| 1. |
- Becker, Torbjörn, et al.
(författare)
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From abnormal to normal: Two tales of growth from 25 years of transition
- 2018
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Ingår i: Economics of Transition. - : Wiley: 24 months. - 1468-0351 .- 0967-0750. ; 26:4, s. 769-800
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We look at the growth experience of 25 transition countries over the 25years since the dissolution of the USSR. The initial collapse in income was much more severe in 12 former Soviet Union countries (FSU12) than in the 10 transition countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007 (EU10). In 2015, FSU12 income levels were further behind EU10 than they were at the start of transition, despite more rapid growth in the last 15years. Compared to predictions from a parsimonious growth model, the region as a whole is normal' in terms of growth performance since the 2000s. However, the FSU12 over-perform and the EU10 under-perform relative to model predictions for the last 15 years.
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| 2. |
- Bonnier, Evelina, et al.
(författare)
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Foreign Aid and Female Empowerment
- 2024
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Ingår i: Journal of Development Studies. - : Taylor & Francis. - 1743-9140 .- 0022-0388. ; 60:5, s. 662-684
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We estimate the community-level impact of foreign aid projects on women's empowerment in the country with the most complete recent record of geo-coded aid project placement, Malawi. Our estimates can thus be interpreted as the average impact of aid from many different donors and diverse projects. We find that aid in general has a positive impact, in particular on an index of female agency and women's sexual and fertility preferences. Gender-targeted aid has a further positive impact on women's sexual and fertility preferences , and more tentatively on an index focusing on gender-based violence. However, the positive impact of gender-targeted aid disappears in patrilineal communities, and men's attitudes towards female agency in the areas of sexuality and fertility are even negatively affected. This suggests that donors need to consider that the impact of aid on female empowerment can depend on the community context when they decide on aid project design and placement.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Desai, RM, et al.
(författare)
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Can the poor organize? Public goods and self-help groups in rural India
- 2019
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Ingår i: World Development. - : Elsevier. - 1873-5991 .- 1873-5991 .- 0305-750X. ; 121, s. 33-52
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In many low- and middle-income countries, the quality of public goods available to the poor is inadequate. We report findings from a unique combination of a village-randomized controlled trial and a lab-in-the-field behavioral experiment involving the establishment of “self-help” groups in one of the poorest districts in India. The presence of these groups improved villagers’ access to and quality of certain critical local public goods, in particular, water. Our evidence suggests that the underlying mechanisms responsible were better information provision through the groups, stronger engagement by members in village governance, and lower coordination costs. Public goods games played in a subset of control and treatment villages four years following the start of the intervention, additionally, indicate that cooperative norms are stronger in villages where self-help groups were present. We find little evidence that membership leads to a convergence of tastes among group members. These results suggest that, in contrast to traditional participatory development programs, self-help groups can build durable social capital that can improve government performance in poor communities.
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| 5. |
- Desai, Raj M., et al.
(författare)
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Replication Data for: Trading Favors: UN Security Council Membership and Subnational Favoritism in Aid Recipients
- 2022
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We test the hypothesis that aid recipient governments are given greater discretion in distributing aid geographically for personal benefits during periods when they are non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). More specifically, we analyze whether World Bank projects are targeted to regions in which the head of state was born, or to regions dominated by the same ethnic group as that of the head of the state. We find that all regions of a country on average receive more aid projects during UNSC membership years, confirming previous results with updated data. We find no evidence for additional World Bank projects going to leaders' birth regions during UNSC years. Turning to co-ethnic regions, we find that these regions receive fewer projects in normal times but during times of UNSC membership they receive significantly more projects and greater overall commitments. This effect is driven by loans from the IBRD arm of the World Bank. Importantly, looking at voting patterns in UNSC, we find a much stronger effect when focusing on countries that always vote in line with the US. This gives further credit to the interpretation of the result as a trade of favors between governments in donor and recipient countries catering towards domestic audiences.
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| 6. |
- Desai, Raj, M, et al.
(författare)
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The middle class and the modalities of political protest: evidence from the Arab world
- 2023
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Ingår i: Social Science Quarterly. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1540-6237 .- 0038-4941. ; 104:4, s. 684-701
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective The middle class has historically played a decisive role in mass movements and rebellions against the status quo, including in both peaceful and violent protests that spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa following the events of the Arab Spring. Yet, we know little about why the middle class tends to be over-represented in protest movements, or why that protest takes nonviolent versus violent forms. Methods We develop a model in which protest constitutes a “costly” signal of discontent, where violent actions are more costly than peaceful demonstrations and where the cost of action increases with individual income. Under such assumptions, the upper-middle class will engage in nonviolent protest, the lower middle class will support violence against the government, while the poorest and richest will abstain from opposition activities. Results Survey data from the World Values Survey and the Gallup World Poll across 20 Arab countries supports these hypotheses. Using both parametric and semi-parametric analyses, we find that participation in nonviolent protests and general strikes rises from the first (lowest) and peaks at the fourth income quintile, then declines thereafter. Meanwhile, support for political violence rises sharply between the first and second quintiles, falling for individuals in the upper quintiles. Our findings are robust to broader measures of wealth and status, as well as to corrections for regime type, levels of regime support, and joint determination of anti-regime behaviors. Conclusions These findings shed light on why certain socioeconomic groups engage in anti-governmental behaviors, while others do not, and suggest that income subgroups within the middle class may choose different modalities of protest.
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| 7. |
- Desai, RM, et al.
(författare)
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The Costs of Political Influence: Firm-Level Evidence From Developing Countries
- 2011
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Ingår i: Quarterly Journal of Political Science. - : Now Publishers. - 1554-0634 .- 1554-0626. ; 6:2, s. 137-178
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Arrangements by which politically connected firms receive economic favors are a common feature around the world, but little is known of the form or effects of influence in business–government relationships. We present a simple model in which influence requires firms to provide goods of political value in exchange for economic privileges. We argue that political influence improves the business environment for selected firms, but restricts their ability to fire workers. Under these conditions, if political influence primarily lowers fixed costs over variable costs, then favored firms will be less likely to invest and their productivity will suffer, even if they earn higher profits than non-influential firms. We rely on the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys of approximately 8000 firms in 40 developing countries, and control for a number of biases present in the data. We find that influential firms benefit from lower administrative and regulatory barriers (including bribe taxes), greater pricing power, and easier access to credit. But these firms also provide politically valuable benefits to incumbents through bloated payrolls and greater tax payments. Finally, these firms are worse-performing than their non-influential counterparts. Our results highlight a potential channel by which cronyism leads to persistent underdevelopment.
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| 8. |
- Desai, RM, et al.
(författare)
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The logic of authoritarian bargains
- 2009
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Ingår i: Economics and Politics. - : Wiley. - 1468-0343 .- 0954-1985. ; 21:1, s. 93-125
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dictatorships do not survive by repression alone. Rather, dictatorial rule is often explained as an “authoritarian bargain” by which citizens relinquish political rights for economic security. The applicability of the authoritarian bargain to decision-making in non-democratic states, however, has not been thoroughly examined. We conceptualize this bargain as a simple game between a representative citizen and an autocrat who faces the threat of insurrection, and where economic transfers and political influence are simultaneously determined. Our model yields implications for empirical patterns that are expected to exist. Tests of a system of equations with panel data comprising 80 non-democratic states between 1975 and 1999 generally confirm the predictions of the authoritarian-bargain thesis, with some variation across different categories of dictatorship.
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| 9. |
- Falisse, Jean-Benoit, et al.
(författare)
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Incentivizing Textbooks for Self-Study : Experimental Evidence from the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- 2024
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Ingår i: Economic Journal. - : Oxford University Press. - 1468-0297 .- 0013-0133.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We designed and randomly evaluated the impact of a textbooks for self-study scheme in eastern DRC targeting student achievement in primary schools. Students in treatment schools were seven percentage points more likely to pass the national exam, and those who passed obtained higher scores. We also evidence higher scores on a French language test. The effects are primarily driven by student interest in textbooks, frequency of doing homework and motivation to go to school and continue education. Student achievement can thus be improved by intensified and diversified use of existing learning materials in poor and fragile settings.
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| 10. |
- Falisse, Jean-Benoit, et al.
(författare)
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Incentivizing Textbooks for Self-Study: Experimental Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We use a randomized field experiment to study the impact of a simple “textbooks for self-study” incentive scheme targeting primary school students in South Kivu. Students in the treatment schools scored 0.320s higher in French but did no better in math. They were more likely to take the high-stakes end-of-6th-grade national exam and to aspire to a non-manual profession.. The largest positive impact was found in schools with lower-quality teaching performance and for lower-ability students. Our results demonstrate that programs designed to intensify and diversify students’ use of existing school resources can sharply improve student achievement and career aspirations.
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