World Bank

About: World Bank is a other organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poverty. The organization has 7813 authors who have published 21594 publications receiving 1198361 citations. The organization is also known as: World Bank, WB & The World Bank.

The Long-run Economic Costs of AIDS: Theory and an Application to South Africa ⁄

Abstract: Most existing estimates of the macroeconomic costs of AIDS, as measured by the reduction in the growth rate of gross domestic product, are modest. For Africa-the continent where the epidemic has hit the hardest-they range between 0.3 and 1.5 percent annually. The reason is that these estimates are based on an underlying assumption that the main effect of increased mortality is to relieve pressure on existing land and physical capital so that output per head is little affected. The authors argue that this emphasis is misplaced and that, with a more plausible view of how the economy functions over the long run, the economic costs of AIDS are almost certain to be much higher. Not only does AIDS destroy existing human capital, but by killing mostly young adults, it also weakens the mechanism through which knowledge and abilities are transmitted from one generation to the next. The children of AIDS victims will be left without one or both parents to love, raise, and educate them. The model yields the following results. In the absence of AIDS, the counterfactual benchmark, there is modest growth, with universal and complete education attained within three generations. But if nothing is done to combat the epidemic, a complete economic collapse will occur within three generations. With optimal spending on combating the disease, and if there is pooling, growth is maintained, albeit at a somewhat slower rate than in the benchmark case in the absence of AIDS. If pooling breaks down and is replaced by nuclear families, growth will be slower still. Indeed, if school attendance subsidies are not possible, growth will be distinctly sluggish. In all three cases, the additional fiscal burden of intervention will be large, which reinforces the gravity of the findings.

Corporate Governance Indices and Firms' Market Values: Time Series Evidence from Russia (Корпоративное управление и рыночная стоимость: анализ временных рядов данных российских компаний) (Russian translation of English article)

Abstract: This is a translation into Russian of an English language article The English language version is available at http://ssrncom/abstract=866988Краткое описание В настоящее время растет количество доказательств того, что широкие меры в сфере корпоративного управления на уровне отдельно взятой фирмы приводят к увеличению стоимости акций Однако все прежние работы по данной проблеме полагались на результаты межсекционного подхода Настоящая работа оставляет открытым вопрос о возможности того, что однородные или неиспользованные переменные на уровне отдельных компаний могут объяснить наблюдаемые корреляции Мы обращаемся ко второму вопросу, предлагая основанные на временных исследованиях доказательства, взятые из изучения российского опыта с 1999 г по настоящее время, с привлечением множества доступных временных рядов данных качества управления Мы полагаем экономически важным и статистически доказанным соотношение между качеством управления и рыночной стоимостью как в УЛП (упорядоченном линейном пространстве), так и в регрессиях устойчивых эффектов с индексом устойчивых эффектов на уровне отдельных компаний Все вышесказанное предполагает, что результаты межсекционного подхода могут оказаться недостоверными и не заслуживающими доверия Мы также установили существенные различия в том, насколько различные временные ряды данных могут оказывать влияние Также заслуживает внимания вопрос о том, как измеряется качество управленияEnglish abstract: There is increasing evidence that broad measures of firm-level corporate governance predict higher share prices However, almost all prior work relies on cross-sectional data This work leaves open the possibility that endogeneity or omitted firm-level variables explain the observed correlations We address the second possibility by offering time-series evidence from Russia for 1999-present, exploiting a number of available governance indices We find an economically important and statistically strong correlation between governance and market value both in OLS and in fixed effects regressions with firm-index fixed effects We also find large differences in coefficients and significance levels, including some sign reversals, between OLS and fixed effects specifications This suggests that cross-sectional results may be unreliable We also find significant differences in the predictive power of different indices, and in the components of these indices How one measures governance matters

Incentivising safe sex: a randomised trial of conditional cash transfers for HIV and sexually transmitted infection prevention in rural Tanzania

Abstract: Objective: The authors evaluated the use of conditional cash transfers as an HIV and sexually transmitted infection prevention strategy to incentivise safe sex. Design: An unblinded, individually randomised and controlled trial. Setting: 10 villages within the Kilombero/Ulanga districts of the Ifakara Health and Demographic Surveillance System in rural south-west Tanzania. Participants: The authors enrolled 2399 participants, aged 18e30 years, including adult spouses. Interventions: Participants were randomly assigned

Mis-specification in farm productivity analysis: the role of land quality

Abstract: A stylized fact of development literature is that there is an inverse relationship between farm size and land productivity. This has been interpreted to indicate that labor dualism is a pervasive phenomenon in the rural areas of developing countries. A large survey (1976-77) of Indian farm households is used to test the existence of the inverse relationship after accounting for farm-specific land quality factors. Such factors weaken significantly, and in many areas eliminate, the "observed" inverse relationship. Copyright 1988 by Royal Economic Society.