| 11. |
- Björkman Nyqvist, Martina
(författare)
-
Income shocks and gender gaps in education : Evidence from Uganda
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier. - 0304-3878. ; 105, s. 237-253
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper uses exogenous variation in rainfall across districts in Uganda to estimate the causal effects of household income shocks on children's enrollment and academic performance conditional on gender. I find negative deviations in rainfall from the long-term mean to have negative and highly significant effects on female enrollment in primary schools and the effect grows stronger for older girls. I find no effect of rainfall variation on the enrollment of boys and young girls. Moreover, I find that when schooling is free of charge and both marginal boys and girls are enrolled, a negative income shock has an adverse effect on the test scores of female students while boys are not affected. The results imply that households respond to income shocks by varying the amount of schooling and resources provided to girls while boys are to a large extent sheltered - a finding consistent with a model where parents' values of child labor differ across sexes.
|
|
| 12. |
- Björkman Nyqvist, Martina, et al.
(författare)
-
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s learning and wellbeing : Evidence from India
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier Ltd. - 1872-6089 .- 0304-3878. ; 164
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated school closure on primary school children’s learning and mental wellbeing in Assam, India. Using a comprehensive dataset that tracked and repeatedly surveyed approximately 5000 children across 200 schools between 2018 and 2022, we find that children lost the equivalent of nine months of learning in mathematics and eleven months in language, during the pandemic. Children lacking resources and parental support experienced the largest losses. Regular practice, teacher interaction, and technology were associated with less learning loss. Over the same period, children’s psychological wellbeing improved. Our research provides valuable insights for designing post-emergency programs. • During the pandemic primary school children in Assam lost 9–11 months of learning.• Children with fewer resources and support at home lost the most.• Teachers’ calls, regular practice, and technology were associated with smaller losses.• Children’s psychological well-being improved during the pandemic.
|
|
| 13. |
- Bonnier, Evelina, et al.
(författare)
-
Preparing for genocide : Quasi-experimental evidence from Rwanda
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 147
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper shows how state-controlled community meetings can facilitate large-scale mobilization of civilians into violence. We analyze a Rwandan community program that required citizens to participate in community work and political meetings every Saturday in the years before the 1994 genocide. We exploit cross-sectional variation in meeting intensity induced by exogenous weather fluctuations, and find that a one standard-deviation increase in the number of rainy Saturdays before the genocide decreased civilian violence by 17 percent. We find evidence that the meetings provided an arena for local elites to spread propaganda and bring people together. In research and policy, community meetings are often treated as positive, community building forces. Our results indicate that they can also lead to negative outcomes. This should, however, not suggest that such meetings are inherently destructive. Instead, community meetings should be understood as powerful tools and their effects depend on the political intention of the leaders.
|
|
| 14. |
- Burchardi, Konrad B., et al.
(författare)
-
Testing willingness to pay elicitation mechanisms in the field : Evidence from Uganda
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 152
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Researchers frequently use variants of the Becker–DeGroot–Marschak (BDM) mechanism to elicit willingness to pay (WTP). These variants involve numerous incentive-irrelevant design choices, some of which carry advantages for implementation but may deteriorate participant comprehension or trust in the mechanism, which are well-known problems with the BDM. We highlight three such features and test them in the field in rural Uganda, a relevant population for many recent applications. Comprehension is very high, and 86 percent of participants bid optimally for an induced-value voucher, with little variation across treatments. This gives confidence for similar applications, and suggests the comprehension-expediency trade-off is mild.
|
|
| 15. |
- Clay, Karen, et al.
(författare)
-
Controlling tuberculosis? Evidence from the first community-wide health experiment
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 146, s. 102510-102510
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper studies the immediate and long-run health effects of the first community-based health intervention in the world – the Framingham Health and Tuberculosis Demonstration, 1917–1923. The official evaluation committee and the historical narrative suggest that the Demonstration was highly successful in controlling tuberculosis and reducing mortality. Using newly digitized annual cause-of-death data for municipalities in Massachusetts, 1901–1934, and different empirical strategies, we find little evidence to support this positive assessment. Although we find that the Demonstration increased the identification of new TB case, this did not translate into reductions in tuberculosis mortality, total mortality, or infant mortality. This evidence contributes to an ongoing debate on whether public health interventions mattered for the historical decline in (tuberculosis) mortality prior to modern medicine and may help us to understand how to lower the burden of tuberculosis in the developing world today.
|
|
| 16. |
- Congdon Fors, Heather, 1975, et al.
(författare)
-
Changing local customs: The long run impacts of Christian missions on female genital cutting in Africa
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - 0304-3878. ; 166
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We investigate the long-run impacts of Christian missions on female genital cutting (FGC) in Africa. Our empirical analysis draws on historical data on the locations of early European missions geographically matched with Demographic and Health Survey data on FGC practices of around 410,000 respondents from 42 surveys performed over a 30-year period in 14 African countries. We use ethnographic data on pre-colonial FGC to show that the location of missions was not correlated with the practice of FGC in the local population. Our benchmark estimates imply that a person living 10 km from a historical mission is 4-6 percentage points less likely to have undergone FGC than someone living 100 km from a mission site. Similarly, an additional mission per 1000 km2 in one's ancestral ethnic homeland decreases the probability of having undergone FGC by around 8 percentage points. The effect is robust to numerous specifications and control variables.
|
|
| 17. |
- Cosar, Ahmet Kerem, et al.
(författare)
-
Domestic road infrastructure and international trade: Evidence from Turkey
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier. - 0304-3878. ; 118, s. 232-244
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Drawing on the large-scale public investment in roads undertaken in Turkey during the 2000s, this paper contributes to our understanding of how internal transportation infrastructure affects regional access to international markets. Using data on international trade of Turkish provinces and the change in the capacity of the roads connecting them to the international gateways of the country, we estimate the distance elasticity of trade associated with roads of varying capacity. Three key results emerge. First, the cost of an average shipment over a high-capacity expressway is about 70% lower than it is over single-lane roads. Second, the present value of a 10-year stream of trade flows generated by a one-dollar investment in road infrastructure ranges between $0.7 and $2. Third, the reduction in transportation costs is greater the more transportation-sensitive an industry is. To the extent that efficient logistics enable countries to take part in global supply chains and exploit their comparative advantages, our findings have important developmental implications.
|
|
| 18. |
- de Quidt, Jonathan, et al.
(författare)
-
Commercialization and the decline of joint liability microcredit
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 134, s. 209-225
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Numerous authors point to a decline in joint liability microcredit, and rise in individual liability lending. But empirical evidence is lacking, and there have been no rigorous analyses of possible causes. We first show using the well-known MIX Market dataset that there is evidence for a decline. Second, we show theoretically that commercialization-an increase in competition and a shift from non-profit to for-profit lending (both of which are present in the data)-drives lenders to reduce their use of joint liability loan contracts. Third, we test the model's key predictions, and find support for them in the data.
|
|
| 19. |
- de Quidt, Jonathan, et al.
(författare)
-
Group lending without joint liability
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 121, s. 217-236
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper contrasts individual liability lending with and without groups to joint liability lending. We are motivated by an apparent shift away from the use of joint liability by microfinance institutions, combined with recent evidence that a) converting joint liability groups to individual-liability groups did not affect repayment rates, and b) an intervention that increased social capital in individual liability borrowing groups led to improved repayment performance. First, we show that individual lending with or without groups may constitute a welfare improvement over joint liability, so long as borrowers have sufficient social capital to sustain mutual insurance. Second, we explore how the lender's lower transaction costs in group lending can encourage insurance by reducing the amount borrowers have to pay to bail one another out. Third, we discuss how group meetings might encourage insurance, either by increasing the incentive to invest in social capital, or because the time spent in meetings can facilitate setting up insurance arrangements. Finally, we perform a simple simulation exercise, evaluating quantitatively the welfare impacts of alternative forms of lending and how they relate to social capital.
|
|
| 20. |
- Dequiedt, Vianney, et al.
(författare)
-
International migration, imperfect information, and brain drain
- 2013
-
Ingår i: Journal of Development Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3878 .- 1872-6089. ; 101, s. 62-78
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We consider a model of international migration where skills of workers are imperfectly observed by firms in the host country and where information asymmetries are more severe for immigrants. than for natives. Because of imperfect information, firms statistically dicriminate highly-skilled migrants by paying them at their expected productivity. The decision of whether to migrate or not depends on the proportion of highly-skilled workers among the migrants. The migration game exhibits strategic complementarities, which, because of standard coordination problems, lead to multiple equilibria. We characterize them and examine how international migration affects the income of individuals in sending and receiving countries, and of migrants themselves. We also analyze under which conditions there is positive or negative self-selection of migrants.
|
|
