Journal articles published externally
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These are journal articles by World Bank authors published externally.
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Publication
Regional Convergence in Bangladesh Using Night Lights (Published online: 10 Jul 2022)
(Taylor and Francis, 2023-10-12)We analyse economic convergence across 64 districts of Bangladesh using newly harmonized satellite night light data over 1992–2018. The growth in night lights – taken as a proxy for regional economic activity – reveals overwhelming evidence of absolute convergence. Regional differences in night light (or income) growth have been shrinking at an annual convergence rate of 4.57%, corresponding to a half-life of 15 years. Net migration plays a relatively prominent role in the regional convergence process. -
Publication
Siting Priorities for Congestion-Reducing Projects in Dhaka: A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Traffic Congestion, Travel Times, Air Pollution, and Exposure Vulnerability
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-08-30)Traffic congestion increases travel time and is a major source of pollution and health damage in developing-country cities. Data scarcity frequently confines traffic improvement projects to sites where congestion can be easily measured. This article uses spatiotemporal data from new global sources to revisit the siting problem in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where local congestion measures are augmented by estimates of citywide travel time, pollution exposure, and pollution vulnerability. We combine Google Traffic data with an econometric model linking traffic, pollution readings from a local monitoring station, and weather data to estimate the spatial distribution of vehicular pollution. We explore pollution-vulnerability implications by incorporating spatial distributions of poor households, children, and the elderly. Using the Open Source Routing Machine and OpenStreetMaps, we estimate systemwide travel-time gains from reducing congestion at each point in a grid covering the Dhaka metro area. We find a large divergence of siting priorities in single-dimensional exercises that focus exclusively on local congestion, citywide travel time, vehicular pollution, or vulnerable-resident pollution exposure. By implication, optimal siting requires a social objective function with explicit weights assigned to each of the four dimensions. The new global information sources permit extending this multidimensional approach to many cities throughout the developing world. -
Publication
Integrating Culture in Post-Crisis Urban Recovery: Reflections on the Power of Cultural Heritage to Deal with Crisis
(Elsevier, 2021-06-15)Crisis disrupt people lives. Either if they are caused by disasters due to natural hazards, conflict situations, or diseases outbreaks, crisis affect livelihoods, economies, and social and personal welfare. The role of culture and cultural heritage to deal with these situations has been often underestimated. However, the COVID-19 pandemic is showing the importance of relying and using culture to help people handling difficult experiences. Likewise, culture is being progressively integrated into post-crisis recovery process, as reflected in the Culture in City Reconstruction and Recovery (CURE) Framework developed by UNESCO and the World Bank, under the common understanding that culture is the foundation on which cities are built. This paper will present some key aspects from this approach to integrate culture both as an asset and as a tool, in urban recovery processes, including some challenges such as the application of the build back better principle to cultural heritage contexts, as well as some reflections on their use during ongoing crisis. -
Publication
Anticipating Vehicle Traffic Increase on Improved Inter-Urban Roads: Evidence from Three Decades of Transport Projects in Developing Regions
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-05)Consideration of the traffic generated by inter-urban road investments is important for assessing their economic feasibility and external costs and for designing sustainable road maintenance strategies. While the literature and evidence on generated traffic is growing, it has almost exclusively focused on advanced economies. In contrast, readily available methodologies for predicting the generated traffic impacts are lacking in low and middle income countries (LMICs), where most of the future road investments will be made and where detailed travel demand models and data that would be needed to feed them are often not available. This study attempts to fill this gap by specifically focusing on observed traffic growth and its drivers in developing countries. After reviewing the literature on generated traffic modelling, it presents empirical evidence on the characteristics and outcomes of inter-urban road projects implemented over the last three decades across 68 LMICs. The study quantifies the statistical association between, on the one hand, the travel time or vehicle operating cost (VOC) savings resulting from the road improvement and, on the other hand, the observed short-term growth in traffic on the project roads. Controlling for a range of macro-economic and project-level attributes, both travel time savings and VOC reductions are found to have a statistically significant, positive association with observed short-term traffic growth of a magnitude that much exceeds the elasticities reported in developed country literature. Population growth in the project country/State/province during the project implementation period is also found to have a large, positive association with traffic growth, while per capita income growth is found to have a marginal effect. Toll roads (albeit representing a small share of the sample) are found to have statistically significantly lower observed traffic growth compared to non-toll roads even after controlling for the other project characteristics. -
Publication
Prioritizing Job Creation without Undermining Public Works Construction among Road Improvement Projects in Rural Nicaragua
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-04-20)We evaluate the impacts of a road rehabilitation workfare project in Nicaragua. Our results reveal that the substitution of labour-intensive manual paving of dirt roads for commercial paving technology did not undermine the primary goal of increasing access to a paved road, which grew by 16.4 percentage points. The project did not increase overall employment, but was associated with an increase in working as a labourer; though, we do not find specific substitution away from agriculture or self-employment as identified in other work. We also find impacts on education and health, extending similar findings from African and Asian regions. -
Publication
Environmental Potentials of Asphalt Mixtures Fabricated with Red Mud and Fly Ash
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-03)Several studies evaluated the feasibility of using residues to compose asphalt mixtures. However, the demand for treatments are often neglected in determining the environmental impacts. This study aims to elucidate the decision-making process over the application of residues (e.g., red mud and fly ash) to produce asphalt mixtures. For comparison purposes, limestone and dolomite are used as reference fillers. The cradle-to-gate approach is applied within three scenarios. In the first scenario, the treatment of the residues is included in the modelling, the second excludes treatment, and the third scenario evaluates the environmental impacts of the residues deposited in landfills. To perform the analysis, indicators such as Global Warming Potential, Acidification, and Cumulative Energy Demand are applied. The results show that the treatment provided to the residues strongly influences the environmental impacts of the production of asphalt mixtures and may be crucial to define the feasibility of the residues application. -
Publication
Can We Rely on VIIRS Nightlights to Estimate the Short-Term Impacts of Natural Hazards? Evidence from Five South East Asian Countries
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-02-03)This paper utilizes Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) nightlights to model damage caused by earthquakes, floods and typhoons in five South East Asian countries (Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam). For each type of hazard we examine the extent to which there is a difference in nightlight intensity between affected and non-affected cells based on (i) case studies of specific hazards; and (ii) fixed effect regression models akin to the double difference method to determine any effect that the different natural hazards might have had on the nightlight value. The VIIRS data has some shortcomings with regards to noise, seasonality and volatility that we try to correct for with new statistical methods. The results show little to no significance regardless of the methodology used. Possible explanations for the lack of significance could be underlying noise in the nightlight data and measurements or lack of measurements due to cloud cover. Overall, given the lack of consistency in the results, even though efforts were made to decrease volatility and remove noise, we conclude that researchers should be careful when analyzing natural hazard impacts with the help of VIIRS nightlights. -
Publication
City with a Billion Dollar View
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-01-02)The growth and intensification of many urban areas has meant city governments increasingly face pressure to limit development to preserve iconic city views. This is frequently achieved through ‘viewshafts’ or ‘sight lines’ that regulate development height across vast urban landscapes. While prevalent in many planning rule books, these policies are rarely subjected to rigorous economic appraisal, despite the large costs they can impose on local areas. We use a regression discontinuity to evaluate one such policy in Auckland, New Zealand which bifurcates the central business district (CBD). We find that the net cost of the policy to the local area is NZ$1.366 billion, or 16% of private land value in the CBD. At the margin, the constraint reduces land values by 40%. While removing these policies is not always easy or necessarily desirable, there may be value in optimization. One theoretical viewshaft alignment could reduce the net cost by 43%. -
Publication
Only Walking for transportation in large Latin American cities: Walking-only trips and total walking events and their sociodemographic correlates
(Taylor & Francis, 2020-09-04)Walking for transportation is a common and accessible means of achieving recommended physical activity levels, while providing important social and environmental co-benefits. Even though walking in rapidly growing urban areas has become especially challenging given the increasing dependence on motorized transportation, walking remains a major mode of transportation in Latin American cities. In this paper we aimed to quantify self-reported walking for transportation in Mexico City, Bogota, Santiago de Chile, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires, by identifying both walking trips that are conducted entirely on foot and walking events involved in trips mainly conducted on other means of transportation (e.g., private vehicle, public transit) among individuals 5-years old. We show how walking-only trips account for approximately 30 percent trips in the analyzed cities, and we evidence how the pedestrian dimension of mobility is largely underestimated if walking that is incidental to other transportation modes is not accounted for: when considering all walking events, we observed an increase between 73 percent and 217 percent in daily walking time. As a result, authors estimated that between 19 percent and 25 percent of residents in these cities meet the WHO physical activity guidelines solely from walking for transportation. The results of the study also suggest that the promotion of public transportation in large Latin American cities can especially help certain population groups achieve the daily recommended levels of physical activity, while among low-income groups accessibility and safety seem to be the key challenge to be addressed. -
Publication
Water and Sanitation in Dhaka Slums: Access, Quality, and Informality in Service Provision
(Taylor and Francis, 2020-07-16)Slum populations are commonly characterized to have poorly developed water and sanitation systems and speculated to access services through informal channels. However, there are limited representative profiles of water and sanitation services in slums, making it difficult to prioritize interventions that will make services safer for residents. This cross-sectional study examines quality and provision of access to water and sanitation services in government slums across Dhaka, Bangladesh. Access is overall high but is subject to quality issues related to safety, reliability, and liability. Services are often operated by informal middlemen at various stages of provision.