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  • 2010-2014  (36)
  • 2005-2009  (13)
  • McKenzie, David  (49)
  • Washington, D.C : The World Bank  (49)
  • Paris : OECD Publishing
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  • 1
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration (2014)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (52 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration
    Abstract: International migration offers individuals and their families the potential to experience immediate and large gains in their incomes, and offers a large number of other positive benefits to the sending communities and countries. However, there are also concerns about potential costs of migration, including concerns about trafficking and human rights, a desire for remittances to be used more effectively, and concerns about externalities from skilled workers being lost. As a result there is increasing interest in policies which can enhance the development benefits of international migration and mitigate these potential costs. This paper provides a critical review of recent research on the effectiveness of these policies at three stages of the migration process: pre-departure, during migration, and directed toward possible return. The existing evidence base suggests some areas of policy success: bilateral migration agreements for countries whose workers have few other migration options, developing new savings and remittance products that allow migrants more control over how their money is used, and some efforts to provide financial education to migrants and their families. Suggestive evidence together with theory offers support for a number of other policies, such as lowering the cost of remittances, reducing passport costs, offering dual citizenship, and removing exit barriers to migration. Research offers reasons to be cautious about some policies, such as enforcing strong rights for migrants like high minimum wages. Nevertheless, the paper finds the evidence base to be weak for many policies, with no reliable research on the impact of most return migration programs, nor for whether countries should be trying to induce communal remitting through matching funds
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  • 2
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Why Don't Remittances Appear to Affect Growth? (2014)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (51 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Clemens, Michael A Why Don't Remittances Appear to Affect Growth?
    Abstract: Although measured remittances by migrant workers have soared in recent years, macroeconomic studies have difficulty detecting their effect on economic growth. This paper reviews existing explanations for this puzzle and proposes three new ones. First, it offers evidence that a large majority of the recent rise in measured remittances may be illusory-arising from changes in measurement, not changes in real financial flows. Second, it shows that even if these increases were correctly measured, cross-country regressions would have too little power to detect their effects on growth. Third, it points out that the greatest driver of rising remittances is rising migration, which has an opportunity cost to economic product at the origin. Net of that cost, there is little reason to expect large growth effects of remittances in the origin economy. Migration and remittances clearly have first-order effects on poverty at the origin, on the welfare of migrants and their families, and on global gross domestic product; but detecting their effects on growth of the origin economy is likely to remain elusive
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6856
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 3
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Development through Seasonal Worker Programs : The Case of New Zealand's RSE Program (2014)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (30 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Gibson, John Development through Seasonal Worker Programs
    Abstract: Seasonal worker programs are increasingly seen as offering the potential to be part of international development policy. New Zealand's Recognised Seasonal Employer program is one of the first and most prominent of programs designed with this perspective. This paper provides a detailed examination of this policy through the first six seasons. This includes the important role of policy facilitation measures taken by governments and aid agencies. The evolution of the program in terms of worker numbers is discussed, along with new data on the (high) degree of circularity in worker movements, and new data on (very low) worker overstay rates. There appears to have been little displacement of New Zealand workers, and new data show Recognised Seasonal Employer workers to be more productive than local labor and that workers appear to gain productivity as they return for subsequent seasons. The program has also benefitted the migrants participating in the program, with increases in per capita incomes, expenditure, savings, and subjective well-being. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the program is largely living up to its promise of a "triple win" for migrants, their sending countries in the Pacific, and New Zealand
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6762
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  • 4
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Radio Frequency (Un)Identification : Results from a Proof-of-Concept Trial of the Use of RFID Technology to Measure Microenterprise Turnover in Sri Lanka (2014)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (44 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: de Mel, Suresh Radio Frequency (Un)Identification
    Keywords: Kleinstunternehmen ; Befragung ; Gewinn ; Absatz ; RFID
    Abstract: Accurate measurement of stock levels, turnover, and profitability in microenterprises in developing countries is difficult because the majority of these firms do not keep detailed records. This paper tests the use of radio frequency identification tags as a means of objectively measuring stock levels and stock flow in small retail firms in Sri Lanka. In principle, the tags offer the potential to track stock movements accurately. The paper compares the stock counts obtained from RFID reads to physical stock counts and to survey responses. There are three main findings. First, current RFID-technology is more difficult to use, and more time-consuming to employ, than had been envisaged. Second, the technology works reasonably well for paper products, but very poorly for most products sold by microenterprises: on average only about one-quarter of the products tagged could be read and there was considerable day-to-day variation in read-efficiency. Third, a comparison of survey responses and physical stock-takes shows much higher accuracy for survey measures. As a result, the study concludes that this technology is currently unsuitable for improving stock measurement in microenterprises, except perhaps for a few products
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  • 5
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Directing Remittances to Education with Soft and Hard Commitments : Evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field Experiment and New Product Take-up among Filipino Migrants in Rome (2014)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (26 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: De Arcangelis, Giuseppe Directing Remittances to Education with Soft and Hard Commitments
    Abstract: This paper tests how migrants' willingness to remit changes when given the ability to direct remittances to educational purposes using different forms of commitment. Variants of a dictator game in a lab-in-the-field experiment with Filipino migrants in Rome are used to examine remitting behavior under varying degrees of commitment. These range from the soft commitment of simply labeling remittances as being for education, to the hard commitment of having funds directly paid to a school and the student's educational performance monitored. The analysis finds that the introduction of simple labeling for education raises remittances by more than 15 percent. Adding the ability to directly send this funding to the school adds only a further 2.2 percent. The information asymmetry between migrants and their most closely connected household is randomly varied, but no significant change is found in the remittance response to these forms of commitment as information varies. Behavior in these games is shown to be predictive of take-up of a new financial product called EduPay, designed to allow migrants to pay remittances directly to schools in the Philippines. This take-up seems largely driven by a response to the ability to label remittances for education, rather than to the hard commitment feature of directly paying schools
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6896
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  • 6
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Do Poverty Traps Exist? (2014)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (27 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Kraay, Aart Do Poverty Traps Exist?
    Abstract: This paper reviews the empirical evidence on the existence of poverty traps, understood as self-reinforcing mechanisms through which poor individuals or countries remain poor. Poverty traps have captured the interest of many development policy makers, because poverty traps provide a theoretically coherent explanation for persistent poverty. They also suggest that temporary policy interventions may have long-term effects on poverty. However, a review of the reduced-form empirical evidence suggests that truly stagnant incomes of the sort predicted by standard models of poverty traps are in fact quite rare. Moreover, the empirical evidence regarding several canonical mechanisms underlying models of poverty traps is mixed
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6835
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  • 7
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    The Impact of Vocational Training for the Unemployed : Experimental Evidence from Turkey (2014)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (45 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Hirshleifer, Sarojini The Impact of Vocational Training for the Unemployed
    Keywords: Arbeitsmarktpolitik ; Berufsbildung ; Erwerbstätigkeit ; Wirkungsanalyse ; Türkei
    Abstract: A randomized experiment is used to evaluate a large-scale, active labor market policy: Turkey's vocational training programs for the unemployed. A detailed follow-up survey of a large sample with low attrition enables precise estimation of treatment impacts and their heterogeneity. The average impact of training on employment is positive, but close to zero and statistically insignificant, which is much lower than either program officials or applicants expected. Over the first year after training, the paper finds that training had statistically significant effects on the quality of employment and that the positive impacts are stronger when training is offered by private providers. However, longer-term administrative data show that after three years these effects have also dissipated
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6807
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  • 8
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Testing the Importance of Search Frictions, Matching, and Reservation Prestige through Randomized Experiments in Jordan (2014)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (43 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Groh, Matthew Testing the Importance of Search Frictions, Matching, and Reservation Prestige through Randomized Experiments in Jordan
    Abstract: Unemployment rates for tertiary-educated youth in Jordan are high, as is the duration of unemployment. Two randomized experiments in Jordan were used to test different theories that may explain this phenomenon. The first experiment tested the role of search and matching frictions by providing firms and job candidates with an intensive screening and matching service based on educational backgrounds and psychometric assessments. Although more than 1,000 matches were made, youth rejected the opportunity to even have an interview in 28 percent of cases, and when a job offer was received, they rejected this offer or quickly quit the job 83 percent of the time. A second experiment built on the first by examining the willingness of educated, unemployed youth to apply for jobs of varying levels of prestige. Youth applied to only a small proportion of the job openings they were told about, with application rates higher for higher prestige jobs than lower prestige jobs. Youth failed to show up for the majority of interviews scheduled for low prestige jobs. The results suggest that reservation prestige is an important factor underlying the unemployment of educated Jordanian youth
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7030
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  • 9
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Macroinsurance for Microenterprises : A Randomized Experiment in Post-Revolution Egypt (2014)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (38 p)
    Edition: 2014 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Groh, Matthew Macroinsurance for Microenterprises
    Abstract: Firms in many developing countries cite macroeconomic instability and political uncertainty as major constraints to their growth. Economic theory suggests uncertainty can cause firms to delay investments until uncertainty is resolved. A randomized experiment was conducted in post-revolution Egypt to measure the impact of insuring microenterprises against macroeconomic and political uncertainty. Demand for macroeconomic shock insurance was high; 36.7 percent of microentrepreneurs in the treatment group purchased insurance. However, purchasing insurance does not change the likelihood that a business takes a new loan, the size of the loan, or how the loan is invested. This lack of effect is attributed to microenterprises largely investing in inventories and raw materials rather than irreversible investments like equipment. These results suggest that, contrary to what some firms profess, macroeconomic and political risk is not inhibiting the investment behavior of microenterprises. However, insurance may still be of value to help firms cope with shocks when they do occur, but the paper is unable to examine this dimension, because the insurance product did not pay out over the course of the pilot
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  • 10
    Online Resource
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    Using Administrative Data to Evaluate Municipal Reforms : An Evaluation of the Impact of Minas Fácil Expresso (2013)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (27 p)
    Edition: 2013 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Bruhn, Miriam Using Administrative Data to Evaluate Municipal Reforms
    Abstract: Efforts to make it easier for firms to register formally are the most common form of business regulatory reform over the past decade. While there is evidence that large reforms have resulted in some increases in registration rates, recent experimental evidence suggests very few informal firms choose to register when given information about how to do so. This raises the question of whether it is productive for governments to continue to extend simplification efforts to all firms, especially those in more remote areas where many of the benefits of registering may be reduced. This study uses administrative data to evaluate the impact of Minas Fácil Expresso, a program in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, which attempted to expand a business start-up simplification program to more remote municipalities. Using difference-in-differences with 56 months of registration data for 822 municipalities, the analysis finds introducing these units actually led to a reduction in registration rates, and no change in tax revenues. The paper uses this evaluation to illustrate the design choices and issues involved in using administrative data to evaluate reforms, with the goal of also providing a template that can be used for evaluating similar reforms elsewhere
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6368
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  • 11
    Online Resource
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    Eliciting Illegal Migration Rates through List Randomization (2013)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (19 p)
    Edition: 2013 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David Eliciting Illegal Migration Rates through List Randomization
    Abstract: Most migration surveys do not ask about the legal status of migrants due to concerns about the sensitivity of this question. List randomization is a technique that has been used in a number of other social science applications to elicit sensitive information. This paper trials this technique by adding it to surveys conducted in Ethiopia, Mexico, Morocco, and the Philippines. It shows how, in principal, this can be used both to give an estimate of the overall rate of illegal migration in the population being surveyed, as well as to determine illegal migration rates for subgroups such as more or less educated households. The results suggest that there is some useful information in this method: higher rates of illegal migration in countries where illegal migration is thought to be more prevalent and households who say they have a migrant are more likely to report having an illegal migrant. Nevertheless, some of the other findings also suggest some possible inconsistencies or noise in the conclusions obtained using this method. The authors suggest directions for future attempts to implement this approach in migration surveys
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6426
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  • 12
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    A Helping Hand or the Long Arm of the Law? : Experimental Evidence on What Governments Can Do to Formalize Firms (2013)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (43 p)
    Edition: 2013 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: De Andrade, Gustavo Henrique A Helping Hand or the Long Arm of the Law?
    Abstract: Many governments have spent much of the past decade trying to extend a helping hand to informal businesses by making it easier and cheaper for them to formalize. Much less effort has been devoted to raising the costs of remaining informal, through increasing enforcement of existing regulations. This paper reports on a field experiment conducted in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in order to test which government actions work in getting informal firms to register. Firms were randomized to a control group or one of four treatment groups: the first received information about how to formalize; the second received this information and free registration costs along with the use of an accountant for a year; the third group was assigned to receive an enforcement visit from a municipal inspector; while the fourth group was assigned to have a neighboring firm receive an enforcement visit to see if enforcement has spillovers. The analysis finds zero or negative impacts of information and free cost treatments, and a significant but small increase in formalization from inspections. Estimates of the impact of actually receiving an inspection give a 21 to 27 percentage point increase in the likelihood of formalizing. The results show most informal firms will not formalize unless forced to do so, suggesting formality offers little private benefit to them. But the tax revenue benefits to the government of bringing firms of this size into the formal system more than offset the costs of inspections
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6435
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  • 13
    Online Resource
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    Why is Voluntary Financial Education so Unpopular? : Experimental Evidence from Mexico (2013)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (46 p)
    Edition: 2013 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Bruhn, Miriam Why is Voluntary Financial Education so Unpopular?
    Abstract: Take-up of voluntary financial education programs is typically extremely low. This paper reports on randomized experiments around a large financial literacy course offered in Mexico City to understand the reasons for low take-up, and to measure the impact of financial education. It documents that the general public displays little interest in such courses and that participation is low even among individuals who express interest in financial education. The paper experimentally investigates barriers to take-up, and finds no impact of relaxing reputational or logistical constraints and no evidence that time inconsistency is the reason for limited participation. Even relatively sizeable monetary incentives get less than 40 percent of interested individuals invited to training to attend. Using a randomized encouragement design, the authors measure the impact of the course on financial knowledge and behavior. Attending training results in a 9 percentage point increase in financial knowledge and a 9 percentage point increase in saving outcomes, but no impact on borrowing behavior. Administrative data indicate that the savings impact is relatively short-lived. The results suggest people are making optimal choices not to attend financial education courses, and point to the limits of using general purpose courses to improve financial behavior for the general population
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6439
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  • 14
    Online Resource
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    Entry Regulation and Formalization of Microenterprises in Developing Countries (2013)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (18 p)
    Edition: 2013 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Bruhn, Miriam Entry Regulation and Formalization of Microenterprises in Developing Countries
    Abstract: The majority of microenterprises in most developing countries remain informal despite more than a decade of reforms aimed at making it easier and cheaper for them to formalize. This paper summarizes the evidence on the effects of entry reforms and related policy actions to promote firm formalization. Most of these policies result only in a modest increase in the number of formal firms, if at all. Less is known about the impact of other forms of business regulations on the performance of low-scale enterprises. Most informal firms appear not to benefit on net from formalizing, so ease of formalization alone will not lead to most of them formalizing. Increased enforcement of rules can increase formality. Although there is a fiscal benefit of doing this with larger informal firms, it is unclear whether there is a public rationale for trying to formalize subsistence enterprises
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6507
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  • 15
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    Unilateral Facilitation Does Not Raise International Labor Migration from the Philippines (2013)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (52 p)
    Edition: 2013 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Beam, Emily Unilateral Facilitation Does Not Raise International Labor Migration from the Philippines
    Keywords: 2010-2012 ; Arbeitsmigranten ; Migrationspolitik ; Arbeitsvermittlung ; Wirkungsanalyse ; Schätzung ; Philippinen
    Abstract: Significant income gains from migrating from poorer to richer countries have motivated unilateral (source-country) policies facilitating labor emigration. However, their effectiveness is unknown. The authors conducted a large-scale randomized experiment in the Philippines testing the impact of unilaterally facilitating international labor migration. The most intensive treatment doubled the rate of job offers but had no identifiable effect on international labor migration. Even the highest overseas job-search rate that was induced (22 percent) falls far short of the share initially expressing interest in migrating (34 percent). The paper concludes that unilateral migration facilitation will at most induce a trickle, not a flood, of additional emigration
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6689
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  • 16
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    The Impact of Financial Literacy Training for Migrants (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (31 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: John Gibson The Impact of Financial Literacy Training for Migrants
    Abstract: Remittances are a major source of external finance for many developing countries but the cost of sending remittances remains high for many migration corridors. International efforts to lower costs by facilitating the entry of new financial products and new cost comparison information sources rely heavily on the financial literacy of migrants. This paper presents the results of a randomized experiment designed to measure the impact of providing financial literacy training to migrants. Training appears to increase financial knowledge and information seeking behavior and reduce the risk of switching to costlier remittance products. But it does not change either the frequency or level of remittances
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6073
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  • 17
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    What are we Learning from Business Training and Entrepreneurship Evaluations around the Developing World? (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (37 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David What are we Learning from Business Training and Entrepreneurship Evaluations around the Developing World?
    Abstract: Business training programs are a popular policy option to try to improve the performance of enterprises around the world. The last few years have seen rapid growth in the number of evaluations of these programs in developing countries. This paper undertakes a critical review of these studies with the goal of synthesizing the emerging lessons and understanding the limitations of the existing research and the areas in which more work is needed. It finds that there is substantial heterogeneity in the length, content, and types of firms participating in the training programs evaluated. Many evaluations suffer from low statistical power, measure impacts only within a year of training, and experience problems with survey attrition and measurement of firm profits and revenues. Over these short time horizons, there are relatively modest impacts of training on survivorship of existing firms, but stronger evidence that training programs help prospective owners launch new businesses more quickly. Most studies find that existing firm owners implement some of the practices taught in training, but the magnitudes of these improvements in practices are often relatively modest. Few studies find significant impacts on profits or sales, although a couple of the studies with more statistical power have done so. Some studies have also found benefits to microfinance organizations of offering training. To date there is little evidence to help guide policymakers as to whether any impacts found come from trained firms competing away sales from other businesses versus through productivity improvements, and little evidence to guide the development of the provision of training at market prices. The paper concludes by summarizing some directions and key questions for future studies
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6202
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  • 18
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    The Demand for, and Consequences of, Formalization among Informal Firms in Sri Lanka (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (37 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: De Mel, Suresh The Demand for, and Consequences of, Formalization among Informal Firms in Sri Lanka
    Abstract: The majority of firms in most developing countries are informal. The authors of this paper conducted a field experiment in Sri Lanka that provided incentives for informal firms to formalize. Offering only information about the registration process and reimbursement for direct registration costs had no impact on formalization. Adding payments equivalent to one-half to one month's profits for the median firm led to registration of around one-fifth of firms. A larger payment equivalent to two months' median profits induced half the firms to register. The main reasons for not formalizing when offered incentives included issues related to ownership of land and concerns about facing labor taxes in the future. The degree of bureaucracy in the registration process also seems to matter for those with the incentive to register, with response to the incentives higher in Colombo, where the registration process was easier, than in Kandy. Three follow-up surveys, at 15 to 31 months after the intervention, measure the impact of formalizing on these firms. Although mean profits increased, this appears largely due to the experiences of a few firms that grew rapidly, with most firms experiencing no increase in income as a result of formalizing. The authors also find little evidence for most of the channels through which formalization is hypothesized to benefit firms, although formalized firms do advertise more and are more likely to use receipt books. In qualitative interviews owners of formalized firms also feel their businesses have more legitimacy. Finally, formalizing is found to result in a large increase in trust in the state. Their focus is largely on the private costs and benefits of existing firms formalizing. Within their sample they cannot measure broader impacts of formalization on other firms (who may prosper from not having to compete against informal firms not paying taxes), nor impacts of easier formalization on entry of new firms. Nevertheless, our results suggest that although most informal firms do not want to formalize, given the current private costs and benefits of formalizing, policy efforts that lead to relatively modest increases in the net benefits of formalizing would induce a sizeable share of informal firms to formalize
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5991
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  • 19
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    Business Training and Female Enterprise Start-up, Growth, and Dynamics : Experimental Evidence from Sri Lanka (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (42 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: De Mel, Suresh Business Training and Female Enterprise Start-up, Growth, and Dynamics
    Abstract: The authors conduct a randomized experiment among women in urban Sri Lanka to measure the impact of the most commonly used business training course in developing countries, the Start-and-Improve Your Business program. They work with two representative groups of women: a random sample of women operating subsistence enterprises and a random sample of women who are out of the labor force but interested in starting a business. They track the impacts of two treatments - training only and training plus a cash grant - over two years with four follow-up surveys and find that the short and medium-term impacts differ. For women already in business, training alone leads to some changes in business practices but has no impact on business profits, sales or capital stock. In contrast, the combination of training and a grant leads to large and significant improvements in business profitability in the first eight months, but this impact dissipates in the second year. For women interested in starting enterprises, business training speeds up entry but leads to no increase in net business ownership by the final survey round. Both profitability and business practices of the new entrants are increased by training, suggesting training may be more effective for new owners than for existing businesses. The study also finds that the two treatments have selection effects, leading to entrants being less analytically skilled and poorer
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6145
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  • 20
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    Distortions in the International Migrant Labor Market : Evidence from Filipino Migration and Wage Responses to Destination Country Economic Shocks (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (36 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: David McKenzie Distortions in the International Migrant Labor Market
    Abstract: The authors use an original panel dataset of migrant departures from the Philippines to identify the responsiveness of migrant numbers and wages to gross domestic product shocks in destination countries. They find a large significant elasticity of migrant numbers to gross domestic product shocks at destination, but no significant wage response. This is consistent with binding minimum wages for migrant labor. This result implies that labor market imperfections that make international migration attractive also make migrant flows more sensitive to global business cycles. Difference-in-differences analysis of a minimum wage change for maids confirms that minimum wages bind and demand is price sensitive without these distortions
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6041
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  • 21
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    Soft Skills or Hard Cash? : The Impact of Training and Wage Subsidy Programs on Female Youth Employment in Jordan (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (38 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Groh, Matthew Soft Skills or Hard Cash?
    Abstract: Throughout the Middle East, unemployment rates of educated youth have been persistently high and female labor force participation, low. This paper studies the impact of a randomized experiment in Jordan designed to assist female community college graduates find employment. One randomly chosen group of graduates was given a voucher that would pay an employer a subsidy equivalent to the minimum wage for up to 6 months if they hired the graduate; a second group was invited to attend 45 hours of employability skills training designed to provide them with the soft skills employers say graduates often lack; a third group was offered both interventions; and the fourth group forms the control group. The analysis finds that the job voucher led to a 40 percentage point increase in employment in the short-run, but that most of this employment is not formal, and that the average effect is much smaller and no longer statistically significant 4 months after the voucher period has ended. The voucher does appear to have persistent impacts outside the capital, where it almost doubles the employment rate of graduates, but this appears likely to largely reflect displacement effects. Soft-skills training has no average impact on employment, although again there is a weakly significant impact outside the capital. The authors elicit the expectations of academics and development professionals to demonstrate that these findings are novel and unexpected. The results suggest that wage subsidies can help increase employment in the short term, but are not a panacea for the problems of high urban female youth unemployment
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6141
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  • 22
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    Who You Train Matters : Identifying Complementary Effects of Financial Education on Migrant Households (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (42 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Doi, Yoko Who You Train Matters?
    Abstract: There has long been a concern among policymakers that too much of remittances are consumed and too little saved, limiting the development impact of migration. Financial literacy programs have become an increasingly popular way to try and address this issue, but to date there is no evidence that they are effective in inducing savings among remittance-receiving households, nor is it clear whether such programs are best targeted at the migrant, the remittance receiver, or both. The authors conducted a randomized experiment in Indonesia which allocated migrants and their families to a control group, a migrant-only training group, a family member-only training group, and a training group in which both the migrant and a family member were trained. Three rounds of follow-up surveys are then used to measure impacts on the financial knowledge, behaviors, and remittance and savings outcomes of the remaining household. They find that training both the migrant and the family member together has large and significant impacts on knowledge, behaviors, and savings. Training the family member alone has some positive, but smaller effects, whilst training only the migrant leads to no impacts on the remaining family members. The results show that financial education can have large effects when provided at a teachable moment, but that this impact varies greatly with who receives training
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6157
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  • 23
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    Learning from the Experiments That Never Happened : Lessons from Trying to Conduct Randomized Evaluations of Matching Grant Programs in Africa (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (36 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Campos, Francisco Learning from the Experiments That Never Happened
    Abstract: Matching grants are one of the most common policy instruments used by developing country governments to try to foster technological upgrading, innovation, exports, use of business development services and other activities leading to firm growth. However, since they involve subsidizing firms, the risk is that they could crowd out private investment, subsidizing activities that firms were planning to undertake anyway, or lead to pure private gains, rather than generating the public gains that justify government intervention. As a result, rigorous evaluation of the effects of such programs is important. The authors attempted to implement randomized experiments to evaluate the impact of seven matching grant programs offered in six African countries, but in each case were unable to complete an experimental evaluation. One critique of randomized experiments is publication bias, whereby only those experiments with "interesting" results get published. The hope is to mitigate this bias by learning from the experiments that never happened. This paper describes the three main proximate reasons for lack of implementation: continued project delays, politicians not willing to allow random assignment, and low program take-up; and then delves into the underlying causes of these occurring. Political economy, overly stringent eligibility criteria that do not take account of where value-added may be highest, a lack of attention to detail in "last mile" issues, incentives facing project implementation staff, and the way impact evaluations are funded, and all help explain the failure of randomization. Lessons are drawn from these experiences for both the implementation and the possible evaluation of future projects
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6296
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  • 24
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    The Impact of Economics Blogs (2011)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (47 p)
    Edition: 2011 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David The Impact of Economics Blogs
    Abstract: There is a proliferation of economics blogs, with increasing numbers of economists attracting large numbers of readers, yet little is known about the impact of this new medium. Using a variety of experimental and non-experimental techniques, this study quantifies some of their effects. First, links from blogs cause a striking increase in the number of abstract views and downloads of economics papers. Second, blogging raises the profile of the blogger (and his or her institution) and boosts their reputation above economists with similar publication records. Finally, a blog can transform attitudes about some of the topics it covers
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5783
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  • 25
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    How Can We Learn Whether Firm Policies are Working in Africa? : Challenges (and Solutions?) for Experiments and Structural Models (2011)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (26 p)
    Edition: 2011 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David How Can We Learn Whether Firm Policies are Working in Africa?
    Abstract: Firm productivity is low in African countries, prompting governments to try a number of active policies to improve it. Yet despite the millions of dollars spent on these policies, we are far from a situation where we know whether many of them are yielding the desired payoffs. This paper establishes some basic facts about the number and heterogeneity of firms in different sub-Saharan African countries and discusses their implications for experimental and structural approaches towards trying to estimate firm policy impacts. It shows that the typical firm program such as a matching grant scheme or business training program involves only 100 to 300 firms, which are often very heterogeneous in terms of employment and sales levels. As a result, standard experimental designs will lack any power to detect reasonable sized treatment impacts, while structural models which assume common production technologies and few missing markets will be ill-suited to capture the key constraints firms face. Nevertheless, the author suggests a way forward which involves focusing on a more homogeneous sub-sample of firms and collecting a lot more data on them than is typically collected
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5632
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  • 26
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    Beyond Baseline and Follow-up : The Case for More T in Experiments (2011)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (36 p)
    Edition: 2011 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David Beyond Baseline and Follow-up
    Abstract: The vast majority of randomized experiments in economics rely on a single baseline and single follow-up survey. If multiple follow-ups are conducted, the reason is typically to examine the trajectory of impact effects, so that in effect only one follow-up round is being used to estimate each treatment effect of interest. While such a design is suitable for study of highly autocorrelated and relatively precisely measured outcomes in the health and education domains, this paper makes the case that it is unlikely to be optimal for measuring noisy and relatively less autocorrelated outcomes such as business profits, household incomes and expenditures, and episodic health outcomes. Taking multiple measurements of such outcomes at relatively short intervals allows the researcher to average out noise, increasing power. When the outcomes have low autocorrelation, it can make sense to do no baseline at all. Moreover, the author shows how for such outcomes, more power can be achieved with multiple follow-ups than allocating the same total sample size over a single follow-up and baseline. The analysis highlights the large gains in power from ANCOVA rather than difference-in-differences when autocorrelations are low and a baseline is taken. The paper discusses the issues involved in multiple measurements, and makes recommendations for the design of experiments and related non-experimental impact evaluations
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5639
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  • 27
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    Using Repeated Cross-Sections to Explore Movements into and Out of Poverty (2011)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (44 p)
    Edition: 2011 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Dang, Hai-Anh Using Repeated Cross-Sections to Explore Movements into and Out of Poverty
    Abstract: Movements in and out of poverty are of core interest to both policymakers and economists. Yet the panel data needed to analyze such movements are rare. In this paper, the authors build on the methodology used to construct poverty maps to show how repeated cross-sections of household survey data can allow inferences to be made about movements in and out of poverty. They illustrate that the method permits the estimation of bounds on mobility, and provide non-parametric and parametric approaches to obtaining these bounds. They test how well the method works on data sets for Vietnam and Indonesia where we are able to compare our method to true panel estimates. The results are sufficiently encouraging to offer the prospect of some limited, basic, insights into mobility and poverty duration in settings where historically it was judged that the data necessary for such analysis were unavailable
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5550
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  • 28
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    Eight Questions about Brain Drain (2011)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (30 p)
    Edition: 2011 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Gibson, John Eight Questions about Brain Drain
    Abstract: High-skilled emigration is an emotive issue that in popular discourse is often referred to as brain drain, conjuring images of extremely negative impacts on developing countries. Recent discussions of brain gain, diaspora effects, and other advantages of migration have been used to argue against this, but much of the discussion has been absent of evidence. This paper builds upon a new wave of empirical research to answer eight key questions underlying much of the brain drain debate: 1) What is brain drain? 2) Why should economists care about it? 3) Is brain drain increasing? 4) Is there a positive relationship between skilled and unskilled migration? 5) What makes brain drain more likely? 6) Does brain gain exist? 7) Do high-skilled workers remit, invest, and share knowledge back home? And 8) What do we know about the fiscal and production externalities of brain drain?
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5668
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  • 29
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    When is Capital Enough to get Female Enterprises Growing : Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Ghana (2011)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (61 p)
    Edition: 2011 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Fafchamps, Marcel When is Capital Enough to get Female Enterprises Growing
    Abstract: Standard models of investment predict that credit-constrained firms should grow rapidly when given additional capital, and that how this capital is provided should not affect decisions to invest in the business or consume the capital. The authors randomly gave cash and in-kind grants to male- and female-owned microenterprises in urban Ghana. Their findings cast doubt on the ability of capital alone to stimulate the growth of female microenterprises. First, while the average treatment effects of the in-kind grants are large and positive for both males and females, the gain in profits is almost zero for women with initial profits below the median, suggesting that capital alone is not enough to grow subsistence enterprises owned by women. Second, for women they strongly reject equality of the cash and in-kind grants; only in-kind grants lead to growth in business profits. The results for men also suggest a lower impact of cash, but differences between cash and in-kind grants are less robust. The difference in the effects of cash and in-kind grants is associated more with a lack of self-control than with external pressure. As a result, the manner in which funding is provided affects microenterprise growth
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5706
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  • 30
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    Accounting for Selectivity and Duration-Dependent Heterogeneity When Estimating the Impact of Emigration On Incomes and Poverty in Sending Areas (2010)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (28 p)
    Edition: 2010 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Stillman, Steven Accounting for Selectivity and Duration-Dependent Heterogeneity When Estimating the Impact of Emigration On Incomes and Poverty in Sending Areas
    Abstract: The impacts of international emigration and remittances on incomes and poverty in sending areas are increasingly studied with household survey data. But comparing households with and without emigrants is complicated by a triple-selectivity problem: first, households self-select into emigration; second, in some emigrant households everyone moves while others leave members behind; and third, some emigrants choose to return to the origin country. Allowing for duration-dependent heterogeneity introduces a fourth form of selectivity - one must now worry not just about whether households migrate, but also when they do so. This paper clearly sets out these selectivity issues and their implications for existing migration studies, and then addresses them by using survey data designed specifically to take advantage of a randomized lottery that determines which applicants to the over-subscribed Samoan Quota may immigrate to New Zealand. The analysis compares incomes and poverty rates among left behind members in households in Samoa that sent Samoan Quota emigrants with those for members of similar households that were unsuccessful in the lottery. Policy rules control who can accompany the principal migrant, providing an instrument to address the second selectivity problem, while differences among migrants in which year their ballot was selected allow for estimation of duration effects. The authors find that migration reduced poverty among former household members, but they also find suggestive evidence that this effect may be short-lived as both remittances and agricultural income are negatively related to the duration that the migrant has been abroad
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5268
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  • 31
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    The Remitting Patterns of African Migrants in the OECD (2010)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (50 p)
    Edition: 2010 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Morten, Melanie The Remitting Patterns of African Migrants in the OECD
    Abstract: Recorded remittances to Africa have grown dramatically over the past decade. Yet data limitations still mean relatively little is known about which migrants remit, how much they remit, and how their remitting behavior varies with gender, education, income levels, and duration abroad. This paper constructs the most comprehensive remittance database on immigrants in the OECD currently available, containing microdata on more than 12,000 African immigrants. Using this microdata the authors establish several basic facts about the remitting patterns of Africans, and then explore how key characteristics of policy interest relate to remittance behavior. Africans are found to remit twice as much on average as migrants from other developing countries, and those from poorer African countries are more likely to remit than those from richer African countries. Male migrants remit more than female migrants, particularly among those with a spouse remaining in the home country; more-educated migrants remit more than less educated migrants; and although the amount remitted increases with income earned, the gradient is quite flat over a large range of income. Finally, there is little evidence that the amount remitted decays with time spent abroad, with reductions in the likelihood of remitting offset by increases in the amount remitted conditional on remitting
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5260
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  • 32
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    Experimental Approaches in Migration Studies (2010)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (28 p)
    Edition: 2010 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David Experimental Approaches in Migration Studies
    Abstract: The decision of whether or not to migrate has far-reaching consequences for the lives of individuals and their families. But the very nature of this choice makes identifying the impacts of migration difficult, since it is hard to measure a credible counterfactual of what the person and their household would have been doing had migration not occurred. Migration experiments provide a clear and credible way for identifying this counterfactual, and thereby allowing causal estimation of the impacts of migration. The authors provide an overview and critical review of the three strands of this approach: policy experiments, natural experiments, and researcher-led field experiments. The purpose is to introduce readers to the need for this approach, give examples of where it has been applied in practice, and draw out lessons for future work in this area
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5395
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  • 33
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    The development impact of a best practice seasonal worker policy (2010)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (33 p)
    Edition: 2010 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David The development impact of a best practice seasonal worker policy
    Abstract: Seasonal migration programs are widely used around the world, and are increasingly seen as offering a potential “triple-win”- benefiting the migrant, sending country, and receiving country. Yet there is a dearth of rigorous evidence as to their development impact, and concerns about whether the time periods involved are too short to realize much in the way of benefits, and whether poorer, less skilled households actually get to participate in such programs. This paper studies the development impacts of a recently introduced seasonal worker program that has been deemed to be “best practice.” New Zealand's Recognized Seasonal Employer program was launched in 2007 with an explicit focus on development in the Pacific alongside the aim of benefiting employers at home. A multi-year prospective evaluation allows measurement of the impact of participation in this program on households and communities in Tonga and Vanuatu. Using a matched difference-in-differences analysis based on detailed surveys fielded before, during, and after participation, the authors find that the Recognized Seasonal Employer program has indeed had largely positive development impacts. It has increased income and consumption of households, allowed households to purchase more durable goods, increased the subjective standard of living, and had additional benefits at the community level. It also increased child schooling in Tonga. This should rank it among the most effective development policies evaluated to date. The policy was designed as a best practice example based on lessons elsewhere, and now should serve as a model for other countries to follow
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5488
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  • 34
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    Eliciting probabilistic expectations with visual aids in developing countries : how sensitive are answers to variations in elicitation design? (2010)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (35 p)
    Edition: 2010 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Delavande, Adeline Eliciting probabilistic expectations with visual aids in developing countries
    Abstract: Eliciting subjective probability distributions in developing countries is often based on visual aids such as beans to represent probabilities and intervals on a sheet of paper to represent the support. The authors conducted an experiment in India that tested the sensitivity of elicited expectations to variations in three facets of the elicitation methodology: the number of beans, the design of the support (pre-determined or self-anchored), and the ordering of questions. The results show remarkable robustness to variations in elicitation design. Nevertheless, the added precision offered by using more beans and a larger number of intervals with a predetermined support improves accuracy
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5458
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  • 35
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    Enterprise Recovery Following Natural Disasters (2010)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (44 p)
    Edition: 2010 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Woodruff, Christopher Enterprise Recovery Following Natural Disasters
    Abstract: Using data from surveys of enterprises in Sri Lanka after the December 2004 tsunami, the authors undertake the first microeconomic study of the recovery of the private firms in a developing country following a major natural disaster. Disaster recovery in low-income countries is characterized by the prevalence of relief aid rather than of insurance payments; the data show this distinction has important consequences. The data indicate that aid provided directly to households correlates reasonably well with reported losses of household assets, but is uncorrelated with reported losses of business assets. Business recovery is found to be slower than commonly assumed, with disaster-affected enterprises lagging behind unaffected comparable firms more than three years after the disaster. Using data from random cash grants provided by the project, the paper shows that direct aid is more important in the recovery of enterprises operating in the retail sector than for those operating in the manufacturing and service sectors
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5269
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    The Economic Consequences of "Brain Drain" of the Best and Brightest : Microeconomic Evidence From Five Countries (2010)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (48 p)
    Edition: 2010 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David The Economic Consequences of "Brain Drain" of the Best and Brightest
    Abstract: Brain drain has long been a common concern for migrant-sending countries, particularly for small countries where high-skilled emigration rates are highest. However, while economic theory suggests a number of possible benefits, in addition to costs, from skilled emigration, the evidence base on many of these is very limited. Moreover, the lessons from case studies of benefits to China and India from skilled emigration may not be relevant to much smaller countries. This paper presents the results of innovative surveys which tracked academic high-achievers from five countries to wherever they moved in the world in order to directly measure at the micro level the channels through which high-skilled emigration affects the sending country. The results show that there are very high levels of emigration and of return migration among the very highly skilled; the income gains to the best and brightest from migrating are very large, and an order of magnitude or more greater than any other effect; there are large benefits from migration in terms of postgraduate education; most high-skilled migrants from poorer countries send remittances; but that involvement in trade and foreign direct investment is a rare occurrence. There is considerable knowledge flow from both current and return migrants about job and study opportunities abroad, but little net knowledge sharing from current migrants to home country governments or businesses. Finally, the fiscal costs vary considerably across countries, and depend on the extent to which governments rely on progressive income taxation
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5394
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    Remittances and the Brain Drain Revisited : the Microdata Show That More Educated Migrants Remit More (2009)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (37 p)
    Edition: 2009 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Bollard, Albert Remittances and the Brain Drain Revisited
    Abstract: Two of the most salient trends surrounding the issue of migration and development over the past two decades are the large rise in remittances, and an increased flow of skilled migration. However, recent literature based on cross-country regressions has claimed that more educated migrants remit less, leading to concerns that further increases in skilled migration will hamper remittance growth. This paper revisits the relationship between education and remitting behavior using microdata from surveys of immigrants in 11 major destination countries. The data show a mixed pattern between education and the likelihood of remitting, and a strong positive relationship between education and the amount remitted conditional on remitting. Combining these intensive and extensive margins gives an overall positive effect of education on the amount remitted. The microdata then allow investigation as to why the more educated remit more. The analysis finds that the higher income earned by migrants, rather than characteristics of their family situations, explains much of the higher remittances
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5113
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  • 38
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    Impact Assessments in Finance and Private Sector Development : What Have We Learned and What Should We Learn? (2009)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (31 p)
    Edition: 2009 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David Impact Assessments in Finance and Private Sector Development
    Abstract: Until recently rigorous impact evaluations have been rare in the area of finance and private sector development. One reason for this is the perception that many policies and projects in this area lend themselves less to formal evaluations. However, a vanguard of new impact evaluations on areas as diverse as fostering microenterprise growth, microfinance, rainfall insurance, and regulatory reform demonstrates that in many circumstances serious evaluation is possible. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize and distil the policy and implementation lessons emerging from these studies, use them to demonstrate the feasibility of impact evaluations in a broader array of topics, and thereby help prompt new impact evaluations for projects going forward
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-4944
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  • 39
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    The Impacts of International Migration On Remaining Household Members : Omnibus Results From A Migration Lottery Program (2009)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (46 p)
    Edition: 2009 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Gibson, John The Impacts of International Migration On Remaining Household Members
    Abstract: The impacts of international migration on development in the sending countries, and especially the effects on remaining household members, are increasingly studied. However, comparisons of households in developing countries with and without migrants are complicated by a double-selectivity problem: households self-select into migration, and among households involved in migration, some send a subset of members with the rest remaining while other households migrate en masse. The authors address these selectivity issues using the randomization provided by an immigration ballot under the Pacific Access Category of New Zealand’s immigration policy. They survey applicants to the 2002-05 ballots in Tonga and compare outcomes for the remaining household members of emigrants with those for members of similar households that were unsuccessful in the ballots. The immigration laws determine which household members can accompany the principal migrant, providing an instrument to address the second selectivity issue. Using this natural experiment, the authors examine the myriad impacts that migration has on remaining household members, focussing on labor supply, income, durable assets, financial service usage, diet, and physical and mental health. The analysis uses multiple hypothesis testing procedures to examine which impacts are robust. The findings indicate that the overall impact on households left behind is largely negative. The findings also reveal evidence that both sources of selectivity matter, leading studies that fail to adequately address them to misrepresent the impact of migration
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-4956
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    The Microeconomic Determinants of Emigration and Return Migration of the Best and Brightest : Evidence From the Pacific (2009)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (53 p)
    Edition: 2009 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Gibson, John The Microeconomic Determinants of Emigration and Return Migration of the Best and Brightest
    Abstract: A unique survey which tracks worldwide the best and brightest academic performers from three Pacific countries is used to assess the extent of emigration and return migration among the very highly skilled, and to analyze, at the microeconomic level, the determinants of these migration choices. Although the estimates indicate that the income gains from migration are very large, not everyone migrates and many return. Within this group of highly skilled individuals, the emigration decision is found to be most strongly associated with preference variables such as risk aversion, patience, and choice of subjects in secondary school, and not strongly linked to either liquidity constraints or the gain in income to be had from migrating. Likewise, the decision to return is strongly linked to family and lifestyle reasons, rather than to the income opportunities in different countries. Overall the data show a relatively limited role for income maximization in distinguishing migration propensities among the very highly skilled, and point to the need to pay more attention to other components of the utility maximization decision
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-4965
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  • 41
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    Who Are The Microenterprise Owners? : Evidence From Sri Lanka On Tokman V. De Soto (2008)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (35 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: de Mel, Suresh Who Are The Microenterprise Owners?
    Keywords: Education ; Employment ; Employment generation ; Entry costs ; Informal sector ; Labor Markets ; Labor force ; Labor organization ; Microfinance ; Productive employment ; Self employed ; Social Protections and Labor ; Tertiary Education ; Work & Working Conditions ; Worker ; Workers ; Education ; Employment ; Employment generation ; Entry costs ; Informal sector ; Labor Markets ; Labor force ; Labor organization ; Microfinance ; Productive employment ; Self employed ; Social Protections and Labor ; Tertiary Education ; Work & Working Conditions ; Worker ; Workers ; Education ; Employment ; Employment generation ; Entry costs ; Informal sector ; Labor Markets ; Labor force ; Labor organization ; Microfinance ; Productive employment ; Self employed ; Social Protections and Labor ; Tertiary Education ; Work & Working Conditions ; Worker ; Workers
    Abstract: Is the vast army of the self-employed in low income countries a source of employment generation? This paper uses data from surveys in Sri Lanka to compare the characteristics of own account workers (non-employers) with wage workers and with owners of larger firms. The authors use a rich set of measures of background, ability, and attitudes, including lottery experiments measuring risk attitudes. Consistent with the International Labor Organization's views of the self employed (represented by Tokman), the analysis finds that two-thirds to three-quarters of the own account workers have characteristics which are more like wage workers than larger firm owners. This suggests the majority of the own account workers are unlikely to become employers. Using a two and a half year panel of enterprises, the authors show that the minority of own account workers who are more like larger firm owners are more likely to expand by adding paid employees. The results suggest that finance is not the sole constraint to growth of microenterprises, and provides an explanation for the low rates of growth of enterprises supported by microlending
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  • 42
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    Does It Pay Firms To Register For Taxes ? : The Impact of Formality On Firm Profitability (2008)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (31 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David Does It Pay Firms To Register For Taxes ?
    Keywords: Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Employment ; Entrepreneurs ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Firm Size ; Firms ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Medium Enterprises ; Microenterprises ; Microfinance ; Private Sector Development ; Small Enterprises ; Small Firms ; Stores ; Supplier ; Taxation and Subsidies ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Employment ; Entrepreneurs ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Firm Size ; Firms ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Medium Enterprises ; Microenterprises ; Microfinance ; Private Sector Development ; Small Enterprises ; Small Firms ; Stores ; Supplier ; Taxation and Subsidies ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Employment ; Entrepreneurs ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Firm Size ; Firms ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Medium Enterprises ; Microenterprises ; Microfinance ; Private Sector Development ; Small Enterprises ; Small Firms ; Stores ; Supplier ; Taxation and Subsidies ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning
    Abstract: This paper estimates the impact of registering for taxes on firm profits in Bolivia, the country with the highest levels of informality in Latin America. A new survey of micro and small firms enables the authors to control for a rich set of measures of owner ability and business motivations that can affect both profits and the decision to formalize. The paper identifies the impact of tax registration on business profitability using the distance of a firm from the tax office where registration occurs, conditional on the distance to the city center, as an instrument for registration. Proximity to the tax office provides firms with more information about registration, but is argued to not directly affect profits. The findings show that tax registration leads to significantly higher profits for the firms that the instrument affects. However, there is also evidence of heterogeneous effects of tax formality on profits. Tax registration is found to increase profits for the mid-size firms in the sample, but to lower profits for both the smaller and larger firms, in contrast to the standard view that formality increases profits. The analysis shows that owners of large firms who have managed to stay informal have higher entrepreneurial ability than formal firm owners, in contrast to the standard view (correct among smaller firms) that informal firm owners have low ability
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  • 43
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    Using The Global Positioning System In Household Surveys For Better Economics And Better Policy (2007)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (29 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David Using The Global Positioning System In Household Surveys For Better Economics And Better Policy
    Keywords: Accessibility ; Air ; Aircraft ; Costs ; E-Business ; Externalities ; Health Monitoring and Evaluation ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Infrastructure ; Policies ; Private Sector Development ; Railway ; Railway Lines ; Road ; Road Network ; Roads ; Roads and Highways ; Signals ; Training ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Accessibility ; Air ; Aircraft ; Costs ; E-Business ; Externalities ; Health Monitoring and Evaluation ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Infrastructure ; Policies ; Private Sector Development ; Railway ; Railway Lines ; Road ; Road Network ; Roads ; Roads and Highways ; Signals ; Training ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Accessibility ; Air ; Aircraft ; Costs ; E-Business ; Externalities ; Health Monitoring and Evaluation ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Infrastructure ; Policies ; Private Sector Development ; Railway ; Railway Lines ; Road ; Road Network ; Roads ; Roads and Highways ; Signals ; Training ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning
    Abstract: Distance and location are important determinants of many choices that economists study. While these variables can sometimes be obtained from secondary data, economists often rely on information that is self-reported by respondents in surveys. These self-reports are used especially for the distance from households or community centers to various features such as roads, markets, schools, clinics, and other public services. There is growing evidence that self-reported distance is measured with error and that these errors are correlated with outcomes of interest. In contrast to self-reports, the Global Positioning System (GPS) can determine almost exact location (typically within 15 meters). The falling cost of GPS receivers (typically below US
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  • 44
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    Measuring Microenterprise Profits : Don't Ask How The Sausage Is Made (2007)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (29 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Woodruff, Christopher Measuring Microenterprise Profits
    Keywords: Bank Policy ; Business Environment ; Business in Development ; Competitiveness and Competition Policy ; Debt Markets ; Developing countries ; Economic Theory and Research ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Financial support ; Fungible ; Living Standards ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Microenterprises ; Microfinance ; Private Sector Development ; Public Sector Development ; Returns ; Tax ; Trust Fund ; Bank Policy ; Business Environment ; Business in Development ; Competitiveness and Competition Policy ; Debt Markets ; Developing countries ; Economic Theory and Research ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Financial support ; Fungible ; Living Standards ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Microenterprises ; Microfinance ; Private Sector Development ; Public Sector Development ; Returns ; Tax ; Trust Fund ; Bank Policy ; Business Environment ; Business in Development ; Competitiveness and Competition Policy ; Debt Markets ; Developing countries ; Economic Theory and Research ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Financial support ; Fungible ; Living Standards ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Microenterprises ; Microfinance ; Private Sector Development ; Public Sector Development ; Returns ; Tax ; Trust Fund
    Abstract: A large share of the world's poor is self-employed. Accurate measurement of profits from microenterprises is therefore critical for studying poverty and inequality, measuring the returns to education, and evaluating the success of microfinance programs. But a myriad of problems plague the measurement of profits. The authors report on a variety of different experiments conducted to better understand the importance of some of these problems and to draw recommendations for collecting profit data. In particular, they (1) examine how far we can reconcile self-reported profits and reports of revenue minus expenses through more detailed questions; (2) examine recall errors in sales and report on the results of experiments which randomly allocated account books to firms; and (3) ask firms how much firms like theirs underreport sales in surveys like this, and have research assistants observe the firms at random times 15-16 times during a month to provide measures for comparison. The authors conclude that firms underreport revenues by about 30 percent, that account diaries have significant effects on both revenues and expenses but not on profits, and that simply asking profits provides a more accurate measure of firm profits than detailed questions on revenues and expenses
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  • 45
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    Migration And Mental Health : Evidence From A Natural Experiment (2007)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (31 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Stillman, Steven Migration And Mental Health
    Keywords: Anxiety ; Children ; Depression ; Families ; Health Effects ; Health, Monitoring and Evaluation ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Hospital Admission ; Insomnia ; Mental ; Mental Health ; Migrants ; Migration ; People ; Refugees ; Anxiety ; Children ; Depression ; Families ; Health Effects ; Health, Monitoring and Evaluation ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Hospital Admission ; Insomnia ; Mental ; Mental Health ; Migrants ; Migration ; People ; Refugees ; Anxiety ; Children ; Depression ; Families ; Health Effects ; Health, Monitoring and Evaluation ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Hospital Admission ; Insomnia ; Mental ; Mental Health ; Migrants ; Migration ; People ; Refugees
    Abstract: People migrate to improve their well-being, whether through an expansion of economic and social opportunities or a reduction in persecution. Yet a large literature suggests that migration can be a stressful process, with potentially negative impacts on mental health, reducing the net benefits of migration. However, to truly understand the effect of migration on mental health one must compare the mental health of migrants to what their mental health would have been had they stayed in their home country. The existing literature is not able to do this and typically settles for comparing the mental health of migrants to that of natives in the destination country, which takes no account of any pre-existing differences between these groups. This paper overcomes the selection problems affecting previous studies of the effect of migration on mental health by examining a migrant lottery program. New Zealand allows a quota of Tongans to immigrate each year with a lottery used to choose among the excess number of applicants. A unique survey conducted by the authors in these two countries allows experimental estimates of the mental health effects of migration to be obtained by comparing the mental health of migrants who were successful applicants in the lottery to the mental health of those who applied to migrate under the quota, but whose names were not drawn in the lottery. Migration is found to lead to improvements in mental health, particularly for women and those with poor mental health in their home country
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  • 46
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    A Land of Milk And Honey With Streets Paved With Gold : Do Emigrants Have Over-Optimistic Expectations About Incomes Abroad ? (2007)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (34 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David A Land of Milk And Honey With Streets Paved With Gold
    Keywords: Accurate Information ; Annual Income ; Bank ; Consumer ; Consumer Goods ; Demands ; Earnings ; Economic Theory and Research ; Education ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Financial Literacy ; Fiscal and Monetary Policy ; Health Systems Development and Reform ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Household Income ; Income ; Income ; Incomes ; Information ; Labor Markets ; Labor Policies ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Money ; Population Policies ; Public Sector Development ; Remittances ; Social Protections and Labor ; Accurate Information ; Annual Income ; Bank ; Consumer ; Consumer Goods ; Demands ; Earnings ; Economic Theory and Research ; Education ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Financial Literacy ; Fiscal and Monetary Policy ; Health Systems Development and Reform ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Household Income ; Income ; Income ; Incomes ; Information ; Labor Markets ; Labor Policies ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Money ; Population Policies ; Public Sector Development ; Remittances ; Social Protections and Labor ; Accurate Information ; Annual Income ; Bank ; Consumer ; Consumer Goods ; Demands ; Earnings ; Economic Theory and Research ; Education ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Financial Literacy ; Fiscal and Monetary Policy ; Health Systems Development and Reform ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Household Income ; Income ; Income ; Incomes ; Information ; Labor Markets ; Labor Policies ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Money ; Population Policies ; Public Sector Development ; Remittances ; Social Protections and Labor
    Abstract: Millions of people emigrate every year in search of better economic and social opportunities. Anecdotal evidence suggests that emigrants may have over-optimistic expectations about the incomes they can earn abroad, resulting in excessive migration pressure, and in disappointment among those who do migrate. Yet there is almost no statistical evidence on how accurately these emigrants predict the incomes that they will earn working abroad. In this paper the authors combine a natural emigration experiment with unique survey data on would-be emigrants' probabilistic expectations about employment and incomes in the migration destination. Their procedure enables them to obtain moments and quantiles of the subjective distribution of expected earnings in the destination country. The authors find a significant underestimation of both unconditional and conditional labor earnings at all points in the distribution. This underestimation appears driven in part by potential migrants placing too much weight on the negative employment experiences of some migrants, and by inaccurate information flows from extended family, who may be trying to moderate remittance demands by understating incomes
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  • 47
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    Returns To Capital In Microenterprises : Evidence From A Field Experiment (2007)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (37 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Woodruff, Christopher Returns To Capital In Microenterprises
    Keywords: Access to Finance ; Capital stock ; Debt Markets ; Developing countries ; Economic Theory and Research ; Equipment ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Investment opportunities ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Market Interest Rate ; Micorenterprises ; Microfinance ; Microfinance ; Productive Investment ; Return ; Returns ; Access to Finance ; Capital stock ; Debt Markets ; Developing countries ; Economic Theory and Research ; Equipment ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Investment opportunities ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Market Interest Rate ; Micorenterprises ; Microfinance ; Microfinance ; Productive Investment ; Return ; Returns ; Access to Finance ; Capital stock ; Debt Markets ; Developing countries ; Economic Theory and Research ; Equipment ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Investment opportunities ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Market Interest Rate ; Micorenterprises ; Microfinance ; Microfinance ; Productive Investment ; Return ; Returns
    Abstract: Small and informal firms account for a large share of employment in developing countries. The rapid expansion of microfinance services is based on the belief that these firms have productive investment opportunities and can enjoy high returns to capital if given the opportunity. However, measuring the return to capital is complicated by unobserved factors such as entrepreneurial ability and demand shocks, which are likely to be correlated with capital stock. The authors use a randomized experiment to overcome this problem and to measure the return to capital for the average microenterprise in their sample, regardless of whether they apply for credit. They accomplish this by providing cash and equipment grants to small firms in Sri Lanka, and measuring the increase in profits arising from this exogenous (positive) shock to capital stock. After controlling for possible spillover effects, the authors find the average real return to capital to be 5.7 percent a month, substantially higher than the market interest rate. They then examine the heterogeneity of treatment effects to explore whether missing credit markets or missing insurance markets are the most likely cause of the high returns. Returns are found to vary with entrepreneurial ability and with measures of other sources of cash within the household, but not to vary with risk aversion or uncertainty
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  • 48
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    Migration, remittances, poverty, and human capital : conceptual and empirical challenges (2007)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (16 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Sasin, Marcin J Migration, remittances, poverty, and human capital
    Keywords: Government policies ; Health Monitoring and Evaluation ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Human Capital ; Impact of migration ; International migration ; Migration ; Migration data ; Policy Research ; Policy Research Working Paper ; Population Policies ; Practitioners ; Remittances ; Government policies ; Health Monitoring and Evaluation ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Human Capital ; Impact of migration ; International migration ; Migration ; Migration data ; Policy Research ; Policy Research Working Paper ; Population Policies ; Practitioners ; Remittances ; Government policies ; Health Monitoring and Evaluation ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Human Capital ; Impact of migration ; International migration ; Migration ; Migration data ; Policy Research ; Policy Research Working Paper ; Population Policies ; Practitioners ; Remittances
    Abstract: This paper reviews common challenges faced by researchers interested in measuring the impact of migration and remittances on income, poverty, inequality, and human capital (or, in general, "welfare") as well as difficulties confronting development practitioners in converting this research into policy advice. On the analytical side, the paper discusses the proper formulation of a research question, the choice of the analytical tools, as well as the interpretation of the results in the presence of pervasive endogeneity in all decisions surrounding migration. Particular attention is given to the use of instrumental variables in migration research. On the policy side, the paper argues that the private nature of migration and remittances implies a need to carefully spell out the rationale for interventions. It also notices the lack of good migration data and proper evaluations of migration-related government policies. The paper focuses mainly on microeconomic evidence about international migration, but much of the discussion extends to other settings as well
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  • 49
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    Self-Selection Patterns In Mexico-U.S. Migration : The Role of Migration Networks (2007)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (28 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: McKenzie, David Self-Selection Patterns In Mexico-U.S. Migration
    Keywords: Anthropology ; Communities & Human Settlements ; Culture & Development ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Financial Literacy ; Gender ; Gender and Social Development ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Human Migrations and Resettlements ; Immigrants ; Immigration ; Important Policy ; Income Inequality ; Industry ; International Migration ; Job Opportunities ; Labor Market ; Language Proficiency ; Migrant ; Migrants ; Migration ; Population Policies ; Social Development ; Technology Industry ; Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement ; Anthropology ; Communities & Human Settlements ; Culture & Development ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Financial Literacy ; Gender ; Gender and Social Development ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Human Migrations and Resettlements ; Immigrants ; Immigration ; Important Policy ; Income Inequality ; Industry ; International Migration ; Job Opportunities ; Labor Market ; Language Proficiency ; Migrant ; Migrants ; Migration ; Population Policies ; Social Development ; Technology Industry ; Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement ; Anthropology ; Communities & Human Settlements ; Culture & Development ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Financial Literacy ; Gender ; Gender and Social Development ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Human Migrations and Resettlements ; Immigrants ; Immigration ; Important Policy ; Income Inequality ; Industry ; International Migration ; Job Opportunities ; Labor Market ; Language Proficiency ; Migrant ; Migrants ; Migration ; Population Policies ; Social Development ; Technology Industry ; Voluntary and Involuntary Resettlement
    Abstract: The authors examine the role of migration networks in determining self-selection patterns of Mexico-U.S. migration. They first present a simple theoretical framework showing how such networks impact on migration incentives at different education levels and, consequently, how they are likely to affect the expected skill composition of migration. Using survey data from Mexico, the authors then show that the probability of migration is increasing with education in communities with low migrant networks, but decreasing with education in communities with high migrant networks. This is consistent with positive self-selection of migrants being driven by high migration costs, and with negative self-selection of migrants being driven by lower returns to education in the U.S. than in Mexico
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