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 14

Personality Traits, Technology Adoption, and Technical Efficiency: Evidence from Smallholder Rice Farms in Ghana

(Taylor and Francis, 2019-09) Ali, Daniel Ayalew ; Brown, Derick ; Deininger, Klaus

Although a large literature highlights the impact of personality traits on key labor market outcomes, evidence of their impact on agricultural production decisions remains limited. Data from 1,200 Ghanaian rice farmers suggest that noncognitive skills (polychronicity, work centrality, and optimism) significantly affect simple adoption decisions, returns from adoption, and technical efficiency in rice production, and that the size of the estimated impacts exceeds that of traditional human capital measures. Greater focus on personality traits relative to cognitive skills may help accelerate innovation diffusion in the short term, and help farmers to respond flexibly to new opportunities and risks in the longer term.
Identifying Gazelles: Expert Panels vs. Surveys as a Means to Identify Firms with Rapid Growth Potential

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2017-10-01) Fafchamps, Marcel ; Woodruff, Christopher

We conduct a business plan competition to test whether survey instruments or panel judges are able to identify the fastest growing firms. Participants submitted six- to eight-page business plans and defended them before a three- or four-judge panel. We surveyed applicants shortly after they applied and one and two years after the competition. We use follow-up surveys to construct measures of enterprise growth and baseline surveys and panel scores to construct measures of enterprise growth potential. We find that a measure of ability correlates strongly with future growth, but that the panel scores add to predictive power even after controlling for ability and other survey variables. The survey questions have more power to explain the variance in growth. Participants presenting before the panel were given a chance to win customized management training. Fourteen months after the training, we find no positive effect of the training on growth of the business.
Food Price Seasonality in Africa: Measurement and Extent

(Elsevier, 2017-02) Gilbert, Christopher L. ; Christiaensen, Luc ; Kaminski, Jonathan

Everyone knows about seasonality. But what exactly do we know? This study systematically measures seasonal price gaps at 193 markets for 13 food commodities in seven African countries. It shows that the commonly used dummy variable or moving average deviation methods to estimate the seasonal gap can yield substantial upward bias. This can be partially circumvented using trigonometric and sawtooth models, which are more parsimonious. Among staple crops, seasonality is highest for maize (33 percent on average) and lowest for rice (16½ percent). This is two and a half to three times larger than in the international reference markets. Seasonality varies substantially across market places but maize is the only crop in which there are important systematic country effects. Malawi, where maize is the main staple, emerges as exhibiting the most acute seasonal differences. Reaching the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger requires renewed policy attention to seasonality in food prices and consumption.
Heterogeneity in Subjective Wellbeing : An Application to Occupational Allocation in Africa

(Elsevier, 2015-01-03) Falco, Paolo ; Maloney, William F. ; Rijkers, Bob ; Sarrias, Mauricio

By exploiting recent advances in mixed (stochastic parameter) ordered probit estimators and a unique longitudinal dataset from Ghana, this paper examines the distribution of subjective wellbeing across sectors of employment. We find little evidence for the overall inferiority of the small firm informal sector relative to the formal salaried sector at the conditional mean. Moreover, the estimated underlying random parameter distributions unveil substantial latent heterogeneity in subjective wellbeing around the central tendency that fixed parameter models cannot detect. All job categories contain substantial shares of both relatively happy and disgruntled workers.
Can Community Health Officer-Midwives Effectively Integrate Skilled Birth Attendance in the Community-Based Health Planning and Services Program in Rural Ghana?

(BioMed Central, 2014-12-17) Sakeah, Evelyn ; McCloskey, Lois ; Bernstein, Judith ; Yeboah-Antwi, Kojo ; Mills, Samuel ; Doctor, Henry V.

The burden of maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa is very high. In Ghana maternal mortality ratio was 380 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2013. Skilled birth attendance has been shown to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity, yet in 2010 only 68 percent of mothers in Ghana gave birth with the assistance of skilled birth attendants. In 2005, the Ghana Health Service piloted a strategy that involved using the integrated Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) program and training Community Health Officers (CHOs) as midwives to address the gap in skilled attendance in rural Upper East Region (UER). The study assesses the feasibility of and extent to which the skilled delivery program has been implemented as an integrated component of the existing CHPS, and documents the benefits and challenges of the integrated program. We employed an intrinsic case study design with a qualitative methodology. We conducted 41 in-depth interviews with health professionals and community stakeholders. We used a purposive sampling technique to identify and interview our respondents.
Is There Any Role for Community Involvement in the Community-Based Health Planning and Services Skilled Delivery Program in Rural Ghana?

(BioMed Central, 2014-08-11) Sakeah, Evelyn ; McCloskey, Lois ; Bernstein, Judith ; Yeboah-Antwi, Kojo ; Mills, Samuel ; Doctor, Henry V.

In Ghana, between 1,400 and 3,900 women and girls die annually due to pregnancy related complications and an estimated two-thirds of these deaths occur in late pregnancy through to 48 hours after delivery. The Ghana Health Service piloted a strategy that involved training Community Health Officers (CHOs) as midwives to address the gap in skilled attendance in rural Upper East Region (UER). CHO-midwives collaborated with community members to provide skilled delivery services in rural areas. This paper presents findings from a study designed to assess the extent to which community residents and leaders participated in the skilled delivery program and the specific roles they played in its implementation and effectiveness.
Using the Community-Based Health Planning and Services Program to Promote Skilled Delivery in Rural Ghana: Socio-Demographic Factors that Influence Women Utilization of Skilled Attendants at Birth in Northern Ghana

(BioMed Central, 2014-04-10) Sakeah, Evelyn ; Doctor, Henry V. ; McCloskey, Lois ; Bernstein, Judith ; Yeboah-Antwi, Kojo ; Mills, Samuel

The burden of maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa is enormous. In Ghana the maternal mortality ratio was 350 per 100,000 live births in 2010. Skilled birth attendance has been shown to reduce maternal deaths and disabilities, yet in 2010 only 68% of mothers in Ghana gave birth with skilled birth attendants. In 2005, the Ghana Health Service piloted an enhancement of its Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) program, training Community Health Officers (CHOs) as midwives, to address the gap in skilled attendance in rural Upper East Region (UER). The study determined the extent to which CHO-midwives skilled delivery program achieved its desired outcomes in UER among birthing women.
Education for Education...Or for Skills?

( 2011-04) Hanushek, Eric A.

Countries in the developing world were led to believe that education would put them on the path to becoming modern economies�and they responded enthusiastically. Education for All was a powerful message that has led to a veritable transformation of schooling throughout the world.
16 Things You Didn't Know About Africa

( 2011-04) World Bank

The largest population in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is 151.3 million in NIGERIA. The smallest is 0.1 million (100,000) in Seychelles.
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.