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on Development |
| By: | Duchoslav, Jan; Kenamu, Edwin; Thunde, Jack |
| Abstract: | Do electoral considerations play a role in the targeting of humanitarian transfers? We analyze the targeting of direct cash and food transfers distributed in Malawi in response to an exceptionally poor harvest following a late and erratic rainy season of 2015-16. Combining household survey data on transfers with a remotely sensed measure of drought and with the results of the 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections, we show that transfers were disproportionately targeted at marginal constituencies. Rather than distributing the transfers based solely on need or mobilizing its tribal base, the government attempted to persuade swing voters to support its candidates in the next elections. We found no evidence that this strategy was successful at increasing the vote of ruling party candidates in subsequent elections. |
| Keywords: | MALAWI; SOUTHERN AFRICA; AFRICA SOUTH OF SAHARA; AFRICA; hunger; cash transfers; political systems; disaster relief; elections; food transfers; political economy; voting |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:masspp:39&r=dev |
| By: | Premand,Patrick; Stoeffler,Quentin |
| Abstract: | Policy makers are increasingly interested in strategies to promote resilience and mitigate the effects of future climatic shocks. Cash transfer programs have had widely documented positive welfare impacts. They often also aim to offer protection against shocks, but their role in fostering resilience has been less studied. This paper assesses whether the beneficiaries of a multiyear government cash transfer program in rural Niger are better able to mitigate the welfare effects of drought shocks. It analyzes mechanisms through which cash transfers contribute to resilience, such as savings facilitation, asset accumulation, or income smoothing in agriculture and off-farm activities. It combines household survey data collected as part of a randomized control trial with satellite data used to identify exogenous rainfall shocks. The results show that cash transfers increase household consumption by about 10 percent on average. Importantly, this increase is mostly concentrated among households affected by drought shocks, for whom welfare impacts are larger than transfer amounts. Cash transfers increase savings. They also help households protect earnings in agriculture and off-farm businesses when shocks occur. Few differences in household durables or livestock are observed. Overall, these findings suggest that cash transfer programs targeting poor households can foster resilience by facilitating savings and income smoothing. |
| Keywords: | Disability,Access of Poor to Social Services,Economic Assistance,Services&Transfers to Poor,Inequality,Natural Disasters,Nutrition,Food Security |
| Date: | 2020–11–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9473&r=dev |
| By: | Stephan Heblich (University of Toronto); Stephen J. Redding (Princeton University); Hans-Joachim Voth (University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | Did overseas slave-holding by Britons accelerate the Industrial Revolution? We provide theory and evidence on the contribution of slave wealth to Britain’s growth prior to 1835. We compare areas of Britain with high and low exposure to the colonial plantation economy, using granular data on wealth from compensation records. Before the major expansion of slave holding from the 1640s onwards, both types of area exhibited similar levels of economic activity. However, by the 1830s, slavery wealth is strongly correlated with economic development – slave-holding areas are less agricultural, closer to cotton mills, and have higher property wealth. We rationalize these findings using a dynamic spatial model, where slavery investment raises the return to capital accumulation, expanding production in capital-intensive sectors. To establish causality, we use arguably exogenous variation in slave mortality on the passage from Africa to the Indies, driven by weather shocks. We show that weather shocks influenced the continued involvement of ancestors in the slave trade; weather-induced slave mortality of slave-trading ancestors in each area is strongly predictive of slaveholding in 1833. Quantifying our model using the observed data, we find that Britain would have been substantially poorer and more agricultural in the absence of overseas slave wealth. Overall, our findings are consistent with the view that slavery wealth accelerated Britain’s industrial revolution. |
| Keywords: | Slavery, Industrial Revolution, Great Britain |
| JEL: | F60 J15 N63 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:econom:2022-29&r=dev |
| By: | Britto, Diogo (Bocconi University); Fonseca, Alexandre (Federal Revenue of Brazil); Pinotti, Paolo (Bocconi University); Sampaio, Breno (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco); Warwar, Lucas (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco) |
| Abstract: | We provide the first estimates of intergenerational income mobility for a developing country, namely Brazil. We measure formal income from tax and employment registries, and we train machine learning models on census and survey data to predict informal income. The data reveal a much higher degree of persistence than previous estimates available for developed economies: a 10 percentile increase in parental income rank is associated with a 5.5 percentile increase in child income rank, and persistence is even higher in the top 5%. Children born to parents in the first income quintile face a 46% chance of remaining at the bottom when adults. We validate these estimates using two novel mobility measures that rank children and parents without the need to impute informal income. We document substantial heterogeneity in mobility across individual characteristics – notably gender and race – and across Brazilian regions. Leveraging children who migrate at different ages, we estimate that causal place effects explain 57% of the large spatial variation in mobility. Finally, assortative mating plays a strong role in household income persistence, and parental income is also strongly associated with several key long-term outcomes such as education, teenage pregnancy, occupation, mortality, and victimization. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, inequality, Brazil, migration, place effects |
| JEL: | J62 D31 I31 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15611&r=dev |
| By: | Ozler,Berk; Celik,Cigdem; Cunningham,Scott; Cuevas,Pablo Facundo; Parisotto,Luca |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the impact of the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) in Turkey, the largest cash transfer program for international refugees in the world. The paper provides prima facie evidence that the program quickly caused substantial changes in household size and composition, with a net movement of primarily school-age children from larger ineligible households to smaller eligible ones. A sharp decline in inequality is observed in the entire study population: the Gini index declined by four percentage points (or 15 percent) within six months of program rollout, and the poverty headcount at the $3.20/day international poverty line declined by more than 50 percent after one year. ESSN caused a moderate increase in the diversity and frequency of food consumption among eligible households, and although there was no statistically significant effect on overall school enrollment, there were meaningful gains among the most vulnerable beneficiary households. To strike the right balance between transfer size and coverage, key parameters in the design of any cash transfer program, policy makers should consider the possibility that refugee populations may respond to their eligibility status by altering their household structure and living arrangements. |
| Keywords: | Disability,Economic Assistance,Services&Transfers to Poor,Access of Poor to Social Services,Health Care Services Industry,Educational Sciences,Inequality |
| Date: | 2020–11–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9471&r=dev |
| By: | Jolliffe, Dean (World Bank); Tetteh-Baah, Samuel Kofi (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Estimates of the number of people living in extreme poverty, as reported by the World Bank, figure prominently in international development dialogue and policy. An assumption underpinning these poverty counts is that there are no economies of scale in household size – a family of six needs three times as much as a family of two. This paper examines the sensitivity of global estimates of extreme poverty to changing this assumption. The analysis rests on nationally representative household surveys from 162 countries covering 98 percent of the population estimated to be in extreme poverty in 2017. We compare current-method estimates with a constant- elasticity scale adjustment that divides total household consumption or income not by household size but by the square-root of household size. While the regional profile of extreme poverty is robust to this change, the determination of who is poor changes substantially – the poverty status of 270 million people changes. We then show that the measure which accounts for economies of scale is significantly more correlated with a set of presumed poverty covariates (i.e., years of schooling, literacy, asset index, working in agriculture, access to electricity, piped drinking water, improved sanitation). |
| Keywords: | global poverty, household economies of scale, sustainable development goals |
| JEL: | I32 O10 O20 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15615&r=dev |
| By: | Ayenew,Ashenafi Belayneh |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the welfare impact of hosting refugees in Ethiopia, one of the largest refugee-hosting countries worldwide. Identification comes from a large spatial difference in within-village temporal changes in refugee intensity, following a recent upsurge in the flow of refugees into the country. The findings reveal different implications depending on the type of household welfare metric. While reducing consumption expenditure per capita and increasing the probability of falling into consumption poverty, hosting refugees has no effect on wealth and the status of wealth poverty. Decomposing consumption expenditure per capita into food, education, and other nonfood components, the results further reveal that hosting refugees alters the composition of consumption, as it solely affects food consumption expenditure. The consumption effects prevail in rural areas with no effects in urban centers while no heterogeneity is found concerning wealth and wealth poverty results. Key mechanisms explaining the adverse consumption effects include displacement of hosts from salaried employment and a spike in prices of agricultural inputs but not changes in the extent of societal cooperation. |
| Keywords: | Inequality,Educational Sciences,Post Conflict Reconstruction,Rural Labor Markets,Labor Markets,Social Conflict and Violence |
| Date: | 2021–04–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9613&r=dev |
| By: | Sessou, Eric; Hidrobo, Melissa; Roy, Shalini; Huybregts, Lieven |
| Abstract: | In rural West Africa, the rate of out-of-school children is high and delayed entry to primary school is common, particularly for girls. Using the randomized roll-out of an unconditional cash transfer program (Jigisemejiri) in Mali, we examine its impact on child schooling by age and sex. The program leads to significant improvements in schooling outcomes for girls, but not boys. Improvements among girls are especially salient among younger (ages 6–9) and older (ages 15–18) girls. Pathway analysis reveals that the program reduces the time younger girls spend in agricultural work at home and the time older girls spend in domestic work as well as self-employment. Households in the program also spend more on education for older girls in terms of school fees, materials, and transport. |
| Keywords: | MALI, WEST AFRICA, AFRICA SOUTH OF SAHARA, AFRICA, cash transfers, child labour, randomized controlled trials, education, girls education, households, child schooling |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2139&r=dev |
| By: | Dervisevic,Ervin; Perova,Elizaveta; Sahay,Abhilasha |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the long-term impacts of the national conditional cash transfer program in the Philippines on beneficiaries who were exposed to it during a relatively short but potentially critical period of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. The paper estimates the impacts of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program on men and women who were enrolled in the program for up to 1.5 years when they were between ages 12.5 and 14 and are currently in their early twenties. The analysis finds evidence of impacts on marriage and fertility for women: participation in the program is associated with delay in marriage and the first birth of approximately one year and six months, respectively. No impacts are found on educational or labor market outcomes or proxies for economic welfare. Further, there is no strong and consistent evidence of changes in empowerment or gender norms. |
| Keywords: | Gender and Development,Access of Poor to Social Services,Economic Assistance,Services&Transfers to Poor,Disability,Educational Sciences,Rural Labor Markets,Labor Markets,Health Care Services Industry |
| Date: | 2021–04–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9617&r=dev |
| By: | Bossuroy,Thomas; Goldstein,Markus P.; Karlan,Dean S.; Kazianga,Harounan; Pariente,William; Premand,Patrick; Thomas,Catherine Cole; Udry,Christopher Robert; Vaillant,Julia; Wright,Kelsey Ann |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes a four-arm randomized evaluation of a multi-faceted economic inclusion intervention delivered by the Government of Niger to female beneficiaries of a national cash transfer program. All three treatment arms include a core package of group savings promotion, coaching, and entrepreneurship training, in addition to the regular cash transfers from the national program. The first variant also includes a lump-sum cash grant and is similar to a traditional graduation intervention (“capital†package). The second variant substitutes the cash grant with psychosocial interventions (“psychosocial†package). The third variant includes the cash grant and the psychosocial interventions (“full†package). The control group only receives the regular cash transfers from the national program. All three treatments generate large impacts on consumption and food security six and 18 months post-intervention. They increase participation and profits in women-led off-farm business and livestock activities, as well as improve various dimensions of psychosocial well-being. The impacts tend to be larger in the full treatment, followed by the capital and psychosocial treatments. Consumption impacts up to 18 months after the intervention already exceed costs in the psychosocial package (the benefit-cost ratio for the psychosocial package is 126 percent; full package, 95 percent; and capital package, 58 percent). These results highlight the value of addressing psychosocial constraints as well as capital constraints in government-implemented poverty reduction programs. |
| Keywords: | Disability,Access of Poor to Social Services,Services&Transfers to Poor,Economic Assistance,Inequality,Income,Social Protections&Assistance |
| Date: | 2021–03–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9562&r=dev |
| By: | Kato, Edward; Mekonnen, Dawit Kelemework; Ringler, Claudia |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether a large-scale watershed program promoting sustainable land management (SLM) in Ethiopia increases adoption of SLM and its benefits on plots owned by women in male-headed households compared to plots owned by their spouses, jointly owned plots as well as plots of female headed households (FHH). The analysis is based on a survey of 500 households and 2900 plots conducted in the Abbay basin of Ethiopia where the SLM program was implemented between 2012 and 2017. Our findings show that the SLM program significantly increased adoption of SLM practices (soil bunds, stone terraces, mulching) in male-headed households but that adoption was centered on jointly owned plots and male-owned plots, with no significant adoption on women-owned plots. The results also show that women in male-headed households are more constrained to participate in SLM programs compared to their counterparts in FHH. Results further show that although FHH were less likely than male-headed households to adopt SLM in watersheds with no SLM interventions, the SLM program significantly increased adoption of soil bunds on plots in FHH. SLM adoption and impacts can likely be further strengthened if a focus on removing women’s constraints is added. |
| Keywords: | ETHIOPIA; EAST AFRICA; AFRICA SOUTH OF SAHARA; AFRICA; women's plots; soil bunds; stone terraces; gender; women; sustainable land management; sustainability; land management; agricultural productivity; gender equality |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:2136&r=dev |
| By: | Akresh,Richard; Halim,Daniel Zefanya; Kleemans,Marieke |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long-term and intergenerational effects of the 1970s Indonesian school construction program, which was one of the largest ever conducted. Exploiting variation across birth cohorts and districts in the number of schools built suggests that education benefits for men and women persist 43 years after the program. Exposed men are more likely to be formal workers, work outside agriculture, and migrate. Men and women who were exposed to the program have better marriage market outcomes with spouses that are more educated, and households with exposed women have improved living standards and pay more government taxes. Mother’s program exposure, rather than father’s, leads to education benefits that are transmitted to the next generation, with the largest effects in upper secondary and tertiary education. Cost-benefit analyses show that school construction leads to higher government tax revenues and improved living standards that offset construction costs within 30-50 years. |
| Keywords: | Educational Sciences,Health Care Services Industry,Gender and Development,Labor Markets,Rural Labor Markets,Urban Housing,Urban Governance and Management,Municipal Management and Reform,Urban Housing and Land Settlements |
| Date: | 2021–03–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9559&r=dev |
| By: | Barrera-Osorio,Felipe; Cilliers,Jacobus; Cloutier,Marie-Helene; Filmer,Deon P. |
| Abstract: | This paper reports on a randomized evaluation of two teacher incentive programs, which were conducted in a nationally representative sample of 420 public primary schools in Guinea. In 140 schools, high-performing teachers were rewarded in-kind, with the value of goods increasing with level of performance. In another 140 schools, high-performing teachers received a certificate and public recognition from the government. After one year, the in-kind program improved learning by 0.24 standard deviations, while the recognition treatment had a smaller and statistically insignificant impact. After two years, the effect from the in-kind program was smaller (0.16 standard deviations) and not significant; the paper provides suggestive evidence that the reduction may be due to the onset of an Ebola outbreak. The effects of the recognition program remained small and insignificant. The effects differed by teacher gender: for female teachers, both programs were equally effective, while for male teachers, only the in-kind program led to statistically significant effects. |
| Keywords: | Effective Schools and Teachers,Educational Institutions&Facilities,Communicable Diseases,Gender and Development,Educational Sciences,Public Health Promotion |
| Date: | 2021–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9652&r=dev |
| By: | Bertrand,Marianne; Crepon,Bruno Jacques Jean Philippe; Marguerie,Alicia Charlene; Premand,Patrick |
| Abstract: | Workfare programs are one of the most popular social protection and employment policy instruments in the developing world. They evoke the promise of efficient targeting, as well as immediate and lasting impacts on participants’ employment, earnings, skills and behaviors. This paper evaluates contemporaneous and post-program impacts of a public works intervention in Côte d’Ivoire. The program was randomized among urban youths who self-selected to participate and provided seven months of employment at the formal minimum wage. Randomized subsets of beneficiaries also received complementary training on basic entrepreneurship or job search skills. During the program, results show limited impacts on the likelihood of employment, but a shift toward wage jobs, higher earnings and savings, as well as changes in work habits and behaviors. Fifteen months after the program ended, savings stock remain higher, but there are no lasting impacts on employment or behaviors, and only limited impacts on earnings. Machine learning techniques are applied to assess whether program targeting can improve. Significant heterogeneity in impacts on earnings is found during the program but not post-program. Departing from self-targeting improves performance: a range of practical targeting mechanisms achieve impacts close to a machine learning benchmark by maximizing contemporaneous impacts without reducing post-program impacts. Impacts on earnings remain substantially below program costs even under improved targeting. |
| Keywords: | Labor Policies,Rural Labor Markets,Employment and Unemployment,Labor Markets |
| Date: | 2021–04–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9611&r=dev |
| By: | Lautharte Junior,Ildo Jose; de Oliveira,Victor Hugo; Loureiro,Andre |
| Abstract: | Financial incentives for students, teachers, and schools are often used to promote learning. Yet, little is known about whether similar incentives for mayors produce analogous findings. This paper investigates this question by exploring a results-based financing reform in Ceará, Brazil, which redistributes state resources to municipalities based on education performance. Comparing schools on both sides of Ceará's border over key implementation periods, the paper shows that ninth grade students who were exposed to the results-based financing performed 0.15 standard deviation higher on mathematics and language tests. These impacts increase twofold when Ceará offers technical assistance to municipalities (pedagogical and managerial) and become significant for fifth graders. These gains are seen among students in the top performance quantiles, but reformulating the results-based financing rule to penalize municipalities with more low performers significantly reduces learning gaps. The paper discuss several mechanisms: the selection of school principals, teacher training, the provision and quality of textbooks, curriculum coverage, and school homework. |
| Keywords: | Educational Sciences,Financial Sector Policy,Education for Development (superceded),Educational Policy and Planning - Textbook,Educational Populations,Education For All,Educational Institutions&Facilities,Effective Schools and Teachers |
| Date: | 2021–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9509&r=dev |
| By: | Sviatschi,Maria Micaela; Trako,Iva |
| Abstract: | In many developing countries, access to justice remains unequal, especially for women. What are the implications of this inequality for gender-based violence and investment in children? This paper provides evidence from Peru’s women’s justice centers (WJCs), which are specialized institutions that provide police, medical, and legal services to reduce gender-based violence. Examining the gradual rollout of WJCs across districts and villages, the study finds that the opening of a center reduces the incidence of gender-based violence, as measured by domestic violence, female deaths due to aggression, and hospitalizations due to mental health, by about 10 percent. This decrease in women’s exposure to violence has intergenerational effects: WJCs substantially increase human capital investments in children, raising enrollment, attendance, and test scores. The evidence suggests that these results are driven by an increase in enforcement against gender violence. After a WJC opens, there is an increase in reporting and prosecutions of gender-specific crimes. |
| Keywords: | Social Conflict and Violence,Gender and Development,Social Cohesion,Judicial System Reform |
| Date: | 2021–04–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9624&r=dev |
| By: | Asher,Sam; Lunt,Tobias; Matsuura,Ryu; Novosad,Paul Michael |
| Abstract: | The SHRUG is an open data platform describing multidimensional socioeconomic development across 600,000 villages and towns in India. This paper presents three illustrative analyses only possible with high-resolution data. First, it confirms that nighttime lights are highly significant proxies for population, employment, per-capita consumption, and electrification at very local levels. However, elasticities between night lights and these variables are far lower in time series than in cross section, and vary widely across context and level of aggregation. Next, this study shows that the distribution of manufacturing employment across villages follows a power law: the majority of rural Indians have considerably less access to manufacturing employment than is suggested by aggregate data. Third, a poverty mapping exercise explores local heterogeneity in living standards and estimates the potential targeting improvement from allocating programs at the village- rather than at the district-level. The SHRUG can serve as a model for open high-resolution data in developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Energy Policies&Economics,Business Cycles and Stabilization Policies,General Manufacturing,Plastics&Rubber Industry,Pulp&Paper Industry,Textiles, Apparel&Leather Industry,Construction Industry,Common Carriers Industry,Food&Beverage Industry,Inequality,ICT Policy and Strategies,ICT Legal and Regulatory Framework |
| Date: | 2021–02–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9540&r=dev |
| By: | Paul,Boban Varghese; Dutta,Puja Vasudeva; Chaudhary,Sarang |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes global evidence on the impact and costs of economic inclusion programs to transform the economic lives of households and communities living in extreme poverty. The analysis uses 107 quantitative and qualitative impact evaluations from 80 economic inclusion programs. Additionally, the paper presents analysis of costing data from 34 programs, surveyed using a newly developed PEI Quick Costing Tool 2020. The programs represent a range of sectors, geographies, contexts, and target populations; were both nongovernmental organization- and government-led; and represent programs implemented through social safety nets, livelihoods and jobs, and financial inclusion. Despite the challenges of the small number of studies available and limited comparability of impact and cost data, the findings indicate that a broad range of economic inclusion programs show promising and potentially sustained impact on a wide range of outcomes, with a bundled set of interventions showing larger impact on income, assets, and savings relative to stand-alone interventions. In many cases, the overall cost of economic inclusion programs is largely driven by a single component -- most frequently, business capital or consumption support. In its discussion, the paper explores drivers of impact and cost optimization strategies, preparing a preliminary understanding of cost-effectiveness of economic inclusion programs. The paper also identifies key areas for further research, including the need to shift the discussion on program impact from stand-alone, nonprofit-led programs to government-led programs; the opportunity to use a more systematic evidence base with comparable impact and cost outcomes and indicators; and prospects for using data, including disaggregated cost data, to inform policy and programming decisions more intentionally. |
| Keywords: | Disability,Services&Transfers to Poor,Access of Poor to Social Services,Economic Assistance,Employment and Unemployment,Inequality,Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Rural Labor Markets |
| Date: | 2021–02–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9536&r=dev |