Publication: Are There Lasting Impacts of Aid to Poor Areas?
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Published
2009
ISSN
00472727
Date
2012-03-30
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The paper re-visits the site of a large, World Bank-financed, rural development program in China, 10 years after it began and four years after disbursements ended. The program emphasized community participation in multi-sectoral interventions (including farming, animal husbandry, infrastructure and social services). Data were collected on 2000 households in project and non-project areas, spanning 10 years. A double-difference estimator of the program's impact (on top of pre-existing governmental programs) reveals sizeable short-term income gains that were mostly saved. Only small and statistically insignificant gains to mean consumption emerged in the longer-term--though in rough accord with the average gain to permanent income. The use of community-based beneficiary selection greatly reduced the overall impact, given that the educated poor were under-covered. The main results are robust to corrections for various sources of selection bias, including village targeting and interference due to spillover effects generated by the response of local governments to the external aid.
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Publication Are There Lasting Impacts of Aid to Poor Areas? Evidence from Rural China(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-03)The paper revisits the site of a large, World Bank-financed, rural development program in China 10 years after it began and four years after disbursements ended. The program emphasized community participation in multi-sectoral interventions (including farming, animal husbandry, infrastructure and social services). Data were collected on 2,000 households in project and nonproject areas, spanning 10 years. A double-difference estimator of the program's impact (on top of pre-existing governmental programs) reveals sizeable short-term income gains that were mostly saved. Only modest gains to mean consumption emerged in the longer term-in rough accord with the gain to permanent income. Certain types of households gained more than others. The educated poor were under-covered by the community-based selection process-greatly reducing overall impact. The main results are robust to corrections for various sources of selection bias, including village targeting and interference due to spillover effects generated by the response of local governments to the external aid.Publication Poverty and Inequality Maps in Rural Vietnam: An Application of Small Area Estimation(2010)The objective of the present paper is to estimate poverty and inequality for rural Vietnam at different levels of aggregation by combining the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey from 2006 and the Rural Agriculture and Fishery Census from the same year. Using the small area estimation method, estimates at the regional, provincial and district level are produced, and both expenditure and income based measures are considered. It is found that all provinces across the country have experienced a noticeable reduction in rural poverty during the period 1999-2006. Some of the largest reductions in poverty are observed for provinces with poverty rates close to the national average. The poorest provinces are experiencing reductions in poverty, albeit at a more modest pace. Provinces and districts with a larger poverty reduction in the period 1999-2006 tended to have a lower level of inequality in 2006. Results based on expenditure poverty estimates are found to be very similar to those based on income poverty estimates.Publication The Impact of Migration on Rural Poverty and Inequality : A Case Study in China(2010)Large numbers of agricultural labor moved from the countryside to cities after the economic reforms in China. Migration and remittances play an important role in transforming the structure of rural household income. This article examines the impact of rural-to-urban migration on rural poverty and inequality in a mountainous area of Hubei province using the data of a 2002 household survey. Since migration income is a potential substitute for farm income, we present counterfactual scenarios of what rural income, poverty, and inequality would have been in the absence of migration. Our results show that, by providing alternatives to households with lower marginal labor productivity in agriculture, migration leads to an increase in rural income. In contrast to many studies that suggest that the increasing share of nonfarm income in total income widens inequality, this article offers support for the hypothesis that migration tends to have egalitarian effects on rural income for three reasons: (1) migration is rational self-selection--farmers with higher expected return in agricultural activities and/or in local nonfarm activities choose to remain in the countryside while those with higher expected return in urban nonfarm sectors migrate; (2) households facing binding constraints of land supply are more likely to migrate; (3) poorer households benefit disproportionately from migration.Publication Welfare Impacts of China's Accession to the World Trade Organization(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004-01)Data from China's national rural and urban household surveys are used to measure and explain the welfare impacts of changes in goods and factor prices attributable to accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The price changes are estimated separately using a general equilibrium model to capture both direct and indirect effects of the initial tariff changes. The welfare impacts are first-order approximations based on a household model incorporating own-production activities calibrated to household-level data and imposing minimum aggregation. The results show negligible impacts on inequality and poverty in the aggregate. However, diverse impacts emerge across household types and regions, associated with heterogeneity in consumption behavior and income sources, with possible implications for compensatory policy responses.Publication Household Welfare Impacts of China's Accession to the World Trade Organization(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-05)The authors use China's national household surveys for rural and urban areas to measure and explain the welfare impacts of the changes in goods and factor prices attributed to WTO accession. Price changes are estimated separately using a general equilibrium model to capture both direct and indirect effects of the initial tariff changes. The welfare impacts are first-order approximations based on a household model incorporating own-production activities and are calibrated to the household-level data imposing minimum aggregation. The authors find negligible impacts on inequality and poverty in the aggregate. However, diverse impacts emerge across household types and regions associated with heterogeneity in consumption behavior and income sources, with possible implications for compensatory policy responses.
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