rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Unpacking the MPI : a decomposition
            approach of changes in multidimensional poverty headcounts
WPS7514 Policy Research Working Paper 7514

# Unpacking the MPI

A Decomposition Approach of Changes in Multidimensional Poverty Headcounts _Jorge Eduardo Pérez Pérez Carlos Rodríguez Castelán Jose Daniel Trujillo Daniel Valderrama_ Poverty and Equity Global Practice Group December 2015
Forced displacement and refugees in
            Sub-Saharan Africa : an economic inquiry
Most reports on refugees deal with the
            immediate needs of displaced people. This paper seeks to go
            beyond the emergency phase and explore the challenges
            surrounding protracted refugee situations. The paper
            examines the refugee situation in Sub-Saharan Africa from a
            long-term angle, from the perspective of refugees' own
            agency as well as from the perspective of the host
            community. The paper aims to shed light on the economic
            lives of refugees in their host communities. Starting with
            an overview of the situation of refugees in Sub-Saharan
            Africa, the paper draws on findings from the literature to
            debunk some entrenched beliefs about refugees. The
            discussion of refugee crises in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda,
            Tanzania, and Uganda draws some lessons. The decision to
            return is discussed and it is argued that the decision
            depends on the socioeconomic condition in the host country
            versus the country of refuge, integration versus return
            policies in place, the individual set of skills of each
            refugee, and his or her subjective perception of the
            political climate in both countries.
Understanding the trends in learning
            outcomes in Argentina, 2000 to 2012
This paper seeks to understand what
            drove the trends in learning outcomes in Argentina between
            2000 and 2012, using data from four rounds of the Program
            for International Student Assessment. A year-specific
            education production function is estimated and its results
            used to decompose the changes in learning outcomes into
            changes in inputs, parameters, and residuals via
            microsimulations. Estimates of the production function show
            the importance of socioeconomic status, gender, school
            autonomy, and teacher qualifications to determine learning
            outcomes. Despite an important increase in the level of
            resources invested in public education, learning outcomes in
            public schools decreased vis-à-vis private schools.
            According to the results presented here, the increase in the
            number of teachers in the system, pushing the pupil-teacher
            ratio in Argentina to 11, had no effect on learning
            outcomes. The microsimulation further confirms that changes
            in the system’s ability to transform inputs into outcomes
            accounted for most of the changes in test scores. Overall,
            the study shows the ineffectiveness of input-based education
            policies to improve learning outcomes in Argentina.
Seasonality in local food markets
            and consumption : evidence from Tanzania
This paper revisits the extent of
            seasonality in African livelihoods. It uses 19 years of
            monthly food prices from 20 markets and three years of
            nationally representative household panel surveys from
            Tanzania. Trigonometric specifications are introduced to
            measure the seasonal gap. When samples are short and
            seasonality is poorly defined, they produce less upward bias
            than the common dummy variable approach. On average, the
            seasonal gap for maize prices is estimated to be 27 percent;
            it is 15 percent for rice. In both cases it is two and a
            half to three times higher than in the international
            reference market. Food price seasonality is not a major
            contributor to food price volatility, but it does translate
            into seasonal variation in caloric intake of about 10
            percent among poor urban households and rural net food
            sellers. Rural net food-buying households appear able to
            smooth their consumption. The disappearance of seasonality
            from Africa's development debate seems premature.
Development economics as taught in
            developing countries
This paper uses a combination of survey
            questions to instructors and data collected from course
            syllabi and examinations to examine how the subject of
            development economics is taught at the undergraduate and
            masters levels in developing countries, and benchmark this
            against undergraduate classes in the United States. The
            study finds that there is considerable heterogeneity in what
            is considered development economics:  there is a narrow core
            of only a small set of topics such as growth theory, poverty
            and inequality, human capital, and institutions taught in at
            least half the classes, with substantial variation in other
            topics covered. In developing countries, development
            economics is taught largely as a theoretical subject coupled
            with case studies, with few courses emphasizing data or
            empirical methods and findings. This approach contrasts with
            the approach taken in leading U.S. economics departments and
            with the evolution of development economics research. The
            analysis finds that country income per capita, the role of
            the state in the economy, the education level in the
            country, and the involvement of the instructor in research
            are associated with how close a course is to the frontier.
            The results suggest there are important gaps in how
            development economics is taught.
Debt sustainability in Sub-Saharan
            Africa : unraveling country-specific risks
Sub-Saharan African countries as a group
            showed a considerable reduction in public and external
            indebtedness in the early 2000s as a result of debt relief
            programs, higher economic growth, and improved fiscal
            management for some countries. More recently, however,
            vulnerabilities in some countries are on the rise, including
            a few with very rapid debt accumulation. This paper looks at
            the heterogeneous experiences across Sub-Saharan African
            countries and the detailed dynamics that have driven changes
            in public debt since the global financial crisis. Borrowing
            to support fiscal deficits since 2009, including through
            domestic markets and Eurobond issuance, has driven a net
            increase in public debt for all countries except oil
            exporters benefitting from buoyant commodity prices and
            fragile states receiving post-2008 Highly Indebted Poor
            Country relief. Current account deficits and foreign direct
            investment inflows drove the external debt dynamics, with
            balance of payments problems associated with very rapid
            external debt accumulation in some cases. Pockets of
            increasing vulnerabilities of debt financing profiles and
            sensitivity of debt burden indicators to macro-fiscal shocks
            require close monitoring. Specific risks that policy makers
            in Sub-Saharan Africa need to pay attention to going forward
            include the recent fall in commodity prices, especially oil,
            the slowdown in China and the sluggish recovery in Europe,
            dependence on non-debt-creating flows, and accounting for
            contingent liabilities.
Tenure security premium in informal
            housing markets : a spatial hedonic analysis
This paper estimates slum
            residents' willingness to pay for formalized land
            tenure in Pune, India. In so doing, it offers evidence that
            the legal assurance of slum residents' occupancy of
            their lands could benefit them. Previous studies have
            discussed legal and non-legal factors that substantially
            influence the tenure security of residents in informal
            settlements. However, it remains unclear to what extent, and
            how, the assignment of legal property rights through the
            formalization of land tenure improves the tenure security of
            residents in informal settlements and living conditions,
            even in the presence of other legal and non-legal factors
            that also contribute to their tenure security. To address
            the question, this study focuses on the city of Pune, India,
            where government agencies have formalized slums by legally
            ensuring the occupancy of the residents under "slum
            declaration." Applying a hedonic price model to an
            original household survey, this paper investigates how slum
            residents evaluate formalized land tenure. A spatial
            econometrics method is also applied to account for spatially
            autocorrelated unobserved errors. The spatial hedonic
            analysis finds that the premium of slum declaration is worth
            19 percent of the average housing rent in slums. The
            associated marginal willingness to pay is equivalent to 6
            percent of the average household expenditure, although it is
            heterogeneous depending on a household's caste and
            other legal conditions. This finding suggests that the
            assurance of occupancy rights is a vital component of
            land-tenure formalization policy even if it does not
            directly provide full property rights.
The role of preschool quality in
            promoting child development : evidence from rural Indonesia
This paper reports on the quality of
            early childhood education in rural Indonesia. On average,
            the paper finds that centers created under the Indonesia
            Early Childhood Education and Development Project provide
            higher quality services than other types of preschools, as
            measured by a comprehensive instrument of preschool quality
            based on direct observation of classrooms in session (the
            Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised). The paper
            also examines the relationship between preschool quality and
            children's early development using three commonly
            applied measures of quality: (i) the Early Childhood
            Environment Rating Scale-Revised; (ii) teacher
            characteristics; and (iii) structural characteristics of
            preschool services, such as their size and amount of class
            time. First, correcting for measurement error using an
            instrumental variables approach, the findings suggest that
            preschool quality is a significant and meaningful positive
            predictor of children's developmental outcomes. Second,
            the findings for teacher characteristics are mixed,
            suggesting that policies focused solely on hiring teachers
            based on experience and training will be insufficient to
            improve children's learning. Instead, policies must
            address the quality of professional development activities
            for teachers. Third, the amount of class time spent in early
            childhood programs is a significant positive predictor of
            children’s developmental outcomes. This suggests that in
            rural Indonesia—where early childhood programs are
            relatively low dose—children are likely to benefit from
            attending longer hours of preschool, either playgroups or
            kindergartens. Lastly, the paper compares items in the Early
            Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised with
            Indonesia's national minimum service standards for
            early childhood education and development, and finds that
            the relationship between this alternative,
            context-appropriate measure of preschool quality and
            children’s development outcomes strongly corroborates the
            earlier conclusions.
Earnings premiums and penalties for
            self-employment and informal employees around the world
This paper examines the earnings
            premiums associated with different types of employment in 73
            countries. Workers are divided into four categories:
            non-professional own-account workers, employers and
            own-account professionals, informal wage employees, and
            formal wage employees. Approximately half of the workers in
            low-income countries are non-professional own-account
            workers and the majority of the rest are informal employees.
            Fewer than 10 percent are formal employees, and only 2
            percent of workers in low-income countries are employers or
            own-account professionals. As per capita gross domestic
            product increases, there are large net shifts from
            non-professional own-account work into formal wage
            employment. Across all regions and income levels,
            non-professional own-account workers and informal wage
            employees face an earnings penalty compared with formal wage
            employees. But in low-income countries this earnings penalty
            is small, and non-professional own-account workers earn a
            positive premium relative to all wage employees. Earnings
            penalties for non-professional own-account workers tend to
            increase with gross domestic product and are largest for
            female workers in high-income countries. Men earn greater
            premiums than women for being employers or own-account
            professionals. These results are consistent with
            compensating wage differentials and firm quasi-rents playing
            important roles in explaining cross-country variation in
            earnings penalties, and raise questions about the extent to
            which the unskilled self-employed are rationed out of formal
            wage work in low-income countries.
Following Mexican youth : a
            short-run study of time use decisions
This paper exploits data from a rotating
            panel that follows individuals for four quarters to shed
            light on the factors driving the time use decisions and
            restrictions faced by Mexican youth. The results of the
            analysis imply that: (i) once youth aged 15 to 18 years old
            leave school, it is very unlikely that they will return;
            (ii) being "neither in work nor in school" (Nini)
            is a highly persistent condition; and (iii) marriage
            (perhaps motivated by teen pregnancy) increases the
            probability of girls leaving school and raising children by
            themselves, which may in turn increase their future
            likelihood of being Ninis, as well as the probability of
            their children growing up to become Ninis, potentially
            creating an intergenerational transmission of Nininess.
            Similar results are found for other countries in the region
            (Brazil and Argentina).
Striving for balance in economics :
            towards a theory of the social determination of behavior
This paper is an attempt to broaden
            economic discourse by importing insights into human behavior
            not just from psychology, but also from sociology and
            anthropology. Whereas the concept of the decision-maker in
            standard economics is the rational actor and, in early work
            in behavioral economics, the quasi-rational actor influenced
            by the context of the moment of decision-making, in some
            recent work in behavioral economics the decision-maker could
            be called the enculturated actor. This actor's
            preferences, perception, and cognition are subject to two
            deep social influences: (a) the social contexts to which he
            has become exposed and, especially, accustomed; and (b) the
            cultural mental models—including categories, identities,
            narratives, and worldviews—that he uses to process
            information. The paper traces how these factors shape
            individual behavior through the endogenous determination of
            preferences and the lenses through which individuals see the
            world—their perception and interpretation of situations. The
            paper offers a tentative taxonomy of the social determinants
            of behavior and describes the results of controlled and
            natural experiments that only a broader view of these
            determinants can plausibly explain. The perspective suggests
            more realistic models of human behavior for explaining
            outcomes and designing policies.
Price seasonality in Africa :
            measurement and extent
Everyone knows about seasonality. But
            what exactly do we know? This study systematically measures
            seasonal price gaps at 193 markets for 13 food commodities
            in seven African countries. It shows that the commonly used
            dummy variable or moving average deviation methods to
            estimate the seasonal gap can yield substantial upward bias.
            This can be partially circumvented using trigonometric and
            sawtooth models, which are more parsimonious. Among staple
            crops, seasonality is highest for maize (33 percent on
            average) and lowest for rice (16½ percent). This is two and
            a half to three times larger than in the international
            reference markets. Seasonality varies substantially across
            market places, but maize is the only crop in which there are
            important systematic country effects. Malawi, where maize is
            the main staple, emerges as exhibiting the most acute
            seasonal differences. Reaching the Sustainable Development
            Goal of Zero Hunger requires renewed policy attention to
            seasonality in food prices and consumption.
Business cycles in the eastern
            Caribbean economies: the role of fiscal policy and interest rates
This paper analyzes the business cycle
            characteristics of the economies of the Organization of
            Eastern Caribbean States using a model of a small open
            economy subject to interest rate and fiscal expenditure
            shocks and financial frictions. The paper shows that
            macroeconomic aggregates in this region are quite volatile,
            with consumption exhibiting higher volatility than gross
            domestic product. The analysis also finds that in these
            economies real interest rates are highly volatile and
            strongly countercyclical with gross domestic product and
            other macroeconomic aggregates. Similarly, fiscal
            expenditures  show significant volatility, but are
            pro-cyclical with gross domestic product. The results
            suggest two major directions for designing policies to help
            reduce the volatility experienced by the Organization of
            Eastern Caribbean States economies. First, Organization of
            Eastern Caribbean States countries should seek a greater
            openness to international financial markets, which could
            help them smooth out the effects of fundamental shocks, such
            as shocks to technology and terms of trade, and shocks
            associated with natural hazards. However, this removal of
            international financial barriers needs to be accompanied by
            improvements in domestic financial conditions, as this would
            reduce the vulnerability of these economies to country risk
            premium shocks. Second, the Organization of Eastern
            Caribbean States region should try harder to move toward a
            countercyclical fiscal policy stance, as this could help to
            stabilize the domestic risk premium and cushion the negative
            effects of interest rate shocks on economic activity, hence
            reducing volatility.
Declining wages for college-educated
            workers in Mexico : are younger or older cohorts hurt the most
Wage inequality has declined in Mexico
            since 2000. Using data from Mexican labor surveys for the
            period between 2000 and 2014, this paper investigates
            whether the decline was driven by wages declining more
            sharply for younger or older workers. The analysis finds
            that the wages of older workers declined and the decline was
            more pronounced in the older cohort. This would seem to
            support the hypothesis that older workers' skills have
            become obsolete.
When and where do we see regional
            poverty reduction and convergence lessons from the roof of Turkey
In the past decade, Turkey has
            experienced a notable level of poverty reduction at all
            levels (extreme poor, poor, and vulnerable). The steady
            decline in poverty was also resilient to the decline in
            gross domestic product per capita growth during the crisis.
            However, although poverty convergence was strong before the
            financial crisis, there was an absence of regional
            convergence afterward. This paper analyzes poverty trends,
            poverty convergence, economic mobility, and the determinants
            of poverty reduction at the regional level over the period
            2006–13. The analysis finds that agricultural growth in the
            east was an important contributor to Turkey's regional
            poverty reduction. In additionally, employment growth in the
            services sectors boosted poverty reduction throughout the
            entire country. From a fiscal perspective, the amount of per
            capita central spending is also linked to poverty reduction,
            although more strongly for regions in the west.
How equitable is access to finance
            in turkey evidence from the latest global FINDEX
Access to finance is a key component of
            poverty reduction, as it enables individuals to make
            economic decisions that can improve their welfare. The
            equality of access among different groups in society is also
            crucial for correctly allocating the positive benefits of
            improved financial services. In Turkey, bank account, debit
            card, and credit card ownership, which can serve as the main
            indicators of access to finance, are at a remarkably high
            level. However, adjusting the coverage rate of these
            indicators by controlling for age, education, gender, an
            income reveals that gender is the main source of inequality
            in Turkey at the individual level. Despite the progress made
            in addressing the gender disparity in access to finance
            between 2011 and 2014, females in Turkey continue to be
            financially less included. Moreover, Turkey's low level
            of savings and high rate of informal borrowing compared with
            its peers diminish individuals' resilience to future
            shocks. Promisingly, Turkey has been able to improve its
            rate of savings significantly over the past few years,
            although it continues to be among the countries that save at
            a lower level.