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on Development |
| By: | Busso, Matias; Ibáñez, Ana María; Messina, Julián; Quigua, Juliana |
| Abstract: | This chapter examines the redistributive preferences of Latin Americans and investigates the factors that shape them. Using a detailed survey in eight Latin American countries, the study sheds new light on redistributive preferences and explores which aspects of redistribution are more popular and among which groups. The roles of selfinterest, perceptions of inequality, values, and the relationship between citizens and the public sphere in shaping attitudes to redistribution are discussed. |
| JEL: | J1 N0 |
| Date: | 2023–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120687&r=dev |
| By: | Iversen, Vegard (University of Greenwich); Kundu, Anustup (University of Helsinki); Lahoti, Rahul (UNU-WIDER); Sen, Kunal (University of Manchester) |
| Abstract: | We examine how village level social group dominance affects the educational and occupational mobility of minority and other social groups in rural India across multiple generations. Theoretically, we distinguish between upper caste and own group dominance and examine the mechanisms underpinning inequality in mobility outcomes. We find inequality in upward educational mobility to have significantly narrowed over time with SCs doing better in upper caste and own-dominated villages, while STs and Muslims do worse in own-dominated villages. In contrast, for occupational mobility, we find no evidence of minority groups catching up with upper castes while SCs and STs are particularly disadvantaged, but SCs, again, do comparatively better in their own dominated villages. Exploring the mechanisms that explain the relationships between land dominance regimes and mobility, we find that a combination of agroecological and natural resource base and social cohesion of villages underpin the differences observed more than public goods provision. Our findings suggest a new pattern of inequality where historically disadvantaged groups appear less able to convert educational gains into labour market and occupational progress. |
| Keywords: | educational mobility, occupational mobility, caste, village dominance regimes, India |
| JEL: | J62 J71 O12 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16601&r=dev |
| By: | Ghazarian, Avenia (Mistra Center for Sustainable Markets (Misum)); Khan, Akib (Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | How does human capital investment respond to local economic opportunities? Income gains can increase the demand for schooling while new jobs raise the opportunity costs. We investigate this question in the context of rapid growth in artisanal gold mining in sub-Saharan Africa. We compile 45 waves of Demographic and Health Surveys covering 1.3 million individuals from 14 countries in this region. Identification comes from two sources of variation: one in the global gold price and the other in the exposure of households to places that are geologically suitable for artisanal gold mining. We find that a near-tripling of the global gold price – reflecting changes between 2005 and 2010 – leads to a decline in school attendance: by 3.1 pp for 11 to 15-year-olds and by 2.3 pp for 16 to 20-year-olds who live near gold-suitable areas. These reductions are higher for boys. Taken together, these results highlight the potential costs of economic development driven by natural resources. |
| Keywords: | Human capital investment; Economic opportunities; Artisanal mining; Gold; Africa |
| JEL: | J24 O15 Q32 |
| Date: | 2023–11–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:hamisu:2023_014&r=dev |
| By: | Hector Galindo-Silva; Guy Tchuente |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how religious competition, as measured by the emergence of religious organizations with innovative worship styles and cultural practices, impacts domestic violence. Using data from Colombia, the study estimates a two-way fixed-effects model and reveals that the establishment of the first non-Catholic church in a predominantly Catholic municipality leads to a significant decrease in reported cases of domestic violence. This effect persists in the long run, indicating that religious competition introduces values and practices that discourage domestic violence, such as household stability and reduced male dominance. Additionally, the effect is more pronounced in municipalities with less clustered social networks, suggesting the diffusion of these values and practices through social connections. This research contributes to the understanding of how culture influences domestic violence, emphasizing the role of religious competition as a catalyst for cultural change. |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2311.10831&r=dev |
| By: | Arellano Gonzalez Jesus; Juárez-Torres Miriam; Zazueta Borboa Francisco |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate the effect of weather shocks on the price of two crops of great importance in Mexican agriculture: white corn and dry beans. We rely on panel data techniques applied to a 20-year long panel of prices at the market/city level. Our results show that positive temperature and negative precipitation shocks of at least 0.5 standard deviations relative to the climate normal have immediate and lagged positive effects on the price of these crops. The immediate effect is about 2.0%, while the lagged effect is between 1.0% and 2.5%, depending on the timing of the shock within the crop's growing period. We also show that one of the mechanisms explaining the effect of weather shocks on the price of these crops is their detrimental effect on productivity, especially for rainfed production. |
| Keywords: | Food Inflation;Weather Shocks;Staple prices;Local Markets |
| JEL: | E31 Q15 Q54 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2023-16&r=dev |
| By: | Alfonsi, Livia (UC Berkeley); Bauer, Michal (Charles University, Prague); Chytilová, Julie (Charles University, Prague); Miguel, Edward (University of California, Berkeley) |
| Abstract: | We study how human capital and economic conditions causally affect the choice of religious denomination. We utilize a longitudinal dataset monitoring the religious history of more than 5, 000 Kenyans over twenty years, in tandem with a randomized experiment (deworming) that has exogenously boosted education and living standards. The main finding is that the program reduces the likelihood of membership in a Pentecostal denomination up to 20 years later when respondents are in their mid-thirties, while there is a comparable increase in membership in traditional Christian denominations. The effect is concentrated and statistically significant among a sub-group of participants who benefited most from the program in terms of increased education and income. The effects are unlikely due to increased secularization, because the program does not reduce measures of religiosity. The results help explain why the global growth of the Pentecostal movement, sometimes described a "New Reformation", is centered in low-income communities. |
| Keywords: | religion, identity, human capital, Kenya |
| JEL: | C93 O12 Z12 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16590&r=dev |
| By: | Geraldo Costa Junior (Universidade Federal Fluminense); Andrea Calef (School of Economics, University of East Anglia) |
| Abstract: | Weather variation plays a primary role in commodity price formation. In most contexts, the amount of rainfall is usually taken by farmers as an indicator of crop success or failure. However, the literature is still vague in defining when in the pre-harvest period weather information is more critical for price formation. In this sense, we investigate the impact of dryness on commodity price formation during the pre-harvest period and across phenological stages in the context of a major corn producing country. We build a database containing variables such as price and the number of days with no precipitation between January 2005 and December 2019. We use a panel data regression of corn spot prices on the number of days without rain, and its squares. We find a significant and nonlinear relationship between the number of dry days in a week and local corn price variations. Overall, prices start rising after 4 days with no precipitation. Disentangling this impact into phenological stages, we find that dryness events tend to impact prices during the vegetative and flowering stages but have no effect during the grain filling stage. We also find that abnormal precipitation events tend to increase corn prices, as they contribute to depressing farmers expectations on future corn availability by harvest time. However, this result is led by water scarcity events, while, on the contrary, water overabundance events negatively affect prices. |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uea:ueaeco:2023-04&r=dev |
| By: | B. Kelsey Jack (University of California at Santa Barbara); Seema Jayachandran (Princeton University); Namrata Kala (MIT Sloan School of Management); Rohini Pande (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | We test the effectiveness of payments for ecosystem services (PES) in reducing crop residue burning, which contributes significantly to India’s poor air quality. Standard PES contracts pay a monetary reward after verification that the participant has met a pro-environment condition (clearing agricultural fields without burning). We randomize paying a portion of the money upfront and unconditionally to address liquidity constraints and farmer distrust, which may undermine the standard contract’s effectiveness. Despite providing a lower reward for compliance, contracts with partial upfront payment increase compliance by 10 percentage points, which is corroborated with satellite-based burning measurements. The cost per life saved using this strategy is $4400. In contrast, standard PES has no effect on burning; the payments made are entirely inframarginal. |
| Keywords: | India, Life Expectancy, Payments for Ecosystem Services, PES |
| JEL: | O13 Q01 Q56 |
| Date: | 2023–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:econom:2023-14&r=dev |