Person:
Joseph, George
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Impact evaluation,
Applied microeconomics
Degrees
Departments
Global Practice on Water, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
June 26, 2023
Biography
George Joseph is a Senior Economist with the Water Global Practice of the World Bank, Washington, DC. His research interests are centered on development economics and behavioral and applied microeconomics. He received his PhD in economics from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and an MA in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
Publication Search Results
1 - 6 of 6
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Publication
Climate Change and Migration : Evidence from the Middle East and North Africa
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-07-15)Climate change is a major source of concern in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and migration is often understood as one of several strategies used by households to respond to changes in climate and environmental conditions, including extreme weather events. This study focuses on the link between climate change and migration. Most micro-level studies measure climate change either by the incidences of extreme weather events or by variation in temperature or rainfall. A few studies have found that formal and informal institutions as well as policies also affect migration. Institutions that make government more responsive to households (for example through public spending) discourage both international and domestic migration in the aftermath of extreme weather events. Migration is often an option of last resort after vulnerable rural populations attempting to cope with new and challenging circumstances have exhausted other options such as eating less, selling assets, or removing children from school. This study is based in large part on new data collected in 2011 in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and the Republic of Yemen. The surveys were administered by in-country partners to a randomly selected set of 800 households per country. It is also important to emphasize that neither the household survey results nor the findings from the qualitative focus groups are meant to be representative of the five countries in which the work was carried, since only a few areas were surveyed in each country. This report is organized as follows: section one gives synthesis. Section two discusses household perceptions about climate change and extreme weather events. Section three focuses on migration as a coping mechanisms and income diversification strategy. Section four examines other coping and adaptation strategies. Section five discusses perceptions about government and community programs. -
Publication
Beyond Money: Does Migration Experience Transfer Gender Norms? Empirical Evidence from Kerala, India
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-14)This paper examines the impact of return migration from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf on the transfer of gender norms to the Indian state of Kerala. Migration to countries in the Middle East has led to significant remittance flows and economic prosperity, although the effects on social norms and attitudes remain largely unexplored. The paper finds that returning migrants from Saudi Arabia tend to exhibit conservative values regarding gender-based violence and extreme attitudes pertaining to the perpetration of physical violence against women. Compared with those who have no migration experience, the attitudes of returning migrants from Saudi Arabia toward gender-based violence were more conservative by three standard deviations, while the attitudes of those returning from the Gulf were less conservative by 0.5 standard deviation. Similarly, compared with those with no migration experience, returning migrants from Saudi Arabia were more conservative by 2.6 standard deviations regarding extreme attitudes related to gender norms, such as sexual assault, while those returning from the Gulf were less conservative by 0.7 standard deviation. These results show that migration experience can have a substantial impact on the gender attitudes of returning migrants, with potential implications for migration and gender policies in Kerala and for countries that send a large share of temporary migrants overseas for work. -
Publication
Religion and Social Cooperation: Results from an Experiment in Ghana
(Taylor and Francis, 2016-09-06)The international community recently adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Achieving these goals by 2030 will require major commitments and efforts. It will also require cooperation between multiple groups and stakeholders, both nationally and internationally. An interesting question is whether religious diversity and the evocation of religion tend to be conducive to “social cooperation” between individuals from various religious traditions. We refer here to social cooperation in a fairly broad sense, but we focus in this paper on specific measures of altruism and trustworthiness between individuals of various different religious affiliations. -
Publication
Understanding the Geographical Distribution of Stunting in Tanzania: A Geospatial Analysis of the 2015-16 Demographic and Health Survey
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-01)Tanzania is home to the third highest population of stunted children in Sub-Saharan Africa, with about 2.7 million children under the age of five failing to reach their full potential of growth attainment compared with the reference population as per the World Health Organization standards. Several studies have shown that stunted growth during childhood entraps the future of children in a vicious circle of recurrent diseases, reduced human development, and lower earnings, thus increasing their likelihood of being poor when they grow up. To reduce stunting, the Government of Tanzania and development partners are introducing a convergence of multisectoral interventions adapted to local needs. However, the existing stunting data are representative only at higher administrative levels, thus making it difficult to implement these efforts. The paper uses the 2016 geo-referenced Demographic and Health Survey in conjunction with relevant spatially gridded covariate data, such as nighttime lights, water and sanitation access, vegetation index, travel time, and so on. Geospatial techniques, such as model-based statistics and Bayesian inference implemented using the INLA algorithm, along with appropriate model validation exercises are employed to develop high-resolution maps of stunting in Tanzania at 1×1-kilometer spatial resolution. The maps show that areas of consistently high stunting rates tend to be more common in rural parts of the country, especially throughout the western and southwestern border areas. There is high prevalence of low stunting in the urban areas around Dar es Salaam, Arusha, and Dodoma, as well as in the south of Lake Victoria. -
Publication
Doing More with Less: Smarter Subsidies for Water Supply and Sanitation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-08-28)This report explores how scarce public resources can be used most effectively to achieve universal delivery of water supply and sanitation services. It analyzes the prevalence and performance of subsidies in the sector, then guide policymakers on improving subsidy design and implementation to improve their efficacy and efficiency in attaining their objectives. -
Publication
Geo-Spatial Modeling of Access to Water and Sanitation in Nigeria
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-02)The paper presents the development and implementation of a geo-spatial model for mapping populations' access to specified types of water and sanitation services in Nigeria. The analysis uses geo-located, population-representative data from the National Water and Sanitation Survey 2015, along with relevant geo-spatial covariates. The model generates predictions for levels of access to seven indicators of water and sanitation services across Nigeria at a resolution of 1×1 square kilometers. The predictions promise to hone the targeting of policies meant to improve access to basic services in various regions of the country.