Journal articles published externally

2,088 items available

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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/4401

These are journal articles by World Bank authors published externally.

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The Importance of Political Selection for Bureaucratic Effectiveness (First published: 19 April 2023)
(John Wiley and Sons, 2023-08-14) Habyarimana, James; Khemani, Stuti; Scot, Thiago
Bureaucratic effectiveness has come to the fore in research as necessary for economic growth and development. This paper contributes empirical evidence to understand the building blocks of bureaucracy by gathering rich survey data in a typical institutional environment of the developing world. The data reveal a robust correlation between the selection of local politicians and bureaucratic effectiveness. In districts in Uganda where locally elected politicians have higher survey-based measures of integrity (or honesty), the bureaucracy is more effective in delivering public heath services. This evidence supports current research, and encourages future research on how the selection of political agents into government is an important determinant of bureaucratic effectiveness.
The good, the bad, and the ugly: New evidence on alternative views of corruption
(Taylor and Francis, 2023-05-05) Bogetić, Željko; Naeher, Dominik
Different views of corruption are discussed in the literature, ranging from theories highlighting a positive role of corruption (to ‘grease the wheels’ of an economy) to negative (acting as ‘sand in the wheels’) or even destructive effects of corruption on economic outcomes. The empirical evidence in this context is mixed, with alternative theories being supported by different studies, typically relying on different data sources, time periods, and measures of corruption. In this paper, we assess several alternative views of corruption simultaneously in a single empirical framework. Specifically, we test six prominent hypotheses regarding the role of corruption for government revenues using a comprehensive country-level panel dataset covering 194 countries in the period 1996–2019. Our results help to shed light on the factors that are empirically important in explaining the link between corruption and government revenues, including the role of governance, autocracy, fragile states, and natural resources.
Centring Rights-Based Access to Self-Care Interventions
(Taylor and Francis, 2022-11-11) Ferguson, Laura; Narasimhan, Manjulaa
Ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is fundamental to the success of the Sustainable Development Goals and a range of other global commitments. As such, innovations that can help promote SRHR, including self-care interventions, offer exciting opportunities to improve health and rights simultaneously. While self-care is not new conceptually, the growing number of evidence-based technologies, medicines and products that can be accessed outside of the formal health sector point to the role lay people play as active participants in their own health care.
Regime-Dependent Environmental Tax Multipliers: Evidence from 75 Countries
(Taylor and Francis, 2022-06-27) Schoder, Christian
This paper reviews the main transmission channels of an environmental tax reform shifting the tax burden from labour to carbon emission. The analysis uses a simple open-economy macro model and estimates dynamic environmental tax as well as personal income tax multiplier effects on output and employment for a panel of 75 high- and low-income countries from 1994 to 2018. Tax policy changes are identified by cyclically adjusting the tax revenues. The estimated environmental tax multiplier effects on output range from 1 on impact to 1.8 at the peak. Personal income tax multipliers are slightly higher, ranging from 1.4 to 2.3. While income taxes reduce employment, environmental taxes do not. Environmental tax multipliers are highly regime dependent: they are close to zero or statistically insignificant unless taxes are increased when output contracts, fuel prices are high, the environmental tax levels are high, or the carbon intensity of output is low. Commodity trade-exposed countries face higher tax multipliers. This analysis concludes that, compared with income taxes, environmental taxes can be a less contractionary source of revenues to support the post-COVID-19 fiscal consolidation efforts, especially in countries that are at the beginning of their decarbonization efforts.
Addressing declining female labor force participation in India: Does political empowerment make a difference?
(Taylor & Francis, 2022-02)
Despite income growth, fertility decline, and educational expansion, female labour force participation in rural India dropped precipitously over the last decade. Nation-wide individual-level data allow us to explore if random reservation of village leadership for females affected women’s access to job opportunities, their demand for participation in the labour force, and income as well as intra-household bargaining in the short-and medium term. Gender reservation of local leadership affected female but not male participation in public works and regular labour markets, their income, and their influence on key household decisions with a lag, suggesting that such reservation affected social norms and stereotypes.
Transnational Terrorist Recruitment: Evidence from Daesh Personnel Records
(MIT Press, 2022-01-25) Brockmeyer, Anne; Do, Quy-Toan; Joubert, Clement; Bhatia, Kartika; Abdel Jelil, Mohamed
Global terrorist organizations attract radicalized individuals across borders and constitute a threat for both sending and receiving countries. We use unique personnel records from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Daesh) to show that unemployment in sending countries is associated with the number of transnational terrorist recruits from these countries. The relationship is spatially heterogeneous, which is most plausibly attributable to travel costs. We argue that poor labor market opportunities generally push more individuals to join terrorist organizations, but at the same time limit their ability to do so when longer travel distances imply higher migration costs.
Violence and Newborn Health: Estimates for Colombia
(John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 2021-10-15) Rodriguez, Laura
This paper examines the relationship between maternal exposure to violence during pregnancy and newborn birthweight. The identification strategy exploits variation in the timing of exposure and in the geographic location of expectant mothers across Colombian municipalities. Exposure to violence in early pregnancy had a large negative impact on birthweight, primarily for boys, and the effect was mitigated by their mothers' education. Girls' birthweight was affected mainly by shocks in later stages of gestation. Furthermore, their mothers were more likely to engage in potentially harmful behaviors during the pregnancy. This evidence exposes the importance of parental responses in shaping the effect of exposure to violence on newborn health.
Growth in Syria: Losses from the War and Potential Recovery in the Aftermath
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-07-05) Devadas, Sharmila; Elbadawi, Ibrahim; Loayza, Norman V.
This paper addresses three questions: (1) what would have been the growth and income trajectory of Syria in the absence of war; (2) given the war, what explains the reduction in economic growth; and (3) what potential growth scenarios for Syria there could be in the aftermath of war. Conflict impact estimates point to negative GDP growth of −12% on average over 2011–2018, with output contracting to about one-third of the 2010 level. In post-conflict simulation scenarios, the growth drivers are affected by the assumed levels of reconstruction assistance, repatriation of refugees, and productivity improvements associated with three political settlement outcomes: a baseline (Sochi-plus) moderate scenario, an optimistic (robust political settlement) scenario, and a pessimistic (de facto balance of power) scenario. Respectively for these scenarios, GDP per capita average growth in the next two decades is projected to be 6.1%, 8.2%, or 3.1%, assuming a final and stable resolution of the conflict.
Does Pluralism Matter for the Fulfillment of the Right to Education? Exploring New Indices
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-06-09) Wodon, Quentin
There is not a lot of support in the international community today for the role played by the private sector, including faith-based schools, towards achieving the fourth sustainable development goal (SDG), which calls for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education. Yet, education pluralism is called for in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In a separate paper published in this journal, a measure of education pluralism was suggested to reflect this idea. In this paper, that measure is combined with data on educational outcomes to assess whether taking pluralism seriously may affect assessments of the fulfillment of the right to education.
Long-term Well-being Among Survivors of the Rwandan and Cambodian Genocides
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-05-17) Milazzo, Annamaria; Cuesta, Jose
This paper adds to the thin empirical literature estimating the long-term effects of exposure to conflict from in utero to adolescence on adult well-being. The effects through adolescence of the two worst genocides in recent history—those occurring in Rwanda (1994) and Cambodia (1975–79)—are examined. The Rwandan genocide is shown to have produced long-term health outcomes among women exposed to the conflict during adolescence. A further contribution is the analysis of gendered effects during adolescence, which is enabled by the availability of data on men’s height for Rwanda. The long-term effects are confirmed for men, however this appears to be the consequence of exposure during adolescence later than for women, a result that is consistent with the biological literature on the differential timing of the onset of puberty by gender. No significant effects are detected in the case of the Cambodian genocide and we discuss some issues that may influence this result. Although more research and better data are needed, our results are suggestive of adolescent-specific effects of the Rwandan genocide, which may be comparable or larger than those previously found for younger children.