C. Journal articles published externally
2,064 items available
Permanent URI for this collection
These are journal articles by World Bank authors published externally.
Items in this collection
1 - 10 of 30
-
Publication
The Portfolio Theory of Inflation and Policy (In)Effectiveness: A Revisitation (Published online: 14 Sep 2021)
(Taylor and Francis, 2023-08-11)This article revisits the Portfolio Theory of Inflation (PTI), with a view to further articulating its findings and implications. The article adds to the micro-foundations of the PTI, framing more rigorously the role of global investors as international allocators of capital resources, and providing richer analysis of their interaction with macroeconomic policies at country level. The article explores how country credibility enters the capital allocation choice process of global investors and how global investor choices shape the space available to country policy making, determining the extent to which the effect of macro-policies dissipates into exchange rate depreciation and higher inflation. -
Publication
Women in Paid Employment: A Role for Public Policies and Social Norms in Guatemala
(Taylor and Francis, 2023-05-03)With only 32% of women in the labor market, Guatemala has one of the lowest rates of female labor force participation (FLFP) in the Latin America and Caribbean region and in the world. We explore information from different micro data sets, including the most recent population censuses (2002 and 2018) to assess the drivers of recent progress. Between 2002 and 2018, FLFP increased from an average of 26% to 32% nationwide. This increase was partly explained by increases in the school attainment of women, reduction in fertility and the country’s structural transformation towards services. However, a large part of the increase remains unexplained. Exploring 2018 data, we show that social norms, attitudes towards women and public policies are important determinants of FLFP. The analysis suggests that, taken together, these factors can all become an important source of increased participation of women in the labor market moving forward. -
Publication
Government Social Protection Programme Spending and Household Welfare in Lesotho
(John Wiley and Sons, 2023-03-16)Lesotho has notably high levels of poverty and inequality despite a high level of government spending on social protection programmes. We assess the performance of this spending in reducing consumption poverty and inequality, applying benefit incidence and microsimulation methods to 2017/2018 household survey data. We investigate the distributional effects of actual spending as well as those of a hypothetical alternative in which the spending is targeted through a proxy means test (PMT) formula used by the government for some programmes. We find that government spending on social protection programmes in Lesotho substantially reduces poverty and inequality. For most programmes, the hypothetical alternative of targeting spending to poorer households through the government's PMT formula would have no better distributional effects than current programme spending. The exception is postsecondary education bursaries, which are costly and regressive. Retaining bursaries only for poorer students, and reallocating the outlay this saves to a transfer targeted to poorer households through the government's PMT formula, could reduce poverty and inequality significantly. -
Publication
Did a successful fight against COVID-19 come at a cost?: Impacts of the pandemic on employment outcomes in Vietnam
(Elsevier, 2023-01)Despite its low middle-income status, Vietnam has been widely praised for its success in the fight against early waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a low mortality rate of approximately 100 deaths out of a population of less than 100 million by the end of 2020. We add to the emerging literature on COVID-19 effects on the labor market for poorer countries by analyzing rich individual-level data from Vietnam’s Labor Force Surveys spanning 2015 to 2020. We find post-pandemic increases in unemployment and temporary layoff rates alongside decreases in employment quality. Monthly wages declined even as the proportion of workers receiving below-minimum wages substantially increased, contributing to sharply rising wage inequality. Our findings suggest that more resources should be allocated to protect vulnerable workers, especially as the pandemic continues to cause increasingly severe damage to the global economy. -
Publication
Locally financed and outside financed regional fiscal multipliers
(Elsevier, 2022-04)The size of regional fiscal multipliers determines the efficacy of fiscal stimulus, the costs of fiscal austerity and whether countercyclical fiscal policy is more effective at the federal or local level. This paper studies fiscal multipliers in regions of a monetary union—US states, Eurozone members, or countries with a hard exchange-rate peg—and how multipliers are affected by the way spending is financed: local deficit financing, local tax financing or outside financing (federal or foreign aid). I present analytical and quantitative government purchase and transfer multipliers using a New Keynesian model consistent with estimated transfer multipliers in Pennings (2021), focusing on the persistence of the fiscal shock. I find that at business-cycle frequencies, financing has little effect on impact multipliers: outside-financed multipliers are only about 0.07–0.16 larger than local deficit-financed multipliers. This suggests efforts to enable local countercyclical fiscal policy may be a partial substitute for greater fiscal centralization or foreign financing. -
Publication
Explaining Differences in the Returns to R&D in Argentina: The Role of Contextual Factors
(Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-31)Argentinean firms’ investments in R&D are well below its regional peers. One potential explanation for this fact is the existence of low and heterogeneous returns for these investments. This paper uses novel microdata to estimate the returns to R&D and analyse the role of contextual factors in shaping its heterogeneity. The findings confirm that returns are indeed heterogeneous and depend on some important factors related to the market context, such as measures of uncertainty; and the knowledge context, such as knowledge spillovers. Acknowledging that heterogeneity of returns depends on firms’ context is crucial for designing innovation policies to boost private R&D returns. -
Publication
Transnational Terrorist Recruitment: Evidence from Daesh Personnel Records
(MIT Press, 2022-01-25)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. -
Publication
Saving for Dowry: Evidence from Rural India
(Elsevier, 2022-01)The ancient custom of dowry, i.e., bride-to-groom marriage payments, remains ubiquitous in many contemporary societies. Using data from 1986–2007, this paper examines whether dowry impacts intertemporal resource allocation and other household decisions in rural India. Utilizing variation in firstborn gender and dowry amounts across marriage markets, we find that the prospect of higher dowry payments at the time of a daughter’s marriage leads parents to save more in advance. The higher savings are primarily financed through increased paternal labor supply. This implies that people are farsighted; they work and save more today with payoff in the distant future. -
Publication
Borrower Leakage from Costly Screening: Evidence from SME Lending in Peru
(Elsevier, 2021-11)We provide evidence that commercial lenders in Peru suffer leakages in their loan approval process. Leveraging a discontinuity in the loan approval process of a large bank, we find that receiving a loan approval from the bank causes loan applicants to receive offers from other financial institutions as well. Competing lenders captured almost three quarters of the new loans to previously financially excluded borrowers. Importantly, many of these borrowers never took a loan from our partner bank, even after our partner bank approved them. Lenders may therefore underinvest in screening new borrowers and expanding financial inclusion, as their competitors reap some of the benefit. Our results highlight that information spillovers between lenders may operate outside of credit registries. -
Publication
Growth in Syria: Losses from the War and Potential Recovery in the Aftermath
(Taylor and Francis, 2021-07-05)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.