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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How Do Shocks Affect Enrollment in Faith-Based Schools?: Evidence from West Africa

(Taylor and Francis, 2022-01-28) Elmallakh, Nelly ; Wodon, Quentin

The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed concerns about how shocks may affect religious and other private schools in low-income countries, especially when they do not benefit from state support. By reducing parental incomes, shocks – not only epidemics but also natural disasters and conflicts, reduce overall enrollment in school. But they may also lead to a shift from private to public schools with potentially differentiated effects by type of private school depending on context. In addition, household responses to shocks such as migration may lead to a change in the socio-cultural context in which households live, and these changes may also affect school choice. This paper explores the effects of shocks and migration on school choice in West Africa. Results suggest that shocks and migration lead to a shift from private to public schools, but with differentiated effects by type of private schools.
Looking into the performance-based financing black box: Evidence from an impact evaluation in the health sector in Cameroon

(Oxford University Press, 2021-07) de Walque, Damien ; Robyn, Paul Jacob ; Saidou, Hamadou ; Sorgho, Gaston ; Steenland, Maria

Performance-based financing (PBF) is a complex health systems intervention aimed at improving the coverage and quality of care. Several studies have shown a positive impact of PBF on health service coverage, often coupled with improvements in quality, but relatively little is known about the mechanisms driving those results. This article presents results of a randomized impact evaluation in Cameroon designed to isolate the role of specific components of the PBF approach with four study groups: (i) PBF with explicit financial incentives linked to results, (ii) direct financing with additional resources available for health providers not linked to performance, (iii) enhanced supervision and monitoring without additional resources and (iv) a control group. Overall, results indicate that, when compared with the pure control group, PBF in Cameroon led to significant increases in utilization for several services (child and maternal vaccinations, use of modern family planning), but not for others like antenatal care visits and facility-based deliveries. In terms of quality, PBF increased the availability of inputs and equipment, qualified health workers, led to a reduction in formal and informal user fees but did not affect the content of care. However, for many positively impacted outcomes, the differences between the PBF group and the group receiving additional financing not linked to performance are not significant, suggesting that additional funding rather than the explicit incentives might be driving improvements. In contrast, the intervention group offering enhanced supervision, coaching and monitoring without additional funding did not experience significant impacts compared to the control group.
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.
Natural Disasters and Human Capital Accumulation

(World Bank, 2010-08-30) Cuaresma, Jesus Crespo

The empirical literature on the relationship between natural disaster risk and investment in education is inconclusive. Model averaging methods in a framework of cross-country and panel regressions show an extremely robust negative partial correlation between secondary school enrollment and natural disaster risk. This result is driven exclusively by geologic disasters. Exposure to natural disaster risk is a robust determinant of differences in secondary school enrollment between countries but not necessarily within countries.
The Effect of Refugee Inflows on Host Communities

(World Bank, 2010-02-15) Alix-Garcia, Jennifer ; Saah, David

Despite the large and growing number of humanitarian emergencies, there is little economic research on the impact of refugees and internally displaced people on the communities that receive them. This analysis of the impact of the refugee inflows from Burundi and Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 on host populations in western Tanzania shows large increases in the prices of nonaid food items and more modest price effects for aid-related food items. Food aid is shown to mitigate these effects, though its impact is smaller than that of the increases in the refugee population. Examination of household assets suggests positive wealth effects of refugee camps on nearby rural households and negative wealth effects on households in urban areas.
Agricultural Employment Trends in Asia and Africa

(World Bank, 2010-02-01) Headey, Derek ; Bezemer, Dirk ; Hazell, Peter B.

Contrary to conventional economic theories, the relationship between income growth and agricultural employment is extremely diverse, even among regions starting from similar levels of development, such as Asia and Africa. Due to its labor-intensive Green Revolution and strong farm–nonfarm linkages, Asia's development path is mostly characterized by fast growth with relatively slow agricultural exits. In contrast to Asia, urban biased policies, low rural population density, and high rates of population growth have led a number of African countries down a path of slow economic growth with surprisingly rapid agricultural exits. Despite this divergence both continents now face daunting employment problems. Asia appears to be increasingly vulnerable to rising inequality, slower job creation, and shrinking farm sizes, suggesting that Asian governments need to refocus on integrating smallholders and lagging regions into increasingly commercialized rural and urban economies. Africa, in contrast, has yet to achieve its own Green Revolution, which would still be a highly effective tool for job creation and poverty reduction. However, the diversity of its endowments and its tighter budget constraints mean that agricultural development strategies in Africa need to be highly context specific, financially sustainable, and more evidence-based.
Development, Modernization, and Childbearing

(World Bank, 2009-11-30) Filmer, Deon ; Friedman, Jed ; Schady, Norbert

Does the sex composition of existing children in a family affect fertility behavior? An unusually large data set, covering 64 countries and some 5 million births, is used to show that fertility behavior responds to the presence—or absence—of sons in many regions of the developing world. The response to the absence of sons is particularly large in Central Asia and South Asia. Modernization does not appear to reduce this differential response. For example, in South Asia the fertility response to the absence of sons is larger for women with more education and has been increasing over time. The explanation appears to be that a latent demand for sons is more likely to manifest itself when fertility levels are low. As a result of this differential fertility behavior, girls tend to grow up with significantly more siblings than do boys, with potential implications for their well-being when quantity–quality tradeoffs result in fewer material and emotional resources allocated to children in larger families.
Gender, Poverty and Demography

(World Bank, 2009-11-30) Buvinic, Mayra ; Gupta, Monica Da ; Casabonne, Ursula

Much has been written on gender inequality and how it affects fertility and mortality outcomes as well as economic outcomes. What is not well understood is the role of gender inequality, embedded in the behavior of the family, the market, and society, in mediating the impact of demographic processes on economic outcomes. This article reviews the empirical evidence on the possible economic impacts of gender inequalities that work by exacerbating demographic stresses associated with different demographic scenarios and reducing the prospects of gains when demographic conditions improve. It defines four demographic scenarios and discusses which public policies are more effective in each scenario in reducing the constraints that gender inequality imposes on poverty reduction
Agricultural Growth and Poverty Reduction

(World Bank, 2009-11-30) de Janvry, Alain ; Sadoulet, Elisabeth

Agricultural growth has long been recognized as an important instrument for poverty reduction. Yet, measurements of this relationship are still scarce and not always reliable. The authors present additional evidence at both the sectoral and household levels based on recent data. Results show that rural poverty reduction has been associated with growth in yields and in agricultural labor productivity, but that this relation varies sharply across regional contexts. GDP growth originating in agriculture induces income growth among the 40 percent poorest, which is on the order of three times larger than growth originating in the rest of the economy. The power of agriculture comes not only from its direct poverty reduction effect but also from its potentially strong growth linkage effects on the rest of the economy. Decomposing the aggregate decline in poverty into a rural contribution, an urban contribution, and a population shift component shows that rural areas contributed more than half the observed aggregate decline in poverty. Finally, using the example of Vietnam, the authors show that rapid growth in agriculture has opened pathways out of poverty for farming households. While the effectiveness of agricultural growth in reducing poverty is well established, the effectiveness of public investment in inducing agricultural growth is still incomplete and conditional on context.
Building Capacity to Move Past Conflict and Fragility

(World Bank, 2009-10-01) Pradhan, Sanjay

Capacity building should be an integral part of a country’s national development plan, not an add-on.