03. Journals

2,963 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 12

Debunking the Stereotype of the Lazy Welfare Recipient: Evidence from Cash Transfer Programs

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2017-08-01) Banerjee, Abhijit V. ; Hanna, Rema ; Kreindler, Gabriel E. ; Olken, Benjamin A.

Targeted transfer programs for poor citizens have become increasingly common in the developing world. Yet, a common concern among policy-makers and citizens is that such programs tend to discourage work. We re-analyze the data from seven randomized controlled trials of government-run cash transfer programs in six developing countries throughout the world, and find no systematic evidence that cash transfer programs discourage work.
Managing Rural Landscapes in the Context of a Changing Climate

(Taylor and Francis, 2014-08-08) Kutter, Andrea ; Westby, Leon Dwight

Global competition for natural resources is intense and the supply of those resources is increasingly more constrained by climate variability and change. Governments and international development agencies have the dual responsibility to meet the socioeconomic needs of the poorest and most vulnerable people while preserving and enhancing their natural capital. These responsibilities often are at odds with each other and different stakeholder groups have prioritized one over the other. This paper suggests that the landscape approach provides a solution for stakeholders to achieve climate change mitigation, adaptation, and poverty reduction goals, though not without some trade-offs.
How Can Safety Nets Contribute to Economic Growth?

(Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2014-01-23) Alderman, Harold ; Yemtsov, Ruslan

The paper provides an up-to date and selective review of the literature on how social safety nets contribute to growth. The evidence is carefully chosen to show how safety nets have the potential to overcome constraints on growth linked to market failures, and is organized into four distinct pathways: i) encouraging asset accumulation by changing incentives and by addressing imperfections in financial markets caused by constraints in obtaining credit, and from information asymmetries; overcoming such failures helps households to invest into their human capital or productive assets; ii) failures in insurance markets especially in low income setting; safety nets are assisting in managing risk both ex post and ex ante; iii) safety nets are overcoming failure to create assets and other local economy complementary factors to household-level investments; iv) safety nets are shown to relax political constraints on policy. Safety nets have a dual objective of directly alleviating poverty through transfers to the poor and of triggering higher growth for the poor. However, the trade-off between the dual objectives of equity and growth is not eliminated by the potential for productive safety nets; this remains critical for designing social policies.
Are The Poverty Effects of Trade Policies Invisible?

(World Bank, 2011-05-31) Verma, Monika ; Hertel, Thomas W. ; Valenzuela, Ernesto

Beginning with the WTO's Doha Development Agenda and establishment of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing poverty by 50 percent by 2015, poverty impacts of trade reforms have become central to the global development agenda. This has been particularly true of agricultural trade reforms due to the importance of grains in the diets of the poor, presence of relatively higher protection in agriculture, as well as heavy concentration of global poverty in rural areas where agriculture is the main source of income. Yet some in this debate have argued that, given the extreme volatility in agricultural commodity markets, the additional price and therefore poverty impacts due to trade liberalization might well be indiscernible. This paper formally tests the “invisibility hypothesis” using the method of stochastic simulation in a trade-poverty modeling framework. The hypothesis test is based on the comparison of two samples of price and poverty distributions. The first originates solely from the inherent variability in global staple grains markets, while the second combines the effects of inherent market variability with those of trade reform in these same markets. Results, at the national and stratum level indicate that the short-run poverty impacts of full trade liberalization in staple grains trade worldwide, are distinguishable in only four of the fifteen countries, suggesting that impacts of more modest agricultural trade reforms are indeed likely to be invisible in short run. Countries that show statistically significant short run impacts are the ones characterized by high staple grains tariffs and/or a moderate degree of grain markets variability. Within each country, results are heterogeneous. In two thirds of the sample countries, agriculturally self-employed poor experience statistically significant poverty impacts from trade liberalization. However, this figure is under a third for all the other strata.
The Bogotá Spirit : South-South Peers and Partners at the Practice-Policy Nexus

( 2010-10) Schulz, Nils-Sjard

On a warm evening in late March of this year, more than 500 enthusiastic delegates from around the world poured out of the Chamber of Commerce building in Bogot�, with a shared vision that South-South cooperation would reshape today�s development cooperation landscape. Despite the Colombian capital�s dizzying altitude of 2,800 meters, their zeal for effective South-South knowledge exchange and mutual learning left the participants of the Bogot� High Level Event on South-South cooperation and Capacity Development clear headed and with a long list of ideas, projects and plans, for their countries and regions, and for their multilateral, parliamentary, civil society, and research organizations.
Development Marketplace Winners : On the Pathway to Replication and Sustainability

( 2010-07) Grubisich, Tom

Even before Panos Varangis and his team of World Bank, insurance practitioners, and academics competed for a US$117,000 grant in Development Marketplace 2000, they were, like chess players, already planning how to fund and test their concept in countries beyond the scope of their DM application.
Timing and Duration of Exposure in Evaluations of Social Programs

(World Bank, 2009-03-30) King, Elizabeth M. ; Behrman, Jere

Impact evaluations aim to measure the outcomes that can be attributed to a specific policy or intervention. While there have been excellent reviews of the different methods for estimating impact, insufficient attention has been paid to questions related to timing: How long after a program has begun should it be evaluated? For how long should treatment groups be exposed to a program before they benefit from it? Are there time patterns in a program's impact? This paper examines the evaluation issues related to timing, and discusses the sources of variation in the duration of exposure within programs and their implications for impact estimates. It reviews the evidence from careful evaluations of programs (with a focus on developing countries) on the ways that duration affects impacts.
Mental Health Patterns and Consequences : Results from Survey Data in Five Developing Countries

(World Bank, 2009-02-28) Das, Jishnu ; Do, Quy-Toan ; Friedman, Jed ; McKenzie, David

The social and economic consequences of poor mental health in the developing world are presumed to be significant, yet remain underresearched. This study uses data from nationally representative surveys in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Indonesia, and Mexico and from special surveys in India and Tonga to show similar patterns of association between mental health and socioeconomic characteristics. Individuals who are older, female, widowed, and report poor physical health are more likely to report worse mental health. Individuals living with others with poor mental health are also significantly more likely to report worse mental health themselves. In contrast, there is little observed relation between mental health and consumption poverty or education, two common measures of socioeconomic status. Indeed, the results here suggest instead that economic and multidimensional shocks, such as illness or crisis, can have a greater impact on mental health than poverty. This may have important implications for social protection policy. Also significant, the associations between poor mental health and lower labor force participation (especially for women) and more frequent visits to health centers suggest that poor mental health can have economic consequences for households and the health system. Mental health modules could usefully be added to multipurpose household surveys in developing countries. Finally, measures of mental health appear distinct from general subjective measures of welfare such as happiness.
Access to Finance

(World Bank, 2008-12-01) Beck, Thorsten ; Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli

Recent data compilations show that many poor and nonpoor people in many developing countries face a high degree of financial exclusion and high barriers in access to finance. Theory and empirical evidence point to the critical role that improved access to finance has in promoting growth and reducing income inequality. An extensive literature shows the channels through which finance promotes enterprise growth and improves aggregate resource allocation. There is less evidence at the household level, however, and on the effectiveness of policies to overcome financial exclusion. The article summarizes recent efforts to measure and analyze the impact of access to finance and discusses the unfinished research agenda.
Managing the Exodus

(World Bank, 2008-10-01) Macours, Karen ; Sadoulet, Elisabeth ; Neal, Christopher ; Lawton, Anna

As the labor force in agriculture grows smaller, displaced rural workers need new options. Effective preparedness of those who leave the farm is a critical part of an overall strategy to mobilize agriculture for development.