03. Journals

2,911 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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Did a successful fight against COVID-19 come at a cost?: Impacts of the pandemic on employment outcomes in Vietnam

(Elsevier, 2023-01) Dang, Hai-Anh H. ; Nguyen, Cuong Viet ; Carletto, Calogero

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.
The value of lost output and cost of illness of noncommunicable diseases in the Pacific

(Elsevier, 2022-12-01) Hou, Xiaohui ; Anderson, Ian ; Burton-Mckenzie, Ethan-John

The Pacific Island Countries face some of the highest rates of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs). This study estimates the economic costs of NCDs for each year from 2015 to 2040, focusing on eleven Pacific Island nations. Data and Methods: two methods were used to estimate the mortality and morbidity costs using a ‘value of lost output’ and ‘cost of illness’ approach respectively. Results: Five results stand out in terms of projected economic costs of NCD mortality and morbidity analyses in the Pacific: (i) the economic burden of NCDs in the Pacific is greater than expected for middle‐income countries; (ii) although cardiovascular disease is the biggest contributor to the mortality burden in the region, diabetes plays a far greater role in the Pacific countries compared to the global average; (iii) the economic burden of NCDs is increasing with time, especially as incomes rise; (iv) the biggest driver of lost output is the potential loss of labor due to early death from NCDs; and (v) the cost of illness due to diabetes is high across the Pacific countries, with highest among the Polynesian countries. NCDs alone can put enormous threat to the small Pacific economies. Targeted interventions to reduce disease prevalence, as outlined in the Pacific NCDs Roadmap, are vital to reduce the long-term costs associated with NCD mortality and morbidity.
Measuring Human Capital in Middle Income Countries

(Elsevier, 2022-12) Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli ; Torre, Iván

This paper develops an indicator that measures the level of human capital to address the specific education and health challenges faced by middle income countries. We apply this indicator to countries in Europe and Central Asia, where productive employment requires skills that are more prevalent among higher education graduates, and where good health is associated to low levels of adult health risk factors. The Europe and Central Asia Human Capital Index (ECA-HCI) extends the World Bank's Human Capital Index by adding a measure of quality-adjusted years of higher education to the original education component, and it includes the prevalence of three adult health risk factors—obesity, smoking, and heavy drinking—as an additional proxy for latent health status. The results show that children born today in the average country in Europe and Central Asia will be almost half as productive as they would have had they reached the benchmark of complete education and full health. Countries with good basic education outcomes do not necessarily have good higher education outcomes, and high prevalence of adult health risk factors can offset good education indicators. This extension of the Human Capital Index could also be useful for assessing the state of human capital in middle-income countries in general.
Gender norms, landholdership, and rural land use fee and agricultural income tax in Ethiopia

(Elsevier, 2022-10-01) Komatsu, Hitomi ; Ambel, Alemayehu A. ; Koolwal, Gayatri ; Yonis, Manex Bule

Area-based land taxes, a form of property tax, exist where rural land markets do not exist or do not function well. Understanding how these taxes affect different groups of landholders, including by men and women, is important since a tax based on the land size is likely to have an outsized effect on smaller landholders. However, survey data allowing for an individual- and household-disaggregated analysis has been scarce. Using newly available data on tax payments and self-reported individual land ownership from the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey 2018/2019, this paper assessed the gender implications of an area-based rural land use fee and agricultural income tax in Ethiopia. We found that female adult-only households were more likely than dual adult households to be smallholders with less than 0.5 hectare of land, and these smallholders faced the largest per-hectare tax rates. Female-headed- and female adult-only households faced a tax incidence that was 37 percent higher than it was for male-headed and dual-adult households. The gender land ownership patterns, norms limiting women’s role in agriculture, household structures, and gender agricultural productivity gaps are likely to result in lower consumption, and consequently, a higher tax burden for women. Finally, we simulated the effect of a hypothetical tax schedule with progressive per-hectare tax rates and exemptions for smallholders and found that while this would reduce women’s tax burdens, the tax remained to be regressive because of the prevalence of landholder ship among poor households. Our study highlights the difficulty of area-based land taxes to be progressive.
Using Individual-Level Randomized Treatment to Learn about Market Structure

(American Economic Association, 2022-10) Casaburi, Lorenzo ; Reed, Tristan

Interference across competing firms in RCTs can be informative about market structure. An experiment that subsidizes a random subset of traders who buy cocoa from farmers in Sierra Leone illustrates this idea. Interpreting treatment-control differences in prices and quantities purchased from farmers through a model of Cournot competition reveals differentiation between traders is low. Combining this result with quasi-experimental variation in world prices shows that the number of traders competing is 50 percent higher than the number operating in a village. Own-price and cross-price supply elasticities are high. Farmers face a competitive market in this first stage of the value chain.
Can cities bounce back better from COVID-19? Reflections from emerging post-pandemic recovery plans and trade-offs

(SAGE, 2022-10-01) Wahba, Sameh N

As cities plan for post-COVID recovery, many questions preoccupy mayors, policymakers, planners, and developers. This article examines COVID-19’s impact on cities, drawing on local governments’ developing policies and responses to identify some of the emerging trends and trade-offs. Overall, city recovery will likely involve some transformation to land uses and real estate markets, with increasing demand for urban amenities and nature, and with policies in support of affordable housing, slum upgrading and informal sector employment, to achieve more liveable and inclusive cities. This in turn will depend on the policies, planning, finance, digital infrastructure, and governance systems in place. While many city challenges predate COVID-19, they were exacerbated by the pandemic. The extent to which cities, and especially cities in the global South, will overcome such challenges will depend on political will and the implementation of targeted policies and low-cost investments in sustainability, liveability and inclusion.
Cutting Special Interests by the Roots: Evidence from the Brazilian Amazon

(Elsevier, 2022-10-01) Braganca, Arthur ; Dahis, Ricardo

Government policies may impact economic outcomes directly but also indirectly through effects on political incentives. This paper examines the effects of the PPCDAm, a centralized set of environmental policies that effectively raised the expected cost of illegal deforestation, on the behavior of a powerful special-interest group operating in the Brazilian Amazon: farmers. Using different identification strategies, we document that municipalities governed by farmer politicians experienced larger declines in deforestation, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and violence than municipalities governed by other politicians after this set of policies was implemented. Our findings suggest the PPCDAm had indirect and persistent effects on political incentives, amplifying its impact on environmental and social outcomes.
Child mortality after the Ebola virus disease outbreak across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone

(Elsevier, 2022-09-01) Eun Kim, Young

The Ebola virus disease outbreak in 2014-2016 had a substantial impact on population health in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. This study aimed to assess whether the impact continued after the outbreak ended regarding child mortality. Cross-sectional logistic regressions were run using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys in the three countries. The average child mortality rate was significantly lower for children born after the outbreak than for those born before. However, the association of the child mortality rate with an increase in the number of Ebola cases per 100,000 people was significantly stronger for children born after the outbreak ended. Also, the change in the utilization of maternal health services after the outbreak varied across health services. Restoring disrupted child health services to pre-Ebola levels may be more difficult in areas that suffered a higher number of Ebola cases. The recovery of maternal health services after the outbreak might be affected by factors such as the resilience of health systems at the subnational level. This study suggests that strengthening the health system is crucial to fully recover from the Ebola outbreak and cope with future epidemics.
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.
Behavioral Change Promotion, Cash Transfers and Early Childhood Development: Experimental Evidence from a Government Program in a Low-Income Setting

(Elsevier, 2022-06-26) Premand, Patrick ; Barry, Oumar

Signs of development delays and malnutrition are widespread among young children in low-income settings. Social protection programs such as cash transfers are increasingly combined with behavioral change promotion or parenting interventions to improve early childhood development. This paper disentangles the effects of behavioral change promotion from cash transfers to poor households through an experiment embedded in a government program in Niger. The study is also designed to identify within-community spillovers from the behavioral change intervention. The findings show that behavioral change promotion affects a range of practices related to nutrition, health, stimulation, and child protection. Moderate gains in children’s socio-emotional development are observed, but there is no improvement in anthropometrics or cognitive development. Cash transfers alone do not alter parenting practices or improve early childhood development. Cash transfers raise food security and consumption at the household level, including the purchase of non-food items privately consumed by adults. The behavioral intervention offsets these changes and instead improves children’s food security, pointing to some intra-household reallocations toward children. Local spillovers on parenting practices are found, which further highlights that cash alone is not the main driver of changes in parenting behaviors.