rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Policy Research Working Paper 7416

# **Abstract**

In democracies, innovative political institutions have opened up scope for direct public participation often in the form of talk: citizens talking to the state and mutual talk among citizens on matters concerning community development. A prominent example is the Indian _gram sabha,_ or village assembly, which occurs in a highly stratified context. This paper undertakes a talk-centered analysis of the gram _sabha_ with a focus on examining the oral participation of women in general and women affiliated with microcredit self-help groups who have access to an associational life. The qualitative analysis of 255 _gram sabha_ transcripts from four South Indian states finds that women associated with microcredit self-help groups employ a wider variety of narrative styles and utilize a more multilayered structure to convey their messages compared with all women taken together. Thus, the difference is not so much in the numerical instances of talking or in the types of issues raised, but rather in the quality of participation. The paper makes an important theoretical contribution by proposing the concept of oral democracy as an alternative to deliberative democracy, and urges an analytical focus on the _oral or oratory competency_ of subordinated groups as they participate in these important institutions.

This paper is a product of the Poverty and Inequality Team, Development Research Group. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The authors may be contacted at vrao@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
Customers can make person-to-person transfers of mobile money credit to the accounts of other mobile money users on the same network. They can also use their mobile money credit to pay bills and to buy phone airtime. Withdrawals (conversion to cash) can be made at the offices of the network‘s mobile money agents. It is also possible for a mobile money customer to make a transfer to someone who is not registered with the same network. In this case, when notice of the transfer is received in the form of an SMS text message, the recipient can receive the cash at a mobile money agent.

After a slow start in 2007, mobile money usage has since grown rapidly. As of June 2011 the value of person-to-person transactions alone exceeded 30 percent of GDP (see Figure 2).<sup>2</sup> Due to the rapid growth of mobile money usage, the portrait of mobile money users is a moving target. Figure 3 summarizes various sources on total numbers of mobile money users through June 2011. The number of mobile money subscribers as of June 2011 was over 17 million, representing approximately 3 out of every 4 Kenyans age 15 and older.<sup>3</sup>

# **5 Data**

We analyze mobile savings data from a survey conducted by the Financial Sector Deepening – Kenya (FSD-Kenya) organization during the period October to November 2010. Data were collected for 6,083 individuals. These observations were then categorized into M-PESA users and non-users, and a more extensive questionnaire was administered to M-PESA users, comprising a subsample of 2,692 observations. An extra 103 observations were collected by the snowballing method to boost the sample of M-KESHO users. These observations were dropped from the analysis presented here. Individual probability weights are used to make the sample nationally representative.

The survey was not conducted in North Eastern province due to insecurity in the region. Mobile savings data collected include general financial product usage, savings behavior, mobile phone

> 2 These figures do not include mobile money bill payments or transfers from companies to individuals.

> 3 This figure, based on dividing the overall number of mobile money subscribers in June 2011 by the estimated population age 15 and older, is compatible with the percentage of the population age 18 and older (73 percent) that reported using mobile money in the November-December 2011Afrobarometer survey, as detailed in Section 2.

7
discretion considerations lead to a similar outcome in the managerial theory of investment.<sup>3</sup> Therefore, cash flow is irrelevant for all other models of investment.<sup>4</sup> In particular, the accelerator, modified neoclassical, and Q models of investment make no particular predictions regarding the source of finance. To the extent that these theories are based on the assumption of profit maximization, they can be regarded as consistent with the neoclassical approach. Given these considerations, it is useful to distinguish between the managerial and information-theoretic approaches.

# **Managerial theory of** investment

The managerial approach to corporate behavior directly challenges the assumption of profit maximization by the firm and instead postulates other objectives such as sales, staff, emoluments, market share etc. for managers.<sup>5</sup> Given the separation of ownership and control (management), managerial behavior is discretionary and constrained rather weakly by shareholder-owner interests on the one hand, and by competitive market conditions on the other.<sup>6</sup> The key result of the managerial approach is that firms aim for greater output levels and faster growth than is consistent with maximizing the current stock market value of the 3 Financing hierarchy may also be based on transactions costs, tax advantages, costs of financial distress etc., though these are likely to be less important than agency problems and asymmetric information.

4 See Chirinko (1993) for a comprehensive survey of the current state of research on investment theory, with particular emphasis on the Q-theoretic models.

I Strictly speaking, the managerial theory of investment can be thought of as being made up of two types of approaches--managerial capitalism and agency theory. Baumol (1959, 1967), Marris (1963, 1964), Grabowski and Mueller (1972) and others are examples of the managerial capitalism approach. The agency cost approach focusses on contracting aspects within the overall framework of the principalagent model and is associated with Jensen and Meckling (1976) and others.

6 The literature on the separation of ownership and control began with Berle and Means (1932).

4
the other hand, the average quantity of wood consumption, registered a 22.5% decline from the baseline to round 3. Average consumption of ethanol was around 4-5 liters/week.

**Table 2: Kitchen Characteristics and Ambient Environment: Descriptive Statistics**

|**Explanatory variables**|**Baseline**|**Round 2**|**Round 3**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Kitchen is open (1=Yes, 0=No)|0.219|0.246|0.201|
||(0.414)|(0.431)|(0.401)|
|Kitchen is airy (1=Yes, 0=No)|0.175<br>(0.380)|0.145<br>(0.353)|0.121<br>(0.327)|
|Kitchen roof is permeable (1=Yes, 0=No)|0.166|0.009|0.012|
||(0.372)|(0.094)|(0.108)|
|Kitchen wall is permeable (1=Yes, 0=No)|0.065|0.003|0.0|
||(0.247)|(0.054)|(0.0)|
|Size of kitchen (Sq. ft.)|18.1|21.3|20.8|
||(11.9)|(14.0)|(13.7)|
|Size of kitchen vent (Sq. ft.)|1.9|1.9|1.8|
||(1.2)|(1.3)|(1.4)|
|Wind is strong (1=Yes, 0=No)|0.059|0.009|0.027|
||(0.236)|(0.094)|(0.161)|
|The day is dry (1=Yes, 0=No)|0.464|0.589|0.346|
||(0.499)|(0.493)|(0.476)|
|The day is rain-free (1=Yes, 0=No)|0.485|0.589|0.601|
||(0.501)|(0.493)|(0.491)|
|Temperature is warm (1=Yes, 0=No)|0.707|0.825|0.189|
||(0.456)|(0.380)|(0.392)|

Note: Figures in the parentheses are standard deviations Source: World Bank household survey (2009-2010) _<u>Kitchen characteristics:</u>_ In order to understand the role of ventilation, questions were asked about location of the kitchen (separate/attached/within-dwelling), nature of the kitchen (enclosed/semi-open), ambience of the kitchen (bright and airy/dark and enclosed), and building materials (bricks/mud/wood/reed/thatch etc.). Enumerators of the survey also measured kitchen, window and door dimensions during their visits. As expected, structural characteristics of kitchens displayed less variation over a year and a half when three rounds of survey were carried out. Survey enumerators observed that only 22% of the kitchens were open and 15% were airy. On an average, the size of a kitchen was around 20 sq. ft. with a small opening. Walls of the kitchens were hardly permeable and approximately 1% of the kitchens had permeable roof during the experiments.

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household survey data. These countries are listed in Table 2 and together they span the continents of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the aggregate, they account for nearly 1 billion people, and more than 400 million poor (measured at the $2/day poverty line; 150 million poor when evaluated at the $1/day poverty line). While they are not a random sample, they do span a wide range of per capita income levels as well as differing degrees of industrialization. Therefore, as we will see, the location and earnings patterns of the poor in these 15 countries vary greatly.

There are many alternative approaches to estimating the poverty impacts of trade reforms (Annex II). The analytical approach used here builds on that of Hertel et al. (2004), which employs a sequential, macro-micro modeling strategy in which results from the global model are passed on to a series of micro-simulation models. In this paper we summarize the key characteristics of these micro-simulation models using _highly disaggregated_ poverty elasticities – describing the impact of a change in various components of earnings on poverty within a given population group, or stratum. This permits us to present and analyze our results for all 15 focus countries in a compact and easy to understand manner while maintaining the diversity of poverty outcomes under global trade reform.

A key finding in the work of Hertel et al. (2004) is the importance of stratifying households by their primary source of income. Unlike some of the rich countries (and particularly the US, as discussed above), farm households in developing countries often rely on the farm enterprise for virtually all of their income and are likely to be highly diversified in the products grown on the farm. Furthermore, the share of national poverty 14
|TAB|LE II: Four Types of Firm-Level Survey Q|uestions|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Question Type||<br>Example||||
|Short Answer|A. Name of Enterprise/Entrepreneur:||||
||B. Year of Start-up:||||
||C.Number of Employees: Current:<br>At Start-up:<br>Peak (year):||||
|Open-ended|In starting your business (or making it for<br>requirements were the most difficult to m|mal), which go<br>eet?|vernme|nt|
|Pre-coded multiple choice|Who tends to be more reliable in honorin|g their orde.s:|||
||1) SMALL FIRMS<br>2) BIG FIRM|S<br>3) SAM|E||
|Ranked response: Type A|Please rank the following six regulatory p<br>their difficulty for your business, giving th<br>most a 2, and the least a six:|roblems by the<br>e most difficult|magnit<br>a 1, the|ude of<br>second|
||i)<br>Federal Tax Regulations<br>ii) State Tax Regulations<br>iii) Municipal Tax Regulations<br>||||
||iv) Labor Regulations||||
||<br>v)<br>Building/Property Regulations<br>vi) Other included in Question A||||
|Ranked response: Type B|How severe is each of the following probl<br>regulation of your business?<br>|ems relating to<br>|govern<br>|ment<br>|
||No Obsta|cle|Ver<br>Ob|y Severe<br>stacle|
||1.<br>Numberof licenses needed<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|
||2.<br>Getting production licenses<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|
||3.<br>Getting import licenses<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|
||<br>4.<br>Costsof licenses<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|
||_5._<br>Pricecontrolsof inputs<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|
||<br>6.<br>Price controls of outputs<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|
||<br>7.<br>Gov't labor regulations<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|
||&<br>Trade union restrictions<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|
||9.<br>Tax-related regulations<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|
||10.<br>Others, specify:<br>1|2<br>3|4|_5_|

6
[| Stud. | Enr. Enr. Stud. | Enr. Enr. Stud. | Enr. Enr. ee Pate Schoots Schoots [Charter Schools | | Private Schools] Schools] Notes: Avg. Enr. is average enrolment and % % Stud. is percentage of students. students. The unit of observation observation is a campus-year. For instance, on average during the sample period 68.57 percent of public schools are elementary, 4.29 are elementary/middle, etc. Among public school students, on average 55.02 percent attend elementary schools, 4.97 attend elementary/middle schools, etc. “n/a” indicates there are no public schools of this this grade level.

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[|<br>Stud. | Enr. Enr. Stud. | Enr. Enr. Stud. | Enr. Enr.<br>ee Pate Schoots Schoots [Charter Schools | | Private Schools] Schools]<br>Notes: Avg. Enr. is average enrolment and % % Stud. is percentage of students. students. The unit of observation observation is a<br>campus-year. For instance, on average during the sample period 68.57 percent of public schools are<br>elementary, 4.29 are elementary/middle, etc. Among public school students, on average 55.02 percent<br>attend elementary schools, 4.97 attend elementary/middle schools, etc. “n/a” indicates there are no public<br>schools of this this grade level.<br><!-- End of picture text -->

Focus Schools Schools Schools Focus | schoo | Senoas | Sehots_| [Vocational [1s ai

Notes: the unit of observation is a campus-year. For instance, among charter campuses, on average 47.37 percent offer a core curriculum, 9.65 percent offer an arts curriculum, etc.

at_[ [27 | sa7_| 266 [iFocus_| Note: Each row indicates the fractiontowne.of students |of 8055 the corresponding217race or poverty| 453status |enrolled31sin each|type of96 school. For each row, sum across columns equals 100. Data from all years has been pooled for the table.
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evaluating its social protection programs should be central to successful anti-poverty policymaking.

This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first systematic impact evaluation of the NE and the old-age pension programs, which constitute the core of the Albanian social protection system. It uses the two recent (2002 and 2005) nationally representative Albanian Living Standards Measurement Surveys (ALSMS02 and ALSMS05, respectively) to estimate the separate effects of participation in these programs on household’s objective and subjective poverty measures. In the absence of panel consumption data, the empirical methodology of choice is propensity score matching. With respect to their matched comparators, the NE households have on average a lower per capita consumption, and exhibit a higher degree of discontent with life, financial situation, and consumption levels. These differences are mainly driven by the urban areas. Rural differences, while still significant, are much less alarming in terms of magnitude. Conversely, the average differences in all welfare outcomes of interest across pension treatment and comparison groups are _not_ statistically significant.

In order to provide a potential explanation of the program impacts on household welfare outcomes, we investigate the possibility of a negative labor supply response among work-eligible individuals to household NE and/or old-age pension receipts. Indeed, a well-documented unintended consequence of income transfers is the negative labor supply response to program participation (Murray, 1984; Harrington, 1984; Darity Jr. & Myers Jr., 1987). Sometimes, the disincentive effects of the transfer programs may be so significant that they outweigh the redistributive gains. In the extreme, the negative labor supply effect may lead to less of a reduction in poverty and high inequality, contrary to a program’s objectives.

2
Nonetheless, the predicted dynamics of consumption is reasonable: an investor wants more wealth in states when the marginal utility is higher. Therefore, given our focus on changes in optimal portfolio allocation as an explanation for the dynamics of the current account, we believe that our model is appropriate. It effectively captures variations in the optimal portfolio allocation caused by changes in the investment opportunity set.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to empirically analyze the relevance of portfolio rebalancing caused by changes in investment opportunities for the dynamics of the current account. Although we develop our own theoretical framework, a few theoretical papers should be mentioned.<sup>3</sup> Devereux and Sutherland (2007) and Tille and van Wincoop (2007) highlight the importance of time-varying portfolio shares in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with portfolio choice. In theoretical terms, they show the importance of portfolio rebalancing for net and gross capital flows. Also from a theoretical perspective, Evans and Hnatkovska (2005) and Hnatkovska (2006) use a general equilibrium model with portfolio choice to discuss the size and volatility of capital flows and their determinants.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we present preliminary evidence to illustrate the empirical relevance of our argument. Section 3 presents our model of the current account with dynamic asset allocation. In Section 4, we further develop our empirical analysis. We estimate the model for the U.S. and Japan and compare its predictions with the actual bilateral current account data. Section 5 concludes and is followed by the appendices.

> 3 From a different perspective, the International RBC literature has incorporated the effects of changes in the productivity of physical capital on investment decisions. See, for example, Backus, Kehoe, and Kydland (1992).

5
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