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Forcible displacement of children disrupts their social capital, and education is of primary importance regarding their integration into the host communities. Millions of individuals found themselves on the "wrong side" of the border when British India was Partitioned purely along religious lines in 1947, leading to mass-scale violence and migration. These migrants received very little state support because the host states were severely resource-constrained, but they were treated as citizens of the newly formed states. In this paper, I combine survey data with digitized archives of historical census data to study the effect of this large-scale permanent displacement event on the human capital attainment of forcibly displaced children. I use a cohort-age based differences-in-differences approach to show that individuals of school-going age, who were born in India and migrated to Pakistan, have a higher likelihood of completing primary and secondary education than natives in the same birth cohorts. I show that migrants' initial choices regarding location and occupation are two important potential mechanisms that point towards the existence of the "uprootedness hypothesis". My findings provide important insights for the integration of migrants into the host communities and underscore the need to better understand the comparative efficacy of different methods used for supporting forcibly displaced communities. • Forced migrants may achieve their educational goals despite limited state support. • Permanently displaced children outperform natives in their birth cohorts. • The effectiveness of aid compared to that of security of status needs research. • Forced Migrants' changed preferences towards human capital is an important mechanism. • Constrained access to land-based assets might have led to increased education attainment in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Talent Portfolio Theory is a new framework for studying human resource development. • Talent portfolios use brain train, brain gain, brain circulation, and brain linkage. • National talent strategies involve portfolio diversification and rebalancing. • Talent Portfolio Theory allows cross-national comparison of talent strategy over time. • While Japan stagnated, Singapore sustained growth by rebalancing its talent portfolio. We propose Talent Portfolio Theory (TPT) as a new framework for studying human resource development. Drawing insights from Modern Portfolio Theory in financial investment, TPT views a nation's talent development as creating a "talent portfolio" composed of four "B"s: brain train, brain gain, brain circulation, and brain linkage. TPT attends to how a talent portfolio, like a financial one, is diversified to minimize risk, and how diversification can be maintained via rebalancing. As such, TPT provides a framework that captures the overall picture of a country's talent strategy and offers a lens through which to understand how a country changes or "rebalances" its talent portfolio over time. It also provides a tool for examining cross-national variation in talent development strategy. We illustrate the utility of TPT with the cases of Japan and Singapore. While human resource development was crucial to the economic rise of both countries, TPT demonstrates that Japan's and Singapore's approaches to constructing and rebalancing their talent portfolios took different routes with diverging outcomes. We conclude with discussions of theoretical and policy implications of this new approach for the study and implementation of talent development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists use micro-based and macro-based approaches to assess the macroeconomic return to population health. The macro-based approach tends to yield estimates that are either negative and close to zero or positive and an order of magnitude larger than the range of estimates derived from the micro-based approach. This presents a micro-macro puzzle regarding the macroeconomic return to health. We reconcile the two approaches by controlling for the indirect effects of health on income per capita, which macro-based approaches usually include but micro-based approaches deliberately omit when isolating the direct income effects of health. Our results show that the macroeconomic return to health lies in the range of plausible microeconomic estimates, demonstrating that both approaches are in fact consistent with one another. • Micro-based and macro-based approaches to the assessment of the macroeconomic return to population health tend to produce substantially different results. • Using a macro-based approach that incorporates a Mincerian wage equation, we show that both approaches are in fact consistent with one another. • Our results indicate that population health can be an important source of cross-country differences in both income per worker and income per capita. • Micro-based approaches can be used to estimate the direct economic benefits of health interventions at the macro level. • The allocation of resources to public health should take account of the indirect effects of health on economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We construct a model incorporating labor market frictions to elucidate income disparities among provinces, sectors (formal vs. informal), and skill categories (skilled vs. unskilled) within the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Through quantitative analysis, we demonstrate the significance of technologies, human capital, infrastructure, and labor market frictions in explaining spatial and intra-province inequalities. Although technological disparities emerge as the primary drivers, our findings underscore the presence of strong "O-ring" inequality patterns. This implies that effective development policies necessitate a mix of coordinated policy measures. When considered in isolation, policies focused on enhancing education, infrastructure, and mitigating labor market frictions could potentially escalate poverty along the intensive margin. Additionally, a development policy disregarding the informal sector also yields counterproductive distributional and poverty outcomes. • Quantify relative impact of various factors on income and spatial inequalities in DRC • Production technology is primary driver of spatial inequalities • Complementarities between development policies are pivotal in explaining inequalities • Policies exclusively focused on formal sector decrease wage for low-skilled workers • Paper extends development accounting literature by considering informal sector [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the relationship between sibling sex composition, gender inequality and girls' locus of control. Among girls aged 10–15 in China, girls with brothers are lower in internal locus of control than girls with sisters, i.e., they believe that success depends more on external forces than on their own effort. We ascribe it to parental son preferences based on evidence about parents' evaluations of the importance of continuing the family lineage and the stringency level of fertility policies. The channel is that parents allocate fewer productive resources, e.g., after-school tutoring and parental school involvement, to girls when they have sons. Our findings highlight that gender inequality may cause negative impacts on girls' locus of control. • We study how sibling sex composition affects girls' locus of control. • Girls with brothers have lower internal locus of control than girls with no brothers. • Girls with brothers receive fewer productive resources when their parents have sons. • Girls' internal locus of control predicts their human capital accumulation. • Boys' internal locus of control is not affected by having brothers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Presents a new dataset: Global Index on Legal Recognition of Homosexual Orientation. • Uses fixed effects regressions to test association between LGB inclusion and GDP. • Additional point on 8-point scale of legal rights associated with $2000 GDP increase. • Up to one fifth of this result reflects costs to GDP of insufficient legal rights. • Strong sign that economic development and LGBT inclusion are mutually reinforcing. This study analyzes the relationship between social inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and economic development. It uses legal and economic data for 132 countries from 1966 to 2011. Previous studies and reports provide substantial evidence that LGBT people are limited in their human rights in ways that also create economic harms, such as lost labor time, lost productivity, underinvestment in human capital, and the inefficient allocation of human resources. This analysis uses a fixed effects regression approach and a newly-created dataset – Global Index on Legal Recognition of Homosexual Orientation (GILRHO) – to assess how these detriments are related to the macroeconomy. Our study finds that an additional point on the 8-point GILRHO scale of legal rights for LGB persons is associated with an increase in real GDP per capita of approximately $2000. A series of robustness checks confirm that this index continues to have a positive and statistically significant association with real GDP per capita after controlling for gender equality. In combination with the qualitative evidence from previous studies and reports, our quantitative results suggest that LGBT inclusion and economic development are mutually reinforcing. Also, a back-of-the-envelope estimate suggests that about 6% to 22% of the finding could reflect the costs to GDP of health and labor market stigmatization of LGB people. Results from this study can help to better understand how the fuller enjoyment of human rights by LGBT people can contribute to a country's economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Investigates the effects of the Boko Haram conflict on agriculture. • Conflict is found to reduce aggregate output of farm households, but not productivity. • Output reduction effects of conflict on sorghum, cassava, soya and yam are confirmed. • Conflict negatively impacts on hired labor, but has no effect on family labor. Abstract We investigate the effects of conflict on agriculture using the Boko Haram insurgency as a case study. We identify the output, input, infrastructure and human capital effects as direct effects and the loss of talent and other environmental factors as indirect effects. Identified market effects include effects on product and input prices, and increased risk premiums. By combining a nationally representative panel dataset on Nigerian agriculture with armed conflict data, we find that the increased intensity of Boko Haram attacks significantly reduces total output and productivity, but not land use, and reduces the outputs of specific staple crops such as sorghum, cassava, soya and yam. Conflict is also found to reduce the hours of hired labor for men and women, but does not affect the use of family labor. Agricultural wages are, however, significantly affected. Because it reveals if, why and how conflict affects agriculture, this study has important implications for post-crisis recovery and agricultural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We show wide ranging evidence of the long run impacts of being born during a drought. • Early-life droughts can impact human capital accumulation. • The impacts on health and education may cascades into reduced wealth. • We show that these effects can be transmitted to the next generation. Abstract We examine the long-term impacts of drought exposure on women born in 19 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, across four decades. We find that women who were exposed to drought conditions during their early childhood are significantly less wealthy as adults. These effects are confined to women born and raised in rural households, indicating that the impacts of rainfall are felt via changes in agricultural output. In addition to lower levels of wealth, women who experience droughts in infancy also receive fewer years of formal education and, in the case of extreme drought conditions, have reduced adult heights. Our results also suggest that drought exposure in infancy can have long-term, negative impacts on women's empowerment. Finally, we also show that these impacts may be transmitted to the women's offspring, with children of affected women more likely to be born at a low birth weight (weighing <2.5 kg). To our knowledge, this represents the largest study to date both geographically and over time showing a strong relationship between early life rainfall conditions and adult outcomes, and the first to show that the impacts could span generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We examine whether price changes triggered by the 2007/08 food price crisis had impacts on child nutrition status. • Soaring food prices had a negative impact on child growth among non-farming households. • Such an effect was undetectable for food-producing households. • An unanticipated spike in food prices had potentially long-term negative impacts on children. Abstract Unanticipated spikes in food prices can increase malnutrition among the poor, with lasting consequences; however, livelihood strategies that include producing food for home consumption are expected to offer a measure of protection. To test this, we use anthropometric and consumption data from Indonesia collected before and after the 2007/08 food price crisis. Based on standardized height and weight measures, our results indicate that soaring food prices had a significant and negative impact on child growth among households that did not produce food for home consumption. A corresponding effect was undetectable for the households that did. The results remain robust when income effects from increased commercial sales, and possible attritions through migration and fostering are considered. Further, local food price changes were uncorrelated with the share of producing-households in the village and village's initial average child nutrition status, suggesting that observed outcomes are directly attributable to market events and livelihood strategies. Gender differences were not detected. Our findings imply that the food price crises can have negative impacts on children, potentially leading to lifelong disadvantages. Livelihood choices that include food production provide protection against price hikes but may trap households on low income paths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the role of non-cognitive skills like self-efficacy in explaining the education and employment aspirations and outcomes of adolescent and young women in Jharkhand, India. We find that self-efficacy is an important correlate of the educational and employment aspirations of these women, and ultimately, of their actual attainments. This suggests that such “hidden” forms of human capital may serve as critical targets for interventions aimed at altering young women’s educational and economic trajectories. We also examine factors that correlate with young women’s level of self-efficacy, and find that an “enabling” and supportive family and community environment appears to be important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit the quasi-random spatial and temporal nature of ground tremors to evaluate the long-term impact of the 1988 earthquake on educational outcomes among affected children of rural Nepal. We employ difference-in-differences research design to show that infants born in districts severely affected by the earthquake are 13.8% less likely to complete middle school and 10% less likely to complete high school. Our findings demonstrate that children belonging to high caste groups mitigate the negative environmental shock in the long run. However, infants belonging to low caste groups are 17.6% less likely to complete middle school and 11.9% less likely to complete high school. We also find that male infants exposed to a severe earthquake perform significantly better than their female counterparts, suggesting prospects of gender bias in a patriarchal society. Together, these results provide strong evidence that earthquakes lead to deterioration of human capital in a developing country setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household decisions about child labor are influenced by income, uncertainty, and relative returns to work and education. The complexity of the phenomenon implies that a large set of policy instruments can be used to address child labor or can affect child labor. This review of 33 impact evaluations provides a comprehensive look at pathways through which social protection (credit and microfinance, cash transfers, vouchers, food programs), and labor programs affect child labor. Despite the complexity of integrating findings across different child labor definitions, implementation contexts, and policy instruments, some patterns emerge. For example, programs that address child labor by reducing the vulnerability of the household produce the desired effect. Transfers reduced child labor in most cases. Similarly, programs that help the household cope with exposure to risk, for example, health insurance, reduce household reliance on child labor. On the other hand, policies aimed at increasing adult household members’ participation in the labor market or entrepreneurial activities, can generate demand for adolescent and child work. Of course, such programs are an important component of anti-poverty strategies, but they could be modified and integrated with additional interventions to ensure that they do not produce adverse effects on child labor. While progress has been made over the past decade, there is still much to learn about the effects of public policy on the labor participation of many children in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose a Unified Growth Model that incorporates the Scientific Revolution. • The Scientific Revolution paves the way for useful innovation and a takeoff to sustained economic development. • Countries with restricted scientific inquiry experience a delayed takeoff. • For severe restrictions in scientific inquiry, a takeoff does not occur at all. • The model can explain why the Industrial Revolution occurred in the UK first. We analyze the role of the Scientific Revolution in the takeoff to sustained long-run economic development. Basic scientific knowledge is a necessary input in the production of applied knowledge, which, in turn, fuels productivity growth and leads to rising incomes. Subsequently, rising incomes instigate a fertility transition and foster education investments. Together, the increasing stocks of basic scientific knowledge and human capital, and the concomitant reduction in fertility enable economic development. In regions where scientific inquiry is severely constrained—for example, due to religious reasons or due to oppressive rulers—the takeoff is delayed or may not occur at all. This shows the importance of investing in basic scientific inquiry when trying to achieve long-run economic prosperity. Our framework could contribute to the understanding of why sustained economic development emerged first in Europe and not in technologically more advanced China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the long-run effects of mass political repression on economic performance? Using an original county-level dataset from Maoist China, we demonstrate a strong and robust negative relationship exists between the scale of repression of intellectuals in the Anti-Rightist Campaign (ARC) in 1957–58 and economic productivity decades later. This fall in economic output is caused by the loss of already scarce human capital resulting from the violent political campaign. Until at least 2000, significant and robust negative correlations exist between the percentage of victims in a county and its populations’ level of educational achievement and economic performance. By demonstrating the negative relationship between the state’s purposeful destruction of human capital for political reasons and long-run economic growth, we are able to add China to a growing body of research on the long-run deleterious effects of state-sponsored political repression against intellectuals. Using China’s ARC as an example, this study is the first to use quantitative methods to demonstrate the often-overlooked long-term negative economic effects of political repression under authoritarian regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study contributes to the understanding of key drivers of stunted growth, a factor widely recognized as major impediment to human capital development. Specifically, we examine the effects of sanitation coverage and usage on child height for age in a semi-urban setting in Northern India. Although sanitation – broadly defined as hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes, particularly human waste – has long been acknowledged as an indispensable element of disease prevention and primary health care programmes, a large number of recent impact evaluation studies on sanitation interventions in low income countries fail to find any health improvements. We address endogeneity of sanitation coverage through an instrumental variable approach, exploiting variation in raw material construction prices. Doing so, we find that sanitation coverage plays a significant and positive role in height growth during the first years of life and that this causal relationship holds particularly for girls. Our findings suggest that a policy that aims to increase sanitation coverage in a context such as the one studied here, is not only effective in reducing child stunting but also implicitly targets girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly accepted that women can be more vulnerable than men to the adverse environmental effects of climate change. This paper evaluates whether the unequal distribution of costs women bear as a result of climate change are reflected across broader macro-social institutions to the detriment of gender equality and women's rights. It argues that gender disparities in climate change vulnerability not only reflect preexisting gender inequalities, they also reinforce them. Inequalities in the ownership and control of household assets and rising familial burdens due to male out-migration, declining food and water access, and increased disaster exposure can undermine women's ability to achieve economic independence, enhance human capital, and maintain health and wellbeing. Consequences for gender equality include reductions in intra-household bargaining power, as women become less capable of generating independent revenue. Outside the home, norms of gender discrimination and gender imbalances in socio-economic status should increase as women are less able to participate in formal labor markets, join civil society organizations, or collectively mobilize for political change. The outcome of these processes can reduce a society's level of gender equality by increasing constraints on the advancement of laws and norms that promote co-equal status. I empirically test this relationship across a sample of developing states between 1981 and 2010. The findings suggest that climate shocks and climatic disasters exert a broadly negative impact on gender equality, as deviations from long-term mean temperatures and increasing incidence of climatological and hydro-meteorological disasters are associated with declines in women's economic and social rights. These effects appear to be most salient in states that are relatively less-democratic, with greater dependence on agriculture, and lower levels of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs to increase primary-school enrollment and attendance among low-income households have been shown to benefit children and households, but to date little is known about who joins such programs. We test three hypotheses about predictors of CCT program participation in indigenous societies in Bolivia, focusing on attributes of the household (ethnicity), parents (modern human capital), and children (age, sex). We model whether children receive a transfer from Bolivia’s CCT program ( Bono Juancito Pinto ), using data from 811 school-age children and nine ethnic groups. Children from the group least exposed to Westerners (Tsimane’) are 18–22 percentage points less likely to participate in the program than children from other lowland ethnic groups. Parental modern human capital and child sex do not predict participation. We discuss possible mechanisms underlying the findings and conclude that the Tsimane’s current lower returns to schooling are the most likely explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender discrimination within the household exists in many contexts. In societies where the norm is to not expect future support from daughters, parents may invest even less in the health and human capital of girls. In India, as in other patriarchal societies, the eldest son occupies a special position as the potential head of the extended family and is expected to assume responsibility for parents' welfare in their old age. In this paper, I explore intra-household differences in educational expenditure and enrollment for children by gender and birth order. Using child level data from the nationally representative India Human Development Survey-II (2011–12), I confirm the presence of a pro-male bias and an additional preference for the eldest son. In families with more children and greater competition for resources within the household, the pro-male bias falls and the bias in favor of the eldest son is greater. Parents in the higher income bracket, who are also less likely to be dependent on their children, discriminate less in favor of the eldest son. As expected, pro-male bias is highest in the north, central and eastern zones of the country. The north-eastern zone exhibits the lowest levels of intra household discrimination based on gender. Finally, I find evidence suggesting reverse discrimination, i.e. discrimination against sons, in the state of Meghalaya which follows a rare matrilineal system where the youngest daughter takes over as the head of the household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Controlling for the aggregation bias in FDI flows and the home and host country heterogeneity within and between Northern and Southern countries, we explore the effects of bilateral FDI flows on host country productivity growth, and on the productivity convergence dynamics between the host and the productivity-frontier country. Using bilateral FDI flows’ data from 108 host and 240 home countries over 1990–2012, and employing a variety of estimation techniques together with a rich battery of robustness tests, we find no significant effect of bilateral FDI flows on either host country productivity growth or on the productivity gap between the host and the frontier country. We also show that these findings are not sensitive to the direction of FDI flows, which are South-South, South-North, North-South or North-North. In a decomposition exercise, we also fail to find any significant effect of bilateral or aggregate FDI flows on physical capital growth. Yet, we find some evidence of a positive effect of FDI flows on human capital growth but just in one direction, South-South. Last but not least, we fail to find any productivity growth or convergence effect at the sectoral level, including agricultural, industry, or services sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Cash transfers (CTs) are a social protection mechanism to reduce the poorest households’ vulnerability to shocks and build human capital by smoothing consumption and sustaining expenditure on education and social welfare. Our study examines whether and how CTs go beyond welfare objectives to promote livelihoods. Presenting a cross-case analysis using original qualitative data on beneficiary perspectives from six African countries—Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Ghana—we explore CT livelihood impacts within household economies and social networks, paying attention to gender issues. We find that a small but predictable flow of cash improves strategic livelihood choices and stimulates productive investments, including through positive effects on beneficiary entry into risk-sharing arrangements and networks for economic collaboration. Levels of household vulnerability and labor constraint nevertheless significantly mediate the ability of CTs to consolidate livelihood outcomes. The varying availability of economic opportunities, plus effective program implementation, also shape livelihood impact. Incorporating beneficiary perspectives brings to the fore the multi-dimensionality of CT effects on experiences of poverty and deprivation, including gender dynamics and intangibles such as dignity and respect; they add powerful realism to the influence of the CT on both immediate survival and livelihood choices. Beyond this, they confirm wider knowledge on productive impact and bring nuance to the conditions under which, and mechanisms by which beneficiaries’ use CTs to build productive capability and assets and to make strategic livelihood choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Over the past 30 years, direct transfers to beneficiaries have become an increasingly important tool for addressing society’s need for effective, efficient, and equitable conservation and development, and have been widely used to generate socially desirable outcomes in human capital development (HCD) programs and Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs. Yet, the two types of programs have been examined in distinct bodies of literature without much reference to each other. By systematically reviewing peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations, and select working papers, we suggest important similarities and differences between HCD cash transfer and PES programs that have been overlooked, particularly in how direct transfers are conceptualized and operationalized and how intended and unintended program outcomes are produced. Rather than considering HCD cash transfers and PES as two distinct tools, a common framework that conceptualizes direct transfers as an umbrella mechanism to produce socially desirable outcomes can contribute to effectively engaging target populations, addressing the needs of beneficiaries in a holistic way, comprehensively evaluating program impacts, and enabling opportunities to build synergies and minimize redundancies and competition across programs. We conclude by offering five insights into future research, program development, and policy innovations. Specifically, PES programs can learn from HCD cash transfer programs to (1) incorporate considerations of economic and gender inequalities to better sustain long-term environmental outcomes; (2) enhance collaboration among PES scholars, program practitioners, and policy makers to improve PES design and implementation and minimize adverse unintended impacts; (3) use randomized control trials to measure the causal impacts of PES; and (4) reconsider the role of conditionality to promote simultaneous production of environmental, economic, and social benefits. HCD cash transfer programs can learn from PES programs to (5) explore collaborative, community-based program design and implementation to facilitate not only adoption of socially desirable behaviors but also long-term human capital gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary We investigate the association between perceived barriers to innovation and the allocation of public support for innovation in manufacturing and service industries in Colombia, as well as the potential heterogeneity of returns to innovation across the firm-level productivity distribution. Extending the CDM recursive system, we include an equation for the allocation of direct support and use quantile regression methods to estimate the productivity equation. We find some differences across manufacturing and service industries. Financing constraints are correlated with obtaining public support in manufacturing and in some services, but in knowledge-intensive services (KIS) barriers associated with regulations are more significant. The introduction of innovations increases mostly the productivity of firms below the median of the productivity distribution, especially in services. Increasing human capital would boost productivity of firms in all industries, providing support to the hypothesis that human capital is indeed a bottleneck for productivity growth across the board in Colombia. We conclude that addressing factors that hinder innovation by low-productivity firms in all service industries could significantly contribute to increasing productivity and reduce its dispersion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Education is a core driver of female employment and empowerment all over the world. As development studies have shown, the strength of this educational effect however varies considerably across countries. Theoretically, we employ mechanisms from human capital theory and modernization theory that explicate the education–employment link. Next, insights from the gender and development approach lead us to hypothesize how economic, political, and socio-cultural features of countries might moderate this effect of educational attainment. Using World Values Survey data on women surveyed in 139 country–year combinations, we empirically test whether and how a country’s labor market structure, social policy, and gender norms condition the influence of women’s education attainment on employment. Employing multilevel logistic regression models with cross-level interactions, our results indicate that in countries where service sector jobs are relatively scarce, having a higher education is more important for women to get a job; it seems that highereducated women push lowereducated women out of employment under those circumstances. Most importantly, women’s educational attainment makes more of a difference in countries with conservative gender norms; in these countries women’s employment is considerably lower than in more liberal countries, but to a lesser extent for higher educated women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Local variation in social welfare provision appears in myriad contexts around the world. And yet, our attempts at conceptualizing welfare regimes focus on the national level. In China, local authorities have shaped social policy implementation since economic reforms. In this paper, I answer three questions about subnational variation in social policy provision in China: (1) Have Chinese provinces diverged in their social policy provision?; (2) How do provincial social policy regimes differ from one another?; (3) What explains variation in provincial social policy spending? To answer the first question, I conduct a cluster analysis of provincial social policy spending data. I find that provinces systematically diverge in their social policy priorities. While some provinces invest in education to develop human capital and promote economic growth, others emphasize poverty alleviation. I propose a typology to conceptualize these tendencies. I then test for these divergent approaches using between-effects regression models of provincial social policy spending. Although provincial wealth and needs sometimes play a role in allocations for social policy, I find that economic development strategy and social instability are associated with distinct approaches to social welfare spending. These distinct provincial welfare regimes have implications for the adoption, implementation, and ultimately, effectiveness of social policy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This article examines the impact of Ethiopia’s gendered land certification programs on household consumption of healthcare, food, education, and clothing. Ethiopia embarked on a land tenure reform program in 1998, after years of communism during which all land was nationalized. The reform began in Tigray region where land certificates were issued to household heads, who were primarily male. In a second phase carried out in 2003–2005, three other regions issued land certificates jointly to household heads and spouses, presenting variation in land tenure security by gender. Results using household panel data show that joint land certification to spouses was accompanied by increased household consumption of healthcare and homegrown food and decreased education expenditure, compared to household-head land certification. Joint land certification was also accompanied by increased consumption of women’s and girls’ clothing, and decreased men’s clothing expenditures indicating results may be explained by a shift in the gender balance of power within households. Analysis on the incidence and duration of illness indicates that increased healthcare expenditures after joint land certification may be due to joint certification households seeking more effective treatment than head-only certification households for household members who fell ill or suffered injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In 1994, Ethiopia introduced mother tongue instruction in primary schooling for the largest ethnic group in the country. Combining data from before and after the policy change, from the regions that gain access to mother tongue schooling, along with the regions and ethnic groups that face no change in language policy, I estimate the effect of mother tongue instruction on human capital formation. The results show that access to mother tongue schooling increases the ability to read by 40%. Moreover, it increases the completed years of schooling by more than half a year, and the probability of completing primary schooling by five percentage points. The ability to read by permitting access to printed sources of information, increases newspaper readership by around 25% and makes it 17% points more likely that individuals report using pamphlets, posters or leaflets as a source of information about family planning. My preferred interpretation of the results is that provision of schooling in a language spoken at home, and used for social interactions, reduces the cost and increases the efficiency of learning. The result highlights the use of non-native languages, an almost ubiquitous practice in Sub-Saharan Africa, as a potentially important factor underlying the large educational failures in this part of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• In low and middle-income countries, informality of microfirms is a central issue. • We estimate a productivity premium for Colombian microfirms. • Estimates were obtained using fixed-effects quantile regressions covering 2012–2016. • Firms that become formal in terms of business registry grow via capital investments. • Firms that become formal in terms of labor requirements grow via hiring qualified workers. Although evidence of a productivity gap between formal and informal firms has been observed, this "formality premium" has been less explored for microfirms. The informality of microfirms is a central concern in low- and middle-income countries, leading to a crucial demand for designing economic policies addressing this issue. We fill this void by estimating a productivity premium for the case of Colombia, considering two margins of formality for microfirms: extensive, referring to business registration, and intensive, which includes labor regulations. We use a unique longitudinal dataset from the Microenterprise Survey by the Colombian Statistics Department, which follows approximately 39,000 micro-establishments with up to nine employees during 2012–2016. We utilize the transition into and out of formality to estimate the productivity premium (yearly sales per worker) between informal and formal firms, thereby exploring differences concerning initial productivity. We use a fixed-effects quantile regression to explore differential effects along the productivity distribution. We find evidence of a premium for both the extensive (18%) and intensive margins (7%), a gap that decreases with a firm's productivity when considering a strict definition of formality. The evidence of these premiums is related to two growth strategies of firms: an increase in capital investments for the extensive margin and an increase in human capital quality for the intensive margin. Further, we find the premium is notably wider for young firms (less than three years in the business) relative to the older; and for the least productive 'necessity' driven businesses in comparison with the business-driven businesses. We do not find systematic differences according to the gender of the owners. These results are new evidence to support the existence of a premium and the transition into and out of formality for microfirms in middle-income countries. Moreover, they suggest that microfirms' formalization and growth policies should be oriented toward promoting and enhancing formality's benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary We investigate whether democracy enhances the skills and knowledge of citizens through improving education quality. This, in turn, could have ramifications for other development outcomes such as economic growth. We offer the first systematic cross-national study on democracy and education quality. Democracy is widely regarded as superior to autocracy in terms of providing access to education, and several studies find that democracy enhances educational enrollment and years of schooling. Yet, we do not know whether democracies provide better education . We argue that democracies should not too readily be expected to outperform autocracies on education quality. First, it is inherently difficult to implement quality-enhancing education reforms, even for well-intentioned (democratic and autocratic) governments with ample resources. Second, education quality is less visible to voters than, e.g., expanding education enrollment, making quality-enhancing policies a less attractive option for office-seeking democratic politicians. We employ a recent dataset comparing international student tests for 128 countries, from 1965 onward. While democracies typically provide “more” education than autocracies, we find no systematic evidence that democracies offer better education. The result is very robust and holds in both cross-section and panel specifications. The null-relationship is not explained simply by democracies providing education access to more (and different types of) children than autocracies, and it appears both in rich and poor and in low- and high-capacity states. We also present relevant nuances: for instance, autocracies display more variation in education quality outcomes than democracies, and we find some evidence that democracy may be associated, more specifically, with better reading skills. In sum, this study provides new insights to the democracy and education literature, where extant studies often report strong links between democracy and various education outcomes not directly related to education quality, and informs literatures linking democracy to development outcomes such as growth via effects on human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary A country’s mix of products predicts its subsequent pattern of diversification and economic growth. But does this product mix also predict income inequality? Here we combine methods from econometrics, network science, and economic complexity to show that countries exporting complex products—as measured by the Economic Complexity Index—have lower levels of income inequality than countries exporting simpler products. Using multivariate regression analysis, we show that economic complexity is a significant and negative predictor of income inequality and that this relationship is robust to controlling for aggregate measures of income, institutions, export concentration, and human capital. Moreover, we introduce a measure that associates a product to a level of income inequality equal to the average GINI of the countries exporting that product (weighted by the share the product represents in that country’s export basket). We use this measure together with the network of related products—or product space—to illustrate how the development of new products is associated with changes in income inequality. These findings show that economic complexity captures information about an economy’s level of development that is relevant to the ways an economy generates and distributes its income. Moreover, these findings suggest that a country’s productive structure may limit its range of income inequality. Finally, we make our results available through an online resource that allows for its users to visualize the structural transformation of over 150 countries and their associated changes in income inequality during 1963–2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The paper measures the effect of child market work on the long-term growth of human capital, focusing on the output of the human capital production: mathematics skills, cognitive skills, pulmonary function, and educational attainment. Our full sample is drawn from a rich longitudinal dataset Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS). We address endogeneity of child market work using provincial legislated minimum wage as the instrument. Our instrumental variable estimation shows that child labor negatively affects mathematics skills and pulmonary function, but not cognitive skills and educational attainment. We find heterogeneities in type of work. Those who work outside of family business have lower educational attainment than those working for family business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper considers why and how the Performance Based Allocation (PBA) used in multilateral development banks and in particular at IDA, could be improved by taking the structural handicaps of eligible countries into account. The PBA relies on a debatable definition of performance. It does not meet the equity concern raised by the existence of structural handicaps to growth. It neglects the lessons of the aid effectiveness literature. Finally, it suffers from some opacity. We show how it is possible to increase the share of specific groups of countries, such as Sub-Saharan Africa or post-conflict states, in a transparent manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Performance-based aid allocation systems are used by a number of multilateral agencies to allocate aid among developing countries. A number of bilateral agencies also allocate aid on the basis of the performance of recipients, albeit in a less systematic way than these multilateral agencies. This paper points to a number of fundamental problems associated with performance-based aid allocation systems, including a problematic balancing of need and performance criteria, being reductionist with respect to the drivers of effective aid and not being sufficiently nuanced with respect to performance by ignoring a lack of human capital and economic vulnerability in recipient countries. Together with providing a theoretical framework that articulates these issues, this paper introduces and outlines the papers that follow in this Special Section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Developing country performance with respect to economic policies and institutional behavior is a common criterion for the allocation of aid among recipient countries. This paper examines how performance is used, arguing that performance is too narrowly defined. A more appropriate definition is one that controls for the economic vulnerability and human capital of developing countries. Econometric analysis of cross-section and panel data is presented that supports this contention. The paper also contends that performance and exogenous economic shocks are likely to be pro-cyclical. This implies a double punishment when aid is allocated according to performance. Evidence of such punishment is also provided. The paper concludes by arguing that economic vulnerability and human capital variables should augment performance measures in aid allocation decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In 1988, Peru entered a severe economic crisis as a corollary of unfavorable external economic conditions, high levels of debt, and heterodox policies (the so-called debt crisis of 1980s). This paper investigates the short-term health shock experienced by infants during the crisis and its long-term impact on human capital accumulation. Because no longitudinal data are available, the estimation of causal effects is performed using multiple cross-section surveys that are representative of the same population over time. The short-term and the long-term effects are estimated exploiting the heterogeneous impact of the crisis across and within birth cohorts. Results indicate that the Peruvian crisis significantly affected the health of infants, particularly that of children born to low-educated mothers. From 1988 to 1990 vaccination declined 12 percentage points and infant mortality increased 2.3 percentage points among children born to low-educated mothers. In the long run, the children who suffered the most severe health shocks during the economic downturn of the 1980s performed worse in school. They had 0.12 fewer years of formal education and their probability of completing primary education by age 15 was three percentage points lower in relation to similar children born after the crisis. The results have strong policy implications. Children in developing countries should be safeguarded against health shocks during economic crises to avoid a decline in the accumulation of human capital in the long-run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In this paper, we have examined the fertility transition across countries in four different income categories from social, economic, political and population policy perspectives. We examine whether and how social, economic, political and population policy factors contribute to the decline in fertility rates in countries with different income levels, and our findings suggest that these factors can have very different effects on fertility rates in these countries. Political freedom is found to play a role in shaping people’s perceptions of fertility and has different effects on fertility for countries in different income categories. Worsening political freedom in Upper Middle-income countries exerts downward pressure on fertility rates, while it contributes a positive effect to fertility rates in Lower Middle- and Low-income countries. Urbanization, if implemented successfully, can be an effective approach to further reduce the fertility rate for countries with lower income levels and higher rural populations. Population policies, measured by the contraception prevalence rate, have been found to be effective in reducing the TFR in Upper Middle-income, Lower Middle-income and Low-income countries. From the intra-country analysis, population policies are confirmed to be the main tool used by China and Bangladesh to cut down their TFR. Human capital is confirmed to be one of the most important determinants in explaining the decline in fertility rates across all income categories. The significant policy implication of these findings for policy makers in those Lower Middle-income and Low-income countries is to invest more in education which can have a notable impact on people’s perceptions of fertility, and eventually this could help to effectively reduce their fertility levels in a more natural way than could be achieved by aggressive population policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Analysis of effects of oil palm cultivation on smallholder farmers' living standards. • Panel data from Sumatra, Indonesia. • Oil palm improves nutrition, education, and general living conditions. • Positive implications for current and future welfare through human capital formation. • Negative environmental effects associated with deforestation need to be reduced. Oil palm cultivation is a controversial topic because of its manifold sustainability implications. Recent research in Southeast Asia suggests that oil palm cultivation is associated with income gains for many smallholder farmers, but whether these income gains also translate into longer-term improvements in household living standards remains unclear. Here, we use three rounds of panel data from smallholder farmers in Sumatra, Indonesia, to analyze effects of oil palm cultivation on various indicators of living standards. Results suggest that oil palm cultivation improves nutrition, dietary quality, and expenditures on education, all important indicators of human capital formation with expected positive long-term implications. Furthermore, we find positive associations between oil palm cultivation, household asset ownership, and electricity consumption, after controlling for possible confounding factors. We conclude that oil palm cultivation improves living standards and human capital formation in smallholder farm households in this setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper studies the relationship between female autonomy and human capital in pre-modern Europe. • The indicator 'female age at first marriage' is assessed as a measure for female autonomy for 27 countries 1500–1900. • Countries and regions with high levels of female autonomy became successful in long-term human capital developments. • In pre-modern societies women had an advantage in dairy-farming allowing them to gain independent work experience. • Women provided many relevant labour market skills to their offspring. Does higher female autonomy increase human capital formation? To find out, we employ novel data on numeracy as a proxy for human capital and the demographic indicator female age at marriage as a measure for female autonomy for 27 countries and 153 regions in Europe between 1500 and 1900. Our empirical analysis shows that countries and regions with a relatively high level of female autonomy became success cases and pioneers in long-term human capital development. Because women had an advantage in dairy-farming, we approach endogeneity issues by exploiting variation in gender-biased agricultural specialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We study patterns of convergence in resource productivity for a sample of 118 countries between 1970 and 2012. • We estimate the effects of fundamental factors for convergence in resource productivity and compare convergence patterns to labor productivity. • We report no overall convergence but three country groups that converge to the same growth rates in resource productivity. • We find that fundamental factors such as GDP per capita, human capital, institutions, and geographic factors predict selection of countries into convergence groups. • Labor productivity convergence displays some distinct patterns compared to resource productivity. Are countries converging to the same levels of productivity in transforming natural resources into economic output? This question is of high importance as it determines the need for policy intervention in the pursuit of sustainable economic development. In this paper, we explore convergence patterns in resource productivity across more than 100 countries between 1970 and 2012. Additionally, we analyze the role of fundamental factors for convergence patterns and compare these patterns to labor productivity. Instead of overall convergence, our findings show club convergence in resource productivity, with convergence clubs closely mirroring levels of economic development. The clubs converge towards the same growth rates, not the same levels of productivity. We find that initial levels of GDP per capita, human capital, and population density are strongly associated with club membership. There are noticeable differences between the convergence patterns of labor and resource productivity. Democracy, human capital and temperate climate are particularly strong predictors for club membership in the case of labor productivity, whereas population density is exclusively associated with club membership for resource productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We study the long-term effects of past European settlements on today's regional economic development in Indonesia, where such settlement was ubiquitous for more than three decades. • We exploit regional variation in the timing of the European arrival in districts to calculate how long those regions were exposed to European settlement. • We use the Euclidean distance to historical center of spices to solve non-random process of regional variation in European settlement. • The year of European settlement has a heterogeneous impact on modern per capita GDP, poverty, and health outcomes across regions within a country. • We provide empirical evidence on the potential pathways to explain the results through the institutional transfer channel, particularly from the education sector. This study addresses the long-term effects of early European settlement on today's regional economic development in areas of Indonesia in which such settlements have been ubiquitous for more than three centuries. To establish a potential causal relationship, we exploit variations in the year that settlement began at the district level. We find that while the overall impact of the length of the settlement has a significant negative association with per capita GDP, the impacts are heterogeneous across regions. Longer exposure to settlements negatively (positively) affects per capita GDP today for districts outside Java (in Java). Longer exposure to settlements is associated with: (i) lower poverty level and poverty gap and (ii) lower birth attendance and morbidity rate. We partly explained our findings using the institutional transfer channel via improvement in the education infrastructure. Our findings imply that the increased accumulation of human capital might have a long-term impact on economic performance in the present through productivity and improvement in the quality of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary I estimate the long-term national health and education impacts of having a larger mining share in the economy. By instrumenting the relative size of the mining sector with the natural geological variation in countries’ fossil fuel endowments, I provide evidence suggestive of a causal relationship. The findings suggest that countries with larger mining shares tend to have poorer health and education outcomes than countries with similar per capita incomes, geographic characteristics, and institutional quality. Doubling the mining share of an economy corresponds to, on average, the infant death rate being 20% higher, life expectancy being 5% lower, total years of education being 20% lower, and 70% more people having no formal education. Divergences from the Preston curve—the concave relationship between cross-country income and life expectancy that has long been of interest to economists, demographers, and epidemiologists—are thus partly explained by the size of the mining sector. Within-country evidence from Indonesia paints a similar picture. My results provide support for a growing body of evidence linking mining to poorer average living standards, particularly vis-à-vis other types of income. I also estimate the effects of national mining dependence on non-mining income, health and education investment, and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary We attempt to reconcile competing arguments regarding international trade’s implications for citizen well-being: that trade either erodes citizen welfare by decreasing the incentives and resources for welfare improvements or leads to higher welfare by increasing those incentives and resources. We find that which of these two dynamics a country experiences depends on its level of human capital. In countries already well-endowed with human capital, greater international trade reinforces further improvements in welfare. But in most countries, the workforce has not yet developed such capacities, and in these countries trade is associated with slower improvements in welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Using longitudinal data from rural Philippines, we decompose intergenerational income elasticity (IGE) into five distinct pathways: intergenerational transmissions of health, education, land, and spouse education capital, plus residual correlation in productivity. Intergenerational human capital transmissions from mothers are stronger than those from fathers; maternal education is the parental capital most strongly associated with IGE. While naïve IGE estimates are indistinguishable for sons and daughters, the pathways that generate these results differ strikingly. For sons, IGE is entirely explained by parent-to-child capital transmission. By contrast, strong income correlation exists between daughters and parents even after controlling for parent and child capital endowments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Concerns about a resource curse in Canada have been raised in response to rapid growth in the petroleum sector in northern Alberta. In previous research, there has been little consideration of how symptoms of the resource curse are experienced and managed at a regional scale and by Indigenous communities. An analysis of effects and responses is offered using a natural, financial, human and social capitals framework. Without consideration of how to manage the symptoms of the resource curse, oil and gas activity is likely to further disadvantage Indigenous populations already living on the margins of Canadian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This study assesses the role of human capital (HK) on FDI inflows to sub-Saharan Africa. It uses panel data for the period 1980–2012 to asses if changing skill needs influence FDI inflows. Several measures of HK are used to assess whether the quality of labor explains FDI flows over the study period. Various versions of an FDI model were estimated and the results show that all measures of HK have a significant influence on FDI, as are the traditional variables. There is no evidence of the increasing importance of HK on FDI over time, probably reflecting the type of FDI flowing into SSA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We investigate the effect of human capital formation on authoritarian survival. • Government expenditure of education reduces the probability of regime breakdown in dictatorships. • In non-democratic East Asian countries, citizens with more formal education perceived greater social mobility than less educated citizens. • Citizens perceiving higher social mobility are less likely to demand political freedom. This paper examines the logic of human capital formation in authoritarian regimes based on theories of inequality and regime transition and the prospect of upward mobility model. Our central argument is that by investing in human capital, dictators can boost citizens' perceived levels of social mobility. Consequently, dictators can preemptively ameliorate the pressure for redistribution from the poor and neutralize threats from the masses. In other words, dictators invest in human capital as a way of increasing citizens' perceived social mobility and thus sustaining political stability in their authoritarian regimes. Our cross-national analysis covers more than 80 authoritarian regimes from 1970 to 2010 and shows that higher levels of education spending are associated with a lower probability of regime breakdown in autocracies. We further use a causal mediation analysis with the Asian Barometer Survey data and connect our causal link from human capital formation to perceived social mobility and then to authoritarian regime support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This paper confirms recent evidence of a positive impact of aid on growth and widens the scope of evaluation to a range of outcomes including proximate sources of growth (e.g., physical and human capital), indicators of social welfare (e.g., poverty and infant mortality), and measures of economic transformation (e.g., share of agriculture and industry in value added). Focusing on long-run cumulative effects of aid in developing countries, and taking due account of potential endogeneity, a coherent and favorable pattern of results emerges. Aid has over the past 40 years stimulated growth, promoted structural change, improved social indicators, and reduced poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]