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on Development |
| By: | Ermias Gebru Weldesenbet |
| Abstract: | We examine whether early-life exposure to rainfall shocks has a long-term impact on health, education, and the socioeconomic statuses of individuals in rural Tanzania, where livelihoods heavily depend on rain-fed agriculture. We use a unique panel of data from a Kagera Health and Development Survey(KHDS) in which children were followed from childhood (1991) to adulthood (2010) together with historical rainfall data. We apply a sibling fixed-effect estimator to overcome potential endogeneity issues. We find that rainfall in birth year affects the education and socioeconomic statuses of children in adulthood. A 15 percent increase in rainfall in one’s birth year and birth village (relative to average village rainfall) leads children to have more years of schooling and live in a household in 2010 that scores 0.19 higher on an asset index. We then explore the relationship between early-life rainfall and childhood nutritional status to identify early-life rainfall’s initial effect. We find that higher birth-year rainfall leads to significant decreases in height and weight deficits in children. A 15 percent increase in rainfall in one’s birth year and birth village (relative to average village rainfall) improves height-for-age z score by 0.20 and weight-for-age z score by 0.26. When taken together, our results point to the importance of early childhood nutrition intervention. Sensitivity checks show that the results are robust to sample selection. |
| Keywords: | rainfall shocks; malnutrition; long-term outcomes; children; Tanzania |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:877&r= |
| By: | Chort, Isabelle (Université de Pau et des pays de l’Adour); Hotte, Rozenn; Marazyan, Karine (Université de Paris) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of income shocks and bride price on early marriage in Turkey. The practice of bride-price, still vivid in many regions of the country, may provide incentives for parents to marry their daughter earlier, when faced with a negative income shock. In addition, marriages precipitated by negative income shocks may present specific features (endogamy, age and education difference between spouses). Weather shocks provide an exogenous source of variation of household income through agricultural production. Data on weather shocks are merged with individual and household level data from the Turkish Demographic and Health Surveys 1998 to 2013. To study the role of payments to the bride's parents, we interact our measure of shocks with a province-level indicator of a high prevalence of bride-price. We find that girls living in provinces with a high practice of bride-price and exposed to a negative income shocks when aged 12-14 have a 28% higher probability to be married before the age of 15 than girls not exposed to shocks. This effect is specific to provinces with a high prevalence of bride price. Compared to women who experienced the same shock but lived in a province where bride price is infrequent, such women are also more likely to give birth to their first child before 18 and for those who married religiously first, the civil ceremony is delayed by 2 months on average. Our results suggest that girl marriage still participates to household strategies aimed at mitigating negative income shocks in contemporary Turkey. |
| Keywords: | cultural norms, child marriage, bride price, weather shocks, Turkey |
| JEL: | J1 J12 J13 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15288&r= |
| By: | Jean-Paul Faguet; Camilo Matajira; Fabio Sánchez-Torres |
| Abstract: | The Spanish encomienda, a colonial forced-labor institution that lasted three centuries, killed many indigenous people and caused others to flee into nomadism. And yet we show that Colombian municipalities with encomiendas in 1560 enjoy better outcomes today across multiple dimensions of development compared to those without: higher municipal GDP per capita, tax receipts, and secondary school enrolments; lower infant mortality and unsatisfied basic needs; larger populations; and superior fiscal performance and tax collection efficiency. Why? A mediation exercise using data on local institutions in 1794 shows that encomiendas affected development overwhelmingly by helping build the local state. Detailed historical evidence shows when and how encomenderos founded local institutions early on in places where they settled. Places lacking encomiendas also lacked local states for up to 300 years. These institutions mobilized public investment in ways that doubtless suited encomenderos, but over time spurred greater economic and human development. |
| Keywords: | EncomiendaForced laborState capacityExtractionColonialismDevelopmentColombia |
| JEL: | H7 N36 N96 O1 O43 |
| Date: | 2022–05–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:020105&r= |
| By: | Cauê Carrilho (USP - Universidade de São Paulo); Gabriela Demarchi (CIFOR - Center for International Forestry Research - CGIAR - Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research [CGIAR], CEE-M - Centre d'Economie de l'Environnement - Montpellier - UM - Université de Montpellier - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro - Montpellier SupAgro); Amy Duchelle (CIFOR - Center for International Forestry Research - CGIAR - Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research [CGIAR]); Sven Wunder (CIFOR - Center for International Forestry Research - CGIAR - Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research [CGIAR], EFI - European Forest Institute); Carla Morsello (EACH - Escola de Artes Ciências e Humanidades - USP - Universidade de São Paulo) |
| Abstract: | Rigorous impact evaluations of local REDD+ (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) initiatives have shown some positive outcomes for forests, while wellbeing impacts have been mixed. However, will REDD+ outcomes persist over time after interventions have ended? Using quasi-experimental methods, we investigated the effects of one REDD+ initiative in the Brazilian Amazon on deforestation and people's well-being, including intra-community spillover effects (leakage). We then evaluated to what extent outcomes persisted after the initiative ended (permanence). This initiative combined Payments for Environmental Services (PES) with sustainable livelihood alternatives to reduce smallholder deforestation. Data came from face-to-face surveys with 113 households (treatment: 52; non-participant from treatment communities: 35; control: 46) in a three-datapoint panel design (2010, 2014 and 2019). Results indicate the REDD+ initiative conserved an average of 7.8% to 10.3% of forest cover per household. It also increased the probability of improving enrollees' wellbeing by 27-44%. We found no evidence for significant intra-community leakage. After the initiative ended, forest loss rebounded and perceived wellbeing declined – yet, importantly, past saved forest was not cleared. Our results therefore confirm what the theory and stylized evidence envisioned for temporal payments on activity-reducing (‘set-aside'): forest loss was successfully delayed, but not permanently eradicated. |
| Keywords: | conservation incentives,emission reductions,additionality,climate change mitigation,impact assessment. |
| Date: | 2022–03–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03614704&r= |
| By: | Alfano, Marco (University of Strathclyde); Goerlach, Joseph-Simon (Bocconi University) |
| Abstract: | We examine how terrorism alters the demand for education through perceived risks and returns by relating terrorist attacks to media signal coverage and schooling in Kenya. Exploiting geographical and temporal variation in wireless signal coverage and attacks, we establish that media access reinforces negative effects of terrorism on schooling. These effects are confirmed when we instrument both media signal and the incidence of attacks. For households with media access, we also find a significant relation between media content and schooling and a significant effect of attacks on self-reported fears and concerns. Based on these insights, we estimate a simple structural model where heterogeneous households experiencing terrorism form beliefs about risks and returns to education. We exploit the same quasi-experimental variation as in the reduced form analysis to identify how media change subjective expectations. The results show that households with media access significantly over-estimate fatality risks. |
| Keywords: | terrorism, media, expectations, education |
| JEL: | D74 L82 F52 I21 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15298&r= |
| By: | Jain, Chandan (International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie)); Kashyap, Shagun (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore); Lahoti, Rahul (UNU-WIDER); Sahoo, Soham (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore) |
| Abstract: | Although formal education is often considered an indicator of political leaders' quality, the evidence on the effectiveness of educated leaders is mixed. Besides, minimum education qualifications are increasingly being used as requirements for contesting elections, making it critical to understand the role of politicians' education in their performance. We investigate the impact of electing an educated politician on economic development in the politician's constituency in India. We use constituency-level panel data on the intensity of night-time lights to measure economic activity. Our identification strategy is based on a regression discontinuity design that exploits quasi-random outcomes of close elections between educated and less-educated politicians. We find that narrowly electing a graduate leader, as compared to a non-graduate leader, in the state assembly constituency increases the growth rate of night-time lights by about 3 percentage points in the constituency. As pathways, we find that graduate leaders improve the provision of roads, electricity, and power; however, they do not significantly impact the overall provision of public goods. In comparison with findings from other studies in the literature, our result suggests that the impact of formal education of the leader is weaker than the leader's other characteristics, such as gender or criminality. |
| Keywords: | educated political leaders, night-time lights, close elections, public goods, India |
| JEL: | D72 H11 H41 O40 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15278&r= |
| By: | Mitra, Devashish (Syracuse University); Pham, Hoang (Oregon State University); Ural Marchand, Beyza (University of Alberta) |
| Abstract: | Using eight rounds of the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSSs) spanning 16 years and exploiting the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) in 2001 as a large export shock, we investigate the impact of this shock on intergenerational occupational mobility in Vietnam employing a difference-in-differences research design. Our analysis suggests that the BTA has led to substantial upward occupational mobility, allowing both sons and daughters to have better occupations than their parents, with the effects being larger for daughter-mother pairs. The effect is larger in the long-run compared to the short-run. We find evidence that the driving force is an increase in skill demand via gender-biased expansion in export volumes. The effects are largely driven by intersectoral resource reallocation rather than within-sector upgrades. In addition, the BTA induced a higher likelihood of college education for both sons and daughters, but of vocational training only for sons. Overall, the BTA shock accounts for 36% of the overall increase in mobility for both genders. Our results control for Vietnam's own tariff reductions, which do not seem to have any statistically significant impact on mobility. |
| Keywords: | international trade, export market access, intergenerational mobility |
| JEL: | F13 F16 F66 J62 O19 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15243&r= |
| By: | H. Xavier Jara; Pia Rattenhuber |
| Abstract: | Low- and middle-income countries face a trade-off between raising tax revenue to strengthen social protection and creating incentives for the population to enter formal employment. However, empirical evidence on labour supply elasticities in the presence of informal employment remains scarce. This paper analyses female labour supply behaviour and the choice between formal and informal employment in Ecuador, a middle-income country characterized by persistent levels of informal employment particularly among women. |
| Keywords: | Labour supply, Informal work, Tax-benefit policy, Ecuador, female labour supply, Informality |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2022-47&r= |
| By: | Azam, Mehtabul (Oklahoma State University) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the pre-reform employment composition of Indian districts and differential tariff cuts across industries introduced by the 1991 trade liberalization to examine the impact of liberalization on human capital accumulation measured by completion of different stages of schooling and aggregate schooling. Using Census 2011 data, we divide age cohorts that attended school before and after liberalization to implement cohort wise difference-in-difference strategy. We also construct a district-level panel using four decennial censuses that covers 1981-2011 and get an alternative difference-in-difference estimate by looking at the pre and post liberalization outcomes. We find that once we allow for the differential state policies, there is no evidence that the Indian trade liberalization has any impact on either aggregate schooling or on the attainment at different stages of schooling. We find suggestive evidence that positive effect of the increased returns to education was mitigated by the increased opportunity cost of schooling. |
| Keywords: | liberalization, human capital accumulation, difference-in-difference |
| JEL: | O15 J24 F16 F63 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15286&r= |
| By: | Phon Sophat (National Bank of Cambodia); Bun Phany (Khemerak University) |
| Abstract: | The impacts of loan on livelihoods' households such as incomes, consumptions, education and their assets in Cambodia are very important to finger out. The AMK data is employed in the year 2007, 2012, 2013 and 2014 which is determined and surveyed entire 18 provinces of Cambodia by research department. The empirical findings to meet the objectives of this study by using Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS), Fixed Effect model(FE) and Random Effect model(RE). Fixed Effect model is most appropriate tool to use and it suggests that most households using AMK loans increased their livelihoods and incomes. Casual impacts of loan show that other loan get worse off in terms of education expenditures while AMK loans improve the education of the households. Furthermore, loans impact positively on the health expenditures. This increases around 1.03% of health expenditures. AMK loan improves the households' educations around 12.39% across the years. Clients of AMK can foster the households' incomes by 4% due to the regression result. In term of assets, AMK loan improves positively to the total land usage. Most of AMK clients have lesser educational levels than non-clients shown in this survey. Households like to use two loan sources respectively while their incomes have extremely limited. To prove more details, Cambodian households usually use the loan in non-productive business such as wedding expenditures, funeral expenditures, dwelling expenditures and other make-up tools which do not earn much incomes for their livelihoods. |
| Keywords: | Cambodia,Financial Inclusion,JEL CODE: O16,L31 Micro-credits,MFIs and Over-indebtedness |
| Date: | 2022–03–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03538199&r= |
| By: | Eduard van der Merwe; Matthew Clance; Eleni Yitbarek |
| Abstract: | The detrimental effect of climate change on health is becoming an essential topic of economic research and policymaking. The negative impact of rising temperatures and extreme weather events on children’s health outcomes and their human capital is especially concerning. This study investigates the effects of a changing climate, in terms of changes in the monthly maximum average near-surface temperature (◦C) and total monthly precipitation (mm), on children’s nutritional status in Nigeria using LSMS-ISA survey data combined with high-resolution gridded climate data. Malnutrition in children is measured in the form of stunting, underweight and wasting. Our results indicate that the changing climate is correlated with a higher probability that Nigeria’s children are malnourished - even more so in rural areas. The paper’s findings support the notion of the need for climate-friendly policies to mitigate the long-term effect of climate change on malnourishment; otherwise, climate change could reverse years of progress in lowering children’s malnutrition. |
| Keywords: | climate change, malnutrition, stunting, underweight, spatial analysis |
| JEL: | Q54 I12 I15 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:871&r= |