World Institute for Development Economics Research

About: World Institute for Development Economics Research is a facility organization based out in Helsinki, Finland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Poverty & Population. The organization has 110 authors who have published 525 publications receiving 17316 citations.

Does Sorting Matter for Learning Inequality? Evidence from East Africa

Abstract: Inequalities in children’s learning are widely recognized to arise from variations in both household and school-related factors. While few studies have considered the role of sorting between schools and households, even fewer have quantified how much sorting contributes to educational inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. We fill this gap using data on over 1 million children from three East African countries. Applying a novel variance decomposition procedure, our results indicate that sorting of pupils across schools accounts for at least 8 percent of the total test-score variance, eqyuivalent to half a year of schooling or more. This contribution tends to be largest for children from families at the ends of the socio-economic spectrum. Empirical simulations of steady-state educational inequalities reveal that policies to mitigate the consequences of sorting could substantially reduce inequalities in education.

Non-economic Well-being Achievement in Pacific Asia

Abstract: It is well known that income per capita and most widely reported non-economic well-being achievement measures are highly correlated among countries. Yet many countries exhibit higher achievement in the latter than predicted by the former. The reverse is true for many other countries. This paper commences by extracting the inter-country variation in a composite of three widely reported educational and health status indicators not accounted for by variations in income per capita. This extraction is interpreted inter alia as a measure of non-economic well-being. Using data for a sample of Pacific Asian countries, the paper then looks at correlations between this extraction and a number of new or less widely-used well-being measures, in an attempt to find the measure that best captures these achievements.

Does sexual strategies theory help explain high violent crime in South Africa

Abstract: In sexual strategies theory (SST), risky behaviour such as crime is the outcome of males' sexual reproduction strategies. Using panel data from South Africa, one of the countries with the highest crime rates in the world, a random-effects GLS regression finds support for the SST as an explanation for violent crime.

Schooling and labour market impacts of Bolivia's Bono Juancito Pinto

Abstract: In 2006, the Bolivian government introduced a large-scale cash transfer programme, Bono Juancito Pinto (BJP). Exploiting the exogenous variation of the programme expansion, this paper examines the impact of BJP on schooling and child labour. The analysis suggests that the transfer increases the likelihood of school enrollment but has no sizeable effect on the incidence of child labour. The results are in line with theoretical models that predict that if leisure and schooling decisions are substitutes, a school incentive will have either positive or neutral effects on child labour. Our findings support previous evidence that schooling and work decisions are not perfect substitutes among children.