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on Development |
| By: | Marcel Fafchamps; Simon Quinn |
| Abstract: | We run a novel field experiment to link managers of African manufacturing firms. The experiment features exogenous link formation, exogenous seeding of information and exogenous assignment to treatment and placebo. We study the impact of the experiment on firm business practices outside of the lab. We find that the experiment successfully created new variation in social networks. We find some limited evidence of diffusion of management practices, particularly in terms of firm formalisation and innovation. Such diffusion appears to be a combination of diffusion of innovation and simple imitation |
| JEL: | D22 L26 O33 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2014-25&r=dev |
| By: | Richard J. Murnane; Alejandro J. Ganimian |
| Abstract: | This paper describes four lessons derived from 115 rigorous impact evaluations of educational initiatives in 33 low- and middle-income countries. First, reducing the costs of going to school and providing alternatives to traditional public schools increase attendance and attainment, but do not consistently increase student achievement. Second, providing information about school quality and returns to schooling generally improves student attainment and achievement, but building parents’ capacity works only when focused on tasks they can easily learn to perform. Third, more or better resources do not improve student achievement unless they change children’s daily experiences at school. Finally, well-designed incentives for teachers increase their effort and improve the achievement of students in very low performance settings, but low-skilled teachers need specific guidance to reach minimally acceptable levels of instruction. |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I25 I32 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20284&r=dev |
| By: | Karthik Muralidharan; Jishnu Das; Alaka Holla; Aakash Mohpal |
| Abstract: | We construct a new nationally-representative panel dataset of schools across 1297 villages in India and find that the large investments in public primary education over the past decade have led to substantial improvements in input-based measures of school quality, including infrastructure, pupil-teacher ratios, and monitoring. However, teacher absence continues to be high, with 23.6 percent of teachers in public schools across rural India being absent during unannounced visits to schools. Improvements in school infrastructure and service conditions are not correlated with lower teacher absence. We find two robust correlations in the nationally-representative panel data that corroborate findings from smaller-scale experiments. First, reductions in pupil-teacher ratios are correlated with increased teacher absence. Second, increases in the frequency of inspections are strongly correlated with lower teacher absence. We estimate that the fiscal cost of teacher absence in India is around $1.5 billion per year, and that investing in better governance by hiring more inspectors to increase the frequency of monitoring could be over ten times more cost effective at increasing teacher-student contact time (net of teacher absence) than hiring more teachers. |
| JEL: | H52 I21 M54 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20299&r=dev |
| By: | Justin Sandefur and Amanda Glassman |
| Abstract: | Across multiple African countries, discrepancies between administrative data and independent household surveys suggest official statistics systematically exaggerate development progress. We provide evidence for two distinct explanations of these discrepancies. First, governments misreport to foreign donors, as in the case of a results-based aid program rewarding reported vaccination rates. Second, national governments are themselves misled by frontline service providers, as in the case of primary education, where official enrollment numbers diverged from survey estimates after funding shifted from user fees to per pupil government grants. Both syndromes highlight the need for incentive compatibility between data systems and funding rules. |
| Keywords: | Africa, national statistics systems, household surveys, administrative data, immunization, school enrollment, EMIS, HMIS |
| JEL: | C83 E31 I15 I25 I32 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:373&r=dev |
| By: | Monica Martinez-Bravo (CEMFI, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros) |
| Abstract: | The extension of mass education not only affects the level of education of the labor force, but also raises the average education of local politicians. This paper investigates the impact of a large program of school construction in Indonesia on local governance and public good provision. By using a panel dataset of 10,000 villages and exploiting the staggered timing of local elections, I isolate the effects driven by changes in local governance. The results suggest that the school construction program led to important increases in the provision of public goods. Furthermore, the results are heterogeneous across villages: public goods experienced stronger increases in villages where there was a particular demand for that type of public good. I provide evidence that the results are driven by the increase in the level of education of the village head, which suggests that the level of human capital of local politicians is a key ingredient of public good provision in developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Political leaders, education, local elections. |
| JEL: | D72 H75 O12 P16 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2014_1404&r=dev |
| By: | Magnus Hatlebakk; Yogendra B. Gurung |
| Abstract: | A family survey was conducted in Nepal to investigate whether female empowerment leads to more education, in particular for girls. The relative economic power of the male and female side of the extended family was used as an instrument for female empowerment. The findings indicate, however, that both female empowerment and relative economic power affect education. There is a positive association between female empowerment and children’s education for both gender, while boys are prioritized if the male side of the family is economically weak. |
| Keywords: | Education, Intrahousehold, Female autonomy |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chm:wpaper:wp2014-7&r=dev |
| By: | David I. Levine; Dean Yang |
| Abstract: | We estimate the impact of weather variation on agricultural output in Indonesia by examining the impact of local rainfall shocks on rice output at the district level. Our analysis makes use of local meteorological data on rainfall in combination with government administrative data on district-level rice output in the 1990s. We find that deviations from mean local rainfall are positively associated with district-level rice output. 10% higher rainfall leads metric tons of rice output to be 0.4% higher on average. The impact of rainfall on rice output occurs contemporaneously (in the same calendar year), rather than with a lag. These results suggest that researchers should be justified in interpreting higher rainfall as a positive contemporaneous shock to local economic conditions in Indonesia. |
| JEL: | O13 |
| Date: | 2014–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20302&r=dev |