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Rijkers, Bob

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Labor economics, Private sector development, Private Sector Development, Trade
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Last updated: January 9, 2024
Biography
Bob Rijkers is a Senior Economist in the Trade and International Integration Unit of the Development Research Group (DECTI) and professor of Political Economy at Utrecht University. His research interests include state capture, corruption, and the distributional impacts of trade. His research has been published in journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Human Resources, and the Journal of Development Economics. He holds a BA in Science and Social Sciences from University College Utrecht, Utrecht University and an M.Phil. and D.Phil. in Economics from the University of Oxford.
Citations 183 Scopus

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 15
  • Publication
    State Capture Analysis: A How to Guide for Practitioners
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-05-17) Raballand, Gael; Rijkers, Bob
    This note describes how political economy analysis can be used to promote development, focusing specifically on state capture. It is intended to help practitioners within the World Bank execute and disseminate political economy analysis of state capture. It is not intended to be comprehensive but serves as a how-to guide for those not intimately familiar with the topic.
  • Publication
    Risky Business: Political Instability and Sectoral Greenfield Foreign Direct Investment in the Arab World
    (Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2016-07-01) Burger, Martijn; Ianchovichina, Elena; Rijkers, Bob
    Which foreign direct investments are most affected by political instability? Analysis of quarterly greenfield investment flows into countries in the Middle East and North Africa during the period from 2003 to 2012 shows that adverse political shocks are associated with significantly reduced investment inflows in the non-resource tradable sectors. By contrast, investments in natural resource sectors and non-tradable activities appear insensitive to such shocks. Political instability is thus associated with increased reliance on non-tradables and aggravated resource dependence.
  • Publication
    Obstacles on the Road to Palestinian Economic Growth
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-03) Blankespoor, Brian; van der Weide, Roy; Abrahams, Alexei; Rijkers, Bob
    This paper quantifies the impact of market access on local GDP in the West Bank, proxied by nighttime lights, using the deployment of road closure obstacles by the Israeli army between 2005 and 2012 as a quasi-natural experiment generating exogenous temporal and spatial variation in accessibility. Minimum travel times between locality pairs are computed using road network and obstacles data supplemented with information on checkpoint traversal times. These are combined with population data to construct a time-varying market access measure for each locality. Market access has a significant and substantial effect on local light emissions. This association is robust to controlling for conflict, and strengthens when market access is instrumented by the number of obstacles located in a radius between 10 and 25km away from the locality.
  • Publication
    Working toward Better Pay : Earning Dynamics in Ghana and Tanzania
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014-05-29) Falco, Paolo; Kerr, Andrew; Paci, Pierella; Rijkers, Bob
    Improving access to productive employment is a key policy challenge, especially in low-income countries (LICs), where the only asset in abundance is labor. Building on ongoing research on earnings mobility, this study uses unusually rich longitudinal data from Ghana and Tanzania to identify engines of, and barriers to, earnings and earnings mobility. It examines the role of individual characteristics such as gender, age, and skills and characteristics of the job, but it also focuses on the role of job switches for example, moves into and out of self-employment. It zooms in particularly on the drivers of transitions between low-paying and high-paying jobs, and addresses questions such as whether being low paid is a transitory or permanent phenomenon, and whether it has a scarring effect on an individual's employment prospects. The extent to which earnings dynamics differ for women and young adults is also discussed in detail. The cross-country comparison of earnings dynamics and labor market transitions helps shed light on the institutional factors that promote labor market mobility and entrepreneurship. The report is organized as follows: chapter one gives introduction. Chapter two presents a brief review of related literature. Chapter three gives a descriptive overview of the labor markets in the two countries. Chapter four examines the determinants of earnings levels. Chapter five examines determinants of earnings growth. Chapter six focuses on low-pay and high-pay transitions and analyzes whether the experience of being in a low-paying job undermines an individual's future earnings prospects. Chapter seven discusses key policy implications.
  • Publication
    Do Crises Catalyze Creative Destruction? Firm-level Evidence from Indonesia
    (MIT Press, 2013-12) Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Rijkers, Bob
    Using Indonesian manufacturing census data (1991–2001), this paper rejects the hypothesis that the East Asian crisis unequivocally improved the reallocative process. The correlation between productivity and employment growth did not strengthen, and the crisis induced the exit of relatively productive firms. The attenuation of the relationship between productivity and survival was stronger in provinces with comparatively lower reductions in minimum wages, but not due to reduced entry, changing loan conditions, or firms connected to the Suharto regime suffering disproportionately. On the bright side, firms that entered during the crisis were relatively more productive, which helped mitigate the reduction in aggregate productivity.
  • Publication
    Risky Business : Political Instability and Greenfield Foreign Direct Investment in the Arab World
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-12) Burger, Martijn; Ianchovichina, Elena; Rijkers, Bob
    Which foreign direct investments are most affected by political instability? Analysis of quarterly greenfield investment flows into countries in the Middle East and North Africa from 2003 to 2012 shows that adverse political shocks are associated with significantly reduced investment inflows in the non-resource tradable sectors. By contrast, investments in natural resource sectors and non-tradable activities appear insensitive to such shocks. Consistent with these patterns, the significant reduction in investment inflows in Arab Spring affected economies was starkest in the non-resource manufacturing sector. Political instability is thus associated with increased reliance on non-tradables and aggravated resource dependence. Conversely, how intensified political instability affects aggregate foreign direct investment is critically contingent on the initial sector composition of these flows.
  • Publication
    Who Benefits from Promoting Small and Medium Scale Enterprises? Some Empirical Evidence from Ethiopia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-05) Rijkers, Bob; Ruggeri Laderchi, Caterina
    The Addis Ababa Integrated Housing Development Program aims to tackle the housing shortage and unemployment that prevail in Addis Ababa by deploying and supporting small and medium scale enterprises to construct low-cost housing using technologies novel for Ethiopia. The motivation for such support is predicated on the view that small firms create more jobs per unit of investment by virtue of being more labor intensive and that the jobs so created are concentrated among the low-skilled and hence the poor. To assess whether the program has succeeded in biasing technology adoption in favor of labor and thereby contributed to poverty reduction, the impact of the program on technology usage, labor intensity, and earnings is investigated using a unique matched workers-firms dataset, the Addis Ababa Construction Enterprise Survey. The data are representative of all registered construction firms in Addis and were collected specifically for the purpose of analyzing the impact of the program. The authors find that program firms do not adopt different technologies and are not more labor intensive than non-program firms. There is an earnings premium for program participants, who tend to be relatively well-educated, which is heterogeneous and highest for those at the bottom of the earnings distribution.
  • Publication
    Avoiding the Eye of the Storm : How to Deal Effectively with Job Crises
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2010-11) Johansson, Sara; Revenga, Ana; Paci, Pierella; Rijkers, Bob
    Although economic crises are difficult to predict, their recurrence is a salient feature of emerging market economies. Nevertheless, many developing countries continue to lack an effective policy infrastructure that can mitigate the impacts of economic downturns on employment opportunities without affecting long-term growth prospects. This was painfully highlighted by the hasty reactions implemented by many countries in response to the global downturn of 2008-09, and by the ad hoc and reactive nature of many of the policies implemented. The weak ability of governments to systematically foresee, monitor, and offset adverse labor market impacts of economic downturn is of particular concern in developing countries where poverty incidence is high and labor is typically the only asset for the majority of the population. The main objectives of this note are: 1) to highlight the need for policies that limit earnings volatility; 2) to guide policy makers through the challenges inherent in crafting effective and comprehensive policy packages.
  • Publication
    Coping with Crises : Policies to Protect Employment and Earnings
    (Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2012-02-01) Paci, Pierella; Revenga, Ana; Rijkers, Bob
    The continuing failure of many countries to adequately mitigate the adverse labor market impacts of economic downturns is of concern, since labor market volatility can exacerbate poverty and stunt growth. This article aims to identify potentially effective policies responses to crises by navigating the potential tradeoffs between offsetting adverse short-term impacts of economic downturns on the quantity and quality of jobs, and preserving incentives for economic recovery. The authors propose a taxonomy that categorizes interventions depending on whether they mitigate the negative short-term impact of crises or whether they stimulate recovery. The taxonomy helps policymakers to identify “win–win” policies that avoid potential tradeoffs between these objectives by simultaneously serving both. Common elements of effective interventions are feasibility, flexibility (for example the capacity for scaling up and down), and incentive compatibility—and there is no substitute for being prepared. Having sound safety nets in place before a crisis is superior to haphazardly implementing responses after a crisis hits.
  • Publication
    Gender and Rural Non-farm Entrepreneurship
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-05) Rijkers, Bob
    Despite their increasing prominence in policy debates, little is known about gender inequities in non-agricultural labor market outcomes in rural areas. Using matched household-enterprise-community data sets from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, this paper documents and analyzes gender differences in the individual portfolio choice and productivity of non-farm entrepreneurship. Except for Ethiopia, women are less likely than men to become nonfarm entrepreneurs. Women's nonfarm entrepreneurship isn't strongly correlated with household composition or educational attainment, but is especially prevalent amongst women who are the head of their household. Female-led firms are much smaller and less productive on average, though gender differences in productivity vary dramatically across countries. Mean differences in log output per worker suggest that male firms are roughly 10 times as productive as female firms in Bangladesh, three times as those in Ethiopia and twice as those in Sri Lanka. By contrast, no significant differences in labor productivity were detected in Indonesia. Differences in output per worker are overwhelmingly accounted for by sorting by sector and size. They can't be explained by differences in capital intensity, human capital or the local investment climate, nor by increasing returns to scale.