|
on Development |
| By: | Saenger, Christoph; Torero, Maximo; Qaim, Matin |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of alleviating information asymmetry regarding product quality that is widespread in developing-country agricultural markets. Opportunistic buyers may underreport quality levels back to farmers to reduce the price they have to pay. In response, farmers may curb investment, negatively affecting farm productivity. In an experiment, we entitle randomly selected smallholder dairy farmers in Vietnam to independently verify milk testing results. Treatment farmers use 13 percent more inputs and also increase their output. We show that the buying company had initially not underreported product quality, which is why third-party monitoring led to a Pareto improvement in the supply chain. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Industrial Organization, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Development, Livestock Production/Industries, C93, D86, L14, O13, Q12, Q13, |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gagfdp:143583&r=dev |
| By: | Stark, Oded; Dorn, Agnieszka |
| Abstract: | In the model of Stark et al. (1997, 1998), the possibility of employment in a developed country raises the level of human capital acquired by workers in the developing country. We show that this result holds even when workers have the option to save. |
| Keywords: | Human capital formation, Savings, Intertemporal choice, Prospect of migrating, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Labor and Human Capital, D91, F22, J22, J24, |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:143842&r=dev |
| By: | Claude Francis Naoussi; Fabien Tripier |
| Abstract: | This article explores the role of trend shocks in explaining the specificities of business cycles in developing countries using the methodology introduced by Aguiar and Gopinath (2007) [“Emerging Market Business Cycles: The Cycle Is the Trend” Journal of Political Economy 115(1)]. We specify a small open economy model with transitory and trend shocks on productivity to replicate the differences in the business cycle behavior observed between developed, emerging, and Sub-Saharan Africa countries. Our results suggest a strong relationship between the weight of trend shocks in the source of fluctuations and the level of economic development. The weight of trend shocks is (i) higher in Sub-Saharan Africa countries than in emerging and developed countries, (ii) negatively correlated with the level of income, the quality of institutions, and the size of the credit market, and (iii) uncorrelated with the volatility of aid received by countries, the inflation rate, and the trend in trade-openness. |
| Keywords: | Business Cycle;Permanent shocks;Growth;Africa;Small open economy |
| JEL: | E32 F41 O55 |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2013-03&r=dev |
| By: | Stephan Klasen (Georg-August-University Göttingen); Sebastian Vollmer (Georg-August-University Göttingen) |
| Abstract: | In a recent paper in the Review of Economic Studies, Siwan Anderson and Debraj Ray (Anderson and Ray, 2010) develop and apply a new ‘flow’ measure of ‘missing women’ to estimate the extent of gender bias in mortality in developing countries. Contrary to the existing literature, they find that the problem of gender bias in mortality is as severe among adults as it is among children in India, that gender bias in mortality is larger in Sub‐Saharan Africa than in China and India, and that there was substantial evidence of gender bias in mortality in the US around 1900. These latter results are driven largely by the finding of substantial gender bias among adults. We show first that the data for Sub‐Saharan Africa used in the paper are generated by simulations in ways that deliver their findings on Africa (and the US in 1900) by construction. Second, we show that the analysis is entirely dependent on a highly implausible reference standard that is inappropriately applied to settings where the overall disease and mortality environment differ greatly; the attempt to control for the disease environment by the authors is not able to address these issues. When a more appropriate reference standard is used, most of the new findings of Anderson and Ray disappear. Instead, the findings from the existing literature relying on stock measures of missing women are confirmed. The one finding that remains and deserves further attention is some evidence of gender bias in mortality among young adults in Africa (though of much lower magnitude than suggested by Anderson and Ray). |
| Keywords: | Missing women; gender bias; mortality; disease; age; Sub‐Saharan Africa; China; India |
| JEL: | J16 D63 I10 |
| Date: | 2013–02–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:gotcrc:133&r=dev |
| By: | Rémy Herrera (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne); Poeura Tetoe (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | After Papua New Guinea's society has been presented in a first part of this paper, the second part focuses on traditional land institutions and relationships to land - often considered to be "archaic". The third part exposes the process of lanf registration during the colonial and since the independence, in order to examine finally the modernity of peasant resistance forms in this country (fourth part). |
| Keywords: | Development; state; access to land; peasant societies; social conflicts |
| Date: | 2013–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00786274&r=dev |
| By: | Cervellati, Matteo (University of Bologna); Sunde, Uwe (University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | We propose a unified growth theory to investigate the mechanics generating the economic and demographic transition, and the role of mortality differences for comparative development. The framework can replicate the quantitative patterns in historical time series data and in contemporaneous cross-country panel data, including the bi-modal distribution of the endogenous variables across countries. The results suggest that differences in extrinsic mortality might explain a substantial part of the observed differences in the timing of the take-off across countries and the worldwide density distribution of the main variables of interest. |
| Keywords: | economic and demographic transition, adult mortality, child mortality, quantitative analysis, unified growth model, heterogeneous human capital, comparative development, development traps |
| JEL: | E10 J10 J13 N30 O10 O40 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7199&r=dev |
| By: | Alberto Chong; Marco Gonzalez-Navarro; Dean Karlan; Martin Valdivia |
| Abstract: | Sexual health problems cause negative externalities from contagious diseases and public expenditure burdens from teenage pregnancies. In a randomized evaluation, we find that an online sexual-health education course in Colombia leads to significant impacts on knowledge and attitudes and, for those already sexually active, fewer STIs. To go beyond self-reported measures, we provide condom vouchers six months after the course, and find a 9 percentage point increase in redemption. We find no evidence of spillovers to untreated classrooms, but we do observe a social reinforcement effect: the impact intensifies when a larger fraction of a student’s friends is also treated. |
| JEL: | I1 I2 O12 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18776&r=dev |
| By: | Vivi Alatas; Abhijit Banerjee; Rema Hanna; Benjamin A. Olken; Ririn Purnamasari; Matthew Wai-Poi |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of elite capture on the allocation of targeted government welfare programs in Indonesia, using both a high-stakes field experiment that varied the extent of elite influence and non-experimental data on a variety of existing government transfer programs. Conditional on their consumption level, there is little evidence that village elites and their relatives are more likely to receive aid programs than non-elites. However, this overall result masks stark differences between different types of elites: those holding formal leadership positions are more likely to receive benefits, while informal leaders are less likely to receive them. We show that capture by formal elites occurs when program benefits are actually distributed to households, and not during the processes of determining who should be on the beneficiary lists. However, while elite capture exists, the welfare losses it creates appear small: since formal elites and their relatives are only 9 percent richer than non-elites, are at most about 8 percentage points more likely to receive benefits than non-elites, and represent at most 15 percent of the population, eliminating elite capture entirely would improve the welfare gains from these programs by less than one percent. |
| JEL: | D73 H53 O12 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18798&r=dev |
| By: | Evdokia Moïsé; Claire Delpeuch; Silvia Sorescu; Novella Bottini; Arthur Foch |
| Abstract: | Agricultural trade is widely considered as an important contributor to developing countries‘ economic growth, poverty alleviation and food security. This report identifies and analyses some of the most important supply-side constraints to developing countries‘ exports of agricultural products, in order to inform prioritisation and sequencing of domestic policy reforms as well as targeting of donor interventions. The analysis is supplemented by case studies of Aid for Trade programmes supporting agricultural trade expansion in Indonesia, Zambia and Mozambique. The report confirms that developing countries‘ agricultural exports are highly responsive to the quality of transport and trade-related infrastructure, while tariffs still have a significant negative impact. The analysis also highlights the importance of complementary policies such as education and political stability on developing countries‘ agricultural trade performance. In the poorest countries of the sample, significant trade expansion could be achieved by easing constraints related to governance and infrastructure quality, as well as by lifting constraints related to the efficient use of existing freshwater resources. The case studies illustrate the impact on agricultural exports of constraints related to standards and conformity assessment or access to credit, in particular as regards small and medium agricultural producers, processors and traders. They also show the contribution of donor supported programmes promoting private sector initiatives to poverty reduction through increased employment and the promotion of production adapted to local endowments. |
| Keywords: | developing countries, agricultural trade, poverty reduction, aid for trade, trade expansion, food security, binding constraints |
| JEL: | F13 O13 O19 Q17 |
| Date: | 2013–01–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:142-en&r=dev |
| By: | Bert D'Espallier; Marek Hudon; Ariane Szafarz |
| Abstract: | This paper starts from the observation that 23% of the world’s microfinance institutions (MFIs) manage without subsidies. We examine how unsubsidized institutions cope with their social mission. Overall, the lack of subsidies worsens social performances. However, our results show that strategies to achieve financial self-sufficiency differ substantially across regions. African and Asian MFIs compensate for non-subsidization by charging higher interest rates. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, unsubsidized MFIs find it more suitable to target less poor clients. Unsubsidized Latin American MFIs tend to reduce their share of female borrowers. |
| Keywords: | microfinance; subsidies; mission drift; poverty reduction; average loan size; interest rates |
| JEL: | F35 G21 G28 O54 O57 |
| Date: | 2013–02–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/140728&r=dev |
| By: | Lanjouw, Peter; Marra, Marleen; Nguyen, Cuong |
| Abstract: | This paper uses small area estimation techniques to update Vietnam's province and district-level poverty map to 2009. It finds that poverty rates continue to be highest in the northern and central mountainous regions, where ethnic minorities make up a large fraction of the population. Poverty has fallen in most provinces and districts over this decade, but the pace of poverty reduction has been least pronounced in those localities with high initial poverty or inequality levels. As a result, poverty rates have become more spatially concentrated over time, which is consistent with widely observed growth processes linked to agglomeration. The authors hypothesize that this makes geographic targeting of the poor more relevant as a means to re-balance growing welfare disparities between geographic areas. Simulations indicate that in both 1999 and 2009, geographic targeting for poverty alleviation improves upon a uniform lump-sum transfer and this becomes more evident the more spatially disaggregated the target populations. The analysis further indicates that the gains from geographic targeting have become more pronounced over time in Vietnam. Although poverty reduction in Vietnam has been impressive, further progress may thus warrant increased attention to geographic targeting. |
| Keywords: | Rural Poverty Reduction,Regional Economic Development,Subnational Economic Development,Achieving Shared Growth |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6355&r=dev |
| By: | Rahman, Aminur |
| Abstract: | Using calories in a unitary framework, previous literature has claimed lack of gender inequality in intrahousehold food distribution. This paper finds that while there is lack of gender disparity in the calorie adequacy ratio, the disparity is prominent among children, adolescents, and adults for a number of critical nutrients. Pregnant and lactating women also receive much less of most of these nutrients compared with their requirements. A wife's bargaining power (proxied by assets at marriage), as opposed to her husband's, significantly and positively affects the nutrient allocations of children and adolescents and of adult females. The bargaining effects remain significant after controlling for unobserved household characteristics and the potential nutrition-health-labor market linkage. The findings, which have important policy implications for the growing problem of micronutrient malnutrition in the developing world, also imply that perhaps the nutrition-health-labor market linkage as a key explanation for intrahousehold food distribution has been overemphasized in the previous literature. |
| Keywords: | Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Nutrition,Population Policies,Housing&Human Habitats,Gender and Health |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6363&r=dev |
| By: | de Walque, Damien; Gertler, Paul J; Bautista-Arredondo, Sergio; Kwan, Ada; Vermeersch, Christel; de Dieu Bizimana, Jean; Binagwaho, Agnes; Condo, Jeanine |
| Abstract: | Paying for performance provides financial rewards to medical care providers for improvements in performance measured by specific utilization and quality of care indicators. In 2006, Rwanda began a paying for performance scheme to improve health services delivery, including HIV/AIDS services. This study examines the scheme's impact on individual and couples HIV testing and counseling and using data from a prospective quasi-experimental design. The study finds a positive impact of paying for performance with an increase of 6.1 percentage points in the probability of individuals having ever been tested. This positive impact is stronger for married individuals: 10.2 percentage points. The results also indicate larger impacts of paying for performance on the likelihood that the respondent reports both partners have ever been tested, especially among discordant couples (14.7 percentage point increase) in which only one of the partners is HIV positive. |
| Keywords: | Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Disease Control&Prevention,Population Policies,Health Systems Development&Reform,HIV AIDS |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6364&r=dev |
| By: | Kinnunen, Jouko; Lofgren, Hans; Sulla, Victor; Merotto, Dino |
| Abstract: | The economy of Moldova, which has one of the lowest levels of gross national income per capita in the World Bank Europe and Central Asia region, is strongly linked to the outside world, especially to the neighboring countries of the European Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States. This paper analyzes a set of scenarios for Moldova up to 2020, defined to shed light on issues related to an alternative future dominated by goods and services exports as opposed to today's reliance on worker remittances. The analysis is based on a Moldovan version of MAMS (Maquette for Millennium Development Goal Simulations), a CGE (Computable General Equilibrium) model for country strategy analysis. In sum, the impact of increased export demand and productivity growth is more positive when these shocks are directed to manufacturing, a sector more heavily linked to international trade, compared with agriculture. Increased productivity in transport and communications generates faster growth with widely diffused benefits, reaching households in a relatively equitable manner compared with foreign trade-induced growth. A comparison between adverse shocks in two areas, higher energy import prices, and lower remittances, designed to have similar effects on gross domestic product, suggests that a remittance shock leads to less of a poverty increase, related to the fact that remittance-receiving households are not highly vulnerable; among sectors, agriculture is most vulnerable due to heavy energy reliance. Finally, well-targeted transfer schemes may offer an effective tool for diffusing the benefits of economic growth to the whole population, perhaps also contributing to more general acceptance of structural change. |
| Keywords: | Economic Theory&Research,Debt Markets,Emerging Markets,Labor Policies,Currencies and Exchange Rates |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6365&r=dev |
| By: | Ceriani, Lidia; Verme, Paolo |
| Abstract: | The paper develops a concept and a measure of the monetary capacity of a country to reduce its own poverty and shows how these tools can be used to guide budget allocations or the allocation of aid. The authors call this concept the income lever. Making use of tax and distributive theory, the paper shows how different redistributive criteria correspond to the different normative criteria of the income lever. It then constructs various income lever indexes based on these criteria and uses such indexes to rank countries according to their own capacity to reduce poverty. As shown in the empirical application, this methodology can provide an equitable tool to rank countries or regions when it comes to budget or aid allocations, whether it is the allocation of social funds within the European Union (North-North transfers) or the allocation of aid from rich to poor countries (North-South transfers). The findings indicate that the allocation of social funds in the European Union follows closely the rank that results from the income lever indexes proposed while the allocation of aid to Sub-Saharan African countries does not. |
| Keywords: | Regional Economic Development,Rural Poverty Reduction,Services&Transfers to Poor,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Conditions and Volatility |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6367&r=dev |
| By: | Bandiera, Oriana; Natraj, Ashwini |
| Abstract: | Does the existing evidence support policies that foster growth by reducing gender inequality? The authors argue that the evidence based on differences across countries is of limited use for policy design because it does not identify the causal link from inequality to growth. This, however does not imply that inequality-reducing policies are ineffective. In other words, the lack of evidence of a causal link is not in itself evidence that the causal link does not exist. Detailed micro studies that shed light on the mechanisms through which gender inequality affects development and growth are needed to inform the design of effective policies. |
| Keywords: | Gender and Development,Population Policies,Gender and Law,Gender and Health,Achieving Shared Growth |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6369&r=dev |
| By: | Croppenstedt, Andre; Goldstein, Markus; Rosas, Nina |
| Abstract: | Women make essential contributions to agriculture in developing countries, where they constitute approximately 43 percent of the agricultural labor force. However, female farmers typically have lower output per unit of land and are much less likely to be active in commercial farming than their male counterparts. These gender differences in land productivity and participation between male and female farmers are due to gender differences in access to inputs, resources, and services. In this paper, the authors review the evidence on productivity differences and access to resources. They discuss some of the reasons for these differences, such as differences in property rights, education, control over resources (e.g., land), access to inputs and services (e.g., fertilizer, extension, and credit), and social norms. Although women are less active in commercial farming and are largely excluded from contract farming, they often provide the bulk of wage labor in the nontraditional export sector. In general, gender gaps do not appear to fall systematically with growth, and they appear to rise with GDP per capita and with greater access to resources and inputs. Active policies that support women's access and participation, not just greater overall access, are essential if these gaps are to be closed. The gains in terms of greater productivity of land and overall production are likely to be large. |
| Keywords: | Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Gender and Health,Gender and Law,Gender and Development,Anthropology |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6370&r=dev |
| By: | Buvinic, Mayra; Das Gupta, Monica; Casabonne, Ursula; Verwimp, Philip |
| Abstract: | Violent conflict, a pervasive feature of the recent global landscape, has lasting impacts on human capital, and these impacts are seldom gender neutral. Death and destruction alter the structure and dynamics of households, including their demographic profiles and traditional gender roles. To date, attention to the gender impacts of conflict has focused almost exclusively on sexual and gender-based violence. The authors show that a far wider set of gender issues must be considered to better document the human consequences of war and to design effective postconflict policies. The emerging empirical evidence is organized using a framework that identifies both the differential impacts of violent conflict on males and females (first-round impacts) and the role of gender inequality in framing adaptive responses to conflict (second-round impacts). War's mortality burden is disproportionately borne by males, whereas women and children constitute a majority of refugees and the displaced. Indirect war impacts on health are more equally distributed between the genders. Conflicts create households headed by widows who can be especially vulnerable to intergenerational poverty. Second-round impacts can provide opportunities for women in work and politics triggered by the absence of men. Households adapt to conflict with changes in marriage and fertility, migration, investments in children's health and schooling, and the distribution of labor between the genders. The impacts of conflict are heterogeneous and can either increase or decrease preexisting gender inequalities. Describing these gender differential effects is a first step toward developing evidence-based conflict prevention and postconflict policy. |
| Keywords: | Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Population Policies,Post Conflict Reconstruction,Gender and Development,Gender and Health |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6371&r=dev |
| By: | Gibson, John; Beegle, Kathleen; De Weerdt, Joachim; Friedman, Jed |
| Abstract: | This paper uses data from eight different consumption questionnaires randomly assigned to 4,000 households in Tanzania to obtain evidence on the nature of measurement errors in estimates of household consumption. While there are no validation data, the design of one questionnaire and the resources put into its implementation make it likely to be substantially more accurate than the others. Comparing regressions using data from this benchmark design with results from the other questionnaires shows that errors have a negative correlation with the true value of consumption, creating a non-classical measurement error problem for which conventional statistical corrections may be ineffective. |
| Keywords: | Food&Beverage Industry,Consumption,Inequality,Economic Theory&Research,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6372&r=dev |
| By: | Himelein, Kristen |
| Abstract: | The Living Standards Measurement Study -- Integrated Surveys on Agriculture project collects agricultural and livelihood data in seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to maintain representativeness as much as possible over multiple rounds of data collection, a sub-sample of households are selected to have members that have left the household tracked and interviewed in their new location with their new household members. Since the sub-sampling occurs at the level of the household but tracking occurs at the level of the individual, a number of issues arise with the correct calculation for the sub-sampling and attrition corrections. This paper is based on the panel weight calculations for the initial rounds of the Integrated Surveys on Agriculture surveys in Uganda and Tanzania, and describes the methodology used for calculating the weight components related to sub-sampling, tracking, and attrition, as well as the criteria used for trimming and post-stratification. It also addresses complications resulting from members previously classified as having attrited from the sample returning in later rounds. |
| Keywords: | Housing&Human Habitats,Small Area Estimation Poverty Mapping,Science Education,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences |
| Date: | 2013–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6373&r=dev |
| By: | Dreger, Christian; Zhang, Yanqun |
| Abstract: | Despite high economic growth during the last decades, China is still vulnerable to shocks arising from industrial states. The advanced economies determine Chinese export performance, with subsequent effects on output growth. Using a production function approach, this paper examines to which extent regional GDP growth in China is export driven. In a panel of 28 Chinese provinces, series are splitted into common and idiosyncratic components, the latter being stationary. The results indicate cointegration between the common components of GDP, the capital stock and exports. In equilibrium, exports increase GDP by more than their impact expected from the national accounts. While exports and capital are weakly exogenous, GDP responds to deviations from the long run. An adjustment pattern can be detected for almost all regions, except of some provinces in the Western part of the country. -- |
| Keywords: | Chinese economy,panel cointegration,export led growth |
| JEL: | F43 O11 C23 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:euvwdp:331&r=dev |