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on Development |
| By: | Sarah J. Baird; Ephraim Chirwa; Jacobus de Hoop; Berk Özler |
| Abstract: | Interventions targeting adolescent girls are seen as a key component in the fight to break the cycle of poverty in developing countries. Policies that enable them to reach their full potential can have a strong impact not only on their own wellbeing, but also on that of future generations. This paper summarizes the short-term impacts of a cash transfer program on the empowerment of adolescent girls in Malawi during and immediately after the two-year intervention. We find that the program, which transferred cash directly to school-age girls as well as their parents, had effects on a broad range of important domains – including increased access to financial resources, improved schooling outcomes, decreased teen pregnancies and early marriages, better health – and generally enabled beneficiaries to improve their agency within their households. Underlying these overall impacts, the experiment revealed important differences in program effects between young women who were in school at the start of the intervention and those that were not, as well as between young women who received cash transfers conditional on regular school attendance and those who received cash unconditionally. The results point to the potential role that cash transfer programs can play in improving the lives of adolescent girls in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the heterogeneity of effects under different program designs. |
| JEL: | C93 I10 I21 I38 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19479&r=dev |
| By: | Berg, Claudia; Emran, M. Shahe; Shilpi, Forhad |
| Abstract: | Using two surveys from Bangladesh, this paper provides evidence on the effects of microfinance competition on village moneylender interest rates and households'dependence on informal credit. The views among practitioners diverge sharply: proponents claim that competition of microfinance institutions reduces both the moneylender interest rate and households'reliance on informal credit, while the critics argue the opposite. Taking advantage of recent econometric approaches that address selection on unobservables without imposing standard exclusion restrictions, this paper finds that microfinance competition does not reduce moneylender interest rates, thus partially repudiating the proponents. The effects are heterogeneous; there is no perceptible effect at low levels of coverage, but when microfinance coverage is high enough, the moneylender interest rate increases significantly. In contrast, households'dependence on informal credit tends to go down after they become a member of a microfinance institution, which contradicts part of the critic's argument. The evidence is consistent with a model where microfinance institutions draw away better borrowers from the moneylender, and fixed costs are important in informal lending. |
| Keywords: | Access to Finance,Debt Markets,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets |
| Date: | 2013–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6619&r=dev |
| By: | Karthik Muralidharan; Venkatesh Sundararaman |
| Abstract: | The large-scale expansion of primary schooling in developing countries has led to the increasing use of non-civil-service contract teachers who are locally-hired from the same village as the school, are not professionally trained, have fixed-term renewable contracts, and are paid much lower salaries than regular civil-service teachers. This has been a controversial policy, but there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of contract teachers in improving student learning. We present experimental evidence on the impact of contract teachers using data from an ‘as is’ expansion of contract-teacher hiring across a representative sample of 100 randomly-selected government-run rural primary schools in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. At the end of two years, students in schools with an extra contract teacher performed significantly better than those in comparison schools by 0.16σ and 0.15σ, in math and language tests respectively. Contract teachers were also much less likely to be absent from school than civil-service teachers (18% vs. 27%). Using the experimental variation in school-level pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) induced by the provision of an extra contract teacher, we estimate that reducing PTR by 10% using a contract teacher would increase test scores by 0.03σ/year. Using high-quality panel data over five years we estimate that the corresponding gain to reducing PTR by 10% using a regular civil-service teacher would be 0.02σ/year. Thus, in addition to finding that contract teachers are effective at improving student learning outcomes, we find that they are no less effective than regular civil-service teachers who are more qualified, better trained, and paid five times higher salaries. |
| JEL: | I21 M55 O15 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19440&r=dev |
| By: | Ghani, Ejaz; Kerr, William R.; O'Connell, Stephen D. |
| Abstract: | The informal sector in India has been exceptionally persistent over the past two decades. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. This paper shows that a substantial share of the persistence in India's unorganized manufacturing sector is due to the rapid increase in female-owned businesses. Had women's participation remained in the proportion to male-owned businesses that was evident in 1994, the unorganized manufacturing sector would have declined in share rather than increased. Most of these new female-owned businesses are opened in the household and at a small scale, about a third of the size of a typical male-owned business in the informal sector. Yet, it appears that these businesses offer economic opportunities not otherwise present and a transition for some women from unpaid domestic work. |
| Keywords: | E-Business,Banks&Banking Reform,Population Policies,Housing&Human Habitats,Gender and Health |
| Date: | 2013–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6612&r=dev |
| By: | Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Hasan, Tazeen; Rusu, Anca Bogdana |
| Abstract: | This study uses a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years to test for the impact of legal reforms on employment, health, and education outcomes for women and girls. The database demonstrates gender gaps in the ability to access and own property, sign legal documents in one's own name, and have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. In the initial period, 75 countries had gender gaps in at least one of these areas and often multiple ones. By 2010, 57 countries had made reforms that strengthened women's economic rights, including 28 countries that had eliminated all of the constraints monitored here. In the cross-section and within countries over time, the removal of gender gaps in rights is associated with greater participation of women in the labor force, greater movement out of agricultural employment, higher rates of women in wage employment, lower adolescent fertility, lower maternal and infant mortality, and higher female educational enrollment. This paper provides evidence on how the strengthening of women's legal rights is associated with important development outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Gender and Law,Population Policies,Access to Finance,Legal Products,Labor Policies |
| Date: | 2013–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6617&r=dev |
| By: | Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Hasan, Tazeen; Rusu, Anca Bogdana |
| Abstract: | Using a newly compiled database of women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100 countries over 50 years, this paper analyzes the triggers and barriers to reform. The database documents gender gaps in the ability to access and own assets, to sign legal documents in one's own name, and to have equality or non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the country's constitution. Progress in reducing these constraints has been dramatic -- half of the constraints documented in the 1960s had been removed by 2010. However, some sticky areas persist where laws have not changed or have even regressed. The paper analyzes potential drivers of reforms. A significant finding is that the relationship with a country's level of development and the extent of its reforms is not straightforward. For the first half of the sample, there was no systematic connection; only in the last 25 years have increases in income been associated with higher probabilities for reform, but only in lower-income countries. With the remaining constraints as prevalent in middle- as low-income countries, increased growth is not necessarily going to spark additional reforms. Clearer patterns emerge from the momentum created by international conventions, such as the Committee to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), women's political representation at the national level, mobilization of women's networks, and increasing labor force participation in sectors that provide a voice for women, which are positive forces for change. Conversely, conflict and weak rule of law can entrench a discriminatory status quo. And much is at stake; strengthening women's legal rights is associated with important development outcomes that can benefit society as a whole. |
| Keywords: | Gender and Law,Population Policies,Access to Finance,Legal Products,Gender and Development |
| Date: | 2013–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6616&r=dev |
| By: | Arias, Javier; Artuc, Erhan; Lederman, Daniel; Rojas, Diego |
| Abstract: | Informal employment is ubiquitous in developing countries, but few studies have estimated workers'switching costs between informal and formal employment. This paper builds on the empirical literature grounded in discrete choice models to estimate these costs. The results suggest that inter-industry labor mobility costs are large, but entry costs into informal employment are significantly lower than the costs of entry in formal employment. Simulations of labor-market adjustments caused by a trade-related fall in manufacturing goods prices indicate that the share of informally employed workers rises after liberalization, but this is due to entry into the labor market by previously idle labor. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Work&Working Conditions,Labor Standards |
| Date: | 2013–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6614&r=dev |
| By: | Jie Bai; Seema Jayachandran; Edmund J. Malesky; Benjamin A. Olken |
| Abstract: | Government corruption is more prevalent in poor countries than in rich countries. This paper uses cross-industry heterogeneity in growth rates within Vietnam to test empirically whether growth leads to lower corruption. We find that it does. We begin by developing a model of government officials' choice of how much bribe money to extract from firms that is based on the notion of inter-regional tax competition, and consider how officials' choices change as the economy grows. We show that economic growth is predicted to decrease the rate of bribe extraction under plausible assumptions, with the benefit to officials of demanding a given share of revenue as bribes outweighed by the increased risk that firms will move elsewhere. This effect is dampened if firms are less mobile. Our empirical analysis uses survey data collected from over 13,000 Vietnamese firms between 2006 and 2010 and an instrumental variables strategy based on industry growth in other provinces. We find, first, that firm growth indeed causes a decrease in bribe extraction. Second, this pattern is particularly true for firms with strong land rights and those with operations in multiple provinces, consistent with these firms being more mobile. Our results suggest that as poor countries grow, corruption could subside "on its own,'' and they demonstrate one type of positive feedback between economic growth and good institutions. |
| JEL: | D73 O11 O40 |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19483&r=dev |
| By: | Armando Barrientos; Juan Miguel Villa |
| Abstract: | Abstract The paper examines labour market outcome effects from participation in Familias en Acción in urban areas, a conditional cash transfer programme in Colombia. There is considerable interest in the potential impact of antipoverty transfers on labour market outcomes in developing countries. The available literature finds at best very marginal effects, both positive and negative, of participation on labour market outcomes. Relying on a regression discontinuity design and a large panel dataset, the paper finds significant and largely positive effects on labour market outcomes. These effects are heterogeneous in household composition and gender, confirming that the effects of antipoverty transfers on labour supply reflect a re-organisation of household productive resources in response to the transfer. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwp:bwppap:18513&r=dev |
| By: | Jing You; Samuel Annim |
| Abstract: | Abstract This paper assesses causal effects of formal microcredit on children’s educational outcomes by using household panel data (2000 and 2004) in a poor province of northwest rural China. The unobservables between borrowers and non-borrowers are controlled in static and dynamic regression-discontinuity designs. The static analysis reveals significant positive impact of microcredit on children’s schooling years (captured by late entry, failed grades and suspended schooling from time to time) in 2000 only, and no indication of influence on academic performance for both rounds of survey. The dynamic analysis shows progressive treatment effects of microcredit on both longer schooling years and higher average scores. Formal microcredit appears to improve education in the longer term compared to the short term, and hence may have potential in relaxing the grip of educational poverty traps. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwp:bwppap:18313&r=dev |
| By: | Asongu Simplice (Yaoundé/Cameroun) |
| Abstract: | We extend the Okada & Samreth (2012, EL) and Asongu (2012, EB) debate on ‘the effect of foreign aid on corruption’ by: not partially negating the former’s methodological underpinning (as in the latter’s approach) with a unifying empirical framework and; broadening the horizon of inquiry from corruption to eight institutional quality dynamics (rule of law, regulation quality, government effectiveness, democracy, corruption, voice & accountability, control of corruption and political stability). Core to this extension is a hypothetical contingency of the ‘institutional perils of foreign aid’ on existing institutional quality such that, the institutional downside of development assistance maybe questionable when greater domestic institutional development has taken place. Based on the hypothesis of institutional thresholds for foreign aid effectiveness, the perilous character of development assistance to institutional quality is broadly confirmed in 53 African countries for the period 1996-2010. |
| Keywords: | Foreign Aid; Political Economy; Development; Africa |
| JEL: | B20 F35 F50 O10 O55 |
| Date: | 2013–02–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:13/017&r=dev |
| By: | AfDB |
| Date: | 2013–09–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adb:adbwps:980&r=dev |
| By: | Asongu Simplice (Yaoundé/Cameroun); Oasis Kodila-Tedika (Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo) |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the determinants of state fragility in sub-Saharan Africa using hitherto unexplored variables in the literature. The previously missing dimension of nation building is integrated and the hypothesis of state fragility being a function of rent seeking and/or lobbying by de facto power holders is tested. The resulting interesting finding is that, political interference, rent seeking and lobbying increase the probability of state fragility by mitigating the effectiveness of governance capacity. This relationship (after controlling for a range of economic, institutional and demographic factors) is consistent with a plethora of models and specifications. The validity of the hypothesis is confirmed in a scenario of extreme state fragility. Moreover, the interaction between political interferences and revolutions mitigate the probability of state fragility while the interaction between natural resources and political interferences breeds the probability of extreme state fragility. As a policy implication, there is a ‘sub-Saharan African specificity’ in ‘nation building’ and prevention of conflicts. Blanket fragility oriented policies will be misplaced unless they are contingent on the degree of fragility, since ‘fragile’ and ‘extreme fragile’ countries respond differently to economic, institutional and demographic characteristics of state fragility. |
| Keywords: | State fragility; rent seeking; lobbying; nation building; Africa |
| JEL: | C43 H11 O20 O43 O55 |
| Date: | 2013–01–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:13/019&r=dev |
| By: | AfDB |
| Date: | 2013–09–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:adb:adbwps:979&r=dev |