nep-dev New Economics Papers
on Development
Issue of 2005‒02‒20
fifteen papers chosen by
Jeong-Joon Lee
Towson University

  1. SAVING, FUNDING AND ECONOMIC GROWTH By E Philip Davis; Yu-Wei Hu
  2. Reconsidering Expectations of Economic Growth after World War II from the Perspective of 2004 By Robert W. Fogel
  3. "Exchange Rate Misalignment: A New Test of Long-Run PPP Based on Cross-Country Data" By Pan A. Yotopoulos; Yasuyuki Sawada
  4. China’s Employment Challenges and Strategies after the WTO Accession By Douglas Zhihua Zeng
  5. Sowing and Reaping: Institutional Quality and Project Outcomes in Developing Countries By David Dollar; Victoria Levin
  6. Economic Evaluation of Housing Subsidy Systems: A Methodology with Application to Morocco By David le Blanc
  7. Which Human Capital Matters for Rich and Poor’s Wages?Evidence from Matched Worker-Firm Data from Tunisia By Christophe Muller; Christophe Nordman
  8. Who deserves aid? Equality of opportunity,international aid and poverty reduction By Denis Cogneau; Jean-David Naudet
  9. Education policy reforms and the quality of the school system : a field study of primary schools in Madhya Pradesh, India By François Leclercq
  10. Export Processing Zones in Madagascar : an Endangered Success Story By Jean-Pierre Cling; Mireille Razafindrakoto; François Roubaud
  11. Perspectives on growth and poverty reduction in Mali By Mohamed Ali Marouani; Marc Raffinot
  12. Colonization, Institutions, and Inequality, A note on some suggestive evidence By Denis Cogneau; Charlotte Guénard
  13. Migration and urbanization in francophone west Africa a review of the recent empirical evidence By Cris Beauchemin; Philippe Bocquier
  14. Representative versus real households in the macro-economic modeling of inequality By François Bourguignon; Anne-Sophie Robilliard; Sherman Robinson
  15. Analysing low intensity conflict in Africa using press reports By Philippe Bocquier; Hervé Maupeu

  1. By: E Philip Davis; Yu-Wei Hu
    Date: 2005–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bru:bruppp:05-02&r=dev
  2. By: Robert W. Fogel
    Abstract: At the close of World War II, there were wide-ranging debates about the future of economic developments. Historical experience has since shown that these forecasts were uniformly too pessimistic. Expectations for the American economy focused on the likelihood of secular stagnation; this topic continued to be debated throughout the post-World War II expansion. Concerns raised during the late 1960s and early 1970s about rapid population growth smothering the potential for economic growth in less developed countries were contradicted when during the mid- and late-1970s, fertility rates in third world countries began to decline very rapidly. Predictions that food production would not be able to keep up with population growth have also been proven wrong, as between 1961 and 2000 calories per capita worldwide have increased by 24 percent, despite the doubling of the global population. The extraordinary economic growth in Southeast and East Asia had also been unforeseen by economists.
    JEL: O10
    Date: 2005–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11125&r=dev
  3. By: Pan A. Yotopoulos (University of Florence and (emeritus) Stanford University); Yasuyuki Sawada (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo)
    Abstract: We formulate and implement a new empirical procedure to examine the validity of PPP in the long-run for 153 countries by using the familiar cross-country data set of Heston, Summers, and Aten (2002). Unlike the existing studies that rely on mean reversion of real exchange rates, we explicitly examine country-specificity in the deviations of the nominal exchange rate from PPP. We find, first, that out of a total of 153 countries, 132 countries have achieved PPP within twenty years, 1980-2000 and 105 countries have attained PPP over ten years, 1990-2000. Second, according to the results, our method can be accepted as a workable shortcut of the direct, fullinformation approach of Yotopoulos (1996) that tests for long-run PPP utilizing micro-ICP data. This becomes an important characteristic of this paper since comprehensive micro-ICP data are no longer easily available. As a by-product, of the empirical validation of our shortcut approach, our empirical results are in favor of the Ricardo-Balassa-Samuelson effect.
    Date: 2005–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2005cf318&r=dev
  4. By: Douglas Zhihua Zeng
    Abstract: Although China has made impressive progress in economic development and improving social well-being, it is facing many daunting challenges while transforming toward a knowledge and service-based economy and further opening up to international competition after its WTO accession in the context of knowledge revolution. One of the biggest challenges is how to create 100–300 million new jobs in the coming decade to absorb the millions of laid-offs, rural emigrants, and newly added labor force. China has been successful in building high-technology parks and information and communications technology (ICT) industries, but they are limited in terms of employment generation, while most of the traditional labor-intensive industries are losing competitiveness due to low productivity. To combat the unprecedented employment challenge, China must implement a systemic and sustained strategy, which may consist of the following policy thrusts: encouraging the private sector; promoting small and medium enterprises; expanding the service sector; reforming the state-owned enterprises; strengthening the social security system; improving labor market flexibility; and establishing mass retraining programs. This paper—a product of the Knowledge for Development Division, World Bank Institute—is part of a larger effort in the institute to provide country-focused knowledge services for client countries.
    Keywords: Industry; Labor & Employment; Macroecon & Growth
    Date: 2005–02–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3522&r=dev
  5. By: David Dollar (World Bank); Victoria Levin
    Abstract: Much of the academic debate on the effectiveness of foreign aid is centered on the relationship between aid and growth. Different aid-growth studies find conflicting results: aid promotes growth everywhere; aid has a zero or negative impact on growth everywhere; or the effect of aid on growth depends on recipient-specific characteristics, such as the quality of institutions and policies. Although these studies fuel an interesting debate, cross-sectional macroeconomic studies cannot be the last word on the topic of aid effectiveness. In this paper, Dollar and Levin introduce microeconomic evidence on factors conducive to the success of aid-funded projects in developing countries. The authors use the success rate of World Bank-financed projects in the 1990s, as determined by the Operations Evaluation Department, as their dependent variable. Using instrumental variables estimation, the authors find that existence of high-quality institutions in a recipient country raises the probability that aid will be used effectively. There is also some evidence that geography matters, but location in Sub-Saharan Africa is a more robust indicator of lower project success rate than tropical climate. The authors proceed to disaggregate the success rate of World Bank projects by lending instrument type and by investment sector, finding that different institutions are more important for different types of projects. The finding of a strong relationship between institutional quality and project success serves to provide further support to the hypothesis that aid effectiveness is conditional on institutions and policies of the recipient country. This paper—a product of Development Policy, Development Economics Senior Vice Presidency—is part of a larger effort in the Bank to examine aid effectiveness.
    Keywords: Governance; International Economics; Globalization
    Date: 2005–02–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3524&r=dev
  6. By: David le Blanc
    Abstract: Most countries do not use one single type of housing subsidy but combine many of them. Le Blanc provides operational criteria that allow evaluation of systems of housing subsidies, both at the individual program level and at the aggregate (country) level. He examines the public finance assessment criteria used by different authors to analyze subsidy programs and confront them systematically. Le Blanc ends up with a “map” of criteria, which covers the range of topics interesting to policymakers. For each criterion, he tries to provide empirical measures that can be retrieved from existing programs. He then provides an aggregation method allowing a synthesis of diagnoses about the “quality” of the housing subsidies system at the country level. The aggregation technique offers a simple way to visualize the main features of a subsidy system, as well as the effects on the system of reforms or improvements of particular programs. The author applies the methodology to the system prevailing in Morocco in 1995 and 2004. The analysis shows that the most visible subsidies might not have been the most inefficient, nor the most resource consuming for the state. Examination of policy changes since 1995 shows that while the most visible subsidies received nearly all the government’s attention, large invisible subsidies remain at the heart of Morocco’s housing policy. The framework used here is very general and can be used to compare the Moroccan system with those of similar countries. This paper—a product of the Urban Unit, Transport and Urban Development Department—is part of a larger effort in the department to provide evaluation frameworks to better understand housing markets in developing countries.
    Keywords: Infrastructure; Poverty; Urban Development
    Date: 2005–02–17
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:3529&r=dev
  7. By: Christophe Muller (Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico Universidad de Alicante, Campus de San Vicente); Christophe Nordman (DIAL, IRD, Paris)
    Abstract: (français) Nous analysons les rendements du capital humain à partir de données liées employeurs-employés collectées en Tunisie en 1999 et indiquons comment ces rendements diffèrent de ceux généralement obtenus dans les pays industrialisés avec ce type de données. Nous développons une nouvelle méthode fondée sur une analyse factorielle des caractéristiques d'entreprise qui rapproche nos résultats, en ce qui concerne le rendement de l’éducation, de ceux que l'on obtient en utilisant des équations de salaire à effets fixes d'entreprise. Notre technique d'estimation fournit une interprétation de ces effets en distinguant l'impact sur les salaires du capital humain propres aux établissements. En outre, l'inclusion dans l'analyse de trois caractéristiques d'entreprise facilement mobilisables procure des résultats très proches de ceux obtenus lorsque toute l'information disponible sur la structure d'appariement des données est utilisée. L'introduction de l'approche factorielle confirme l'idée selon laquelle le capital humain peut constituer une source positive d'externalité intra entreprise. Un travailleur d'une qualification donnée serait plus productif et donc mieux rémunéré dans un environnement fortement doté en capital humain. Toutefois, les travailleurs pauvres ne semblent pas pouvoir bénéficier des qualifications de leur entreprise. En revanche, les pauvres profitent d'un emploi dans le secteur des textiles en termes de rémunération, contrairement aux travailleurs à salaires médians et élevés. _________________________________ (english) We study the returns to human capital for workers observed in Tunisian matched worker-firm data in 1999. This tells us how these returns differ from those obtained in industrialised countries with matched data. We develop a new method based on multivariate analysis of firm characteristics, which allows us most of the benefits obtained by introducing firm fixed effects in wage equations for studying the effect of education. It also provides a human capital interpretation of these firm effects. Moreover, using three firm characteristics easily collectable yields results close to those obtained by using the matched structure of the data. Wage regressions including the computed factors confirm that human capital is associated with positive intra-firm externality on wages. Therefore, a given worker would be more productive and better paid in an environment strongly endowed in human capital. However, the poorest workers do not take advantage of human capital in the firm. Conversely, the poor benefit from working in the textile sector in terms of wages unlike the middle and high wage workers.
    Keywords: wage, returns to human capital, matched worker-firm data, quantile regressions, factor analysis, Tunisia
    JEL: J24 J31 O12
    Date: 2004–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200409&r=dev
  8. By: Denis Cogneau (DIAL, IRD, Paris); Jean-David Naudet (AFD, Département de la Recherche)
    Abstract: (english) We build and implement a normative procedure to allocate international aid based on equality of opportunity concerning the risk of poverty. This is an alternative to Collier and Dollar’s proposal (2001) which stresses the impact of aid on worldwide poverty reduction. The big problem with their approach, as regards distributive justice, is that it leaves very great inequality in poverty risk between inhabitants of countries with widely varying structural disadvantages. We draw on post-welfarist theories of social justice, especially those of John Roemer. However our proposal is very different to that of Llavador and Roemer (2001), which has serious methodological errors and reaches contradictory conclusions. Our proposed allocations, like those of Collier and Dollar, differ from current aid allocation by giving more to the poorest countries. Apart from this agreement, our equality of opportunity principle takes account of structural disadvantages to growth rather than quality of past policies. Our kind of allocation shares out poverty risks much more fairly among the world’s population, while reducing global poverty almost as effectively as Collier and Dollar's. _________________________________ (français) Nous élaborons et mettons en oeuvre une procédure normative d’allocation de l’aide internationale entre les pays, fondée sur le principe de l’égalité des chances vis-à-vis du risque de pauvreté. Cette procédure constitue une alternative à celle de Collier et Dollar (2001) qui maximise l’impact de l’aide sur la réduction de la pauvreté dans le monde. Du point de vue de la justice distributive, l’allocation de Collier et Dollar présente en effet l’inconvénient majeur de laisser subsister de très larges inégalités de risques de pauvreté entre des individus vivant dans des pays dont les handicaps structurels sont très différents. Notre travail s’inspire des théories « post-welfaristes » de la justice sociale, et en particulier de l’approche de John Roemer. Il fait toutefois une proposition très différente de celle de Llavador et Roemer (2001) qui comporte d’importants défauts de méthode et aboutit selon nous à des résultats contradictoires. Comme les allocations préconisées par Collier et Dollar, les solutions proposées ici diffèrent de la répartition actuelle de l’aide dans le sens où elles privilégient les pays les plus pauvres. Au-delà de ce résultat commun, le principe d’égalité des chances que nous mettons en avant conduit à prendre en compte les handicaps structurels de croissance plutôt que la qualité des politiques passées. Enfin, le type d’allocation que nous proposons égalise beaucoup mieux les risques de pauvreté entre les citoyens du monde, tout en réduisant presque aussi efficacement la pauvreté mondiale que l’allocation de Collier et Dollar.
    Keywords: International aid, Equality of Opportunity, Poverty Reductions,Aide internationale, Egalité des chances, réduction de la pauvreté
    JEL: F35 I30 D63 O19 O40
    Date: 2004–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200410&r=dev
  9. By: François Leclercq (DIAL)
    Abstract: (english) Reforms of primary education undertaken in Madhya Pradesh since the mid-1990’s have been said to be bringing the state close to universal enrolment, yet they have sparked much controversy and have hardly been the subject of any independent research. This paper presents the results of a field study of public schools conducted in Betul and Dewas districts in 2002. Substantial progress has been made in enrolling underprivileged children, but the quality of education now deserves more emphasis. Indeed, the ‘education guarantee’ offered is incomplete, as the schools under study are affected by low quantity and poor quality of teaching. The potential for better school management created by decentralisation does not actually translate into adequate incentives (e.g. through the new training and inspection system) for the local residents recently appointed as teachers to work effectively. Meanwhile, there is a risk of fragmentation of the school supply between different types of public and private schools limiting the equalising impact of educational development on rural society. _________________________________ (français) Les réformes de l’éducation primaire entreprises depuis le milieu des années 1990 dans l’Etat du Madhya Pradesh (Inde centrale) ont visé à étendre le secteur public par la création de nombreuses écoles et à en décentraliser la gestion, tout en facilitant le développement du secteur privé. Le taux de scolarisation primaire aurait ainsi considérablement augmenté, mais ces réformes ont suscité des controverses aiguës, alors qu’il en existe peu d’études indépendantes. Cet article présente les résultats d’une étude de terrain menée dans les districts de Betul et Dewas en 2002, portant en particulier sur un programme intitulé «Education Guarantee Scheme ». La scolarisation des enfants issus de milieux défavorisés a manifestement augmenté, mais la « garantie éducative » en question est incomplète, la quantité et la qualité de l’enseignement dispensé dans les écoles étudiées étant insuffisantes. La décentralisation de la gestion des écoles (renforçant notamment la formation et l’inspection des enseignants) ne résulte pas pour l’heure en une structure incitative adéquate pour que les habitants des villages nommés instituteurs puissent enseigner de façon efficace. Enfin, la coexistence de différents types d’écoles publiques et privées risque d’aboutir à une ségrégation sociale du système scolaire qui pourrait limiter l’effet égalisateur du développement de l’éducation sur la société rurale.
    Keywords: Education, school quality, school management, decentralisation, human capital, India, éducation, qualité de l’éducation, gestion du système scolaire, décentralisation, capital humain, Education Guarantee Scheme, Madhya Pradesh, Inde.
    JEL: H4 I2 O15 O53
    Date: 2003–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200312&r=dev
  10. By: Jean-Pierre Cling (DIAL); Mireille Razafindrakoto (DIAL, IRD, Paris); François Roubaud (DIAL, IRD, Paris)
    Abstract: (english) The success of export processing zones in Madagascar, or Zone Franche, since 1990 is an isolated case in Africa, apart from Mauritius. This paper explains that Zone Franche has had a very significant macro-economic impact in terms of exports and jobs. Thanks to Zone Franche, before the 2002 crisis Madagascar had become the second largest African exporter of clothing, after Mauritius. The average wages paid in Zone Franche are lower than in the other formal sectors of activity, which is due to the characteristics of the labour employed. On the contrary, social conditions are better. The paper concludes that the future of Zone Franche is threatened by the new multilateral trade framework. _________________________________ (français) Le succès de la Zone Franche d’exportation à Madagascar depuis 1990 constitue un cas unique en Afrique avec celui de l’Ile Maurice. Ce papier montre que la Zone Franche a eu un impact macroéconomique très important en termes d’exportations et d’emplois. Grâce à elle, Madagascar était ainsi devenu le deuxième exportateur africain de produits de l’habillement derrière l’Ile Maurice avant la crise politique de 2002. Les salaires moyens versés dans la Zone Franche sont inférieurs à ceux des autres secteurs formels d’activité. Mais cet écart est dû aux caractéristiques de la main-d’oeuvre employée, sachant que nos estimations ne mettent pas en évidence de différences significatives dans le mode de rémunération salariale entre la Zone Franche et le reste de l’économie. Par ailleurs, les conditions sociales dans la Zone Franche sont meilleures. Nous concluons en montrant que l’avenir de la Zone Franche est menacé par le nouveau cadre commercial multilatéral.
    Date: 2004–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200402&r=dev
  11. By: Mohamed Ali Marouani (DIAL); Marc Raffinot (DIAL, University Paris Dauphine,EURIsCO)
    Abstract: (english) Since the 1994 devaluation, growth resumed in Mali without any significant decrease of poverty. This may be explained by the high level of inequality, which has increased in the recent period. The poverty reduction strategy described in the PRSP relies mainly on increasing the supply of primary education and basic health. This strategy is not likely to attain its objectives. Increasing the budgetary allocation of these sectors is not enough to improve the quality of public services and the demand of education (especially of the poorest) will not necessarily increase with its supply. Moreover, the poorest are not likely to grasp the benefits in order to improve their living conditions. The poorest are rural, unable to diversify their agricultural income due to their weak assets and their difficulty to access credit. In a dynamic approach, a redistributive policy could give them the opportunity to invest in human capital before migrating to other sectors where returns to education are higher. However, this would work only if active policies in terms of job creations and access to credit are implemented in the urban areas. _________________________________ (français) Depuis la dévaluation de 1994, le Mali a renoué avec la croissance, sans que cela n’entame significativement l’incidence de la pauvreté – ce qui s’explique notamment par la forte inégalité des revenus qui s’est accrue sur la période récente. Le Cadre Stratégique de Lutte contre la Pauvreté mise surtout sur l’accroissement de l’offre d’éducation primaire et de santé de base. Ces stratégies risquent de n’avoir pas tous les effets escomptés. Il n’est pas sûr que l’accroissement des sommes allouées à ces secteurs se traduise par une amélioration des services publics et que la demande d’éducation (notamment des pauvres) suive l’évolution de l’offre. Il n’est pas évident non plus que les plus pauvres soient en mesure de mettre à profit ces accroissements pour améliorer leurs conditions de vie. La quasi-totalité des très pauvres sont ruraux, incapables d’améliorer durablement leurs revenus agricoles en les diversifiant, du fait de leurs faibles moyens et de leurs difficultés d’accès au crédit. Dans une perspective dynamique, une politique de redistribution en faveur des plus pauvres leur permettrait d’investir en capital humain pour préparer leur migration vers des secteurs où les rendements sont plus élevés – ce qui suppose en même temps des politiques volontaristes de créations d’emplois et de facilitation d’accès au crédit dans les villes.
    Keywords: Pro-poor growth policies, poverty reduction, PRSP, Mali,Politiques de croissance pro-pauvres, lutte contre la pauvreté, DSRP.
    Date: 2004–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200405&r=dev
  12. By: Denis Cogneau (DIAL, IRD, Paris); Charlotte Guénard (DIAL)
    Abstract: What is the kind of institutions that affect economic inequalities? Using a database on national income inequality for 73 non-European countries, we show that 'good governance' not only contributes to the level of income but also to a more equal distribution by increasing the income share of the middle class. Beside this effect of the quality of capitalist institutions, we also find an inverted U relationship between inequalities and the extent of European settlement. We finally find a large and robust correlation between the pre-colonial population density and the present equality of income distribution. We argue that this latter correlation may have to do with institutional dimensions that are not captured by usual measures of institutional quality in available databases. Countries which were more densely populated in 1500 have indeed worse 'governance' but give larger income shares to the poor. They had more structured pre-colonial States, more often resisted to colonisation, and more often adopted a mixed economic system. Many of them in fact ended with a more equal land distribution. The equality in the distribution of landholdings does appear as an important determinant of the overall equality of income and of poverty which is independent from 'usual' governance issues. _________________________________ Quels sont les types d’institutions qui influencent les inégalités économiques ? En utilisant une base de données sur les inégalités nationales de revenu sur un échantillon de 73 pays non européens, nous montrons que la « bonne gouvernance » contribue non seulement au niveau de revenu moyen des pays mais aussi à une distribution plus égalitaire à travers l’accroissement de la part de revenu reçue par la classe moyenne. A côté de cet effet de la qualité des institutions capitalistes, nous trouvons une relation en U inversé entre les inégalités et l’importance de la population de descendance européenne. Nous trouvons enfin une corrélation large et robuste entre la densité de population précoloniale et l’égalité de la distribution actuelle du revenu. Nous argumentons que cette dernière corrélation reflète des dimensions institutionnelles qui ne sont pas captées par les mesures usuelles de qualité des institutions dans les bases de données disponibles. Les pays qui étaient les plus densément peuplés au seizième siècle ont en effet une moins bonne gouvernance mais accordent une plus large part du revenu aux plus pauvres. Ils avaient des Etats précoloniaux plus structurés, ont résisté plus souvent à la colonisation, et ont adopté plus souvent un système d’économie mixte. Beaucoup d’entre eux présentent une répartition des terres plus égalitaire. L’égalité de la distribution des terres apparaît comme un déterminant important de l’égalité globale des revenus et de la pauvreté, indépendamment des standards de « gouvernance » usuels.
    Keywords: Colonisation, Inégalités, Institutions, Développement, Colonization, Inequalities, Institutions, Development.
    JEL: N37 O40 P51
    Date: 2003–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200305&r=dev
  13. By: Cris Beauchemin (Université de Montréal); Philippe Bocquier (DIAL, IRD, Paris)
    Abstract: (english) This contribution proposes to re-examine the contribution of migration to urbanization in the developing world, by presenting a comprehensive review of research on Francophone West Africa. The contribution of migration to urbanization is examined from different points of view: demographic, geographic and economic. The paper presents the context of urbanization, describes new trends in migration flows between urban and rural areas, and examines how migrants integrate in the city and fit in the urban economy. The conclusions are that migrants adapt quite well to the city and that urban integration problems do not concern exclusively migrants but all city-dwellers, especially the youths. However social and economic integration should also be studied from the rural point of view, taking into consideration the recent urban-torural migration flows and the slow-down of urban growth. _________________________________ (français) Cette contribution se propose de réexaminer le rôle des migrations dans l’urbanisation du monde en développement, en présentant une synthèse des résultats de recherches menées en Afrique de l’Ouest francophone. La contribution de la migration à l’urbanisation est considérée du point de vue tant démographique, qu’économique et géographique. Elle présente le contexte de l’urbanisation, décrit les nouvelles tendances des flux migratoires entre les milieux urbains et ruraux, et analyse comment les migrants s’insèrent dans la ville et s’adapte à l’économie urbaine. Les conclusions montrent que les migrants s’adaptent fort bien à la vie urbaine et que les problèmes d’insertion urbaine ne concernent pas seulement les migrants mais tous les urbains, en particulier les jeunes. Cependant, l’insertion économique et sociale devrait également être étudiée du point de vue rural, en prenant en compte les flux migratoires récents de l’urbain au rural, ainsi que le ralentissement de la croissance urbaine.
    Date: 2003–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200309&r=dev
  14. By: François Bourguignon (DELTA - World Bank, Paris); Anne-Sophie Robilliard (DIAL, IRD, Paris); Sherman Robinson (IFPRI, Washington D.C.)
    Abstract: To analyze issues of income distribution, most disaggregated macroeconomic models of the Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) type specify a few representative household groups (RHG) differentiated by their endowments of factors of production. To capture “within-group” inequality, it is often assumed, in addition, that each RHG represents an aggregation of households in which the distribution of relative income within each group follows an exogenously fixed statistical law. Analysis of changes in economic inequality in these models focuses on changes in inequality between RHGs. Empirically, however, analysis of household surveys indicates that changes in overall inequality are usually due at least as much to changes in within-group inequality as to changes in the between-group component. One way to overcome this weakness in the RHG specification is to use real households, as they are observed in standard household surveys, in CGE models designed to analyze distributional issues. In this integrated approach, the full heterogeneity of households, reflecting differences in factor endowments, labor supply, and consumption behavior, can be taken into account. With such a model, one could explore how household heterogeneity combines with market equilibrium mechanisms to produce more or less inequality in economic welfare as a consequence of shocks or policy changes. An integrated microsimulation-CGE model must be quite large and raises many issues of model specification and data reconciliation. This paper presents an alternative, top-down method for integrating micro-economic data on real households into modelling. It relies on a set of assumptions that yield a degree of separability between the macro, or CGE, part of the model and the micro-econometric modelling of income generation at the household level. This method is used to analyze the impact of a change in the foreign trade balance, and the resulting change in the equilibrium real exchange rate, in Indonesia (before the Asian financial crisis). A comparison with the standard RHG approach is provided. _________________________________ Ce papier présente une méthodologie qui permet de s’affranchir de l’hypothèse de l’agent représentatif couramment utilisée dans les modèles d’Equilibre Général Calculable (EGC). Il s’agit de remplacer les traditionnels agrégats correspondant à d’hypothétiques « ménages représentatifs » par un échantillon de ménages réels, tirés d’une enquête budget-consommation. Cette approche permet de prendre en compte toute l’hétérogénéité des ménages étudiés, non seulement économique mais également démographique, sociologique, etc. Ce type d’approche présente néanmoins l’inconvénient de la taille puisqu’il s’agit de manipuler des bases de données de plusieurs milliers d’individus. Ce papier présente un modèle appliqué à l’Indonésie pour étudier l’impact social d’un choc d’épargne extérieure et l’évolution du taux de change reel d’équilibre qui résulte de ce choc (avant la crise financière asiatique). Les résultats obtenus sont comparés à ceux obtenus avec un modèle plus “standard” à ménages représentatifs.
    Date: 2003–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200310&r=dev
  15. By: Philippe Bocquier (DIAL, IRD, Paris); Hervé Maupeu (IFRA Kenya)
    Abstract: (english) Unreliability and biases prevent us from analysing homicides using direct sources in most African countries. Victimisation surveys in Africa proved to be considerably biased regarding the recording of homicides. In the absence of more reliable and exhaustive sources, press reports can reflect at least some specific causes of death, on condition that a political analysis of the relation between the press and the political power is conducted. In this paper, using data collected from a leading Kenyan newspaper, we were able to depict the deaths since 1990 due to three main causes of collective violence : State violence (essentially the police), community clashes and banditry. We used a historical as well as geographical approach to determine the level and trend of the number of deaths as a consequence of organised crime and political conflicts. In addition, this analysis has helped us to point out the discrepancies between the press discourses on insecurity and political violence, and the reality of deaths reported by the very same press. _________________________________ (français) Les sources directes sur les homicides ne sont généralement pas, en Afrique, suffisamment fiables et souffrent de biais. Les enquêtes de victimation en Afrique se révèlent également très biaisées en ce qui concerne l’estimation des homicides. En l’absence de sources plus fiables et exhaustives, les articles de presse peuvent au moins refléter quelques causes de mortalité spécifiques, à condition qu’une analyse politique des relations entre la presse et le pouvoir politique soit parallèlement conduite. Dans ce document, nous utilisons des données recueillies dans un quotidien majeur du Kenya pour décrire depuis 1990 les décès dus à trois sources de violence collective : la violence d’état (essentiellement la police), les violences communautaires et le banditisme. Nous utilisons une approche à la fois géographique et historique pour déterminer le niveau et la tendance du nombre de décès résultant du crime organisé et des conflits politiques. Notre analyse permet de plus d’identifier les divergences entre les discours parus dans la presse sur l’insécurité et la violence politique, et la réalité des décès rapportés dans cette même presse.
    Date: 2003–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt200315&r=dev

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