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on Development |
| By: | Klaus Desmet; Dávid Krisztián Nagy; Esteban Rossi-Hansberg |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how human capital shapes the economic geography of development. We propose a model in which human capital acquisition costs vary across space, and regions with higher human capital invest more in human-capital-augmenting technology. Locations are interconnected through costly migration and trade. Using data on local income and schooling, we quantify the model at a 1° x 1° resolution globally. Over two centuries, the model mostly predicts persistence in the spatial distribution of development. Proportionally lowering education costs in sub-Saharan Africa raises local outcomes but lowers global welfare, while the same policy in Latin America improves global welfare. An alternative policy that equalizes educational costs across sub-Saharan Africa generates worse outcomes, as population shifts within the region toward less productive areas. These results are driven by the estimated negative correlation between education costs and local fundamentals, as well as spatial inefficiencies due to externalities. |
| Keywords: | human capital; geography; development; education policy; global inequality; dynamic spatial models |
| JEL: | E24 F10 I24 J24 O11 O18 O33 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–09–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:103849 |
| By: | Iqbal, Nasir; Jalal, Amen; Mahmud, Mahreen; Vyborny, Kate |
| Abstract: | Female-targeted cash transfers are widely used as a policy tool to enhance women’s empowerment. However, little is known about what happens when payments stop — whether due to budget cuts, program changes, or recipient graduation. This paper studies how women are affected by unanticipated program exit, and whether they experience backlash when they stop bringing cash home. Using a regression discontinuity-in-differences design around a revised eligibility threshold, the study followed 2, 333 women exiting Pakistan’s largest cash transfer program, surveying them before program exit and one year after it. Drawing on comprehensive measures of empowerment, intimate partner violence, and well-being, the paper finds no evidence of negative impacts a year after exit. These results suggest that the gains experienced by women during the program are not undone by adverse reactions upon exit. |
| Date: | 2026–09–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11474 |
| By: | Asad, Saher; Behrer, A. Patrick; Heger, Martin; Yanez Pagans, Monica |
| Abstract: | Ambient air pollution is a major health risk, but its implications for human capital formation are not well understood, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where exposure is high. This paper estimates the causal effect of sustained exposure to fine particulate matter on primary-school learning in rural Punjab, Pakistan. The paper combines longitudinal student achievement data from the Learning and Educational Achievements in Punjab Schools project with high-resolution satellite-based fine particulate matter estimates. To address endogeneity of pollution to local economic activity, the analysis exploits plausibly exogenous variation generated by open burning of agricultural residue interacted with wind direction, constructing school-year measures of upwind fire exposure as instruments for local fine particulate matter. The instrumental variable estimates show that higher school-year fine particulate matter significantly slows learning, with larger effects in mathematics than in language subjects. The results are consistent with impacts operating during instructional months: pollution exposure during the school year predicts lower achievement, while exposure during vacation months has little explanatory power. The findings show statistically imprecise heterogeneity by age and gender, opposite to patterns found in comparable settings. The analysis is organized around a simple framework in which learning depends on attendance, cognition, effort, and instructional quality, each a function of exposure to poor air quality. Pollution increases student absences, but this attendance channel explains only a small portion of the total effect, implying that most of the learning loss is non-attendance-related and likely operates through the framework’s other channels — direct effects on cognition, reduced effort, and degraded instructional quality. |
| Date: | 2026–09–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11463 |
| By: | Radchenko, Natalia (American University, Washington DC & IZA); Vo, Hoa (American University, Washington DC) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a new approach to evaluating how household decision-making patterns shape women’s employment. It examines the role of social norms by providing a framework reflecting the trade-off between household economic surplus and the non-monetary costs of women’s employment. The framework distinguishes between regimes with different relative cost structures: husband-cost-dominant settings under stronger traditional norms and wife-cost-dominant settings under weaker norms regarding women’s work. We apply the model using Indonesian household reports on decision-making involvement. Considering both spouses’ reports provides a more comprehensive analysis than relying on wives’ reports alone, as is standard in literature: spousal reporting discrepancies are non-random, with women tending to overestimate their involvement. The results support the husband-cost-dominant model, implying wives’ employment in Indonesia is shaped by traditional norms to a large extent. The findings also suggest that the non-monetary cost of her employment plays a more significant role than the income effect. Finally, the results highlight the persistence of social norms surrounding Indonesian women's labor supply, both over time and across cohorts. |
| Keywords: | female labor supply, intra-household decision making |
| JEL: | J21 O12 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18971 |
| By: | de Silva, Lihini (Monash University Australia); Mahmood, Rafat (Monash University); Ponnusamy, Sundar (Deakin University Australia) |
| Abstract: | Agricultural residue burning releases pollutants that prevailing winds carry across administrative boundaries. We study the effects of fire-driven pollution on the cognitive development and educational trajectories of around 700, 000 children aged 5--16 in Pakistan, combining satellite-derived burned area data, wind direction, and nationally representative learning assessments. Our treatment measure captures fires within 15 kilometers of a child's district that burn upwind; comparable downwind fires, which reflect the same agricultural activity but carry smoke away from the child, serve as a placebo. A one standard deviation increase in upwind fire exposure reduces test scores in mathematics, reading, and English by roughly 0.02 standard deviations; downwind fires have no effect. Impacts are concentrated in the school term, with no effect from summer-holiday fires. Boys and girls suffer similar cognitive losses, but over time older girls face higher dropout, consistent with lower perceived returns to female education in a patrilocal society, and child labor rises. The results survive extensive robustness checks. Agricultural burning is thus a constraint on human capital development, not only a public health issue. |
| Keywords: | agricultural fires, air pollution, cognitive development, child labor |
| JEL: | Q53 Q54 I25 J13 O12 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18977 |
| By: | Ahmed, Hardi; de Walque, Damien B. C. M.; Lopez, Carolina |
| Abstract: | The generational evolution of gender gaps in education in Sub-Saharan Africa remains poorly documented at the regional scale. This paper uses micro data from Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys from 35 countries (approximately 736, 000 individuals), complemented by international educational assessment and monitoring program (managed by the Conference of Ministers of Education of French-Speaking Countries) test scores for 14 francophone countries. The paper traces gender differences in educational attainment and learning by birth cohort. The findings show that attainment gaps narrow sharply across cohorts: the female disadvantage falls from 13–15 percentage points in primary and secondary attendance and 1.9 years of schooling among those born in the 1970s to far smaller values among the most recent cohorts, and it is statistically insignificant across most of the youngest birth cohorts. Among those born after 1999, females exceed males in secondary attendance and years of education in a majority of countries. However, convergence is uneven. It partly reflects stagnation in boys’ secondary attendance rather than female gains; learning gaps show no uniform direction across countries and often run counter to attainment; and wider attainment gaps persist among rural, poorer, and Muslim populations. |
| Date: | 2026–09–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11455 |
| By: | Baghdadi, Leila; Gatti, Roberta V.; Islam, Asif M.; Coronado, Jesica Torres; Zaveri, Esha Dilip |
| Abstract: | Tunisia is among the Mediterranean’s most climate-exposed countries facing acute water scarcity. Although a growing literature has documented the effects of extreme weather on firms, few studies have used longitudinal administrative data to track how business performance evolves over time. This paper draws on about two decades of firm-level records from Tunisia’s formal business registry (Répertoire National des Entreprises), linking firm locations to satellite-based precipitation measures at the delegation level, which is Tunisia’s second-level administrative unit. Using more than 1 million firm-year observations, the study finds that droughts—defined as negative precipitation shocks—reduce total revenues and revenues per worker by approximately 12 and 11 percent, respectively. Large formal firms, non-exporting firms, and domestic firms are disproportionately vulnerable. The results are robust across a range of sensitivity analyses. |
| Date: | 2026–09–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11472 |
| By: | Jing-Rong Zeng (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Can international peacekeeping produce durable peace? I study United Nations peacekeeping deployments across Africa from 1994 to 2020 using a geocoded panel of peacekeeper locations and conflict events. Because local deployment is non-absorbing and varies over time, I use difference-in-differences estimators that accommodate heterogeneous treatment effects and changes in treatment status. Peacekeeper deployment is followed by a large and persistent decline in the probability of local conflict. By contrast, conflict-related fatalities decline initially but increase at longer horizons, revealing a divergence between the incidence and severity of violence. The longer-run increase in fatalities is concentrated in state-based conflict, while the initial decline is more pronounced for one-sided violence. I find limited evidence of sustained improvements in nighttime lights. Complementary evidence from MONUSCO’s 2013 offensive mandate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo shows lower total and non-civilian-targeted fatalities in locations with peacekeeper bases. The findings show that the effects of peacekeeping differ across dimensions of violence and evolve substantially over time. |
| Keywords: | Peacekeeping, Conflict Resolution, Nighttime Lights, Event Study, Dynamic Treatment Effects |
| JEL: | C23 D74 F53 |
| Date: | 2026–09–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2026016 |
| By: | Ellora Derenoncourt (Princeton University and NBER); Francois Gerard (University College London); Lorenzo Lagos (Brown University); Claire Montialoux (Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | How do minimum wages affect informality? We study the near-doubling of the real minimum wage from 2000 to 2009 in Brazil, where 46% of the workforce is informal. Using labor force surveys covering the informal sector, we show the minimum wage exhibits near full passthrough to informal employees working in formal firms, about half of all informal employees. The formal-to-informal reallocation elasticity with respect to the formal-wage is small: -0.28. Our findings illustrate how minimum wages can positively affect living standards for workers thought beyond the reach of labor law, a sizable share of the workforce in developing economies. |
| Keywords: | Brazil |
| JEL: | J23 J46 J88 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cepsud:351 |
| By: | Bismark Aha (Nottingham Trent University); Abubakar Sadiq Abass (METU - Middle East Technical University [Ankara]); Philip Kofi Alimo (LAET - Laboratoire Aménagement Économie Transports - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENTPE - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Richmond Juvenile Ehwi (Oxford Brookes University) |
| Abstract: | Access to adequate housing is fundamental to wellbeing and sustainable development, yet systematic measurement of multidimensional housing quality and its spatial distribution is limited across many rapidly urbanising countries in the Global South. This paper develops a Multidimensional Housing Quality Index (MHQI) using household-level microdata from Ghana's 2021 Population and Housing Census (N = 836, 515) and combines it with the Alkire–Foster framework to assess the prevalence, spatial distribution and correlates of housing quality and deprivation. The MHQI integrates nine binary adequacy indicators across structural quality, sufficient living space, access to essential services, and sanitation and hygiene. The index is constructed by applying principal component analysis to the tetrachoric correlation matrix of the binary indicators to produce empirically derived adequacy weights. The national mean MHQI is 62.2 on a 0–100 scale, but this masks substantial inequalities: urban households score 73.1 compared with 45.3 in rural areas, and the inter-regional gap exceeds 42 points. The Alkire–Foster framework classifies 56.5% of households as housing poor and 37.2% as severely housing poor, with inadequate waste disposal, polluting cooking fuel and unimproved sanitation constituting the most widespread deficits. District-level MHQI scores show strong positive spatial autocorrelation (Moran's I > 0.71, p < 0.001), indicating clustered deprivation. Wealth, education and urban residence are identified as the strongest correlates of housing quality. The study provides a transferable measurement framework for countries where census or nationally representative household surveys contain comparable housing indicators. The findings support a shift from aggregate deficit narratives towards district-level prioritisation of specific housing deficits that drive deprivation in each locality. |
| Keywords: | Housing quality, Multidimensional poverty, Spatial inequality, Urban–rural disparities, Housing policy, Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05735436 |
| By: | Sahoo, Soham (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore); Sogani, Shweta (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore) |
| Abstract: | Can childhood exposure to intergroup violence widen long-run inequality between majority and minority groups? We link the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India to historical records of Hindu–Muslim riot fatalities to investigate this question. Identification comes from whether Muslim–Hindu gaps differ across childhood district–birth cohorts with different riot exposure, after absorbing district-cohort conditions and allowing religious gaps to vary across districts and cohorts. More than three decades later, greater exposure is associated with worse psychological well-being among Muslims relative to Hindus: depressive symptoms rise, while life satisfaction, perceived social position, and sleep deteriorate. Exposure is also associated with lower household consumption, durable asset ownership, and property ownership. These disparities are accompanied by lower educational progression and a labour-market pattern of higher participation but lower earnings and lower salaried employment, consistent with human-capital and labour-market pathways through which childhood violence may shape later-life inequality. Intergroup violence can therefore leave persistent minority-specific costs in both mental health and material well-being. |
| Keywords: | communal violence, childhood exposure, mental health, minorities, religious inequality, India |
| JEL: | D74 I14 I31 J15 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18974 |
| By: | International Monetary Fund |
| Abstract: | Despite significant efforts to unwind the impact of the COVID-19 fiscal stimulus and other shocks, debt levels in many Low-Income Countries (LICs) remain relatively high, with debt vulnerabilities exacerbated by uncertain global conditions and a changing creditor landscape. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to provide factual data and insights on recent trends in public debt vulnerabilities and financing challenges in LICs, with a special focus on domestic debt issues. The evidence presented, particularly on the ever more important role of domestic debt as a source of public financing, highlights the importance of the continued work of the IMF and the World Bank to monitor debt vulnerabilities and support countries through a combination of policy advice, financial resources, and capacity building. Furthermore, the scale of identified vulnerabilities reinforces the need for strong debt management and enhanced debt transparency to sustain good relations with creditors and underpin sound financing decisions. |
| Keywords: | Debt burden; Debt burden indicator; Debt service; Debt sustainability; Debt vulnerability; Debt transparency; Domestic debt; Financing needs; Global; IMF-World Bank LIC-DSF; IMF-World Bank LIC-DSF database; Sub-Saharan Africa; IMF staff; IMF policy; transparency policy; IMF Policy; Caribbean; Asia and Pacific; South America; Central America |
| Date: | 2025–10–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfpps:2025/038 |
| By: | Nicolás Caso; Jason Gagnon; Jessica Hagen-Zanker |
| Abstract: | Remittances and social protection programmes have become two of the most important sources of financial support for households across low- and middle-income countries. While both have been linked to household investment and livelihood diversification, little is known about how they jointly influence entrepreneurship. This paper examines whether public transfers, in the form of cash transfers and school feeding support, crowd out or in household entrepreneurship and whether private transfers, in the form of remittances, complement or substitute for public transfers in shaping entrepreneurship. Using household survey data from eight communities in West Africa, we analyse the relationship between social protection, remittances and a range of entrepreneurial outcomes. The results provide little evidence that social protection systematically influences household entrepreneurship or alters the relationship between remittances and business activity. In contrast, remittances remain consistently associated with business creation and entrepreneurial intentions across multiple contexts. These findings suggest that expanding social protection does not diminish the productive role of remittances and highlight the importance of considering public and private sources of household support jointly when assessing policies aimed at promoting entrepreneurship and inclusive economic development. |
| JEL: | F24 L26 I38 O12 H53 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:26/1152 |