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on Development |
| By: | Jasmien De Winne (Cornell University, Ithaca, New York); Gert Peersman (Ghent University) |
| Abstract: | Studies that examine the impact of food prices on conflict usually assume that (all) changes in international food prices are exogenous shocks for individual countries or local areas. By isolating strictly exogenous shifts in global food commodity prices, we show that this assumption could seriously distort estimations of the impact on conflict in African regions. Specifically, we show that increases in food prices that are caused by harvest shocks outside Africa raise conflict significantly, whereas a “naive†regression of conflict on international food prices uncovers an inverse relationship. We also find that higher food prices lead to more conflict in regions with more agricultural production. Again, we document that failing to account for exogenous price changes exhibits a considerable bias in the impact. In addition, we show that the conventional approach to evaluate such effects; that is, estimations that include time fixed effects, ignores an important positive baseline effect that is common for all regions. |
| Keywords: | conflict, food prices, instrumental variables JEL Classification: C23, D74, F44, Q02, Q34 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:316&r=all |
| By: | Hai-Anh H. Dang (Survey Unit, Development Data Group, World Bank and Center for Analysis and Forecasting, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences); Trung X. Hoang (Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences); Ha Nguyen (Macroeconomics and Growth Unit, Development Research Group, World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Very few studies currently exist on the long-term impacts of schooling policies in developing countries. This paper examines the impacts—half a century later—of a mass education program conducted by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the occupied areas during the First Indo- china War. Difference-in-difference estimation results suggest that school-age children who were exposed to the program obtained significantly higher levels of education than their peers who were residing in French-occupied areas. The impacts are statistically significant for school- age girls and not for school-age boys. The analysis finds beneficial spillover and inter-generational impacts of education: affected girls enjoyed higher household living standards, had more educated spouses, and raised more educated children. The paper discusses various robustness checks and extensions that support these findings. |
| Keywords: | education achievement, reading literacy, school policy, popular education, difference- in-difference, long-term impact, war JEL Classification: H0, I2, O1, P3 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:307&r=all |
| By: | Lopez-Calva,Luis-Felipe; Ortiz-Juarez,Eduardo; Rodriguez Castelan,Carlos |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits a novel municipal-level data set to explore patterns of convergence in income and poverty in Mexico during 1992-2014. The paper finds that, despite a context of overall stagnant economic growth and poverty reduction, there is evidence of income and poverty convergence at the municipal level. The findings suggest that these convergence processes stem from a combination of considerable positive performance among the poorest municipalities and stagnant and deteriorating performance among richer municipalities. Re distributive programs, such as federal transfers to poor municipalities and cash transfers to poor households, seem to have played an important role in driving these results by bolstering income growth among the poorest municipalities, while also inducing progressive changes in the distribution of income. |
| Keywords: | Inequality,Economic Growth,Industrial Economics,Economic Theory&Research,Disability,Services&Transfers to Poor,Economic Assistance,Access of Poor to Social Services,Poverty Reduction Strategies,International Trade and Trade Rules |
| Date: | 2019–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9038&r=all |
| By: | Joseph,George; Haque,Sabrina Sharmin; Moqueet,Nazia Sultana; Hoo,Yi Rong |
| Abstract: | Water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions are increasingly recognized as essential for improving nutritional outcomes in children. Emerging literature describes the negative effects of poor sanitation on child growth. However, limited evidence has shown a link between water quality and nutritional outcomes. Similar to poor sanitation, it is plausible that water contaminated with E. coli could affect the nutritional status of children through various possible biological pathways, such as repeated episodes of diarrhea, environmental enteropathy, parasites, or other mechanisms that inhibit nutrient uptake and absorption. This study explores the relationship between contaminated water and stunting prevalence among children younger than age five years, using unique cross-sectional data from the 2012?13 Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, which was one of the first nationally representative surveys to include water quality testing for E. coli. E. coli contamination in drinking water is measured at household and source points. Stunting is measured using height-for-age z-scores for children under five, where a child is considered stunted when he or she is two or more standard deviations below the median of the World Health Organization reference population. The results of multiple probit regression models indicate a 6 percent increase in the prevalence of stunting in children who are exposed to highly contaminated drinking water at household point compared with those exposed to low-to-medium contamination. When contamination is measured at the source level, the association is greater, with a 9 percent increase in the likelihood of stunting when exposed to a high level of contamination. |
| Keywords: | Hydrology,Reproductive Health,Early Child and Children',Early Child and Children's Health,Nutrition,Small Private Water Supply Providers,Engineering,Water and Human Health,Health and Sanitation,Environmental Engineering,Sanitary Environmental Engineering,Water Supply and Sanitation Economics,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Sanitation and Sewerage,Educational Sciences |
| Date: | 2019–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9054&r=all |
| By: | Annan,Jeannie Ruth; Donald,Aletheia Amalia; Goldstein,Markus P.; Gonzalez Martinez,Paula Lorena; Koolwal,Gayatri B. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines women's power relative to that of their husbands in 23 Sub-Saharan African countries to determine how it affects women's health, reproductive outcomes, children's health, and children's education. The analysis uses a novel measure of women's empowerment that is closely linked to classical theories of power, built from spouses'often-conflicting reports of intrahousehold decision making. It finds that women's power substantially matters for health and various family and reproductive outcomes. Women taking power is also better for children's outcomes, in particular for girls'health, but it is worse for emotional violence. The results show the conceptual and analytical value of intrahousehold contention over decision making and expand the breadth of evidence on the importance of women's power for economic development. |
| Date: | 2019–10–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9034&r=all |
| By: | Collins-Sowah, Peron A.; Adjin, K. Christophe; Henning, Christian H. C. A. |
| Abstract: | When a new technology is introduced to farmers, not only do individual and household factors such as risk attitudes, wealth and resource endowments affect a farm household's likelihood of technology adoption but probably more importantly, social capital structures also appear to matter. In this paper, we use the multinomial endogenous switching regression model and empirical data from a nationally representative farm household survey in Senegal to identify the causal effects of social capital on the profitability of adopting two productivity-enhancing technologies - fertilizer and improved seeds. We find a positive and significant treatment effect of social capital on total crop and household income when coupled to the adoption of productivity enhancing technologies. This suggests the need to support farmer-based organizations and improve information channels related to input and output market information, credit and insurance. |
| Keywords: | adoption,social capital,productivity enhancing technology,multinomial endogenous switching |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cauapw:wp201903&r=all |
| By: | Armand Mboutchouang Kountchou (Department of Economics and Management, University of Dschang, Cameroon); Soazic Elise Wang Sonne (PhD Fellow in Development Economics, UNU-MERIT, the Netherlands); Gadom Djal Gadom (Department of Economics and Management, University of N’Djamena, Chad) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the local and indirect impacts of the 2005-2010 armed conflict on under- five years’ old children’s nutrition and health outcomes in Chad. We exploit spatial variation of the number of attacks at the district level and assess the indirect impacts of mother’s exposure to the conflict on their less than five years old children’s anthropometrics. We use unique dataset from the 2014/2015 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS-MICS) with GPS location of households’ clusters combined with the 2005-2010 ACLED geo-localised data on armed conflict in Chad. Our empirical analysis establishes a negative and significant impact of armed conflict on children’s anthropometric Z scores as well as their likelihood of stunting, underweight, and wasting. We also find that mothers exposed to the conflict are more likely to have children with lower weight and size at birth. Our results are robust after purging the conflict-induced migration effects. Key mechanisms include mother’s access and utilisation of healthcare facilities and services. We found that mothers who were exposed to the conflict were neither likely to deliver their children in hospital, nor likely to take iron pills or Vitamin A during and after pregnancy. It is therefore crucial for the Chadian government and the international humanitarian community to implement genuine health policy interventions directed to mothers at childbearing age (15-49) in order to sustain their access and provision of health care facilities and services during and shortly after the end of conflict. |
| Keywords: | Armed conflict, Children’s nutrition and health outcomes, Conflict-induced migration, Chad. JEL Classification: I12, J13, O12 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:301&r=all |
| By: | Soazic Elise Wang Sonne (World Bank and United Nations University-Maastricht Economics and social Research Institute and Training Center on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT)); Paolo Verme (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how parents’ early childhood exposure to a refugee crisis impacts their children’s health status. Based on Demographic and Health Survey data from Tanzania with the migration history of mothers and fathers, the analysis exploits geographical, time, and cohort variations using shock intensity and distance from refugee camps to instrument treatment. The findings show that children who were born to parents who were living closer to refugee camps during their early childhood have lower height for their age and are more likely to be stunted. The results are robust to alternative functional forms of the distance from camps, alternative specifications of the treatment and control groups, alternative cohorts of mothers, and several placebo tests. |
| Keywords: | Early childhood development; refugees; forced displacement, health outcomes, children JEL Classification: O10; O12; O13; O15; F22; R23; R12 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:319&r=all |
| By: | Olga Namen (School of Economics, Universidad del Rosario. Calle 12C No. 4-69, Bogota); Mounu Prem (School of Economics, Universidad del Rosario. Calle 12C No. 4-69, Bogota); Juan F. Vargas (School of Economics, Universidad del Rosario. Calle 12C No. 4-69, Bogota) |
| Abstract: | While the literature has documented negative effects of conflict on educational outcomes, there is surprisingly very little evidence on the effect of conflict termination on human capital. We fill this gap by showing how the permanent ceasefire declared by FARC’s insurgency during peace negotiations with the Colombian government caused a large differential reduction on school dropout rates in the areas affected by FARC violence prior to the ceasefire, relative to other areas. Importantly, this is not driven by child soldiering. Rather, our evidence suggests that the dropout reduction responds to the falling victimization rates in areas that experienced FARC violence. |
| Keywords: | Education, School dropout, Peace process, Armed conflict JEL Classification: D74, I21, J24 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:310&r=all |
| By: | Justino Patricia; Ghorpade Yashodhan |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how household-level receipts of cash transfers affect political attitudes in Pakistan. The paper exploits the locally exogenous eligibility cut-off of the flagship Benazir Income Support Programme to estimate causal effects.The main results show evidence of improved satisfaction with the government among beneficiaries of the programme. The paper discusses what potential mechanisms may explain this result and finds no evidence of changes in attitudes being associated with improvements in state capacity or better economic and security prospects. Instead, we find that the effect is present only when the programme has been in place in communities for over two years, which coincides with the switch to proxy-means test-based targeting from the earlier modality of nominations by parliamentarians.The main result is therefore driven by better connected and politically important communities that were favoured by incumbent parliamentarians for programme rollout before the introduction of objective targeting criteria. |
| Keywords: | Social protection,Cash transfers,Pakistan,Political attitudes |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2019-91&r=all |
| By: | Hasan,Amer; Jung,Haeil; Kinnell,Angela; Maika,Amelia; Nakajima,Nozomi; Pradhan,Menno Prasad |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the sustainability of early childhood education centers established under a large-scale, donor-funded project in rural Indonesia. Analysis of quantitative and qualitative data shows that 86 percent of the centers continued to provide preschool services three years after project funding ended. Centers balanced the reduction in funding by introducing student fees. The paper estimates a series of logistic regression models to predict center sustainability. Centers that increased their share of expenditures on teacher salaries during the project were significantly more likely to remain open. Often this was made possible by centers altering their mix of supplementary services provided. Centers that provided higher quality care, had more complementary services in the area, and had more parental involvement were significantly more likely to be sustained after donor funding ended. In contrast, centers with more substitute services in the area were less likely to be sustained. There is no evidence to suggest that distance to the village center or nearest neighboring center was a major factor for sustainability. There is also no evidence to suggest that, while they were operating, closed centers catered to children from different wealth backgrounds than those that remained open. These results point to actionable lessons for the design and sustainability of future development projects. |
| Date: | 2019–11–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9061&r=all |
| By: | Adjin, K. Christophe; Henning, Christian H. C. A. |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the empirical causal relationship between farmers organizations membership and food availability in Senegal. Using a unique country scale farm-level data of cereals farming households, and applying various econometrics estimations techniques that control for selection biases and spatial heterogeneity, the study found positive and significant association between organizations membership and farmers levels of cereals production. Findings are consistent across estimations methods. Being a member of an farmer organization increases cereals production by 19%. These results suggest once again the importance of farmers organizations in the fight against rural food insecurity. In addition, other factors such as the access to extension services, fertilizer subsidies and the rainfall appear to be significantly determining households food production. Furthermore, results also reveal the relevance of spatiality in the analysis of agricultural sector in developing countries. |
| Keywords: | farmers organizations,impact evaluation,spatial heterogeneity |
| JEL: | Q13 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cauapw:wp201907&r=all |
| By: | Avitabile,Ciro; Cunha,Jesse Matthew; Meilman Lomaz Cohn,Ricardo |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the medium-term impact of early-life welfare transfers on children's learning. It studies children who were exposed to the randomized controlled trial of the Mexico's Food Support Program (the Programa de Apoyo Alimentario, PAL), in which households were assigned to receive cash, in-kind food transfers, or nothing (a control). The children are matched with administrative data on primary school standardized tests, which were taken four to 10 years after the experiment began. The findings show that in-kind transfers did not impact test scores, while cash transfers led to a significant and meaningful decrease in test scores. An analysis of the mechanisms driving these results reveals that both transfers led to an increase in child labor, which is likely detrimental to learning. In-kind food transfers, however, induced a greater consumption of several key micronutrients that are vital for brain development, which likely attenuated the negative impacts of child labor on learning. |
| Date: | 2019–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9086&r=all |
| By: | Joseph,George; Hoo,Yi Rong; Moqueet,Nazia Sultana; Chellaraj,Gnanaraj |
| Abstract: | Despite Bangladesh's notable progress toward the eradication of open defecation, the country still faces severe deficits in the availability of improved sanitation. This paper analyzes the impact of exposure to unimproved sanitation early in childhood on primary school enrollment status, using pseudo-panel data for children ages six to nine years in Bangladesh. The results indicate that unimproved sanitation has a negative and significant impact on primary school enrollment. A child's early exposure to unimproved sanitation decreases the likelihood of being enrolled in primary school by eight to ten percentage points on average compared with a child with access to improved sanitation. The effect is particularly strong -- a difference of 8 to 10 percentage points -- for children ages six to seven. It is also strong in rural areas. The results are statistically robust to errors due to potential omitted variable bias. |
| Keywords: | Water Supply and Sanitation Economics,Engineering,Sanitary Environmental Engineering,Environmental Engineering,Health and Sanitation,Water and Human Health,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Sanitation and Sewerage,Small Private Water Supply Providers,Health Care Services Industry,Hydrology,Educational Sciences,Nutrition |
| Date: | 2019–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9059&r=all |
| By: | Paul Anand (Open University); Jere R. Behrman (University of Pennsylvania); Hai-Anh H. Dang (World Bank); Sam Jones (UNU-WIDER) |
| Abstract: | Inequalities in children’s learning are widely recognized to arise from variations in both household and school-related factors. While few studies have considered the role of sorting between schools and households, even fewer have quantified how much sorting contributes to educational inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. We fill this gap using data on over 1 million children from three East African countries. Applying a novel variance decomposition procedure, our results indicate that sorting of pupils across schools accounts for at least 8 percent of the total test-score variance, eqyuivalent to half a year of schooling or more. This contribution tends to be largest for children from families at the ends of the socio-economic spectrum. Empirical simulations of steady-state educational inequalities reveal that policies to mitigate the consequences of sorting could substantially reduce inequalities in education. |
| Keywords: | inequality of educational opportunity; variance decomposition; sorting; East Africa |
| JEL: | F63 I24 I25 |
| Date: | 2019–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:20-006&r=all |
| By: | Joseph,George; Wang,Qiao; Chellaraj,Gnanaraj; Shamsudduha,Mohammed; Naser,Abu Mohammed |
| Abstract: | In this paper, the impact of salinity on maternal and child health in Bangladesh is analyzed using data from the Bangladesh Demographic Health Surveys. A U-shaped association between drinking water salinity and infant and neonatal mortality is found, suggesting higher mortality when salinity is very low or high. With fresh drinking water, the marginal effect of salinity measured by groundwater electricity conductivity on infant death is always negative. With brackish drinking water and slightly saline water, the negative effect is small. As drinking water becomes moderately saline, the predicted probability of infant death starts to increase, and the marginal effect becomes and remains positive. The relationship between drinking water salinity and neonatal death shows a similar pattern. Finally, freshwater with very low concentration of healthy minerals and severely saline water with very high detrimental sodium can be harmful for infant and neonatal health during pregnancy. Severe salinity needs to be addressed if the recent gains in infant and neonatal mortality are to be sustained, especially in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. |
| Date: | 2019–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9058&r=all |
| By: | Dominic Rohner (Department of Economics, University of Lausanne and CEPR); Alessandro Saia (Department of Economics, University of Lausanne) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of school construction on the likelihood of conflict, drawing on a policy experiment in Indonesia, and collecting our own novel dataset on political violence for 289 districts in Indonesia over the period 1955-1994. We find that education has a strong, robust and quantitatively sizeable conflict-reducing impact. It is shown that the channels of transmission are both related to economic factors as well as to an increase in inter-religious trust and tolerance. Interestingly, while societal mechanisms are found to have an immediate impact, economic channels only gain importance after some years. We also show that school construction results in a shift away from violent means of expression (armed conflict) towards non-violent ones (peaceful protests). |
| Keywords: | Education, Conflict, Civil War, Fighting, Schools, Returns to Education, Polarization, Protest JEL Classification: C23, D74, H52, I20, N45 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:304&r=all |
| By: | Kaila,Heidi Kristiina; Azad,M Abul Kalam |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the relationship between conflict and household welfare by using a detailed panel data set of household victimization across the most conflict-affected regions in Nigeria between 2010 and 2017, during a time characterized by a sharp increase in conflict. The North East region has been hardest hit with the recent Boko Haram insurgency. The North Central region has seen clashes between herders and farmers over land and resources. Several militant groups operate in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where their aim is to extract resources by disrupting oil production. By exploiting the plausibly exogenous variation in the timing, intensity, and spatial distribution of victimization, this study finds that becoming a victim of conflict leads to higher food insecurity and decreased consumption. Since different types of actors have different motivations for their actions, the consequences of victimization might vary depending on the perpetrator. The study finds that events perpetrated by insurgents are the most detrimental to consumption, whereas food insecurity increases as a consequence of insurgent and criminal activity. This is in line with the results being strongest in the North East, which also has the highest intensity of conflict. The study also finds that property-related events are more detrimental to consumption and food insecurity than are violent events. Likewise, it finds suggestive evidence that violent events, as well as events perpetrated by insurgents and bandits, are detrimental to mental health. The findings highlight the importance of collecting nuanced information on victimization in conflict-affected areas. |
| Date: | 2019–09–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9019&r=all |
| By: | Delavallade,Clara Anne; Griffith,Alan; Thornton,Rebecca Lynn |
| Abstract: | The Sustainable Development Goals set a triple educational objective: improve access to, quality of, and gender equity in education. This paper documents the effectiveness of a multifaceted educational program, pursuing these three objectives simultaneously, in rural India. Using an experiment in 230 schools, the paper measures the effects of the program on students'school participation and academic performance over two years, while also examining heterogeneous impacts and sustainability. The findings show that the program increased enrollment, especially among girls (8.1 percent in the first year, 11.7 percent in the second), reducing gender gaps in school retention. The findings show large learning gains of 0.323 standard deviation due to the program in the first year and 0.156 standard deviation at the end of the second year, which did not vary by gender. There were also large effects on school management outcomes, increasing the number of meetings by 16 percent and the number of improvement plans completed by 25 percent. |
| Date: | 2019–12–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9081&r=all |
| By: | Berkes,Jan Lukas; Bouguen,Adrien; Filmer,Deon P.; Fukao,Tsuyoshi |
| Abstract: | This paper experimentally examines the impacts of a large-scale government program that increased the supply and quality of community preschools in rural Cambodia. The construction of new preschool facilities was paired with two demand-side interventions designed to stimulate additional enrollment into preschools. The newly constructed preschools caused an increase in enrollment rates but the demand-side interventions did not. One year after the program started, the paper finds small and significant impacts on cognitive (0.04 standard deviations) and socio-emotional development (0.09 standard deviations). The analysis shows that the cognitive impacts are driven by children from the wealthiest quartile, while the program had limited impacts on children from the poorest families. The effects on cognitive development increased after two years for the wealthiest (the cognitive gap widened) while the effects on socio-emotional development faded out across the board. Using detailed classroom surveys and in-class observations, the paper shows that the program had large impacts on the quality of preschool infrastructure and materials but only limited impacts the quality of educational processes -- the results therefore suggest that further improvement of those processes might be needed to foster the development of disadvantaged children. |
| Keywords: | Educational Sciences,Educational Institutions&Facilities,Effective Schools and Teachers,Early Childhood Development,Nutrition,Reproductive Health,Early Child and Children',Early Child and Children's Health,Children and Youth,Social Protections&Assistance |
| Date: | 2019–12–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9070&r=all |