|
on Development |
| By: | Chrisendo, Daniel; Krishna, Vijesh V.; Siregar, Hermanto; Qaim, Matin |
| Abstract: | Many tropical countries are experiencing massive land-use change with profound environmental and socioeconomic implications. In Indonesia, oil palm cultivation is rapidly expanding at the expense of more traditional agricultural crops and forest land. While environmental effects of the oil palm boom were analyzed in many studies, much less is known about social effects. Here, we analyze how oil palm cultivation by smallholder farmers influences nutrition through changing income, gender roles, and other possible mechanisms. The analysis uses panel data collected in Jambi Province, Sumatra, one of the hotspots of Indonesia's recent oil palm boom. Regression models show that oil palm cultivation has positive effects on different indicators of nutrition and dietary quality. These effects are primarily channeled through income gains that improve smallholders' access to nutritious foods from the market. Oil palm requires less family labor than traditional crops, so a switch to oil palm could potentially free labor for off-farm economic activities. We find that oil palm cultivation is positively associated with off-farm employment of male but not female household members, which may be related to unequal opportunities. Independent of oil palm cultivation, female off-farm employment has positive nutrition effects, even after controlling for total household income. |
| Keywords: | oil palm,smallholder livelihoods,gender roles,female empowerment,nutrition,dietary quality |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:crc990:24&r=all |
| By: | Moussa P. Blimpo (World Bank); Pedro Carneiro (University College London); Pamela Jervis (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Todd Pugatch (Oregon State University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies two experiments of early childhood development programs in The Gambia: one increasing access to services, and another improving service quality. In the first experiment, new community-based early childhood development (ECD) centers were introduced to randomly chosen villages that had no pre-existing structured ECD services. In the second experiment, a randomly assigned subset of existing ECD centers received intensive provider training. We find no evidence that either intervention improved average levels of child development. Exploratory analysis suggests that, in fact, the first experiment, which increased access to relatively low quality ECD services, led to declines in child development among children from less disadvantaged households. Evidence supports that these households may have been steered away from better quality early childhood settings in their homes. |
| Keywords: | early childhood development, cognitive stimulation, teacher training, The Gambia, randomized control trials, Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool |
| JEL: | I25 I38 O15 O22 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2019-023&r=all |
| By: | Romero, Miriam; Wollni, Meike; Rudolf, Katrin; Asnawi, Rosyani; Irawan, Bambang |
| Abstract: | This study evaluates the effects of two environmental policy instruments on the adoption of native tree planting in oil palm plantations. The first instrument is an information campaign on tree planting in oil palm. The second instrument combines the information campaign with a structural intervention that provides native tree seedlings for free. We implemented a randomized controlled trial in oil palm growing villages in Jambi, Indonesia. Our study addresses the underlying mechanisms of behavioral change, by investigating how the policy instruments shape farmers' perceptions, intentions and actual adoption decisions. The results show that information campaigns and structural interventions can motivate tree planting among smallholder oil palm farmers in Indonesia. While both treatments have a positive and significant effect, the intervention combining information with seedling provision leads to significantly higher adoption rates, indicating that overcoming structural barriers is critical. While changes in perceptions and intentions fully mediate the effect of the information campaign on adoption, they can only partially explain the effect of the combined intervention. Thus, to promote a transition towards more sustainable development pathways, facilitating easy access to critical inputs may be key to motivate adoption among large numbers of potential users. |
| Keywords: | tree-planting,oil palm,intentions,mediation,Asia |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:crc990:25&r=all |
| By: | Blattman, Christopher; Fiala, Nathan; Martinez, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | In 2008, Uganda granted hundreds of small groups $400/person to help members start individual skilled trades. Four years on, an experimental evaluation found grants raised earnings by 38% (Blattman, Fiala, Martinez 2014). We return after 9 years to find these start-up grants raised earnings and consumption temporarily only. Grantees' investment leveled off; controls eventually increased their incomes through business and casual labor; and so both groups converged in employment, earnings, and consumption. Grants had lasting impacts on assets, skilled work, and possibly child health, but had little effect on mortality, fertility, health or education. |
| Keywords: | employment,poverty,entrepreneurship,cash transfers,occupational choice,Uganda,field experiment,labor market programs,health,education |
| JEL: | J24 O12 D13 C93 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:802&r=all |
| By: | Rumman Khan; Oliver Morrissey |
| Abstract: | We use six waves of national household surveys in Uganda, from 1992/3 to 2012/13, to study income diversification by households for a period of two decades during which the country saw sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. The income sources are agriculture (farming), agricultural wage, self-employment (informal), wage employment and remittances. We present estimates based on data from the individual surveys pooled and then, to capture dynamics and go some way towards addressing endogeneity, we provide estimates from a pseudo-panel. We find that households with more diversified income sources tend to lower consumption welfare, indicating diversification has mainly been due to push factors (the need for income pushing people into low earning activities). This is because much of the diversification has been into the agricultural wage sector, particularly amongst the poorest households who have also experienced reductions in remittances. Welfare (in terms of adult equivalent expenditure) is higher for households engaged in the non-agricultural wage sector, but growth in wage employment has been very low. This is one of the first studies to look at household welfare and income diversification at the national level (rural and urban) over such an extended period of time. |
| Keywords: | Income diversification, Household welfare, Uganda |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcre:19/05&r=all |
| By: | Kubitza, Christoph; Dib, Jonida Bou; Kopp, Thomas; Krishna, Vijesh V.; Nuryartono, Nunung; Qaim, Matin; Romero, Miriam; Klasen, Stephan |
| Abstract: | Labor saving innovations are essential to increase agricultural productivity, but they might also increase inequality through displacing labor. Empirical evidence on such labor displacements is limited. This study uses representative data at local and national scales to analyze labor market effects of the expansion of oil palm among smallholder farmers in Indonesia. Oil palm is labor-saving in the sense that it requires much less labor per unit of land than alternative crops. The labor market effects depend on how oil-palm-adopting farm households reallocate the saved labor time; either to the off-farm sector or to cultivating additional land. If adopters increase their labor supply to the off-farm sector, employment and wages of rural laborers might decrease. This is especially true for female agricultural laborers, who are often employed in alternative crops but less in oil palm, as their labor productivity in this particular crop is lower than that of men. However, our results suggest that oil palm adoption in Indonesia largely led to the cultivation of additional land, entailing higher agricultural labor demand, especially for men. At the same time, the oil palm boom caused broader rural economic development, providing additional employment opportunities also in the non-agricultural sector, thus absorbing some of the female labor released from agriculture. Overall employment rates did not decrease, neither for men nor for women. While this is good news from economic and social perspectives, the cropland expansion contributes to deforestation with adverse environmental effects. Policies to curb deforestation are needed. Forest conservation policies should go hand-in-hand with measures to further improve rural non-agricultural employment opportunities, to avoid negative socioeconomic effects for poor rural laborers, and women in particular. |
| Keywords: | tree-planting,oil palm,intentions,mediation,Asia |
| JEL: | Q23 R14 J61 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:crc990:26&r=all |
| By: | Tasso Adamopoulos; Diego Restuccia |
| Abstract: | We assess the effects of a major land policy change on farm size and agricultural productivity using a quantitative model and micro-level data. We study the 1988 land reform in the Philippines that imposed a ceiling on land holdings, redistributed above-ceiling lands to landless and smallholder households, and severely restricted the transferability of the redistributed farm lands. We study this reform in the context of an industry model of agriculture with a non-degenerate distribution of farm sizes featuring an occupation decision and a technology choice of farm operators. In this model, the land reform can reduce agricultural productivity not only by misallocating resources across farmers but also by distorting farmers' occupation and technology decisions. The model, calibrated to pre-reform farm-level data in the Philippines, implies that on impact the land reform reduces average farm size by 34% and agricultural productivity by 17%. The government assignment of land and the ban on its transfer are key for the magnitude of the results since a market allocation of the above-ceiling land produces about 1/3 of the size and productivity effects. These results emphasize the potential role of land market efficiency for misallocation and productivity in the agricultural sector. |
| Keywords: | agriculture, productivity, land reform, misallocation, land market, crop choice. |
| JEL: | O11 O13 O14 O4 O53 Q1 R2 R52 |
| Date: | 2019–04–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-637&r=all |
| By: | Douglas Scott |
| Abstract: | Evidence is found of two distinct patterns of response to the onset of the recent drought in rural Ethiopia. Agricultural Households with pre-shock cattle holdings of three or more animals effectively used these assets as a buffer against the fall in agricultural income. In contrast, households with smaller herds preserved their current herd size, at the expense of reduced consumption. These results are consistent with the existence of a poverty trap in household cattle holdings, and highlight the stark choices faced by some groups during this period, to either reduce consumption today or potentially undermine productivity in the future. |
| Keywords: | poverty traps, Ethiopia, drought, asset smoothing |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcre:19/01&r=all |
| By: | Lisa Cameron (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Diana Contreras Suárez (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the drivers of female labour force participation in Indonesia and disentangles the factors that have contributed to it remaining largely unchanged for two decades at around 51%. Data from the National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) and the Village Potential Statistics (Podes) over the period 1996 to 2013 are used to implement a cohort analysis which separates out life-cycle effects from changes over time in women’s labour market participation. We find that the raw labour market participation figures which show little change over time mask changes that offset one another in the current population. There is evidence of social norms changing to support women’s participation but this is offset by the effect of the changing industrial structure. Projections show that with the current policy settings Indonesia is unlikely to reach its G20 target of decreasing the gender gap in participation by 25% between 2014 and 2025. |
| Keywords: | Female labour force participation, labour markets, gender, Indonesia, cohort analysis |
| JEL: | O12 O15 J16 J21 |
| Date: | 2018–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2018n11&r=all |
| By: | Musharraf Cyan (International Center for Public Policy, Department of Economics, Georgia State University, USA); Mark Rider (International Center for Public Policy, Department of Economics, Georgia State University, USA); Michael Price (International Center for Public Policy, Department of Economics, Georgia State University, USA); Stephanie J. Roberts (International Center for Public Policy, Department of Economics, Georgia State University, USA) |
| Abstract: | There are competing explanations for the persistence of the education gender gap in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPK). Three reasons are given for this persistence, specifically parental and societal attitudes opposed to girls’ education and women’s employment outside the home; a lack of both family and public resources; and low labor market returns to women’s education. We seek to contribute to this debate by analyzing the results of a survey of a random sample of 642 families in the Dir District of KPK with a high-school-aged girl that attended at least some primary school. Our study shows that guardians of a high school aged girl, irrespective of the guardian’s gender, report very strong support for girls’ education and for women’s careers outside the home. These findings contradict the widespread belief that the persistence of the education gender gap in KPK is due to parental or societal attitudes opposed to girls’ education and women’s careers. Rather than parental attitudes opposed to girls’ education, respondents report that the lack of family resources is an important impediment to girls’ school attendance. To test the authenticity of the expressions of strong support for girls’ education, we examine the ability of the survey responses to predict girls’ school attendance beyond the 5th class by estimating a model of the determinants of girls’ school attendance beyond the 5th class. |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1906&r=all |
| By: | Cornel Joseph; Vincent Leyaro |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the gender differential effect of technical and vocational educational and training (TVET) in Tanzania using data from the 2014 Integrated Labour Force Survey (ILFS). The multinomial logit model results for employment mobility show that TVET training significantly improves male and female chances of entering into formal employment while reducing their probability of being in informal work, agriculture or unemployed. The effects are much higher for females relative to males for almost all categories of education and training. The results show that although TVET training, and general education, increase male and female earnings significantly, the returns to TVET and general education are substantially higher for females. The decomposed gender earnings gap using Oaxaca and Blinder (1973) method reveals a significant gender earning gap in Tanzania, where males tends to earn significantly higher income (by 58 per cent on average) than females. As TVET and general education increase the probability of females to be in the formal employment more than for males, investing in girls skills training and education helps address the challenge of rising youth unemployment and increasing formal employment. Furthermore, as returns to TVET and general education are higher females, investing in girls’ skills training and education will help address gender earnings inequality |
| Keywords: | gender, employment, returns to education, TVET, Tanzania |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcre:19/04&r=all |
| By: | Doruk, Ömer Tuğsal; Yavuz, Hasan Bilgehan; Pastore, Francesco |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to study the process of intergenerational income mobility in some Latin American economies (Panama and Brazil), which have been much neglected in the existing literature. Like other countries in the area, also Brazil and Panama have a stagnant economy coupled with high income inequality. Our rich and detailed dataset, the IPUMS survey data bank allows us to provide the most reliable and robust estimates of intergenerational transfer, after controlling for a number of additional control variables which were unavailable in previous studies, such as family size, literacy level of fathers, and location in rural versus urban areas. We provide estimates broken down for different genders, age, location, education of fathers in each country. Our results are robust to different specifications and suggest that previous studies significantly overrated the extent of the intergenerational transfer in the countries considered. However, our figures are still compatible with an extremely low degree of social mobility. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility,Occupational mobility,Latin American Economies |
| JEL: | J62 J60 D3 D6 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:343&r=all |
| By: | Mushunje, A.; Ngarava, S.; Chaminuka, P. |
| Abstract: | Modelling of production risk is usually not integrated in the planning of livestock development projects. The objective of the study was to measure the impact of the Kaonafatso ya Dikgomo (KyD) livestock development scheme on calving and off-take rates as outputs, as well as variability of the output (risk). Data was collected from 164 KyD-scheme participant and 81 non-participants. A Just-Pope Production function was the theoretical framework utilised, with data analysed using Ordinary Least Squares. Results show that calving risk for KyD-scheme participants was 83.5% lower than that of non-scheme participants. Access to veterinary and dipping services increased calving risk for non-scheme participants, while frequency of extension contact reduced calving risk for scheme participants. Off-take risk for non-scheme participants was twice that for scheme participants. Distances to market and herd size reduced off-take risk for non-scheme participants, whilst herd size, frequency of extension contact, distances to market, access to veterinary services and membership to farmer organization reduced the same risk for KyD-scheme participants. Farm income was a risk-increasing determinant for scheme participants. The study concludes that participating in the KyD-scheme reduces production risk, and recommends that risk reduction attributes of the scheme should be integrated in program planning and implementation. Key words: calving rate, off-take rate, risk, Just Pope production function, Livestock Development Program. JEL Codes: O220, Q120, Q160, Q180 |
| Keywords: | Livestock Production/Industries |
| Date: | 2018–09–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aeas18:284750&r=all |