Journal Issue: World Bank Research Observer, Volume 39, Issue 1
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Volume
39
Number
1
Issue Date
2024-02
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The Relationship between Climate Action and Poverty Reduction
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-12-30) Lankes, Hand Peter; Macquarie, Rob; Soubeyran, Éléonore; Stern, Nicholas
There is growing awareness that
actions by policymakers and international organizations to
reduce poverty, and those to mitigate and adapt to climate
change, are inextricably linked and interwoven. This paper
examines relevant academic and policy literature and
evidence on this relationship and explores the potential for
a new form of development that simultaneously mitigates
climate change, manages its impacts, and improves the
wellbeing of people in poverty. First, as a key foundation,
it outlines the backdrop in basic moral philosophy, noting
that climate action and poverty reduction can be motivated
both by a core principle based on the right to development
and by the conventional consequentialism that is standard in
economics. Second, it reviews assessments of the current and
potential future impacts of weakly managed climate change on
the wellbeing of those in poverty, paying attention to
unequal effects, including by gender. Third, it examines
arguments and literature on the economic impacts of climate
action and policies and how those affect the wellbeing of
people in poverty, highlighting the importance of market
failures, technological change, systemic dynamics of
transition, and distributional effects of mitigation and
adaptation. Finally, the paper surveys the current state of
knowledge and understanding of how climate action and
poverty reduction can be integrated in policy design,
indicating where further research can contribute to a
transition that succeeds in both objectives.
Girls’ Education at Scale
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-04-14) Evans, David K.; Acosta, Amina Mendez; Yuan, Fei
Many educational interventions boost
outcomes for girls in settings where girls face educational
disadvantages, but which of those interventions are proven
to function effectively at large scale In contrast to
earlier reviews, this review focuses on large-scale programs
and policies—those that reach at least 10,000 students, and
on final school outcomes such as completion and student
learning rather than intermediate school outcomes such as
enrollment and attendance. Programs and policies that have
boosted school completion or learning at scale across
multiple countries include school fee elimination, school
meals, making schools more physically accessible, and
improving the quality of pedagogy. Other interventions, such
as providing better sanitation facilities or safe spaces for
girls, show promising results but either have limited
evidence across settings or focus on intermediate
educational outcomes (such as enrollment) or
post-educational outcomes (such as income earning) in their
evaluations. These and other areas with limited or no
evidence demonstrate many opportunities for education
leaders, partners, and researchers to continue innovating
and testing programs at scale. The authors discuss three
considerations for incorporating evidence-based solutions
into local education policies - constraints to girls’
education, potential solutions, and program costs as well as
lessons for scaling programs effectively.
Fears and Tears
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-01-10) McKenzie, David
Only one in seven of the world’s
population have ever migrated, despite the enormous gains in
income possible through international and internal movement.
The author examines the evidence for different explanations
given in the economics literature for this lack of movement
and their implications for policy. Incorrect information
about the gains to migrating, liquidity constraints that
prevent poor people paying the costs of moving, and high
costs of movement arising from both physical transportation
costs and policy barriers all inhibit movement and offer
scope for policy efforts to inform, provide credit, and
lower moving costs. However, the economics literature has
paid less attention to the fears people have when faced with
the uncertainty of moving to a new place, and to the reasons
behind the tears they shed when moving. While these tears
reveal the attachment people have to particular places, this
attachment is not fixed, but itself changes with migration
experiences. Psychological factors such as a bias toward the
status quo and the inability to picture what one is giving
up by not migrating can result in people not moving, even
when they would benefit from movement and are not
constrained by finances or policy barriers from doing so.
This suggests new avenues for policy interventions that can
help individuals better visualize the opportunity costs of
not moving, alleviate their uncertainties, and help shift
their default behavior from not migrating.
The Impact of Private Schools, School Chains and PPPs in Developing Countries
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-04-12) Crawfurd, Lee; Hares, Susannah; Todd, Rory
The private school sector has
expanded with almost no public intervention to educate half
of primary school children in many urban centers in Africa
and Asia. Simple comparisons of test scores would suggest
that these private schools may provide better quality than
public schools, but how much of this difference is due to
selection effects is unclear. Much donor and policymaker
attention has proceeded on the basis that private schools do
perform better, and focused on models of public subsidy to
expand access, and investment in networks or chains to
encourage expansion. The authors review the evidence of the
effects of private schools on learning, and how that effect
translates to public-private partnerships (PPPs). The
authors also study the effects of private school chains.
They conduct a systematic review for eligible studies, with
transparent search criteria. The search resulted in over 100
studies on low-cost private schools and PPPs, with a large
majority being on low-cost private schools. Their
meta-analysis shows moderately strong effects from private
schooling, although the limited number of experimental
studies find much smaller effects than quasi-experimental
studies. This advantage, though, is not nearly enough to
help most children reach important learning goals. Turning
to policy goals, we find that the private school advantage
has not translated to public private partnerships, which
have shown limited value in improving quality. They can
however represent a lower-cost means of increasing access to
school. We also find that private school chains perform
little better than individual private schools and have
little scope for achieving meaningful scale.
Social Norms and Gender Disparities with a Focus on Female Labor Force Participation in South Asia
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2023-09-23) Bussolo, Maurizio; Ezebuihe, Jessy Amarachi; Muñoz Boudet, Ana Maria; Poupakis, Stavros; Rahman, Tasmia; Sarma, Nayantara
Despite decades of economic growth,
gender disparities in South Asia remain remarkably high.
Although not the only one, social norms are a crucial driver
of various gender outcomes, including differential economic
participation. Using repeated cross-sectional data from
nationally representative surveys, this study explores
long-term trends across gender outcomes and social
norms(contrasting attitudes and social normative
expectations towards gender roles) in South Asia. The
results corroborate the evidence that there has been almost
no progress in gender disparities in South Asia over the
past half-century. There has been little progress in female
labor force participation, age at first birth, agency, and
intimate partner violence, while (basic) education is an
important exception. The lack of progress is apparent among
all layers of society, including women who live in urban
areas, are educated, and have higher incomes. Gender
attitudes also remain unchanged, while for some issues, they
have become more conservative and have a negative
relationship with gender outcomes. This negative
relationship is even stronger when social normative
expectations are considered. More data on social norms and a
better understanding of their constraining role may be
critical for achieving gender equality in the region.