03. Journals

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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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    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.
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    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.
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    Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Rural Economy : Evidence from Nepal and Vietnam
    ( 2011-04) Emran, M. Shahe ; Shilpi, Forhad
    This paper presents evidence on intergenerational occupational mobility from agriculture to the nonfarm sector using survey data from Nepal and Vietnam. In the absence of credible instruments, the degree of selection on observables is used as a guide to the degree of selection on unobservables, a la Altonji et al. (2005) to address the unobserved genetic correlations. The results show that intergenerational occupational mobility is lower among women in both countries, and is lower in Nepal compared with Vietnam. In the case of Nepal, strong evidence favors a causal role played by the mother's nonfarm participation in the daughter's occupation choice, possibly because of cultural inheritance in a traditional society.
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    Transactional Sex as a Response to Risk in Western Kenya
    ( 2011) Robinson, Jonathan ; Yeh, Ethan
    Though formal and informal sex work has long been identified as crucial for the spread of HIV/AIDS, the nature of the sex-for-money market remains poorly understood. Using a unique panel dataset constructed from 192 self-reported diaries, we find that women who engage in transactional sex substantially increase their supply of risky, better compensated sex to cope with unexpected health shocks, particularly the illness of another household member. These behavioral responses entail significant health risks for these women and their partners, and suggest that these women are unable to cope with risk through other consumption smoothing mechanisms.
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    Assessing the Impact of Migration on Food and Nutrition Security
    ( 2011) Zezza, Alberto ; Carletto, Calogero ; Davis, Benjamin ; Winters, Paul
    Migration has become a key component in the livelihood strategies of an increasing number of households across the developing world and remittances have expanded dramatically in the last decade. This has come at a time when an increased emphasis has been placed on reducing malnutrition to achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets. While this is the case, there has been little attention on the interface between migration and nutrition even though migration can influence nutrition through a number of channels. The objective of this special issue is to present state-of-the-art analyses of the link between migration and nutrition in developing countries. In this paper, an overview of the conceptual and empirical issues in identifying the link between migration and nutrition are considered. Further, the results from seven country case studies are synthesized and policy implications are drawn.
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    Do Value-Added Estimates Add Value? Accounting for Learning Dynamics
    ( 2011) Andrabi, Tahir ; Das, Jishnu ; Khwaja, Asim Ijaz ; Zajonc, Tristan
    This paper illustrates the central role of persistence in estimating and interpreting value-added models of learning. Using data from Pakistani public and private schools, we apply dynamic panel methods that address three key empirical challenges: imperfect persistence, unobserved heterogeneity, and measurement error. Our estimates suggest that only one-fifth to one-half of learning persists between grades and that private schools increase average achievement by 0.25 standard deviations each year. In contrast, value-added models that assume perfect persistence yield severely downward estimates of the private school effect. Models that ignore unobserved heterogeneity or measurement error produce biased estimates of persistence.
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    Shadow Sovereign Ratings for Unrated Developing Countries
    ( 2011) Ratha, Dilip ; De, Prabal K. ; Mohapatra, Sanket
    We predict sovereign ratings for developing countries that do not have risk ratings from agencies such as Fitch, Moody's, and Standard and Poor's. Ratings are important in determining the volume and cost of capital flows to developing countries through international bond, loan, and equity markets. Sovereign rating also acts as a ceiling for the foreign currency rating of sub-sovereign borrowers and can be important for their access to international debt and equity capital. We generate shadow ratings for several developing countries that have never been rated and find that unrated countries are not always at the bottom of the rating spectrum. Several of them are projected to have a "B" or higher rating, in a similar range to that of the emerging market economies with capital market access.
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    Estimating Costs of Adaptation to Climate Change
    ( 2011) Narain, Urvashi ; Margulis, Sergio ; Essam, Timothy
    In 2009 the World Bank launched the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change (EACC) study to provide up-to-date and consistent estimates of adaptation costs for developing countries. The EACC study addresses many of the shortcomings found in the adaptation cost literature. First, it defines 'adaptation costs' as those additional costs of development due to climate change, thereby avoiding confounding the costs of closing the development deficit and the implicit adaptation deficit. Second, the study covers eight major sectors: infrastructure, coastal zones, water supply, agriculture, fisheries, forests and ecosystems, human health, and extreme weather events. Third, it employs common population and GDP growth trajectories across sectors and uses two climate scenarios to capture the full spread of model predictions. Finally, the EACC study uses an innovative methodology for aggregating costs at the sector level within a country, and across countries. Under these assumptions, the global price tag for the developing world of adapting to an approximately 2 degrees C warmer world by 2050 is US$ 70-100 billion per year for 2010-2050.
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    Energy Poverty in Rural Bangladesh
    ( 2011) Barnes, Douglas F. ; Khandker, Shahidur R. ; Samad, Hussain A.
    Energy poverty is a well-established concept among energy and development specialists. International development organizations frequently cite energy-poverty alleviation as a necessary condition to reduce income poverty. Several approaches used to measure energy poverty over the past 20 years have defined the energy poverty line as the minimum quantity of physical energy needed to perform such basic tasks as cooking and lighting. This paper uses a demand-based approach to define the energy poverty line as the threshold point at which energy consumption begins to rise with increases in household income. At or below this threshold point, households consume a bare minimum level of energy and should be considered energy poor. This approach was applied using cross-sectional data from a comprehensive 2004 household survey representative of rural Bangladesh. The findings suggest that some 58 percent of rural households in Bangladesh are energy poor, versus 45 percent that are income poor. The findings also suggest that policies to support rural electrification and greater use of improved biomass stoves might play a significant role in reducing energy poverty.
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    The Urgent Need for New Diagnostics for Symptomatic Tuberculosis in Children
    ( 2011) Cuevas, L. E.
    TB is a major public health problem causing 9 million cases, of which 10%-15% occur in children each year. Historically, children have received lower priority within TB control activities because they are considered less infectious than smear-positive adults. This review argues that TB is a public health problem in children and that poor awareness of the magnitude of the problem emanates from the lack of suitable pediatric diagnostic tests for TB and the characteristics of the disease in young children. New TB diagnostics, approved for use in adults have not been evaluated in children, although there is limited evidence that some of these tests hold promise and should be assessed. There are several approaches that could be used to improve the performance of tests in pediatric patients. These include improved methods for specimen collection and processing. The value of collecting specimens from multiple anatomical sites to shorten the diagnostic process and improve sensitivity was reported recently and the combination of expectorated sputum, nasopharyngeal aspirate, induce sputum and gastric aspirate may result in a similar yield than specimens collected over consecutive days. Methods for sample collection such as fine needle aspiration biopsy should be used more frequently and the Microscopic Observation Drug Sensitivity (MODS) assay has higher sensitivity than LJ culture. There is however very scanty evidence of the performance of other promising tests such as the fully automated NAAT (Xpert) and Line Probe Assays and loop mediated isothermal amplification. Although the future holds promise, increased support from international organizations and funding agencies is needed to promote the evaluation and development of new diagnostics that are suitable for TB in children.