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This paper analyses what factors best explain foreign capital inflows into Hungary and China during the period 1978–92. The size of the host country markets is found to play a positive role, while the cost of capital variables and political instability are negatively correlated with investment inflows. It supports the hypothesis that low-cost labour and currency depreciation are important factors in explaining how much foreign capital inflows into a particular country. There is little evidence to support classical hypotheses concerning tariff barriers and imports variables. The OECD growth rates show significant positive correlation with foreign direct investment in Hungary. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years a number of investigators, noatbly Aschauer (1988, 1989a, 1989b), Barro (1981, 1990), Barth and Cordes (1980), Blejer and Khan (1984), Calderon (1988), Cardoso (1993), Munnell (1990), Ram (1986), Ramirez (1991, 1993) and Riedel (1992), have investigated both conceptually and empirically the direct effects of public spending on private expenditures. This paper extends the scope of their analyses by explicitly showing how the inclusion of the government variable in the private consumption and investment functions changes the nature of fiscal policy in an open economy with variable domestic prices. Throughout the analysis, a systematic effort is made to compare the differing effects of fiscal policy in the standard and modified models under both fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes. This paper is organized as follows. First, a theoretical rationale for including the government sector as an argument in the private consumption and investment functions is provided. Next, the paper examines the impact of fiscal policy in the fixed rate case under both imperfect and perfect mobility. It is shown that when public and private spending are compliments, conventional policies for stabilizing the economy may lead to chronic stagflationary pressures. Under these conditions, it is expedient for policymakers to recognize that varying the compostion of public spending-independent of its amount-may lead to a stable assignment. Third, the paper examines the impact of changes in both the level and composition of government spending on relevant targets on the flexible rate case with perfect capital mobility. The paper is brought to a close by investigating the assignment problem in the modified model for the flexible rate case. It is shown that government officials may prescribe potentially destabilizing policies if they mistakenly believe that they are operating in the conventioanl model. The last section summarizes the major findings and offers some concluding observations. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International trade in commercial services is large and is growing as fast as merchandise trade. The liberalization of service sector activity, often characterized hitherto by incumbent monopolies, can produce major welfare gains. Reaching multilateral agreement in liberalizing services runs into problems of definition and quantification. The General Agreement on Trade in Services, though complex and partial in its coverage, has highlighted the importance of multilateral commitment in the pursuit of domestic reform. The agreement on basic telecommunications in particular has had a catalytic effect on domestic policy. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent economic relations including foreign assistance scenario in Africa show expansion of China and India as emerging bilateral partners, competing with traditional countries in Europe and North America. The results of this paper found that the relationship of China and India with Zimbabwe has resulted in several challenges including increasing resource‐backed debt burden, exploitation of the natural resources, and flouting of constitutional, environmental, and labor provisions. The paper recommends that the Zimbabwean government must demand loans and investments that are contracted under clear terms and conditions, with parliamentary oversight and public scrutiny to avoid abuse by the elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With reference to frames as socially determined definitions of reality, this paper examines the discrepancies between the prominence of 'South‐South cooperation' terminology in globally dominant discourses and its limited usage by African stakeholders. Based on insights from the United Nations, (cross‐)regional collaboration formats and bilateral cooperation, we find that African officials employ 'South‐South' terminology mainly when 'Northern' partners are present but use other frames when engaging with developing countries. This limited resonance poses a challenge to multilateral organisations and traditional donors in their attempts to expand engagement with 'South‐South' relations. A focus on the usage and effects of frames, we argue, can clarify the assumptions based on which international cooperation unfolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the global connectivity of Indian cities to understand the varying pace of city growth in the context of Indian Urban Development. Using Globalisation and World City (GaWC) network's 2016 data, this paper examines each city's connectivity via their intra‐firm–office transactions. First, Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore were identified as the top‐most group strongly linked with the advanced economies in North America and Europe. Second, India's second category cities—Chennai, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad—had dominant connectedness with South Asian cities growing at a moderate pace. Third, the lowest‐tier cities—Allahabad, Nagpur and Nashik—were fast catching up with their global service activities, demonstrating India's emerging South–South multilateral cooperation. Confirming to the global urban literature, the above pattern reflects those greater intra‐firm linkages that contributed to higher connectivity between cities, being leveraged through the ICT infrastructure growing beyond the primary (X) citiesto engage smart (Y) cities. This finding provides evidence against postcolonial critiques that argued for place‐specific history of colonial cities explaining emerging geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether Chinese aid impacts citizens' trust in government by matching geocoded data on Chinese aid projects located in sub‐Sahara Africa (SSA) between 2000 and 2014 to respondents from rounds 3 to 6 of Afrobarometer survey. Implementing an instrumental variable (IV) estimation to control for the potential endogeneity of aid, this paper finds robust evidence that Chinese aid reduces trust in government. The decline in trust seems to be because the aid projects stimulate poor assessments of government performance and perceptions that government officials are involved in corrupt activities. Replication analysis reveals that World Bank projects are no different and also reduce trust in government. Consequently, these findings reignite concerns about the unintended consequences of aid and the need to adopt implementation approaches that mitigate unintended adverse outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how and why the welfare of the poor in Sudan has changed during the reform period of 1980s. The analysis indicates that the period was not only one of abysmal economic performance, but also revealed considerable deterioration on all poverty dimensions, incidence, intensity and degree of inequality among the poor. Though external shocks and civil war played a role in Sudan's socioeconomic crisis, the analysis also indicates that the 1980s economic reform was flawed as well. The sectors targeted by the reform failed to tap the impulses for equitable economic growth. An alternative broader-based reform favouring traditional agriculture and processing of its products would have reduced poverty without compromising between growth-oriented policies and social equity.© 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the incentive compatibility effects associated with restructuring sovereign debt through a debt-equity swap scheme and the analytically related issue of providing new project finance in developing countries through equity convertible bond issues. Our central result is that these initiatives can generate efficient investment incentives and also provide a partial contractual enforcement mechanism by reconciling the investment interests of debtors and their external creditors. Unlike previous analysis of the benefits of swaps, our results make no appeal to risk considerations nor invoke informational asymmetries. We also derive a necessary condition for swaps to overcome the free-rider barrier to the provision of voluntary, market-based debt relief. In contrast to Brady Plan restructurings, this condition does not rely on taxation of the capital gains accruing to non-participating creditors. The results should be viewed in the context of the structural transformation which has recently occurred in the source of capital flows to developing countries, from syndicated bank lending to the international bond markets. The analysis advocates an enhanced role for equity convertible bond issues in this resurgence of international capital market activity. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that the civil war which erupted in Nepal in the mid 1990s had its seeds sown five decades ago when the country embarked on the economic development plan which placed a heavy emphasis on an urban-based import-substitution strategy. This strategy failed to benefit 86 per cent of the population who live in rural areas and rely on agriculture. This, together with poor governance, significantly increased unemployment, poverty and rural–urban inequality by the mid 1990s, leading to the eruption of civil war. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the prospects for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It argues that these goals will not be achieved by the target date of 2015 unless new action is taken by both rich and poor countries. It shows that current trends sharply contrast countries on their way to meeting the goals and those in a poverty trap. Crisis proportions have been reached in deterioration of life expectancy and falling incomes, but also in a wide range of other indicators in countries such as Zambia as well as Nepal. The origins of this crisis are not just poor governance or poor macroeconomic policies, but rather the difficulties of competing in global markets. A priority for these countries is to invest in basic education and health, infrastructure, agriculture and manufacturing. Rich countries have fallen seriously behind in living up to their promises to increase aid, debt relief and access to their markets for exports from developing countries—with the welcome but still inadequate increase in aid to reach the 0.7 per cent GDP target, with the collapse of trade talks at Cancun, slow implementation of HIPC, and slow progress in implementation of TRIPS provision for access to technology. Business as usual will not be enough to meet the goals and new action is urgently needed to achieve the goals. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of emerging economies receive significant parts of their overseas finance and investment from Chinese state‐owned or state‐linked institutions. While academic research has focused on how Chinese policy and state‐owned banks approach sustainable development issues, Chinese sovereign‐backed overseas development funds are a critical yet overlooked component. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by providing the first comprehensive overview of such funds regarding their scope, activities and capitalization, as well as by assessing the funds' policy approach to sustainability. Qualitative and quantitative data are collected from databases, funds' websites, newspaper articles and public statements in both Chinese and English to identify common features between funds and to analyse their sustainability policies in comparison with global best practices. The paper specifically analyses the funds' sustainability approaches rather than impact due to a lack of comprehensive data on the funds' investments. First, the paper finds that given their number, announced capital size of US$213 billion, geographic scope and sectorial focus, including on high‐emissions projects such as mining, energy and heavy industry, the funds are influential players in global development finance. Second, regarding the funds' approaches to sustainability, the paper finds that the funds lack transparency about their policies and practices, which is a key component of sustainable fund management practices. Third, based on an in‐depth analysis of available information, we identify a lack of sustainability in the funds' mandates, an absence of safeguards, limited project pipeline disclosure and no sustainability performance assessment. Lastly, the paper provides four policy recommendations on how to improve the funds' sustainability approaches based on the unique way they are governed by different parts of the Chinese state apparatus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural research and development projects face structural barriers to the equitable participation of women. Applying an intersectional approach can facilitate women to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development within the existing patriarchal and colonial structures, ultimately challenging and subverting these structures. This paper argues that development initiatives must seek to understand the ways of being within specific localised projects, to tailor support and mitigate disadvantage. Through an exploration of two female‐led agroforestry projects in Vanuatu and Fiji, this paper demonstrates how centring the sovereignty of women over their own experience and livelihood aspirations can lead to familial, community and regional wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Law tradition of a country is associated with its institutional quality. Countries with a French Civil code tradition display a negative link with bureaucratic development, lack of corruption, credibility of governments and others. Results are maintained even after controlling for regional and colonial variables and, in general, appear robust. Countries with a Common Law tradition show a positive relationship with institutional quality, though not as robust when testing a broad range of specifications. These results are consistent with the hypothesis of Scully, Posner and others, that link origin of laws and economic behaviour. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly after Chancellor Bismarck had introduced mandatory pension insurance in Germany, public retirement schemes became popular all over Latin America. Nowadays, the picture has changed: a total of eight Latin American countries have introduced individually fully-funded schemes on a mandatory basis. The impact of these reform precedents extends far beyond the region. Two decades of pension privatization in Latin America provide us with some important policy lessons and with insights into the political economy of this radical paradigm shift Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the socio‐economic dynamics that, in the Colombian case, underlie the relationship between mining and the territory where it takes place. The description includes the key features of public policy regarding mining, under which mineral resource extraction may have produced unintended effects that raise doubts regarding mining's contribution to Colombian economic development. Under a qualitative approach, I carried out a documentary analysis from which I identified several aspects of the economic and mining policy. The analysis confirms several of the explanations for the so‐called resource curse hypothesis, the connection between these aspects, and of them with specific policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considers the conceptual underpinnings, the objectives and instrument of regional social protection (SP) strategy used by the World Bank (WB) in its regional development projects. Activities covered by the lending and non-lending schemes by the WB in the SP area; Analysis of the risks arising from the globalization of trade in goods, services, and factors of production; Advantages to using social risk management as the analytical framework for SP; Reasons for the World Bank's concern with social risk management.

The paper contributes towards filling a 'blind spot' in the field of climate finance by investigating the role of climate finance for behavioural insights in developing countries. The evidence review synthesises 71 high‐quality studies and focuses on clean fuel adoption and household energy‐saving behaviour in developing countries. The synthesis finds that there is a need for climate finance from developed countries that is more targeted towards interventions and measures that support household decision‐making in developing countries by engaging with stakeholders that understand local attitudes, constraints and knowledge levels governing the perception of health and environmental risks associated with energy‐consuming technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence highlights that integrated interventions have sustainable impacts on household welfare. This paper evaluates the 'Char Development and Settlement Program,' which targets marginalized, coastal populations of Bangladesh and is implemented by the NGO BRAC, which pioneers integrated programs in over 20 countries. The analysis exploits household panel data (2012, 2016) for over 2500 households living in 11 chars to measure the impact of a programme, comprising microfinance, health services and legal aid. Employing a difference‐in‐difference approach, we find considerable, programme‐induced increases in consumption, food security and legal awareness suggesting that an integrated 'big push' is efficient for poverty alleviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kenya has enshrined the right to sanitation in the 2010 constitution. Achieving this requires scaling up infrastructure and models of delivery beyond sewer networks that have previously been the focus. In Kenya, two enterprises, Sanergy and Sanivation, have been providing new forms of off‐grid services with container‐based sanitation (CBS). This paper uses a political economy analysis to understand the incentives, institutions and power dynamics that are enabling or constraining the potential for such off‐grid sanitation models. The paper outlines six core problems to be addressed in the pursuit of scaling up: fragmented governance; sustainability of CBS enterprise models; service delivery planning in informal settlements; personal power rather than institutions in decision‐making; vested local interests; and land tenure and political connection. It discusses how stakeholders might work collaboratively to progressively address or recognise these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the strengths and challenges of the Egyptian microfinance laws and regulations that protect impoverished women from overindebtedness. The focus of the analysis is on the regulation of microfinance in the nonbanking sector, that is, microfinance primarily provided by non‐governmental organizations. Although a number of significant laws and regulations have been enacted that provide some protection from overindebtedness, it was found that these protections do not extend far enough, and some critical protections are absent. This leaves the most impoverished Egyptian women using microfinance, vulnerable to overindebtedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post‐2015 agenda calls for a 'data revolution in development' and recognises that statistical capacity amongst the workforce is a prerequisite for achieving it. Universities have a critical role to play in building this capacity. This paper reports insights from in‐depth interviews with development professionals in Malta, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom about current and future data skills needs. It presents recommendations on data skills training for aspiring development professionals informed by this evidence, with a particular focus on curriculum in social science related undergraduate programmes at universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Labour government's White Paper is welcome as it builds firmly on the policies of the previous Conservative administration. In particular, the four aims of aid policy laid out in the Fundamental Expenditure Review—support for sound political and economic policies, promotion of stronger health and education services, encouragement of sustainable development, and a commitment to work with our international partners to alleviate poverty and to provide disaster relief—are all confirmed in the White Paper. The White Paper's support for this agenda represents some U-turns, for example with respect to the relationship to the IMF, a possible social clause in the WTO and the position on the quantity and quality of British aid. However, there are also areas of confusion created by some of Labour's statements on aid policy that the White Paper does little to resolve—such as the relationship between DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (including the respective roles of the Know-How Fund and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy), the role of NGOs, and the future of mixed credits. While the White Paper is welcome, the real test lies in Labour's future performance, which will have to be carefully scrutinized. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a case study on Za'atari camp in Jordan, this paper joins a growing body of critical studies highlighting discrepancies between developmental humanitarian policies promoting the resilience and empowerment of refugees vis‐à‐vis realities inside camps. It shows how camp authorities incrementally unwound and stifled refugee self‐governance structures and informal entrepreneurialism. It also highlights the influence of Jordanian state priorities over the aid operation and the supportive role played by the UN Refugee Agency in affirming state priorities. The paper argues that even if well‐intentioned developmental humanitarianism can ultimately diminish the scope for meaningful refugee empowerment. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Policy Arena examines some of the development challenges faced by SIDS. It brings together a collection of papers arising from the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) project [Fragility and Development]. These investigations were presented at the UNU-WIDER project meeting held in Lautaka, Fiji in December 2006. The Policy Arena contains four studies that look, respectively, at various aspects of trade, foreign direct investment, aid and remittances, and migration, focusing on countries in the Pacific and the Caribbean. This introduction briefly describes the papers and distills some key messages for development policy. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the impact of household participation in a large‐scale public works programme in India on educational decisions including children schooling and expenditure incurred on private coaching and other educational components. Exogenous variation in proximity of households to a river is used to control for the potential endogeneity. The findings indicate positive impact of the programme on expenditure on private coaching while having no impact on other educational expenditures indicating higher income elasticity of private coaching. The paper thus emphasizes on various direct and indirect benefits of the programme which necessitate its effective implementation at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although literature about regional integration is substantial, its definition remains controversial. Indeed, it is common nowadays for the terms regional integration and regional economic integration to be used interchangeably in spite of the importance accorded by literature to non‐economic factors. Inspired on the South American integration strategy—the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), this paper revisits the theory of regional integration and proposes to analyse regional integration projects from three complementary angles: economic integration, political integration and physical integration. Moreover, it asserts that political and physical integration constitute a preliminary, or contemporaneous, step towards economic integration and not a final stage, as the current debate suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of the horizontal and vertical network in aiding eligible individuals to receive Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme. A vertical network refers to a household's political connection, and a horizontal network denotes the interconnectedness with others in the society. We have used data from all India representative individual level (2004–2005 and 2011–2012) panel data released by the India Human Development Survey. Our estimated results from the individual level fixed effects model suggest that programme eligible individuals with vertical networks have a higher probability of receiving the programme. Sub‐sample heterogeneities are detailed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examined the risk preferences and management strategies of cereal and legume farmers of Ghana's savannah zones using both the exploratory factor analysis and the linear regression model. Using primary cross‐sectional data and employing the multistage sampling technique made up of purposive, cluster and random sampling techniques, the paper found that cereal farmers are more risk averse than legume farmers. Rainfall variability was ranked topmost by cereals and legumes farmers. Both cereal and legume farmers employ multiple but dissimilar risk management strategies to manage these sources of risk. The commonest sources of risk to cereal and legume farmers were climate and market risk, while off‐farm activities are the commonest management strategy. Production risk faced by cereal farmers was managed by both off‐farm and farm production strategies whereas human risk faced by legumes farmers was managed by both off‐farm and financial management strategies. The importance of market risk implies that policy initiatives should aim at reducing market‐related risks by focusing on increasing off‐farm opportunities for rural households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature by testing the effect of a household's relative position on its subjective well‐being. Our results show that both self‐perceived status and relative income have significant effects on the subjective well‐being of households located in the Peruvian Amazon. The paper also considers negative random shocks and shows that non‐agricultural shocks have a negative effect on subjective well‐being. These results imply that public policies aimed toward the improvement of rural households' well‐being in the Peruvian Amazon should look beyond poverty reduction and consider also the positive effects that inequality reduction can have on subjective well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to increased inclusion of young people with disabilities into the private sector in Bangladesh and Kenya, there is an urgent need to find alternative ways to support young graduates with a disability in the workplace with assistive technology solutions. The aim of the paper is to identify barriers for private workplace sectors to use assistive technology to support young graduates seeking, maintaining and retaining employment. This qualitative study adopted the research onion design of Saunders et al. Data were collected using interviews and focus group discussions and analysed using thematic analysis. The findings reveal that barriers are linked to seven key person‐centred capability themes: the dream, external factors, internal factors, assistive technology vision, strategic design priorities and gaps and assistive actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International technology transfer (ITT) is commonly seen as an essential way to bridge the gap between highly advanced industrialised nations and developing countries. This gap is particularly pronounced with a view of African states. These generally have a limited capacity to cope with the effects of climate change. Therefore, foreign innovations must be successfully adopted to realities on the continent to mitigate the effects. This has sparked a growing academic interest in this topic in recent years, leading to many aspects being covered in the literature. This paper takes stock of the current state of the art, thereby asking the question: What do we know about the problems regarding international technology transfer to Africa? Employing a reproducible, transparent and clear systematic review, 73 relevant texts are identified. The barriers to more (successful) international technology transfer that these publications identify are discussed. As this review clarifies, many aspects are known, but specifics around governance aspects and institutional set‐ups are primarily bypassed in the discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of integrating climate change interventions in informal community‐based institutions called savings groups. By integrating climate‐related activities into these groups, the aim is to simultaneously strengthen the group's financial activities as well as improve knowledge and investment capacity in climate adaptation. We find that the introduction of the training increases meeting attendance rate and average loan sizes, suggesting that members can access larger sums for investment to implement the knowledge acquired during the training. We provide evidence that there are opportunities for economies of scope and for a larger positive impact on the livelihoods of the populations at the bottom of the pyramid by combining financial services offered in the savings groups and climate‐related interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines spatial heterogeneity in the impacts of the early days of the COVID‐19 pandemic on urban household incomes in Ethiopia and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Combining new panel household surveys with spatial data, the fixed‐effects regression analysis for Ethiopia finds that households in large and densely populated towns were more likely to lose their labour incomes in the early phase of the pandemic and afterwards than other households. Disadvantaged groups, such as females, low‐skilled, self‐employed and poor, particularly suffered in those towns. In Kinshasa, labour income‐mobility elasticities are higher among workers—particularly female and low‐skilled workers—who live in areas that are located farther from the city core area. The between‐ and within‐city evidence from two Sub‐Saharan African countries points to the spatial heterogeneity of COVID‐19 impacts, implying the critical role of mobility and accessibility in urban agglomerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the impact of a rural community‐driven development programme in Myanmar, which promoted village‐level microfinance for income generation. Utilizing a three‐round household survey consisting of 100 treatment and 50 comparison villages with approximately 8500 households per round, we employ difference‐in‐differences and two‐stage least squares estimations. Our analysis shows three key findings. First, the programme significantly increased access to microfinance, primarily for production. Second, formal and informal finance were substituted in part with village‐level microfinance. As a result, treated households were less likely to borrow money from formal banks or informal lenders such as their relatives, friends or neighbours. Third, the village‐level microfinance nudged rural households to harvest, yield and sell their products more, which led to increase in seasonal income. Our study suggests that microfinance targeted for productive investment can significantly improve income of rural households in developing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to assess the accelerating role of digital technology in fighting poverty through financial inclusion in the countries of West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). Based on a sample of the adult population from the World Bank's Findex database, we estimate a recursive bivariate probit model that addresses endogeneity. The findings show that the regular usage of mobile money as well as the purpose of mobile money usage including saving, borrowing, remittance and their combinations increase diversely and significantly the probability of short‐term poverty alleviation in WAEMU. In addition, the change in poverty status can be indirectly due to certain driving factors of mobile money usage including mainly the ownership of mobile phones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of export stability on the adolescent fertility rate. The test results show that the improvement of export stability will decrease the adolescent fertility rate of exporting countries through four mechanisms: raising female labour income, increasing health expenditure, promoting urbanization and strengthening female education empowerment. Compared to developed or high‐income countries, the impact of export stability in developing or low‐income countries is more substantial. The increase in export scale will strengthen the impact of export stability on adolescent fertility rates. The findings of this article can help countries to govern the adolescent fertility rate further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian official data points out a progressive decline in child labour during last three decades.Nevertheless, there are several gaps that need to be addressed for targed policy intervention. This paper highlights the key socioeconomic vulnerabilities among children in rural and urban India and also summarize the key focus areas to be prioritized. We posit that children's entry into the labour force is driven by varied access to resources such as education, societal status and gender. The children in Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes households are the most vulnerable. We recommend prioritizing easy‐to‐access quality education among the key strategies for eradicating child labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expectations about future labour market opportunities are essential for education and labour market decisions. This paper uses data from a survey of youths in seven Latin American and Caribbean countries to explore the role of expected returns to education on schooling decisions. We find substantial variation in subjective expectations partly explained by youths' socioeconomic characteristics. Also, we find that enrolment in tertiary education is positively related to perceived education returns. Furthermore, the association of expectations with schooling choices differs across individuals in relevant domains, including gender, skills, and socioeconomic background. Our results suggest that public policies might impact choices and reduce socioeconomic gaps in schooling by providing information on education returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effect of financial inclusion on inclusive human development in a panel of 35 countries in sub‐Saharan Africa for the years 2011, 2014 and 2017 from a gender perspective. Different methods, including fixed effect and random effect models, Tobit and quantile regressions, are used for the estimates. We find that financial inclusion improves inclusive human development. In addition, the effect of women's financial empowerment is stronger than that of men. Moreover, we find a complementary effect of financial account ownership and mobile money usage in the achievement of inclusive human development. Furthermore, the increasing effects of financial inclusion are greater in countries with lower inclusive human development than those with higher inclusive human development. African governments should therefore improve financial inclusion, particularly female financial inclusion, to achieve higher inclusive human development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I study the causal relationship between violence and human capital accumulation. Due to a power vacuum left in conflict zones of Colombia after the 2016 peace agreement, large spikes in violence were reported in the municipalities of the country dominated by the rebel group FARC. I compare student test scores in municipalities that experienced the increase in violence to the ones that did not, before and after the national peace agreement. I find that a 10% increase in the homicide rate reduces average high school test scores by approximately 0.03 standard deviations. However, this impact is greater in the case of poor students who suffered a reduction of about 0.1 standard deviations per subject area, equivalent to 3.3 percentage points out of the final score. I also consider heterogeneity by gender finding a slightly larger negative impact on female students. This disparate effect on women and on the poorest students adds new evidence to the literature on the effects of armed conflict on learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We review the secular stagnation hypothesis, first postulated by Hansen in 1939, to describe the current macroeconomic dynamics faced by developed economies. We argue that these economies are experiencing secular stagnation and that demographic factors play a significant role in this macroeconomic environment. Using a panel data analysis covering the period 1965–2020 for 15 European Union economies, our paper suggests that immigration should be considered as a potential solution to this problem. Our results show that demographic factors do indeed play a significant role in secular stagnation and that immigration has a positive impact in this macroeconomic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of mobile money account ownership on farmers' participation in farmer‐based organisations (FBOs), structured market and off‐farm work. Relying on recursive bivariate probit model, our results reveal that owning a mobile money account increases the likelihood of farmers' participating in an FBO, structured market and off‐farm work by 15.4%, 33.3% and 37.5%, respectively. Furthermore, mobile money account ownership is influenced by socioeconomic and institutional factors as well as the presence of mobile money vendors within a community. Our finding calls for sustained efforts to deepen digital financial inclusion for increased participation in FBOs, structured market and off‐farm work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has generated a rich literature. In this paper, we examine the effect of ICT use on alcohol consumption in a sample of 120 developing countries. To do so, we specify and estimate a panel data model first by pooled ordinary least squares (POLS) and second by feasible generalised least squares (F‐GLS) over the period 2000–2020. The robustness of the results is tested by using the system generalised method of moments (S‐GMM), taking into account regional specificities and cultural variables. The main result reveals that ICT use significantly reduces alcohol consumption. However, the effects of ICTs are mediated by economic, political and institutional governance. We suggest qualitative improvements in technological infrastructure for continued mitigation of alcohol consumption in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the outline of national guideline for gender‐sensitive post‐disaster needs assessment (PDNA) that was developed based on the experiences of 2019 Iran floods is presented. Accordingly, at first, the baseline information on female‐headed households, elderly, disabled women and the employment situation of females that should be collected before the disaster is introduced. Then, the mechanism for evaluation the effects and impacts of disasters on women and girls is presented. Finally, considering the recovery strategies, their needs in recovery and reconstruction are addressed. The results can be used in other countries to develop the gender‐sensitive PDNA guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the debate on the role of innovation and intellectual property rights (IPRs) in catch‐up policies in developing countries (DCs). We survey the literature on four key points. First, we review the neoclassical and evolutionary theoretical foundations of innovation and catch‐up. Second, we examine why some countries lag behind, in particular in terms of path dependency and multiplicity of convergence dynamics. From this follows the question of how to foster innovation in DCs. We examine the issues of IPRs protection in a third point and industrial policies in a fourth point. Strengthening IPRs protection is often recommended by international institutions. However, the related literature shows that their impact is strongly non‐linear, as the optimal level for DCs is initially low, then increases as the countries develop. This result is robust to a wide range of models and methods. Finally, the literature reveals that industrial policies can be crucial in fostering innovation in DCs, even though their implementation faces serious challenges, in particular the appropriate targeting of industrial policies, and rent‐seeking behaviours in a deteriorated institutional environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts a novel institutional perspective—environmental centralisation—to examine its impact on firm productivity in developing countries. In 2008, China's State Environmental Protection Administration was upgraded to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP). This administrative reform strengthened the central government's ability to protect the environment, enabling it to address more environmental affairs and concentrate on environmental rights. Based on the quasi‐natural experiment of the establishment of the MEP, this study takes a new perspective on the impact of environmental centralisation on productivity. The difference‐in‐difference‐in‐difference approach is used for the first time to estimate the impact of environmental centralisation on productivity. We find that environmental centralisation caused by the establishment of the MEP significantly increased the productivity of heavily polluting companies, and a series of robustness tests confirm that the results are credible. We identify three possible mechanisms, namely, facilitating innovation, curbing rent‐seeking behaviour and inhibiting over‐investments. The policy implication of this study is that the effectiveness of environmental policy depends not only on the policy itself but also on the allocation of environmental rights among different levels of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how external debts influence sustainable development in emerging economies and low‐income countries from 101 countries from 2016 to 2020. External debt significantly aids countries in achieving their sustainable development goals but affects individual goal differently. While external debts promote well‐being, education quality, gender equality, employment, economic growth, and institutional strength, they negatively affect the sustainability of cities, communities, and ecosystems. Long‐term external and public debts make a significant contribution to promoting sustainable development, but excessive external borrowing could hamper sustainable development progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces a series of articles related to macroeconomic assessments and sectoral perspectives on development in South Asia.

In this paper, we use a novel cross‐country dataset to investigate the relationship between the prevalence of the shadow economy and fiscal policy responses to the economic crisis induced by the pandemic. The finding is that countries with a relatively larger shadow economy before the pandemic have adopted a smaller fiscal policy package. The results are robust to different econometric specifications, including an instrumental variable estimation. This reinforces the wider literature that countries (especially those with larger shadow economies) generally follow a procyclical policy as opposed to the optimal and countercyclical one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]