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Mixtures of g-priors for Bayesian Model Averaging  with economic application

This paper examines the issue of variable selection in linear regression modeling, where there is a potentially large amount of possible covariates and economic theory offers insufficient guidance on how to select the appropriate subset. In this context, Bayesian Model Averaging presents a formal Bayesian solution to dealing with model uncertainty. The main interest here is the effect of the prior on the results, such as posterior inclusion probabilities of regressors and predictive performance. The authors combine a Binomial-Beta prior on model size with a g-prior on the coefficients of each model. In addition, they assign a hyperprior to g, as the choice of g has been found to have a large impact on the results. For the prior on g, they examine the Zellner-Siow prior and a class of Beta shrinkage priors, which covers most choices in the recent literature. The authors propose a benchmark Beta prior, inspired by earlier findings with fixed g, and show it leads to consistent model selection. Inference is conducted through a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler over model space and g. The authors examine the performance of the various priors in the context of simulated and real data. For the latter, they consider two important applications in economics, namely cross-country growth regression and returns to schooling. Recommendations for applied users are provided.

Source: Mixtures of g-priors for Bayesian Model Averaging  with economic application

Lasting welfare effects of widowhood in a poor country

Little is known about the situation facing widows and their dependent children in West Africa especially after the widow remarries. Women in Malian society are vulnerable to the loss of husbands especially in rural areas. Households headed by widows have significantly lower living standards on average than male or other female headed households in both rural and urban areas; this holds both unconditionally and conditional on observable household and individual characteristics including age. Furthermore, the adverse welfare effects of widowhood appear to persist even after widows are absorbed into male headed households. An examination of individual measures of well-being further reveals that, relative to other women, worse outcomes for ever-widowed women persist through remarriage. These detrimental effects are passed on to children, indicating an intergenerational transmission of poverty stemming from widowhood.

Source: Lasting welfare effects of widowhood in a poor country

Tastes, castes, and culture : the influence of society on preferences

Economists have traditionally treated preferences as exogenously given. Preferences are assumed to be influenced by neither beliefs nor the constraints people face. As a consequence, changes in behaviour are explained exclusively in terms of changes in the set of feasible alternatives. Here the authors argue that the opposition to explaining behavioural changes in terms of preference changes is ill-founded, that the psychological properties of preferences render them susceptible to direct social influences, and that the impact of "society" on preferences is likely to have important economic and social consequences.

Source: Tastes, castes, and culture : the influence of society on preferences

Women's decision making power and human development : evidence from Pakistan

When deciding who should receive welfare benefits with the aim to increase household well-being, it is necessary to understand the effects of the distribution of power within the households at which the aid is directed. Two primary household models have been used to study intra-household bargaining and decision making: the unitary model and the collective model. The unitary model seems to fit Pakistan's context because the prevailing traditional culture positions the male head as the household decision maker. However, using a set of direct measures of decision-making power from the Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey, this study finds that even in a country where men seem to have more power than women, the collective household bargaining model applies. This study also finds that, in Pakistan, when women have more decision-making power at home, households tend to spend more on women's preferred goods (such as clothing and education), family members eat more non-grain food items, and children, particularly girls, are more likely to be enrolled in school.

Source: Women's decision making power and human development : evidence from Pakistan

Life satisfaction, social capital and the bonding-bridging nexus

The paper investigates the relation between social capital and life satisfaction focusing on the distinction between bonding and bridging. Using the latest version of the combined World and European Values Surveys, the authors first address the question of measurement of social capital by means of a multi-step factor analysis. Through this procedure, they nd that proxies typically used for social capital tend to polarize around two dimensions interpreted as bonding and bridging. These two dimensions are in fact associated with a single latent variable with opposite signs suggesting that they describe two sides of the same latent variable rather than two independent latent variables. The authors call this latent variable the locus of socializing and use it to explore the relation between social capital and life satisfaction across world citizens and across groups of similar countries. The results indicate that people with extreme bonding or bridging attitudes are less happy than people with more balanced attitudes. Unlike the literature on social capital and economic growth that finds bridging attitudes more desirable than bonding attitudes, they nd that bonding attitudes are at least as important as bridging attitudes for life satisfaction. This suggests that the social capital dimensions important for economic growth may not necessarily coincide with the social capital dimensions important for life satisfaction.

Source: Life satisfaction, social capital and the bonding-bridging nexus

The contribution of African women to economic growth and development : historical perspectives and policy implications -- Part I : the pre-colonial and colonial periods

Bringing together history and economics, this paper presents a historical and processual understanding of women's economic marginalization in Sub-Saharan Africa from the pre-colonial period to the end of colonial rule. It is not that women have not been economically active or productive; it is rather that they have often not been able to claim the proceeds of their labor or have it formally accounted for. The paper focuses on the pre-colonial and colonial periods and outlines three major arguments. First, it discusses the historical processes through which the labor of women was increasingly appropriated even in kinship structures in pre-colonial Africa, utilizing the concepts of "rights in persons" and "wealth in people." Reviewing the processes of production and reproduction, it explains why most slaves in pre-colonial Africa were women and discusses how slavery and slave trade intensified the exploitation of women. Second, it analyzes how the cultivation of cash crops and European missionary constructions of the individual, marriage, and family from the early decades of the 19th century sequestered female labor and made it invisible in the realm of domestic production. Third, it discusses how colonial policies from the late 19th century reinforced the "capture" of female labor and the codification of patriarchy through the nature and operation of the colonial economy and the instrumentality of customary law. The sequel to this paper focuses on the post-colonial period. It examines the continuing relevance and impact of the historical processes this paper discusses on post-colonial economies, and suggests some policy implications.

Source: The contribution of African women to economic growth and development : historical perspectives and policy implications -- Part I : the pre-colonial and colonial periods

Experiments in culture and corruption : a review

Two decades of empirical evaluation have shown that corruption has a negative impact on economic growth, political stability, judicial effectiveness, democratization, educational attainment, and equality of income. However, corruption exists, persists, and varies significantly by culture. Lab studies have recently come to the forefront in identifying both the incentives and disincentives for corrupt behavior. However, lab studies on culture and corruption have led to some puzzling, contradictory results. This paper begins with a discussion of non-experimental work in this area, and evaluates the experimental findings in the context of earlier research. The authors sketch out the channels through which culture interacts with corruption (through institutions and social norms), and argue that discrepancies in experimental results may be due to differences in design (including repetition or unobserved variation in beliefs) or to differences in the response to punishment across societies. In addition to exploring design-based reasons for previous contradictory findings, avenues for future research include: behavioral responses to different types of externalities; replicating results in different countries; and utilizing the lab to formulate effective anti-corruption measures.

Source: Experiments in culture and corruption : a review

Internal migration in Egypt : levels, determinants, wages, and likelihood of employment

This paper describes stylized facts about internal migration and the labor force in Egypt, and shows how internal migration in the country is low compared with international standards. Using aggregate labor force survey data, the paper shows how individuals migrate to governorates with higher wages. With a Mincerian equation, the analysis finds that migrants earn premiums with respect to non-migrants, except for those migrants with low education levels. The aggregate labor statistics reveal lower unemployment rates among migrants, a phenomenon that is verified by an employment equation. According to the econometric results, migrants are more likely to be employed, even after controlling for other observable individual characteristics.  Finally, the paper estimates a Probit model for the decision to migrate, finding that more educated individuals are more likely to migrate, agricultural workers have a lower probability of migrating, and individuals from governorates in which food production for own consumption is higher are less likely to migrate. These results suggest that low educational attainment and the "food problem", which ties resources to food production to meet subsistence requirements, are at the root of low migration in Egypt.

Source: Internal migration in Egypt : levels, determinants, wages, and likelihood of employment

Tourism sector in Panama : regional economic impacts and the potential to benefit the poor

Tourism is one of Latin America's fastest growing industries but the impact of tourism on the poor and the effects on lagging regions are under debate. Many studies have evaluated the growth impacts of the tourism sector but few have analyzed the impact of tourism on the economy and poverty at the subnational level in developing countries. As a country marked by a "dual economy," Panama shares with other Latin American countries a fast growing, modern urban sector side by side with impoverished rural and peri-urban populations. Tourism has been growing in Panama and contributes at least 6 percent of gross domestic product. This paper presents the results of a top-down assessment of the impact of tourism spending on growth and poverty at the regional (province) level in Panama using a Social Accounting Matrix model. As revealed by this study, the tourism sector has large multiplier effects on the Panamanian economy and has the potential for significant benefits to the poor. But tourism's poverty benefits are neither automatic nor ubiquitous. They depend on where and how supply chains are structured and on the way tourists spend their money.

Source: Tourism sector in Panama : regional economic impacts and the potential to benefit the poor

Migration and the transition to adulthood in contemporary Malawi

In many African countries, the timing of important life events -- such as school-leaving, first marriage, and entry into the labor market -- is thought to be strongly tied to migration. This paper investigates the relationship between major life events, household characteristics, and migration among adolescents and young adults in contemporary Malawi. The specific research questions are twofold. First, what are the socio-economic and demographic determinants of migration? Second, how do school attendance, first marriage, and employment-seeking relate to migration patterns? The study uses panel data collected from a survey designed specifically to explore socioeconomic and demographic aspects of youth transitions to adulthood and which tracked respondents as they moved to new dwellings. Among the sample, they find that moves are not uncommon, and the predominant reasons for moves are non-economic. Although historically ethnic traditions in this area have held that girls and women usually did not move upon marrying, the data show that women were more likely to move between survey rounds than boys and men, and that marriage was the main reason for doing so. Closer ties to the head of the household are associated with less movement for both women and men.

Source: Migration and the transition to adulthood in contemporary Malawi

Making up people -- the effect of identity on preferences and performance in a modernizing society

It is typically assumed that being hard-working or clever is a trait of the person, in the sense that it is always there, in a fixed manner. However, in an experiment with almost 600 boys in India, cues to one's place in the traditional caste order turn out to influence the expression of these traits. The experiment assigned students to different treatments with respect to the salience of caste and had them solve mazes under incentives. It turned out that making caste salient can reduce output by about 25 percent, which is equivalent to twice the effect on output of being one year younger. The channels through which this occurs differ by caste status. For the upper castes, the decline in performance under piece rates can only be explained by a shift in preferences regarding the provision of effort. When the ascriptive caste order is cued, upper-caste individuals may think, "I don't need to excel." In contrast, for the lower castes, which were traditionally "untouchables," publicly revealing caste identity impairs the ability to learn and may lead individuals to think, "I can't (or don't dare to) excel." This paper provides a measure of the impact that ascriptive, hierarchized identities can have on preferences and performance after a society -- in its public pronouncements and legislation -- has adopted norms of equality in a formal sense. The findings are important because they suggest that when contexts cue identities founded on the superseded rules of a hierarchical institution, the effects on human capital formation and development can be first-order. Contexts that make traditional identities salient are an underemphasized source of impediments to institutional change.

Source: Making up people -- the effect of identity on preferences and performance in a modernizing society

Sleepless City

Flower Buds

Color Contrast

Foggy Morning

Red Mushroom

A Place for Solitude

Snow Blanket

American Bridge

Resting Horses

Red Wild Berry? Not Sure Maybe from Amazon

Seemingly Ordinary But Rare

Sun Flower No Other Color?

Finding a Good Deal at a Gentlemen's Club

If you are looking to go to a gentlemen's club, you will want to be able to find one that is worth the money. Make sure to find the best deal for the amount you will be spending.

Source: Finding a Good Deal at a Gentlemen's Club

The Magic Behind Animatronic Puppets

Unique Dreams can now become a reality through the animatronic designs. So what exactly does this term animatronic mean? Well animatronics is the use of advanced and special technology to create animated machines, animals, mythological figures, trees etc. animatronic designs are majorly used in the media and entertainment industry to make animatronic figures in the movies, theme parks and such of the kind.

Source: The Magic Behind Animatronic Puppets

How to Pick a Nightclub

When you are looking for a nightclub, you need to know how to pick the best option. Look at all that is available and try to find the best one to match your plans for the evening.

Source: How to Pick a Nightclub

What Does the Topless Bar Have to Offer?

If you are looking to go and have a good time at a topless bar, you need to figure out your options first. Consider what you are looking for and know what to expect.

Source: What Does the Topless Bar Have to Offer?

Adult Vacations: Planning Your Trip

So you've decided that family trips are for the birds. You want a trip that is going to appeal to your... more mature side. Adult vacations exist because there are a lot of people just like you. Here's how you can go about planning your trip.

Source: Adult Vacations: Planning Your Trip

Things to Do Over the Summer With Your Family

Summer can be a difficult time for families because they suddenly need to come up with things for their kids to do. There are so many things to do if you really take the time to research.

Source: Things to Do Over the Summer With Your Family

The Applications of 3D Engraving

There are many uses for 3D engraving and its popularity is growing. Companies pride themselves on their innovative designs and cutting edge technology.

Source: The Applications of 3D Engraving

Considering 3D Engraving? Make a Statement

3D engraving is an innovative form of art that is becoming ever popular in many industries. The design possibilities are endless and there are some excellent companies producing wonderful designs, using high technology computer programs that can easily transform a flat drawing into a stunning relief. Most companies have the facility to provide the whole service, from design to model creation, but many prefer to focus on one skill.

Source: Considering 3D Engraving? Make a Statement

Ideas for French Country Interior Decorating

French Country is a warm elegant feeling mixed with casual pieces and a little grace. French Country embellishes a lot of distressed or painted furniture, fabrics, wood tones and textured walls.

Source: Ideas for French Country Interior Decorating

Savvy Shopping Tips for Halloween Costume Shops

A shopping trip to visit Halloween costume shops can be interesting but costly if you do not know how to look for bargains and discounts. Here we offer some savvy tips for you when you are shopping for an ensemble for yourself or your kids.

Source: Savvy Shopping Tips for Halloween Costume Shops

Guide To Choosing a 3D Engraving Machine

Whether you are planning on acquiring a 3D engraving to start a business or to expand an existing operation, your choice of machine can make a huge difference to the quality of your services and how the design can be rendered. With this in mind, careful consideration should be made in your choice of a3D engraving machine.

Source: Guide To Choosing a 3D Engraving Machine

Customised 3D Trophy Design

When it comes to an exceptional 3D trophy, workmanship and quality service is best showcased with a custom design. For any type of event, the majority of organisers prefer customised designs over generic ones, primarily for branding purposes. Of course, since awards are handed out in recognition of outstanding performance, careful attention and consideration should be given to their design.

Source: Customised 3D Trophy Design

Popular 3D Engraving Techniques

Beautiful 3D engraving pieces need exceptional design and precision execution. Learn how you can combine both to gain that competitive advantage.

Source: Popular 3D Engraving Techniques

Famous Sporting Trophies in the USA

As one of the countries that tends to make sports and sporting matches a very big deal, it is no wonder that the United States has a few events that offer amazing and exceptionally well-known trophies. While it may seem like a small thing, winning a 3D trophy is one of the main aims for teams and individuals in certain American sporting events. Over a variety of sports, from American football to baseball, ice hockey and racing, a trophy is the thing that all competitors want to walk away with.

Source: Famous Sporting Trophies in the USA

An Interview With George Wendt

Last week, I ran into a familiar face, George Wendt. Most of you might know him from his crowning role as Norm on the hit sitcom, Cheers. Now, most people who run into George ask him about his role on Cheers and everything that has to do with the sitcom. I on the other hand sat down with him and talked to him about his home.

Source: An Interview With George Wendt

What Items Can The Airport Metal Detectors Catch?

Metal detectors are seen at every airport. As much as they are loved by the government and all other regulating bodies they are dreaded by citizens who have to pass through them.

Source: What Items Can The Airport Metal Detectors Catch?

First Time Visits to Strip Clubs

Strip clubs can help you have a night to remember. However, if it is your first time you need to know what you are getting into before you enter.

Source: First Time Visits to Strip Clubs

Keen Competition Between London Galleries

London has long been a magnet for the rich of the world. The city has everything that one could want in a metropolis. It is a financial center of course, but also a renowned center of art and culture, both high and popular.

Source: Keen Competition Between London Galleries

The Frieze Art Fair

The Frieze Art Fair takes place once a year in London's Regents Park. It has been there every autumn since 2003, so this is its 10th successful year, epitomizing everything new, cool and fashionable in the art world. The exhibition takes place in a purpose-built building, and all the major galleries from throughout the world are represented there. As well as a place to see the latest art, it is a great place for people-watching.

Source: The Frieze Art Fair

Art by the Sea

England's traditional seaside resorts have been in historic decline for several decades. The advent of cheap package tours to the warmer parts of Europe, notably Spain, and the increase in prosperity of the working classes during the later decades of the 20th Century, meant that there were more exciting holiday options for the ordinary person than a week or two in Margate.

Source: Art by the Sea

Are Strips Clubs in Your Area the Place to Be?

There are many misconceptions about strip clubs. Consider looking at what they can offer as well as all that you can do when you do take the time to go and visit one.

Source: Are Strips Clubs in Your Area the Place to Be?

How To Choose An Inflatable Obstacle Course

An inflatable obstacle course is a colorful entertainment center that is enjoyed by people of all ages. These fun play areas are often used to provide hours of outdoor entertainment for children.

Source: How To Choose An Inflatable Obstacle Course

Eight Inexpensive Customized Gift Ideas

Finding the perfect gift for a special occasion can be very challenging. There always seems to be that one person who already has everything. Giving a customized gift ensures that the recipient will be getting an original, one of a kind present...

Source: Eight Inexpensive Customized Gift Ideas

Sacrifices That Please God

(Ephesians 5:2) "And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour."? I'm reminded we are in the Fall season when I come home and smell the pumpkin candles burning.

Source: Sacrifices That Please God

Preparing For The Delivery Of A Bounce House

A large birthday party or other event is much more fun when there are different entertainment options available. An inflatable bounce house provides a safe and exciting environment for children that will keep everyone entertained for hours.

Source: Preparing For The Delivery Of A Bounce House

San Diego's Belmont Park - Fun For All

Looking for something to do in San Diego that's perfect for the whole family? Check out Belmont Park located in Mission Beach. This park offers excitement for all ages!

Source: San Diego's Belmont Park - Fun For All

True Blood: Picking Up Male Fans As Well?

For as long as any of us can honestly remember, there has been a problem with television shows becoming suitable for both men and women. Is "True Blood" that long-awaited change in the world of entertainment as we know it or is it just going to become another gender-specific television show that we may have been better off without?

Source: True Blood: Picking Up Male Fans As Well?

The Supernatural Story: 10 Years In The Making

For those who want to enter the world of the paranormal, "Supernatural" provides exactly that priceless opportunity. While it may not allow you to enter the world of the paranormal in real life, the story is something that is sure to captivate anyone who enjoys immersing their mind with the thoughts of supernatural forces being real.

Source: The Supernatural Story: 10 Years In The Making

The Opal Birthstone - October Birthdays

Not taking anything away from other birthstones, but I have to say that the Opal Birthstone is one of the most beautiful stones available. Its beauty is in its specialized features in that it reflects and retracts light so it's an ever changing color; there are few other stones out there in the world that can compare to its beauty.

Source: The Opal Birthstone - October Birthdays

Interview With China Mieville

Award-winning writer China Mieville's latest novel 'Railsea' launched last month to critical acclaim. As the dust begins to settle, I up with the author.

Source: Interview With China Mieville

Talk Radio Wants You

Book marketing guru Dan Poynter has written "Many people love to go on radio. In fact, I think some people write books just to get on the air." He adds that "most of the guests booked by the shows are authors, so your book is your entr?e to the airwaves.

Source: Talk Radio Wants You

Buying Art Online: Why Not?

Art fans should not fear buying artwork online. The method of purchasing art online has been tested for over a decade. No matter what the customer's needs are, if a brick and mortar art gallery can meet them, an online gallery will be able to do so as well.

Source: Buying Art Online: Why Not?

Home Theater Systems: Cinema-Experience In Your Own Living Room

Setting up a home theater system can bring the movie-going experience right into your own entertainment room. Below are the steps to set-up your own home theater.

Source: Home Theater Systems: Cinema-Experience In Your Own Living Room

Top Six Iconic News Video Clips That Mark the Last Century

Every day, all around the world, news networks broadcast hours of footage, dialogue, and momentous action, but there are just a few news video clips that nearly everyone has seen, everyone remembers, and everyone watches with poignant emotion. These are the video clips that have shaped our lives, because they reflect our changing world.

Source: Top Six Iconic News Video Clips That Mark the Last Century

Building A Guitar Pickup

Being a keen guitarist and somebody who has dabbled in constructing various guitars for countless years, the need to produce my very first guitar pickup was tremendous. For those who don't know, a guitar pickup is to a guitar what a mic will be to a vocalist. Put simply, a method of allowing the guitar to become electronically amplified. Now was the time to build one.

Source: Building A Guitar Pickup

Silk Laminated Business Cards With Spot UV

Silk laminated business cards are like the tuxedo of the business card world. But unlike tuxedos, silk cards are waterproof and can survive a good beating without sacrificing their suave looks.

Source: Silk Laminated Business Cards With Spot UV

Personalized Magnets Make A Cozier Home

Personalized magnets come in a variety of styles. There are picture frames to hold the portraits of loved ones and pets, ranging in size from a snapshot style several inches across to frames as small as a postage stamp. Magnets attached to wooden...

Source: Personalized Magnets Make A Cozier Home

Ideas for Safe Children's Activities for Your Kids

Finding safe children's activities can sometimes take some work on your part. You might run into some unsanitary, boring places in your research, but hopefully through the process you will find the good options too.

Source: Ideas for Safe Children's Activities for Your Kids

Simplifying Strategic Planning: Making Vision, Mission and Goal Converge

The term Strategic Planning is itself a self-explanatory one and it is in use ever since man learned to hunt and live. Or, we may say strategic planning is all about setting a direction, which helps an individual or a group, achieve a specific or a number of targets.

Source: Simplifying Strategic Planning: Making Vision, Mission and Goal Converge

The Thing Under The House

I have found my house inhabited by some terrible things, ugly things, in particular one thing. My thoughts are very confusing on this matter. There is even some apprehension as to where they begin. For at times I have appalling visions of faces within the marble bathroom floor, many faces of this creature-in lack of a better term, demonic. This creature, or beast or whatever, alien of some sort, long dead, now stretching behind me some twenty-years since I built the house. In consequence, I am somehow convinced there formless faces in the marble, in the blue and white marble tiles in my bedroom, bathroom, are trying to communicate. But what, what do those faces want to tell me: perhaps displeasure, anger, or just torment me.

Source: The Thing Under The House

In aid we trust : hearts and minds and the Pakistan earthquake of 2005

Winning "hearts and minds" in the Muslim world is an explicitly acknowledged aim of U.S. foreign policy and increasingly, bilateral foreign aid is recognized as a vehicle towards this end. The authors examine the effect of aid from foreign organizations and on-the-ground presence of foreigners following the 2005 earthquake in Northern Pakistan on local attitudes. They show that four years after the earthquake, humanitarian assistance by foreigners and foreign organizations has left a lasting imprint on population attitudes. Measured in three different ways those living closer to the fault-line report more positive attitudes towards foreigners, including Europeans and Americans; trust in foreigners decreases 6 percentage points for every 10 Kilometers distance from the fault-line. In contrast, there is no association between distance to the fault-line and trust in local populations. Pre-existing differences in socioeconomic characteristics or population attitudes do not account for this finding. Instead, the relationship between trust in foreigners and proximity to the fault-line mirrors the greater provision of foreign aid and foreign presence in these villages. In villages closest to the fault-line, foreign organizations were the second largest providers of aid after the Pakistan army (despite reports to the contrary aid provision by militant organizations was extremely limited, with less than 1 percent of all respondents reporting any help from such organizations). The results provide a compelling case that trust in foreigners is malleable, responds to humanitarian actions by foreigners and is not a deep-rooted function of local preferences.

Source: In aid we trust : hearts and minds and the Pakistan earthquake of 2005

Shadow economies all over the world : new estimates for 162 countries from 1999 to 2007

This paper presents estimations of the shadow economies for 162 countries, including developing, Eastern European, Central Asian, and high-income countries over the period 1999 to 2006/2007. According to the estimations, the weighted average size of the shadow economy (as a percentage of "official" gross domestic product) in Sub-Saharan Africa is 38.4 percent; in Europe and Central Asia (mostly transition countries), it is 36.5 percent, and in high-income OECD countries, it is 13.5 percent. The authors find a clear negative trend in the size of the shadow economy: The unweighted average of the 162 countries in 1999 was 34.0 percent and in 2007 31.0 percent; hence a reduction of 3 percentage points!.The driving forces of the shadow economy are an increased burden of taxation (both direct and indirect), combined with labor market regulations and the quality of public goods and services, as well as the state of the "official" economy.

Source: Shadow economies all over the world : new estimates for 162 countries from 1999 to 2007

Natural disasters and household welfare : evidence from Vietnam

As natural disasters hit with increasing frequency, especially in coastal areas, it is imperative to better understand how much natural disasters affect economies and their people. This requires disaggregated measures of natural disasters that can be reliably linked to households, the first challenge this paper tackles. In particular, a methodology is illustrated to create natural disaster and hazard maps from first hand, geo-referenced meteorological data. In a second step, the repeated cross-sectional national living standard measurement surveys (2002, 2004, and 2006) from Vietnam are augmented with the natural disaster measures derived in the first phase, to estimate the welfare effects associated with natural disasters. The results indicate that short-run losses from natural disasters can be substantial, with riverine floods causing welfare losses of up to 23 percent and hurricanes reducing welfare by up to 52 percent inside cities with a population over 500,000. Households are better able to cope with the short-run effects of droughts, largely due to irrigation. There are also important long-run negative effects, in Vietnam mostly so for droughts, flash floods, and hurricanes. Geographical differentiation in the welfare effects across space and disaster appears partly linked to the functioning of the disaster relief system, which has so far largely eluded households in areas regularly affected by hurricane force winds.

Source: Natural disasters and household welfare : evidence from Vietnam

The economics of natural disasters : concepts and methods

Large-scale disasters regularly affect societies over the globe, causing large destruction and damage. After each of these events, media, insurance companies, and international institu-tions publish numerous assessments of the "cost of the disaster." However these assessments are based on different methodologies and approaches, and they often reach different results. Besides methodological differences, these discrepancies are due to the multi-dimensionality in disaster impacts and their large redistributive effects, which make it unclear what is included in the estimates. But most importantly, the purpose of these assessments is rarely specified, although different purposes correspond to different perimeters of analysis and different definitions of what a cost is. To clarify this situation, this paper proposes a definition of the cost of a disaster, and emphasizes the most important mechanisms that explain and determine this cost. It does so by first explaining why the direct economic cost, that is, the value of what has been damaged or destroyed by the disaster, is not a sufficient indicator of disaster seriousness and why estimating indirect losses is crucial to assess the consequences on welfare. The paper describes the main indirect consequences of a disaster and the following reconstruction phase, and discusses the economic mechanisms at play. It proposes a review of available methodologies to assess indirect economic consequences, illustrated with examples from the literature. Finally, it highlights the need for a better understanding of the economics of natural disasters and suggests a few promising areas for research on this topic.

Source: The economics of natural disasters : concepts and methods

How do governments respond after catastrophes ? natural-disaster shocks and the fiscal stance

Natural disasters could constitute a major shock to public finances and debt sustainability because of their impact on output and the need for reconstruction and relief expenses. This paper uses a panel vector autoregressive model to systematically estimate the impact of geological, climatic, and other types of natural disasters on government expenditures and revenues using annual data for high and middle-income countries over 1975-2008. The authors find that, on average budget, deficits increase only after climatic disasters, but for lower-middle-income countries, the increase in deficits is widespread across all events. Disasters do not lead to larger deficit increases or larger output declines in countries with higher initial government debt. Countries with higher financial development suffer smaller real consequences from disasters, but deficits expand further in these countries. Disasters in countries with high insurance penetration also have smaller real consequences but do not result in deficit expansions. From an ex-post perspective, the availability of insurance offers the best mitigation approach against real and fiscal consequences of disasters.

Source: How do governments respond after catastrophes ? natural-disaster shocks and the fiscal stance

Nature, socioeconomics and adaptation to natural disasters: new evidence from floods

The authors analyze the determinants of fatalities in 2,194 large flood events in 108 countries between 1985 and 2008. Given that socioeconomic factors can affect mortality right in the aftermath of a flood, but also indirectly by influencing flood frequency and magnitude, they distinguish between direct and indirect effects of development on flood mortality. The authors find that income is negatively associated with the frequency of floods and, conditional on their magnitude, the fatalities they cause in developing countries. However, for developed countries they find that increased income is associated with more fatalities, both directly (conditional on flood occurrence and magnitude) and indirectly through an increase in the frequency and magnitude of flood events. Also in contrast to the literature, they find that the effect of governance on flood frequency and fatalities in developing countries is U-shaped, with improvements in governance reducing the numbers of floods and deaths when governance is weaker but raising them when governance is stronger.

Source: Nature, socioeconomics and adaptation to natural disasters: new evidence from floods

Efficiency in public procurement in Rural Road Projects of Nepal

Transport infrastructure is important for economic growth. In Nepal, about 20 percent of rural residents have to spend more than 3 hours to go to the nearest marketplace or agriculture center. Public procurement is an important policy instrument to use resources wisely and efficiently. This paper analyzes a series of policy questions, from procurement design to contract management and project quality assurance. The paper finds that the competition effect is significant. To enhance competition, bidding documents can be distributed free of charge on a website. The bid preparation period can be extended. Security issues are also found to be particularly important to avoid unnecessary cost overruns and project delays. Heavy rainfall and the bidders' low-balling strategy are identified as other factors of project delays. The quality of roads would deteriorate with not only security incidence but also time, precipitation and traffic volume.

Source: Efficiency in public procurement in Rural Road Projects of Nepal

What did the Maoists ever do for us ? education and marriage of women exposed to civil conflict in Nepal

Between 1996 and 2006, Nepal experienced violent civil conflict as a consequence of a Maoist insurgency, which many argue also brought about an increase in female empowerment. This paper exploits within and between-district variation in the intensity of violence to estimate the impact of conflict intensity on two key areas of the life of women in Nepal, namely education and marriage. Overall conflict intensity had a small, positive effect on female educational attainment, whereas abductions by Maoists had the reverse effect. Male schooling was not significantly affected by either conflict measure. Conflict intensity and Maoist abductions during school age both increased the probability of early female marriage, but exposure to conflict during marriageable age does not appear to have affected women's long-term marriage probability.

Source: What did the Maoists ever do for us ? education and marriage of women exposed to civil conflict in Nepal

Education and conflict recovery : the case of Timor Leste

The Timor Leste secession conflict lasted for 25 years. Its last wave of violence in 1999, following the withdrawal of Indonesian troops, generated massive displacement and destruction with widespread consequences for the economic and social development of the country. This paper analyzes the impact of the conflict on the level and access to education of boys and girls in Timor Leste. The authors examine the short-term impact of the 1999 violence on school attendance and grade deficit rates in 2001, and the longer-term impact of the conflict on primary school completion of cohorts of children observed in 2007. They compare the educational impact of the 1999 wave of violence with the impact of other periods of high-intensity violence during the 25 years of Indonesian occupation. The short-term effects of the conflict are mixed. In the longer term, the analysis finds a strong negative impact of the conflict on primary school completion among boys of school age exposed to peaks of violence during the 25-year long conflict. The effect is stronger for boys attending the last three grades of primary school. This result shows a substantial loss of human capital among young males in Timor Leste since the early 1970s, resulting from household investment trade-offs between education and economic survival.

Source: Education and conflict recovery : the case of Timor Leste

The effects of conflict on fertility in Rwanda

The aim of this paper is to study the short and long-term fertility effects of mass violent conflict on different population sub-groups. The authors pool three nationally representative demographic and health surveys from before and after the genocide in Rwanda, identifying conflict exposure of the survivors in multiple ways. The analysis finds a robust effect of genocide on fertility, with a strong replacement effect for lost children. Having lost siblings reduces fertility only in the short term. Most interesting is the continued importance of the institution of marriage in determining fertility and in reducing fertility for the large group of widows in Rwanda.

Source: The effects of conflict on fertility in Rwanda

The "resource curse" in MENA ? political transitions, resource wealth, economic shocks, and conflict risk

The recent political upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa region have exposed growing concerns about conflict risk, political stability, and reform prospects across its societies. Given the prevalence of oil and gas resource endowments in the region, which a voluminous literature suggests can be associated with adverse development consequences, this paper examines the interplay between their associated rents and political economy trajectories. The contribution of the paper is threefold: first, to examine the quantitative evidence of violent conflict in the region since 1960; second, to provide a nuanced review of the regional case study literature on the relationship between resource endowments, political stability, and conflict risk; and third, to assess how prospective political transitions have implications for the World Bank Group's work in the region on public sector management and private sector development. The authors find that resources and regimes have intersected to provide stability and limited violent conflict in the region, but that these development patterns have yielded a set of policy choices and development patterns that are proving increasingly brittle and unsustainable. A major institutional challenge for reforms will be to consolidate a requisite degree of inter-temporal credibility and stability in these regimes, while expanding inclusiveness in state-society relations.

Source: The "resource curse" in MENA ? political transitions, resource wealth, economic shocks, and conflict risk

Explaining the demand for sovereignty

Why do groups want to secede and where are we most likely to see demands for self-determination? This paper proposes an economic explanation whereby a tradeoff between income and sovereignty implies that, other things being equal, richer regions are more likely to want more autonomy and conflict arises due to a disparity between desired and actual levels of sovereignty. The authors provide simple empirical tests using new data collected at the level of second-tier administrative subdivisions in 48 decentralized countries. They find a positive association between, on the one hand, relative regional income, regional population share, natural resource endowment, and regional inter-personal inequality and, on the other hand, observed sovereignty levels. Ethnically distinct regions have lower sovereignty, but this association is only conditional on controlling for the interactive effects between ethnic distinctiveness and regional inter-personal inequality.

Source: Explaining the demand for sovereignty

Human rights as demands for communicative action

A key issue with human rights is how to allocate duties correlative to rights claims. But the philosophical literature, drawing largely on naturalistic or interactional accounts of human rights, develops answers to this question that do not illuminate actual human rights problems. Charles Beitz, in recent work, attempts to develop a conception of human rights more firmly rooted in, and helpful for, current practice. While a move in the right direction, his account does not incorporate the domestic practice of human rights, and as a result remains insufficiently instructive for many human rights challenges. This paper addresses the problem of allocating correlative duties by taking the practices of domestic courts in several countries as a normative benchmark. Upon reviewing how courts in Colombia, India, South Africa, Indonesia, and elsewhere have allocated duties associated with socio-economic rights, the paper finds that courts urge parties to move from an adversarial to an investigative mode, impose requirements that parties argue in good faith, and structure a public forum of communication. The conclusion argues that judicial practice involves requiring respondents to engage in communicative, instead of strategic, action, and explores the implications of this understanding of human rights.

Source: Human rights as demands for communicative action

Optimizing the size of public road contracts

Procurement packaging has important effects on not only the bidders' bidding behavior, but also contractors' performance. By changing the size of public contracts, procurers can encourage (or discourage) market competition and improve contract performance, avoiding unnecessary cost overruns and project delays. In practice, there is no single solution about how to package public contracts. With procurement data from road projects in Nepal, this paper examines the optimal size of road contracts in rural areas. The optimum varies depending on policy objectives. To maximize the bidder participation, the length of road should be about 11 kilometers. To minimize cost overruns and delays, the contracts should be much larger at 17 and 21 kilometers, respectively. Compared with the current procurement practices, the findings suggest that procurers take more advantage of enlarging road packages, although contracts that are too large may increase the risk of discouraging firms from participating in public tenders.

Source: Optimizing the size of public road contracts

Natural resources, weak states and civil war : can rents stabilize coup prone regimes ?

This paper argues that state weakness is broader than implied previously in the civil war literature, and that particular types of weakness in interaction with natural resources have aggravating or mitigating consequences for the risk of civil war. While in anocracies or unstable regimes natural resources can be expected to increase the risk of civil war, we suggest that resource wealth allows weak leaders to stabilize their relationship with their inner elite circle. In particular, for regimes at risk of coup d'etat, the availability of substantial resources is more likely to be channeled in ways that deter rebellion, plausibly countering the grievances generated by natural resources and rebels' viewing of such resources as a prize for taking over the state. Data from 1946-2003 and multiple empirical operationalizations broadly support our argument. These findings are consistent with work showing that resource rents can induce stability in state - society relationships.

Source: Natural resources, weak states and civil war : can rents stabilize coup prone regimes ?

This paper estimates the causal effects of civil war on years of education in the context of a school-going age cohort that is exposed to armed conflict in Cote d'Ivoire. Using year and department of birth to identify an individual's exposure to war, the difference-in-difference outcomes indicate that the average years of education for a school-going age cohort is .94 years fewer compared with an older cohort in war-affected regions. To minimize the potential bias in the estimated outcome, the authors use a set of victimization indicators to identify the true effect of war. The propensity score matching estimates do not alter the main findings. In addition, the outcomes of double-robust models minimize the specification errors in the model. Moreover, the paper finds the outcomes are robust across alternative matching methods, estimation by using subsamples, and other education outcome variables. Overall, the findings across different models suggest a drop in average years of education by a range of .2 to .9 fewer years.

Source:

Creating jobs in South Asia's conflict zones

This paper describes the key challenges to job creation in conflict-affected environments in South Asia. It uses household survey data since the early 2000s for Afghanistan, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka to document the characteristics of labor markets in conflict-affected areas, exploiting the spatial and time variation in armed conflict within countries. The analysis finds that, across countries, labor markets look very different in conflict-affected areas when compared with non-conflict or low-conflict areas. Employment rates are higher in large part because women participate more in the labor market, but work tends to be more vulnerable, with more self-employment and unpaid family work. The authors show that these differences often pre-date the conflict but are also exacerbated by it. They also examine the constraints on the private sector activity in such areas, using firm surveys when possible. Finally, the paper reviews the existing literature and the policy experiences of several countries to draw some policy implications for job creation efforts in the conflict-affected areas of South Asia. It particularly highlights the role of the private sector and community initiatives, in conjunction with public policies, to improve the environment for successful job creation.

Source: Creating jobs in South Asia's conflict zones

Winning hearts and minds through development ? evidence from a field experiment in Afghanistan

In areas afflicted by civil conflict, development projects can potentially serve an important counterinsurgency function by redressing grievances of marginalized groups and reducing violence. Using a large-scale randomized field experiment in Afghanistan, this paper explores whether the inclusion of villages in the country's largest development program alters perceptions of well-being, attitudes toward government, and violence in surrounding areas. The results indicate that the program generally has a positive effect on all three measures, but has no effects in areas with high levels of initial violence. These findings demonstrate that development programs can buttress government support and limit the onset of insurgencies in relatively secure areas, but that their effectiveness is more constrained in areas where insurgents are already active.

Source: Winning hearts and minds through development ? evidence from a field experiment in Afghanistan

Why follow the leader ? collective action, credible commitment and conflict

Most analyses of conflict assume that conflicting groups act in a unitary fashion. This assumption is often violated: to reduce their risk of replacement, group leaders prevent both group members and soldiers from acting collectively, making it difficult for leaders to make credible commitments to them. Lifting the assumption that groups are unitary shifts the analysis of a wide range of conflict issues. The effects of income shocks and rents on conflict risk become contingent on collective action. Leader decisions regarding collective action explain the forcible recruitment of child soldiers and predation on civilians: leaders who prefer to limit military organization are more likely to pursue these tactics. Leader decisions regarding collective action also introduce an unexplored mechanism by which state capacity is created and a specific reason to regard state capacity as endogenous to conflict risk. This focus, finally, suggests that interventions to reduce conflict risk, such as safety net payments or service delivery, are likely to be most difficult to deliver precisely where leaders are most reluctant to allow collective action and where, therefore, conflict risk is highest.

Source: Why follow the leader ? collective action, credible commitment and conflict

Impact of social fund on the welfare of rural households : evidence from the Nepal poverty alleviation fund

The Nepal Poverty Alleviation Fund is a World Bank supported community-driven development program. Its objective is to improve rural welfare, particularly for groups that have traditionally been excluded for reasons of gender, ethnicity, caste, and location. Since its launch in 2004, the Fund has covered the 40 poorest districts of the country, supported some 15,000 community organizations, and benefited more than 2.5 million people.  This paper attempts to estimate the impact of this large-scale program using a randomized phase-in approach, in which certain localities are randomly selected for earlier intervention than others. Using two rounds of survey data and a difference-in-difference combined with instrumental variable estimation method, it finds statistically significant causal impact of the program on key welfare outcomes. The treatment-on-the-treated estimate on real per capita consumption is 19 percent growth. Other impacts include a 19 percentage points decline on incidence of food insecurity (defined as food sufficiency for six months or less) and a 15 percentage points increase in the school enrollment rate among 6-15 year-olds. Impacts (positive or negative) are yet to be detected on indicators associated with child malnutrition, social capital, and empowerment. The policy implications of these results should be of interest to the government and to development partners in determining what may be effective instruments to deliver services to marginalized communities in what remains a fragile and difficult political environment.

Source: Impact of social fund on the welfare of rural households : evidence from the Nepal poverty alleviation fund

Transfers, diversification and household risk strategies : experimental evidence with lessons for climate change adaptation

While climate change is likely to increase weather risks in many developing countries, there is little evidence on effective policies to facilitate adaptation. This paper presents experimental evidence on a program in rural Nicaragua aimed at improving households' risk-management through income diversification. The intervention targeted agricultural households exposed to weather shocks related to changes in rainfall and temperature patterns. It combined a conditional cash transfer with vocational training or a productive investment grant. The authors identify the relative impact of each complementary package based on randomized assignment, and analyze how impacts vary by exposure to exogenous drought shocks. The results show that both complementary interventions provide full protection against drought shocks two years after the end of the intervention. Households that received the productive investment grant also had higher average consumption levels. The complementary interventions led to diversification of economic activities and better protection from shocks compared to beneficiaries of the basic conditional cash transfer and control households. These results show that combining safety nets with productive interventions can help households manage future weather risks and promote longer-term program impacts.

Source: Transfers, diversification and household risk strategies : experimental evidence with lessons for climate change adaptation

The spatial development of India



Source: The spatial development of India

Gender and rural non-farm entrepreneurship

Despite their increasing prominence in policy debates, little is known about gender inequities in non-agricultural labor market outcomes in rural areas. Using matched household-enterprise-community data sets from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, this paper documents and analyzes gender differences in the individual portfolio choice and productivity of non-farm entrepreneurship. Except for Ethiopia, women are less likely than men to become nonfarm entrepreneurs. Women's nonfarm entrepreneurship isn't strongly correlated with household composition or educational attainment, but is especially prevalent amongst women who are the head of their household. Female-led firms are much smaller and less productive on average, though gender differences in productivity vary dramatically across countries. Mean differences in log output per worker suggest that male firms are roughly 10 times as productive as female firms in Bangladesh, three times as those in Ethiopia and twice as those in Sri Lanka. By contrast, no significant differences in labor productivity were detected in Indonesia. Differences in output per worker are overwhelmingly accounted for by sorting by sector and size. They can't be explained by differences in capital intensity, human capital or the local investment climate, nor by increasing returns to scale.

Source: Gender and rural non-farm entrepreneurship

Does it pay to be a Cadre ? estimating the returns to being a local official in rural China

Recruiting and retaining leaders and public servants at the grass-roots level in developing countries creates a potential tension between providing sufficient returns to attract talent and limiting the scope for excessive rent-seeking behavior. In China, researchers have frequently argued that village cadres, who are the lowest level of administrators in rural areas, exploit personal political status for economic gain. Much existing research, however, compares the earnings of cadre and non-cadre households in rural China without controlling for unobserved dimensions of ability that are also correlated with success as entrepreneurs or in non-agricultural activities. The findings of this paper suggest a measurable return to cadre status, but the magnitudes are not large and provide only a modest incentive to participate in village-level government. The paper does not find evidence that households of village cadres earn significant rents from having a family member who is a cadre. Given the increasing returns to non-agricultural employment since China's economic reforms began, it is not surprising that the returns to working as a village cadre have also increased over time. Returns to cadre-status are derived both from direct compensation and subsidies for cadres and indirectly through returns earned in off-farm employment from businesses and economic activities managed by villages.

Source: Does it pay to be a Cadre ? estimating the returns to being a local official in rural China

Who is deprived ? who feels deprived ? labor deprivation, youth and gender in Morocco

One of the recurrent explanations of the Arab spring is that governments were disconnected from their populations and that public policies were simply not in line with people's sentiments and expectations.  This paper provides a methodology to better understand how objective conditions of deprivation are translated into subjective feelings of deprivation using a strand of the recent literature on relative deprivation. The authors apply this methodology to better understand the question of gender and youth deprivation in the context of the Moroccan labor market. They find that the reference group (the people with whom people compare themselves) plays a pivotal role in understanding how feelings of labor deprivation are generated. This can explain the apparent mismatch between objective conditions and subjective feelings of deprivation related to joblessness among young men and women. The methodology can help us understand why greater discontent may be exhibited by a group of individuals who are in fact less deprived in a material sense. It can also potentially help governments design public policies that address objective conditions of deprivation, such as unemployment, with a better understanding of subjective implications.

Source: Who is deprived ? who feels deprived ? labor deprivation, youth and gender in Morocco

Winning hearts and minds through development ? evidence from a field experiment in Afghanistan

In areas afflicted by civil conflict, development projects can potentially serve an important counterinsurgency function by redressing grievances of marginalized groups and reducing violence. Using a large-scale randomized field experiment in Afghanistan, this paper explores whether the inclusion of villages in the country's largest development program alters perceptions of well-being, attitudes toward government, and violence in surrounding areas. The results indicate that the program generally has a positive effect on all three measures, but has no effects in areas with high levels of initial violence. These findings demonstrate that development programs can buttress government support and limit the onset of insurgencies in relatively secure areas, but that their effectiveness is more constrained in areas where insurgents are already active.

Source: Winning hearts and minds through development ? evidence from a field experiment in Afghanistan

Direct democracy and resource allocation : experimental evidence from Afghanistan

Direct democracy is designed to better align public resource allocation decisions with citizen preferences. Using a randomized field experiment in 250 villages across Afghanistan, this paper compares outcomes of secret-ballot referenda with those of consultation meetings, which adhere to customary decision-making practices. Elites are found to exert influence over meeting outcomes, but not over referenda outcomes, which are driven primarily by citizen preferences. Referenda are also found to improve public satisfaction, whereas elite domination of allocation processes has a negative effect. The results indicate that the use of direct democracy in public resource allocation results in more legitimate outcomes than those produced by customary processes.

Source: Direct democracy and resource allocation : experimental evidence from Afghanistan

Rainfall variability, occupational choice, and welfare in rural Bangladesh

This study investigates the choice of occupational focus versus diversification between household members in rural Bangladesh as an autonomous and proactive adaptation strategy against ex ante local rainfall variability risks. The analysis combines nationally representative household level survey data with historical climate variability information at the Upazila level. The authors note that flood prone Upazilas may face reduced risks from local rainfall variability as compared with non-flood prone Upazilas. They find that two members of the same household are less likely to be self-employed in agriculture if they live in an area with high local rainfall variability. However, the occupational diversification strategy comes at a cost to households in terms of consumption welfare. The paper considers the effects of three policy actions, providing access to credit, safety net, and market. Access to market appears to be more effective in reducing the likelihood of costly within-household occupational diversification as an ex ante climate risk-reducing strategy as compared with access to credit and safety net.

Source: Rainfall variability, occupational choice, and welfare in rural Bangladesh

Can participation be induced ? some evidence from developing countries

The World Bank has allocated close to $80 billion towards participatory development projects over the last decade. A comprehensive review of the evidence on the efficacy of the approach conducted by the authors for the forthcoming Policy Research Report, Localizing Development: Does Participation Work?, finds that while participatory projects have been reasonably effective in improving access to basic services, there is far less evidence of their effectiveness in improving household income or in building sustainable participatory institutions at the local level. A key issue is that the institutional culture in development agencies such as the World Bank lacks the flexibility and long-term commitment necessary for effective externally induced participatory development. Induced participation -- driven by large-scale bureaucratically managed processes, is quite different from more organic types of participation endogenously organized by civic groups. It requires a very different approach to development, one that pays close attention to contextual variation and to uncertain trajectories of change. In order to be effective, induced participatory projects need a strong focus on learning-by-doing; on monitoring and evaluation and a willingness to learn from failure. A review of the World Bank's practices in monitoring and evaluation, and of its incentives to learn from failure, reveals that without significant changes, including changes in the incentive structures facing management, the Bank cannot be effective in inducing participation.

Source: Can participation be induced ? some evidence from developing countries

Performance of skilled migrants in the U.S. : a dynamic approach

The initial occupational placements of male immigrants in the United States labor market vary significantly by country of origin even when education and other individual factors are taken into account. Does the heterogeneity persist over time? Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses, this paper finds that the performance of migrants from countries with lower initial occupational placement levels improves at a higher rate compared with that of migrants originating from countries with higher initial performance levels. Nevertheless, the magnitude of convergence suggests that full catch-up is unlikely. The impact of country specific attributes on the immigrants' occupational placement occurs mainly through their effect on initial performance and they lose significance when initial occupational levels are controlled for in the estimation.

Source: Performance of skilled migrants in the U.S. : a dynamic approach

How does India's rural roads program affect the grassroots ? findings from a survey in Orissa

This paper analyzes the effects of all-weather rural roads on households' net output prices, education and health in a poor, drought-prone region of India. Of 30 villages originally surveyed in 2001-02, when two had such roads, a further nine received them between January 2007 and December 2009 under the program Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. Cross-section comparisons involving all villages and 'before and after' comparisons in the nine yielded these findings: (i) net output prices were 5 per cent or more higher; (ii) substantially fewer days of schooling were lost due to bad weather, largely because teachers had fewer absences; (iii) the acutely sick received more timely treatment and were more likely to be treated in a hospital than in the nearest primary health clinic; and (iv) the respondents ranked the resulting benefits in the domains of health and education at least as highly as the 'commercial' ones.

Source: How does India's rural roads program affect the grassroots ? findings from a survey in Orissa

Internal migration in Egypt : levels, determinants, wages, and likelihood of employment

This paper describes stylized facts about internal migration and the labor force in Egypt, and shows how internal migration in the country is low compared with international standards. Using aggregate labor force survey data, the paper shows how individuals migrate to governorates with higher wages. With a Mincerian equation, the analysis finds that migrants earn premiums with respect to non-migrants, except for those migrants with low education levels. The aggregate labor statistics reveal lower unemployment rates among migrants, a phenomenon that is verified by an employment equation. According to the econometric results, migrants are more likely to be employed, even after controlling for other observable individual characteristics.  Finally, the paper estimates a Probit model for the decision to migrate, finding that more educated individuals are more likely to migrate, agricultural workers have a lower probability of migrating, and individuals from governorates in which food production for own consumption is higher are less likely to migrate. These results suggest that low educational attainment and the "food problem", which ties resources to food production to meet subsistence requirements, are at the root of low migration in Egypt.

Source: Internal migration in Egypt : levels, determinants, wages, and likelihood of employment

Shelter from the storm -- but disconnected from jobs :  lessons from urban South Africa on the importance of coordinating housing and transport policies

Informal settlements are a permanent feature of South Africa's cities. Estimates from the General Household Survey by Statistics South Africa show that more than 26 percent of all households in the country's six metropolitan areas live in informal dwellings. The government's policy efforts have focused on provision of subsidized housing, first introduced as part of the Reconstruction and Development Program. Through the lens of new urbanism and coordination in planning this paper explores the possible impact of the program using data from the General Household Survey. The analysis of the program's beneficiaries relative to non-beneficiaries does not show that public housing provision has multiplier effects in terms of complementary private investments in housing maintenance or in upgrading. This is likely because Reconstruction and Development Program housing is often far from employment centers, with the houses built in the "old" apartheid locations that are disconnected from employment centers. In addition, households do not receive title deeds and are not allowed to rent out these dwelling. On the demand side, the authors carried out a small sample survey in Cape Town and find that, on a per hectare basis, shack dwellers are paying around the same for access to land as can be found in the up-scale market for undeveloped land. However, land zoning regulations and subdivision laws do not allow supply of small plots that are compatible with the affordability of poor households.

Source: Shelter from the storm -- but disconnected from jobs :  lessons from urban South Africa on the importance of coordinating housing and transport policies

Protection in good and bad times ? the Turkish green card health program

This paper evaluates the equity and financial protection implications of the expansion of the Green Card (Yesil Kart) non-contributory health insurance program in Turkey during the growth years from 2003 to 2008. It also considers the program's protective impact during the economic crisis in 2009. The authors find that the rapid expansion of the program between 2003 and 2008 was highly progressive. It led to significant gains in coverage of the poor but offered limited financial protection as out-of-pocket expenditures even before the introduction of the program had been limited. Using a specialized welfare monitoring survey, fielded in 2009, the authors estimate the impact of the program on household level health care utilization during the first phase of the economic slowdown in Turkey. Using three different estimation techniques, they find that the Green Card program had a significantly positive impact on protecting health care utilization during the crisis.

Source: Protection in good and bad times ? the Turkish green card health program

Trade policy and wage inequality : a structural analysis with occupational and sectoral mobility

A number of authors have argued that a worker's occupation of employment is at least as important as the worker's industry of employment in determining whether the worker will be hurt or helped by international trade. This paper investigates the role of occupational mobility on the effects of trade shocks on wage inequality in a dynamic, structural econometric model of worker adjustment. Each worker in the model can switch either industry, occupation, or both, paying a time-varying cost to do so in a rational-expectations optimizing environment. The authors find that the costs of switching industry and occupation are both high, and of similar magnitude, but in simulations they find that a worker's industry of employment is much more important than either the worker's occupation or skill class in determining whether he or she is harmed by a trade shock.

Source: Trade policy and wage inequality : a structural analysis with occupational and sectoral mobility

Demand-side financing for sexual and reproductive health services in low and middle-income countries : a review of the evidence

Demand-side financing approaches have been introduced in a number of low and middle-income countries, with a particular emphasis on sexual and reproductive health. This paper aims to bring together the global evidence on demand-side financing mechanisms, their impact on the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services, and the conditions under which they have been effective. The paper begins with a discussion of modalities for demand-side financing. It then examines 13 existing schemes, including cash incentives, vouchers, and longer term social protection policies. Based on the available literature, it collates evidence of their impact on utilization of services, access for the poor, financial protection, quality of care, and health outcomes. Evidence on costs and cost-effectiveness are examined, along with analysis of funding and sustainability of policies. Finally, the paper discusses the preconditions for effectiveness of demand-side financing schemes and the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches. It also highlights the extent to which results for sexual and reproductive health services are likely to be generalizable to other types of health care. It is clear that some of these policies can produce impressive results, if the preconditions for effectiveness outlined are met. However, relatively few demand-side financing schemes have benefited from robust evaluation. Investigation of the impact on financial protection, equity, and health outcomes has been limited. Most importantly, cost effectiveness and the relative cost effectiveness of demand-side financing in relation to other strategies for achieving similar goals have not been assessed.

Source: Demand-side financing for sexual and reproductive health services in low and middle-income countries : a review of the evidence