|
on Development |
| By: | Prem, Mounu; Purroy, Miguel E.; Vargas, Juan F. |
| Abstract: | Anti-personnel landmines are one of the main causes of civilian victimization in conflict-affected areas and a significant obstacle for post-war reconstruction. Demining campaigns are therefore a promising policy instrument to promote long-term development. We argue that the economic and social effects of demining are not unambiguously positive. Demining may have unintended negative consequences if it takes place while conflicts are ongoing, or if they do not lead to full clearance. Using highly disaggregated data on demining operations in Colombia from 2004 to 2019, and exploiting the staggered fashion of demining activity, we find that post-conflict humanitarian demining increases economic activity and students’ performance in test scores, especially in areas with better market access. In contrast, economic activity does not react to post-conflict demining events carried out during military operations, and it decreases if demining takes place while the conflict is ongoing. Rather, demining events that result from military operations are more likely to exacerbate extractive activities and promote deforestation. |
| Keywords: | Landmines; demining; conflict; peace; local development |
| Date: | 2022–02–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:iastwp:126618&r= |
| By: | Jules Gazeaud; Claire Ricard (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne) |
| Abstract: | We use a regression discontinuity design in rural Morocco to study whether the enrollment gains from conditional cash transfer programs translate into learning benefits. Unlike most previous studies, we estimate the effects of a sustained exposure during whole primary school. We find small and seemingly negative effects on test scores at the end-of-primary school exam. Concomitant increases in class size suggest that the program constrained learning by putting additional pressure on existing resources in beneficiary areas. These results are particularly relevant for settings where transfers are geographically targeted with no measures to absorb the extra influx of students. |
| Keywords: | Learning outcomes,Conditional cash Transfers,Morocco |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cdiwps:hal-03137463&r= |
| By: | Simone Bertoli (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Elsa Gautrain (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Elie Murard |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence that the occurrence of an international migration episode is associated with a variation in the living arrangements of the household members left behind. The migration of a married Mexican man typically induces his spouse and children to join the household of the wife's parents, a pattern that is at odds with the prevailing patrilocal norm. This change in living arrangements, which involves the extended family of the migrant, has two relevant implications for the analysis of the effects of paternal migration and remittances on the children left behind. First, it can give rise to an important heterogeneity in the effects of interest, which has not been explored in the migration literature. Second, it leads to attrition in longitudinal household surveys that is non-random with respect to potential outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Migration,Remittances,Household Structure,Living arrangements,Extended family,Schooling |
| Date: | 2021–01–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cdiwps:hal-03117677&r= |
| By: | Hélène Giacobino (J-PAL); Elise Huillery (Université Paris Dauphine – PSL and J-PAL); Bastien Michel (Paris School of Economics and Aarhus University); Mathilde Sage (Université Paris Dauphine – PSL) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether eliminating financial and logistical barriers to secondary education can reduce child marriage. Using a randomized controlled trial including 285 localities in Niger, which ranks last in gender development indices, we show that offering a scholarship upon admission to middle school halves both school dropout and child marriage. It also raises girls’ aspirations for themselves as well as mothers’ aspirations for their daughter, plausibly due to changes in girls’ human capital and preferences. As we find no evidence of displacement effects on non-beneficiary adolescent girls, the scholarship creates unambiguously large social benefits. |
| Keywords: | Child Marriage, Education, Women Empowerment, Externalities, Niger |
| JEL: | I2 J1 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt202201&r= |
| By: | Fiala, Nathan (University of Connecticut); Garcia-Hernandez, Ana (Universidad del Rosario); Narula, Kritika (Analysis Group); Prakash, Nishith (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | Reducing the gender gap in education is a primary goal for many countries. Two major challenges for many girls are the distance to school and their safety when commuting to school. In Zambia, we studied the impact of providing a bicycle to a school-going girl who lives more than 3 km from the school. We randomized whether a girl received a bicycle with a small cost to her family to cover replacement parts, a bicycle where these costs are covered by the program, and therefore is zero cost to the family, or a control group. One year after the intervention, we find that the bicycle reduced average commuting time to school by 35%, reduced late arrival by 66%, and decreased absenteeism by 27%. We find continued improvement in girls' attendance and reduction in dropouts two, three, and four years after the intervention. We also find evidence of improved math test scores, girls expressing higher feelings of control over their lives and, for those who received bicycles with a small cost to her family, higher levels of aspirations, self-image, and a desire to delay marriage and pregnancy. Heterogeneity analysis by distance to school shows an inverted U-shape for most of the schooling and empowerment results, suggesting greater impact for girls that live further away from school. These results suggest that empowerment outcomes worked through increased attendance in school. |
| Keywords: | girls' education, attendance, dropout, grade transition, test scores, bicycles, female aspiration, female empowerment, safety, Zambia |
| JEL: | H42 I21 I25 J16 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15076&r= |
| By: | Alou Adessé Dama (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne, FERDI - Fondation pour les Etudes et Recherches sur le Développement International) |
| Abstract: | This article explores the relationship between violent conflicts and tax revenue in Sub-Saharan countries. In a first stage, I estimate the effects of conflicts for 42 countries using panel data analysis. I find that an outbreak of violent conflict leads to an average 1.5 percent loss of tax revenue per capita. The results show that due to the outbreak of violence, government cannot successfully raise revenue, and because the conflict also negatively affects key macroeconomic variables, the tax base shrink and the overall loss is higher. The results also point to an important role of some specificities of Sub-Saharan countries such as ethnic division and natural resource endowment. Drawing on these results, I conduct case study for Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Congo Republic, Guinea and Guinea Bissau in a second stage using synthetic control method. The results show that the 2002 conflict in Cote d'Ivoire and the 1998 conflict in Guinea-Bissau led to significant drop in tax revenue. The outbreak of conflict did not have significant effects on tax revenue for the remaining three countries. |
| Keywords: | Tax,Internal conflict,Government revenue,Subsaharian Africa |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cdiwps:hal-03401539&r= |
| By: | Augsburg, Britta; Baquero, Juan Pablo; Gautam, Sanghmitra; Rodriguez-Lesmes, Paul |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the marriage decisions of men and women, focusing on the added attractiveness of sanitation within the living arrangement, in rural India. We exploit district and time variation from the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) which increased sanitation by 6.6 percent among households with marriage eligible children and generated an exogenous increase in the composition of households with sanitation. Using data from the Indian Human Development household survey (IHDS) and district level census, we show that exposure to TSC increased the probability of marriage for men and women, from poorer households, by 3.8 pp and 6.5 pp respectively. The reduced form estimates incorporate both general equilibrium effects and heterogeneous program effects – two important components of equilibrium marital behavior. To decompose the overall policy impact on marriage market equilibrium we formulate a simple matching model where men and women match on observed and unobserved characteristics. Through model simulations, we show that cohorts within TSC exposed markets experienced a shift in marital gains both across matches but also within a given match. Specifically, the resultant sorting patterns display a marked gender asymmetry with an increase in marital surplus among matches where men are wealthier than their spouse, and a decrease in surplus where the wife is wealthier. Moreover, the increased access to sanitation for TSC exposed women implied a decline in their expected control over resources within the marriage. |
| Date: | 2021–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:58sdf&r= |
| By: | Delgado-Prieto, Lukas |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the labor market impacts of a massive inflow of Venezuelans in Colombia. By comparing areas that received different shares of migrants, I find a negative effect on wages and on local employment for natives. The negative wage effect is driven by a large drop of wages in the informal sector, where migrants are mostly employed, while the negative employment effect is driven by a reduction of employment in the formal sector, where the minimum wage is binding. To explain these results, I develop a model in which firms hire formal and informal workers with different costs. If these workers have a high degree of substitutability, and wages for formal workers are rigid, firms reallocate formal to informal employment as a response to lower informal wages. In settings with informal labor markets migration can therefore lead to asymmetric employment and wage effects across the informal and formal sectors. |
| Date: | 2021–09–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:acr4v&r= |
| By: | Kalra, Aarushi |
| Abstract: | How does ethnic violence and subsequent segregation shape children's lives? Using exogenous variation in communal violence due to a Hindu nationalist campaign tour across India, I show that violence displaces Muslims to segregated neighbourhoods. Surprisingly, I find that post-event, Muslim primary education levels are higher in cities that were more susceptible to violence. For cohorts enrolling after the riots, the probability of attaining primary education decreases by 2.3% every 100 kilometres away from the campaign route. I exploit differences in the planned and actual route to show that this is due to residential segregation of communities threatened by violence. |
| Date: | 2021–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:265r3&r= |
| By: | Nouréini Sayouti (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Christophe Muller (IRD Marseille - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) Marseille) |
| Abstract: | Do households facing an interval of prices rather than a simple price alter the results of poverty analyses? To address this question, we exploit a unique dataset from Niger in which agropastoral households provide the minimum and maximum prices they paid for each consumed product in each season. We estimate poverty measures based on this price information using several absolute poverty line methodologies. Prices are used for valuing household consumption bundles, estimating household-specific price indices, valuing minimal calorie requirements, and extrapolating the link between food poverty and consumption. The results for Niger show statistically significant differences in the estimated chronic and dynamic poverties for these approaches, especially for international poverty comparisons and seasonal transient poverty monitoring. Specifically, using minimum and maximum prices generates gaps in the estimated poverty rates for Nigerien agropastoral households that exceed regional poverty disparities, which implies that regional targeting priorities in poverty alleviation policies would be reversed if these alternative prices are utilized. This result suggests that typically estimated poverty statistics, which assume that each household, or even cluster, faces a unique price for each product in a given period, may be less accurate for policy monitoring than generally believed. |
| Keywords: | Poverty,Prices,Niger,Social policies |
| Date: | 2021–01–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cdiwps:hal-03117686&r= |
| By: | Edouard Mien (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); M Goujon (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne) |
| Abstract: | This paper surveys the literature on the "Dutch disease" caused by natural resources revenues in developing countries. It describes the original model of Dutch disease and some important extensions proposed in the theoretical literature, focusing on the ones that meet the developing countries' conditions. It then reviews the main empirical studies that have been conducted since the 1980s, aiming to understand the methodological issues and to highlight the current gaps in the literature. There is evidence that the Dutch disease is still a topical issue for many developing countries, particularly in Africa. However, there remains large gaps in the theoretical and empirical literature in the understanding of the most adequate policy instruments to cope with, specifically in the least developed countries that are new producers of commodities. |
| Keywords: | Dutch disease,Natural resources,Resource curse,Structural transformations,Real exchange rate |
| Date: | 2021–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cdiwps:hal-03256078&r= |
| By: | Daoud, Adel; Jordan, Felipe; Sharma, Makkunda; Johansson, Fredrik; Dubhashi, Devdatt; Paul, Sourabh; Banerjee, Subhashis |
| Abstract: | The application of deep learning methods to survey human development in remote areas with satellite imagery at high temporal frequency can significantly enhance our understanding of spatial and temporal patterns in human development. Current applications have focused their efforts in predicting a narrow set of asset-based measurements of human well-being within a limited group of African countries. Here, we leverage georeferenced village-level census data from across 30 percent of the landmass of India to train a deep-neural network that predicts 16 variables representing material conditions from annual composites of Landsat 7 imagery. The census-based model is used as a feature extractor to train another network that predicts an even larger set of developmental variables (over 90 variables) included in two rounds of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) survey. The census-based model outperforms the current standard in the literature, night-time-luminosity-based models, as a feature extractor for several of these large set of variables. To extend the temporal scope of the models, we suggest a distribution-transformation procedure to estimate outcomes over time and space in India. Our procedure achieves levels of accuracy in the R-square of 0.92 to 0.60 for 21 development outcomes, 0.59 to 0.30 for 25 outcomes, and 0.29 to 0.00 for 28 outcomes, and 19 outcomes had negative R-square. Overall, the results show that combining satellite data with Indian Census data unlocks rich information for training deep learning models that track human development at an unprecedented geographical and temporal definition. |
| Date: | 2021–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:vf28g&r= |
| By: | Duncan Webb (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | A large literature points towards the importance of early life circumstance in determining long-run human capital and wellbeing outcomes. This literature often justifies a focus on the very early years by citing the first 1000 days of life as a 'critical period' for child development, but this notion has rarely been directly tested. In a setting in which children are potentially subject to shocks in every year of their childhood, I estimate the impact of early life weather shocks on adult cognitive and socioemotional outcomes for individuals born in rural Indonesia between 1988 and 2000. There is a strong critical period for these shocks at age 2 for cognitive development, but no similar critical period for socioemotional development. The impacts of the shocks are likely to be taking place through nutritional and agricultural income channels. These impacts are initially latent, only appearing after age 15. I show suggestive evidence for dynamic complementarity in early life investments. |
| Keywords: | Critical period,Human capital,Early childhood development,Dynamic complementarity |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03542607&r= |
| By: | Elena Perra |
| Abstract: | Ethnic favouritism has long been considered by scholars as intrinsic in explaining sub-optimal economic growth in African countries. Our case study, Ethiopia, represents an unicum in the African political context, as ethnicity has been institutionalised as the key element of the post-authoritarian state order, yielding a system that has been labelled “ethnic federalism†. This paper aims to analyse whether this particular institutional setting has proven to be a deterrent to logics of ethnic favouritism in the allocation of public goods. In order to do so, the study exploits a national scale road investment project spanning almost twenty years, the Ethiopian Road Sector Development Programme. We seek to assess whether the politically dominant ethnicity, Tigrays, have benefitted disproportionately from the project with respect to other ethnically identified Ethiopian regions. By exploiting a novel dataset containing spatially explicit information on the location of new road constructions and road surface im- provements, we leverage quasi-experimental econometric methods in order to identify a causal effect of coethnicity with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the dominant component of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, in the reception of new road construction and road improvements. The main contribution of this paper resides in the quantification of the disproportional allocation of road investments. We find that ethnic Tigrays obtain on average 5-7% more roads with respect to other ethnic groups, once pre-treatment characteristics are balanced across treatment and control units. Moreover, the result is consistent when ex- pressed in terms of road improvements, with road speed on Tigray territories increasing by an additional 10 km/h with respect to non-Tigray observations. These results may be considered as evidence of ethnically unbalanced economic growth inside the Ethiopian territory. |
| Keywords: | Infrastructure, Roads, Ethnic Favouritism, Ethiopia, GIS |
| JEL: | H54 H77 J15 R42 O15 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2022_01.rdf&r= |
| By: | Kornher, Lukas; Kubik, Zaneta; Chichaibelu, Bezawit Beyene |
| Abstract: | In this study, we discuss and examine empirically the relevance of targeted ODA to the agricultural sector to improve food and nutrition security. Given the relationship between agricultural growth and poverty reduction as well as food and nutrition security, aid attributed specifically to the agricultural sector could have a stronger and more immediate impact than overall aid. We find a statistically significant and economically meaningful contribution of agricultural ODA to hunger and malnutrition reduction since 2000. This has important implications for donor countries that focus on the fight against hunger in their development cooperation strategies, such as Germany and its “One World without Hunger” initiative. To account for the potential reverse causality of aid and development outcomes, we follow the instrumentation approach of RAJAN AND SUBRAMANIAN (2008) and ARNDT ET AL. (2010) and apply it to sectoral aid using two novel zero-stage instruments. |
| Keywords: | Food Security and Poverty, International Development, International Relations/Trade |
| Date: | 2021–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gewi21:317077&r= |
| By: | Bertille Daran (SADAPT - Sciences pour l'Action et le Développement : Activités, Produits, Territoires - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Pierre Levasseur (SADAPT - Sciences pour l'Action et le Développement : Activités, Produits, Territoires - AgroParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | To most people, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is synonymous with hunger and starvation. However, overweight and obesity are currently also a major public health concern in this region, sometimes even more than the prevalence of underweight. Despite the significant increase in the average body mass index (BMI) in SSA, the existing literature still considers a positive association between household socioeconomic status (SES) and individual BMI, suggesting that excess weight is a symbol of wealth while thinness is linked to poverty. This article aims to update this traditional and probably outdated perception by investigating potential nonlinearities and heterogeneity in the relationship between SES and BMI in SSA. First, we pool several cross-sectional female adultoriented demographic and health surveys that are representative of a large number of SSA countries from 1990 to 2019. Second, we implement both ordinary least-squares (OLS) and instrumental variables (IV) regressions. Once a comprehensive set of observed characteristics was controlled for, OLS estimates suggest a nonlinear association between SES indicators and female BMI, taking a U-inverted shape. IV corrections controlling for reverse causality and unobserved heterogeneity reveal similar trends, confirming the overrepresentation of excess weight in intermediate levels of wealth and education. Furthermore, this study dates the social shift of the obesity burden in SSA: changing from positive to curvilinear from the end of the 1990s, including for countries currently classified as lower middle income. To conclude, this article contributes to the literature demonstrating the ongoing nutrition transition in SSA and the role of an emergent middle class in the rise of the obesity epidemic. This result has important implications for public health policies. |
| Keywords: | sub-Saharan Africa,overweight,obesity,socioeconomic status,middle class |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03511042&r= |
| By: | José Carlos Andrade (Universitat de Barcelona and INEC Ecuador); Joan Gil (Universitat de Barcelona and BEAT) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the causal impact of maternal employment on several childhood malnutrition outcomes in Ecuador, to understand the trade-off between the time mothers devote to work and child-caring activities. We use exogenous regional variation in maternal labour market conditions to account for the potential endogeneity of mothers’ employment. Using the Ecuadorian National Health and Nutrition Survey 2018 and the Living Conditions Survey 2014, the instrumental variable estimations indicated that maternal employment increases the probability of having stunted children by between 4.3 and 21 percent, while no significant effect was found on children suffering from wasting, underweight or overweight. We found that children with more educated, richer mothers appeared to be the most negatively affected. The results were robust to several robustness checks. |
| Keywords: | Maternal employment, malnutrition outcomes, childhood, Ecuador. |
| JEL: | I15 J22 C21 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ewp:wpaper:416web&r= |
| By: | Lugo, Maria Ana; Niu, Chiyu; Yemtsov, Ruslan |
| Abstract: | Rural poverty in China fell from 96 percent in 1980 to less than 1 percent of the population in 2019. Using PovcalNet data for China and a set of comparable countries, this paper estimates growth-poverty elasticities. It finds that China stands out for its record of sustained, fast growth, rather than because of an unusually high growth-poverty elasticity. In addition, changes in mean consumption, rather than changes in the distribution, drive poverty reduction. Furthermore, until 2010, changes in inequality attenuated the impact of growth on poverty. The paper also studies which channels mattered the most for rural poverty reduction by applying a decomposition framework to multiple rounds of Chinese Household Income Project surveys conducted in 1988, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2013, and 2018. The findings show that broad-based, labor-intensive growth in agriculture was initially the main driving force for rural poverty reduction, followed by the expansion of non-agriculture sectors. As the country’s poverty rate approached 10 percent by 2007, transfers from migrant workers and, later, public transfers became the major drivers of further rural poverty reduction. Throughout the period, the fall in the demographic dependency rate also played a significant role. As China’s living standards continue to rise, the official definition of poverty will have to adjust to the higher minimum. Continued structural transformation and the inclusive growth agenda retain crucial importance for sustained poverty reduction. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper) |
| Date: | 2021–11–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:8rbgw&r= |
| By: | Khor, Ling Yee; Tran, Nhuong; Shikuku, Kelvin Mashisia; Campos, Natalia; Zeller, Manfred |
| Abstract: | Polyculture of fish is a common pond-based aquaculture system practiced by small-scale producers in developing countries to improve input use efficiency, and increase productivity and profits. We conduct a cross-country comparison to examine whether the economic and productivity benefits are seen in data of 1,651 ponds from 1,307 fish farming households in three countries: Bangladesh, Egypt, and Myanmar. Among these ponds, polyculture is the prevailing system, as it is practiced in 66% of them. The surveys of these households were completed in 2019. We use propensity score matching to match the ponds based on household and pond characteristics, so that ponds are compared with other similar ponds. Results indicate that the aquaculture revenue and profit of polyculture ponds are higher than those of monoculture ponds by US$4,993 and US$6,985, respectively, per hectare per cycle. The increase is also observed in the systems of tilapia polyculture and rohu polyculture, which are the two most common systems among the sampled farmers. The increase for rohu polyculture at US$7,992 in revenue and US$9,366 in profit per hectare per cycle is higher than the increase for tilapia polyculture at US$4,649 and US$6,649, respectively. However, tilapia polyculture farmers save more harvested fish for household consumption, by 72 kg per cycle, than farmers of other systems. The higher profits for general polyculture, tilapia polyculture, and rohu polyculture are statistically significant after controlling for country-level factors and have high critical value of gamma in the Rosenbaum sensitivity analysis, indicating that these results are robust. This analysis from fish farming households complements the results from pond experiments and can help to inform decision-making in aquaculture policy and training. |
| Date: | 2022–01–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:bwmq4&r= |
| By: | Abdoul-Akim Wandaogo; Fayçal Sawadogo; Jesse Lastunen |
| Abstract: | Developing countries need to raise sufficient tax revenue to finance development. Revenue mobilization is often hampered by limited tax compliance, weak institutions, and technical problems with tax collection. One solution to these challenges is person-to-government (P2G) mobile phone payments, adopted in a number of developing countries since the early 2000s. This study assesses the causal effect of P2G adoption on tax revenue using propensity score matching. |
| Keywords: | Mobile money, Tax revenue, Propensity score matching, Developing countries |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2022-18&r= |
| By: | Robin Benabid Jegaden (UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Jade Lemoine (ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique, UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | Income shocks to poorer households may lead parents to withdraw their children from school and enter the labour market when other risk control instruments are insufficient. These responses to short-term shocks can have longer-term consequences for the development of children's human capital. Using data from a household survey in Ethiopia, we examine the impact of rainfall shocks on medium-term human capital investment decisions. The results suggest that climate shocks significantly reduce investment in human capital. In this context, psychological mechanisms play an important role in the household decision-making process behind children's school drop-out. We argue that exposure to income shocks exacerbates the perception of investment in educational capital as relatively risky, all else being equal. The high prevalence of income shocks (natural experiments) or the perception of this prevalence aggravates households' risk aversion, by accentuating the concavity of their utility function. |
| Abstract: | Les chocs de revenus subis par les ménages les plus démunis peuvent inciter les parents à retirer leurs enfants de l'école pour les introduire sur le marché du travail, lorsque les autres instruments de maîtrise des risques sont insuffisants. Ces réponses aux chocs à court terme peuvent entraîner des conséquences à plus long terme sur le développement du capital humain des enfants. En utilisant des données issues d'une enquête ménages en Ethiopie, nous examinons l'impact des chocs pluviométriques sur les décisions d'investissement dans le capital humain à moyen terme. Les résultats suggèrent que les chocs climatiques réduisent significativement l'investissement dans le capital humain. Dans ce contexte, les mécanismes psychologiques jouent un rôle important dans le processus décisionnel des ménages à l'origine d'une déscolarisation des enfants. Nous avançons que l'exposition aux chocs de revenus exacerbe la perception de l'investissement dans le capital éducatif comme relativement risqué, toutes choses égales par ailleurs. La forte prévalence des chocs de revenu (expériences naturelles) ou le ressenti de cette prévalence aggrave l'aversion au risque des ménages, en accentuant la concavité de leur fonction d'utilité. |
| Keywords: | Chocs de revenu,Education des enfants,Marchés imparfaits,Facteurs cognitifs,Ethiopie rurale |
| Date: | 2021–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03527638&r= |
| By: | Donkor, Emmanuel; Mbeche, Robert; Mithofer, Dagmar |
| Abstract: | Agrifood marketing in sub-Saharan Africa is associated with high inefficiencies, which emanate from high transaction costs, poor coordination and asymmetric information. These challenges lead to high food prices and limited accessibility to consumers. Formal contracts could address these challenges, but they are largely non-existent in the traditional agrifood marketing. Studies addressing the agrifood marketing challenges have focused mainly on farmers and consumers. However, the mid-stream actors who bridge the gap between farmers and consumers are ignored in scientific and policy debates. The paper therefore analyses factors that influence relational contract decision of retailers using a primary data set from 500 grasshopper retailers in Central Uganda. We find that major of the retailers procure grasshoppers through spot market transactions. However, a few of them develop relational contract with their suppliers. Consistent with the theory of relational contract, trust and close relationship reinforce relational contract between retailers and suppliers. We also find that transactional factors such as transport asset and cost prices of grasshoppers stimulate retailers to engage in relational contract with suppliers. |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Marketing |
| Date: | 2021–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gewi21:317078&r= |
| By: | Arogundade, Sodiq |
| Abstract: | This study examines the spatial impact of FDI on the poverty of 44 African countries. In achieving this, the study uses the Driscoll-Kraay fixed effect instrumental variable regression, instrumental variable generalised method of moments estimator (IV-GMM), and the spatial durbin model. The empirical investigation of this study yielded four significant findings: (1) neighbouring countries’ FDI has a positive and significant impact on the incidence and intensity of host country’s poverty. (2) Improved institutional quality in neighbouring countries has a significant impact on FDI-poverty reduction nexus of the host country. (3) the empirical results lend support for a significant spatial spillover of poverty in the region. (4) the marginal effect results indicate that countries within the region are no longer in isolation or independent, i.e., the level of poverty in a particular country is influenced by its determinants in the neighbouring country. This result is robust to the alternative proximity matrix, which is the inverse distance. Since there is spatial interdependence among African countries, we recommend that African governments through the African Union (AU) should not only champion the institutional reform in the region, but also establish a binding mechanism to ensure reform implementation. |
| Keywords: | FDI, Driscoll-Kraay fixed effect instrumental variable regression, IV-GMM, Spatial Durbin Model, Poverty, Institutional quality, Africa |
| JEL: | F00 F3 F30 P0 P00 |
| Date: | 2021–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:111789&r= |
| By: | Abdoulaye Sy (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Catherine Araujo-Bonjean (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Marie-Eliette Dury (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Nourddine Azzaoui (LMBP - Laboratoire de Mathématiques Blaise Pascal - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Arnaud Guillin (LMBP - Laboratoire de Mathématiques Blaise Pascal - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne) |
| Abstract: | A critical stage in drought hazard assessment is the definition of a drought event, and the measure of its intensity. Actually, the classical approach imposes to all climatic region the same set of thresholds for drought severity classification, hence resulting in a loss of information on rare events in the distribution tails, which are precisely the most important to catch in risk analysis. In order to better assess extreme events, we resort to an extreme value mixture model with a normal distribution for the bulk and a Generalized Pareto distribution for the upper and lower tails, to estimate the intensity of extreme droughts and their occurrence probability. Compare to the standard approach to drought hazard, which relies on a standardized precipitation index and a classification of drought intensity established from the cumulative standard normal distribution function, our approach allows the drought threshold and the occurrence probability of drought to depend on the specific characteristics of each precipitation distribution. An application to the West Africa region shows that the accuracy of our mixture model is higher than that of the standard model. The mixture performs better at modelling the lowest percentiles and specifically the return level of the centennial drought, which is generally overestimated in the standard approach. |
| Keywords: | Mixture model,Generalized pareto distribution,Drought,Extreme value theory |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cdiwps:hal-03297023&r= |