nep-dev New Economics Papers
on Development
Issue of 2018‒07‒09
twenty-one papers chosen by
Jacob A. Jordaan
Universiteit Utrecht

  1. African states and development in historical perspective: Colonial public finances in British and French West By Denis Cogneau; Yannick Dupraz; Sandrine Mesplé-Somps
  2. In-Kind Transfer and Child Development: Evidence from Subsidized Rice Program in Indonesia By Gupta, Prachi; Huang, Bihong
  3. Building Nations Through Shared Experiences: Evidence from African Football By Emilio Depetris-Chauvin; Ruben Durante; Filipe R. Campante
  4. Do Criminally Accused Politicians Affect Economic Outcomes? Evidence from India By Nishith Prakash; Marc Rockmore; Yogesh Uppal
  5. Are subsidies to weather-index insurance the best use of public funds? A bio-economic farm model applied to the Senegalese groundnut basin By Aymeric Ricome; François Affholder; Françoise Gérard; Bertrand Muller; Charlotte Poeydebat; Philippe Quirion; Moussa Sall
  6. The Effect of Forest Access on the Market for Fuelwood in India By Boskovic, Branko; Chakravorty, Ujjayant; Pelli, Martino; Risch, Anna
  7. Household Savings and Marriage Payments: Evidence from Dowry in India By S Anukriti; Sungoh Kwon; Nishith Prakash
  8. Women's political participation and intrahousehold empowerment: Evidence from the Egyptian Arab Spring By Olivier Bargain; Delphine Boutin; Hugues Champeaux
  9. Heterogeneous Effects of Migration on Child Welfare: Empirical Evidence from Viet Nam By Morgan, Peter J.; Trinh, Long Q.
  10. Active labour market programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean evidence from a meta analysis By Escudero, Verónica.; Kluve, Jochen.; López Mourelo, Elva.; Pignatti, Clemente.
  11. Have a son, gain a voice: Son preference and female participation in household decision making By Javed, Rashid; Mughal, Mazhar
  12. Improved Modelling of Spatial Cost of Living Differences in Developing Countries: A Comparison of Expert Knowledge and Traditional Price Surveys By John Gibson; Trinh Le
  13. The role of conflict in sex discrimination: The case of missing girls By Mavisakalyan, Astghik; Minasyan, Anna
  14. No Lost Generation: Supporting the School Participation of Displaced Syrian Children in Lebanon By Jacobus De Hoop; Mitchell Morey; David Seidenfeld; UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti
  15. The Effect of Emigration on Household Labor Supply: Evidence from Central Asia and South Caucasus By Paul, Saumik
  16. Using satellite data to track socio-economic outcomes: a case study of Namibia By Thomas Ferreira
  17. Cohesive Institutions and Political Violence By Fetzer, Thiemo; Kyburz, Stephan
  18. Do higher salaries yield better teachers and better student outcomes? By Cabrera, José María; Webbink, Dinand
  19. The Role of Human Capital Resources in East African Economies By Urgaia; Worku R.
  20. Household Education Spending in Latin America and the Caribbean: Evidence from Income and Expenditure Surveys By Santiago Acerenza; Néstor Gandelman
  21. Analyzing Decisiveness of Migration Intentions: Social Kinship that Matters By Aubrey D. Tabuga

  1. By: Denis Cogneau (IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics); Yannick Dupraz (University of Warwick [Coventry]); Sandrine Mesplé-Somps (DIAL - Développement, institutions et analyses de long terme, LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL - Paris Sciences et Lettres)
    Abstract: Why does it seem so difficultto build a sizeable developmenta state in Africa? Agrowing literature looks at the colonial roots of differences in economic development, often using the French/British difference as asource of variation to identify which features of the colonial pastmattered. We use historical archivestobuildanewdatasetofpublicfinancesin9Frenchand4Britishcoloniesof West Africa from 1900 to in dependence.Though we find some significant differences between French and British colonies, we conclude that over all patterns of public finances were similarin both empires. The most striking fact is the greatin crease in expenditure per capitain the last decades of colonization: it quadrupled between the end o World War II and independence. This increase inexpenditure was made possible partly by an increase incustoms revenue due to rising trade flows, but mostly by policy changes: netsubsidies from colonizers to their colonies became positive, while, within the colonies, direct and indirect taxation rates increased. We conclude that the last fifteen years of colonization area key period tounderstand colonial legacies.
    Keywords: Public finances,West Africa,state building,colonization
    Date: 2018–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01820209&r=dev
  2. By: Gupta, Prachi (Asian Development Bank Institute); Huang, Bihong (Asian Development Bank Institute)
    Abstract: In the aftermath of the Asian financial crises, the Indonesian government launched a subsidized rice program called RASKIN in 1998 to moderate the shocks of food price inflation and reduced employment to poor households. The program has been continued since then with an objective to provide food security to poor families and is currently the largest in-kind transfer in Indonesia. Using data from five rounds of the Indonesian Family Life Survey covering the period of 1993–2014, we examine the impact of RASKIN on children’s health status. Using the difference-in-difference estimator, we find that children from the households that are beneficiaries of the RASKIN program show improved health status as measured by various anthropometric measures. We further investigate the long-run gains from RASKIN by tracing the health status of children aged between 0 and 5 years old in 1993 and 1997, respectively, until their adolescence/adulthood. We find evidence of improved anthropometric health outcomes for these children in later years. The gains are found to be higher for children who started receiving the subsidized rice in the early years of childhood.
    Keywords: in-kind transfers; food consumption; child development; health; long-run impact
    JEL: H50 I12 I38 O15 Q18
    Date: 2018–03–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0826&r=dev
  3. By: Emilio Depetris-Chauvin; Ruben Durante; Filipe R. Campante
    Abstract: We examine whether shared collective experiences can help build a national identity, by looking at the impact of national football teams’ victories in sub- Saharan Africa. Combining individual survey data with information on official matches played between 2000 and 2015, we find that individuals interviewed in the days after a victory of their country’s national team are less likely to identify with their ethnic group than with the country as a whole and more likely to trust people of other ethnicities than those interviewed just before. The effect is sizable and robust and is not explained by generic euphoria or optimism. Crucially, we find that national victories not only affect attitudes but also reduce violence: using plausibly exogenous variation from close qualifications to the African Cup of Nations, we find that countries that (barely) qualified experience significantly less conflict in the following six months than countries that (barely) did not. Our findings indicate that, even when divisions are deeply rooted, shared experiences can work as an effective nation-building tool, bridge cleavages, and have a tangible effect on violence.
    JEL: O12
    Date: 2018–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24666&r=dev
  4. By: Nishith Prakash (University of Connecticut); Marc Rockmore (Clark University); Yogesh Uppal (Youngstown State University)
    Abstract: We study the causal impact of electing criminally accused politicians to state legislative assemblies in India on the subsequent economic performance of their constituencies. Using data on the criminal background of candidates running for state assembly elections and a constituency-level measure of economic activity proxied by intensity of night-time lights, we employ a regression discontinuity design that controls for unobserved heterogeneity across con-stituencies and find 22-percentage point lower yearly growth in the intensity of night-time lights arising from the election of a criminally accused politician. These effects are driven by serious, financial and the number of criminal charges and appear to be concentrated in the less devel-oped and more corrupt Indian states. Similar findings emerge for the provision of public goods using data on India’s major rural roads construction program.
    Keywords: Criminal Accusations, Politicians, Night-time Lights, Regression Discontinuity, India
    JEL: D72 D73 O40 O12
    Date: 2017–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2018-08&r=dev
  5. By: Aymeric Ricome (JRC - European Commission - Joint Research Centre [Ispra]); François Affholder (Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - Université de Lille, Sciences Humaines et Sociales); Françoise Gérard (GREEN - Gestion des ressources renouvelables et environnement - CIRAD - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement); Bertrand Muller (LEPSE - Écophysiologie des Plantes sous Stress environnementaux - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - Montpellier SupAgro - Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier); Charlotte Poeydebat; Philippe Quirion (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - CIRAD - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Moussa Sall (ISRA - Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles - ISRA)
    Abstract: While crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa are low compared to most other parts of the world, weather-index insurance is often presented as a promising tool, which could help resource-poor farmers in developing countries to invest and adopt yield-enhancing technologies. Here, we test this hypothesis on two contrasting areas (in terms of rainfall scarcity) of the Senegalese groundnut basin through the use of a bio-economic farm model, coupling the crop growth model CELSIUS with the economic model ANDERS, both specifically designed for this purpose. We introduce a weather-index insurance whose index is currently being used for pilot projects in Senegal and West Africa. Results show that insurance leads to a welfare gain only for those farmers located in the driest area. These farmers respond to insurance mostly by increasing the amount of cow fattening, which leads to higher crop yields thanks to the larger production of manure. We also find that subsidizing insurance is not the best possible use of public funds: for a given level of public funding, reducing credit rates, subsidizing fertilizers, or just transferring cash as a lump-sum generally brings a higher expected utility to farmers and leads to a higher increase in grain production levels.
    Date: 2017–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01679763&r=dev
  6. By: Boskovic, Branko; Chakravorty, Ujjayant; Pelli, Martino; Risch, Anna
    Abstract: Fuelwood collection is often cited as the most important cause of deforestation in developing countries. Use of fuelwood in cooking is a leading cause of indoor air pollution. Using household data from India, we show that households located farther away from the forest spend more time collecting. Distant households are likely to sell more fuelwood and buy less. That is, lower access to forests increases fuelwood collection and sale. This counter-intuitive behavior is triggered by two factors: lower access to forests (a) increases the fixed costs of collecting, which in turn leads to more collection; and (b) drives up local fuelwood prices, which makes collection and sale more profitable. We quantify both these effects. Using our estimates we show that a fifth of the fuelwood collected is consumed outside of rural areas, in nearby towns and cities. Our results imply that at the margin, fuelwood scarcity may lead to increased collection and sale, and exacerbate forest degradation.
    Keywords: energy access; cooking fuels; deforestation; forest cover; fuelwood collection
    JEL: D10 O13 Q42
    Date: 2018–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:32692&r=dev
  7. By: S Anukriti (Boston College); Sungoh Kwon (University of Connecticut); Nishith Prakash (University of Connecticut)
    Abstract: This paper examines how traditional marriage market institutions a˙ect households’ financial decisions. We study how bride-to-groom marriage payments, i.e., dowries, influence saving behavior in rural India. Exploiting variation in firstborn gender and heterogeneity in dowry amounts across marriage markets, we find that the prospect of paying higher dowry increases household savings, which are primarily financed through increased paternal labor supply. This is the first paper that highlights this alternative motive for savings in dowry-paying societies. However, we find no impacts of dowry expectations on son-preferring fertility behaviors and investments in girls.
    Keywords: Household Savings, Dowry, Marriage Payments, India, Labor Supply, Fertility, Sex Ratio, Child Investments
    JEL: J1 D14 O15
    Date: 2018–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2018-09&r=dev
  8. By: Olivier Bargain (UB - Université de Bordeaux); Delphine Boutin (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - Clermont Auvergne - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Hugues Champeaux (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - Clermont Auvergne - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: Egyptian women have played an unprecedented role in the Arab Spring democratic movement, possibly changing women’s perception about their own rights and role. We question whether these events have translated into better outcomes within Egyptian households. We conjecture that potential changes must have been heterogeneous and depended on the local intensity of protests and women’s participation over 2011-13. We exploit the geographical heterogeneity along these two margins to conduct a double difference analysis using data surrounding the period. We find a significant improvement in women’s final say regarding decisions on health, socialization and household expenditure, as well as a decline in the acceptation of domestic violence and girls’ circumcision, in the regions most affected by the protests. This effect is not due to particular regional patterns or pre-existing trends in empowerment. It is also robust to alternative treatment definitions and confirmed by triple difference estimations. We confront our main interpretation to alternative mechanisms that could have explained this effect.
    Keywords: Arab Spring, Revolutions, Gender, Empowerment, Egypt.
    Date: 2018–05–31
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01804380&r=dev
  9. By: Morgan, Peter J. (Asian Development Bank Institute); Trinh, Long Q. (Asian Development Bank Institute)
    Abstract: We examine the heterogeneous effect of migration on left-behind children’s education and labor in Viet Nam. Since decisions to attend school and to work are jointly determined, we use a simultaneous equation modeling approach to estimate the effect of migration on child education and labor. Since migration also affects household welfare, we also integrate household welfare into our system of equations. We use a unique household-level data set collected in 2012 and 2014 in rural Viet Nam. We find that migration of other family members does not affect a child’s decision to attend school directly, but does so indirectly through an increase in time spent at work. However, migration might increase household income, and this may also have a positive effect on child education and reduce child labor. We also find some heterogeneous effects by type of migration (migration for education and migration for work purposes) as well as effects of sending money to migrants and receiving money from migrants on household income, child labor, and ultimately child education.
    Keywords: child education; child labor; child welfare; migration; Viet Nam
    JEL: D01 D13 J13
    Date: 2018–04–25
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0835&r=dev
  10. By: Escudero, Verónica.; Kluve, Jochen.; López Mourelo, Elva.; Pignatti, Clemente.
    Abstract: We present a systematic collection and assessment of impact evaluations of active labour market programmes (ALMP) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The paper delineates the strategy to compile a novel meta database and provides a narrative review of 51 studies. Based on these studies, the quantitative analysis extracts a sample of 296 impact estimates, and uses meta regression models to analyse systematic patterns in the data. In addition to analysing earnings and employment outcomes as in previous meta analyses, we also code and investigate measures of job quality, such as the effects on hours worked and formality. We find that ALMPs in LAC are particularly effective in increasing the probability of having a formal job, compared to other outcomes. Our results also show that training programmes are slightly more effective than other types of interventions. Moreover, when looking at the sample of training programmes alone, we observe that formal employment is also the outcome category that is most likely to be impacted positively by these programmes. In terms of targeting, we find that ALMPs in the region work better for women than for men, and for youth compared to prime age workers. Finally, medium-run estimates are not more likely to be positive than short-run estimates, while programmes of short duration (4 months or less) are significantly less likely to produce positive effects compared to longer interventions.
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:994987491702676&r=dev
  11. By: Javed, Rashid; Mughal, Mazhar
    Abstract: Son preference is common in many Asian countries. Though a growing body of literature examines the drivers and socioeconomic impacts of phenomenon in case of China and India, work on other Asian countries is scarce. This study uses nationally representative survey of over 13 thousand households from Pakistan (PDHS 2012-13) to analyze the effects of observed preference for sons on women’s participation in intra-household decision-making. Four key intra-household decisions are considered: decisions regarding healthcare, family visits, large household purchases and spending husband's income. These correspond to four categories of household decisions, namely healthcare, social, consumption and financial. Probit and Ordered Probit are employed as the main estimation techniques and other determinants of household decision-making are controlled for. Besides, a number of matching routines are employed to account for the possibility of potential selection bias. We find that women with at least one son have more say in household decisions. Bearing at least one son is associated with 5%, 7% and 5% higher say in decisions involving healthcare, social and consumption matters respectively. Women's role in financial affairs, however, does not differ significantly from women with no sons. Female participation in decision-making grows significantly with the number of sons but only up to the third parity. These results are particularly visible among younger, wealthier and educated women, and those who got married earlier. The findings suggest a limited improvement in women's bargaining power at home resulting from the birth of one or more sons. This in part explains higher desire for sons expressed by women compared to men in household surveys.
    Keywords: Son preference,Gender bias,Sex selection,Female decision-making,intrahousehold bargaining,Pakistan
    JEL: D13 J13 C13 C70
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:179520&r=dev
  12. By: John Gibson (University of Waikato); Trinh Le (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research)
    Abstract: Most developing countries lack spatially disaggregated price data, despite the importance of spatial transactions costs in these settings. We experimented in Vietnam with a new way of obtaining disaggregated price data, using local expert knowledge to derive the mean and variance for prices of 64 items in over 1000 communities. We use these prices to calculate regional cost-of-living indexes. These provide a better approximation to benchmark multilateral price indexes calculated from traditional market price surveys than do two no-price methods, based on using food Engel curves to derive deflators and based on unit values (survey group expenditure over group quantity).
    Keywords: expert knowledge; inequality; prices; regional cost-of-living
    JEL: D12 E31 O15
    Date: 2018–06–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wai:econwp:18/08&r=dev
  13. By: Mavisakalyan, Astghik; Minasyan, Anna
    Abstract: Recent evidence shows that highly skewed sex ratios at birth are observed not only in China and India, but also for a number of countries in the Southeast Europe and South Caucasus - a region that has seen eruptions of conflicts following the collapse of communist regimes. Yet, the role of conflict has been largely overlooked in the relevant literature on ”missing girls”. We argue that conflict and group survival concerns can exacerbate the initial son bias and lead to relatively more male births once low fertility levels and access to ultrasound technology are given. We test our hypotheses in the context of Nagorno Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. First, individual-level survey analysis from Armenia shows that relatively stronger concern over national security and territorial integrity is significantly associated with son preference. Second, difference-in-difference panel analysis of community-level census data shows that once ceasefire breaches between Armenia and Azerbaijan intensified, Armenian communities closer to the conflict region exhibited relatively higher sex ratios at birth.
    Keywords: discrimination,sex ratios,conflict
    JEL: D74 J13 J16 O15
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:217&r=dev
  14. By: Jacobus De Hoop; Mitchell Morey; David Seidenfeld; UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti
    Abstract: This paper documents the impact of a cash transfer programme – an initiative of the Government of Lebanon, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP), widely known as the No Lost Generation Programme (NLG) and, locally, as Min Ila (‘from to’) – on the school participation of displaced Syrian children in Lebanon. The programme provides cash to children who are enrolled in the afternoon shift of a public primary school. It was designed to cover the cost of commuting to school and to compensate households for income forgone if children attend school instead of working, two critical barriers to child school participation. We rely on a geographical regression discontinuity design comparing children living in two pilot governorates with children in two neighbouring governorates to identify the impact of the programme halfway in the first year of operation (the 2016/17 school year). We find limited programme effects on school enrolment, but substantive impacts on school attendance among enrolled children, which increased by 0.5 days to 0.7 days per week, an improvement of about 20 per cent over the control group. School enrolment among Syrian children rose rapidly across all of Lebanon’s governorates during the period of the evaluation, resulting in supply side capacity constraints that appear to have dampened positive impacts on enrolment.
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:inwopa:inwopa955&r=dev
  15. By: Paul, Saumik (Asian Development Bank Institute)
    Abstract: Using a novel data set, this paper find that households with migrants experience a 26% drop in the labor force participation rate in four economies (Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan) from the Central Asia and South Caucasus region. It is twice as large for households with permanent migrants as for households with seasonal migrants. The results do not alter in the presence of selection on unobservables, model misspecification, and selection bias due to the absence of more productive workers. Direct evidence on the remittances that each household received is not available. The empirical findings do, however, suggest the possibility of an increase in reservation wages.
    Keywords: emigration; labor mobility
    JEL: F22 J61
    Date: 2018–03–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0822&r=dev
  16. By: Thomas Ferreira (Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University)
    Abstract: Efforts to improve the livelihoods of the poor in sub-Saharan Africa are hindered by data deficiencies. Surveys on socio-economic outcomes, for example, are generally conducted infrequently and are only statistically representative for relatively large geographic areas. To overcome these data limitations, researchers are increasingly turning to satellites which capture data for small areas at high frequencies. Night lights satellite data has particularly drawn interest and growth in lights have been shown to be a useful proxy for GDP growth (Henderson et al., 2012). However, in poor agricultural regions, night lights data might be less useful in explaining variation in socio-economic outcomes because such regions are generally under-electrified. Daytime satellite data measuring land use and vegetation quality, have been used to model socio-economic outcomes across regions, but no studies have explored whether daytime satellite data can be used to track welfare longitudinally. This paper argues that indicators of vegetation quality can be used to track welfare over time in agriculturally dominant areas. Such indicators are used extensively to predict agricultural yields and thus should correlate with welfare, as agriculture is an important source of income. This paper presents results from a small study in Namibia, that explores whether this is the case. Firstly, it is shown using classification of cropland, that daytime satellite data can identify areas of economic activity where night lights cannot. Secondly the relationship between vegetation quality and welfare is studied. Cross-sectionally, increases in vegetation quality correlate negatively with welfare. This is expected as the poor are more likely to live in rural areas. Within rural areas, however, vegetation quality correlates positively with welfare. This study thus supports the hypothesis that satellite based indicators of vegetative health can be used to track welfare over time in areas where night lights are not present.
    Keywords: Satellites, Night Lights, Normalised Differenced Vegetation Index, Agriculture, Poverty, Namibia
    JEL: I32 O13 Q56
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers305&r=dev
  17. By: Fetzer, Thiemo (University of Warwick); Kyburz, Stephan (Center for Global Development)
    Abstract: Can institutionalized transfers of resource rents be a source of civil conflict? Are cohesive institutions better in managing distributive conflicts? We study these questions exploiting exogenous variation in revenue disbursements to local governments together with new data on local democratic institutions in Nigeria. We make three contributions. First, we document the existence of a strong link between rents and conflict far away from the location of the actual resource. Second, we show that distributive conflict is highly organized involving political militias and concentrated in the extent to which local governments are non-cohesive. Third, we show that democratic practice in form having elected local governments significantly weakens the causal link between rents and political violence. We document that elections (vis-a-vis appointments), by producing more cohesive institutions, vastly limit the extent to which distributional conflict between groups breaks out following shocks to the available rents. Throughout, we confirm these findings using individual level survey data.
    Keywords: conflict ; ethnicity ; natural resources ;political economy ; commodity prices
    JEL: Q33 O13 N52 R11 L71
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1166&r=dev
  18. By: Cabrera, José María; Webbink, Dinand
    Abstract: We study the effects of a policy aimed at attracting more experienced and better qualified teachers in primary schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Uruguay. Teachers in these schools could earn higher salaries. Estimates from regression discontinuity models show that the policy increased experience by two to three years. The policy was especially successful in ‘hiring experience from other schools’, but also increased tenure. However, the effect on student outcomes appears to be small. The distinction between ‘hiring or keeping’ teachers seems important for explaining this result. Keeping teachers appears to be more beneficial for students than hiring experienced teachers. We also find that the effect of the policy is better for schools that replaced teachers with less than five years of experience.
    Keywords: teacher salaries, teacher experience, student performance, disadvantaged students.
    JEL: I2 J24
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:86972&r=dev
  19. By: Urgaia; Worku R.
    Abstract: This study deals with the role of human capital resources in economic growth. In economic growth, human capital is an important stock component that can affect the gross national income GNI more than gross domestic product GDP since GNI comprises the GDP itself and other income resources obtained from abroad. The empirical results of transmission mechanism channels in vector autoregressive model indicate that the observed human capital has long-run effects on the national income in a panel of nine East African countries from the year 1980 to 2015.The short-term transmission mechanism channels show that there is an important contribution of human capital resources HCR to the development of physical capital stock through GNI. The GNI has also a positive impact on the accumulation of physical capital stock via HCR. In addition, we also apply the time scaling decomposition of a panel wavelet analysis in Granger causality tests. The tests show that HCR and the GNI have a bi-directional causal relationship in the short-run, medium-and long-run. The recent trend shows that East Africa has the lowest level of human capital development which raises the issues of employment challenges faced by women more than men although it has achieved a rapid growth in expanding education. We, therefore, suggest that more due attention should be given to human capital resources than any other in attempt to achieve sustainable development in the process of successful economic progress.
    Keywords: Dynamic Panel VAR,Transmission Channel,HCR,GNI and Granger Wavelet Analyses
    JEL: J00 J24
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:218&r=dev
  20. By: Santiago Acerenza; Néstor Gandelman
    Abstract: This paper characterizes household spending in education using microdata from income and expenditure surveys for 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries and the United States. Bahamas, Chile and Mexico have the highest household spending in education while Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay have the lowest. Tertiary education is the most important form of spending, and most educational spending is performed for individuals 18-23 years old. More educated and richer household heads spend more in the education of household members. Households with both parents present and those with a female main income provider spend more than their counterparts. Urban households also spend more than rural households. On average, education in Latin America and the Caribbean is a luxury good, while it may be a necessity in the United States. No gender bias is found in primary education, but households invest more in females of secondary age and up than same-age males.
    Keywords: Household Expenditure, Household Income, Education Expenditure, Primary & Secondary Education, Children, School Attendance, gender bias, Educational Level, Household Education Spending, Household Income, Household Expenditure
    JEL: D12 I2 E21
    Date: 2017–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:8212&r=dev
  21. By: Aubrey D. Tabuga
    Abstract: Analyzing future migration intentions is essential to understanding how migration perpetuates. International migration is such a complex and nuanced phenomenon that those who desire to participate in it go through an elaborate process of intention-formation, planning, and decisionmaking. And yet the literature on migration intentions rarely view it in such manner. Instead, many studies treat migration decisionmaking as a binary stay-or-leave variable. Moreover, the lens more commonly implemented is economic; there is less focus on the social dimensions of migration decisions. This analysis seeks to explain the influence of social networks on the decisiveness to migrate while controlling for the effects of economic forces, subjective perceptions on well-being, and demographic factors. Using information gathered from individuals residing within a village with high migration incidence, this study found that differentiating migrant networks into the degree of association or strength of ties is crucial because different networks have different effects. Furthermore, considering the individuals’ current level in the migration decisionmaking process is also deemed crucial in analyzing the factors that influence the decision. For instance, migrant networks particularly the closest of kin are important in the advanced phase of concrete migration planning, and not in the initial stage. Know more about the results of the study in this paper.
    Keywords: migration, , migration intention, migration decisionmaking, Philippine migration, generalized ordered logit, tie strength, social networks
    Date: 2018
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2018-06&r=dev

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