World Development最新文献

{"title":"Local context and mobilization in poor communities: Lessons from Kenya, Malawi and Zambia","authors":"Prisca Jöst ,&nbsp;Ellen Lust","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107088","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107088","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Why are some actors better able than others to mobilize the poor? Some scholars approaching this question focus on leaders, suggesting that different types of actors and their corresponding roles shape their abilities to encourage participation in community initiatives or support for specific candidates. Others emphasize actors’ connections to their followers, positing that individuals closely connected within a community mobilize more effectively. Together, these approaches suggest that the mobilizers’ success varies by community, yet there remains limited understanding of where and why certain actors are more influential. In this paper, we turn attention to how the social context moderates actors’ abilities to influence the poor. To do so, we analyze data from a factorial vignette experiment with over 14,117 poor respondents in 631 communities embedded in an original survey fielded in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia. We find more local actors, including those without formal leadership positions, have greater influence than more distant ones, and their comparative advantage is magnified in communities with dense social ties. Results also indicate that the fear of community sanctions and desire to cooperate with others drive mobilization, while fear of mobilizer sanctioning does not. We further rule out the possibility that these findings are driven by the homogeneity of socially dense communities or their levels of social inequality or ethnolinguistic fractionalization. These findings turn attention away from the focus on leaders in official positions, whether customary or state. They also suggest that social development programs can be more effective when engaging locally embedded actors, particularly in socially dense communities and when aimed at promoting community social goods. This approach may help international donors and NGOs achieve more sustainable outcomes and foster community resilience.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"195 ","pages":"Article 107088"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144296949","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Production network disruption: Evidence from the civil-conflict in Ethiopia","authors":"Yohannes Ayele ,&nbsp;Habtamu Edjigu","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107098","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107098","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the role of trade networks in the dissemination and amplification of economic shocks using the 2020 Ethiopian civil war as a quasi-natural experiment. We use Value-added Tax (VAT) data from the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA) to construct a network of firm-level supplier–buyer connections. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find a significant negative impact of conflict exposure on firms located outside the conflict area. Firms located outside direct conflict zones but with pre-existing trade ties with affected areas experienced a 10% decrease in sales. Furthermore, we disaggregate the impact of buyer and supplier exposure to the conflict area. We find that both buyer and supplier connections to the conflict area have a negative impact, with buyer exposure having a stronger effect. The event-study analysis confirms the negative effect of the conflict on firms connected through trade networks. Our results are robust to various empirical checks including placebo tests with false treatment periods and regions, exclusion of outliers. Finally, we collected survey data from firms in non-conflict areas to provide further insights into how conflict affects their trade relationships with firms in conflict-affected areas. 82% of firms faced difficulties in communication or collaboration with their business partners, and 36% of firms experienced contract breaches or payment delays due to the conflict. Policymakers involved in post-conflict reconstruction should not only focus on directly affected regions but also on firms outside directly affected conflict areas, as they are also vulnerable to the ripple effects of conflict.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"195 ","pages":"Article 107098"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144296948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Varieties of Chinese capital in African agriculture: A bounded improvisation analysis","authors":"Yuezhou Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107091","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107091","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Debates on Chinese state capitalism and agribusiness expansion have focused on issues of China’s overseas agricultural land investments. While China-focused analyses have deepened our understanding of the complex dynamics between Chinese state-business relations and the diverse regimes of capital export, they often overlook the institutional complexities of host countries. This study addresses that gap by investigating the interplay between the agency of different types of Chinese investors and the land tenure institutions in Tanzania and Zambia. I conceptualize three distinct types of Chinese investors – cooperative competitors, flying geese, and footloose opportunists—each characterized by unique drivers and objectives for internationalization. I further theorize how these investors navigate, adapt to, and improvise within the constraints of host-state land tenure systems. Drawing on 28 comparative cases collected through multiple field trips, the analysis highlights both the differences among Chinese firms operating in the same institutional setting and the varying strategies employed by similar firms across different regulatory environments. The typology developed in this study not only sheds light on the diverse and adaptive strategies of Chinese overseas investors but also provides broader insights into how firms engage with institutional constraints across sectors and beyond Africa.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"195 ","pages":"Article 107091"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144241782","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Infrastructure-driven land appropriation, institutional change and conflict in a communal conservancy in Kenya","authors":"Eric M. Kioko ,&nbsp;Winnie Changwony","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107089","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107089","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The construction of government-led megaprojects, particularly in the energy, transport, water and technology sectors, is booming in Africa to support fast-growing economies. Rural areas are a key focus for the development of megaprojects due to the perceived availability of space. Whether at the planning or implementation stage, expectations of infrastructure, including valorization and connectivity, fuel anticipatory behavior and speculation, leading to the convergence of different actors with different interests. This article explores how infrastructure reconfigures land tenure and changes power dynamics in community-owned conservation landscapes that fall victim to infrastructure construction. It examines how actors and strategic groups appropriate and privatize the commons by exploiting and influencing institutional change, and how these processes are contested and resisted. The impact of megaprojects on communally owned and managed natural resources has received little scholarly attention, particularly in Africa, despite the global push to expand protected areas. Using the proposed Isiolo section of the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) in Kenya as a case study, we show how asymmetric power relations and conflict define infrastructural frontiers as different actors exert influence and compete for strategic interests prior to project implementation. We argue that infrastructure reconfigures property rights regimes, socio-cultural relations, and shifts power and conflict dynamics in these fragile ecosystems, threatening their very existence.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"195 ","pages":"Article 107089"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144231014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Estimating the relationship between prolonged weather variability and accelerated marriage in Bangladesh","authors":"Livia Elisa Ortensi,&nbsp;Francesca Tosi,&nbsp;Rosella Rettaroli","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.106994","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.106994","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Marrying as a child is a severe violation of human rights, with far-reaching consequences for young girls’ lives. Despite having declined in the last decades, the practice of early marriage is still pervasive globally, especially in South Asia. It is increasingly evident that climate change affects the timing and patterns of life course transitions, including the transition into unions for women and girls of all ages. This study focuses on the case of Bangladesh, where both extreme weather and child marriage prevalence are among the highest worldwide. We estimate the relationship between the two phenomena by applying multilevel survival modelling to integrated data based on the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey and the climatic information conveyed by the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index. Analyzing marriages between 1990 and 2016, we find that the risk of marrying before turning 18 and at any age increases when dry and wet weather conditions depart from the near normality for a medium and prolonged timespan, both in rural and urban areas. We interpret such evidence as a response of demographic behaviors to prolonged, severe climatic alterations rather than to single extreme climate events. These findings carry important implications for studies on family formation dynamics and the protection of women’s rights under the threat of global climate change.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"195 ","pages":"Article 106994"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144212408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Post-colonial trends of income inequality: Evidence from the overseas departments of France","authors":"Yajna Govind","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107069","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107069","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The link between former colonies and their colonizers has implications for inequality in the post-colonial period. In this paper, I provide evidence from a unique setting in which former colonies were administratively assimilated into the colonial metropolis. Putting together a novel income tax dataset for the four oldest French colonies, now overseas departments of France, I estimate the evolution of income inequality from decolonization in 1946 to the present. I find that the top income shares declined rapidly since decolonization but remained consistently higher than in mainland France. Exploiting contemporary administrative data, I document that mainland-born individuals are over-represented at the top of the labor income distribution and in the high-paying public sector in the overseas departments. Thus, while departmentalization reduced overall inequality, it perpetuated a legacy of colonial income hierarchies into the post-colonial era.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"194 ","pages":"Article 107069"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144166409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Financial inclusion along the Rural-Urban Continuum: Empirical evidence from a decomposition analysis in Kenya between 2012 and 2021","authors":"Constantin Johnen,&nbsp;Anna Mader,&nbsp;Albert Nsengumuremyi,&nbsp;Oliver Mußhoff","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107073","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107073","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>People in extremely rural areas may face substantially higher levels of financial exclusion than rural averages suggest. Formulating efficient policy measures hence requires a more nuanced understanding of spatial differences in financial inclusion beyond mere averages of rural–urban differences. This study is the first to investigate inequality of financial inclusion along a rural–urban continuum. Using two nationally representative surveys from Kenya collected in 2012 and 2021, we first quantify the overall levels of spatial inequality for both conventional and digital financial inclusion. To do so, we calculate concentration indices (CIs) and make pairwise comparisons between the most rural and most urban areas. We then investigate the spatial inequality across 12 variables, which were previously identified to be important determinants of financial inclusion. Lastly, we estimate which variables are the most important contributors to spatial inequality. We find that both conventional and digital financial inclusion are statistically significantly concentrated among more urban areas compared to more rural areas. These inequality estimates are similar for both types of financial inclusion and persistent over time. Average rural–urban differences are substantially lower than differences between the most urban and most rural quintile of the continuum. Important determinants of both financial inclusion types, such as education, wealth, mobile phone ownership, and trust exhibit persistent and high levels of spatial inequality. Congruently, we find that to decrease spatial inequality in financial inclusion, policy makers should prioritize decreasing spatial inequality of all four aforementioned variables. Researchers should consider the degree of rurality on a continuum rather than a binary rural–urban definition. Results are robust against different econometric strategies, different measurements of inequality, and different specifications of both financial inclusion and the rural–urban continuum.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"194 ","pages":"Article 107073"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144166408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Corrigendum to “Sex ratio and fertility preferences in India: A longitudinal analysis” [World Dev. 192 (2025) 107046]","authors":"Matthieu Clément ,&nbsp;Pierre Levasseur ,&nbsp;Suneha Seetahul","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107077","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107077","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"193 ","pages":"Article 107077"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144212700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Transnational capital and the scramble for land and profit: financialization, agrarian development, and resource conflict in Africa","authors":"Surulola Eke ,&nbsp;J. Andrew Grant ,&nbsp;Evelyn Mayanja ,&nbsp;Nathan Andrews","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107076","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107076","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The promise of financialization in the agrarian world in Africa stems from its capacity to (re)create local economies purportedly for the benefit of investors, local communities, and governments. However, financialization is also known to unevenly distribute risks and rewards between investors and local communities. Therefore, this paper employs a just transition lens to systematically examine existing studies on financial investments in economic activities that involve the exploitation of agricultural resources. It does so to generate big picture insights on the relationship between financialized agro-economic activities (FAEAs), agrarian development, and resource conflict in Africa. Informed by an exploratory research design, the paper draws on secondary data on seven case studies (Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Ghana) to outline the different sets of endogenous and exogenous circumstances, practices, and tendencies in the pre-entry, entry, operations, and exit phases of FAEAs that explain how and why they spur development or engender conflict across their lifespans. By examining FAEAs across these phases in multiple countries, we show that the explanations for their developmental and conflictual outcomes transcend causal binaries of settled versus contested resource rights in the pre-entry phase, stakeholders engagement versus lack of engagement in the entry phase, economic integration versus displacement in the operations phase, and inclusive versus exclusive project termination. It shows that the effect of FAEAs on development and conflict are better understood by also considering the different grey areas between each of the aforementioned pair of factors that shape how FAEAs unfold in local communities. By applying a whole-systems perspective on just transition to examining FAEAs, this paper helps to highlight these grey dynamics (e.g., the side effects of integration on food security, long-term financial well-being, and community cohesion), thereby alerting policymakers, development practitioners, and the general public on how and why FAEAs make local communities susceptible to resource conflict in spite of their acclaimed developmental potential.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"194 ","pages":"Article 107076"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144138160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What corruption is most harmful? Unbundling citizen perceptions","authors":"Aaron Erlich ,&nbsp;Jordan Gans-Morse ,&nbsp;Simeon Nichter ,&nbsp;Arne Holverscheid","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To combat corruption, many countries employ information campaigns aimed at citizens. When designing such campaigns, practitioners often consider citizen perceptions of corruption’s harms, but typically lack data about two key questions: Which forms of corruption do citizens deem especially pernicious? And how do citizens’ perceptions differ when considering distinct types of harms? This article introduces a diagnostic approach to investigate these questions, drawing on a conjoint experiment conducted in collaboration with Armenia’s Corruption Prevention Commission. This approach maps citizen perceptions of corruption’s consequences across four distinct types of harms: economic, political, moral, and personal. It not only identifies forms of corruption viewed as particularly damaging, but also reveals how findings may diverge across harms. For example, our findings suggest that Armenians perceive high-level embezzlement as especially harmful for all four types of harms we examined. By contrast, they deem healthcare corruption to inflict <em>more</em> personal and moral harm — but <em>less</em> economic and political harm — than corruption in other sectors. While citizens’ perceptions of corruption harms are context specific, our approach has broad applicability both for practitioners designing campaigns, and for scholars seeking to conceptualize corruption and its consequences.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"194 ","pages":"Article 107001"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144134809","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}