Aughinbaugh, Alison and Maury Gittleman. "Maternal Employment and Adolescent Risky Behavior." WP-366. Abstract: This paper examines the impact of maternal employment during a child’s first three years and during adolescence on his or her decisions to engage in a range of risky behaviors: smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, using marijuana and other drugs, engaging in sex and committing crimes. Using data from the NLSY79 and its young adult supplement, we find little evidence that mother’s employment early in the child’s life has lasting consequences on participation in risky behaviors. Similarly, with the possible exception of drinking alcohol—our results do not indicate that maternal employment during adolescence is correlated with increased involvement in risky activities. http://www.bls.gov/ore/orecatlg.htm
Retherford, Robert D. and Shyam Thapa. "Fertility in Nepal, 1981–2000: Levels, trends, and components of change." No. 111. Abstract: The objectives of this paper are, first, to provide improved estimates of recent fertility levels and trend in Nepal and, second, to analyze the components of fertility change. The analysis is based on data from Nepal's 1996 and 2001 Demographic and Health Surveys. The first part of the analysis assesses the quality of the data from the 1996 and 2001 Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) on which the fertility estimates are based. Fertility levels and trends are then estimated using the own-children method of fertility estimation. The own-children estimates incorporate additional adjustments to compensate for displacement of births, and they are compared with previously published estimates derived by the birth-history method. Fertility is estimated not only for the whole country but also by ecological region, development region, urban/rural residence, and woman's education. The own-children estimates indicate that the total fertility rate (TFR) fell from 4.96 to 4.69 births per woman between the 3-year period preceding the 1996 survey and the 3-year period preceding the 2001 survey. About three-quarters of the decline stems from reductions in age-specific marital fertility rates and about one-quarter from changes in age-specific proportions currently married. Further decomposition of the decline in marital fertility, as measured by births per currently married woman during the 5-year period before each survey, indicates that almost half of the decline in marital fertility is accounted for by changes in population composition by ecological region, development region, urban/rural residence, education, age at first cohabitation with husband, time elapsed since first cohabitation, number of living children at the start of the 5-year period, and media exposure. With these variables controlled, another one-third of the decline is accounted for by increase in the proportion sterilized at the start of the 5-year period. About one-fifth of the fertility decline is not accounted for by any of these variables, but this remaining unexplained component does not differ significantly from zero. http://www2.ewc.hawaii.edu/pop/pop54000.htm
Liddle, Brantley. "Developing Country Growth Collapse Revisited: Demographic Influences and Regional Differences." WP-2003-007. Abstract: This paper bridges two related, but up to now, unconnected literatures: economic growth stability and population-economic growth. The paper is different from previous population-economic growth analyses by focusing on instability of economic growth in developing countries. This study contributes to a previous paper on the developing country growth collapse by adding important demographic variables. The paper provides an explanation for “new” negative correlations of population and economic growth: because 1960s were a relatively smooth time for economic growth, youth dependency did not seem important; however, during turbulent 1970s and 1980s, countries with falling dependency burdens weathered economic shocks better. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Bender, Stefan, Annette Kohlmann and Stefan Lang. "Women, Work, and Motherhood: Changing Employment Penalties for Motherhood in West Germany after 1945 - A Comparative Analysis of Cohorts Born in 1934-1971." WP-2003-006. Abstract: This paper deals with the effects of entry into motherhood on women’s employment dynamics. Our analysis is based on the complete lifetime working- and income histories of a 1% sample of all persons born between 1934 and 1971 and employed in West Germany sometime between 1975 and 1995. We use the records of women who were employed before the birth of their first child. We apply a semi-parametric hierarchical Bayesian modeling approach simultaneously including several time scales and further covariates whose effects we estimate by MCMC techniques. We investigate short-term consequences of entry into motherhood and their changes over different birth cohorts and thereby take into account the employment histories before the birth of the first child. We conduct two models differentiating between the simple return to the labor market and the return for at least a certain period in order to measure subsequent employment stability. Our results indicate that a higher extent of employment experience, a stronger attachment to the labor market and an employment in white collar jobs reduces the employment penalty for mothers after the birth of their first child. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Liddle, Brantley. "The Challenge of Sustainability in a Global System: Documentation of a Transdisciplinary, Multi-country, Dynamic Simulation Model." WP-2003-005. Abstract: Sustainability models should consider aspects of the economy-environment-population nexus, be dynamic, and acknowledge the disparity among actors/countries. Lastly, sustainability models should not be programmed either to reject sustainability (e.g., an essential, nonrenewable input) or to affirm it (e.g., costless, endogenous technical change). We develop a simulation model to assess sustainable development on three levels: economic (by determining production, consumption, investment, direct foreign investment, technology transfer, and international trade), social (by calculating population change, migration flows, and welfare), and environmental (by calculating the difference between environmental pollution and upgrading expenditures). The model follows “representative” countries that differ in their initial endowments (i.e., natural resource endowment, physical and human capital, technology, and population), and thus in their development levels and prospects. In addition, we model free substitution in production, flexible economic structures, the ability to upgrade input factors via investment, and optimizing agents who possess a high degree of mobility and information, and who interact through and in response to market equlibiria. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Andersson, Gunnar. "Dissolution of unions in Europe: A comparative overview." WP-2003-004. Abstract: In this paper, we present a number of descriptive measures of couples’ experience of union dissolution in a wide range of European countries. We use data from the last round of Fertility and Family Surveys in order to get a broad cross-country comparison of levels and basic patterns of union disruption in countries considered. We use corresponding data from the USA in order to find out to what extent patterns in Europe differ from those at the other side of the Atlantic. With a number of life-table estimations we display levels of union dissolution of couples in different types of unions. Evidently, the picture looks different if one follows marriages from the date of marriage formation than if one follows any union from the date when a couple moves together. In addition, the stability of unions that start as cohabitation differs from the stability of unions that begin with a direct marriage. Our presentation reveals that unions in any European country are much more stable than unions in the US. The latter country stands out as an extreme case no matter what type of union we choose to study. Nevertheless, a high degree of variation also exists within Europe; a number of Catholic countries in Southern and Eastern Europe impress with particularly low levels of union dissolution. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Hank, Karsten. "Räumlicher Kontext und das Heiratsverhalten westdeutscher Männer in den 1980er und 1990er Jahren." WP-2003-003. Abstract: In diesem Beitrag wird der Zusammenhang zwischen Merkmalen des räumlichen Kontexts und dem Übergang zur ersten Ehe bei westdeutschen Männern in den 1980er und 1990er Jahren untersucht. Hierzu werden im empirischen Teil unter Verwendung von Individualdaten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) und Informationen über Stadt- und Landkreise zeitdiskrete logistische Mehrebenenmodelle geschätzt. Die Ergebnisse der multivariaten Analyse bestätigen die herausragenden Bedeutung der wirtschaftlichen Stellung eines Mannes für seine Heiratsentscheidung. Darüber hinaus wird ein negativer Zusammenhang zwischen der aggregierten Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen auf dem regionalen Arbeitsmarkt und der Übergangswahrscheinlichkeit zur ersten Ehe bei Männern festgestellt. Dies könnte als Beleg für die in der Heiratsforschung verbreitete ‘wirtschaftliche Unabhängigkeits-hypothese’ verstanden werden. Komplementär hierzu wird eine Interpretation der Frauenerwerbsquote als Indikator für regional unterschiedliche Ausprägungen von Geschlechterrollen und individueller Autonomie vorgeschlagen. Berücksichtigt man zusätzlich den in den hier geschätzten Modellen statistisch signifikanten latenten Kontexteffekt, ergeben sich deutliche Indizien dafür, dass die Heiratsneigung eines Mannes durch regionale sozio-kulturelle Milieus beeinflußt wird. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Brock, William A. and Steven N. Durlauf. "Multinomial Choice with Social Interactions." NBER Working Paper No. t0288. Abstract: This paper develops a model of individual decisionmaking in the presence of social interactions when the number of available choices is finite. We show how a multinomial logit model framework may be used to model such decisions in a way that permits a tight integration of theory and econometrics. Conditions are given under which aggregate choice behavior in a population exhibits multiple self-consistent equilibria. An econometric version of the model is shown to be identified under relatively weka conditions. That analysis is extended to allow for general error distributions and some preliminary ways to account for the endogeneity of group memberships are developed. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Donohue, John J. III and Steven D. Levitt. "Further Evidence that Legalized Abortion Lowered Crime: A Reply to Joyce." NBER Working Paper No. w9532. Abstract: Donohue and Levitt (2001) present a number of analyses that suggest a causal link between legalized abortion and reductions in crime almost two decades later when the cohorts exposed to legalized abortion reach their peak crime years. Joyce (2003) challenges that finding. In this paper, we demonstrate that Joyce's failure to uncover a negative relationship between abortion and crime is a direct consequence of his decision to focus exclusively on the six-year period 1985-90 without including adequate controls for the crack epidemic. We provide empirical evidence that crack hit the high-abortion early legalizing states harder and earlier. We then demonstrate that using precisely the same treatment and control groups as Joyce, but extending the data analysis to encompass the lifetime criminal experiences (as opposed to an arbitrary six-year window), the evidence strongly supports the hypothesis that legalized abortion reduces crime. We also show that our original results are robust to focusing on only the cohorts born immediately before or after Roe v. Wade. The data suggest that ease of access to abortion, rather than simply de jure legalization, is a critical determinant of the extent of the crime reduction. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Steckel, Richard H. "What Can Be Learned from Skeletons that Might Interest Economists, Historians and Other Social Scientists?" NBER Working Paper No. w9519. Abstract: Economists and other scholars have long sought to measure and analyze long-term trends and differences in social performance. Average stature supplements and lengthens data series on traditional measures of life expectancy and real GDP per capita. This paper presents a methodology for using skeletal remains to greatly extend the chronological and cultural reach of anthropometric measures. Bones are widely available for study and unlike stature, they portray health over the life cycle, depicting both childhood and processes of aging and degeneration. The paper briefly explains seven skeletal measures widely used in physical anthropology and discusses procedures for summarizing community health in the form of an index. Results are based on a sample of over 12,000 individuals who lived at 65 localities in the Western Hemisphere over the past several millennia. Results challenge conceptions of the pre-Columbian disease environment, and the methods can be used to test models of very long-term economic growth and to study important aspects of human welfare during climate change. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Rizzo, Michael J. and Ronald G. Ehrenberg. "Resident and Nonresident Tuition at Flagship State Universities." NBER Working Paper No. w9516. Abstract: We address the determinants of resident and nonresident tuition and enrollment at public universities. A key explanatory variable is the share of out-of-state students enrolled under reciprocity agreements. We find that public universities use out-of-state enrollments primarily to augment student quality, not to make up for losses in state appropriations.In the main out-of-state enrollment levels are relatively insensitive to out-of-state tuition levels charged by institutions. Finally, we find no evidence that public universities increase their in-state or out-of-state tuition levels in response to increased federal or state financial aid for students. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Chandra, Amitabh and Jonathan Skinner. "Geography and Racial Health Disparities." NBER Working Paper No. w9513. Abstract: An extensive literature has documented racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health care and health outcomes. We argue that the influence of geography in medical practice needs to be taken seriously for both the statistical measurement of racial disparities, and in designing reforms to reduce disparities. Past research has called attention to disparities that occur within hospitals or provider groups; for example black patients who are treated differently from whites within a hospital. We focus on a different mechanism for disparities; African-Americans tend to live in areas or seek care in regions where quality levels for all patients, black and white, are lower. Thus ensuring equal access to health care at the local or hospital level may not by itself erase overall health care disparities. However, reducing geographic disparities in both the quality of care, and the quality of health care decisions by patients, could have a first-order impact on improving racial disparities in health care and health outcomes. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Stephens, Melvin Jr. "Job Loss Expectations, Realizations, and Household Consumption Behavior." NBER Working Paper No. w9508. Abstract: Although the theoretical importance of expectations in decision-making is well-known to economists, only a few empirical papers investigate the impact of individual subjective expectations on economic outcomes. This paper examines the link between expectations of future job losses and the subsequent impact that these expectations have on household consumption behavior. The first part of the paper documents the empirical relationship between job loss expectations and subsequent job losses. Subjective job loss expectations have significant predictive power in explaining future job losses even when standard demographic information known to be associated with the prevalence of job displacement is included in the analysis. Furthermore, higher subjective job loss probabilities are correlated with an increased expectation of future earnings declines. Overall, these results indicate that the subjective job loss expectations variable is a meaningful predictor of subsequent displacement. Since a job displacement results in large and persistent earnings losses, job loss expectations should have an important impact on household consumption smoothing following a job loss. The second part of the paper finds that although a job loss significantly reduces household consumption, there is little evidence that the degree to which households anticipate job losses reduces the impact of displacement on consumption. Alternative models of interpreting responses to expectations questions and of household consumption behavior that may explain these results are discussed. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Argys, Laura and Naci Mocan. "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? An Analysis of Prisoners on Death Row in the United States." NBER Working Paper No. w9507. Abstract: Using data on the entire population of prisoners under a sentence of death in the U.S. between 1977 and 1997, this paper investigates the probability of being executed on death row in any given year, as well as the probability of commutation when reaching the end of death row. The analyses control for personal characteristics and previous criminal record of the death row inmates. We link the data on death row inmates to a number of characteristics of the state of incarceration, including variables which allow us to assess the degree to which the political process enters into the final outcome in a death penalty case. Inmates with only a grade school diploma are more likely to receive clemency, and those with some college attendance are less likely to have their sentence commuted. Blacks and other minorities are less likely to get executed in comparison to white inmates. Female death row inmates and older inmates are also less likely to get executed. If an inmate's spell on death row ends at a point in time where the governor is a lame duck, the probability of commutation is higher in comparison to a similar inmate whose decision is made by a governor who is not a lame duck. If the governor is female, she is more likely to spare the inmate's life; and if the governor is white, the likelihood of dying is higher in comparison to the case where the decision is made by a minority governor. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Alesina, Alberto and George-Marios Angeletos. "Fairness and Redistribution: U.S. versus Europe." NBER Working Paper No. w9502. Abstract: Different beliefs about how fair social competition is and what determines income inequality, influence the redistributive policy chosen democratically in a society. But the composition of income in the first place depends on equilibrium tax policies. If a society believes that individual effort determines income, and that all have a right to enjoy the fruits of their effort, it will chose low redistribution and low taxes. In equilibrium effort will be high, the role of luck limited, market outcomes will be quite fair, and social beliefs will be self-fulfilled. If instead a society believes that luck, birth, connections and/or corruption determine wealth, it will tax a lot, thus distorting allocations and making these beliefs self-sustained as well. We show how this interaction between social beliefs and welfare policies may lead to multiple equilibria or multiple steady states. We argue that this model can contribute to explain US vis a vis continental European perceptions about income inequality and choices of redistributive policies. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Williams, Gordon C. and David J. Zimmerman. "Peer Effects in Higher Education." NBER Working Paper No. w9501. Abstract: In this chapter, we describe the potential significance of student peer effects for the economic structure of and behavior in higher education. Their existence would motivate much of the restricted supply, student queuing, and selectivity and institutional competition via merit aid and honors colleges that we see in American higher education; their (appropriate) non-linearity could justify the resulting stratification of higher education as an efficient way to produce human capital. In addition, we use data from the College and Beyond entering class of 1989, combined with phonebook data identifying roommates, to implement a quasi-experimental empirical strategy aimed at measuring peer effects in academic outcomes. In particular, we use data on individual students' grades, SAT scores, and the SAT scores of their roommates at three schools to estimate the effect of roommates' academic characteristics on an individual's grades. The results suggest that, for two of the three schools used, students in the middle of the SAT distribution do somewhat worse in terms of grades if they share a room with a student who is in the bottom 15 percent of the SAT distribution. Students in the top of the SAT distribution appear often not to be affected by the SAT scores of their roommates. These results are similar to those reported in earlier research using data from Williams (Zimmerman) and Dartmouth (Sacerdote). http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Coile, Courtney. "Retirement Incentives and Couples' Retirement Decisions." NBER Working Paper No. w9496. Abstract: The typical family in the US is now a dual-earner couple, yet relatively few studies examine the retirement decision in a household context. This paper explores how husbands' and wives' retirement behavior is influenced by their own financial incentives from Social Security and private pensions and by spillover effects' from their spouses' incentives. I find that men and women are similarly responsive to their own incentives. I further find that men are very responsive to their wives' incentives but that women are not responsive to their husbands' incentives and present evidence to suggest that this may be due to asymmetric complementarities of leisure. Policy simulations suggest that the omission of spillover effects will bias the estimated effect of changing Social Security policy on men's labor force participation. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Heckman, James and Pedro Carneiro. "Human Capital Policy." NBER Working Paper No. w9495. Abstract: This paper considers alternative policies for promoting skill formation that are targetted to different stages of the life cycle. We demonstrate the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive skills that are formed early in the life cycle in accounting for racial, ethnic and family background gaps in schooling and other dimensions of socioeconomic success. Most of the gaps in college attendance and delay are determined by early family factors. Children from better families and with high ability earn higher returns to schooling. We find only a limited role for tuition policy or family income supplements in eliminating schooling and college attendance gaps. At most 8% of American youth are credit constrained in the traditional usage of that term. The evidence points to a high return to early interventions and a low return to remedial or compensatory interventions later in the life cycle. Skill and ability beget future skill and ability. At current levels of funding, traditional policies like tuition subsidies, improvements in school quality, job training and tax rebates are unlikely to be effective in closing gaps. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Sachs, Jeffrey D. "Institutions Don't Rule: Direct Effects of Geography on Per Capita Income." NBER Working Paper No. w9490. Abstract: In a series of papers, my colleagues and I have demonstrated that levels of per capita income, economic growth, and other economic and demographic dimensions are strongly correlated with geographical and ecological variables such as climate zone, disease ecology, and distance from the coast. Three recent papers purport to show that the role of geography in explaining cross-country patterns of income per capita operates predominantly or exclusively through the choice of institutions, with little direct effect of geography on income after controlling for the quality institutions. This note shows that malaria transmission, which is strongly affected by ecological conditions, directly affects the level of per capita income after controlling for the quality of institutions. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Avery, Christopher and Caroline M. Hoxby. "Do and Should Financial Aid Packages Affect Students' College Choices?" NBER Working Paper No. w9482. Abstract: Every year, thousands of high school seniors with high college aptitude face complicated menus' of scholarship and aid packages designed to affect their college choices. Using an original survey designed for this paper, we investigate whether students respond to their menus' like rational human capital investors. Whether they make the investments efficiently is important not only because they are the equivalent of the Fortune 500' for human capital, but also because they are likely to be the most analytic and long-sighted student investors. We find that the typical high aptitude student chooses his college and responds to aid in a manner that is broadly consistent with rational investment. However, we also find some serious anomalies: excessive response to loans and work-study, strong response to superficial aspects of a grant (such as whether it has a name), and response to a grant's share of college costs rather than its amount. Approximately 30 percent of high aptitude students respond to aid in a way that apparently reduces their lifetime present value. While both a lack of sophistication/information and credit constraints can explain the behavior of this 30 percent of students, the weight of the evidence favors a lack of sophistication. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Docteur, Elizabeth, Hannes Suppanz and Jaejoon Woo. "The US health system: an assessment and prospective directions for reform." Economics Department Working Paper 350. Abstract: This paper assesses the performance of the United States health system in an international context and discusses potential directions for reform. The US health system is unique among OECD countries in its heavy reliance on the private sector for both financing and delivery of health care. The public sector plays a not-insignificant role, providing coverage for the elderly, disabled and poor, and spending as much on health as a share of GDP as is spent in total by many OECD countries. The system is considered highly flexible, capable of evolving quickly to address the changing preferences of consumers and the incentives put in place by the requirements of payers and government regulation. It is also characterised by excellent access by the insured population to the latest advances in medical technology. However, 14 per cent of Americans lack insurance coverage, and the decentralised, multi-payer approach to financing and regulation provides relatively few levers to control spending. Instead, the system relies on competition among insurers and providers to increase efficiency. Although evidence is limited, it is not clear that the good clinical outcomes obtained are justified by the high relative spending levels, as other countries attain comparable outcomes for less. Systemic reforms, such as expansion of coverage and incentives to contain spending at the individual consumer level, could result in increased value for money. http://www.oecd.org/EN/documents/0,,EN-documents-0-nodirectorate-no-10-no-0,00.html
Anderson, Barbara A. "Fertility in South Africa: Current Issues and Prospects for the Future." PSC Research Report 03-532. Abstract: This paper addresses fertility trends and desires, infant and child survival, and orphanhood and fosterage of children in South Africa. It concludes with observations and recommendations in these areas. Fertility in South Africa has declined rapidly, especially since the late 1960s. The pace of this decline is in line with that of the less developed regions of the world, but is very rapid in comparison with sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. HIV/AIDS seemingly leads to at most a 10% reduction in fertility. Current low fertility mainly reflects the desires of women. South Africa had a low infant mortality rate in comparison with less developed world regions up to the 1970s, but the pace of infant mortality decline in South Africa has been slow compared to the rest of the developing world and rural Africans have especially high infant mortality. Since 1994 some factors related to infant death for rural African children have improved (safe drinking water), but other factors have remained virtually unchanged (sanitation). Although no evidence indicates that the proportion of children who are orphans has increased substantially up to 1998, the proportion of children who are fostered increased substantially in the 1990s, especially among Africans. This increase was especially pronounced among children whose mothers were ill. If many of these ill women had HIV/AIDS, the increase in fosterage could presage a large increase in the percentage of children who are orphans. To address these issues, data should be regularly collected to trace trends in fertility and infant and child welfare, and in the factors related to these trends. Current research indicates the importance of improving environmental conditions, addressing the effects of smoking and alcohol consumption by women, and improving the welfare of children with ill mothers and those that are orphaned. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Cameron, Lisa A. and Vivi Alatas. "The Impact of Minimum Wages on Employment in a Low Income Country: An Evaluation Using the Difference-in-Differences Approach." Working Paper No. 2985. Abstract: Unlike the well-developed literature on the employment impact of the minimum wage in industrial nations, very little is known about minimum wage effects in low income countries. Minimum wages increased sharply in Indonesia between 1990 and 1996 and by more in some provinces than in others. Following Card and Krueger (1994) the authors exploit the large geographic variation in the rate of increase and compare changes in employment in the clothing, textile, footwear, and leather industries on either side of the Jakarta-West Java border. They use household level labor market data to establish compliance with the legislation. They obtain matched difference-in-difference estimates of the employment impact using a census of all large and medium-size firms in the clothing, textile, leather, and footwear industries. Alatas and Cameron find some evidence of a negative employment impact for small, domestic firms but no employment impact for large firms, foreign or domestic. This paper—a product of the Environment and Social Development Sector Unit, East Asia and the Pacific Region—is part of a larger effort in the region to assess the poverty situation and related issues. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Clarke, George, Lixin Colin Xu, and Heng-Fu Zou. "Finance and Income Inequality: Test of Alternative Theories." Working Paper No. 2984. Abstract: Although theoretical models make distinct predictions about the relationship between financial sector development and income inequality, little empirical research has been conducted to compare their relative explanatory power. Clarke, Xu, and Zou examine the relation between financial intermediary development and income inequality in a panel data set of 91 countries for the period 1960–95. Their results provide evidence that inequality decreases as economies develop their financial intermediaries, consistent with the theoretical models in Galor and Zeira (1993) and Banerjee and Newman (1993). Moreover, consistent with the insight of Kuznets, the relation between the Gini coefficient and financial intermediary development appears to depend on the sectoral structure of the economy: a larger modern sector is associated with a smaller drop in the Gini coefficient for the same level of financial intermediary development. But there is no evidence of an inverted-U-shaped relation between financial sector development and income inequality, as suggested by Greenwood and Jovanovic (1990). The results are robust to controlling for biases introduced by simultaneity. This paper—a product of Investment Climate, Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in the group to understand the link between economic development and financial sector performance. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Wallsten, Scott. "Regulation and Internet Use in Developing Countries." Working Paper No. 2979. Abstract: Policymakers are simultaneously concerned about the consequences of a worsening “digital divide” between rich and poor countries and hopeful that information and computing technologies could increase economic growth in developing countries. But very little research has explored the reasons for the digital divide beyond noting that it is strongly correlated with standard development indicators, and no empirical research has explored the role of regulation. Wallsten uses data from a unique new survey of telecommunications regulators and other sources to measure the effects of regulation in Internet development. He finds regulation strongly correlated with lower Internet penetration and higher Internet access charges. More specifically, controlling for factors such as income, development of the telecommunications infrastructure, ubiquity of personal computers, and time trends, countries that require formal regulatory approval for Internet service providers (ISPs) to begin operations have fewer Internet users and Internet hosts than countries that do not require such approval. Moreover, countries that regulate ISP final-user prices have higher Internet access prices than countries that do not have such regulations. These results suggest that developing countries’ own regulatory policies can have large impacts on the digital divide. This paper—a product of Investment Climate, Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in the group to understand regulatory and infrastructure sector reforms. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Nagelkerke, Nico J. D. and Sake J. De Vlas. "The Epidemiological Impact of an HIV Vaccine on the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Southern India." Working Paper No. 2978. Abstract: The potential epidemiological impact of preventive HIV vaccines on the HIV epidemic in Southern India is examined using a methematical deterministic dynamic compartmental model. Various assumptions about the degree of protection offered by such a vaccine, the extent of immunological response of those vaccinated, and the duration of protection afforded are explored. Alternative targeting strategies for HIV vaccination are simulated and compared with the impact of conventional prevention interventions in high-risk groups and the general population. The impact of disinhibition (increased risk behavior due to the presence of a vaccine) is also considered. Vaccines that convey a high degree of protection in a share of or all of those immunized and that convey life-long immunity are the most effective in curbing the HIV epidemic. Vaccines that convey less than complete protection may also have substantial public health impact, but disinhibition can easily undo their effects and they should be used combined with conventional prevention efforts. Conventional interventions that target commercial sex workers and their clients to increase condom use can also be highly effective and can be implemented immediately, before the arrival of vaccines. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Desmond, Christopher and Robert Greener. "The Strategic Use and Potential Demand for an HIV Vaccine in Southern Africa." Working Paper No. 2977. Abstract: HIV prevalence in Southern Africa is the highest in the world and the impact of HIV/AIDS in the region are devastating at all levels of society, including the wider economy. Government response has lagged behind the pace of the epidemic, but programs are now beginning to focus on a broad range of interventions to combat its further spread and to mitigate its impact. Desmond and Greener investigate the issues around the targeting of an eventual HIV vaccine. There is at present no vaccine against HIV. Although several candidates are in the trial stage, it is not likely that a vaccine effective against the sub-type of the virus prevalent in Southern Africa will be available for 10–15 years. When it is, it may be expensive, only partially effective, and confer immunity for a limited period only. Vaccination programs will need to make the best use of the vaccine that is available and effective targeting will be essential. The authors identify potential target groups for a vaccine, and estimate how many individuals would be in need of vaccination. They develop a method for estimating how many cases of HIV infection are likely to be avoided for each vaccinated individual. The cases avoided are of two kinds: primary—the individual case that might have occurred in people who are vaccinated, and secondary—the number of people that the vaccinated individual would otherwise have caused to become infected. Both of these depend on assumptions about the efficacy and duration of vaccine protection and the extent and nature of sexual risk behavior in the population groups. The authors distinguish between the HIV cases averted per vaccination and the cases averted per 100 recruits into a vaccination program. The cases averted per 100 recruits is used to develop a priority ranking of the identified population groups for vaccination. The authors discuss the issue of ease of access to those groups and how the differential costs would affect the vaccination strategy. They conclude that an expensive vaccine should be administered to commercial sex workers first, while an inexpensive vaccine would be better administered first to general population groups, in particular, schoolchildren. Desmond and Greener conclude with a discussion of current levels of public and private expenditure on HIV prevention and treatment, and the implications for an assessment of the willingness to pay for an eventual HIV vaccine. This paper—a product of Public Services, Development Research Group—is part of the research project “The Economics of an HIV/AIDS Vaccine in Developing Countries: Potential Impact, Cost-Effectiveness, and Willingness to Pay” sponsored by the European Commission and the World Bank. The project was launched in response to recommendations of the World Bank’s AIDS Vaccine Task Force. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Adams, Richard H., Jr. "Economic Growth, Inequality, and Poverty: Findings from a New Data Set." Working Paper No. 2972. Abstract: Adams uses new data from 50 developing countries and 101 intervals to examine the impact of economic growth on poverty and inequality. He finds that growth represents an important means for reducing poverty in the developing world. When economic growth is measured by survey mean income (consumption), there is a strong, statistical link between growth and poverty reduction. When economic growth is measured by GDP per capita, the statistical relationship between growth and poverty reduction is still present, albeit not quite as strong. Economic growth reduces poverty because growth has little impact on income inequality. In the data set income inequality rises on average less than 1.0 percent a year. Since income distributions are relatively stable over time, economic growth tends to raise incomes for all members of society, including the poor. When growth is measured by survey mean income (consumption), the elasticity of poverty with respect to growth is –2.59. In other words, on average, a 10 percentage point increase in economic growth (measured by survey mean income) will produce a 25.9 percent decrease in the proportion of people living in poverty ($1 a person a day). This paper—a product of the Poverty Reduction Group, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network—is part of a larger effort in the network to better inform policy debates about economic growth, poverty, and inequality. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Sánchez-Páramo, Carolina and Jishnu Das. "Short but not Sweet: New Evidence on Short Duration Morbidities from India." Working Paper No. 2971. Abstract: India spends 6 percent of its GDP on health—three times the amount spent by Indonesia and twice that of China—and spending on non-chronic morbidities is three times that of chronic illnesses. It is normally assumed that the high spending on non-chronic illnesses reflects the prevalence of morbidities with high case-fatality or case-disability ratios. But there is little data that can be used to separate out spending by type of illness. Das and Sánchez-Páramo address this issue with a unique dataset where 1,621 individuals in Delhi were observed for 16 weeks through detailed weekly interviews on morbidity and health-seeking behavior. The authors’ findings are surprising and contrary to the normal view of health spending. They define a new class of illnesses as “short duration morbidities” if they are classified as non-chronic in the international classification of disease and are medically expected to last less than two weeks. The authors show that short duration morbidities are important in terms of prevalence, practitioner visits, and household health expenditure: Individuals report a short duration morbidity in one out of every five weeks. Moreover, one out of every three weeks reported with a short duration morbidity results in a doctor visit, and each week sick with such a morbidity increases health expenditure by 25 percent. Further, the absolute spending on short duration morbidities is similar across poor and rich income households. The authors discuss the implications of these findings in understanding household health behavior in an urban context, with special emphasis on the role of information in health-seeking behavior. This paper—a product of Public Services, Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in the group to understand health expenditures. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Ibanez, Ana Maria and Vijayendra Rao. "The Social Impact of Social Funds in Jamaica: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Participation, Targeting, and Collective Action in Community-Driven Development." Working Paper No. 2970. Abstract: Rao and Ibáñez develop an evaluation method that combines qualitative evidence with quantitative survey data analyzed with propensity score methods on matched samples to study the impact of a participatory community-driven social fund on preference targeting, collective action, and community decisionmaking. The data come from a case study of five pairs of communities in Jamaica where one community in the pair has received funds from the Jamaica social investment fund (JSIF) while the other has not—but has been picked to match the funded community in its social and economic characteristics. The qualitative data reveal that the social fund process is elite-driven and decisionmaking tends to be dominated by a small group of motivated individuals. But by the end of the project there was broad-based satisfaction with the outcome. The quantitative data from 500 households mirror these findings by showing that ex-ante the social fund does not address the expressed needs of the majority of individuals in the majority of communities. By the end of the construction process, however, 80 percent of the community expressed satisfaction with the outcome. An analysis of the determinants of participation shows that better educated and better networked individuals dominate the process. Propensity score analysis reveals that the JSIF has had a causal impact on improvements in trust and the capacity for collective action, but these gains are greater for elites within the community. Both JSIF and non-JSIF communities are more likely now to make decisions that affect their lives which indicates a broad-based effort to promote participatory development in the country, but JSIF communities do not show higher levels of community-driven decisions than non-JSIF communities. The authors shed light on the complex ways in which community-driven development works inside communities—a process that is deeply imbedded within Jamaica’s sociocultural and political context. This paper—a product of the Poverty Team, Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in the group to evaluate community-driven development. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Turk, Carrie and Edwin Shanks. "Refining Policy with the Poor: Local Consultations on the Draft Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy in Vietnam." Working Paper No. 2968. Abstract: In March 2001 the Government of Vietnam produced an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (IPRSP) and announced its intention to develop a Comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (CPRGS) by the end of April 2002. In the IPRSP, the Government outlined its commitment to involve a broad range of stakeholders-including poor communities, local government authorities, and the enterprise sector-in drafting the CPRGS. The Ministry of Planning and Investment, who was assigned by the Government of Vietnam to lead the CPRGS drafting process, asked the World Bank and a group of international nongovernmental organizations to support them in carrying out the local consultations. The consultations took place in six rural and urban locations across Vietnam selected to represent a range of poverty situations. About 1,800 people participated in the research. This report, which is the first of three volumes documenting the local consultations, provides an account and reflection on the approach and methodology used in the consultations. It is intended this may give useful practical experience for future monitoring of the CPRGS as well as for people who are planning to carry out similar exercises in other countries. The report outlines the process that was followed from the point of developing a research outline from the IPRSP, through the fieldwork exercises, data compilation, and analysis, leading on to identification of the main policy messages made by the participants. It also describes how the findings were used to influence the final version of the CPRGS. This paper-a product of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, East Asia and Pacific Region-is part of a larger effort in the region to improve participatory processes in the formulation of policies for poverty reduction. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Gragnolati, Michele and Alessandra Marini. "Malnutrition and Poverty in Guatemala." Working Paper No. 2967. Abstract: The objective of this paper is to document the extent and distribution of child and adult malnutrition in Guatemala; to analyze the relationship between selected child, maternal, household and community characteristics and children's nutritional status; and to outline the implications of the most important findings for nutritional policy. The prevalence of chronic malnutrition among Guatemalan children in 2000 was the highest in Latin America and among the highest in the world. The data show very strong socioeconomic and geographic inequality. The econometric analysis reveals a strong impact of income and of intergenerational effects. Education of adults in the household and the availability of infrastructure are other important determinants of children's growth attainment. Finally, even controlling for income and other household and community characteristics, ethnicity remains an important determinant of child nutritional status. The study also reveals an increasing prevalence of excess weights and obesity among children and adults. Overnutrition tends to be higher among individuals living in urban areas and among non-poor and non-indigenous households. This paper-a product of the Human Development Sector Unit, Latin America and the Caribbean Region-is part of a larger effort in the region to study poverty and human development processes. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Gragnolati, Michele and Alessandra Marini. "Health and Poverty in Guatemala." Working Paper No. 2966. Abstract: Unlike many other countries in Latin America, Guatemala is only at the beginning of the demographic and epidemiological transition. The population is young, is growing rapidly, and is still primarily rural. Guatemala is among the worst performers in terms of health outcomes in Latin America, with one of the highest infant mortality rates and one of the lowest life expectancies at birth. Major causes of death in Guatemala still include treatable and communicable diseases, such as diarrhea, pneumonia, cholera, malnutrition, and tuberculosis. A significant share of Guatemalans lack access to health care services. A combination of both supply- and demand-side constraints limit the ability of households to seek health care services in Guatemala, with supply-side constraints playing a more dominant role in rural areas than urban. Some progress has been made in reforming the health sector. Important steps have been taken on the institutional side, with health being one of the pilot ministries to decentralize financial management under the Integrated System for Health Care (SIAS program). Public spending has shifted toward preventive care, which is essential for treating the health problems faced by the poor. Despite these efforts, spending and health outcomes has not improved significantly. In addition, public spending on health is not well targeted. Overall public health spending benefits the highest quintiles disproportionately. By type of facility, public spending on hospitals is by far the most regressive. This paper-a product of the Human Development Sector Unit, Latin America and the Caribbean Region-is part of a larger effort in the region to study poverty and human development processes. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
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