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on Development |
| By: | Federico Tagliati (Banco de España) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effects of cash versus in-kind transfers on child labor. Using data from a program which randomly transferred either cash or a basket of food to poor households in Mexico, I find that the cash transfer reduced children’s work participation by a significantly larger margin than the in-kind transfer. Both transfers had large negative effects on child labor among recipients in the middle tertile of the income distribution. However, the in-kind transfer did not reduce child labor among children in the bottom tertile, whereas the cash transfer did. Moreover, transfer recipients in different income tertiles adjust child labor on different margins (extensive versus intensive). I show that the different margins of adjustment across the income distribution can be rationalized by a model in which preferences for schooling respect a luxury axiom and the household could forego child labor earnings only when the transfer pushes consumption above subsistence. |
| Keywords: | cash transfers, in-kind transfers, child labor, schooling |
| JEL: | D61 H23 H43 I38 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:wpaper:1935&r=all |
| By: | Heather A. Knauer (University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health); Patricia Kariger (University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health); Pamela Jakiela (Center for Global Development); Owen Ozier (The World Bank Development Research Group, Human Development Team); Lia C. H. Fernald (University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health) |
| Abstract: | In many low- and middle-income countries, young children learn a mother tongue or indigenous language at home before entering the formal education system where they will need to understand and speak a country’s official language(s). Thus, assessments of children before school age, conducted in a nation’s official language, may not fully reflect a child’s development, underscoring the importance of test translation and adaptation. To examine differences in vocabulary development by language of assessment, we adapted and validated instruments to measure developmental outcomes, including expressive and receptive vocabulary. We assessed 505 2-to-6-year-old children in rural communities in Western Kenya with comparable vocabulary tests in three languages: Luo (the local language or mother tongue), Swahili, and English (official languages) at two time points, 5–6 weeks apart, between September 2015 and October 2016. Younger children responded to the expressive vocabulary measure exclusively in Luo (44–59% of 2-to-4-year-olds) much more frequently than did older children (20–21% of 5-to-6-year-olds). Baseline receptive vocabulary scores in Luo (β = 0.26, SE = 0.05, p |
| Keywords: | school readiness, multilingual environments, language of instruction, BPVS, MDAT, PPVT |
| Date: | 2019–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:518&r=all |
| By: | Aizawa, T.; |
| Abstract: | This paper re-estimates the causal impacts of a conditional cash transfer programme in India, the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), on maternal and child healthcare use. The main goal is to provide new evidence and assess the validity of the identification assumptions employed in previous studies on the JSY, through the conservative partial identification approach. We find that the average treatment effects estimated under the conditional independence assumption lie outside the bound of the treatment effect estimated under weaker but more credible assumptions, thereby suggesting that the selection bias could not have been fully controlled for by the observable characteristics and that the average treatment effects estimated in the previous studies may have been over- or under-estimated. |
| Keywords: | conditional cash transfer; partial identification; conditional independence; India; |
| JEL: | I12 I15 I18 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:19/24&r=all |
| By: | Sebastian Bauhoff (Center for Global Development); Roxanne Oroxom (Center for Global Development) |
| Abstract: | Many governments require individuals to prove their identity to qualify for public programs, which risks excluding beneficiaries who lack identification documents. We examine the effects of an ID requirement introduced in 2011 for Peru's national health insurance program Seguro Integral de Salud. Using a difference-in-differences design and repeated cross-sectional data from a national household survey covering births between 2008 and 2014, we find no measurable effect on service utilization or health outcomes among infants despite significant variation in ID ownership when the requirement went into effect. Possible reasons for the lack of effect include imperfect enforcement of the requirement and various government stop-gaps. |
| Keywords: | identification; Peru; Latin America; health insurance |
| JEL: | I13 I15 I18 |
| Date: | 2019–08–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:514&r=all |
| By: | Héctor Galindo Silva; Guy Tchuente; Guy Tchuente |
| Abstract: | Abstract Many countries embroiled in non-religious civil conflicts have experienced a dramatic increase in religious competition in recent years. This study examines whether increasing competition between religions affects violence in non-religious conflicts. The study focuses on Colombia, a deeply Catholic country that has suffered one of the world’s longest-running internal conflicts and, in the last few decades, has wit-nessed an intense increase in religious competition between the Catholic Church and new non-Catholic churches. The estimation of a dynamic treatment effect model shows that establishing the first non-Catholic church in a municipality substantially increases the probability of an attack by a left-wing guerrilla group. Further analysis suggests that the increase in guerrilla attacks is associated with the expectation among guerrilla groups that their membership will decline as a consequence of more intense competition with religious groups for followers. |
| Keywords: | Marketplace for Religion, Armed Conflict |
| JEL: | H41 O17 |
| Date: | 2019–10–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000416:017555&r=all |
| By: | Koru, Bethelhem |
| Abstract: | What is the optimal size and composition of Rural Financial Cooperatives (RFCs)? With this broad question in mind, we characterize alternative formation of RFCs and their implications in improving rural households’ access to financial services, including savings, credit and insurance services. We find that some features of RFCs have varying implications for delivering various financial services (savings, credit and insurance). We find that the size of RFCs exhibits nonlinear relationship with the various financial services RFCs provide. We also show that compositional heterogeneity among members (including diversity in wealth) is associated with higher access to credit services, while this has little implication on households’ savings behavior. Similarly, social cohesion among members is strongly associated with higher access to financial services. These empirical descriptions suggest that the optimal size and composition of RFCs may vary across the domains of financial services they are designed to facilitate. These pieces of evidence provide some suggestive insights on how to ensure financial inclusion among smallholders, a pressing agenda and priority of policy makers in developing countries, including Ethiopia. The results also provide some insights into rural microfinance operations which are striving to satisfy members’ demand for financial services. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance, Financial Economics |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaae19:295188&r=all |
| By: | Jean-Marc Bédhat Atsebi; Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the importance of relative deprivation in Tanzania, a poor African country, using three waves of the Tanzanian National Panel Survey. We contribute to earlier literature in Africa by controlling for time persistent unobservable individual characteristics (panel data) and by using two measures of satisfaction (life and financial satisfaction) and two definitions of reference group. By comparing results between satisfaction measures and across definitions of reference groups we help to understand the mechanisms through which comparisons work in a poor setting. In contrast with earlier literature, we find strong evidence of relative deprivation in financial satisfaction of all individuals in Tanzania, and evidence for life satisfaction only for individuals with weaker ties with their community. For those with strong ties (47% of our total sample; 54% of the rural sample), we find evidence of a positive correlation between life satisfaction and the average consumption of close neighbors and argue that this can be explained by feelings of empathy. In the paper we present several tests. We argue in favor of taking comparisons to others seriously when assessing and introducing welfare policies, also in less developed countries. |
| Keywords: | Africa, financial satisfaction, life satisfaction, relative deprivation, reference income |
| JEL: | D63 D64 I32 O12 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1124&r=all |
| By: | Kai Gehring; Sarah Langlotz; Stefan Kienberger |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence about the mechanisms linking resource-related income shocks to conflict. Combining temporal variation in international drug prices with spatial variation in the suitability to produce opium, we show that higher drug prices reduce conflict over the 2002-2014 period in Afghanistan. There are two main mechanisms. First, household living standards and thus the opportunity costs of fighting increase. Second, we hypothesize that the opportunity cost effects dominate contest effects if the degree of group competition over valuable resources is sufficiently small. Regressions using georeferenced data on drug production, ethnic homelands, and Taliban versus pro-government influence support this hypothesis. |
| Keywords: | resources, resource curse, conflict, drugs, illicit economy, illegality, geography of conflict, Afghanistan, Taliban |
| JEL: | D74 K40 O53 Q10 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7887&r=all |
| By: | Christina Greßer; David Stadelmann |
| Abstract: | We present a new micro-based approach to evaluate the effect of water- and health-related development projects. We collect information from 1.8 million individuals from DHS clusters (Demographic and Health Surveys) in 38 developing economies between 1986 and 2017. By geocodes, we combine cluster information with over 14,000 sub-national projects from the World Bank. We then investigate the impact of the projects employing fixed-effects estimation techniques. Our findings indicate that the time to gather water and child mortality tend to decrease when projects are realized. The quality of drinking water and sanitation facilities are positively affected too by projects. Our data allows us to account for cluster heterogeneity, which is a significant extension to the cross-country literature. Robustness checks, covering data and methodological refinements, supports our main findings. |
| Keywords: | Evaluation; development projects; drinking water; sanitation; child mortality |
| JEL: | O10 O22 R11 |
| Date: | 2019–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cra:wpaper:2019-06&r=all |
| By: | Anna Popova (Stanford University); David K. Evans (Center for Global Development); Mary E. Breeding (World Bank); Violeta Arancibia (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Many teachers in low- and middle-income countries lack the skills to teach effectively, and professional development (PD) programs are the principal tool that governments use to upgrade those skills. At the same time, few PD programs are evaluated, and those that are evaluated show highly varying results. In this paper, we propose a set of indicators—the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument—to standardize reporting on teacher PD programs. Applying the instrument to 33 rigorously evaluated PD programs, we find that programs that link participation to career incentives, have a specific subject focus, incorporate lesson enactment in the training, and include initial face-to-face training tend to show higher student learning gains. In qualitative interviews, program implementers also report follow-up visits as among the most effective characteristics of their professional development programs. We then use the instrument to present novel data on a sample of 139 government-funded, at-scale professional development programs across 14 countries. The attributes of most at-scale teacher professional development programs differ sharply from those of programs that evidence suggests are effective, with fewer incentives to participate in PD, fewer opportunities to practice new skills, and less follow-up once teachers return to their classrooms. |
| Keywords: | Education quality, teacher training, professional development, economic development |
| JEL: | I20 J24 O10 |
| Date: | 2019–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:517&r=all |
| By: | Sabyasachi Das (Department of Economics, Ashoka University); Souvik Dutta (Economics Department, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore); Abhirup Sarkar (Economics Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata) |
| Abstract: | The paper examines political economy consequences of a third party (World Bank) intervention in India. The intervention was a capacity building initiative that trained local politicians in various governance procedures in a sample of villages. We show that the state government reacted to the intervention by allocating additional resources to program villages with aligned incumbents while reducing allocation in program villages with rival incumbents. Consequently, party switching by opposition incumbents went up in program villages. Moreover, the reelection rate of incumbents went down due to the intervention, especially in GPs where no incumbents switched their party affiliations. The results highlight the importance of considering political economy consequences of such interventions, even in countries not heavily reliant on foreign assistance, to better understand its overall welfare effects. |
| Keywords: | Policy Evaluation, Party Switching, Reelection, Gram Panchayat |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ash:wpaper:20&r=all |
| By: | Joseph I. Uduji (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria); Elda N. Okolo-Obasi (University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria) |
| Abstract: | Since the first oil well was drilled in Nigeria, traditional economies have suffered neglect, and rural youths do not see a future for themselves in traditional industries livelihood (TIL). We examine the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) of multinational oil companies (MOCs) on youths’ participation in TIL. A total of 1200 youths were sampled across the rural Niger Delta. Results from the use of a logit model indicate a significant relationship between CSR and TIL. The findings suggest increased general memorandum of understanding (GMoU) interventions in canoe-carving, pottery-making, cloth-weaving, mat-making, and basket-weaving to revive the traditional economic activities in Nigeria. |
| Keywords: | corporate social responsibility; multinational oil companies; rural youths; traditional industries livelihood; logit model; Nigeria |
| JEL: | J43 O40 O55 Q10 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aby:wpaper:19/030&r=all |
| By: | Simplice A. Asongu (Yaoundé/Cameroon); Uchenna R. Efobi (CEPDeR, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria); Belmondo V. Tanankem (MINEPAT, Cameroon); Evans S. Osabuohien (CEPDeR, Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria) |
| Abstract: | This study assesses the relationship between globalisation and the economic participation of women (EPW) in 47 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1990-2013. EPW is measured with the female labour force participation and employment rates. The empirical evidence is based on Panel-corrected Standard Errors and Fixed Effects regressions. The findings show that the positive effect of the overall globalisation index on EPW is dampened by its political component and driven by its economic and social components, with a higher positive magnitude from the former or economic globalisation. For the most part, the findings are robust to the control for several structural and institutional characteristics. An extended analysis by unbundling globalisation shows that the positive incidence of social globalisation is driven by information flow (compared to personal contact and cultural proximity) while the positive effect of economic globalisation is driven by actual flows (relative to restrictions). Policy implications are discussed with some emphasis on how to elevate women’s social status and potentially reduce their victimisation to male dominance. |
| Keywords: | Globalisation; female; gender; inequality; inclusive development; labour force participation; Africa |
| JEL: | E60 F40 F59 D60 O55 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aby:wpaper:19/019&r=all |