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on Development |
| By: | Tilman Brück; Guo Xu |
| Abstract: | We address the pitfalls of averaging by exploiting the longitudinal variation in aid to identify sudden and sharp increases in aid flows. Focusing on specific events, we test if aid accelerations correspond to policies and shocks in the recipient country. For a large sample of 145 recipient countries and 33 donors from 1960- 2007, we find that positive regime changes and wars are significant predictors of aid accelerations. Disaggregating aid flows by donors, we find indicative evidence for competing allocation rules, particularly among European donors. We argue that drivers of aid accelerations differ from drivers of average aid flows - a distinction that can reconcile some of the ambiguous empirical results in the aid literature. |
| Keywords: | ODA, Growth Accelerations, Policies |
| JEL: | O1 F35 F50 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diweos:diweos49&r=dev |
| By: | Asha Sundaram |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the impact of trade liberalization on output, factor intensity and labor productivity of micro enterprises with differential access to banks. It uses Indian data on micro enterprises employing fewer than ten workers in the manufacturing sector and finds that trade liberalization, measured by a fall in the tariff, is associated with higher enterprise output, capital-labor ratios and labor productivity in districts with a larger number of bank branches per capita. Evidence is consistent with strong complementarities between trade liberalization effects and better access to credit and greater economic dynamism due to greater bank presence in the enterprise’s location. In addition, the research points to greater likelihood of outsourcing of production activity to micro enterprises in more open industries. The study highlights the role of credit market institutions, labor regulation and linkages between micro enterprises and large firms in determining the effects of trade liberalization on developing country manufacturing. |
| Keywords: | Trade Reform, Banks, Manufacturing, Informal Firms, Productivity, Outsourcing |
| JEL: | F16 J32 L24 O14 O17 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:225&r=dev |
| By: | Johannes Fedderke; Robert Klitgaard; Kamil Akramov |
| Abstract: | Heterogeneity Happens: How Rights Matter in Economic Development |
| JEL: | O10 D99 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:220&r=dev |
| By: | John Manuel Luiz; Luis Brites Pereira; Guilherme Oliveira |
| Abstract: | In this paper we focus on the role of political and economic institutions in Mozambique’s development. We produce a set of institutional indicators for Mozambique for the period 1900 through to 2005. The first index tracks political freedoms and is unique in its duration and complexity. The second index is a measure of property rights for Mozambique and such a measure has not existed previously and certainly not for this length of time. The construction of these indices is a painstaking process through historical records but it provides us with a richness of institutional data previously not available. The new institutional indices will allow us to explore the role of the institutional environment in determining economic growth and development in Mozambique over time. |
| Keywords: | Political Rights, Property Rights, Insitutional Indicators, Mozambique |
| JEL: | N47 K00 O55 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:219&r=dev |
| By: | Marcel Kohler; Adrian Saville |
| Abstract: | Trade finance (or short-term credit) plays a crucial role in facilitating international trade yet is particularly vulnerable to financial crises as banks increase the pricing on all trade finance transactions to cover increased funding costs and higher credit risks. Whereas South Africa’s financial institutions largely managed to strengthen their capital positions during the global financial crisis, the country’s trade flows and access to capital (in particular trade finance and its costs) were hit hard by the crisis. Little is known about the extent of shortages or ‘gaps’ in trade finance and the impact of this on South Africa’s recent trade performance. Whilst our research recognises that access to trade finance is not the main cause of South Africa’s trade contraction, our research suggests that a one percentage point increase in the interbank lending rate of our trade partner could reduce exports by approximately ten percent, all else equal. |
| Keywords: | exports trade finance crisis |
| JEL: | F10 F30 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:232&r=dev |
| By: | Marisa Coetzee |
| Abstract: | The paper estimates the impact of the South African Child Support Grant (CSG) on child health, nutrition and education. Data from the 2008 South African National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) are used. Two non-experimental treatment evaluation techniques, both relying on propensity scores, are applied to six different outcome variables. Using propensity score matching with a binary outcome variable, no convincing evidence of improvements on any of the outcome variables is found. A second technique is therefore also applied, using a generalised form of the propensity scores. This follows the approach of Hirano and Imbens (2004) and Agüero et al. (2009). The generalised approach estimates a positive treatment effect for children’s height-for-age and progress through the school system. Although these estimates do provide some evidence of the positive effect of the Child Support Grant on the lives of children, the estimates are small and do not provide clear evidence that the transfers received by caregivers are spent mainly on improving the well-being of beneficiary children. Some potential and plausible explanations for this result are discussed in the paper. Nevertheless, the findings seem to suggest that some of the cash transferred through the Child Support Grant appears to be spent on improving the well-being of children. |
| Keywords: | Conditional cash transfer child health and nutrition continuous treatment estimator South Africa |
| JEL: | I38 H53 C21 D13 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:230&r=dev |
| By: | Chapoto, Antony; Banda, Diana; Haggblade, Steven; Hamukwala, Priscilla |
| Abstract: | Rural poverty rates in Zambia have remained very high, at 80%, over the past decade and a half, whilst urban poverty rates have declined, from 49% in 1991 to 34% in 2006. Redressing this high rural poverty rate remains a government priority in the National Development Programs. However, solutions have proven elusive. Solid empirically based information on dynamics that have improved the welfare of small-scale farm households in Zambia, combined with an agenda for disseminating this information in public discourse, offer prospects for generating a more transparent and pro-poor policy orientation. Using longitudinal data collected from 4,286 households which participated in three nationwide surveys conducted over seven years, in 2001, 2004, and 2008, we examine the factors associated with chronic and transient poverty and use the results to draw implications for designing policies and programs for alleviating rural poverty and promoting income growth for rural Zambia households. |
| Keywords: | Poverty Dynamics, Zambia, rural poverty, Africa, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Security and Poverty, |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:midcwp:109888&r=dev |
| By: | Silva, Leonardo Fonseca da; Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti |
| Abstract: | We investigate the role of sectorial differences in labor productivity and the process of structural transformation (reallocation of labor across sectors) in accounting for the time path of aggregate productivity across six Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela) from 1950 to 2003. We used a general equilibrium model with three sectors (agriculture, industry and services) calibrated to those six economies. The model is used to compare the trajectory of productivity in each sector of activity with that of the United States and it impact on aggregate productivity.While in Brazil and Argentina, the Service Sector was responsible for reversing the process of catch up in productivity that occurred until the 1980s, in others, like Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela, low productivity growth of the three sectors explain their poor performance. |
| Date: | 2011–08–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:epgewp:724&r=dev |
| By: | Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti; Pessôa, Samuel de Abreu; Veloso, Fernando A. |
| Abstract: | Due to several policy distortions, including import-substitution industrialization, widespread government intervention and both domestic and international competitive barriers, there has been a general presumption that Latin America has been much less productive than the leading economies in the last decades. In this paper we show, however, that until the late seventies Latin American countries had high productivity levels relative to the United States. It is only after the late seventies that we observe a fast decrease of relative TFP in Latin America. We also show that the inclusion of human capital in the production function makes a crucial di¤erence in the TFP calculations for Latin America. |
| Date: | 2011–08–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:epgewp:723&r=dev |
| By: | Anderson, Kym; Brückner, Markus |
| Abstract: | To what extent has Sub-Saharan Africa’s slow economic growth over the past five decades been due to price and trade policies that have discouraged production of agricultural relative to non-agricultural tradables? This paper uses a new set of estimates of policy distortions to relative prices to address this question econometrically. We first test if these policy distortions respond to economic growth, using rainfall and international commodity price shocks as instrumental variables. We find that on impact there is no significant response of relative price distortions to changes in real GDP per capita. We then test the reverse proposition and find a statistically significant and sizable negative effect of relative price distortions on the growth rate of Sub-Saharan African countries. Our fixed effects estimates suggest that, during 1960-2005, a one standard deviation increase in distortions to relative prices reduced the region’s real GDP per capita growth rate by about half a percentage point per annum. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural incentives; Economic growth; Trade restrictions |
| JEL: | F14 F43 N17 O13 O55 Q18 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8530&r=dev |