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on Development |
| By: | Orazio Attanasio (University College London, IFS, NBER); Costas Meghir (Cowles Foundation, Yale University); Emily Nix (Dept. of Economics, UCL) |
| Abstract: | We estimate production functions for cognition and health for children aged 1-12 in India, where over 70 million children aged 0-5 are at risk of developmental deficits. The inputs into the production functions include parental background, prior child cognition and health, and child investments. We use income and local prices to control for the endogeneity of investments. We find that cognition is sensitive to investments throughout the age range we consider, while health is mainly affected by early investments. We also find that inputs are complementary, and crucially that health is very important in determining cognition. Our paper contributes in understanding how investments and early health outcomes are important in child development. |
| Keywords: | Early childhood development, Human capital, India, Nonlinear factor models, Young lives survey, Health, Cognition |
| JEL: | I14 I15 I25 I32 J13 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2026r&r=dev |
| By: | Firdaus Hafidz (Academic Unit of Health Economics, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds); Tim Ensor (Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds); Sandy Tubeuf (Academic Unit of Health Economics, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds) |
| Abstract: | Despite increased national health expenditure in health facilities in Indonesia, health outcomes remain low. The aim of our study is to examine the factors determining the relative efficiency of public primary care facilities. Using linked national data sources from facility-, households, and village-based surveys, we measure the efficiency of 185 primary care facilities across fifteen provinces in Indonesia with output oriented data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). Inputs include the number of doctors, midwife and nurses, and other staff while outputs are the number of outpatients and maternal child health patients. We run truncated regression in second stage DEA and one stage SFA analysis to assess contextual characteristics influencing health facilities performance. Our results indicate a wide variation in efficiency between health facilities. High-performing primary care facilities are in affluent areas. Primary care facilities located in urban areas, in Java and Bali Island, with high coverage of insurance scheme for the poor perform better than other geographical location.We find an inconclusive impact of quality of care, patient mix, and availability of inpatient services on efficiency. This paper concludes by highlighting the characteristics of primary care facilities that have the potential to increase efficiency. |
| Keywords: | Efficiency, Primary care facilities, frontier analysis, data envelopment analysis, stochastic frontier analysis, Indonesia |
| JEL: | C50 I10 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lee:wpaper:1703&r=dev |
| By: | Nguyen, Cuong; Vu, Linh |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the pattern and the impact of migration and remittances on household welfare in Vietnam using fixed-effects regressions and panel data from Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys 2010 and 2012. Overall, the effect of migration as well as remittances on employment of remaining members on home households is small. People in households with migration and remittances tend to work less than people in other households. There is no evidence that migration and remittances can help household members to work more on non-farm activities. Remittances, especially international remittances help receiving households increase per capita income and per capita expenditure. Although migration leads to an increase in remittances, it also leads to a reduction in income earned by migrants if they had not migrated. However, per capita consumption expenditure of migrant-sending households increases because of a reduction in household size |
| Keywords: | Migration, remittances, impact evaluation, household welfare, poverty, Vietnam. |
| JEL: | I3 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2017–03–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80084&r=dev |
| By: | Channing Arndt; Kristi Mahrt |
| Abstract: | Household budget surveys in sub-Saharan Africa are designed to facilitate poverty measurement and may fail to fully capture consumption in wealthy households. As a result, inequality is likely underestimated. We address upper tier consumption underreporting by aligning consumption derived from Mozambican household surveys with national accounts. Consumption in categories most consumed by wealthy households is more frequently underreported, and therefore scaling household level consumption by category upwardly adjusts upper tier consumption. Using scaled consumption, we find evidence that inequality in Mozambique is underestimated and that inequality began increasing in 2002 rather than 2008 as the official numbers suggest. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2017-153&r=dev |
| By: | Morais, Joanna; Thi, Huong Trinh |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the analysis of the impact of socioeconomic factors, like food expenditure level and urbanization, on diet patterns in Vietnam, from 2004 to 2014. Contrary to the existing literature, we focus on the diet balance in terms of macronutrients consumption (protein, fat and carbohydrate) and we take into account the fact that the volumes of each macronutrient are not independent. In other words, we are interested in the shares of each macronutrient in the total calorie intake. We use the compositional data analysis (CODA) to describe the evolution of diet patterns over time, and to model the impact of household characteristics on the macronutrient shares vector. We compute food expenditure elasticities of macronutrient shares, and we compare them to classical elasticities for macronutrient volumes and total calorie intake. The compositional model highlights the important role of food expenditure, size of the household and dwelling region in the determination of diet choices. Our results are consistent with the rest of the literature, but they have the advantage to highlight the substitution effects between macronutrients in the context of nutrition transition. |
| Keywords: | Macronutrient shares; diet pattern; compositional regression models; expenditure elasticity; Vietnam. |
| JEL: | C02 C21 C51 P46 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:31800&r=dev |
| By: | Isaac Kalonda Kanyama |
| Abstract: | We analyse horizontal inequality in wealth and in years of education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the period 2001–13. We find that the trend in horizontal inequality is similar to the trend in vertical inequality over the period of analysis. In addition, horizontal inequality in years of formal education is higher among geographical, gender and linguistic groups, and lower among religious and ethnic groups. More specifically, horizontal inequality between genders is higher among individuals aged 25 years and over compared with the full sample of individuals aged 15 years and over. Based on a regression analysis, we find that household size, economic status and rural residence have a significant effect on gender-based inequality in years of education. We also find that gender-based horizontal inequality in years of education is higher in conflict-affected zones. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2017-151&r=dev |
| By: | Matthew Collin; Theodore Talbot |
| Abstract: | Child marriage is associated with bad outcomes for women and girls. Although many countries have raised the legal age of marriage to deter this practice, the incidence of early marriage remains stubbornly high. We develop a simple model to explain how enforcing minimum age-of-marriage laws creates differences in the share of women getting married at the legal cut-off. We formally test for these discontinuities using multiple rounds of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in over 60 countries by applying statistical tests derived from the regression discontinuity literature. By this measure, most countries are not enforcing the laws on their books and enforcement is not getting better over time. Separately, we demonstrate that various measures of age-of-marriage discontinuities are systematically related to with existing, widely-accepted measures of rule-of-law and government effectiveness. A key contribution is therefore a simple, tractable way to monitor legal enforcement using survey data. We conclude by arguing that better laws must be accompanied by better enforcement and monitoring in to delay marriage and protect the rights of women and girls. |
| Keywords: | Child marriage, discontinuity tests, rule of law, legal effectiveness |
| JEL: | J12 K42 |
| Date: | 2017–06–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:458&r=dev |
| By: | Chen, Joyce J (Ohio State University); Kosec, Katrina (IFPRI, International Food Policy Research Institute); Mueller, Valerie (IFPRI, International Food Policy Research Institute) |
| Abstract: | Internal migration has the potential to substantially increase income, especially for the poor in developing countries, and yet migration rates remain low. We explore the role of psychic costs by evaluating the impacts of internal migration on a suite of well-being indicators using a unique, 22-year longitudinal study in rural Pakistan. We account for selection into migration using covariate matching. Migrants have roughly 35 to 40 percent higher consumption per adult equivalent, yet are 12 to 14 percentage points less likely to report feeling either happy or calm. Our results suggest that deteriorating physical health coupled with feelings of relative deprivation underlie the disparity between economic and mental well-being. Thus, despite substantial monetary gains from migration, people may be happier and less mentally distressed remaining at home. If traditional market mechanisms cannot reduce psychic costs, it may be more constructive to address regional inequality by shifting production – rather than workers – across space. |
| Keywords: | internal migration, psychic costs, well-being, Pakistan |
| JEL: | J61 O15 I31 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10853&r=dev |
| By: | Nguyen, Cuong; Nguyen, Lam |
| Abstract: | This study examines intra-generational and intergenerational mobility of employment and income in Vietnam during the 2004-2008 and 2010-2014 periods. It finds rather high mobility across income quintiles. There was high mobility of individuals by occupational skills but less mobility by employment status and sectors. The upward mobility of occupation increased over time because of the increase in skilled occupation. The intergenerational elasticity of earnings for parents and children is estimated at around 0.36. The intergenerational elasticity is very similar for 2004 and 2014. Education plays an important role in improving the intergenerational mobility. The intergenerational elasticity for children without education degrees and those with post-secondary degrees is 0.51 and 0.17, respectively. With post-secondary degree, 80% of people whose parents are unskilled have skilled or non-manual occupation. |
| Keywords: | Social mobility, intra-generational mobility, intergenerational mobility, occupational mobility, income mobility, Vietnam |
| JEL: | D1 J1 J6 |
| Date: | 2017–02–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80083&r=dev |