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on Development |
| By: | Girum Abebe; Stefano Caria; Marcel Fafchamps; Paolo Falco; Simon Franklin; Simon Quinn |
| Abstract: | We conduct a randomised evaluation of two job-search support programmes for urban youth in Ethiopia. One group of treated respondents receives a subsidy to cover the transport costs of job search. Another group participates in a job application workshop where their skills are certified and they are given orientation on how to make effective job applications. The two interventions are designed to lower spatial and informational barriers to employment. We find that both treatments significantly improve the quality of jobs that young jobseekers obtain. Impacts are concentrated among women and the least educated. Using rich high-frequency data from a phone survey, we are able to explore the mechanisms underlying the results; we show that while the transport subsidy increases both the intensity and the efficacy of job search, the job application workshop mainly operates through an increase in search efficacy. Both interventions mitigate the adverse effects of spatial constraints on employment outcomes, and the job application workshop alleviates informational asymmetries by helping workers to signal their ability. |
| JEL: | O12 O18 J22 J61 J64 M53 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2016-10&r=dev |
| By: | Bruno Lanz; Simon Dietz; Timothy Swanson |
| Abstract: | We study how stochasticity in the evolution of agricultural productivity interacts with economic and population growth, and the associated demand for food. We use a two-sector Schumpeterian model of growth, in which a manufacturing sector produces the traditional consumption good and an agricultural sector produces food to sustain contemporary population. In addition, sectors differ in that agriculture also demands land as an input, itself treated as a scarce form of capital. In our model both population and sectoral technological progress are endogenously determined, and key technological parameters of the model are structurally estimated using 1960-2010 data on world GDP, population, cropland and technological progress. Introducing random shocks to the evolution of total factor productivity in agriculture, we show that uncertainty optimally requires more land to be converted into agricultural use as a hedge against production shortages, and that it significantly affects both consumption and population trajectories. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth; Stochastic control; Agricultural productivity; Endogenous innovations; Land conversion; Population dynamics; Food security. |
| JEL: | O11 O13 O31 J11 C61 Q16 Q24 |
| Date: | 2016–06–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:ciesrp:cies_rp_43&r=dev |
| By: | Michelson, Hope; Galford, Gillian |
| Abstract: | Can rapid increases in agricultural productivity lead to improved nutritional outcomes for children in developing countries? In the 2005-06 growing season, the Malawi government introduced the Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP), a high-profile and large-scale agricultural inputs subsidy targeting small farmers. This paper links new data on sub-district subsidy allocation across Traditional Authorities -- an administrative level beneath districts and above the village in Malawi -- to more than 20,000 observations of anthropometric outcomes for children born in rural Malawi between 1995 and 2010. We use the considerable spatial variation in TA-level per household fertilizer voucher allocation and the differences across birth cohorts introduced by the timing of FISP to study the effect of the program on child anthropometrics. We find a small, positive effect of Malawi’s farm subsidy program on child anthropometric outcomes in Malawi's Central region -- the region with the the historically highest stunting and underweight rates. Our estimates suggest that the Malawi fertilizer subsidy has increased child height-for-age z-scores in the Central Region by approximately 0.04 standard deviations, a two percent increase, on average. We investigate mechanisms of the effect and discuss its potential significance. |
| Keywords: | farm input subsidies, Africa, Malawi, mineral fertilizer, agricultural productivity and nutrition, food security, child health, maize, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, O12, O13, O15, Q01, Q12, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea16:236815&r=dev |
| By: | William A. Masters; Prakarsh Singh |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence for the effectiveness of performance pay among government caregivers to improve child health in India. In a controlled study of 160 daycare centers serving over 4000 children, we randomly assign workers to receive performance pay or fixed bonuses of roughly similar expected value, and test for differences in malnutrition among the children in their care. We find that performance pay reduces the prevalence of weight-for-age malnutrition by about 5 percentage points in 3 months. This effect is sustained in the medium term with a renewal of incentives but the differential growth rate fades away once the scheme is discontinued. Fixed bonuses lead to smaller-sized effects and only in the medium-term. Both treatments appear to improve worker effort and communication with mothers, who in turn feed a more calorific diet to their children at home. |
| Keywords: | Performance Pay, Public Health Information, Child Malnutrition |
| JEL: | O1 I1 M5 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tuf:tuftec:0818&r=dev |
| By: | Shah, Anand |
| Abstract: | Low income households, especially in the developing countries such as India could suffer losses due to weather related events such as drought, hurricanes, floods etc. Such losses could cast a household into a chronic poverty cycle - a poverty trap from which the household may find it difficult to re-emerge. Rainfall derivatives are the insurance contracts that compensate a household based on the weather outcome rather than the actual crop yield. Traditional methods for pricing rainfall derivatives include burn analysis, index value simulation and daily rainfall simulation. In this work, we price the rainfall derivatives using a different method that uses the Gaussian and t copulas to capture the dependence between the monthly rainfalls in the monsoon season in India. We find that though the premiums calculated using burn analysis and our proposed method were equal, the standard deviation and Value at Risk “VaR” of the insurance payoffs calculated using both the methods differed. Therefore, in practice, the actuarial pricing of the rainfall insurance contract using burn analysis and our proposed method could be different. Our method could be easily applied to price rainfall derivatives for the regions that exhibit extreme rainfall patterns. |
| Keywords: | Weather derivatives, rainfall insurance in India, pricing in incomplete markets, Gaussian and t Copulas, agriculture yields, Monte Carlo simulations, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q14, G13, G17, G22, |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aesc16:236288&r=dev |
| By: | Kartika, Dwintha Maya |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether Indonesian national health insurance system promotes health equity in favour of informal economy workers. It first lays out the theoretical justification on the need of social protection, particularly health protection for informal workers. The paper argues that the absence of health protection for vulnerable informal workers in Indonesia has reinforced health inequity between formal and informal workers, thus provides a justification on extending health protection to this segment. It then boils down its analysis on existing BPJS Health scheme, a government-run national health insurance, and to what extent this scheme serves the needs of informal workers in Indonesia. The finding suggests that several factors (contributory premium, access to healthcare services and politicisation of national healthcare) are responsible for adversely incorporating informal workers; hence fail to promote health equity in favour of vulnerable workers in informal economy. |
| Keywords: | National Health Insurance; Informal Economy; Universal Health Coverage; Indonesia; Informal workers; Health financing; Social Security; Social Protection; WHO; ILO; BPJS; |
| JEL: | E26 I1 I13 I14 I15 I18 J46 O17 O29 Y40 |
| Date: | 2015–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:72054&r=dev |
| By: | Sawada, Yasuyuki; Aida, Takeshi; Griffen, Andrew; Kazianga, Harounan; Kozuka, Eiji; Nogushi, Haruko; Todo, Yasuyuki |
| Abstract: | We estimate the short-term impacts of a school-based management program in Burkina Faso in a range of outcomes that include education, voluntary contribution to public goods, participation in informal saving groups, and health. Evaluated at the control average, COGES increases the voluntary contributions to public goods by 15.90%. Participation in informal saving groups increases by 0.016 percent for the lowest income group, and enrollment in school increases by 7.1%. Overall the findings are consistent with the observation that social capital, strengthened by SBM, plays a critical complementary role in correcting financial market failures in low income economies. The results also demonstrate that impact evaluation of SBM that focus only on education are likely to undervalue the overall effects of SBMS. |
| Keywords: | School Based Management, Public Goods, Education, Informal Saving Groups, Health, Developing Countries, Burkina Faso, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Development, Public Economics, O12, D14, H41, I1, I2, |
| Date: | 2016–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea16:236323&r=dev |
| By: | Chatterjee, Tirtha |
| Abstract: | Using data from a nationally representative survey of farm households in India we identify a causal link between dietary-diversity and farm level diversification. Propensity score matching techniques show that households which exclusively grow cereals (our treatment-group) consume significantly less diverse diet compared to those who grow both cereals and other crop-groups (our control-group). Various matching rules have been used to check for robustness of our results. |
| Keywords: | dietary diversity, farm diversification, propensity score matching, India, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aesc16:236369&r=dev |
| By: | Jacopo, Bonan; Laura, Pagani; |
| Abstract: | We analyse the impact of a junior farmer field school (JFFS) project in Northern Uganda on students' agricultural knowledge and practices. Assuming that children are induced to transmit their newly acquired knowledge to their parents and guardians, we also test for the presence of spillover effects at household level. The empirical analysis is based on two sources of panel data: a household survey and a dataset containing results of a test on agricultural knowledge administered to treated and control students before and after the program by the project’s staff. We use matching difference-in-differences estimators, comparing the key outcomes across matched samples of treated and non-treated groups before and after the project intervention. We find that the program had positive effects on students’ agricultural knowledge and adoption of good practices and that it produced some spillover effects in terms of improvements of household agricultural knowledge and food security. However, we find no impact on the propensity to introduce new agricultural good practices and on household agricultural production. Overall, our results point to the importance of adapting the basic principles of farmer field schools to children through junior farmer field schools, as they could improve short and long-term food security and well-being of both children and their households. |
| Keywords: | junior farmer field schools, agricultural extension, Uganda |
| JEL: | O13 O22 O55 C93 |
| Date: | 2016–05–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:339&r=dev |
| By: | Lata Gangadharan; Tarun Jain; Pushkar Maitra; Joseph Vecci |
| Abstract: | Participatory community programmes are a potentially important tool for social empowerment and economic development. How do participatory programmes that specifically target women affect community trust and cohesion? This question is important since the longterm success of such programmes might depend critically on the behavioural transformation that they generate. We examine this question in the context of JEEViKA, a community-based empowerment programme that targets women in Bihar, India. Field experiments and surveys in 40 villages in Bihar reveal that JEEViKA is associated with significantly greater trust by and towards women suggesting an important role for community programmes in building economic relationships. We do not find significant differences between JEEViKA and non-JEEViKA villages in term of trustworthiness. Finally, we also find evidence that exposure to JEEViKA is associated with changes in attitudes towards women and their appropriate role in society.. |
| Keywords: | community development programmes, women.s empowerment, artefactual field experiments, trust, Bihar, India |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2016-064&r=dev |
| By: | Bruno Lanz; Simon Dietz; Tim Swanson |
| Abstract: | We study how stochasticity in the evolution of agricultural productivity interacts with economic and population growth, and the associated demand for food. We use a two-sector Schumpeterian model of growth, in which a manufacturing sector produces the traditional consumption good and an agricultural sector produces food to sustain contemporary population. In addition, sectors differ in that agriculture also demands land as an input, itself treated as a scarce form of capital. In our model both population and sectoral technological progress are endogenously determined, and key technological parameters of the model are structurally estimated using 1960-2010 data on world GDP, population, cropland and technological progress. Introducing random shocks to the evolution of total factor productivity in agriculture, we show that uncertainty optimally requires more land to be converted into agricultural use as a hedge against production shortages, and that it significantly affects both consumption and population trajectories. |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lsg:lsgwps:wp240&r=dev |
| By: | Di Falco, Salvatore; Feri, Francesco; Pin, Paolo; Vollenweider, Xavier |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we identify the economic implications of the pressure to share resources within a social network. Through a set of field experiments in rural Tanzania we randomly increased the expected harvest of a treatment group by the assignment of an improved and much more productive variety of maize. We find that individuals in this group reduced their interaction with their own network. We also find that treated individuals reduced labor input by asking fewer network members to work on their farm during the growing season and, as a result, obtained fewer harvest gains. |
| Keywords: | Ego-network, Field Experiment, Redistributive pressure, Harvest, Tanzania, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, Labor and Human Capital, O12, O13, C93, H26, Z13, |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea16:236345&r=dev |
| By: | Smriti Sharma; Christophe Nordman |
| Abstract: | We assess the effect of female bargaining power on the share of educational expenditures in the household budget in India. We augment the collective household model by endogenizing female bargaining power and use a three-stage least squares approach to simultaneously estimate female bargaining power, per capita household expenditure and budget share of education.Our key results are: (i) female bargaining power has a positive and significant effect on the household budget share of educational spending; (ii) this bargaining power is associated positively (negatively) with education spending in urban (rural) areas; (iii) female bargaining power has a uniformly positive effect on educational expenditure of girls in urban areas among all caste groups, but the observed negative association in rural areas appears to be driven by one of the lower caste groups; and (iv) a pro-male bias exists in educational spending for all age groups, with some differentiation by location and caste. |
| Keywords: | Collective bargaining, Education, Feminist economics, Households |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2016-061&r=dev |
| By: | Khanna, Shantanu (University of Delhi); Goel, Deepti (Delhi School of Economics); Morissette, René (Statistics Canada) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the changes in earnings of paid workers (wage earners) in rural India from 2004/05 to 2011/12. Real earnings increased at all percentiles, and the percentage increase was larger at the lower end. Consequently, earnings inequality declined. Recentered Influence Function decompositions show that throughout the earnings distribution, except at the very top, both changes in 'worker characteristics' and in 'returns to these characteristics' increased earnings, with the latter having played a bigger role. Decompositions of inequality measures reveal that although the change in characteristics had an inequality increasing effect, chiefly attributable to increased education levels, inequality declined because workers at lower quantiles experienced greater improvements in returns to their characteristics than those at the top. |
| Keywords: | earnings, inequality, earnings distribution, rural India |
| JEL: | J30 J31 O53 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9974&r=dev |
| By: | Antia-Obong, Essien Akpan; Hubbard, Carmen; Garrod, Guy |
| Abstract: | Transaction cost economics posits that farmers opt to sell in a market that minimizes their costs of participation. Smallholder farmers in Nigeria face the choice of travelling to sell live chicken at the spot market or at the farm-gate. However, little is known of the factors that influence their choice. So far, studies on market choice overlook farmers lived experience in explaining their market decision. To investigate this gap in research, an explanatory sequential mixed methods design comprising a quantitative phase; followed by a qualitative phase is applied for the first time. We use a two-limit Tobit model to obtain quantitative results from a survey of 259 smallholder farmers in the first phase. Results show that: regular/repeat customers, bargaining power, access to extension services, access to credit, distance to the nearest township, stock size, bicycle ownership and price are factors that significantly influence the choice of selling at the farm-gate. In order to explore this finding in more depth, a qualitative phase was developed and 25 purposively selected respondents were interviewed. The overarching significance of this study is that by integrating quantitative and qualitative data substantially more information is obtainable than is usually obtainable from quantitative data alone. |
| Keywords: | Mixed methods, transaction costs, poultry markets, tobit model, smallholder farmers, Nigeria, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q12, Q13, |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aesc16:236335&r=dev |
| By: | Amin Karimu; George Adu; George Marbuah; Justice Tei Mensah; Franklin Amuakwa-Mensah |
| Abstract: | The general policy prescription for resource-rich countries is that, for sustainable consumption, a greater percentage of the windfall from resource rents should be channelled into accumulating foreign assets such as a sovereign public fund as done in Norway and other developed but resource-rich countries. This might not be a correct policy prescription for resource-rich sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, where public capital is very low to support the needed economic growth. In such countries, rents from resources serve as opportunity to scale-up the needed public capital. Using panel data for the period 1990.2013, we find in line with the scaling-up hypothesis that resource rents significantly increase public investment in SSA and that this tends to depend on the quality of political institutions. We also find evidence of a positive effect of public investment on economic growth, which also depends on the level of resource rents. Using some of the components of public investment, such as health and education expenditure, we find a negative effect of resource rents, suggesting among other things that public spending of resource rents is directed more to other infrastructure investments. |
| Keywords: | public investment, resource rents, growth, political institutions, sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2016-024&r=dev |
| By: | Khem Raj Dahal; Shiva Ch; ra Dhakal |
| Abstract: | This study compares the productivity and profitability of organic and conventional farming for five crops (tea, coffee, rice, maize and cauliflower) in five different districts in Nepal.We find that organic farmers generally have a larger number of cattle and land holdings, but are not very different from conventional farmers in terms of education and household size. In terms of crop productivity, conventional yields are statistically higher than organic yields for two crops, tea and rice, and conventional profits in rice are also higher. Two crops, organic maize and coffee, show negative profits in both conventional and organic systems. However, net revenues are higher in organic maize and coffee relative to their conventional counterparts because of lower costs. In general, conventional crops are more costly to produce than organics. Organic farms face many more policy barriers than conventionally cropped farms. In this context, technological options such as suitable seed varieties, bio-fertilizers, vermi-compost, and improved farm yard manure would improve organic crop productivity. A shortage of organic manure could be overcome by promoting farm livestock enterprises. |
| Keywords: | Organic farming, productivity, profits, rice, tea, Nepal |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:snd:wpaper:106&r=dev |
| By: | Pedro Carneiro (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Jishnu Das (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Hugo Reis (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | Using unique data from Pakistan we estimate a model of demand for diff erentiated products in 112 rural education markets with signi ficant choice among public and private schools. Our model accounts for the endogeneity of school fees and the characteristics of students attending the school. As expected, central determinants of school choice are the distance to school, school fees, and the characteristics of peers. Families are willing to pay on average between 75% and 115% of the average annual private school fee for a 500 meter reduction in distance. In contrast, price elasticities are low: -0.5 for girls and -0.2 for boys. Both distance and price elasticities are consistent with other estimates in the literature, but at odds with a belief among policy makers that school fees deter enrollment and participation in private schooling. Using the estimates from the demand model we show that the existence of a low fee private school market is of great value for households in our sample, reaching about 25% to 100% of monthly per capita income for those choosing private schools. A voucher policy that reduces the fees of private schools to $0 (from an average annual fee of $13) increases private school enrollment by 7.5 percentage points for girls and 4.2 percentage points for boys. Our demand estimates and policy simulations, which account for key challenges specifi c to the schooling market, help situate ongoing debate around private schools within a larger framework of consumer choice and welfare. |
| Keywords: | Education, School Choice, Pakistan, Characteristics Model |
| JEL: | I20 I21 |
| Date: | 2016–05–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:cemmap:22/16&r=dev |