03. Journals

1,616 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2210

These are journal articles published in World Bank journals as well as externally by World Bank authors.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 1287

Eyes in the Sky, Boots on the Ground: Assessing Satellite, and Ground-Based Approaches to Crop Yield Measurement and Analysis

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-07-15) David B. Lobell ; George Azzari ; Burke,Marshall Benajah ; Gourlay,Sydney ; Zhenong Jin ; Kilic,Talip ; Murray,Siobhan

Understanding the determinants of agricultural productivity requires accurate measurement of crop output and yield. In smallholder production systems across low- and middle-income countries, crop yields have traditionally been assessed based on farmer-reported production and land areas in household and farm surveys, occasionally by objective crop cuts for a sub-section of a farmer’s plot, and rarely using full-plot harvests. In parallel, satellite data continue to improve in terms of spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution needed to discern performance on smallholder plots. This study evaluates ground and satellite-based approaches to estimating crop yields and yield responsiveness to inputs, using data on maize from Eastern Uganda. Using unique, simultaneous ground data on yields based on farmer reporting, sub-plot crop cutting, and full-plot harvests across hundreds of smallholder plots, we document large discrepancies among the ground-based measures, particularly among yields based on farmer-reporting versus sub-plot or full-plot crop cutting. Compared to yield measures based on either farmer-reporting or sub-plot crop cutting, satellite-based yield measures explain as much or more variation in yields based on (gold-standard) full-plot crop cuts. Further, estimates of the association between maize yield and various production factors (e.g., fertilizer, soil quality) are similar across crop cut- and satellite-based yield measures, with the use of the latter at times leading to more significant results due to larger sample sizes. Overall, the results suggest a substantial role for satellite-based yield estimation in measuring and understanding agricultural productivity in the developing world.
Locally financed and outside financed regional fiscal multipliers

(Elsevier, 2022-04) Pennings, Steven

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.
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.
Saving for Dowry: Evidence from Rural India

(Elsevier, 2022-01) Anukriti, S. ; Kwon, Sungoh ; Prakash, Nishith

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.
Engaging Men to Transform Inequitable Gender Attitudes and Prevent Intimate Partner Violence: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo

(BMJ Global Health, 2020-05-27) Vaillant, Julia ; Koussoubé, Estelle ; Roth, Danielle ; Pierotti, Rachael Susan ; Hossain, Mazeda ; Falb, Kathryn L

Globally, one in three women worldwide report experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime. The study objective was to understand the effectiveness of Engaging Men through Accountable Practice (EMAP), a group-based discussion series which sought to transform gender relations in communities, on intimate partner violence (IPV), gender inequitable attitudes and related outcomes. Interventions engaging men have the potential to change gender attitudes and behaviours in conflict-affected areas. However, while EMAP led to changes in gender attitudes and behaviours related to perpetration of IPV, the study showed no overall reduction of women’s experience of IPV. Further research is needed to understand how working with men may lead to long-term and meaningful changes in IPV and related gender equitable attitudes and behaviours in conflict areas.
The use of video vignettes to measure health worker knowledge: Evidence from Burkina Faso

(Elsevier, 2018-09) Banuri, Sheheryar ; de Walque, Damien ; Keefer, Philip ; Haidara, Ousmane Diadie ; Robyn, Paul Jacob ; Ye, Maurice

The quality of care is a crucial determinant of good health outcomes, but is difficult to measure. Survey vignettes are a standard approach to measuring medical knowledge among health care providers. Given that written vignettes or knowledge tests may be too removed from clinical practice, particularly where “learning by doing” may be an important form of training, we developed a new type of provider vignette. It uses videos presenting a patient visiting the clinic with maternal/early childhood symptoms. We tested these video vignettes with current and future (students) health professionals in Burkina Faso. Participants indicated that the cases used were interesting, understandable and common. Their performance was consistent with expectations. Participants with greater training (medical doctors vs. nurses and midwives) and experience (health professionals vs. students) performed better. The video vignettes can easily be embedded in computers, tablets and smart phones; they are a convenient tool to measure provider knowledge; and they are cost-effective instruction and testing tools.
The Medium-Term Effects of Scholarships in a Low-Income Country

(University of Wisconsin Press, 2014-09) Filmer, Deon ; Schady, Norbert

Despite progress in recent decades, a substantial fraction of children in developing countries attain little schooling, and many adults lack skills that are valued in the labor market. We evaluate the medium-term effects of a program that provided scholarships for three years to poor children upon graduation from elementary school in Cambodia, a low-income country. To do this we use a sharp regression discontinuity design. We show that scholarships have substantial effects on school attainment. By the time children would have been in grade 11 had they remained in school, two years after they stopped being eligible for scholarships, those who were offered scholarships have attained 0.6 more grades of completed schooling. Nevertheless, we find no evidence that scholarships had significant effects on test scores, employment, earnings, or the probability of getting married or having a child in adolescence.
Benefit Incidence Analysis Are Government Health Expenditures : More Pro-Rich Than We Think?

( 2012-04) Wagstaff, Adam

Authors of benefit-incidence analyses (BIA) have to impute subsidies using assumptions about the relationship between unobserved subsidies 'captured' by the household and what can be observed at the household and aggregate levels. This paper shows that one of the two assumptions used in BIA studies to date will necessarily produce a more pro-rich (or less pro-poor) picture of government health spending than the other, depending on whether utilization is more pro-rich or pro-poor than fees paid to public providers. Both assumptions have their disadvantages, and the paper suggests a couple of alternatives that explicitly link fees paid to the costliness of care. It shows that in the most likely case where fees are distributed in a more pro-rich fashion than utilization, the two traditional assumptions will produce less pro-rich distributions of subsidies than the two new alternatives. Also considered are three complications that arise in BIA studies, including factoring in social health insurance. The paper's theoretical results are illustrated with an empirical BIA for Vietnam. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. May be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and conditions at http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-817011.html
Leishmaniasis Chemotherapy-Challenges and Opportunities

( 2011-10) Croft, S. L. ; Olliaro, P.

Clin Microbiol Infect 2011; 17: 1478-1483 ABSTRACT: Although there have been significant advances in the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis (VL), there remain challenges to ensure that treatments effective in India are also effective in other regions of the world and to identify treatment for post kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis as well as the opportunity to develop a safe oral short-course treatment. At the same time, there have been few advances for the treatment of simple or complex forms of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), other than topical paromomycin formulations. The main challenge for CL is to ensure that this disease is on the research and development agenda, so that new drugs are evaluated or compounds are screened in appropriate models, and that the standardization of quality of clinical trials is guaranteed. Problems also remain in the treatment of HIV/leishmaniasis co-infected patients. We are some way from having the ideal treatments for VL and CL and drug research and development for these diseases must remain focused.
Second Conference of the African Health Economics and Policy Association: towards universal healthcare coverage in Africa

( 2011-06) Atim, C.

This report discusses the key messages coming out of the papers presented at the second African Health Economics and Policy Association conference, with a particular focus on innovative and recent research results of interest to a wider audience. It also covers the scientific structure and organization of the conference, including the various sessions and key note speeches. The 3-day conference discussed the definition and scope as well as the key issues concerned, the challenges involved, and the role of leadership and country ownership in achieving universal health coverage in low-income countries. A special effort was also made to link the research outputs of the conference to policy-making in the region, through the participation of high-level decision-makers from countries as well as the production of policy briefs targeting policy-makers and based on the conference outputs and relevant research. Sub-themes of the conference included user fee removal and exemptions, covering those outside the formal sector, improved domestic funding of healthcare, purchasing of services and policy processes. The conference was attended by approximately 230 participants drawn from over 30 African countries as well as abroad, mostly from academia, research institutions, Ministries of Health and other relevant Government agencies, as well as donor and technical partners.