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on Development |
| By: | Gandhi, Piyush; Hagerty, Nick; Zucker, Ariel |
| Abstract: | Energy efficiency is a global priority, but investments in energy efficiency do not always deliver the expected benefits. This paper studies micro-irrigation systems (MIS), a technology thought to reduce the energy required for irrigation by as much as 70 percent. We installed individual meters to directly measure the energy consumption of several hundred farmers in Gujarat, India, and linked the meter data with survey data to yield a uniquely comprehensive view into energy use patterns in smallholder agriculture. We document two facts. One, energy use varies widely across farmers, and this variation is unexplained by factors such as farm area or village geography. Two, MIS users in our sample consume 30 to 40 percent more energy than non-users of MIS. This difference does not appear to be fully explained by observable differences across farmers nor by rebound effects, suggesting that the energy efficiency gains of MIS under real-world conditions may be disappointing. Our results highlight a need for increased attention to the details of implementation and further research into the actual benefits of resource-conserving technologies. |
| Keywords: | 4404 Development Studies (for-2020), 44 Human Society (for-2020), 2 Zero Hunger (sdg), Energy efficiency, Rebound effect, Irrigation, Technology subsidies, Energy (science-metrix), 3304 Urban and regional planning (for-2020), 4407 Policy and administration (for-2020), 4802 Environmental and resources law (for-2020) |
| Date: | 2026–12–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt8gn3x7gz |
| By: | Masyutina, Olga; Bolz, Susanna |
| Abstract: | As complex social systems face increasing environmental and societal pressures, understanding their resilience is central to sustainability transitions. We systematically review 65 empirical studies of resilience in subnational social systems and develop a conceptual synthesis of resilience through three complementary analytical lenses: disturbances, system capacities and spatial contexts. We first classify disturbances along three dimensions–temporal structure, origin and domain–highlighting their overlapping and often multi-causal nature. We further synthesize thirteen resilience characteristics into four interrelated capacities: structural, relational, governance and dynamic. Our findings show that resilience is shaped not by individual capacities but by their combination in response to different disturbances. Their prominence also varies across spatial scales, indicating that resilience is spatially embedded. We argue that resilience is therefore best understood as a place-based, multidimensional process emerging from interactions between disturbances, capacities and the contexts in which systems operate. |
| Keywords: | Resilience, Sustainability Transition, Social System, Subnational Level, Transformative Capacity |
| JEL: | O18 Q56 R58 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:atv:wpaper:2603 |
| By: | Nikita Melnikov; Carlos Schmidt-Padilla; María Micaela Sviatschi |
| Abstract: | What are the consequences of restoring state authority in territories governed by criminal organizations? Combining household surveys and administrative records with detailed maps of former gang-controlled areas, we study how El Salvador’s 2022 State of Exception, which ended two decades of gang territorial control, reshaped Salvadoran society. We find that the removal of gang control integrated previously segmented labor markets, improving mobility, employment outcomes, household income, and financial inclusion. Areas with greater pre-2022 gang exposure also experienced larger increases in business formation and property investment. However, the legacy of criminal governance persists through residence-based discrimination: employers remain less willing to hire otherwise identical applicants from former gang-controlled neighborhoods. Finally, although overall support for the crackdowns remains high, individuals who witnessed police abuse report substantially greater distrust of the police and the national government, suggesting that abuses of state authority may undermine the political sustainability of tough-on-crime policies. |
| JEL: | O10 P0 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35866 |
| By: | Shyamal Chowdhury; Prabal Roy Chowdhury; Joeri Smits |
| Abstract: | After decades of microfinance expansion and despite charging higher interest rates, moneylenders continue to exist alongside microfinance institutions (MFIs). We develop a dynamic model with ex post moral hazard, in which borrowers use MFI loans for production and can rely on moneylenders for bridge loans after shocks to repay MFIs and preserve future access to MFI credit. We then study how MFI competition shapes the coexistence between MFIs and moneylenders. The effect of competition on MFI credit is ambiguous: it may weaken repayment incentives or replace moneylenders as bridge lenders. By contrast, competition unambiguously reduces moneylender credit. In a village-level randomized expansion in Bangladesh, stratified by baseline MFI presence, one additional MFI reduces the number of moneylender loans by roughly 30-40% two to three years later, with no detectable effect on MFI or overall borrowing. This suggests that, in markets where MFIs rely primarily on the threat of exclusion to induce repayment and moneylenders provide emergency finance, gains from additional MFI entry may be greater in less saturated areas. |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2610.12186 |
| By: | Menna Bishop; Niclas Moneke; Celine Zipfel |
| Abstract: | Towns and cities create jobs and income. Can the arrival of new jobs also create a town? We study large agro-industrial labour demand shocks in rural sub-Saharan Africa: flower farms in Kenya. Rising production costs in Europe generate a boom in Kenyan cut-flower export production, providing stable wage jobs for mostly low-skilled women. We exploit the specific requirements of cutflower production to track the arrival and growth of greenhouses over the last two decades. We find large increases in wage employment and home-to-market transformation within agriculture, especially for women. Urbanisation unfolds: population growth and in-migration are flanked by an emerging private rental market for housing. Housing quality and infrastructure access improve, wealth accumulates. Educational investments increase while fertility decreases. Suggestive evidence highlights that the resulting towns initiate occupational change, motivate forward-looking investment and even survive flower farm closures - indicating towns that can sustain themselves as centres of economic activity. |
| Keywords: | Town formation, wage employment, agro-industry, Kenya |
| JEL: | J21 O14 O18 R11 Q13 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26223 |
| By: | Mabiso, Athur; Hossain, Marup; Zhanuzakova, Rakhat |
| Abstract: | The Agricultural Services Programme for Innovation, Resilience, and Extension (ASPIRE) was implemented nationwide in Cambodia between 2015 and 2022, with the objective of demonstrating an enhanced model of agriculture services provision and to assist smallholder farmers in achieving profitable and resilient businesses. The project covered over 143, 000 households through extension services, financial inclusion programs and infrastructure development tailored to the needs of Cambodian agriculture. Through its holistic approach, the project focused on evidence-based policy making, strengthening extension services' capabilities, enhancing extension services and building climate-resilient infrastructure. This impact assessment of ASPIRE was conducted using publicly available survey and geospatial household data from 2020 and 2021. |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development |
| Date: | 2025–07–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:unadia:413152 |
| By: | Elacqua, Gregory; Munevar, Isabela; Prada, María Fernanda; Rodríguez, Julio |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the association between the composition of school spending and various measures of school effectiveness. Using audited financial accounts for the universe of publicly funded urban schools in Chile between 2015 and 2022, disaggregated into six expenditure categories and 37 subcategories, we link spending patterns to school value-added measures of test scores, attendance, chronic absenteeism, and dropout. Aggregate spending per student is only weakly associated with school effectiveness. In contrast, spending composition matters substantially: we reject equal associations across expenditure categories for all outcomes, and no category is associated with all four dimensions of effectiveness. Personnel spending is associated with higher test-score value added but not attendance, whereas operations spending is associated with higher attendance and lower chronic absenteeism but not with test score gains. Infrastructure spending is associated with both learning and attendance outcomes. We also find considerable heterogeneity across school types and student populations. The categories prioritized by Chiles targeted equity subsidy, quality programs and student well-being, are associated with higher test-score value added primarily in the most disadvantaged schools, while operations and infrastructure expenditures exhibit opposite associations in public and private voucher schools. The estimated associations are modest in magnitude: a one-standard-deviation increase in the most predictive spending categories corresponds to 2 to 7 percent of the crossschool dispersion in value added. Nevertheless, the findings have important policy implications because education funding policies typically target specific expenditure categories rather than overall spending levels. Overall, the results suggest that the composition of spending is more informative than expenditure levels alone and that evaluating education finance policies using a single outcome or pooled estimates can understate the benefits of targeted investments. |
| Keywords: | School Spending Composition;School Value Added |
| JEL: | I22 I25 H75 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14772 |
| By: | Ulugbek Aminjonov (Institute for Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU), Trier University); Olivier Bargain (Bordeaux University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how combinations of ancestral cultural norms are associated with women’s empowerment across ethnic groups worldwide. Linking Demographic and Health Surveys to ancestral traits from the Ethnographic Atlas, we develop a hybrid supervised– unsupervised approach combining Partial Least Squares with k-means clustering to identify multidimensional normative configurations. We identify five probabilistic regimes spanning the empowerment gradient. Severe disempowerment is associated with an accumulation of restrictive norms, while religious norms and women’s role in agriculture distinguish higherempowerment environments within otherwise broadly patriarchal configurations. Further up the gradient, contrasts concern first hierarchical social institutions, then kinship structures and the loosening of patriarchal arrangements, before less traditional, more gender-neutral configurations become widespread at the highest levels of empowerment. The salience of norms varies with the configurations in which they are embedded, revealing strongly non-monotonic patterns. These findings remain robust to accounting for contemporary socioeconomic conditions and to a range of sensitivity checks. Overall, the analysis provides a global mapping of ancestral normative environments associated with women’s agency and helps identify the configurations most closely related to severe intrahousehold inequality. |
| Keywords: | women’s empowerment, ancestral norms, cultural persistence, kinship systems, machine learning, gender inequality, DHS, Ethnographic Atlas |
| JEL: | J16 O15 Z13 C38 D13 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iaa:dpaper:202607 |
| By: | McLean, Sheldon; Charles, Don; Serville, Dejeanne |
| Abstract: | The vulnerability of the Caribbean region’s agriculture sector to weather shocks is acute and is therefore in need of greater financial and fiscal safeguards. Considering this, this study proposes the development of an innovative, meso-level parametric weather-related insurance framework, leveraging blockchain technology, to protect smallholder farmers in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize and other participating Caribbean countries against the dual threats of excess rain (flooding) and deficit rain (drought). The proposed system is based on two distinct, policy-centred, easily calibrated parametric triggers. The excess rain-driven policy measures are activated by a dual trigger: (i) the occurrence of a hurricane affecting the country; and (ii) rainfall exceeding the upper limit of the 95% confidence interval. Conversely, the deficit rain-driven policy measures are triggered upon: (i) the official declaration of an El Niño or similar event; and (ii) rainfall falling below the lower limit of the same confidence interval. This architecture eliminates the need for individual damage and loss assessments, a key limitation of past indemnity-based schemes. Data analysis for Belize and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines confirms the financial viability of these triggers, with estimated payouts over a 20-year period demonstrating an explicit need for such coverage. To address the challenge of covariate risk, whereby a single event triggers claims from all policyholders simultaneously, the framework incorporates a robust risk transfer mechanism. The primary meso-level insurer (e.g. Caribbean Catastophe Risk Insurance (CCRIF)), which aggregates risk from thousands of farmers, can secure reinsurance, perhaps through the issuance of a catastrophe bond directly on the blockchain. This catastrophe bond, issued by a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), is programmed with the same parametric triggers as the primary insurance policies. Bondholder funds, held in a stablecoin-collateralised pool, are automatically transferred to the insurer the moment the oracle system verifies a triggering event. This integration creates a seamless, end-to-end risk transfer mechanism from the farmer to global capital markets. By bolstering rural livelihoods and promoting food security through quick post-disaster financial support, the suggested approach also helps Caribbean SIDS develop resilience. It places the strategy within larger frameworks for disaster risk financing and climate resilience. These interventions must be understood within the broader structural challenges facing Caribbean economies, including inequality, productivity gaps, and economic vulnerability. When strategically deployed, insurance can be leveraged to strengthen public policy delivery and support resilience in direct alignment with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. |
| Date: | 2026–09–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecr:col033:90295 |