World Development Report 2012: Gender equality and development Washington, DC: The World Bank 2011, 426 pp., ISBN: 978-0821388259 Since the 1970s, Gender in development has emerged as an issue of c...

World Development Report 2012: Gender equality and development

This new research report analyzes community development and decentralization projects, shows that such projects often fail to be sensitive to complex contexts, including social, political, historical and geographical realities, and fall short in terms of monitoring and evaluation systems, which hampers learning. Citing numerous examples, including projects and programs supported by the World Bank, the authors demonstrate that participatory projects are not a substitute for weak states, but instead require strong central support to be effective. Promoting participation through community development projects and local decentralization has become a central tenet of development policy. The World Bank alone has invested about $85 billion over the last decade on development assistance for participation. However, some observers feel that policy making in the area is conceptually weak, that project design is informed more by slogans than careful analysis. There have also been questions about whether participatory development is effective in reducing poverty, improving service delivery, and building the capacity for collective action. Some observers also find that participatory projects are complex to implement and deeply affected by context, and are thus unsuited for large development institutions such as the World Bank. This groundbreaking report carefully examines each of these concerns. It outlines a conceptual framework for participation that is centered on the concept of civil society failure and how it interacts with market and government failures. The authors use this framework to understand the key policy debates surrounding participatory development and to frame the key policy questions. The report conducts the most comprehensive review of the evidence on the impact of participatory projects to date, looking at more than 400 papers and books. The report argues that participatory development is most effective when it works within a 'sandwich' formed by support from an effective central state and bottom-up civic action. This report represents an important contribution. It has significant implications for how to improve participation in development interventions and for development policy more broadly.

Localizing Development: Does Participation Work?

accountable governments often fail to reflect the interests of disadvantaged minorities. This paper exploits the institutional features of political reservation, as practiced in Indian states, to examine the role of mandated political representation in providing disadvantaged groups influence over policy-making. Ifind that political reservation has increased transfers to groups which benefit from the mandate. This finding also suggests that complete policy commitment may be absent in democracies, as is found in this case. (JEL D72, D78, Hl 1, H50)

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Can Mandated Political Representation Increase Policy Influence for Disadvantaged Minorities? Theory and Evidence from India

Cable and satellite television have grown rapidly throughout the developing world. The availability of cable and satellite television exposes viewers to new information about the outside world, which may affect individual attitudes and behaviors. This paper explores the effect of the introduction of cable television on gender attitudes in rural India. Using a three-year individual-level panel dataset, we find that the introduction of cable television is associated with improvements in women's status. We find significant increases in reported autonomy, decreases in the reported acceptability of beating and decreases in reported son preference. We also find increases in female school enrollment and decreases in fertility (primarily via increased birth spacing). The effects are large, equivalent in some cases to about five years of education in the cross section, and move gender attitudes of individuals in rural areas much closer to those in urban areas. We argue that the results are not driven by pre-existing differential trends. These results have important policy implications, as India and other countries attempt to decrease bias against women.

The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women's Status in India

Cable and satellite television have grown rapidly throughout the developing world. The availability of cable and satellite television exposes viewers to new information about the outside world which may affect individual attitudes and behaviors. This paper explores the effect of the introduction of cable television on gender attitudes in rural India. Using a three-year individual-level panel dataset we find that the introduction of cable television is associated with improvements in womens status. We find significant increases in reported autonomy decreases in the reported acceptability of beating and decreases in reported son preference. We also find increases in female school enrollment and decreases in fertility (primarily via increased birth spacing). The effects are large equivalent in some cases to about five years of education in the cross section and move gender attitudes of individuals in rural areas much closer to those in urban areas. We argue that the results are not driven by pre-existing differential trends. These results have important policy implications as India and other countries attempt to decrease bias against women. (authors)

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This paper uses village and household survey data from South India to examine how political geography and politician identity impacts on public good provision. We provide evidence that the nature of this relationship varies by type of public good. For high spillover public goods residential proximity to elected representative matters. In contrast, for low spillover public goods sharing the politician’ s group identity is what matters. (JEL: D78, H40)

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The politics of public good provision: evidence from indian local governments

In revisiting the influential Dyson and Moore (1983) hypothesis as to why women in South India enjoy relatively more agency than in the North, we conducted an econometric analysis of the determinants of women's mobility and decisionmaking authority. Data for the study come from a household data survey carried out in the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh and in the Southern state of Karnataka in 1995. We find that cross-cousin and uncle-niece marriage is more prevalent in Karnataka as expected. Contrary to Dyson and Moore, however, by 1995 a majority of communities in both North and South practiced village exogamy, and dowries in the two regions were of similar size. Reduced-form, multivariate regressions show that cultural factors affect women's autonomy in ways not earlier predicted. The impact of village exogamy is mixed rather than negative, while that of consanguinity is strongly negative rather than positive as Dyson and Moore surmised. These authors correctly identified the negative effect purdah has on female mobility. Consistent with economic theory, our data show that higher wages for women consistently improve their mobility and authority, while higher male wages decrease them. Improvements in infrastructure–particularly the presence of street lights and schools in the village–are associated with increased women's agency. We conclude, therefore, that economic factors, state action, and restrictions on mobility seem more powerful than kinship structures as explanations of differences in female autonomy between North and South India.

https://vijayendrarao.org/papers/PDRDM.pdf

The Determinants of Gender Equity in India: Examining Dyson and Moore's Thesis with New Data

Between 1993 and April 1999 there was no minimum wage in the United Kingdom (except in agriculture). In this paper we study the effects of the introduction of a National Minimum Wage (NMW) in April 1999 on one heavily affected sector, the residential care homes industry. This sector contains a large number of low paid workers and as such can be viewed as being very vulnerable to minimum wage legislation. We look at the impact on both wages and employment. Our results suggest that the minimum wage raised the wages of a large number of care home workers, causing a very big wage compression of the lower end of the wage distribution, thereby strongly reducing wage inequality. There is some evidence of employment and hours reductions after the minimum wage introduction, though the estimated effects are not that sizable given how heavily the wage structure was affected.

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Where the Minimum Wage Bites Hard: Introduction of Minimum Wages to a Low Wage Sector

This paper examines the effects of alcohol prohibition on the consumption of alcohol and other addictive goods. Using a series of household expenditure surveys for India, it finds that alcohol prohibition had differential effects on alcohol consumption by alcohol type and sector. In particular prohibition reduced consumption of arrack, IMFL, and beer in both urban and rural sectors, although its impact on the rural sector was lower. In addition, prohibition reduced toddy consumption in urban households. The relationship between alcohol and other addictive goods is also examined using prohibition as an instrument for alcohol consumption. The results suggest significant associations between alcohol and these items with the direction of the relationship differing by alcohol type. Consequently prohibition also had spill-over effects on the consumption of these items and is associated with an increase in bidi and cigarette consumption and a decrease in leaf tobacco and pan consumption. Acknowledgements: I would like to thank my supervisor Timothy Besley, Robin Burgess, Markus Goldstein, Rohini Pande, Imran Rasul and seminar participants at the EOPP PhD Student Seminar, EUDN Autumn Workshop, and Public Economics Working Group Meeting for guidance and helpful comments. All errors remain my own.

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Alcohol Prohibition and Addictive Consumption in India

Between 1993 and April 1999 there was no minimum wage in the United Kingdom (except in agriculture). In this paper we study the effects of the introduction of a National Minimum Wage (NMW) in April 1999 on one heavily affected sector, the residential care homes industry. This sector contains a large number of low paid workers and as such can be viewed as being very vulnerable to minimum wage legislation. We look at the impact on both wages and employment. Our results suggest that the minimum wage raised the wages of a large number of care home workers, causing a very big wage compression of the lower end of the wage distribution, thereby strongly reducing wage inequality. There is some evidence of employment and hours reductions after the minimum wage introduction, though the estimated effects are not that sizable given how heavily the wage structure was affected

Lupin Rahman

Papers

The politics of public good provision: evidence from indian local governments

The Determinants of Gender Equity in India: Examining Dyson and Moore's Thesis with New Data

Where the Minimum Wage Bites Hard: Introduction of Minimum Wages to a Low Wage Sector

Alcohol Prohibition and Addictive Consumption in India

Where the minimum wage bites hard : the introduction of the UK national minimum wage to a low wage sector