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on Development |
| By: | Enrico Spolaore; Romain Wacziarg |
| Abstract: | What obstacles prevent the most productive technologies from spreading to less developed economies from the world's technological frontier? In this paper, we seek to shed light on this question by quantifying the geographic and human barriers to the transmission of technologies. We argue that the intergenerational transmission of human traits, particularly culturally transmitted traits, has led to divergence between populations over the course of history. In turn, this divergence has introduced barriers to the diffusion of technologies across societies. We provide measures of historical and genealogical distances between populations, and document how such distances, relative to the world's technological frontier, act as barriers to the diffusion of development and of specific innovations. We provide an interpretation of these results in the context of an emerging literature seeking to understand variation in economic development as the result of factors rooted deep in history. |
| JEL: | O1 O11 O33 O43 O57 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19361&r=dev |
| By: | Karthik Muralidharan; Ketki Sheth |
| Abstract: | Recruiting female teachers is frequently suggested as a policy option for improving girls' education outcomes in developing countries, but there is surprisingly little evidence on the effectiveness of such a policy. We study gender gaps in learning outcomes, and the effectiveness of female teachers in reducing these gaps using a large, representative, annual panel data set on learning outcomes in rural public schools in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. We report six main results in this paper. (1) We find a small but significant negative trend in girls' test scores in both math (0.02σ/year) and language (0.01σ/year) as they progress through the public primary school system; (2) Using five years of panel data, school-grade and student gender by grade fixed effects, we find that both male and female teachers are more effective at teaching students of their own gender; (3) However, female teachers are more effective overall, resulting in girls' test scores improving by an additional 0.036σ in years when they are taught by a female teacher, with no adverse effects on boys when they are taught by female teachers; (4) The overall gains from having a female teacher are mainly attributable to their greater effectiveness at improving math test scores than male teachers (especially for girls); (5) We find no effect of having a same-gender teacher on student attendance, suggesting that the mechanism for the impact on learning outcomes is not on the extensive margin of increased school participation, but on the intensive margin of more effective classroom interactions; (6) Finally, the increasing probability of having a male teacher in higher grades can account for around 10-20% of the negative trend we find in girls' test scores as they move to higher grades. |
| JEL: | I21 J16 O15 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19341&r=dev |
| By: | Anderson, Kym; Ivanic, Maros; Martin, Will |
| Abstract: | This paper has two purposes. It first considers the impact on world food prices of the changes in restrictions on trade in staple foods during the 2008 world food price crisis. Those changes—reductions in import protection or increases in export restraints—were meant to partially insulate domestic markets from the spike in international prices. We find that this insulation added substantially to the spike in international prices for rice, wheat, maize and oilseeds. As a result, while domestic prices rose less than they would have without insulation in some developing countries, in many other countries they rose more than in the absence of such insulation. The paper’s second purpose it to estimate the combined impact of such insulating behavior on poverty in various developing countries and globally. We find that the actual poverty-reducing impact of insulation is much less than its apparent impact, and that its net effect was to increase global poverty in 2008 by 8 million, although this increase was not significantly different from zero. Since there are domestic policy instruments such as conditional cash transfers that could now provide social protection for the poor far more efficiently and equitably than variations in border restrictions, we suggest it is time to seek a multilateral agreement to desist from changing restrictions on trade when international food prices spike. |
| Keywords: | Commodity price stabilization; Domestic market insulation; International price transmission; Loss aversion |
| JEL: | F14 O24 Q17 Q18 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9555&r=dev |
| By: | Atkin, David |
| Abstract: | Anthropologists have long documented substantial and persistent differences across social groups in the preferences and taboos for particular foods. One natural question to ask is whether such food cultures matter in an economic sense. In particular, can culture constrain caloric intake and contribute to malnutrition? To answer this question, I first document that inter-state migrants within India consume fewer calories per Rupee of food expenditure compared to their non-migrant neighbors, even for households with very low caloric intake. I then form a chain of evidence in support of an explanation based on culture: that migrants make nutritionally-suboptimal food choices due to cultural preferences for the traditional foods of their origin states. First, I focus on the preferences themselves and document that migrants bring their origin-state food preferences with them when they migrate. Second, I link together the findings on caloric intake and preferences by showing that the gap in caloric intake between locals and migrants is related to the suitability and intensity of the migrants' origin-state food preferences: the most adversely affected migrants (households in which both husband and wife migrated to a village where their origin-state preferences are unsuited to the local price vector) would consume 7 percent more calories if they possessed the same preferences as their neighbors. |
| Keywords: | Culture; India; Migrants; Nutrition |
| JEL: | D12 I10 O10 Z10 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9542&r=dev |
| By: | Eric V. Edmonds; Maheshwor Shrestha |
| Abstract: | Can efforts to promote education deter child labor? We report on the findings of a field experiment where a conditional transfer incentivized the schooling of children associated with carpet factories in Nepal. We find that schooling increases and child involvement in carpet weaving decreases when schooling is incentivized. As a simple static labor supply model would predict, we observe that treated children resort to their counterfactual level of school attendance and carpet weaving when schooling is no longer incentivized. From a child labor policy perspective, our findings imply that “You get what you pay for” when schooling incentives are used to combat hazardous child labor. |
| JEL: | J22 J88 O15 |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19279&r=dev |
| By: | Neeraj Kaushal; Felix Muchomba |
| Abstract: | We study the effect on nutrition of an exogenous increase in food price subsidy from a targeted subsidy program in India. Households with incomes below the federal poverty threshold were issued ration cards to buy wheat and rice at half the market price. We use probability of ration card ownership as an instrumental variable to predict household food price subsidy. Estimates suggest that the predicted price subsidy had a negligible to negative effect on calorie intake; it increased calorie intake from wheat and rice, but lowered calorie intake from coarse grains that are less expensive substitutes of wheat and rice, but have fewer non-nutritional attributes (such as taste). |
| JEL: | I10 I32 I38 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19404&r=dev |
| By: | Matthew Collin |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and the demand for formal land tenure in urban Tanzania. Using a unique census of two highly-fractionalized unplanned settlements in Dar es Salaam, I show that households located near coethnics are significantly less likely to purchase a limited form of land tenure recently offered by the government. I attempt to address one of the chief concerns - endogenous sorting of households - by conditioning on a household’s choice of coethnics neighbors upon arrival in the neighborhood. I also find that coethnic residence predicts lower levels of perceived expropriation risk, but not perceived access to credit nor contribution to local public goods. These results suggest that close-knit ethnic groups may be less likely to accept state-provided goods due to their ability to generate reasonable substitutes, in this case protection from expropriation. The results are robust to different definitions of coethnicity and spatial cut-offs, controls for family ties and religious similarity as well as spatial fixed effects. Finally, the main result is confirmed using a large-scale administrative data-set covering over 20,000 land parcels in the city, exploiting ethnically-unique last names to predict tribal affiliation. |
| Keywords: | Ethnicity, Land tenure, Tanzania, Unplanned settlements |
| JEL: | J15 Q15 R23 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2013/12&r=dev |
| By: | Dulani Seneviratne; Yan Sun |
| Abstract: | Adequate infrastructure has long been viewed as an important factor in economic development. Based on regressions covering 76 advanced and emerging market economies, this paper estimates the impact of infrastructure and investment on income distribution. It finds that better infrastructure, both quality and quantity, promotes income equality, while the link between investment and income distribution is weak. |
| Keywords: | Infrastructure;Indonesia;Malaysia;Philippines;Thailand;Vietnam;Association of Southeast Asian Nations;Investment;Income distribution;Cross country analysis;Infrastructure, Income Distribution, Investment, ASEAN-5, GINI, Inclusive Growth |
| Date: | 2013–02–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:13/41&r=dev |
| By: | Joong Shik Kang; Alessandro Prati; Alessandro Rebucci |
| Abstract: | We use a heterogeneous panel VAR model identified through factor analysis to study the dynamic response of exports, imports, and per capita GDP growth to a “global†aid shock. We find that a global aid shock can affect exports, imports, and growth either positively or negatively. As a result, the relation between aid and growth is mixed, consistent with the ambiguous results in the existing literature. For most countries in the sample, when aid reduces exports and imports, it also reduces growth; and, when aid increases exports and imports, it also increases growth. This evidence is consistent with a DD hypothesis, but also shows that aid-receiving countries are not “doomed†to catch DD. |
| Keywords: | Development assistance;External shocks;Exchange rate appreciation;Exports;Imports;Economic growth;Economic models;Time series;Aid, Common factors, Dutch disease, Panel VARs, Exchange rate overvaluation |
| Date: | 2013–03–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:13/73&r=dev |
| By: | Léonce Ndikumana |
| Abstract: | Donors and governments in aid recipient countries are under pressure to demonstrate effectiveness of aid, especially due to increasing stress on fiscal balances in the context of the global financial and economic crisis. The evidence on aid effectiveness remains mixed at best: while individual targeted aid interventions appear to produce positive results, the impact of aid at the macroeconomic level remains limited. Furthermore, the reporting on concrete outcomes of aid interventions remains inadequate, thus perpetuating doubts around aid effectiveness. This paper discusses these micro-macro gaps in aid effectiveness and the reporting problem. It proposes some ways in which well-designed and carefully implemented evaluations can help bridge these gaps, and how better reporting and transparency on aid results can advance the aid effectiveness agenda. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uma:perips:article-leonce-ndikumana-&r=dev |
| By: | Poulsen, Jonas (Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | The African National Congress (ANC) can look back on eighty years of struggle which resulted in the liberation of black Africans, the creation of a democratic constitution and free elections. However, the last twenty years of ANC rule has been criticized for the failure to bring higher living standards for the formerly oppressed. With the party's dominance and the challanges facing South Africa in mind, I estimate the effect of ANC power in municipalities on economic, social and budgetary outcomes. To estimate the causal effect of the party, this paper uses an instrumental variable approach developed by Freier & Odendahl (2012) and a regression discontinuity design. Taken together, the results point to an adverse effect of the party: less is spent on repairs and water provision which in turn may explain why ANC power seems to lower the share of individuals who have access to piped water and electricity. Further, more resources are used on municipal employees and the councillors themselves, while I find suggestive evidence of an increase in the poverty rate due to the party. Lastly, although being their major political support, we cannot conclude that the ANC affects black African's living standards. From the IV analysis, I find indications that oppositional parties many times have a more positive impact on outcomes as they gain power at the expence of the ANC. |
| Keywords: | ANC; party effects; instrumental variable; regression discontinuity; South Africa |
| JEL: | H11 N47 O12 |
| Date: | 2013–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uufswp:2013_010&r=dev |
| By: | Xinxin Chen; Yaojiang Shi; Hongmei Yi; Linxiu Zhang; Di Mo; James Chu; Prashant Loyalka; Scott Rozelle |
| Abstract: | A significant gap remains between rural and urban students in the rate of admission to senior high school. One reason for this gap may be high tuition and other school fees at the senior high school level. By reducing student expectations of attending high school, high tuition and school fees can reduce student academic performance in junior high school. In this paper we evaluate the impact of a senior high tuition relief program on the test scores of poor, rural seventh grade students in China. We surveyed three counties in Shaanxi Province and exploit the fact that, while the counties are adjacent to one another and share similar characteristics, only one of the three implemented a tuition relief program. Using several alternative estimation strategies, including difference-in-differences (DD), difference-indifference-in-differences (DDD), propensity score matching (PSM) and difference-indifferences matching (DDM), we find that the tuition program has a statistically significant and positive impact on the math scores of seventh grade students. More importantly, this program is shown to have the largest (and only significant) impact on the poorest students. |
| Keywords: | Tuition relief program, education program evaluation, rural China |
| JEL: | I22 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:piercr:2013-03&r=dev |
| By: | Holden, Stein (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences); Bezu, Sosina (Centre for Land Tenure Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences) |
| Abstract: | This study aims to examine current land access and youth livelihood opportunities in Southern Ethiopia. Access to agricultural land is a constitutional right for rural residents of Ethiopia. We used survey data from the relatively land abundant districts of Oromia Region and from the land scarce districts of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ (SNNP) Region. We found that youth in the rural south have limited potential to obtain agricultural land that can be a basis for viable livelihood. The law prohibits the purchase and sale of land in Ethiopia. We found that land access through allocation from authorities is virtually nonexistent while land that can be obtained from parents through inheritance or gift is too small to establish a meaningful livelihood. The land rental market has restrictions, including on the number of years land can be rented out. Perhaps as a result of limited land access, the youth have turned their back on agriculture. Our study shows that only nine percent of youth in these rural areas plan to pursue farming. The majority are planning non-agricultural livelihoods. We also found a significant rural -urban migration among the youth and especially in areas with severe agricultural land scarcity. Our econometric analyses show that youth from families with larger land holding are less likely to choose non-agricultural livelihood as well as less likely to migrate to urban areas. We suggest here some measures to improve rural livelihood such as creation of non-farm employment opportunities and improvement of land rental markets. We also argue that as a certain level of rural-urban migration is unavoidable, investigating youth migration is essential to design policies that help the migrating youth as well as the host communities. |
| Keywords: | Youth unemployment; youth livelihood; rural livelihood; migration; Ethiopia |
| JEL: | J13 Q15 R23 |
| Date: | 2013–09–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nlsclt:2013_011&r=dev |
| By: | Janda, Karel; Turbat, Batbayar |
| Abstract: | We analyze the determinants of portfolio yield of microfinance institutions in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Afghanistan, and China over the period 1998-2011. We confirm that targeting women borrowers improves the financial results of microfinance institutions whereas the effectiveness of group lending or advantages of rural lending, in contrast to the initial expectations, were not confirmed. We also consider the contributions of different governance forms of microfinance institutions and the macroeconomic factors potentially influencing the financial performance of microfinance institutions. As a part of this paper we also provide a self contained introduction to microfinance theory for a reader not familiar with microfinance |
| Keywords: | Microfinance; Central Asia; Earnings. |
| JEL: | D14 G21 O16 P34 |
| Date: | 2013–09–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:49549&r=dev |
| By: | Janda, Karel; Zetek, Pavel |
| Abstract: | Agricultural output in developing countries still represents a substantial part of GDP. This ratio has actually increased in some areas such as Latin America. As such, there is an increasing importance of microfinance institutions (MFIs) focusing on activities associated with agriculture and encouraging entrepreneurship in agriculture and in the rural communities in general. The contribution of microfinance institutions consists mainly in providing special-purpose loans, usually without collateral. However, questions exist as to the magnitude and adequate level of risk of providing micro-credit loans in relation to the interest rates being charged. We review two main approaches to setting interest rates in MFIs. One approach takes the view that interest rates should be set at a high level due to the excessive risk that these institutions undertake. The second approach is to convince the public of the possibility of reducing these rates through cost savings, increased efficiency, and sharing best practice, etc. Subsequently we econometrically analyse the impact of macroeconomic factors on microfinance interest rates in Latin America and the Caribbean. We show that these results depend on the chosen indicator of interest rate. |
| Keywords: | microfinance, interest rate, macroeconomic factors, agriculture |
| JEL: | E43 G21 O13 |
| Date: | 2013–09–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:49973&r=dev |
| By: | d'Agostino, Giorgio; Pieroni, Luca; Scarlato, Margherita |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the effects of cash transfer (CT) programmes introduced during the 1990s and 2000s on food security in a sample of sub-Saharan African countries. We apply the synthetic control method to compare changes in the post-intervention food insecurity trajectories of economies affected by CT programmes relative to their unaffected counterparts. The results suggest that CT programmes exert differential effects on the prevalence of undernourishment. Although the estimates in the upper-middle income countries in our sample show mixed effects for the application of CT programmes on food insecurity, these effects appear to be important in low-income and fragile sub-Saharan countries. Robustness analysis via placebo experiments confirms the soundness of our results, and their implications for policymakers are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Sub-Saharan Africa, food security, social protection |
| JEL: | O13 Q1 Q18 |
| Date: | 2013–09–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:49536&r=dev |