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on Development |
| By: | Dang,Hai-Anh H.; Lanjouw,Peter F. |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new measure of growth in shared prosperity, based on shifts in population shares of different income groups over time. This measure complements the definition of shared prosperity recently proposed by the World Bank in which income growth of the bottom 40 percent is examined. The new measure?s strengths arise from its close ties to countries? national poverty lines and poverty measures, its focus on inclusion of the vulnerable population, and its identification of a population segment that is neither poor nor at significant risk of falling into poverty. The paper also offers a typology of scenarios for tracking shared prosperity under this measure. It provides illustrative examples using survey data from India, the United States, and Vietnam for the mid-to-late 2000s. Estimation results comparing the two approaches with measuring the evolution of shared prosperity are qualitatively consistent, and suggest that during this period, Vietnam enjoyed the greatest expansion in shared prosperity, followed by India and then the United States. |
| Keywords: | Pro-Poor Growth,Regional Economic Development,Services&Transfers to Poor,Rural Poverty Reduction,Inequality |
| Date: | 2015–06–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7294&r=dev |
| By: | Asadul Islam; Chandana Maitra; Debayan Pakrashi; Russell Smyth |
| Abstract: | We use a large household level panel dataset collected from rural households in Bangladesh to examine the effects of microcredit program participation on household food security. We examine how microcredit affects different measures of food security; namely, household calorie consumption, dietary diversity indicators and anthropometric status of women of reproductive age (15-49 years) and children under the age of five. We find that microcredit program participation increases calorie consumption both at the intensive and extensive margins, but does not improve dietary diversity and only has mixed effects on the anthropometric measures. We also find that the effect of participation on food security may be non-linear in which participation initially has either no effect on food security or may actually worsen it, before improving it in the long run. Our results may explain why short-term evaluation of microcredit might not show any positive effects. |
| Keywords: | microcredit, food security, calorie availability, malnutrition, dietary diversity |
| JEL: | G21 I3 I14 Q18 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2015-16&r=dev |
| By: | Peter Nunnenkamp; Michaela Rank; Rainer Thiele |
| Abstract: | Aid proliferation and a lack of coordination are widely recognized as serious problems for aid effectiveness, and donors have repeatedly promised to tackle them, e.g. in the Paris Declaration in 2005 and the Accra Agenda for Action in 2008. In this paper, we employ geocoded aid data from Uganda to assess whether the country’s donors have increasingly specialized and better coordinated their aid activities at the district and sector level. Our findings point in the opposite direction: over the period 2006-2013, aid of most major donors in Uganda became more fragmented, and the duplication of aid efforts increased. There is tentative evidence that donors were more active in poorer parts of the country, which would provide some justification for clustered aid activities |
| Keywords: | Aid fragmentation, donor coordination, Uganda |
| JEL: | F35 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:2001&r=dev |
| By: | Buddhi Raj Ghimire (International University of Japan); Koji Kotani (School of Economics and Management, Kochi University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Plastic pond has attracted huge attention as water harvesting technology, since it is reported to be cost-effective and adoptable in various geographical settings such as sloping land. Therefore, it is expected to contribute to poverty reduction for smallholder farmers. Despite its importance, there has been no research on the issue, and thus this paper identifies the impact of plastic-pond technology on agriculture. We focus on vegetable farming for which adoption of plastic ponds gains some popularity and implemented questionnaire surveys of 1,001 farmers in Nepal. With the data, endogenous switching regression is applied by taking vegetable income and adoption of plastic ponds as dependent variables in regime and selection equations, respectively, because it enables to take into account endogeneity in technology adoption and to measure the impact via counterfactual experiments. The selection equation shows that adoption of plastic ponds is enhanced by credit access, investment, improved seeds, education and agricultural training. The regime equations find that vegetable incomes for nonadopters are affected by several factors such as age, education, livestock, land value, credit access, investment and improved seeds, while the only two determinants of livestock value and credit access are important for vegetable incomes of adopters. This implies that plastic ponds fundamentally change the structure of vegetable farming. The counterfactual experiment demonstrates that vegetable income of nonadopters would increase by 33% if nonadopters adopt plastic ponds, which is significant to improve food security and welfare of farmers. Overall, the plastic pond shall be a promising technology in not only Nepal and but also many other developing nations. |
| Keywords: | Counterfactual experiment, plastic-pond technology, endogenous switching regression, vegetable farming in Nepal |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kch:wpaper:sdes-2015-18&r=dev |
| By: | Youjin Hahn; Asadul Islam; Kanti Nuzhat; Russell Smyth; Hee-Seung Yang |
| Abstract: | In 1994, Bangladesh introduced the Female Secondary School Stipend Program, which made secondary education free for rural girls. This paper examines the long-term effects of the stipend program on education, marriage, fertility and labor market outcomes of women. We find that the stipend increased years of education for eligible girls by 14 to 25 percent. These girls were more likely to get married later and have fewer children. They also had more autonomy in making decisions about household purchases, health care and visiting relatives. They were more likely to work in the formal sector than the agricultural or informal sector. Eligible girls were likely to marry more educated husbands, who had better occupations and were closer in age to their own. Their children’s health outcomes also improved. These results imply that school-based stipend programs can increase female empowerment through positive effects on schooling and marriage market outcomes over the long-term. |
| Keywords: | Stipend program, female education, age of marriage, marital match, fertility, Bangladesh |
| JEL: | I25 J12 J13 O12 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2015-30&r=dev |
| By: | Claudia Martinez A.; Esteban Puentes; Jaime Ruiz-Tagle |
| Abstract: | Using a randomized controlled trial of a large-scale, publicly run micro-entrepreneurship program in Chile, we assess the effectiveness of business training and asset transfers to the poor. Using survey and monthly administrative data we study the effects of the program over a period of 46 months. We find that the program significantly increases employment by 15.3 and 6.8 percentages points 9 and 33 months after implementation, respectively. There is also a significant increase in labor income. The employment increase in the short run is through self-employment, while in the long run wage work also increases. In the long run, total labor increases mostly due to an increase in wage income. This is consistent with the hypothesis that skills taught during the training lessons are also useful for wage work. We also find that the quality of the intervention matter, especially in the long run. Finally, comparing two levels of asset transfers, different employment paths emerge: those who receive a low level of transfers mostly end up with salaried work whereas those who receive a high level of transfers tend to be self-employed. |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udc:wpaper:wp407&r=dev |
| By: | Tirivayi J.N.; Koethe J. (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | The relationship between immune status and employment outcomes in HIV-infected patients on long-term antiretroviral therapy ART in sub-Saharan Africa and their HIV-affected households is not well understood. We assessed the relationship between CD4 T-cell counts of ART-treated adults at public-sector clinics in Lusaka, Zambia median treatment duration 973 days and labour force participation in the HIV-affected households using clinical and survey data. In multivariable models, patients with a CD4 count 350 cells/l were 22 percentage points more likely to be engaged in labour 95 CI 0.02, 0.42 and worked approximately 6 more days per month compared to patients with a CD4 count 350 cells/l. A similar relationship between patient CD4 count and labour participation was observed for other adult family members in the HIV-affected household, but it was not statistically significant. These findings suggest interventions that promote and maintain robust immune recovery on ART may confer economic benefits. |
| Keywords: | Health: General; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health; Time Allocation and Labor Supply; |
| JEL: | I10 I18 J22 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2015018&r=dev |
| By: | Barrera-Osorio,Felipe; Raju,Dhushyanth |
| Abstract: | This paper presents evidence from the first three years of a randomized controlled trial of a government-administered pilot teacher performance pay program in Punjab, Pakistan. The program offers yearly cash bonuses to teachers in a sample of public primary schools with the lowest mean student exam scores in the province. Bonuses are linked to three school-level indicators: the gain in student exam scores, the gain in school enrollment, and the level of student exam participation. Bonus receipt and size are also randomly assigned across schools according to whether or not the teacher is the school?s head. On average, the program increases school enrollment by 4.1 percent and student exam participation rates by 3.4 percentage points, both in the third year. The analysis does not find that the program increases student exam scores in any year. Mean impacts are similar across program variants. The positive mean impact on school enrollment is mainly seen in urban schools and the positive mean impact on student exam participation rates is only seen in rural schools. |
| Date: | 2015–06–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7307&r=dev |
| By: | Beyene,Abebe D.; Bluffstone,Randall; Gebreegziabher,Zenebe; Martinsson,Peter; Mekonnen,Alemu; Vieider,Ferdinand |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a randomized experimental design and real-time electronic stove use monitors to evaluate the frequency with which villagers use improved biomass-burning Mirt injera cookstoves in rural Ethiopia. Understanding whether, how much, and why improved cookstoves are used is important, because use of the improved stove is a critical determinant of indoor air pollution reductions, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions due to lower fuelwood consumption. Confirming use is, for example, a critical aspect of crediting improved cookstoves? climate change benefits under the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Programme. The paper finds that Ethiopian households in the study area do use the Mirt stove on a regular basis, taking into account regional differences in cooking patterns. In general, stove users also use their Mirt stoves more frequently over time. Giving the Mirt stove away for free and supporting community-level user networks are estimated to lead to more use. The study found no evidence, however, that stove recipients use the stoves more if they have to pay for them, a hypothesis that frequently arises in policy arenas and has also been examined in the literature. |
| Keywords: | E-Business,Disease Control&Prevention,Energy Conservation&Efficiency,Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases,Energy and Environment |
| Date: | 2015–06–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7297&r=dev |
| By: | Palacios-Lopez,Amparo; López,Ramón |
| Abstract: | This paper hypothesizes that labor and credit market imperfections?by discouraging off-farm income-generating activities and restricting access to inputs, respectively?affect female farm productivity more deeply than male productivity. The paper develops a theoretical model that decomposes the contribution of various market imperfections to the gender productivity gap. The paper shows empirically that agricultural labor productivity is on average 44 percent lower on plots managed by female heads of household than on those managed by male heads. Thirty-four percent of this gap is explained by differences in labor market access and 29 percent by differences in credit access. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Housing&Human Habitats,Labor Policies,Gender and Development,Political Economy |
| Date: | 2015–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7300&r=dev |
| By: | Andaleeb Rahman (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research) |
| Abstract: | This article provides evidence on the role of consumer food subsidies in improving nutritional intake and diet quality by evaluating the expansion of the government food assistance program coverage in the hunger prone state of Odisha in India. In 8 districts of Odisha, popularly known as the Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput (KBK) region which is notable for extreme poverty and starvation deaths, the government did away with the targeted food assistance program in 2008 and made the scheme universal. Using a Difference-in-Difference methodology over two repeated cross sectional household surveys, this article finds that the shift from targeted to a universal food security program in the KBK region of Odisha has led to an improvement in the household nutritional intake and diet quality. Further examination suggests that proportion of households consuming below the recommended dietary allowance of calorie, fats and protein has declined significantly in this region post the intervention. |
| Keywords: | Consumer Subsidy; Nutrition; Program Evaluation; Hunger; India |
| JEL: | I38 H31 H43 H53 Q18 |
| Date: | 2015–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2015-015&r=dev |