluidity; Economic development; Developing countries |
| JEL: | J63 O17 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pui:dpaper:260 |
| By: | Collins, Matthew; Guarnieri, Eleonora; Rainer, Helmut |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of free primary education (FPE) on parents’ fertility decisions in sub-Saharan Africa and how these effects depend on prevailing gender norms. Leveraging the staggered rollout of FPE across 17 countries and a within-ethnicity design, we find that the reform reduced completed fertility by 0.25 births per woman. Reduced fertility coincides with both improved child survival and school enrollment. Linking these data with ethnic-level cultural norms of male dominance, we show that these effects arise exclusively among groups with low male dominance. Consistent with fertility reductions increasing women’s autonomy, FPE also strengthens women’s outside options and intra-household bargaining power. In low male-dominance settings, this is reflected in higher divorce probabilities, lower acceptance of intimate partner violence, greater participation in household decisions, and increased media engagement — changes absent in high male-dominance cultures. A simple model embedding the quantity – quality tradeoff within a limited-commitment household bargaining framework, where gender norms determine women’s veto power over fertility, rationalizes these findings. Overall, the results underscore the central role of gender norms in shaping the effects of policy interventions on fertility and broader development outcomes. |
| JEL: | J13 I25 N37 Z1 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21135 |