scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question

Showing papers by "World Institute for Development Economics Research published in 2016"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the physical and economic effects of changes in hydropower generation for the contiguous U.S. in futures with and without global-scale greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, and across patterns from 18 General Circulation Models are analyzed.

51 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluate the results of regional economic growth model estimations at multiple spatial scales using spatial panel data models and demonstrate that the estimated coefficients change with the scale level.
Abstract: The goal of this paper is to evaluate the results of regional economic growth model estimations at multiple spatial scales using spatial panel data models. The spatial scales examined are minimum comparable areas, microregions, mesoregions and states between 1970 and 2000. Alternative spatial panel data models with fixed effects were systematically estimated across those spatial scales to demonstrate that the estimated coefficients change with the scale level. The results show that the conclusions obtained from growth regressions depend on the choice of spatial scale. First, the values of spatial spillover coefficients vary according to the spatial scale under analysis. In general, such coefficients are statistically significant at the MCA, microregional and mesoregional levels, however, at state level those coefficients are no longer statistically significant, suggesting that spatial spillovers are bounded in space. Moreover, the positive average-years-of-schooling direct effect coefficient increases as more aggregate spatial scales are used. Population density coefficients show that higher populated areas are harmful to economic growth, indicating that congestion effects are operating in all spatial scales, but their magnitudes vary across geographic scales. Finally, the club convergence hypothesis cannot be rejected suggesting that there are differences in the convergence processes between the north and south in Brazil. Furthermore, the paper discusses the potential theoretical reasons for different results found across estimations at different spatial scales.

46 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The best available evidence points to food penury, driven by the food and fuel price crisis combined with a short agricultural production year, as substantially increasing malnutrition amongst under-five children in Mozambique.
Abstract: A propitiously timed household survey carried out in Mozambique over the period 2008/2009 permits us to study the relationship between shifts in food prices and child nutrition status in a low income setting. We focus on weight-for-height and weight-for-age in different survey quarters characterized by very different food price inflation rates. Using propensity score matching techniques, we find that these nutrition measures, which are sensitive in the short run, improve significantly in the fourth quarter of the survey, when the inflation rate for basic food products is low, compared to the first semester or three quarters, when food price inflation was generally high. The prevalence of underweight, in particular, falls by about 40 percent. We conclude that the best available evidence points to food penury, driven by the food and fuel price crisis combined with a short agricultural production year, as substantially increasing malnutrition amongst under-five children in Mozambique.

45 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The UNU-WIDER special issue of the Journal of International Development as mentioned in this paper comprises a set of papers on the theme of aid and gender equality, focusing on how well development assistance to countries and non-governmental organizations promotes gender equality and empowers women.
Abstract: This UNU-WIDER special issue of the Journal of International Development comprises a set of papers on the theme of aid and gender equality. While the topic of aid effectiveness has been examined in this journal and elsewhere, the focus on how well development assistance to countries and non-governmental organizations promotes gender equality and empowers women is relatively new. This special issue is the first to marshal quantitative evidence and case studies on several themes: (1) macroanalyses of aid effectiveness and gender equality; (2) the determinants of aid for gender equality and women's empowerment; and (3) gender issues related to aid for education, health, land administration, fragile states and climate finance. © 2016 UNU-WIDER. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

44 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The South African Revenue Service and National Treasury Firm-Level Panel as discussed by the authors is an unbalanced panel data set created by merging several sources of administrative tax data received during 2015, including company income tax from registered firms who submit tax forms, employee data from employee income tax certificates submitted by employers, value-added tax data from registered firm; and customs records from traders.
Abstract: The South African Revenue Service and National Treasury Firm-Level Panel is an unbalanced panel data set created by merging several sources of administrative tax data received during 2015. The four data sources that constitute the panel are: (i) company income tax from registered firms who submit tax forms; (ii) employee data from employee income tax certificates submitted by employers; (iii) value-added tax data from registered firms; and (iv) customs records from traders. These data sets constitute a significant and unique source for the study of firm-level behaviour in post-apartheid South Africa. We review the key data sources used to construct the panel, highlight some important questions that arise as a result of panel construction, discuss the biases in the resulting data, compare key aggregates in the panel to other data sources, and provide a descriptive overview of the tax records.

44 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors investigated the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of domestic Vietnamese firms and their engagement with foreign markets and found that both exporting and importing firms engage in more CSR activities.

42 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper used the ICTD UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset in order to challenge and extend existing findings on the relationship between tax structures and economic growth, in a panel of 100 countries.
Abstract: This study uses the ICTD UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset in order to challenge and extend existing findings on the relationship between tax structures and economic growth, in a panel of 100 countries. The results suggest that, broadly, revenue-neutral increases in income taxes are associated with lower long-run GDP growth and that revenue-neutral reductions in trade taxes have not always had positive effects. Crucially, many of the results presented differ according to income level, calling into question the validity of existing findings for developing countries and suggesting that policy advice on this issue in developing countries should be viewed through a more cautious lens. © 2018 UNU-WIDER. Journal of International Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

42 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors develop a sequential approach to link a bottom-up energy sector model to a detailed dynamic general equilibrium model of South Africa and conclude that a regional energy strategy, anchored in hydropower, represents a potentially inexpensive approach to decarbonizing the South African economy.

42 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A hedonic-type model is proposed that relates healthcare expenditure to the degree of residents' exposure to mining pollution using data obtained on gold mining in Ghana and finds that while healthcare expenditure does not vary between males and females, younger household heads spend more on their health than their older counterparts after controlling for health status, income and access to health insurance.

39 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the degree of selection of commercial farms into more favorable locations as well as the extent of heterogeneity in the effects of different commercial farming models on proximate smallholders.

30 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Practical guidance is provided both for quantitative scholars working with these measures and for qualitatively-inclined empiricists and normative theorists wishing to interpret, evaluate, or otherwise engage the quantitative research on the merits and demerits of diversity.
Abstract: An ever-expanding body of empirical research suggests that ethno-religious divisions adversely impact a host of normatively desirable objectives linked to the quality of life in society, implicitly representing a strong challenge to multiculturalist theory and policies. The appropriate conceptualization and measurement of ethno-religious divisions has consequently become the subject of complex methodological debate. This article unpacks some of this complexity and provides a synthetic critique of how eight key measures each capture the notion of divisions and relate to each other conceptually, theoretically, and empirically within a divided society. It explores simple proportions, fractionalization, polarization, cultural distance, segregation, cross-cuttingness, horizontal inequality, and intermarriage indicators. Furthermore, instead of presenting national-level temporal snapshots of divisions as in much work, it purposely examines how measures also perform at more localized levels of analysis and over time, drawing on individual-level census data from one deeply-divided society, Mindanao, in the Philippines. Analysis underscores four major issues to which researchers should pay more attention: the sensitivity of measures to (1) the underlying causal mechanisms linking divisions with outcomes; (2) the social forces and methodologies shaping the identification and categorization of groups; (3) the passage of time and evolution of divisions; and (4) the level of spatial analysis. The article provides practical guidance and discusses the key implications of these points both for quantitative scholars working with these measures and for qualitatively-inclined empiricists and normative theorists wishing to interpret, evaluate, or otherwise engage the quantitative research on the merits and demerits of diversity.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: measures are especially critical given the large scope and increased complexity of health services required and high-quality health services attract the public support that contributes to governments providing sustained financing.
Abstract: measures are especially critical given the large scope and increased complexity of health services required. The universal health coverage (UHC) target of the health SDG stipulates that everyone can obtain essential health services at high quality without suffering financial hardship, yet quality has not been widely tracked. 11 There is no benefit to UHC if people are un willing to use services due to the poor quality of the services for which they are financially covered. Even if people are accessing services, poor quality will undermine health outcomes, reducing the value of UHC. Finally, high-quality health services attract the public support that contributes to governments providing sustained financing.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Mozambique is one of the most promising African countries for producing bio-fuels and the national biofuel policy of 2009 identifies measures to incentivize biofuel production.
Abstract: Mozambique is one of the most promising African countries for producing biofuels and the national biofuel policy of 2009 identifies measures to incentivize biofuel production. Demand for biofuels i...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors quantifies the impact of agricultural commodity price shocks using a structural non-linear dynamic model and concludes that there is very little evidence that an unanticipated price increase (decrease) will lead to a significantly different response in per capita incomes.
Abstract: Commodity price shocks are an important type of external shock and are often cited as a problem for economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. We choose nine Sub-Saharan African countries that are heavily dependent on a single agricultural commodity for a significant portion of their income. This paper quantifies the impact of agricultural commodity price shocks using a structural non-linear dynamic model. The novel aspect of this study is that we determine whether the response of per capita GDP for the selected Sub-Saharan African countries is different to unexpected increases in agricultural commodity prices as opposed to decreases in prices. We conclude that there is very little evidence that an unanticipated price increase (decrease) will lead to a significantly different response in per capita incomes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors analyzed the economic effects of a unique counterinsurgency response to the Naxalite insurgency in India using the synthetic control method, and found that the effects on the manufacturing sector are particularly strong.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors estimate the recent evolution of global interpersonal inequality and examine the effect of omitted top incomes on the level and direction of global inequality, and find that the undersampling of the richest individuals in household surveys generate a downward bias in global inequality estimates that ranges between 15 per cent and 42 per cent.
Abstract: In this paper, we estimate the recent evolution of global interpersonal inequality and examine the effect of omitted top incomes on the level and direction of global inequality. We propose a methodology to estimate the truncation point of household surveys by combining information on income shares from household surveys and top income shares from tax data. The methodology relies on a flexible parametric functional form that models the income distribution for each country-year point under different assumptions on the omitted information at the right tail of the distribution. Goodness-of-fit results show a robust performance of our model, supporting the reliability of our estimates. Overall, we find that the undersampling of the richest individuals in household surveys generate a downward bias in global inequality estimates that ranges between 15 per cent and 42 per cent, depending on the period of analysis, and the assumed level of truncation of the income distribution.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the impact of vertical coordination options, namely, contract farming and vertical integration, on farm performance, which was measured in terms of yields and revenue per hectare.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a flexible parametric model is proposed to obtain a reliable representation of the income distribution and accurate estimates of inequality measures, which is used to estimate the recent evolution of global interpersonal inequality from 1990 to 2015 and to examine the effect of survey under-coverage of top incomes on the level and direction of global inequality.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors traces the evolution of the ideologies and narratives that have framed "development" since its post-Second World War inception, through growth and dependency, adjustment and human development, state to market, to more equitable and globally supported sustainable development strategies required for the post-2015 decades.
Abstract: This article traces the evolution of the ideologies and narratives that have framed ‘development’ since its post-Second World War inception, through growth and dependency, adjustment and human development, state to market, to more equitable and globally supported sustainable development strategies required for the post-2015 decades. It analyses the ideas that became the main contributors to a multipolar and still contested narrative of national and global development, highlighting what can be learned from the process that led to current perspectives and goals for sustainable development. The article focuses especially on contributions by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and its global partners, both as critic of dominant orthodoxies and as creator or supporter of alternatives. It ends with reflections on the adequacy of the current narratives and perspectives in light of the challenges facing a multipolar, interconnected and interdependent world, and conclusions about future directions for thinking,action and research.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the impacts of the financial, food and fuel crises on poor and vulnerable households in two states of Nigeria: Lagos and Kano, using retrospective household-level data to analyze the impact of induced price variability on household welfare.
Abstract: This article examines the impacts of the financial, food and fuel crises on poor and vulnerable households in two states of Nigeria: Lagos and Kano. It uses retrospective household‐level data to analyze the impacts of induced price variability on household welfare. The results indicate that aggregate shocks have significant adverse effects on household consumption, schooling and child labour decisions, with a degree of impact heterogeneity across regions and rural and urban areas of the country. We find that the coping strategies adopted by the poor to deal with the short‐term effects of the crises can lock households in a low‐income equilibrium or poverty trap. Provided that covariate shocks exacerbate these effects, they become central for policy design.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a variant of the house allocation with existing tenants problem where subjects are partitioned into tiers with hierarchical privileges, and they know their position in the priority queue before making their decision, was studied in the laboratory.
Abstract: We study in the laboratory a variant of the house allocation with existing tenants problem where subjects are partitioned into tiers with hierarchical privileges, and they know their position in the priority queue before making their decision. We evaluate the performance of the modified versions of three well-known mechanisms: Top Trading Cycle (TTC), Gale-Shapley, and Random Serial Dictatorship (RSD) with Squatting Rights. For all three mechanisms, we find low rates of participation (around 40%), high rates of truth-telling conditional on participation (around 90%), high proportions of fair allocations (above 90%), and significant efficiency losses. We also observe differences across mechanisms: RSD is ranked highest in efficiency and TTC is ranked lowest in fairness. We then show that position in the queue has a positive and significant impact on participation whereas tier has little effect on behavior. Finally, the individual analysis reveals that the majority of subjects who do not play according to the theory still follow discernible patterns of participation and preference revelation.



Posted Content
TL;DR: This paper constructed a disaggregated net financial wealth data set for the OECD and some emerging markets countries and found that since the beginning of 1990s, the net wealth positions of countries have developed differently.
Abstract: In this paper, we construct a new disaggregated net financial wealth data set for the OECD and some emerging markets countries. We find that since the beginning of 1990s, the net wealth positions of countries have developed differently. First, for a group of central and northern European countries, as well as Canada and Japan, improvements in private sector net financial wealth have resulted in improvements in net national financial wealth despite worsening public sector net wealth positions. Second, in the crisis-ridden countries of Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Greece and Spain, private sector net wealth position improvements have not compensated for deteriorating public sector situations. Third, the net financial wealth of post-communist transition economies decreased over the sample period due to worsening private sector positions, public sector positions, or both. However, this pattern has recently changed in most post-communist states.

Posted Content
TL;DR: The authors found that the consistency of risk attitudes across the tasks depends on gender of the subject, quantitative skills, father's education level, and dispositional factors such as locus of control and Big Five personality traits.
Abstract: Field constraints often necessitate choosing an elicitation task that is intuitive, easy to explain, and simple to implement. Given that subject behavior often differs dramatically across tasks when eliciting risk preferences, caution needs to be exercised in choosing one risk elicitation task over another in the face of field constraints. We compare behavior in the simple most investment game (Gneezy and Potters 1997) and the ordered lottery choice game (Eckel and Grossman 2002) to evaluate whether the simpler task allows us to elicit attitudes consistent with those elicited from the ordered lottery task. Using a sample of over 2000 Indian undergraduate students, we find risk attitudes to be fairly stable across the two tasks. Our results further indicate that the consistency of risk attitudes across the tasks depends on gender of the subject, quantitative skills, father's education level, and dispositional factors such as locus of control and Big Five personality traits.