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on Development |
| By: | Marijn A. Bolhuis; Shushanik Hakobyan; Zo Andriantomanga |
| Abstract: | The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a large disruption of global supply chains. This paper studies the implications of supply chain disruptions for inflation and monetary policy in sub-Saharan Africa. Increases in supply chain pressures have had a sizeable impact on headline, food, and tradable inflation for a panel of 29 sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2022. Our findings suggest that central banks can stabilize inflation and output more efficiently by monitoring global supply chains and adjusting the monetary policy stance before the disruptions have fully passed through into all inflation components. The gains from monitoring supply chain disruptions are particularly large for open economies which tend to experience outsized second-round effects on the prices of non-tradable goods and services. |
| Keywords: | Inflation; global supply chains; sub-Saharan Africa; shipping costs; monetary policy; core inflation; food prices; oil price |
| Date: | 2023–02–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2023/039&r=dev |
| By: | Congdon Fors, Heather (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Isaksson, Ann-Sofie (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Annika, Lindskog (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the long-run impacts of Christian missionary expansion on the practice of female genital cutting (FGC) in sub-Saharan Africa. The empirical analysis draws on historical data on the locations of early European missions geographically matched with Demographic and Health Survey data on FGC practices of around 410, 000 respondents from 42 surveys performed over a 30-year period (1990-2020) in 14 African countries. The results suggest that historical Christian missions have impacted FGC practices today. The benchmark estimates imply that a person living 10 km from a historical mission is 4-6 percentage points less likely to have undergone FGC than someone living 100 km from a mission site. Similarly, having one more mission per 1000 km2 in one’s ancestral ethnic homeland decreases the probability of having undergone FGC by around 8 percentage points. The effect is robust across a large number of specifications and control variables, both modern and historic. We use ethnographic data on pre-colonial FGC to show that the location of missions was not correlated with the practice of FGC in the local population. |
| Keywords: | Female genital cutting; missions; norms; Africa |
| JEL: | D71 D91 I15 O55 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0831&r=dev |
| By: | Cordonnier, Victor; Covarrubias, Katia Alejandra; de la O Campos, Ana Paula |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the food security impacts of widespread agricultural interventions, aiming at increasing agricultural yields, and explores the role played by adjustments in rural households’ livelihood strategies in mediating those impacts. Our empirical strategy combines project and remote-sensing data with a household panel survey and exploits the timing and geographic variation in the roll-out of interventions implemented from 2011 to 2016 by the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), recently renamed as Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI). Results show that agricultural interventions are effectively associated with higher agricultural yields, better food security outcomes and adjustments in livelihood strategies. However, when exploring the role of livelihood strategies through a Causal Mediation Analysis, we show that livelihood adjustments do not seem to play any mediating role in food security impacts. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that the absence of a mediating role stems from agricultural interventions affecting different types of households differently: the most vulnerable households primarily benefited through food security improvements while more-endowed households adjusted their livelihood strategies. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty |
| Date: | 2022–12–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:faoaes:330797&r=dev |
| By: | María Inés Berniell; Leonardo Gasparini; Mariana Marchionni; Mariana Viollaz |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses gender differences in the effects of adverse conditions at labor-market entry in a developing region. Using harmonized microdata from national household surveys for 15 Latin American countries, we build a synthetic panel of cohorts that potentially transition from school to work and observe their labor market outcomes 10 years later. We find that men who faced higher unemployment rates at ages 18-20 suffer a negative effect on employment at ages 27-30. In contrast, women from those same unlucky cohorts have higher employment rates and earnings. Our results are consistent with women acting as secondary workers in downturns. We also find that women from unlucky cohorts control a larger share of family income and are more likely to be the head of household 10 years after labor market entry, and that adverse initial labor market conditions are correlated to more egalitarian perceptions about gender roles later in life. |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J22 J31 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4540&r=dev |
| By: | Moncada, Lorenzo; de la O Campos, Ana Paula; Tornarolli, Leopoldo |
| Abstract: | This study analyses national household surveys from ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America to shed light on the household-level relationship between monetary poverty and food insecurity. Similar to previous studies, results highlight a clear correlation between poverty and food insecurity. In some instances, the overlap between the set of households classified as poor and those classified as food insecure, can be partial, with not-negligible shares being either classified as poor but not food insecure, or as food insecure but not poor. This mismatch is not surprising, as food security and poverty are two distinct conceptual constructs. Findings warn against superficial targeting approaches where monetary poverty is used as a proxy of food insecurity and vice versa, highlighting that specific food insecurity and poverty measures are needed to guide respective policies. The analysis also points to certain population groups, such as households involved in agriculture and households suffering from shocks, where classifications based on poverty and food insecurity measures appear to be more discrepant. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty |
| Date: | 2022–12–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:faoaes:330798&r=dev |
| By: | Tefera, Mamo G; Odhiambo, Nicholas M |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to shed some insights on the ongoing debate on the aid-growth nexus by examining whether sources of aid matters for explaining aid effectiveness. In doing so, we consider three main proxies for bilateral aid based on the three sources of aid such as total aid (TA); Traditional Donors aid (TDA) and Non-Traditional Donors aid (NTDA) as independent variables in a dynamic panel growth model within a system GMM framework. It uses a panel dataset from 25 Low-Income Countries (LICs) in Africa over the period 2000-2017. The main findings show that the impact of aid on growth appears to be negative and significant for TA and TDA proxies while it is positive but insignificant when the aid proxy is NTDA. A relatively larger share of TA and TDA disbursement away from the direct growth-enhancing productive sectors towards the unproductive sectors seem to have contributed to their strong negative impact on growth. The key policy implication is that governments in LICs in Africa and donors should work in collaboration to design effective ways for ensuring that TDA should target the direct growth-enhancing sectors. |
| Keywords: | Foreign aid; growth; LICs; system GMM; aid sources; Africa |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uza:wpaper:29830&r=dev |
| By: | Cagé, Julia (Sciences Po Paris); Cassan, Guilhem (University of Namur, CAGE); Jensenius, Francesca R (University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | Information conveyed through news media influences political behavior. But to what extent are media markets themselves shaped by political motives? We build a novel panel data set of newspaper markets in India from 2002 to 2017 to measure the impact of changes in electoral importance on how news markets develop over time. We exploit the announcement of an exogenous change in the boundaries of electoral constituencies to causally identify the relationship between the (future) electoral importance of news markets and the change in the number and circulation of newspapers. Using an event-study approach and a staggered difference-in-differences approach, we show that markets that became more electorally important experienced a significant rise in both circulation and the number of titles per capita. Both supply and demand seem to drive the increase, but we estimate that the former explains almost all the variation in the short run and around 60% in the long run. Finally, we document how effects vary with prior levels of political competition and newspapers' characteristics, and discuss implications for voting behavior and democratic accountability. |
| Keywords: | newspapers, media, India, malapportionment, redistricting JEL Classification: L82, D72 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:655&r=dev |
| By: | Carlo Lombardo; Julián Martinez-Correa; Leonardo Peñaloza-Pacheco; Leonardo Gasparini |
| Abstract: | We study the distributional effect of the massive exodus of Venezuelans in Colombia and how public policy can shape its impact. Using RIF-regressions in an instrumental variables approach, we find that the exodus had a larger negative effect on the lower tail of the natives’ wage distribution, increasing inequality in the host economy. We propose downgrading as the driving mechanism: due to formal restrictions, immigrants ended up working in more routine and lower-paying jobs than natives with similar characteristics. Finally, we show that a large-scale amnesty program reduced the magnitude of downgrading, mitigating the unequalizing impact of the exodus. |
| JEL: | D30 F22 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4573&r=dev |
| By: | Elena Nikolova (Zayed University (College of Interdisciplinary Studies), IOS Regensburg and Global Labor Organization); Jakub Polansky |
| Abstract: | Although a large body of literature has argued that motherhood has a profound and longlasting negative effect on the employment and earnings of women, there is little evidence focusing on the post-communist region. This paper exploits the latest round of the EBRDWorld Bank Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) and of the Mongolian National Statistics Office Household Socio-Economic Survey (HSES) to examine the correlation between the presence of children of different age categories in a family and female employment in Mongolia in 2016. We examine the availability of childcare, social norms and attitudes towards women, as well as household decision-making as potential explanations. We find that small children decrease the probability of female employment relative to women with no small children. In particular, women with two children aged one to six years are 21.5 percentage points less likely to be employed. Our results also suggest that cultural biases against women may be – at least partially – responsible for the low female employment levels which we uncovered. These results are unlikely to be driven by omitted variable bias. |
| Keywords: | children, female employment, Mongolia, women |
| JEL: | J16 J13 J20 |
| Date: | 2022–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ost:wpaper:396&r=dev |
| By: | Redhead, Daniel Dr.; Maliti, Emmanuel; Andrews, Jeffrey; Borgerhoff Mulder, Monique |
| Abstract: | The extent of inequality in material wealth across different types of societies is well established. Less clear, however, is how material wealth is associated with relational wealth, and the implications of such associations for material wealth inequality. Theory and evidence suggest that material wealth both guides, and is patterned by, relational wealth. While existing comparative studies typically assume complementarity between different types of wealth, such associations may differ for distinct kinds of relational wealth. Here, we first review the literature to identify how and why different forms of relational wealth may align. We then turn to an analysis of household-level social networks (food sharing, sex-specific friendship and sex-specific co-working networks) and material wealth data from a rural community in Pemba, Zanzibar. We find that (a) different forms of relational wealth have similar structural properties and are closely aligned, (b) relational wealth is patterned by gender differences, and (c) material wealth has distinct associations with different forms of relational wealth, which are also patterned by gender. More broadly, we show how examining the patterning of distinct types of relational wealth provides insights into how and why the social implications of material wealth are still muted in a community undergoing rapid economic change. |
| Date: | 2023–02–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:xkcez&r=dev |
| By: | Olivia Bertelli (DIAL, LEDa, IRD, Université Paris-Dauphine, Université PSL); Thomas Calvo (Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL University, CNRS UMR8007, IRD UMR260, LEDa, DIAL); Emmanuelle Lavallée (DIAL, LEDa, IRD, Université Paris-Dauphine, Université PSL); Marion Mercier (Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL University, CNRS UMR8007, IRD UMR260, LEDa, DIAL); Sandrine Mesplé-Somps (IRD, Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL Research University, CNRS, LEDa, DIAL) |
| Abstract: | Measuring behaviors and preferences in times of conflict is of great interest for understanding conflict dynamics and designing conflict-resolution interventions. Yet, data users often cast doubts on the reliability of sensitive self-reported measures, especially in fragile contexts. We study sensitive experiences and preferences related to insecurity in a fragile State – Mali – by explicitly addressing potential response biases using a List Experiment (LE) method. We survey 1, 500 individuals across the entire country and randomly assign respondents to answer sensitive questions through the LE or direct questions (DQ) techniques to measure response biases. We focus on three experience-related items (physical assault victimization, firearms’ possession, willingness to engage in violence) and two preference-related items (support for the military regime and trust in foreign armed forces in Mali). Results show significant biases affecting responses about preference-related items. Our analysis confirms that popular support for the military regime and mistrust in the foreign armed forces are large, but suffer from a substantial overestimation. Misreporting is not uniformly distributed across the population, but varies depending on gender, education and conflict exposure. Further results suggest that such heterogeneity in response bias can yield fake significant correlations between individual characteristics and sensitive items’ prevalence rates depending on the survey technique used. |
| Keywords: | Survey method, Measurement bias, Fragile State, Africa, Mali |
| JEL: | C83 D74 O55 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt202301&r=dev |
| By: | Martin Nistal; María Edo |
| Abstract: | We investigate to what extent lengthening the primary school days affects learning trajectories. We use national administration reports at the school level to estimate the impact of more school hours on grade retention at the primary level. Using microdata available in Argentina from 2011 to 2019, we use the variation of 1, 297 schools that added more hours of instructional time. The fact that the change from a simple regime (4 hours per day) to an extended regime (more than 4 hours but less than 8) was progressively and exogenous, conditional on infrastructure capacity, allows for estimating the effect through a difference-in-difference approach. We find that lengthening the school day reduces the grade retention of primary students by 23.1%. |
| JEL: | I2 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4578&r=dev |