Showing papers in "Economic Development and Cultural Change in 1997"

Female-Headed Households and Female-Maintained Families: Are They Worth Targeting to Reduce Poverty in Developing Countries?

Abstract: Controversy exists over whether to target public- and private-sector programs to female-headed households in developing countries in the attempt to combat poverty and social disadvantage. The issues related to the definition and measurement of female headship and the importance of the concept for development policy are discussed. A systematic review is then presented of the empirical evidence on the relation between female headship and poverty. If female-headed households tend to be poorer on average than other households headship should seriously be considered as a potentially useful criterion for targeting antipoverty interventions especially in developing countries where means testing is not feasible. The authors examine the potential costs and benefits of targeting female headship and review the experience of Chile one of the few countries which has targeted female headship through government intervention and the only one which has evaluation data available. The analysis of the project experience is used along with a review of the empirical evidence to answer the question of the desirability and efficiency of targeting female headship in order to reduce poverty in developing countries.

Formal Measures of the Informal-Sector Wage Gap in Mexico, El Salvador, and Peru*

Abstract: Using comparable micro-level data from three countries, we ask what type of person works in the informal sector and whether informal workers earn lower wages than observationally equivalent workers in the formal sector. The characteristics of informal workers are similar across countries. Surprisingly, when we control for these personal characteristics, we find a significant wage premium associated with formal employment in El Salvador and Peru but a premium associated with work in the informal sector in Mexico. A model of endogenous selection offers little help in explaining the differences in wage patterns. The research casts doubt on the received wisdom that the informal sector, always and everywhere, is a poorly-paid but easily- entered refuge for those who have no other employment opportunities.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Colonist Land-Allocation Decisions, Land Use, and Deforestation in the Ecuadorian Amazon Frontier*

Abstract: As one of the last agricultural frontiers of the humid tropics, Amazonia is the largest area of the world currently undergoing frontier settlement. Although the earliest intrusions of foreign populations into Amazonia date from pre-Hispanic times, the large-scale entrance of peasant colonists into the vast region is a recent phenomenon. Much of this movement represents the spontaneous migration of peoples, but governments in the region have also become increasingly interested in opening up and integrating Amazonia to national and international economies. These actions are frequently seen as potential solutions to a number of national problems, including the need to increase agricultural production, correct spatial imbalances in the distribution of population, exploit frontier lands for reasons of national security, and defuse potentially serious political problems resulting from the existing agrarian structure, landlessness, and unemployment. The upper basin of the Amazon in Ecuador, bordering on the eastern slopes of the Andes, is one such area of frontier settlement. Recent decades have witnessed the rapid conversion of these Amazonian forests to agricultural uses through a series of schemes bearing such labels as land development and colonization. Most forest intervention in the region has come at the hands of colonist farmers attempting to establish land claims along transport routes originally constructed to aid in petroleum exploration and exploitation. These are farmers who formerly have made a living in long-established farmlands and who, for various reasons (population pressures, pervasive poverty, maldistribution of farmland, lack of inputs for intensive cultivation, lack of nonagrarian livelihood opportunities, and generally inadequate rural development) have been increasingly squeezed out of their homelands. A marginal person by virtue of his low socioeconomic and political status, the farmer often perceives

Schooling Attainment, Parental Education, and Gender in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana

Abstract: This study examines the determinants of human capital investment in male and female childrens schooling in Cote dIvoire and Ghana. Data were obtained from the Living Standards Survey in 1985 1986 1987 in Cote dIvoire and in 1987-88 and 1988-89 in Ghana. The mean schooling attainment of parents and children in the sample was 3.61 years for men and 1.91 years for women in Cote dIvoire and about 5 years for men and 3 years for women in Ghana. Younger cohorts had more schooling and their parents had more education than older cohorts. In recent cohorts the greatest improvements were for females at the middle-school level in Cote dIvoire and for males at the post-middle-school level in Ghana. Income growth increased schooling especially for girls in Cote dIvoire and for boys in Ghana. Urbanization is expected to be a significant factor in the future in both countries. The analytical model is based on the human capital theory and household production model of G.S. Becker on investment in education and the benefits. Findings indicate that parents education had a significant influence on the educational achievement of male and female children. Fathers education was more important than mothers education in both countries for male and female education. The impact of parents education was larger for girls in Ghana and larger for boys in Cote dIvoire. Mothers education had a larger effect on daughters schooling attainment in Ghana. Parents were constrained by household income in both countries. Parental education at the primary level had larger effects in Cote dIvoire for both genders. Parental effects at the middle- and post-middle-school level were larger in Cote dIvoire only for male children. One standard deviation increase in fathers education increased his sons achievement by almost a year and his daughters by a smaller amount. Distance was a greater deterrent for girls than boys in Ghana.

Environment, Technology, and the Social Articulation of Risk in West African Agriculture

Abstract: two preoccupations are not mutually exclusive. Superficially, they share the common concern that liberalization is insufficient to resolve the subSaharan food crisis. At a deeper level, the two preoccupations are more intimately interrelated via the correspondence that links initial wealth to risk exposure and to behavior in both production and asset accumulation. A number of recent empirical studies of risk in low-income countries find that households are able to employ their accumulated assets to smooth consumption in the face of adverse agricultural production shocks. 3 Missing from these studies is explicit attention to the fact that the effective risk from which households insulate consumption is not that of production shocks directly, but of those shocks as socially articulated by institutions and property rights. This article explores the creation and distribution of effective risk, estimating how environment, technology, and social factors interact to construct it endogenously. 4 Put differently, this article develops the notion that the risk from which households ex post try to insulate consumption is not an immutable natural or technical feature of the landscape. As Michael Watt’s contrast between precolonial and colonial Nigeria forcefully demonstrates, the effective risk presented by an unchanged set of environmental and technical circumstances can

Gender and Education Impacts on Employment and Earnings in West Africa: Evidence From Guinea

Abstract: This study examines the determinants of labor force participation for men and women in Guinea for three sectors and for earnings. Employment includes self-employment private wage employment and public wage employment. Data were obtained from a survey of 1725 households in the capital city of Conakry in 1990. Labor force participation (LFP) was 40% for women aged 15-65 years and almost 100% for men aged 30-50 years. Men were engaged almost equally in all three sectors while women were mostly engaged in self-employment. Self-employed women tended to come from low-income households. All public sector employees were well-educated (about 10-12 years). Average levels of education among the self-employed were very low (2-3 years). In the private wage sector men averaged 5 years and women averaged 9 years of schooling. 47% of men and 59% of women in the public sector were in professional or managerial jobs. In the private sector over 50% of women were in professional managerial or clerical jobs compared to only 16% of men. Few women in the private sector were engaged in skilled trades or unskilled work. Most self-employed women and only 50% of men tended to work in retail trade. Migration during the past 5 years was positively associated with mens entry in self-employment and the private sector and negatively associated with their public sector employment. Determinants of womens self-employment included residence near commercial areas of the center city electricity in the house and work activity during the rainy season of April-September. Fulani and Malinke women were less likely to be self-employed. For women the benefits of education and experience declined after a certain level. Returns to schooling were high for both genders. Men earned more than women. There is a need to increase educational and employment opportunities for women.

Education and Off-Farm Work*

Abstract: An investigation is presented of the determinants of educational selectivity in a framework that emphasizes the coordination of household members. Sectoral time allocation is based on members' comparative advantage, which in turn depends on the utilization and returns to schooling in the farm and nonfarm sectors. Central to the model is a knowledge-spillover hypothesis that workers who participate in off-farm work may still contribute knowledge to farm management. Estimation of the model is based on cross-sectional Chinese farm household data collected in 1990 from 204 households in Sichuan province. It is concluded that schooling does not enhance labour productivity when carrying out routine tasks, that the contribution to farm efficiency by the most educated members is not affected by their non-farm participation, and that schooling increases labour market wage rates. These empirical results give comparative advantage for the better-educated farmers to work off the farm.

Female - headed households, poverty, and the welfare of children in urban Brazil

Abstract: This study describes female-headed households and analyzes the determinants of poverty among these households and the consequences for children. Data are obtained from the Brazilian Pesquisa National por Amostra de Domicilios (PNAD) for mostly 1984 and some other years. Historically Brazil has always had a large proportion of female headed households in part due to the plantation culture and the need for male labor migration to plantations. This study focuses on households in Recife Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre. These metro areas reflect a variety of socioeconomic conditions. Two alternative definitions of headship are compared and caution is urged in using too narrow a concept of headship in situations such as in this study where households depend upon more than one income earner. Income levels varied across the three regions. Mean income in Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre was similar. Income in Recife was much lower. There were more female headed households per capita in Recife. The general trend was that the lower the relative income the higher the likelihood of being a female headed household. Female headed households with minors and Moynihan-type households had the greatest proportion in the lower income groups. It is concluded that 1) female headships were heterogenous; 2) the extent of poverty of female headed households varied by region and was the greatest in the northeast; and 3) female headed households were poorer because females earned less than males. Lower female income was related to lower hours worked and the tendency of women to work in occupations that paid lower salaries or to hold low status occupations. Employers were faulted for failing to hire women for higher paying jobs or to pay salaries on par with male counterparts. Single-mother headed households in urban areas were 3.4% of households but these households with children tended to be poor and were designated a vulnerable group. Not all female headed households were vulnerable particularly those in the south. Interventions should be targeted at children who are most at risk for poor school attendance at ages 10-14 years in poor female headed households. Children were worse off in Recife where there was a stronger association between poverty and female headship. Only children in female headed households had decreased school attendance with increasing age. The analysis of the poverty effect on children indicated different impacts in each metro area.

Market Transition, Government Policies, and Interprovincial Migration in China: 1983-1988

Abstract: A 10% random sample of China 1988 2/1000 Fertility and Birth Control Survey data was analyzed to determine to what extent Chinas transition to a market economy affects migration patterns in the country and to what extent the government policy of establishing rural enterprises reduced migration from rural areas. The survey was conducted by Chinas State Family Planning Commission in July-August 1988 and covered a nationally representative sample of individuals aged 15-64 years at the time of the survey. Data were collected on interprovincial migration trends for all members in the households surveyed. The study findings concerning individual-level characteristics of interprovincial migration during 1983-88 are consistent with previous research in China and in other developing countries. However unique to the findings for China is the effect of province-level characteristics. Individuals are more likely to move out of provinces with a large population and a lower level of economic development. This phenomenon is in line with classic arguments about migration and economic development. Foreign investment slightly reduces migration out of provinces receiving investment with migrants being more likely to choose provinces with high levels of foreign capital investment as destinations. Foreign investment leads to both direct job opportunities and secondary opportunities created by economic growth.

Genetic Resources, International Organizations, and Improvement in Rice Varieties*

Abstract: Improvement in varieties has helped spur enormous gains in rice productivity over the past several decades. Improved cultivars have been developed using genetic resources from the two cultivated species of rice (Oryza sativa and Oryza glaberrima) and from a few of the approximately 20 wild species of rice. These cultivars were obtained by shuffling and mixing the available pool of rice genes, known as germplasm. In this article we investigate to what extent specific international organizations and programs have spurred improvements in rice varieties. In addition, we assign value to an international collection of rice germplasm based on its contribution to improvement and productivity growth of rice varieties. For many centuries, improvement of rice varieties occurred slowly as the result of natural selection and seed-saving practices by farmers. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, however, new varieties have been created by scientists working at agricultural experiment stations, and over the past 45 years the pace of improvement in rice varieties has dramatically increased. Since 1960, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), located in the Philippines, has played a key role in worldwide efforts to develop improved varieties of rice. The institute has a number of programs to facilitate rice genetic improvement. The institute’s own plant-breeding program (IRPB) produces improved cultivars, both in the form of ‘‘varieties’’ that are ready for use in farmers’ fields and in the form of ‘‘advanced lines’’ suited for use as parent material in national plant-breeding programs. The International Rice Research Institute maintains an international collection of rice genetic resources (IRGC) designed to preserve

On the Intersectoral Migration of Agricultural Labor

Abstract: Labor is the single most important factor in determining national income. As economies grow, agricultural labor declines as a share of total labor and converges to a level of 2 or 3 percent. Off-farm migration facilitates the development of nonagriculture, but historically the process spans decades. The authors argue that the pace of the process is a fundamental outcome of a dynamic equilibrium based on expectations of lifetime earnings and the cost of migration. The authors present an empirical model of the determinants of intersectoral migration. One fundamental determinant is income differences across sectors. As such, migration should stop when income differences reach a certain level. The authors provide a method of measuring the level at which intersectoral migration will cease. While there are credible reasons for a permanent difference to exist between sectoral incomes, the authors find no empirical evidence of a permanent wedge.

Aggregate Agricultural Supply Response in Developing Countries: A Survey of Selected Issues

Abstract: The authors review several studies of the aggregate agricultural supply response. Using both economic and econometric reasons, they argue that time series estimation typically generates a downward-biased estimate of the response to a credible reform. Even though time series estimates can provide an accurate picture of past behavoiral relations, they do not provide an adequate basis for forecasting the impact of policy reform. This is especially true in developing countries, where policy reforms involve large changes and have included agricultural price reform, industrial trade liberalization, financial sector reform, and macroeconomic stabilization. Under those circumstances, parameters values obtained under the former policy regime have little relevance in the new regime. The authors also argue that investment in public goods should be viewed as complementary to, not competitive with, price policy. They claim that to select the policy with the biggest impact on output makes no sense. They provide what they consider to be better criteria for choosing the best from alternative policies.

Mobility and Labor Market Segmentation: The Urban Labor Market in El Salvador

Abstract: There is now a large literature examining the hypothesis that there are barriers to mobility between sectors of the labor market in developing countries. Though there are many explanations for barriers to mobility, most versions of the segmented labor market hypothesis are based on restricted access to a higher-wage primary, or formal, sector, and free access to a lower-wage secondary, or informal, sector. The testable predictions of the hypothesis are the implications of the assumption of excess supply to the primary sector. Most studies have found results consistent with these predictions, including different structures of wages between sectors, lower returns to human capital in the secondary sector, and lower job tenure by sectors for some demographic groups. But, as several authors have recently noted, it is difficult to distinguish this hypothesis from other competitive explanations for these patterns; the competitive model is also consistent with the testable predictions of the segmented labor market hypothesis. Though the competitive model is consistent with the observed patterns, the observed patterns do put restrictions on the version of the competitive model that is appropriate for developing countries. For example, the finding that earnings tend to be lower in the informal sector is consistent with compensating differentials, but this applies only to compensating differentials that are based on formal-sector employment as being less desirable (such as job flexibility). Similarly, the finding of lower returns to human capital in the informal sector is consistent with life-cycle models of investment in human capital, but only models in which there is lower labor market attachment of those employed in an informal sector and, thus, less time to recuperate investments in on-the-job training. But most of the necessary assumptions are reasonable, and, as a result, tests of the segmented labor market hypothesis cannot distinguish among competing explanations.

Explaining Child Nutrition in Vietnam

Abstract: UNICEF has written that widespread malnutrition in Vietnam stems not from the insufficient production of food but from problems of availability distribution and demand. The authors estimated two models of child nutrition using data from a representative and relatively large sample of Vietnamese households surveyed in 1992-93. No evidence was found of gender bias in nutrition for either stunting or wasting. These findings are consistent with the lack of gender bias in Vietnam in providing health care and education to preteen children. Birth order and mother and fathers education are however important with the effect of education remaining even when income is included in the regression equations. The effect of education upon nutrition therefore appears to work directly rather than through its influence upon income. Families in the northern regions rural households and families belonging to ethnic minority groups have significantly higher levels of malnutrition than do those elsewhere in the country.

The Limits to Land Reform: The Land Acts in Ireland, 1870-1909*

Abstract: Ireland experienced two great waves of land reform during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Land reform was a central demand of Irish political factions of the time and by acceding to this demand successive British governments hoped to pacify Ireland. This article reconsiders the economic significance of the several Irish land-reform measures by examining them in the context of economic theory and by comparing them to other land-reform episodes in currently developing countries and in European history. The Irish reforms contained little that could better the allocation of resources and so had little impact on economic efficiency, even though the end result was the creation of a class of peasant proprietors operating in a free market. The analysis focuses on the structure of the laws and their relation to Irish institutions, although we also discuss the aggregate evidence on the evolution of agricultural efficiency following the reforms. Moreover, the Irish legislation missed an important opportunity to improve smallholders’ access to credit. Some facets of the land legislation, interacting with some unusual institutional features of land tenure in Ireland, made credit conditions worse. Land reform in Ireland was much more a wealth-redistribution program financed by Britain than a serious effort to improve the efficiency of agriculture. Land tenure and land reform occupy central roles in both the history and historiography of the political struggles that culminated in the partition of Ireland in the 1920s. Successive waves of Irish politicians sought to harness essentially nationalist ambitions to the more mundane dissatisfactions of the Irish farmer, convincing the latter that economic prosperity required alterations to or complete abolition of an agrarian system

Export performance and enterprise reform in China's coastal provinces

Abstract: In the past 15 years, China’s exports have grown at an average of 13% per annum, equaling the most successful Asian economies. The pace of this growth has actually increased in the past 3 years to approximately 20% per annum, and this strong performance looks set to continue for several more years. A number of excellent studies have examined China’s trade policy reforms which moved the country from near autarchy pre-1978 to export-oriented growth in the 1980s and 1990s. However, China’s export performance has not been uniform across provinces or ownership forms. As shown in table 2, just six coastal provinces, Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, and Fujian, produced 74% of China’s exports in 1994. Furthermore, over two-thirds of China’s export growth has come from the dynamic nonstate sector. In order to sustain and expand its export performance and spread the benefits throughout the economy, it is important that all provinces, sectors, and ownership forms are able to participate in trade in accordance with their comparative advantage. In this study I attempt to identify some of the major sources of and obstacles to export success in China’s provinces and enterprises. I assess which enterprise, trade, foreign exchange regime, and capital market reform policies have been most important in explaining enterprises’ export performance. The impact of export performance on enterprises’ productivity growth is also examined as one measure of the benefits of export orientation. In addition, the domestic resource cost ratios of exporting enterprises in different provinces and with varying ownership structures are compared as a measure of the financial benefit to China from enterprises’ export activities. The next section of this article provides a brief overview of China’s trade performance, the nature of its trade regime, and relevant reforms

Demand-Side and Supply-Side Explanations for Barriers to Labor Market Mobility in Developing Countries: The Case of Guatemala

Abstract: The hypothesis of labor market segmentation is based on the existence of barriers to mobility between jobs. Because of these barriers, wages of workers with similar characteristics are different from wages that would result from competition.' Though the labor market segmentation hypothesis concerns mobility and access, there have been few direct tests of the existence of restricted mobility in the labor market. Rather, tests of labor market segmentation have focused on the presumed effects of restricted mobility. In particular, the presence of different reward structures across sectors is viewed as support for the segmentation hypothesis. As a result, much of the literature has concentrated on the appropriate comparison of the wages of workers by including controls for observable and unobservable characteristics.

When Capitalists Collide

Abstract: The World Development Report 1993 (WDR), on Investing in Health, represents a major contribution to the field of health and development. At a time when the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN agency with the most direct mandate in health, seems to have lost its organizational compass, the World Bank has asserted its discovery of the right compass for health development and the method for using that compass. Moreover, the World Bank is willing to loan money to countries to use its compass. The deal is hard to resist. The 1993 WDR can be read as the user’s manual for the World Bank’s new health compass, and like any user’s manual, the 1993 WDR has its accomplishments and its problems. First, the accomplishments. Simply put, the 1993 WDR has changed the terms of discourse in international health development. While the director general of the WHO has presented a ‘‘new paradigm,’’ which is difficult to comprehend and even more difficult to apply to a specific problem, the World Bank has proposed a universal method to set health policy priorities for all countries. It is hard to think of a recent WHO publication with similar impact on thinking about health policy priorities. Although many of the WHO staff participated in the technical analyses in the WDR, the document is widely perceived as a World Bank statement. But the 1993 WDR is more than a report; it presents a view on health development, a method for assessment, and an agenda for action. The WDR succinctly summarized its position as follows: ‘‘Priority should go to those health problems that cause a large disease burden and for which cost-effective interventions are available’’ (p. 63). The WDR calculates what it calls ‘‘the global burden of disease’’ using a new measure, the disability-adjusted life year (DALY), defined

A Comment on Rati Ram's Test of the Kuznets Hypothesis

Abstract: The Kuznets hypothesis—that income inequality initially increases with economic growth in low-income countries, and later decreases—has been a prominent but controversial tenet of development economics. In a recent article in this journal, Rati Ram claims to provide new support for the hypothesis in a cross section of country data. Indeed, Ram’s findings appear to provide strong evidence of an inverted-U relationship between income inequality (on the vertical axis) and average income (horizontal). However—as I argue in this comment—Ram’s test has little or no power for rejecting the hypothesis, and so his results are potentially deceptive. Ram follows the common practice of regressing an income-inequality measure (I) against a quadratic function of mean income (Y ). But he takes the unusual step of suppressing the intercept on the grounds that ‘‘when mean income is zero there would be perfect equality.’’ Ram’s regression is thus:

'Traditional Modernity' and the Economics of Handwoven Cloth Production in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract: These woven stuffs, of which the materials are native and which are entirely unadulterated, are particularly beautiful. One can follow the fabrication from the beginning; there is no outside intervention whatever. There is some talk of reforming it. What for? If it were taken up a little by fashionable people, this “homespun” might be at a premium in the market. (Andre Gide)1