世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

A Treatise on the Family

Offering a unifying theoretical perspective not readily available in any other text, this innovative guide to econometrics uses simple geometrical arguments to develop students' intuitive understanding of basic and advanced topics, emphasizing throughout the practical applications of modern theory and nonlinear techniques of estimation. One theme of the text is the use of artificial regressions for estimation, reference, and specification testing of nonlinear models, including diagnostic tests for parameter constancy, serial correlation, heteroscedasticity, and other types of mis-specification. Explaining how estimates can be obtained and tests can be carried out, the authors go beyond a mere algebraic description to one that can be easily translated into the commands of a standard econometric software package. Covering an unprecedented range of problems with a consistent emphasis on those that arise in applied work, this accessible and coherent guide to the most vital topics in econometrics today is indispensable for advanced students of econometrics and students of statistics interested in regression and related topics. It will also suit practising econometricians who want to update their skills. Flexibly designed to accommodate a variety of course levels, it offers both complete coverage of the basic material and separate chapters on areas of specialized interest.

Estimation and Inference in Econometrics

Decades ago, discussion of an impending global pandemic of obesity was thought of as heresy. But in the 1970s, diets began to shift towards increased reliance upon processed foods, increased away-from-home food intake, and increased use of edible oils and sugar-sweetened beverages. Reductions in physical activity and increases in sedentary behavior began to be seen as well. The negative effects of these changes began to be recognized in the early 1990s, primarily in low- and middle-income populations, but they did not become clearly acknowledged until diabetes, hypertension, and obesity began to dominate the globe. Now, rapid increases in the rates of obesity and overweight are widely documented, from urban and rural areas in the poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to populations in countries with higher income levels. Concurrent rapid shifts in diet and activity are well documented as well. An array of large-scale programmatic and policy measures are being explored in a few countries; however, few countries are engaged in serious efforts to prevent the serious dietary challenges being faced.

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Global nutrition transition and the pandemic of obesity in developing countries

We investigate conditions sufficient for identification of average treatment effects using instrumental variables. First we show that the existence of valid instruments is not sufficient to identify any meaningful average treatment effect. We then establish that the combination of an instrument and a condition on the relation between the instrument and the participation status is sufficient for identification of a local average treatment effect for those who can be induced to change their participation status by changing the value of the instrument. Finally we derive the probability limit of the standard IV estimator under these conditions. It is seen to be a weighted average of local average treatment effects.

Evolution and Rationality Some Recent Game-Theoretic Results. Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects

In this article we address a gap in our understanding of how household agricultural production diversity affects the diets and nutrition of young children living in rural farming communities in sub...

If They Grow It, Will They Eat and Grow? Evidence from Zambia on Agricultural Diversity and Child Undernutrition

In this paper we examine which farmers would be early entrants into weather-index insurance markets in Ethiopia, were such markets to develop on a large scale. We do this by examining the determinants of willingness to pay for weather insurance among 1400 Ethiopian households that have been tracked for 15 years as part of the Ethiopian Rural household Survey. This provides both historical and current information with which to assess the determinants of demand. We find that educated, rich and proactive individuals are more likely to purchase insurance. Risk aversion is associated with low insurance take-up suggesting that models of technology adoption can inform the purchase and spread of weather index insurance. We also assess how willingness to pay varied as two key characteristics of the contract were varied and found that basis risk reduces demand for insurance particularly when the price of the contract is high, and that provision of insurance through groups is preferred by female headed households and individuals with lower levels of education.

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Adoption of Weather-Index Insurance: Learning from Willingness to Pay Among a Panel of Households in Rural Ethiopia

http://essp.ifpri.info/files/2011/02/ESSP2_WP27_WeatherIndexInsurance.pdf

Adoption of weather-index insurance: learning from willingness to pay among a panel of households in rural Ethiopia

There is growing interest in the role of policy reforms to promote gender equality and empower women, two key objectives of development policy. From a policy perspective, it would be ideal for reforms undertaken in different policy areas to be consistent, so that they reinforce each other in improving gender equity. We use data from the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey (ERHS) to show how two seemingly unrelated reforms — community-based land registration, undertaken since 2003, and changes in the Family Code implemented in 2000 — may have created conditions for mutually reinforcing gender-sensitive reforms. Our analysis confirms previous studies’ findings of gender gaps in awareness and information about the land registration process. Male-headed households are, on average, more likely to have heard about the process, to have attended meetings (and a greater number of meetings), and to have received some written material with information about the process. Having female members in the Land Administration Committee (LAC) has a positive impact on attendance at meetings relating to land registration. In our analysis of the changes in the family law, we find that awareness about the land registration process is positively correlated with the shift in perceptions toward equal division of land and livestock upon divorce. The presence of female members in the LAC also has a positive effect on the shift in perceptions toward a more equal division of assets upon divorce. Taken together, these findings suggest that the land registration process and the reform of the Family Code may have mutually reinforcing effects on women’s rights and welfare. While this example is obviously rooted in the Ethiopian context, it raises the possibility that similar reform efforts may be complementary in other countries as well.

/pdf/policy-reform-toward-gender-equality-in-ethiopia-little-by-330d3dvjk4.pdf

Policy Reform toward Gender Equality in Ethiopia Little by Little the Egg Begins to Walk

This paper assesses long-term impacts of early adoption of vegetable and polyculture fish production technologies on household and individual well-being in Bangladesh. In 1996–1997 and 2006–2007, a panel of households were surveyed in three sites where non-governmental organisations and extension programmes disseminated agricultural technologies. Using nearest-neighbour matching to construct a statistical comparison group, the authors find that long-term impacts differ across agricultural technology interventions and across outcomes. Long-term impacts on household-level consumption expenditures and asset accumulation are, in general, insignificant in the improved vegetables sites, but are positive and significant in the individually operated fish ponds sites. However, the impacts on individual nutrient intake, nutrient adequacy, and nutritional status do not follow the pattern of household-level impacts. Differences in long-term and short-term impacts arise from several causes: differences in disseminatio...

Neha Kumar

Papers

If They Grow It, Will They Eat and Grow? Evidence from Zambia on Agricultural Diversity and Child Undernutrition

Adoption of Weather-Index Insurance: Learning from Willingness to Pay Among a Panel of Households in Rural Ethiopia

Adoption of weather-index insurance: learning from willingness to pay among a panel of households in rural Ethiopia

Policy Reform toward Gender Equality in Ethiopia Little by Little the Egg Begins to Walk

Access, adoption, and diffusion: understanding the long-term impacts of improved vegetable and fish technologies in Bangladesh