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on Development |
| By: | Sonna Vikhil ((corresponding author) Madras School of Economics, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 600025); K.S. Kavi Kumar (Madras School of Economics, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 600025) |
| Abstract: | While many developing countries, including India, increasingly started using unconditional cash transfers in agriculture (UCTAs) to improve welfare of people, the effectiveness of such policies are still being evaluated. The impact of UCTAs can be evaluated from multiple perspectives, including expenditure on inputs, allocation of time across different activities by the farmers etc. Using data from the 2019 and 2024 NSSO’s Time Use Survey, this study aims to investigate the effects of a cash transfer program – Rythu Bandhu Scheme - introduced in Telangana on the time use patterns of rural agricultural households.The time allocation in a day has been classified into activities corresponding to four broad categories: System of National Accounts (SNA) (e.g., Employment and Production-related), Extended SNA (ESNA) (e.g., Unpaid domestic services and caregiving), Non-SNA (NSNA) (e.g., Learning, Socialization and Leisure etc), and Self-care (SC) (e.g., Eating, Sleeping etc). The program’s causal impacts are evaluated separately for both periods using a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SURE) framework to address cross-equation residual correlation. Additionally, to address selection bias, Average Treatment effects on the Treated (ATT) has been estimated ignoring residual correlation. The study also employed Propensity Score Matching (PSM), to ensure a valid quasi-experimental design. The 2019 findings demonstrate an initial trend towards more engagement in SNA and SC activities, coupled with a contraction in time spent on ESNA and NSNA activities. This pattern indicates an immediate response to the cash transfer, possibly driven by short-term adjustments in labour supply and household well-being. The 2024 estimates, on the other hand, show time use pattern that is more sustained: households engage more time on NSNA and, to a lesser extent, ESNA activities while spending less time on SNA and SC. These shifts indicate a settling into a new equilibrium facilitated by assured income from the UCTAs, where households diversify their time usage beyond the market production and prioritise leisure, learning, and social activities |
| Keywords: | Cash Transfers; Agriculture; Time-Use Patterns |
| JEL: | D13 I38 J22 Q18 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2025-287 |
| By: | Cassie Chen Xiang; Mr. Manuk Ghazanchyan |
| Abstract: | Migration has been typically accompanied by persistently large gender gaps in labor force participation (LFP) rates within the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) countries from 1990 to 2020. However, the impact of both emigration (moving abroad) and immigration (coming in to the host country), and their joint effect on gender gap in labor force participation in LAC remains to be explored. This paper fills this gap by using both country-level data across LAC countries and individual-level data within Colombia as a supplementary case study. Our country-level analysis of LAC countries from 1991 to 2019 reveals that emigration is associated with decreased labor force participation rates, particularly among women. Supporting these findings, and based on data on Colombia from 2017 to 2019, we found that remittances, serving as a proxy for emigration, are associated with reduced labor force participation, especially among less-educated, older, and informal-sector women workers shaped by structural barriers and policy gaps. The reduced LFP rates for all genders are also shown with the influx of Venezuelan immigrants (serving as a proxy for an immigration shock) in the Colombian case. |
| Keywords: | Emigration; Immigration; Gender Inequality; Labor Force Participation; Latin America and Caribbean |
| Date: | 2025–08–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2025/167 |
| By: | Pierre E Biscaye (CERDI - Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne); Dennis Egger (University of Oxford); Utz J. Pape (Georg-August-University of Göttingen = Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) |
| Abstract: | Abstract This study identifies the impact of a shock to adolescent school availability—potentially affecting both household childcare burdens and child labor—on adult labor supply in the context of COVID-19-related school closures in Kenya. Using nationally representative bi-monthly panel data, the analysis compares changes in outcomes after schools partially reopened in October 2020 for households with children in a grade eligible to return against those with children in adjacent grades. An adolescent returning to school increases adults' weekly work by 4.3 hours (27 percent) in the short run, concentrated among the most flexible margins of adjustment and particularly household agriculture. Contrary to evidence from high-income settings, overall effects are not gendered. There are no effects of the partial reopening on respondent childcare hours and heterogeneity in labor-supply effects by household characteristics does not align with predictions based on a childcare mechanism. Instead, the results indicate that increased adult work hours substitute for reduced child work in household agriculture as a child goes back to school. Impacts on labor supply are driven by less wealthy households with children engaged in household agriculture, while wealthier agricultural households substitute child labor with increased hired labor. The results show that adolescent schooling has important consequences for household production and labor-supply decisions. Poor agricultural households face particularly high opportunity costs for children's education. |
| Keywords: | labor supply, gender, Kenya, COVID-19, school closures, childcare |
| Date: | 2025–08–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05213752 |
| By: | Surabhi M ((corresponding author) Madras School of Economics, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 600025); Brinda Viswanathan (Madras School of Economics, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 600025) |
| Abstract: | The production and consumption of nutri-cereals (NCs), more commonly known as coarse cereals, offer significant benefits enhancing soil, human, and livestock health, yet their adoption remains limited. This study aims to investigate NC consumption in the backdrop of free grains interventions to the poor through various schemes, particularly, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY). Despite various promotions given to the NCs especially millets in recent years (e.g., National Year of Millets, 2018; International Year of Millets, 2023), the NSSO’s HCES 2022-23 data shows the decline in the per capita consumption of the NC and an increase of per capita rice and wheat among the rural consumers who have access to PMGKAY. Based on a causal evaluation framework, the treated households are those not availing free rice and wheat while the control are those who avail free grains within the sample of major NC-consuming states and households reporting access to PMGKAY. Propensity score matching technique is used to analyze the impact based on the average treatment effect on the treated and inverse probability weighted regression adjustment is additionally used to account for potential confounding from observed covariates. The results reveal that the households not consuming free grains but had PMGKAY access consumed 12 percent more NCs than the matched control group, clearly indicating NCs are substituted away by access to free grain consumption among all those households that had the habit of NC consumption. The control group though gain marginally in protein intake and a larger gain in calories from rice and wheat but lose out on the micronutrient consumption from NCs, thereby adversely affecting nutritional diversity. These findings underscore the urgent need for a policy shift that integrates NCs into food security programs, thereby promoting both dietary and nutritional diversity and mitigating the adverse effects of over-dependence on refined cereals. |
| Keywords: | Nutri-cereals; Free grains; Food security |
| JEL: | I14 I15 I18 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2025-286 |
| By: | Daniel Tuki; |
| Abstract: | Although considerable research has examined the impact of violent conflict on health outcomes in Africa—such as undernutrition, child mortality, and maternal mortality—a significant gap remains in understanding how it affects individuals’ perceptions of healthcare services and the quality of their interactions with healthcare staff during hospital visits. This study seeks to address that gap by analyzing data from Round 9 of the Afrobarometer survey, conducted across 39 African countries between 2021 and 2023 (n = 53, 444). Regression analysis indicates that greater exposure to violent conflict is associated with a lower probability of individuals visiting a healthcare facility in the past year—likely due to fear of victimization, which suppresses health-seeking behavior. Among the subset of respondents who did visit a healthcare facility, further analysis shows that conflict exposure is linked to more negative evaluations of the care they received. Specifically, it increases the likelihood of individuals reporting poor service quality, experiencing disrespect from healthcare staff, and paying bribes to access needed care. |
| Keywords: | africa, healthcare, perceptions, service quality, violent conflict |
| JEL: | D74 F52 I12 I14 I15 I18 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:434 |
| By: | Vernekar, Nisha; Singhal, Karan |
| Abstract: | Female labor force participation (FLFP) in India has remained stubbornly low, defying the expectation that women’s employment would rise alongside economic growth. While supply-side constraints such as gendered norms and care responsibilities are well documented, the role of demand-side institutional barriers has received less empirical attention. We study whether removal of one such barrier - legal prohibitions on employing women in night shifts - improved female employment outcomes. We exploit exogenous variation in the timing of state-wise reforms in service sector labour laws in India between 2016 and 2024 to employ a staggered difference-in-differences design. We find that women in treated states increased time allocated to night hours, while overall hours worked declined, possibly toward more flexible or better-compensated shifts. We also find evidence of increased formalization among women in more organized firms and higher socioeconomic groups, consistent with bargaining responses to improved legal rights. The effects of lifting gendered legal barriers appear strongest where employers are willing to hire, infrastructure supports mobility, and women have bargaining power, while in more precarious settings, gains are limited. In India’s heterogeneous and often informal services sector, such reforms can shift employment patterns, but their reach and quality may depend on complementary institutional and infrastructural support. |
| Date: | 2025–08–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajt:wcinch:84236 |
| By: | David R. Heres (Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City); Alejandro Lopez-Feldman (Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City - Environment for Development Initiative, University of Gothenburg, School of Business, Economics and Law); Juan M. Torres-Rojo (Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City) |
| Abstract: | The opportunity cost of forested land is one of the key elements that determines the success of any forest conservation strategy. In this paper, we explore how sensitive tropical forest conservation is to competing economic incentives in Mexico from 2002 to 2011, both within and outside protected areas. Our results show that forest revenues have a statistically significant positive effect on the conservation of most forest categories. This is a promising finding for the potential success of programs that provide economic compensation to landowners in exchange for conserving forests since the effect is also economically significant. Somehow reassuringly, economic revenues have a smaller effect on the lower levels of deforestation observed within the boundaries of protected areas. |
| JEL: | H23 Q15 Q23 |
| Date: | 2025–08–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smx:wpaper:2025001 |
| By: | Döver, Melike; Middelanis, Martin |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the structural vulnerabilities of Latin American economies amid recent United States (US)-China tariff escalations and identifies strategic opportunities emerging from these shifts. Based on descriptive bilateral trade data from 2023 for the largest Latin American economies - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico - the study assesses exposure to US tariffs at the industry level. It further highlights sectors with the potential to benefit from diverted trade flows in the context of trade polarisation between China and the US. The degree of exposure varies across countries, depending on export structure and trade partners. While the tariff conflict may enable some countries to expand exports to China or the US, most Latin American economies - except Mexico - export their largest share of their manufactured goods within the region. Strengthening regional trade integration can therefore enhance resilience to external shocks and support technological upgrading. |
| Keywords: | US trade policy, trade policy uncertainty, Latin America, tariff vulnerability, structural trade exposure |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:diedps:324635 |
| By: | Andlib, Zubaria |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effectiveness of a digital financial literacy intervention aimed at improving financial knowledge, confidence, and behaviour among rural women in Pakistan. Using a randomized controlled trial conducted in two selected villages in the Rawalpindi district, women were assigned to receive digital financial literacy training either individually or jointly with a male household member. The intervention, delivered in person and via mobile phones, focused on core topics including budgeting, saving, and secure digital transactions. The training substantially improved women's financial knowledge, digital confidence, and self-efficacy. The intervention also increased the use of mobile wallets, greater engagement with formal savings mechanisms, and encouraged more consistent budgeting practices. When male household members participated alongside women, the intervention further enhanced women's financial autonomy and promoted more active joint decision-making over household finances. These findings demonstrate the potential of contextually grounded digital interventions to expand women's financial inclusion and highlight the value of household engagement in reinforcing women's economic agency. |
| Keywords: | Digital Financial Literacy, Financial Inclusion, Women's Empowerment, Behavioral Interventions, Randomized Controlled Trial |
| JEL: | C93 D14 O16 J16 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1656 |
| By: | Caunedo, Julieta; Felix, Mayara; Manysheva, Kristina |
| Abstract: | The study examines how labor market shocks originating in non-agriculture affect the organization of agricultural production. Using data from Brazil between 1986 and 2017, it shows that the entry of large non-agricultural firms leads to persistent increases in local wages, declines in agricultural employment, and a shift toward more capital-intensive farming. Farms consolidate, the number of small operations declines, and mechanization increases. To study the magnitude of this reorganization, we develop a general equilibrium model which predicts that a reduction in entry costs in non-agriculture leads to labor reallocation out of agriculture, farm exit, and capital deepening. When we hold mechanization fixed, these adjustments are substantially attenuated, highlighting the role of endogenous technology adoption as an important amplification mechanism. |
| Keywords: | Agricultura, Economía, |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbl:dblwop:2516 |
| By: | Tomás Opazo |
| Abstract: | The informal labour market represents a significant component of employment in Peru, more than twothirds of the workers are situated in the informal economy. This paper explores the prevalence, determinants, and dynamics of labour informality in Peru, considering the extensive margin, where unregistered firms hire unregistered workers, and the intensive margin, in which, even when firms are registered with tax authorities, hire employees off the books. Exploiting a rich household survey (ENAHO) between 2007 and 2019, the paper identifies key determinants of informality, such as gender, age, experience and education. Furthermore, the paper analyses transitions into and out of labour informality and the factors influencing these transitions over time. The findings suggest that labour and firm informality are influenced by both structural economic conditions and individual characteristics. Finally, the paper explores the linkages between workers’ transitions and subsequent changes in their labour income. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of informal employment in Peru, with lessons for Latin America, offering insights for policymakers aiming to enhance labour market formalisation and social protection. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chb:bcchwp:1028 |
| By: | Rafael Prieto-Curiel; Dieter Grass; Stefan Wrzaczek; Gian Maria Campedelli; Gernot Tragler; Gustav Feichtinger |
| Abstract: | Organised crime in Mexico threatens societal stability and public safety, driving pervasive violence and economic disruption. Despite security investments and social programs designed in part to reduce involvement in crime, cartel power and violence continue to persist. This study evaluates existing policies and introduces a novel framework using optimal control theory to analyse cartel dynamics. Specifically, by modelling resource allocation between security measures and social programs, we identify optimal strategies to mitigate the impacts of cartels. Findings reveal that Mexico's largest cartel imposes an annual economic burden exceeding \text{US\$ } 19 billion, 2.5 times the government's investment in science and technology. We further demonstrate that current budget allocations between social and security programs are nearly optimal yet insufficient to reduce cartel violence significantly. In light of these findings, we demonstrate that achieving meaningful harm reduction would require a significantly larger budget and would take over a decade, even with increased funding. |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2508.06509 |
| By: | Mao, Haiou; Görg, Holger |
| Abstract: | Geographical Indication (GI) is a rising policy in developing countries, which has been relatively neglected in the existing literature. This article studies Chinese agricultural GIs and its impact on firms’ exports. By relating newly authorized GIs with firm‐product‐location‐destination level customs trade data according to GIs’ geographical coverage and product type, we estimate the impact of these new GIs on firm's exports. Importantly, we can distinguish GIs with and without quality supervision. For the latter we find negative impacts on export quality, which is not the case for GIs with quality supervision. We interpret this in the context of our theoretical framework as evidence for quality free‐riding, where individual firms have an incentive to lower the quality of the export product. We show that this negative effect is less, the more concentrated an industry is or the more GIs there are for a particular product. Furthermore, our results suggest that the China‐EU agreement on Geographical Indications may play the role of quality supervision and prevent the possibility of free‐riding. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Geographical Indications, China, export quality, free-riding |
| JEL: | F10 Q18 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwkie:323987 |
| By: | Sarah Xue Dong; Agung Satyadini; Mathias Sinning |
| Abstract: | Tax compliance among small businesses remains low in developing countries, yet little is known about how regional context shapes the effectiveness of enforcement strategies. Both theory and evidence suggest an ambiguous relationship between compliance and geographic proximity to tax offices. We study this issue using a large-scale natural field experiment with Indonesia's tax authority involving 12, 000 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Businesses were randomly assigned to receive deterrence, information, or public goods letters, or no message. All letters improved compliance, with deterrence messages producing the largest gains - substantially increasing filing rates and raising monthly tax payments. Each dollar spent on deterrence letters generated about US$30 in additional revenue over the course of a year. We observe high compliance among non-treated MSMEs near metropolitan tax offices and find that enforcement messages successfully raise compliance in non-metropolitan regions to comparable levels. However, targeting already compliant MSMEs near metropolitan tax offices backfires, underscoring the need for geographically tailored tax administration strategies. These results provide novel experimental evidence on the relation between geographic proximity and the effectiveness of tax enforcement, helping to reconcile mixed findings in the tax compliance literature. |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2509.02328 |