rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Who suffers from indoor air
            pollution evidence from Bangladesh
WPS3428

# **Who Suffers from Indoor Air Pollution? Evidence from Bangladesh**

Susmita Dasgupta* Mainul Huq M. Khaliquzzaman Kiran Pandey David Wheeler Development Research Group World Bank World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3428, October 2004 _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 view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Policy Research Working Papers are available online at http://econ.worldbank.org._

* Authors’ names in alphabetical order. We would like to express our appreciation to the field survey team of the Development Policy Group, for their excellent air-quality monitoring work under difficult conditions.  We are also grateful to Kseniya Lvovsky, Maureen Cropper, Douglas Barnes, Bart Ostro and Paul Martin for useful comments and suggestions. Financial support for this study has been provided by Trust Funds through the Knowledge for Change Program of the World Bank’s Development Economics Vice-Presidency, and by the Development Research Group.
Shelter strategies for the urban
            poor : idiosyncratic and successful, but hardly mysterious
In 1986 the World Bank prepared a
            strategy for low-income housing in developing countries.
            This work grew out of the Bank's efforts to support the
            urban poor through an extensive housing assistance program
            that was launched by Bank President McNamara's speech
            on urban poverty. By that time, the Bank had provided more
            than $4 billion of such assistance, and had undertaken an
            extensive research effort to design support for that
            lending. Much has changed since that time, not only in the
            way the Bank provides shelter assistance, more than doubling
            its support since that review, but also in the changing
            consensus as to what shelter strategy should be. The authors
            review the emerging consensus. They examine three new
            research areas: the empirical analysis of the effects policy
            has on housing supply; the richer understanding of the
            effects that land market regulations have on specific
            projects and on the functioning of urban areas; and the
            alleged mysterious effects that de Soto, for example, claims
            that effective property rights have not only for shelter
            policy but for development more generally. The authors also
            examine the emergence of both a new financial innovation,
            micro-enterprise finance, and the increased emphasis given
            to project design based on community participation, showing
            how these approaches more fully reconcile the incentives
            faced by beneficiaries and donors. In sum, the authors argue
            that the evolving consensus on shelter strategy is not
            nearly as mysterious as some would claim. Housing markets in
            most developing countries remain highly idiosyncratic and
            constrained. Nevertheless, the evolving consensus on shelter
            strategy appears to recognize these idiosyncrasies and
            policy constraints as evidenced by the strong and improving
            performance of the Bank's shelter lending.
Population Age structure and the
            budget deficit
The author focuses on the effects of age
            structure changes on the size of budget deficits of national
            governments. More specifically, he determines whether
            differences in age structure can account for the observed
            differences in budget deficits across countries as well as
            across time. By way of an extension of the untested theory
            of negative bequest motives advocated by Cukierman and
            Meltzer (1989), the author argues that the commonly accepted
            notion that population aging tends to increase the budget
            deficits of economies is theoretically consistent. However,
            preliminary results from country and time fixed-effects
            panel regressions, estimated from 1975 to 1992 over 55
            industrial and developing countries, indicate statistical
            evidence for this postulation is present only in the
            developing countries but not in the industrial countries.
Financial development, financial
            fragility, and growth
The authors study the apparent
            contradiction between two strands of the literature on the
            effects of financial intermediation on economic activity. On
            the one hand, the empirical growth literature finds a
            positive effect of financial depth as measured by, for
            instance, private domestic credit and liquid liabilities
            (for example, Levine, Loayza, and Beck 2000). On the other
            hand, the banking and currency crisis literature finds that
            monetary aggregates, such as domestic credit, are among the
            best predictors of crises and their related economic
            downturns (for example, Kaminski and Reinhart 1999). The
            authors account for these contrasting effects based on the
            distinction between the short- and long-run impacts of
            financial intermediation. Working with a panel of
            cross-country and time-series observations, they estimate an
            encompassing model of short- and long-run effects using the
            Pooled Mean Group estimator developed by Pesaran, Shin, and
            Smith (1999). Their conclusion from this analysis is that a
            positive long-run relationship between financial
            intermediation and output growth coexists with a mostly
            negative short-run relationship. The authors further develop
            an explanation for these contrasting effects by relating
            them to recent theoretical models, by linking the estimated
            short-run effects to measures of financial fragility
            (namely, banking crises and financial volatility), and by
            jointly analyzing the effects of financial depth and
            fragility in classic panel growth regressions.
Addressing gender-based violence in
            the Latin American and Caribbean Region : A critical review
            of interventions
The authors present an overview of
            gender-based violence (GBV) in Latin America, with special
            emphasis on good practice interventions to prevent GBV or
            offer services to its survivors or perpetrators. Intimate
            partner violence and sexual coercion are the most common
            forms of GBV, and these are the types of GBV that they
            analyze. GBV has serious consequences for women's
            health and well-being, ranging from fatal outcomes, such as
            homicide, suicide, and AIDS-related deaths, to nonfatal
            outcomes, such as physical injuries, chronic pain syndrome,
            gastrointestinal disorders, complications during pregnancy,
            miscarriage, and low birth-weight of children. GBV also
            poses significant costs for the economies of developing
            countries, including lower worker productivity and incomes,
            and lower rates of accumulation of human and social capital.
            The authors examine good practice approaches in justice,
            health, education, and multisectoral approaches. In each
            sector, they identify good practices for: (1) law and
            policies; (2) institutional reforms; (3) community-level
            interventions; and (4) individual behavior change strategies.
The relative richness of the poor
            natural resources, human capital, and economic growth
Are natural resources a blessing or a
            curse? The authors present a model in which natural
            resources have a positive effect on the level of income and
            a negative effect on its growth rate. The positive and
            permanent effect on income implies a welfare gain. There is
            a growth effect stemming from a composition effect. However,
            the authors show that this effect can be offset by having a
            large level of human capital. They test their model using
            panel data for the period 1970-90. They extend the usual
            specifications for economic growth regressions by
            incorporating an interaction term between human capital and
            natural resources, showing that high levels of human capital
            may outweigh the negative effects of the natural resource
            abundance on growth. The authors also review the historical
            experience of Scandinavian countries, which in contrast to
            Latin America, another region well-endowed with natural
            resources, shows how it is possible to grow fast based on
            natural resources.
The returns to participation in the
            non-farm sector in rural Rwanda
In this paper, we investigate the
            differences in outcomes (earnings and consumption) between
            individuals (households) who participate in the non-farm
            sector and those who do not. We use propensity score
            matching methods, where we create appropriate comparison
            groups of individuals and households. First we find that
            non-farm self-employed individuals in rural Rwanda have
            significantly higher earnings than farm workers and non-farm
            formal employees. Second, we show that the benefits to
            non-farm self-employment are much higher among the non-poor
            than among the poor. Third, we show that diversified
            households, those with a farm and a non-farm enterprise, are
            less likely to be poor. Finally, farm households who do not
            participate in the market have significantly lower
            consumption levels than households that do. However, the
            benefits to market participation appear to matter less for
            the poor than for the non-poor. We find little difference in
            expenditures between market participants and non-market
            participants, for comparable households in the bottom 40 of
            the expenditure distribution.
Legal effectiveness and external
            capital : the role of foreign debt
Previous research has documented weak,
            and sometimes conflicting, effects of legal quality on
            measures of firm debt. Using WorldScope data for 1,689
            firms, as well as more detailed proprietary data for 315
            firms across nine East Asian countries, the authors find
            that access to foreign financing appears to loosen borrowing
            constraints associated with poor legal systems. This helps
            resolve inconsistencies in prior findings and explains how
            legal protection is important for borrowing by firms. In
            particular, they find that legal effectiveness is important
            for determining the amount, maturity, and currency
            denomination of debt. The authors discuss several mechanisms
            by which firms can avoid the costs of poor legal systems
            with foreign borrowing. The paper contributes to the policy
            debate surrounding the importance of creditor rights for
            domestic lending.
How concentrated are global
            infrastructure markets
In infrastructure, the possibility of a
            positive relationship between operators' profitability
            and the degree of concentration is a major political issue
            in view of the wide diversity of feelings about the
            potential role of the private sector. This is particularly
            important in view of (i) the large residual degree of
            monopolies, (ii) the protection they are granted through
            exclusivity clauses built in service delivery contracts and
            (iii) the widespread sense that the same operators tend to
            be present in most of the privatized operations. The main
            purpose of this paper is to provide a first set of
            quantitative assessments of the degree of concentration in
            infrastructure at the global and at the regional level.
            Concentration issues were identified in only about 20
            percent of the cases studied, a presumption of concentration
            was found in another 30 percent of the cases. We find no
            correlation between the degree of concentration and the
            degree of reform adopted by a region or a sector. In more
            general terms, we find no scope for simple encompassing
            regional or sectoral statements because issues are region-
            and sector-specific. We conclude by arguing that there are a
            few cases and regions in which it would make sense for a
            supranational competition or regulation agency to ensure
            that the interests of the users are protected more
            effectively against the risks of collusion and other types
            of anti-competitive behaviors local regulators would not be
            equipped to address.
Economic evaluation of housing
            subsidy systems: a methodology with application to Morocco
Most countries do not use one single
            type of housing subsidy but combine many of them. The author
            provides operational criteria that allow evaluation of
            systems of housing subsidies, both at the individual program
            level and at the aggregate (country) level. The author
            examines the public finance assessment criteria used by
            different authors to analyze subsidy programs and confront
            them systematically. The author ends up with a map of
            criteria, which covers the range of topics interesting to
            policymakers. For each criterion, the author tries to
            provide empirical measures that can be retrieved from
            existing programs. The author then provides an aggregation
            method allowing a synthesis of diagnoses about the quality
            of the housing subsidies system at the country level. The
            aggregation technique offers a simple way to visualize the
            main features of a subsidy system, as well as the effects on
            the system of reforms or improvements of particular
            programs. The author applies the methodology to the system
            prevailing in Morocco in 1995 and 2004. The analysis shows
            that the most visible subsidies might not have been the most
            inefficient, nor the most resource consuming for the state.
            Examination of policy changes since 1995 shows that while
            the most visible subsidies received nearly all the
            government's attention, large invisible subsidies
            remain at the heart of Morocco's housing policy. The
            framework used here is very general and can be used to
            compare the Moroccan system with those of similar countries.
Regulatory effectiveness and the
            empirical impact of variations in regulatory governance -
            electricity industry capacity and efficiency in developing countries
The authors assess for 28 developing
            countries over the period 1980-2001 whether the existence of
            a regulatory law and higher quality regulatory governance
            are significantly associated with superior electricity
            outcomes. Their analysis draws on theoretical and empirical
            work on the impact of independent central banks and of
            developing country telecommunications regulators. The
            authors' empirical analysis concludes that a regulatory
            law and higher quality governance are positively and
            significantly associated with higher per capita generation
            capacity levels. In addition, this positive impact continues
            to increase for at least three years and probably for over
            10 years as experience develops and regulatory reputation
            grows. The results are robust to alternative dynamic
            specifications and show no sign of any significant endogeneity
Regulatory effectiveness : the
            impact of regulation and regulatory governance arrangements
            on electricity industry outcomes
The authors review a number of studies
            on the effectiveness of utility regulatory agency and
            governance arrangements for the electricity industry,
            particularly for developing countries. They discuss
            governance criteria and their measurement, both legal
            frameworks and surveys of regulatory practice. They also
            discuss the results from econometric studies of
            effectiveness for regulatory agencies in the electricity and
            telecommunications industries and compare these with the
            results from econometric studies of independent central
            banks and their governance. The authors conclude with a
            discussion of policy implications and of priorities for
            information collection to improve understanding of these issues.
How does the composition of public
            spending matter
Public spending has effects which are
            complex to trace and difficult to quantify. But the
            composition of public expenditure has become the key
            instrument by which development agencies seek to promote
            economic development. In recent years, the development
            assistance to heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) has
            been made conditional on increased expenditure on categories
            that are thought to be "pro-poor".  This paper
            responds to the growing concern being expressed about the
            conceptual foundations and the empirical basis for the
            belief that poverty can be reduced through targeted public
            spending. While it is widely accepted that growth and
            redistribution are important sources of reduction in
            absolute poverty, a review of the literature confirms the
            lack of an appropriate theoretical framework for assessing
            the impact of public spending on growth as well as poverty.
            There is a need to combine principles of both public
            economics and growth theory to develop appropriate
            theoretical guidance for public expenditure policy. This
            paper identifies a number of approaches that are beginning
            to address this gap. Building on these approaches, it
            proposes a framework that has its foundation in a broadly
            articulated development strategy and its economic goals such
            as growth, equity, and poverty reduction. It recommends the
            use of public economics principles to clarify the roles of
            the private and public sectors and to recognize the
            complementarity of spending, taxation, and regulatory
            instruments available to affect public policy. With regard
            to the impact of any given type of public spending, policy
            recommendations must be tailored to countries and be based
            on empirical analysis that takes account of the lags and
            leads in their effects on equity and growth and ultimately
            on poverty. The paper sketches out such a framework as the
            first step in what will have to be a longer-term research
            agenda to provide theoretically and empirically robust and
            verifiable guidance to public spending policy.
The performance of health workers in
            Ethiopia - results from qualitative research
Insufficient attention has been paid to
            understanding what determines the performance of health
            workers and how they make labor market choices. This paper
            reports on findings from focus group discussions with both
            health workers and users of health services in Ethiopia, a
            country with some of the poorest health outcomes in the
            world. It describes performance problems identified by both
            health, users and health workers participating in the focus
            group discussions, including absenteeism and shirking,
            pilfering drugs and materials, informal health care
            provision and illicit charging, and corruption. The second
            part of the paper presents four structural reasons why these
            problems arise: (1) the ongoing transition from a health
            sector dominated by the public sector, toward a more mixed
            model; (2) the failure of government policies to keep pace
            with the transition toward a mixed model of service
            delivery; (3) weak accountability mechanisms and the erosion
            of professional norms in the health sector; and (4) the
            impact of HIV/AIDS. The discussions underline the need to
            base policies on a micro-analysis of how health workers make
            constrained choices, both in their career and in their day
            to day professional activities.
Setting the trade policy agenda :
            What roles for Economists
Economists have influenced the trade
            policy agenda for establishing multilateral trade rules,
            disciplines, and procedures, and for negotiating
            most-favored nation and preferential reductions in trade
            barriers and subsidies, in addition to affecting the agenda
            for unilateral policy reform. These roles are considered in
            turn, before focusing on the economists' contribution
            through quantifying the extent and effects of existing trade
            distortions and alternative reform initiatives. Many trade
            distortions remain, however, so the author looks at where
            trade economists' efforts in agenda-setting need to be
            focused in the years ahead.