03. Journals

3,122 items available

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https://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 does the weather and climate change affect firm performance in low-income countries? Evidence from Uganda
(Elsevier, 2024-06) Mawejje, Joseph
This study examines the impacts of weather and climate shocks on firm performance in Uganda, a low-income country that shares many characteristics with countries at similar levels of development. The analysis exploits panel methods on novel quarterly business climate data. The results are threefold. First, weather and climate shocks are negatively associated with business performance. Second, these effects are stronger among micro and small enterprises, and among firms in the agricultural and industrial sectors. Third, poor business environments characterized by excruciating constraints exacerbate the impact of climate shocks on business performance. The results are robust to alternative econometric model specifications.
Infrastructure and Structural Change in Africa
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2024-03-08) Herrera Dappe, Matías; Lebrand, Mathilde
Past investments in electricity, Internet, and road infrastructure, in isolation and bundled, have contributed to structural transformation and economic development in Africa. Using new data on the expansion of the road, electricity, and Internet networks over the past two decades, the paper shows that having access to both paved roads and electricity has led to a significant reallocation of labor from agricultural to both manufacturing and services. Adding access to fast Internet has had a major impact on structural change, with an even larger impact on reallocating labor away from agriculture. The paper then uses a spatial general-equilibrium model to quantify the impacts of future regional transport investments, bundled with electricity and Internet investments, on economic development in countries in the Horn of Africa and Lake Chad region.
Positioning in Global Value Chains: World Map and Indicators, a New Dataset Available for GVC Analyses
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2024-02-22) Mancini, M.; Montalbano, P.; Nenci, S.; Vurchio, D.
This work reviews and computes the commonly used Global Value Chains (GVC) positioning indicators found in the empirical literature, providing scholars with a novel and comprehensive global dataset of upstreamness and downstreamness measures. This dataset covers a wide range of countries, including many developing nations, and industries, and spans an extensive timeframe. Specifically, it offers GVC positioning indicators for all economies and industries included in prominent Inter-Country Input-Output tables, such as ADB, EORA, OECD TiVA, WIOD, and Long-run WIOD. This work also delves into the degree of comparability across the different datasets, offering informative comparisons of the GVC positioning measures encompassing overlapping countries and periods, sectors, geographical regions, and income levels. Notably, these indicators are ready-to-use and open access, presenting an exceptional opportunity for qualitative and quantitative analyses of various economic dimensions on GVCs and for informing policymaking.
Catch-Up Growth and Inter-industry Productivity Spillovers: Evidence from Trade Data
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2024-01-30) Bolhuis, Marijn A.
Where and when does export-led growth work This paper estimates the importance of inter-industry productivity spillovers for the export-led growth of developing countries. My empirical strategy is based on a standard quantitative trade model that features sector-level gravity in trade flows. Applying the framework to four decades of trade data, I find clear evidence of spillovers, which are larger for skill-intensive sectors. The estimates imply that patterns of sectoral specialization play a quantitatively important role in accounting for the slow convergence of labor productivity in tradable sectors. Quantitative exercises suggest that export-led growth works for poorer countries with an initial comparative advantage in manufacturing, as these countries can use foreign demand from richer countries to reallocate labor towards sectors with high spillovers.
Allocative Efficiency between and within the Formal and Informal Manufacturing Sectors in Zimbabwe
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-10) Kamutando, Godfrey; Edwards, Lawrence
Resource misallocation has the potential to reduce aggregate total factor productivity and undermine industrial development. Aggregate productivity losses are found to be particularly pronounced in emerging economies where large market frictions impede efficient resource allocation. Available estimates, however, almost entirely exclude firms in the informal sector that in some countries, such as Zimbabwe, make up a high share of overall production and employment. The exclusion of informal firms can result in either an over- or under-estimate of the aggregate productivity losses from misallocation. This paper, therefore, uses firm-level survey data to analyze how market distortions contribute to the misallocation of resources within and between the formal and informal manufacturing sectors in Zimbabwe. Applying the approach developed by Hsieh and Klenow (2009) to firm-level microdata, the results reveal extensive resource misallocation in both the formal and informal manufacturing sector. Market shares of informal firms are found to be low relative to their productivity, an outcome associated with relatively large capital market distortions. Misallocation is also more pronounced among relatively productive firms, thus exacerbating aggregate losses in total factor productivity (TFP). Estimates indicate that aggregated gains in TFP of 151.4 percent can be realized through efficient resource allocation.
Measuring Inequality Using Geospatial Data
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-08-25) Galimberti, Jaqueson K.; Pichler, Stefan; Pleninger, Regina
The main challenge in studying inequality is limited data availability, which is particularly problematic in developing countries. This study constructs a measure of light-based geospatial income inequality (LGII) for 234 countries and territories from 1992 to 2013 using satellite data on night-lights and gridded population data. Key methodological innovations include the use of varying levels of data aggregation, and a calibration of the lights– prosperity relationship to match traditional inequality measures based on income data. The new LGII measure is significantly correlated with cross-country variation in income inequality. Within countries, the light-based inequality measure is also correlated with measures of energy efficiency and the quality of population data. Two applications of the data are provided in the fields of health economics and international finance. The results show that light- and income-based inequality measures lead to similar results, but the geospatial data offer a significant expansion of the number of observations.
The Portfolio Theory of Inflation and Policy (In)Effectiveness: A Revisitation (Published online: 14 Sep 2021)
(Taylor and Francis, 2023-08-11) Bossone, Biagio
This article revisits the Portfolio Theory of Inflation (PTI), with a view to further articulating its findings and implications. The article adds to the micro-foundations of the PTI, framing more rigorously the role of global investors as international allocators of capital resources, and providing richer analysis of their interaction with macroeconomic policies at country level. The article explores how country credibility enters the capital allocation choice process of global investors and how global investor choices shape the space available to country policy making, determining the extent to which the effect of macro-policies dissipates into exchange rate depreciation and higher inflation.
Female Education and Brideprice: Evidence from Primary Education Reform in Uganda
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-07-27) Nagashima, Masuru; Yamauchi, Chikako
Universal primary education (UPE) policies have been shown to improve educational attainment and delay marriage and childbearing, particularly among rural girls. This disproportionate improvement in female relative to male education can change the bargaining structure between the wife and the husband. Furthermore, with the expectation of this change, decisions about marriage-market entry, matching, and marital arrangements, such as brideprice, can change. Greater female bargaining power can increase the share of marriages without a brideprice in settings where husbands may demand a refund upon divorce. Using first-hand data on marital transfers and exploiting Uganda’s UPE, which abolished primary school fees in 1997, this study shows that longer UPE exposure is associated positively with female education and negatively with brideprice practice. The results imply that UPE policies can affect women’s marital lives by empowering them in household decisions. The study also discusses the consistency of the results with other potential mechanisms, such as selective marriage-market entry, marital squeeze, and assortative matching.
Nudging Payment Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Pay-as-You-Go Off-Grid Electricity
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-06-24) Bonan, Jacopo; D'Adda, Giovanna; Mahmud, Mahreen; Said, Farah
This paper reports results from a randomized control trial with a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) solar system provider in Pakistan. In the default treatment, customers are told the amount to pay every month to keep the system active. In a first treatment, customers are assisted in planning this monthly payment. A second treatment discloses that payments can be made flexibly within the month. This disclosure may reduce contract cancellation by helping minimize transaction costs but may increase contract complexity and reduce discipline. A third treatment combines flexibility with assistance in planning payments. Disclosing flexibility increases contract cancellation relative to the default but combining flexibility with planning offsets this effect. Treatment effects appear stronger among users facing high mental constraints and transaction costs. These findings support the idea that behavioral factors, such as inattention and commitment problems, lay behind the negative impact of flexibility on cancellation. The results suggest that providers of PAYG systems may face a trade-off between disclosing complex contractual features and customer retention. Planning helps customers handle the added complexity.
Mind the Gap: Schooling, Informality, and Fiscal Externalities in Nepal
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-06-08) Bleakley, Hoyt; Guptu, Bhanu
While increasing years of schooling has been a long-standing development priority, the associated fiscal costs and benefits have been less studied, because of a lack of appropriate data. Recently, an UNESCO-funded project measured subsidies, by levels of schooling, from all levels of government, in eight developing countries including Nepal. The household-level Nepal Living Standards Measurement Survey provides information to estimate the degree of formality, tax payments, and benefit receipts as a function of schooling years. Using a simple Mincerlike model, this study estimates the fiscal externality of an additional year of school. It finds that within primary school, fiscal benefits and costs, on the margin, are quite balanced, with subsidies close to the present value of future taxes minus benefits. At higher levels of schooling, however, marginal fiscal benefits exceed costs by 5 percent of per capita consumption. This contrasts with previous literature on social returns and assumptions underlying multilateral development goals.