World Development最新文献

{"title":"The winds of inequalities: How hurricanes affect inequalities at the macro level","authors":"Aubin Vignoboul","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106827","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106827","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While the consequences of natural disasters are relatively well studied, little is known about their macroeconomic impact on inequality. Following Yang (2008), we use an exogenous hurricane index, considering the average “affectedness” of individuals, based on meteorological data. Our empirical approach uses local projection (Jordà, 2005) to measure the cumulative impact of hurricanes on pre- and post-transfer Gini indices (Solt, 2020) five years after the hurricane event for a sample of 114 countries from 1995 to 2014. We find that the impact of hurricanes on inequality, is conditional on the level of a country’s per capita GDP. In particular, the poorest countries tend to experience a reduction in disposable inequality following a hurricane. This study highlights the possible presence of a Schumpeterian effect in high income countries, where they experience a decline in the pre-redistribution Gini in the first few years as capital at the top of the income distribution is destroyed. Subsequently, the pre-tax and transfer Gini rises, reflecting a possible “build-back-better” mechanism as individuals at the top of the income distribution increase their income from capital via reconstruction. In the case of the post-redistribution Gini, we observe a decrease in the first years after a hurricane, underlining the positive impact of redistribution. We identify potential channels such as ODA, remittances and subsidies through which hurricanes may reduce inequality in these countries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"188 ","pages":"Article 106827"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143168409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Urbanising the Villages: Three modes of village incorporation and the implications for structural transition in India’s “Chinese-style” special economic zones (SEZs)","authors":"Charlotte Goodburn","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106882","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106882","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article examines outcomes of three different modes of <em>in-situ</em> urbanisation in the context of large “Chinese-style” Special Economic Zone (SEZ) development in rural India, arguing that mode of village incorporation has an important impact on development outcomes for local populations. It compares three Indian cases with the early stages of the SEZ “model” in China’s Shenzhen, where urban villages emerged, a thriving rentier economy grew, and structural transition was combined with distinctive infrastructural and governance outcomes. Although much work has examined macro-level economic contributions of India’s SEZs, little attention has been paid to implications for local areas beyond initial protests over dispossession, and none has focused on impacts for those whose rural settlements are enveloped by the new industrial area. Whether India’s new urban villages experience similar structural transformation to their Chinese counterparts is therefore unknown.</div><div>Based on in-depth qualitative fieldwork in three SEZs in south, north and west India (2018–2023), as well as earlier fieldwork in Shenzhen (2008), this study assesses shifts in livelihoods, institutions and urbanisation. It argues that the three different approaches to incorporating villages derive from the dynamics of local land politics, and contribute to varying forms and degrees of livelihoods transition, in which their interactions with local institutions of rural governance are highly relevant. The article thus contributes to a re-examination of the relationship between industrialisation and urbanisation in the developing world, highlighting how agrarian societies are shaped and reshaped by processes of urbanisation and industrialisation and vice versa. Overall, while the north Indian SEZ has produced better livelihoods outcomes than the south or west, in all three cases structural transitions are incomplete and inequitable, and none have produced the widespread economic benefits for locals seen in China.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"188 ","pages":"Article 106882"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143168008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Green with envy? The effects of inequality and equity within and across social groups on greenhouse gas emissions, 1990–2020","authors":"Indra de Soysa","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106885","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106885","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The idea that inequality and inequities drive climate change forms a strong discourse in environmental politics. Reducing inequality is promoted as a win–win solution for reducing greenhouse gases. Others view egalitarian processes as a potential threat since increasing the consumption possibilities of the bottom-rungs of society relative to the top would drive up higher overall emissions. Using the latest available data on greenhouse gas emissions and the adoption of green energy technology measured over three decades, this study finds that a variety of measurements of vertical and horizontal inequality and inequitable access to political resources correlate with <em>lower</em> emissions per capita and <em>greater</em> adoption of green energy technologies. Inequality works in the opposite way than often thought. Per capita income levels, contrarily, are robustly and consistently associated with <em>higher</em> emissions, results that support the view that it is overall wealth (consumption) that drives climate change, not its distribution. Reducing inequality and poverty poses a moral and practical conundrum because levelling up incomes within and between countries, given current levels of technology, will worsen the climate crisis. The basic results hold up to a barrage of robustness tests, such as alternative estimating methods, models, and data, and to formal tests of omitted variables bias. Understanding how emissions might be reduced while addressing questions of equity demands calls for much harder thinking, and potentially fewer slogans, such as “eco-social contracts” and “new green deals” that peddle win–win solutions to a ‘wicked problem.’</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"188 ","pages":"Article 106885"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143168364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The taxed informal economy: Fiscal burdens and inequality in Accra","authors":"Nana Akua Anyidoho ,&nbsp;Max Gallien ,&nbsp;Michael Rogan ,&nbsp;Vanessa van den Boogaard","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106879","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106879","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The common assumption that informal economies are untaxed has underpinned arguments that they represent an ‘untapped goldmine’ for government coffers. However, there has been limited empirical engagement with this assumption. While some studies have highlighted that many informal businesses pay both formal and informal taxes, there has been little systematic accounting of these payments. Using a novel dataset of 2,700 informal enterprises in the Accra metropolitan area in Ghana, this article presents the first geographically representative account of the nature, distribution and impact of taxation in an urban informal sector. We find that the majority of informal sector operators in this context pay a range of taxes and fees, which together amount to a significant burden, especially for low earners. Two key findings emerge in relation to the structure of these taxes. First, the incidence and burden of tax payments is highly uneven and strongly correlated with visibility to the state, suggesting that taxation is driven more by patterns of state enforcement than the choices of informal operators. Second, taxes and fees are highly regressive, with lower-earning operators paying significantly more in relation to their earnings. These findings have important implications for both our conception of informal businesses and efforts to tax informal businesses in low- and middle-income countries.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"187 ","pages":"Article 106879"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143172159","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":"Shine a (night)light: Decentralization and economic development in Burkina Faso","authors":"Olivier B. Bargain ,&nbsp;Rose Camille Vincent ,&nbsp;Emilie Caldeira","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106851","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106851","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Decentralization, championed by international institutions, has been one of the most prominent public sector reforms of the last decades, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. To date, few studies propose a quasi-experimental evaluation of its capacity to contribute to local development. We exploit the phase-in of decentralization at the commune level in Burkina Faso. We use satellite information on night-time light density as a proxy for local development levels, which has the advantage of being measured and comparable over time and space. The communes that were decentralized first can be compared to the others after the reform relative to the pre-reform situation. The difference-in-difference approach includes commune fixed effects and inverse propensity score reweighting to account for time-varying differences across communes. We find a positive impact of decentralization on the night-light intensity trends of the early-decentralized communes. This is supported by alternative measures (remote sensing of built-up settlements and a welfare index), which shows the possibly broader scope of decentralization gains. We show that decentralization did not lift all boats: only the communes with the ability to generate own-source revenues benefited from <em>effective</em> decentralization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"187 ","pages":"Article 106851"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142746384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A critical review of the state-of-the-art on social policy, conflict and peace in the Middle East and North Africa region: Why social policy matters for peace and why it is also not enough","authors":"Rana Jawad ,&nbsp;Sophie Plagerson ,&nbsp;Martina Jaskolski","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106861","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106861","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article critically examines of the current state of knowledge on the conceptual and operational intersections between social policy and peace using a comprehensive desk-based review of the literature in the MENA region. Situating itself within the conceptual framework of positive peace, the paper critically assesses the role of social policy in a diversifying landscape of compounding risks, exacerbated by global climate change, environmental degradation, structural inequality, and state fragility, which negatively affect peace.</div><div>Advocating for a broader and more critical perspective on the role of social policy in relation to peace building, the paper highlights the intrinsic value of social policy as a comprehensive framework for action − as opposed to the current emphasis in the peace literature on disparate elements of social policy: “welfare”, “protection”, “service delivery” (<span><span>Richmond, 2011</span></span>, <span><span>McLoughlin, 2018</span></span>, <span><span>Furness and Trautner, 2020</span></span>; UN and World Bank, 2018). Such a framework can lead to more nuanced and contextual analysis of social policy solutions that address structural inequalities, encompass the notion of compound risk, and foster positive peace. At the same time, the paper addresses the mixed record of social policy in relation to processes and indicators of war and peace: social policy practice in MENA (as elsewhere in the world) can act as a positive peace-sensitive tool, but also be used to maintain law and order, sometimes reflecting a form of “hegemonic pacification”. These negative forms of peace (social control or political co-option) raise further questions about the nature of peace, and the extent to which social policy can support better governance of and pathways to peace (<span><span>Chandler, 2016</span></span>, <span><span>Skocpol, 1992</span></span>). In addition, the complex ideological nature of violent conflict, particularly in MENA, adds further layers of complexity. Our key argument is that despite these limitations., greater scope should be accorded to social policy as a critical contributor to shaping social conditions that foster positive peace. Beyond that, we recognise the need for greater interactions and dialogue between advocates of both security and social pathways to peace. Conclusions include suggestions for future research: a) greater focus on what types of social policy interventions work at key points in time and in what kinds of conflict situations, b) better understanding of the dynamics of peace-sensitive social policy indicators discussed in this paper.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"187 ","pages":"Article 106861"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142746309","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":"How wartime recruitment affects political engagement among civilians: Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire","authors":"Philip A. Martin","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106836","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106836","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Promoting civic engagement and political participation in the aftermath of armed conflict is a key challenge for post-conflict recovery and development. This study investigates whether exposure to wartime recruitment by non-state armed groups increases non-combatants’ postwar political engagement. Extending existing theories of conflict and political participation, I argue that when territorial armed groups recruit more intensively within occupied communities, <em>non</em>-combatants in those communities are likely to remain more engaged in politics in the long run. Wartime recruitment increases the perceived salience of political issues among non-combatants, and fosters a stronger sense of entitlement to make claims on the postwar state. These legacies should be especially pronounced when the recruiting armed group holds power in the postwar political order. Empirically, I draw on original survey evidence and interviews from Côte d’Ivoire, leveraging geographic variation in communities’ exposure to recruitment by both winning and losing non-state armed groups. The results confirm that greater exposure to wartime recruitment is associated with increased political engagement among non-combatants seven years after the war’s end, especially in areas of high recruitment by winning rebels. Community exposure to recruitment does not increase pro-social attitudes or confidence in government, however. The findings underscore the legacies of wartime recruitment and inform debates about how conflict processes shape the political capacities of civilians.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"187 ","pages":"Article 106836"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142746402","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":"To use financial incentives or not? Insights from experiments in encouraging sanitation investments in four countries","authors":"Sanghmitra Gautam ,&nbsp;Michael Gechter ,&nbsp;Raymond P. Guiteras ,&nbsp;Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106791","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106791","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We conduct a systematic re-analysis of intervention-based studies that promote hygienic latrines and evaluate via experimental methods. We impose systematic inclusion criteria to identify such studies and compile their microdata to harmonize outcome measures, covariates, and estimands across studies. We then re-analyze their data to report metrics that are consistently defined and measured across studies. We compare the relative effectiveness of different classes of interventions implemented in overlapping ways across four countries: community-level demand encouragement, sanitation subsidies, product information campaigns, and microcredit to finance product purchases. In the sample of studies meeting our inclusion criteria, interventions that offer financial benefits generally outperform information and education campaigns in increasing adoption of improved sanitation. Contrary to a policy concern about sustainability, financial incentives do not undermine usage of adopted latrines. Effects vary by share of women in the household, in both positive and negative directions, and differ little by poverty status.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"187 ","pages":"Article 106791"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142722007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Do conditional cash transfers improve intergenerational gains in educational achievement?: Evidence from Brazil’s Bolsa Familia Program","authors":"Gabriel Cepaluni ,&nbsp;Amanda Driscoll","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106852","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106852","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Conditional cash transfer programs are designed to interrupt the intergenerational cycle of poverty by improving health and educational outcomes. We evaluate the efficacy of the world’s largest CCT program utilizing educational outcomes from the complete administrative records at the intra-family level of Brazil’s <em>Bolsa Família</em> program (PBF). Although we find that younger siblings subject to the <em>Bolsa Família</em> conditionalities outperform their older, untreated siblings in educational attainment within the same household, the overall effect size remains substantively small. We consider the educational attainment of 15–17 year old beneficiaries with siblings who were above the age of 18 at the time of family enrollment. Our findings show precisely estimated positive effects due to the large sample, indicating that the program yields minimal improvements in educational outcomes for ‘treated’ children compared to their ‘untreated’ siblings. Additionally, we find modest differences across boy and girl sibling pairs, but consistent regional effects, underscoring the importance of local public goods provision for enhancing program efficacy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"187 ","pages":"Article 106852"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142722087","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":"Is the emphasis on cofinancing good for environmental multilateral funds?","authors":"Matthew J. Kotchen ,&nbsp;Andrew Vogt","doi":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106831","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106831","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>International environmental and development agencies increasingly emphasize external cofinancing when selecting projects to fund. This paper considers whether the emphasis on cofinancing helps promote institutional objectives, or creates perverse and inefficient incentives. We present a model of project selection that can apply to any funding agency, but focus on environmental multilateral funds and climate change. We show that introducing cofinancing objectives to a fund that seeks to maximize its immediate environmental impact is redundant as best, and more likely counterproductive. We test implications of our model using project-level data from two of the leading environmental multilateral funds, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). While tradeoffs exist between emission reductions and cofinancing, we find that they are not strong enough to imply that current cofinancing preferences are diminishing the environmental benefits that funds can claim. However, we also find that the emphasis on cofinancing in project selection is likely to be globally inefficient, as projects with greater cofinancing ratios tend to yield smaller emission reductions per gross dollar spent. This finding should sound a note of caution given the overall scarcity of financial resources available to achieve global climate goals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48463,"journal":{"name":"World Development","volume":"187 ","pages":"Article 106831"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2024-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142722008","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}