|
on Development |
| By: | David Roodman |
| Abstract: | Hjort and Poulsen (2019) frames the staggered arrival of submarine Internet cables on the shores of Africa circa 2010 as a difference-in-differences natural experiment in broadband access. The paper finds positive impacts on individual- and firm-level employment and nighttime light emissions. These results are largely ascribable to geocoding errors; to discontinuities from a satellite changeover at end-2009; and to a definition of the treated zone that has unclear technological basis, is narrower than the spatial resolution of nearly all the data sources, and is weakly representative of the geography of broadband availability. |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2401.13694&r=dev |
| By: | Kathryn Baragwanath Vogel; Gordon H. Hanson; Amit Khandelwal; Chen Liu; Hogeun Park |
| Abstract: | This paper integrates daytime and nighttime satellite imagery into a spatial general-equilibrium model to evaluate the returns to investments in new motorways. Our approach has particular value in developing-country settings in which granular data on economic activity are scarce. To demonstrate our method, we use multi-spectral imagery—publicly available across the globe—to evaluate India’s varied road construction projects in the early 2000s. Estimating the model requires only remotely-sensed data, while evaluating welfare impacts requires one year of population data, which are increasingly available through public sources. We find that India’s road investments from this period improved aggregate welfare, particularly for the largest and smallest urban markets. The analysis further reveals that most welfare gains accrued within Indian districts, demonstrating the potential benefits of using of high spatial resolution of satellite images. |
| JEL: | O1 R1 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32047&r=dev |
| By: | Neha Deopa; Daniele Rinaldo |
| Abstract: | Do religions codify ecological principles? This paper explores theoretically and empirically the role religious beliefs play in shaping environmental interactions. We study African Traditional Religions (ATR) which place forests within a sacred sphere. We build a model of non-market interactions of the mean-field type where the actions of agents with heterogeneous religious beliefs continuously affect the spatial density of forest cover. The equilibrium extraction policy shows how individual beliefs and their distribution among the population can be a key driver of forest conservation. The model also characterizes the role of resource scarcity in both individual and population extraction decisions. We test the model predictions empirically relying on the unique case of Benin, where ATR adherence is freely reported. Using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits the variation in proximity to the Benin-Nigerian border, we find that a 1 standard deviation increase in ATR adherence has a 0.4 standard deviation positive impact on forest cover change. We study the impact of historically belonging to the ancient Kingdom of Dahomey, birthplace of the Vodun religion. Using the original boundaries as a spatial discontinuity, we find positive evidence of Dahomey affiliation on contemporary forest change. Lastly, we compare observed forest cover to counterfactual outcomes by simulating the absence of ATR beliefs across the population. |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2401.13673&r=dev |
| By: | Homma, Kirara; Islam, Abu Hayat Md. Saiful; Matsuura, Masanori; Legesse Debela, Bethelhem |
| Abstract: | Despite substantial efforts to improve food and nutrient intake in the last decades, child undernutrition remains a daunting challenge, particularly in developing countries' rural areas. Today, frequent extreme weather events harm agricultural production, exacerbating the food shortage problem in these regions. Although off-farm labor is found to be an ex-ante strategy for mitigating weather shocks, little is known about how households' labor reallocation in response to weather shocks is associated with child nutritional status as an ex-post strategy. We investigate how different forms of labor activity mitigate the effect of rainfall shocks on children's nutritional status, using three waves of nationally representative panel data from rural households in Bangladesh, in conjunction with historical monthly precipitation and temperature data. Our findings show that less rainfall during the main cropping season in the year before the survey is associated with a lower weight for age z-score (WAZ score) of children under the age of five years. The findings indicate that there are heterogeneous mitigating impacts of different types of labor allocation affecting the link between rainfall shocks and child health. While maternal labor allocation plays a role as a mitigation factor, household-level labor time and other household members' labor time are not significantly associated with the link between rainfall shocks and child nutritional status. Findings also show that maternal off-farm self-employment mitigates the negative impact of rainfall shortage, whereas maternal on-farm labor exacerbates the rainfall shock impact. Our results therefore underscore the importance of providing sufficient off-farm employment opportunities for mothers and addressing maternal time constraints through targeted policies to cope with rainfall shocks and improve child nutrition. |
| Keywords: | Child nutrition, Labor allocation, Weather shock, Fixed effect model, Bangladesh |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:daredp:281992&r=dev |
| By: | Raissa Fabregas; Michael Kremer; Matthew Lowes; Robert On; Giulia Zane |
| Abstract: | Mobile phone-based informational programs are widely used worldwide, though there is little consensus on how effective they are at changing behavior. We present causal evidence on the effects of six agricultural information programs delivered through text messages in Kenya and Rwanda. The programs shared similar objectives but were implemented by three different organizations and varied in content, design, and target population. With administrative outcome data for tens of thousands of farmers across all experiments, we are sufficiently powered to detect small effects in real input purchase choices. Combining the results of all experiments through a meta-analysis, we find that the odds ratio for following the recommendations is 1.22 (95% CI: 1.16, 1.29). We cannot reject that impacts are similar across experiments and for two different agricultural inputs. There is little evidence of message fatigue, but the effects diminish over time. Providing more granular information, supplementing the texts with in-person calls, or varying the messages’ framing did not significantly increase impacts, but message repetition had modest positive effects. While the overall effect sizes are small, the low cost of text messages can make these programs cost-effective. |
| JEL: | Q0 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32048&r=dev |
| By: | Neha Agarwal (University of Otago); Anaka Aiyar (University of Vermont); Andrew Bergmann (The Ohio State University); Joseph Cummins (Department of Economics, University of California Riverside); Jingyan Guo (University of California, Riverside); Vaishali Jain (University of California, Riverside) |
| Abstract: | Using the fourth round of the Indian National Family Health Survey (NFHS- 4), and subsequently replicating our results using the fifth round (NFHS-5), we document differential child physical growth patterns across caste groups in India, demonstrating that lower caste children are born shorter and grow less quickly than children from higher-caste households. We then show that, in line with work from previous rounds of the NFHS, these differences are largely explainable by observable covariates, particularly maternal characteristics and household wealth variables. Our research also reveals a previously undocumented dynamic, that the influence of these variables changes as children develop, and suggests that caste- gaps are the result of multiple mechanisms impacting the child growth process at different stages of development. Using age-disaggregated decomposition methods, we demonstrate that health endowment related variables (e.g. maternal height) largely explain birth length gaps, and that variables related to health investments (e.g. household wealth, health care usage) become increasingly influential as children age. Children from lower caste households thus face two margins generating height gaps as they age: a persistent endowment disparity present from birth, and a post birth investment differential that exacerbates the initial deficit. |
| Keywords: | Height for Age Z scores, Child Health, Health Disparities, India, Caste, National Family Health Surveys |
| JEL: | I14 I15 O10 O15 O53 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucr:wpaper:202401&r=dev |
| By: | Cédric Crofils (LEDa, Paris-Dauphine & PSL Universities, Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France); Ewen Gallic (Aix-Marseille Univ., CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France); Gauthier Vermandel (CMAP, Ecole polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Banque de France, LEDa, Paris-Dauphine & PSL Universities) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the dynamic effects of weather shocks on monthly agricultural production in Peru, using a Local Projection framework. An adverse weather shock, measured by an excess of heat or rain, always generates a delayed negative downturn in agricultural production, but its magnitude and duration depend on several factors, such as the type of crop concerned or the timing at which it occurs. On average, a weather shock –a temperature shock– can cause a monthly decline of 5% in agricultural production for up to four consecutive months. The response is time-dependent: shocks occurring during the growing season exhibit a much larger response. At the macroeconomic level, weather shocks are recessionary and entail a decline in inflation, agricultural production, exports, exchange rate and GDP. |
| Keywords: | weather shocks, agriculture, Local projections, VAR |
| JEL: | C23 E32 Q11 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2402&r=dev |
| By: | Estopace, Katha Ma-i M.; Abrigo, Michael R.M. |
| Abstract: | The drivers of the Philippines’ fertility decline over the last fifty years, resulting in a below-replacement 1.9 total fertility rate in 2022, are traced in this study. By employing a modified Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition on the collective experiences of approximately 65, 000 married women across six rounds of the Philippine National Demographic (and Health) Survey, it is demonstrated that the most effective contraceptives might not necessarily be linked to delaying marriage or increasing modern contraceptive use. Analyses indicate that the primary driver behind the country’s fertility decline in the last fifty years is the enhancement of material measures of well-being, with marriage and contraceptive usage playing secondary roles. While raising female fertility may be possible, this will not likely go significantly above replacement levels. Population aging is an imminent reality for the Philippines. Comments to this paper are welcome within 60 days from the date of posting. Email publications@pids.gov.ph. |
| Keywords: | fertility;population;decomposition;Philippines |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2023-19&r=dev |
| By: | Escamilla-Guerrero, David (University of St Andrews); Papadia, Andrea (University of York); Zimran, Ariell (Vanderbilt University) |
| Abstract: | The effects of immigration are reasonably well understood in developed countries, but they are far more poorly understood in developing ones despite the importance of these countries as immigrant destinations. We address this shortcoming by studying the effects of immigration to Brazil during the Age of Mass Migration on its agricultural sector in 1920. This context benefits from the widely recognized value of historical perspective in studies of the effects of immigration. But unlike studies that focus on the United States to understand the effects of migration from poor to rich countries, our context is informative of developing countries' experience because Brazil in this period was unique among major migrant destinations as a low-income country with a large agricultural sector and weak institutions. Instrumenting for a municipality's immigrant share using the interaction of aggregate immigrant inflows and the expansion of Brazil's railway network, we find that a greater immigrant share in a municipality led to an increase in farm values. We show that the bulk of the effect of immigration can be explained by more intense cultivation of land, which we attribute to temporary immigrants exerting greater labor effort than natives. Finally, we find that it is unlikely that immigration's effect on agriculture slowed Brazil's structural transformation. |
| Keywords: | immigration, developing countries, effects of immigration, age of mass migration, Brazil, agriculture |
| JEL: | F22 J61 N36 N56 O13 O15 Q15 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16741&r=dev |
| By: | Charu Jain (National Council of Applied Economic Research); Ruchi Jain (National Council of Applied Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses one of the most critical yet overlooked problems of excessive absence of students in primary grades in India. Considering the intuitive link between students’ attendance and achievements, this paper empirically investigates the incidence and causes of chronic absenteeism while examining the variations in the attainment of foundational skills of primary students. Using data from the India Human Development Survey, round II, the authors find a continuous decline in the attainment of foundational skills among students, as the absenteeism rate increases from ‘normal’ to ‘chronic’, clearly indicating that attendance works! Further, the logistic regression model shows that poor health conditions of a child, larger school distance, extra school working hours, teaching factors, and harsh punishments are among the major contributing factors leading to chronic absence among students. Early attention and strict policy interventions are required due to their direct implications on the cognitive growth of young minds, and quality and productivity of the overall school education. |
| Keywords: | Attendance, Learning Outcomes, Primary Education, Chronic Absenteeism, Gender, Human Development |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I28 |
| Date: | 2024–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nca:ncaerw:157&r=dev |
| By: | Izquierdo-Tort, Santiago (Instituto de Investigaciones Economicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico); Jayachandran, Seema (Department of Economics, Princeton University); Saavedra, Santiago (Facultad de Economía, Universidad del Rosario) |
| Abstract: | Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are a widely used approach to incentivize conservation efforts such as avoided deforestation. Although PES effectiveness has received significant scholarly attention, whether PES design modifications can improve program outcomes is less explored. We present findings from a randomized trial in Mexico that tested whether a PES contract that requires enrollees to enroll all of their forest is more effective than the traditional PES contract that allows them to exercise choice. The modification’s aim is to prevent landowners from enrolling only parcels they planned to conserve anyway while leaving aside other parcels to deforest. We find that the full-enrollment treatment significantly reduces deforestation compared to the traditional contract. This extra conservation occurs despite the full-enrollment provision reducing the compliance rate due to its more stringent requirements. The full-enrollment treatment quadrupled cost-effectiveness, highlighting the potential to substantially improve the efficacy of conservation payments through simple contract modifications. |
| Keywords: | Deforestation; Payments for Ecosystem Services; financial incentives; contract design; Mexico |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:021022&r=dev |
| By: | Jhorland Ayala-García; Federico Ceballos-Sierra |
| Abstract: | Quantifying the impact of supply shocks on global commodity trade networks is an increasing concern for researchers under the current threats of climate change and the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper proposes a novel methodology to estimate these effects across the entire trade network: we create a weight matrix based on an index that captures the extent to which two coffee-producing countries compete within consumer markets. Using this matrix, we estimate the degree to which an adverse weather shock in a coffee-producing country influences the coffee production of its competitors. Our results show that this adverse shock has a negative direct effect on the country’s coffee exports and, importantly, a positive effect on the quantities produced by its competitors. **** Resumen: Cuantificar el impacto de los choques de oferta en las cadenas mundiales de comercio de productos básicos es una preocupación cada vez mayor para los investigadores ante las amenazas actuales del cambio climático y las lecciones de la pandemia del COVID-19. Este artículo propone una metodología novedosa para estimar estos efectos en toda la red comercial: creamos una matriz espacial de competidores basada en un índice que captura el grado en que dos países productores de café compiten dentro de los mercados de consumo. Utilizando esta matriz, estimamos el grado en que un choque climático adverso en un país productor de café influye en la producción y exportación de café de sus competidores. Nuestros resultados muestran que este choque adverso tiene un efecto directo negativo sobre las exportaciones de café del país y, más importante aún, un efecto positivo sobre las cantidades producidas por sus competidores. |
| Keywords: | coffee, frosts, supply shocks, weighting matrix, spatial spillovers, Café, heladas, choques de oferta, matriz de pesos espaciales, difusión |
| JEL: | E23 F1 Q02 Q17 Q56 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:region:324&r=dev |