School Meals and Educational Outcomes in Rural Ethiopia

We investigate the relationship between providing school meals programmes and educational outcomes in Ethiopia. Using data from school catchment areas across rural Ethiopia, the paper examines the role played by programme modalities and their implementation. The results indicate that supplementing on-site school meals with take-home rations can be beneficial for concentration, reading, writing and arithmetic skills. The timing of the distribution of school meals is also found to play an important role.     

The Impact of Microcredit on Child Education: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Rural China

Abstract

This article assesses causal effects of formal microcredit on children’s educational outcomes by using household panel data (2000 and 2004) in north-west rural China. The unobservables between borrowers and non-borrowers are controlled in static and dynamic regression-discontinuity designs. The static analysis reveals significant positive impact of microcredit on schooling years in 2000 only, and no influence on academic performance for either wave. The dynamic analysis shows progressive treatment effects on both longer schooling years and higher average scores. Formal microcredit improves education in the longer term compared to the short term, and hence may help relaxing the grip of educational poverty traps.     

The Impact of Mobile Phone Technology on Agricultural Extension Services Delivery: Evidence from India

This study examines the impact of mobile phone enhanced intervention in agricultural extension service delivery in India. Findings show that the amount, quality and speed of service delivery have improved significantly because of the intervention. There are also benefits in terms of greater knowledge and awareness of new agricultural practices, farmers’ aspiration to try new technology in the future and access to credit. The system does not discriminate against farmers from disadvantaged and low education backgrounds. Thus, a system of well-used technology, which is assisted by trained village youths, can serve as a tool for inclusive development.     

The Impact of Drinking Water Quality and Sanitation on Child Health: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

This paper examines the association between stored drinking water quality and sanitation on diarrhoea incidence among under-five children in Ethiopia. Using primary household survey data and microbiological water quality testing for Escherichia coli, our results show that uncontaminated stored drinking water and safe child stool disposal are associated with decreased child diarrhoea incidences of 18 and 20 percentage points, respectively. In contrast, neighbourhood concentration of pit latrine shows an increased incidence of child diarrhoea of 16 percentage points. To protect rural children from the risk of contracting diarrhoea, improving household drinking water quality and changing people’s behaviour towards safe sanitation practices is needed.     

Participation in a School Incentive Programme in India

Education policy has recently focused on improving accountability and incentives of public providers for actual learning outcomes, often with school-based reward programmes for high performers. The Learning Guarantee Programme in Karnataka, India, is prominent among such efforts, providing cash transfers to government schools that achieve learning at specified high levels. This study examines whether schools that self-selected into the incentive programme are different than those that did not. The answer has important implications for how to evaluate the impact of such a programme. Although we find no significant differences in resources and characteristics, we do find significant and substantial differences in test scores prior to selection into the programme, with better performing schools more likely to opt-in. These findings also provide insight into how incentive-based programmes that focus on levels of (rather than changes in) achievement can exacerbate inequality in education. Failing schools, since they are more likely to opt-out of incentive programmes, are likely to require other targeted programmes in order to improve. In addition, our findings reinforce the value of randomised controlled trials to evaluate incentive programmes since evaluations that rely on matching schools based on resources (if, for instance, pre-programme test scores are unavailable) will be biased if resources poorly predict test scores.     

The Impact of Bt Cotton on Poor Households in Rural India

The impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on the poor in developing countries is still the subject of controversy. While previous studies have examined direct productivity effects of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton and other GM crops, little is known about wider socioeconomic outcomes. We use a microeconomic modelling approach and comprehensive survey data from India to analyse welfare and distribution effects in a typical village economy. Bt cotton adoption increases returns to labour, especially for hired female workers. Likewise, aggregate household incomes rise, including for poor and vulnerable farmers. Hence, Bt cotton contributes to poverty reduction and rural development.     

Can the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme Reduce Rural Out-migration: Evidence from West Bengal,India

Abstract

Using survey data from the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, the paper documents the impact of the rural employment guarantee scheme in reducing rural out-migration. Using regression framework and case studies, it finds no significant impact of household participation in the programme on migration decision. However, extent of participation in terms of number of days of work and earnings has a significant negative impact on short-term migration but not on longer duration ones. The findings lay emphasis on effective implementation in terms of asset creation, reduction in rationing of works and tackling delayed payments to enjoy its potential benefits.     

Understanding the Role of Participation in Public Service Delivery: Evidences from Rural West Bengal,India

The present study, using household level data of East Midnapore district of West Bengal, India, examines the role of people’s participation in public service delivery. It considers four dimensions of participation namely attending meetings, raising voice, lodging complaints, and making contributions. The study confirms the role of participation in public service delivery. Apart from participation, households’ socioeconomic and political positions also exert significant impacts. There is, however, likelihood of “elite capture” and “clientelism” in the delivery of public services. Effective service delivery presupposes that while attending meetings, people must raise their voice and make contributions.     

The Impact of Cooking with Firewood on Respiratory Health: Evidence from Indonesia

The vast majority of households in low-income countries cook with firewood, which is known to produce various airborne toxins. We examine whether cooking with firewood results in poorer respiratory health by using a unique Indonesian household survey that collected direct measures of lung capacity. We find that individuals living in households that cook with firewood have 9.4 per cent lower lung capacity than those that cook with cleaner fuels. This impact is larger for women and children than for men. The results strongly support the international policy focus on facilitating households to switch to cooking with cleaner fuels.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Gender Attitudes: Evidence from India

This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of gender attitudes in India, a setting with severe discrimination against women and girls. We use survey data on gender attitudes (specifically, about the appropriate roles and rights of women and girls) collected from nearly 5500 adolescents attending 314 schools in the state of Haryana, and their parents. We find that when a parent holds a more discriminatory attitude, his or her child is about 11 percentage points more likely to hold the view. We find that parents hold greater sway over students’ gender attitudes than their peers do, and that mothers influence children’s gender attitudes more than fathers. Parental attitudes influence child attitudes more in Scheduled Caste communities and student gender attitudes are positively correlated with behaviours such as interacting with children of the opposite gender.     

The Correlates of Corruption in India: Analysis and Evidence from the States

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Inequality and Political Clientelism: Evidence from South India

Political parties can be vehicles for economic and social development in poor countries. They can also serve as rent seeking instruments. Uncovering how parties function is therefore key to establishing the preconditions for good governance. The article discusses when and why clientelism on the basis of party affiliation may arise. Operationally, party-based clientelism is defined as a bias of public policy in favour of members of the governing political party. In a sample of local governments in India, party-based clientelism is shown to exist in two out of four states and to be strongly affected by economic inequality.     

The Impact of Political Leadership on Organisational Performance: Evidence from English Urban Government

Many commentators view the political management reforms of English local government with some scepticism, raising concerns about the desirability of stronger leadership and the efficacy of institutional reform in encouraging stronger leadership. Using data from a five-year evaluation of the impact of the Local Government Act 2000, this paper reports evidence suggesting that institutional variation does influence the way that organisations operate and can have a positive impact on their performance, though the results are mixed with the internal decision-making elements showing most difference, whilst there is less evidence of effects in relation to partnership working and engagement with the public. In hung and balanced authorities an internal focus on managing coalitions and party competitors is judged to impede the role of leaders in partnership working. In the concluding section, the paper develops the concept of facilitative leadership, which will continue to influence reform of local government and the practice of political leadership in local government. Policy-makers, by giving leaders the right mix of resources and incentives, can improve the effectiveness of urban political leadership and encourage the trend towards facilitative leadership.     

Determinants and Benefits of Household Level Participation in Rural Drinking Water Projects in India

Abstract

Using data from households in 45 villages in rural India, this paper finds that wealth, literacy, household and village size are often determinants of two measures of participation in community-based development projects: meeting attendance and capital cost contributions. Using propensity score matching, this study concludes that participation leads to benefits for the households that participate although these benefits are strongest in regions with higher levels of overall participation. This study finds no evidence of elite capture with both poor and wealthy households benefiting from their participation.     

The Effects of Risk Preferences on the Adoption of Post-Harvest Technology: Evidence from Rural Cambodia

We investigate how rice farmers’ risk preferences affect the adoption of post-harvest technology in Cambodia, focusing on moisture meters. We find that risk-averse farmers are more likely to adopt moisture meters, although the degree of farmers’ loss aversion or the extent to which they tended to overweight small probabilities do not affect the adoption. In the setting of our study, the effects of farmers’ risk preferences on agricultural technology adoption can be described by using expected utility theory. However, controlling for loss aversion and probability weighting improves the precision of examining the effects of farmers’ risk preferences on adoption.     

The Impact of Socio-Cultural Integration on Return Intentions: Evidence from a Survey on Romanian Migrants

Abstract

This article analyzes the impact of socio-cultural integration on migrants’ intention to return to their country of origin. It distinguishes between the potential effects of inter-ethnic relations, language proficiency and perception of discrimination as components of integration. It uses individual-level data collected through an original survey among Romanian migrants in January 2018. It aims to test the effects of socio-cultural integration against those of alternative explanations provided in the literature. The findings indicate that the perception of discrimination, assessment of public institutions’ performance and belonging feelings are important predictors for return intentions.     

Economic Benefits of Rural Feeder Roads: Evidence from Ethiopia

We estimate households’ willingness-to-pay for rural feeder roads in Ethiopia. Using purposefully collected data, we compare the economic behaviour of households by remoteness to estimate the benefits of access to feeder roads. Although we cannot definitively assert a causal relationship, we cautiously estimate that gravel roads have internal rates of return of 12–35 per cent. These results suggest that rural feeder roads may have relatively high rates of return even in unfavourable settings where (a) small-scale farmers have low levels of marketed agricultural surplus, (b) non-farm earning opportunities are negligible, and (c) motorised transport services are not guaranteed.     

The Influence of Living with Parents on Women's Decision-Making Participation in the Household: Evidence from the Southern Philippines

This article analyses the dynamics of women's participation in the decisions made in the household by looking at the effects of events that transpired in the recent period. Results suggest that the wife's participation status is positively affected by the presence of parents, either hers or the spouse's, in the household. Results also show that the wife's parents significantly affect participation in minor issues while the spouse's parents significantly affect the more relevant financial issues. The article also offers a cursory discussion on the role of household headship.     

The Impact of the Housing Bubble on the Growth of Municipal Debt: Evidence from Spain

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of the recent Spanish housing boom and the subsequent burst on local public finances. Particularly, we investigate the effect of the rise and later fall in revenue from urban development on local government debt. Using a sample of the Spanish largest municipalities in the period 2003–2011, we find that debt was substituted by revenue from urban development during boom years and this substitution effect vanished after the burst of the boom. Our results also reveal that local public finances have worsened after the burst of the housing bubble since now they have larger current spending and smaller savings.     

The Role of Empowerment in Agricultural Production: Evidence from Rural Households in Niger

We use new household and individual level WEAI data from the Tahoua region of Niger and estimate a variable coefficient Cobb-Douglas production function in which traditional inputs interact with two human capital variables – empowerment and formal education. Our estimation results reveal that human capital matters for productivity. So much so that it can be considered as technology-changing, significantly affecting a household’s production technology by enhancing returns to equipment. In fact, differentiating households by their status as dual or primary with only an adult female or male reveals that the productivity elasticity of empowerment is large for dual households in which women are the least empowered. Enhancing the empowerment of women in this group of households, by increasing their leadership skills or tenure security, would yield important productivity gains.