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  • McKenzie, David  (72)
  • Iimi, Atsushi
  • Washington, D.C : The World Bank  (107)
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  • 1
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Bayesian Impact Evaluation with Informative Priors : An Application to a Colombian Management and Export Improvement Program (2023)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (68 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iacovone, Leonardo Bayesian Impact Evaluation with Informative Priors: An Application to a Colombian Management and Export Improvement Program
    Keywords: Bayesian Impact Evaluation ; Competition Policy ; Competitiveness and Competition Policy ; Economic Theory and Research ; Export Competitiveness ; International Economics and Trade ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Management ; Prior Elicitation ; Private Sector Development ; Randomized Experiment ; Social Policy Evaluation Method
    Abstract: Policymakers often test expensive new programs on relatively small samples. Formally incorporating informative Bayesian priors into impact evaluation offers the promise to learn more from these experiments. A Colombian government program which aimed to increase exporting was trialed experimentally on 200 firms with this goal in mind. Priors were elicited from academics, policymakers, and firms. Contrary to these priors, frequentist estimation can not reject 0 effects in 2019, and finds some negative impacts in 2020. For binary outcomes like whether firms export, frequentist estimates are relatively precise, and Bayesian credible posterior intervals update to overlap almost completely with standard confidence intervals. For outcomes like increasing export variety, where the priors align with the data, the value of these priors is seen in posterior intervals that are considerably narrower than frequentist confidence intervals. Finally, for noisy outcomes like export value, posterior intervals show almost no updating from the priors, highlighting how uninformative the data are about such outcomes
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-10274
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  • 2
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Agglomeration Economies and Transport Connectivity Revisited : A Regional Perspective based on Evidence from the Caucasus and Central Asian Countries (2023)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (31 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Agglomeration Economies and Transport Connectivity Revisited: A Regional Perspective based on Evidence from the Caucasus and Central Asian Countries
    Keywords: Dynamic Panel Data Regression ; Firm Agglomeration ; International Economics and Trade ; Local Market Accessibility ; Regional Connectivity ; Rural Development ; Rural Roads and Transport ; Trade and Regional Integration ; Trade and Transport ; Transport Connectivity ; Urban Development
    Abstract: Transport connectivity is an important determinant of agglomeration economies and urbanization. However, measuring its impacts is a complex task when causality is considered. An important empirical challenge comes from potential endogeneity of infrastructure placement. To deal with the endogeneity problem, first, the paper constructs detailed georeferenced connectivity measurements based on micro shipping data collected over 10 years. Then, the system generalized method of moments regression is applied. Using unique data from the Caucasus and Central Asian countries, the paper estimates the impact of transport connectivity on agglomeration economies. It finds that agglomeration economies are significant and persistent in the region. Thus, the existing firm clusters are likely to continue growing. However, a constraint is also found. Large cities exhibit congestion diseconomies. Finally, the paper shows that the improvement of transport connectivity, especially local market accessibility, has a significant effect on agglomeration. By contrast, no clear evidence to support the impact of improved regional connectivity on agglomeration is observed yet. To take full advantage of agglomeration economies at the regional level, further efforts may be needed, for instance, toward increasing efficiency in transportation and logistics, improving the freight load, and/or reducing the time and costs of border crossing, which add to overall transport costs and times
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-10534
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  • 3
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Migration, Families, and Counterfactual Families (2023)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (53 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Bertoli, Simone Migration, Families, and Counterfactual Families
    Keywords: Counterfactual Reasoning ; Family Formation ; Human Rights ; International Economics and Trade ; International Migration ; Law and Development ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Migrant Policy ; Migrants Families ; Migration ; Remittances ; Status Quo Bias
    Abstract: Migration changes how families form and dissolve, and how one should conceptualize the family. This has implications for thinking about how the migration decision is modelled when individuals are unable to picture the counterfactual families they may have. Differences in marital status can induce two otherwise identical individuals to make different migration decisions. It also has implications for attempts to causally estimate impacts of migration, when the family composition changes with the migration decision itself. This paper shows empirically that changing marital status after migration is widespread, and that the traditional model of a fixed family sending off a migrant who remains part of that same family only describes a minority of migrants moving from developing countries to the U.S. The authors draw out lessons from thinking about counterfactual families for empirical research and for migration policy
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-10626
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  • 4
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    Estimating Road Freight Transport Costs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia using Large Shipping Data (2023)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (28 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Estimating Road Freight Transport Costs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia using Large Shipping Data
    Keywords: International Economics and Trade ; Regional Integration ; Road Freight Rates ; Rural Development ; Rural Roads and Transport ; Shipping Charge Elasticity ; Shipping Cost Increase ; Supply Chain ; Trade and Transport
    Abstract: The recent global crises, such as the COVID-19 crisis, remind us of the importance of efficient transportation and logistics. Notably, however, even before the crises, some regions were already experiencing a gradual increase in freight costs, with more and more empty trucks observed. The paper recasts light on the question of how road freight costs are determined using large, unique shipping data from Eastern European and Central Asian countries. It finds that economies of scale are significant in both freight weight or load factor and distance. The elasticity with respect to freight weight is particularly high at about 0.3 to 1.0 in absolute terms. Thus, to contain trucking costs, it is important to maximize the load factor through freight consolidation at origins and destinations. The elasticity with respect to distance is relatively modest at 0.04 to 0.16 in absolute terms but still statistically significant, indicating that distance may not necessarily be a constraint on trade and regional integration. Trucking costs also decrease with driving speed, a proxy for efficiency of movements or road conditions. The elasticity is significant for food products (-0.03) and other consumer goods (-0.11). Finally, the paper finds that border crossing adds 3-4 percent to freight costs
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-10533
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  • 5
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    Is there Still a Role for Direct Government Support to Firms in Developing Countries? (2023)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (12 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David Is there Still a Role for Direct Government Support to Firms in Developing Countries?
    Keywords: Development Economics and Aid Effectiveness ; Firm Support ; Green Growth Agenda ; Impact Evaluation ; Industrial Economics ; Industrial Policy ; Industry ; Macroeconomic Policy ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Subsidized Loans
    Abstract: Should governments in developing countries directly support firms with policies such as grants, subsidized loans, and training and consulting programs, or should they instead just aim to enact sensible regulatory and macroeconomic policies and not attempt to engage in industrial policy While industrial policy has gained renewed attention in developed economies, it faces considerable skepticism in developing countries scarred by previous experiences and facing limited fiscal space. This paper discusses the rationale for government involvement, and then lessons from a recent research agenda in development economics on how to target these programs, on whether they induce firms to undertake additional activities, on avoiding political capture, and on how these interact with competition. This work shows that these policies can deliver some of their promised benefits, but that there is still much to learn and the need for systematic and serious attempts at prospective impact evaluation as new policies are launched
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-10628
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  • 6
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    Estimating the Demand for Informal Public Transport : Evidence from Antananarivo, Madagascar (2022)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (42 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Estimating the Demand for Informal Public Transport: Evidence from Antananarivo, Madagascar
    Keywords: Demand Analysis ; Energy ; Energy Production and Transportation ; Environment ; Informal Public Transport ; Informal Transportation ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Pollution Management and Control ; Population Growth ; Private Participation in Infrastructure ; Traffic Congestion ; Transport Globl Knowledge and Expertise ; Urban Environment ; Urban Infrastructure ; Urban Mobility ; Urban Transport ; Urban Transportation
    Abstract: Informal public transport has been growing rapidly in many developing countries. Because urban infrastructure development tends to lag rapid population growth, informal public transport often meets the growing gap between demand and supply in urban mobility. Despite the rich literature primarily focused on formal transport modes, the informal transport sector is relatively unknown. This paper analyzes the demand behavior in the "informal" minibus sector in Antananarivo, Madagascar, taking advantage of a recent user survey of thousands of people. It finds that the demand for informal public transport is generally inelastic. Essentially, people have no other choice. While the time elasticity is estimated at -0.02 to -0.05, the price elasticity is -0.05 to -0.06 for short-distance travelers, who may have alternative choices, such as motorcycle taxi or walking. Unlike formal public transportation, the demand also increases with income. Regardless of income level, everyone uses minibuses. The estimated demand functions indicate that people prefer safety and more flexibility in transit. The paper shows that combining these improvements and fare adjustments, the informal transport sector can contribute to increasing people's mobility and reducing traffic congestion in the city
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-10006
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  • 7
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    Field and Natural Experiments in Migration (2022)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (42 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David Field and Natural Experiments in Migration
    Keywords: Difference-In-Differences ; Economic Growth ; Experimental Methods ; Instrumental Variables ; Migration Experiments ; Natural Experiment ; Regression Discontinuity ; Social Protection and Labor
    Abstract: Many research and policy questions surrounding migration are causal questions. What causes people to migrate? What are the consequences of migration for the migrants, their families, and their communities? Answering these questions requires dealing with the self-selection inherent in migration choices. Field and natural experiments offer methodological approaches that enable answering these causal questions. This paper discusses the key conceptual and logistical issues that face applied researchers when applying these methods to the study of migration, as well as providing guidance for practitioners and policymakers in assessing the credibility of causal claims. For randomized experiments, this includes providing a framework for thinking through what can be randomized; discussing key measurement and design issues that arise from issues such as migration being a rare event, and in measuring welfare changes when people change locations; as well as discussing ethical issues that can arise. The paper then outlines what makes for a good natural experiment in the context of migration, and discusses the implications of recent econometric work for the use of difference-indifferences, instrumental variables (and especially shift-share instruments), and regression discontinuity methods in migration research. A key lesson from this recent work is that it is not meaningful to talk about ?the? impact of migration, but rather impacts are likely to be heterogeneous, affecting both the validity and interpretation of causal estimates
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-10250
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  • 8
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    Fears and Tears : Should More People be Moving within and from Developing Countries, and what Stops this Movement? (2022)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (28 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David Fears and Tears: Should More People be Moving within and from Developing Countries, and what Stops this Movement?
    Keywords: Attachment To Home ; Benefits of Urbanization ; Communities and Human Settlements ; Constraints That Limit Movement ; Economics of Migration ; Health, Nutrition and Population ; Human Migrations and Resettlements ; Internal Relocation ; International Economics and Trade ; International Migration ; Mental Health ; Migration Policy ; Psychological Uncertainty of Relocation ; Wealth and Wellbeing
    Abstract: Only one in seven of the world's population has ever migrated, despite the enormous gains in income possible through international and internal movement. This paper examines the evidence for different explanations given in the economics literature for this lack of movement and their implications for policy. Incorrect information about the gains to migrating, liquidity constraints that prevent poor people paying the costs of moving, and high costs of movement arising from both physical transportation costs and policy barriers all inhibit movement and offer scope for policy efforts to inform, provide credit, and lower moving costs. However, the economics literature has paid less attention to the fears people have when faced with the uncertainty of moving to a new place, and to the reasons behind the tears they shed when moving. While these tears reveal the attachment people have to particular places, this attachment is not fixed, but itself changes with migration experiences. Psychological factors such as a bias toward the status quo and the inability to picture what one is giving up by not migrating can result in people not moving, even when they would benefit from movement and are not constrained by finances or policy barriers from doing so. This suggests new avenues for policy interventions that can help individuals better visualize the opportunity costs of not moving, alleviate their uncertainties, and help shift their default behavior from not migrating
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-10128
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  • 9
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    Capacity Building as a Route to Export Market Expansion : A Six-Country Experiment in the Western Balkans (2022)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (33 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Ana P., Cusolito Capacity Building as a Route to Export Market Expansion: A Six-Country Experiment in the Western Balkans
    Keywords: Broadcast and Media ; Consulting ; Customer Acquisition ; Digital Presence ; Export Competitiveness ; Export Market Expansion ; Information and Communication Technologies ; International Economics and Trade ; Marketing Training ; Private Sector Development ; Skills Development and Labor Force Training ; Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) ; Small and Medium Size Enterprises ; Training
    Abstract: The limited market size of many small emerging economies is a key constraint to the growth of innovative small and medium enterprises. Exporting offers a potential solution, but firms may struggle to locate and appeal to foreign buyers. A six-country randomized experiment was conducted with 225 firms in the Western Balkans to test the effectiveness of 30 hours of live group-based training and 5 hours of one-on-one remote consulting in overcoming these constraints. Treated firms used techniques such as search engine optimization and improved Facebook content to increase their digital presence and better reach foreign customers. A year later, positive and significant impacts are found on the number of customers, and a significant intensive margin increase in export sales. Qualitative interviews suggest this improvement came from a combination of sector-specific advice on market expansion, and through an encouragement effect which gave entrepreneurs the confidence to try new sales strategies
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-10256
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  • 10
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    Testing Classic Theories of Migration in the Lab (2021)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (49 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Print Version: Batista, Catia Testing Classic Theories of Migration in the Lab
    Keywords: Destination Choice ; Employment and Unemployment ; International Economics and Trade ; International Migration ; Lab Experiment ; Migrant Selection ; Poverty Reduction ; Social Protections and Labor ; Wages, Compensation and Benefits
    Abstract: The predictions of different classic migration theories are tested by using incentivized laboratory experiments to investigate how potential migrants decide between working in different destinations. First, the authors test theories of income maximization, migrant skill-selection, and multi-destination choice as they vary migration costs, liquidity constraints, risk, social benefits, and incomplete information. The standard income maximization model of migration with selection on observed and unobserved skills leads to a much higher migration rate and more negative skill-selection than is obtained when migration decisions take place under more realistic assumptions. Second, these lab experiments are used to investigate whether the independence of irrelevant alternatives assumption holds. The results show that it holds for most people when decisions just involve wages, costs, and liquidity constraints. However, once the risk of unemployment and incomplete information is added, independence of irrelevant alternatives no longer holds for about 20 percent of the sample
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-9751
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  • 11
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    How has COVID-19 Affected the Intention to Migrate via the Backway to Europe and to a Neighboring African Country? : Survey Evidence and a Salience Experiment in the Gambia (2021)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (34 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Print Version: Bah, Tijan L How has COVID-19 Affected the Intention to Migrate via the Backway to Europe and to a Neighboring African Country? Survey Evidence and a Salience Experiment in the Gambia
    Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in border closures in many countries and a sharp reduction in overall international mobility. However, this disruption of legal pathways to migration has raised concerns that potential migrants may turn to irregular migration routes as a substitute. This paper examines how the pandemic has changed intentions to migrate from The Gambia, the country with the highest pre-pandemic per-capita irregular migration rates in Africa. A large-scale panel survey conducted in 2019 and 2020 is used to compare changes in intentions to migrate to Europe and to neighboring Senegal. The data show that the pandemic has reduced the intention to migrate to both destinations, with approximately one-third of young males expressing less intention to migrate. The largest reductions in migration intentions are for individuals who were unsure of their intent pre-pandemic, and for poorer individuals who are no longer able to afford the costs of migrating at a time when these costs have increased and their remittance income has fallen. This paper also introduces the methodology of priming experiments to the study of migration intentions, by randomly varying the salience of the COVID-19 pandemic before eliciting intentions to migrate. There is no impact of this added salience, which appears to be because knowledge of the virus, while imperfect, was already enough to inform migration decisions. Nevertheless, despite these decreases in intentions, the overall desire to migrate the backway to Europe remains high, highlighting the need for legal migration pathways to support migrants and divert them from the risks of backway migration
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-9658
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  • 12
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    Aspirations and Financial Decisions : Experimental Evidence from the Philippines (2021)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (40 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Print Version: McKenzie, David Aspirations and Financial Decisions: Experimental Evidence from the Philippines
    Abstract: A randomized experiment among poor entrepreneurs tested the impact of exogenously inducing higher financial aspirations. In theory, raising aspirations could have positive effects by inducing higher effort, but could also reduce effort if unmet aspirations lead to frustration. Treatment resulted in more ambitious savings goals, but nearly all individuals fell far short of reaching these goals. Two years later, treated individuals had not saved more, and actually had lower borrowing and business investments. Treatment also reduced belief in the amount of control over one's life. Setting aspirations too high can lead to frustration, leading individuals to reduce their economic investments
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-9586
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  • 13
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    What Prevents More Small Firms from Using Professional Business Services? : An Information and Quality-Rating Experiment in Nigeria (2021)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (31 pages)
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Print Version: Anderson, Stephen J What Prevents More Small Firms from Using Professional Business Services? An Information and Quality-Rating Experiment in Nigeria
    Abstract: Why do more small firms in developing countries not use the market for professional business services like accounting, marketing, and human resource specialists? Two key reasons may be that firms lack information about the availability of these services, and that they struggle to distinguish the quality of good versus bad providers. A brand recognition exercise finds that most small firms are unaware of most providers in this market, and a survey of service providers reveals that they largely rely on word-of-mouth and informal reputation mechanisms for acquiring customers. This study set up a business services marketplace that contains information about the different providers present in the market and used mystery shopper visits to develop a quality ratings system. A randomized experiment with more than 1,000 firms provided access to this marketplace to the treatment group and randomized whether firms received just information or also quality ratings. The provision of quality ratings information shifts small firms' preferences over which provider they would like to use, increasing the average quality rating of their preferred providers by 0.2 to 0.4 ratings points out of 5. However, neither the provision of information nor these quality ratings had any significant impact on the likelihood that small firms go on to hire a business service provider over the subsequent six months. The results suggest that alleviating information frictions alone is insufficient to increase usage of professional business services
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-9614
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  • 14
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    Spatial Analysis of Liberia's Transport Connectivity and Potential Growth (2018)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (130 pages)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Series Statement: International Development in Focus
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als
    Abstract: Liberia has been influenced by the Ebola crisis since 2014, but the economy is now recovering quickly. Still, significant challenges lie ahead. Agriculture, an important sector that employs approximately half of the labor force, still has a weak growth trajectory. Many rural people are not well connected to markets and live below the poverty line. To use limited resources effectively, strategic planning and prioritization of public investment are essential. Particularly, the Ebola crisis revealed the vulnerability of the country's transport connectivity and health systems. This book analyzes the country's transport connectivity, identifying the existing bottlenecks and possible economic potentials. By taking advantage of the country's first-ever georeferenced road network data, the analysis casts light on various aspects of connectivity, such as rural accessibility, market access, access to port and health facilities and multimodal connectivity, including cabotage. It is shown that transport connectivity is crucial to increasing agricultural production, stimulating agglomeration economies, and supporting people's access to health care services. Significant resources are likely to be required to meet the existing gap. The book estimates the financial needs by development objective and discusses important policy issues, including the possibility of public-private partnerships to finance transport infrastructure
    DOI: 10.1596/978-1-4648-1286-6
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  • 15
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    Rail Transport and Firm Productivity : Evidence from Tanzania (2017)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
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    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (34 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Rail Transport and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Tanzania
    Abstract: Railway transport generally has the advantage for large-volume, long-haul freight operations. Africa possesses significant railway assets. However, many rail lines are currently not operational because of the lack of maintenance. The paper recasts light on the impact of rail transportation on firm productivity, using micro data collected in Tanzania. To avoid the endogeneity problem, the instrumental variable technique is used to estimate the impact of rail transport. The paper shows that the overall impact of rail use on firm costs is significant despite that the rail unit rates are set lower when the shipping distance is longer. Rail transport is a cost-effective option for firms. However, the study finds that firms' inventory is costly. This is a disadvantage of using rail transport. Rail operations are unreliable, adding more inventory costs to firms. The implied elasticity of demand for transport services is estimated at ?1.01 to ?0.52, relatively high in absolute terms. This indicates the rail users' sensitivity to prices as well as severity of modal competition against truck transportation. The study also finds that firm location matters to the decision to use rail services. Proximity to rail infrastructure is important for firms to take advantage of rail benefits
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-8173
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  • 16
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    Port Rail Connectivity and Agricultural Production : Evidence from a Large Sample of Farmers in Ethiopia (2017)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (29 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Port Rail Connectivity and Agricultural Production: Evidence from a Large Sample of Farmers in Ethiopia
    Abstract: Agriculture remains an important economic sector in Africa, employing a large share of the labor force and earning foreign exchange. Among others, transport connectivity has long been a crucial constraint in Africa. In theory, railways have a particularly important role to play in shipping freight and passengers at low cost. However, most African railways were in virtual bankruptcy by the 1990s. Using a large sample of data comprised of more than 190,000 households over eight years in Ethiopia, the paper estimates the impacts of rail transport on agricultural production. Methodologically, the paper takes advantage of the historical event that a major rail line connecting the country to the regional hub, the Port of Djibouti, was abandoned in the 2000s. With spatially highly disaggregated fixed effects and instrumental variables incorporated, an agricultural production function is estimated. The elasticity with respect to port connectivity is estimated at 0.276. The use of fertilizer is also found to increase with transport cost reduction, supporting the fact that a large amount of fertilizer is imported to Ethiopia
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-8088
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  • 17
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    Growing Markets through Business Training for Female Entrepreneurs : A Market-Level Randomized Experiment in Kenya (2017)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (55 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David Growing Markets through Business Training for Female Entrepreneurs: A Market-Level Randomized Experiment in Kenya
    Abstract: A common concern with efforts to directly help some small businesses to grow is that their growth comes at the expense of their unassisted competitors. This study tests this possibility using a two-stage randomized experiment in Kenya. The experiment randomizes business training at the market level, and then within markets to selected businesses. Three years after training, the treated businesses are selling more, earn higher profits, and their owners have higher well-being. There is no evidence of negative spillovers on the competing businesses, and the markets as a whole appear to have grown in terms of number of customers and sales volumes. This market growth appears to come from enhanced customer service and new product introduction, generating more customers and more sales from existing customers. As a result, business growth in underdeveloped markets is possible without taking sales away from nontreated businesses
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7993
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  • 18
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    Learning the Impact of Financial Education When Take-Up Is Low (2017)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (38 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Ibarra, Gabriel Lara Learning the Impact of Financial Education When Take-Up Is Low
    Abstract: Financial education programs are increasingly offered by governments, nonprofits, and financial institutions. However, voluntary participation rates in such programs are often very low, posing a severe challenge for randomized experiments attempting to measure their impact. This study uses a large experiment on more than 100,000 credit card clients in Mexico. The study shows how the richness of financial data allows combining nonexperimental methods with the experiment to yield credible measures of impact, even with take-up rates below 1 percent. The findings show that a financial education workshop and personalized coaching result in a higher likelihood of paying credit cards on time, and of making more than the minimum payment, but do not reduce spending, resulting in higher profitability for the bank
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-8238
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  • 19
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    How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence (2017)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (32 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence
    Abstract: Jobs are the number one policy concern of policy makers in many countries. The global financial crisis, rising demographic pressures, high unemployment rates, and concerns over automation all make it seem imperative that policy makers employ increasingly more active labor market policies. This paper critically examines recent evaluations of labor market policies that have provided vocational training, wage subsidies, job search assistance, and assistance moving to argue that many active labor market policies are much less effective than policymakers typically assume. Many of these evaluations find no significant impacts on either employment or earnings. One reason is that urban labor markets appear to work reasonably well in many cases, with fewer market failures than is often thought. As a result, there is less of a role for many traditional active labor market policies than is common practice. The review then discusses examples of job creation policies that do seem to offer promise, and concludes with lessons for impact evaluation and policy is this area
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-8011
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  • 20
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    Output- and Performance-Based Road Contracts and Agricultural Production : Evidence from Zambia (2017)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (32 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Output- and Performance-Based Road Contracts and Agricultural Production: Evidence from Zambia
    Abstract: Rural access is among the most important infrastructure elements to stimulate economic growth in rural and remote areas. The sustainability of feeder road maintenance is a challenge in many developing countries. Many feeder roads are unpaved and need to be maintained frequently, but they are often neglected under budget pressure. Output- and performance-based road contracts are an instrument to ensure the sustainability of road maintenance. Contractors are required not only to improve roads, but also to maintain them. Using micro data from household surveys in Zambia, the paper examines the impacts of output- and performance-based road contracts on agricultural production. It shows that the contracts have a significant impact on crop production, especially maize and groundnuts, two major crops grown in the study area. The paper also finds that the measured impacts are associated with actual road maintenance works, regardless of contractual methods. Any road work can improve people's connectivity, even if it is not an output- and performance-based road contracts. The impact of the contracts is catalytic: more road works were implemented on contract roads than non-contract roads, holding everything else constant. This is an important contribution to the sustainability of road maintenance. Finally, road improvement works are found to facilitate farmers' market participation, but the impact seems weak. There may be other constraints. Transport service costs are found to have a negative impact on farmers' market sales. Thus, although roads are improved, transport services may be not available or too expensive, which still hamper farmers' market participation
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-8201
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 21
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    Modal Choice between Rail and Road Transportation : Evidence from Tanzania (2017)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (28 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Modal Choice between Rail and Road Transportation: Evidence from Tanzania
    Abstract: Rail transport generally has the advantage for large-volume long-haul freight operations. The literature generally shows that shipping distance, costs, and reliability are among the most important determinants of people's modal choice among road, rail, air, and coastal shipping transport. However, there is little evidence in Africa, although the region historically possesses significant rail assets. Currently, Africa's rail transport faces intense competition against truck transportation. With firm-level data, this paper examines shippers' modal choice in Tanzania. The traditional multinomial logit and McFadden's choice models were estimated. The paper shows that rail prices and shipping distance and volume are important determinants of firms' mode choice. The analysis also finds that the firms' modal choice depends on the type of transactions. Rail transport is more often used for international trading purposes. Exporters and importers are key customers for restoring rail freight operations. Rail operating speed does not seem to have an unambiguous effect on firms' modal selection
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-8174
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 22
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    Spatial Autocorrelation Panel Regression : Agricultural Production and Transport Connectivity (2017)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (24 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Spatial Autocorrelation Panel Regression: Agricultural Production and Transport Connectivity
    Abstract: Spatial analysis in economics is becoming increasingly important as more spatial data and innovative data mining technologies are developed. Even in Africa, where data often crucially lack quality analysis, a variety of spatial data have recently been developed, such as highly disaggregated crop production maps. Taking advantage of the historical event that rail operations were ceased in Ethiopia, this paper examines the relationship between agricultural production and transport connectivity, especially port accessibility, which is mainly characterized by rail transport. To deal with endogeneity of infrastructure placement and autocorrelation in spatial data, the spatial autocorrelation panel regression model is applied. It is found that agricultural production decreases with transport costs to the port: the elasticity is estimated at -0.094 to -0.143, depending on model specification. The estimated autocorrelation parameters also support the finding that although farmers in close locations share a certain common production pattern, external shocks, such as drought and flood, have spillover effects over neighboring areas
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-8089
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 23
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    Can Business Owners Form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status (2016)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (24 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David Can Business Owners Form Accurate Counterfactuals? : Eliciting Treatment and Control Beliefs about Their Outcomes in the Alternative Treatment Status
    Abstract: A survey of participants in a large-scale business plan competition experiment, in which winners received an average of US
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7668
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 24
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    New Rural Access Index : Main Determinants and Correlation to Poverty (2016)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (18 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi New Rural Access Index: Main Determinants and Correlation to Poverty
    Abstract: Transport connectivity is essential to sustain inclusive growth in developing countries, where many rural populations and businesses are still considered to be unconnected to the domestic, regional, or global market. The Rural Access Index is among the most important global indicators for measuring people's transport accessibility in rural areas where the majority of the poor live. A new method to calculate the Rural Access Index was recently developed using spatial data and techniques. The characteristics of subnational Rural Access Index estimates were investigated in eight countries: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. It was found that for the countries in Africa, road density and road condition are important determinants of the Rural Access Index. For the South Asian countries, improvement of road condition is particularly relevant. The evidence suggests that significant resources are likely to be required to achieve universal access through rehabilitating the existing road network and expanding the road network
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7876
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 25
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    Sustainability of a Residential CFL Distribution Program : Evidence from Ethiopia (2016)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (25 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Diaw, Issa Sustainability of a Residential CFL Distribution Program: Evidence from Ethiopia
    Abstract: Energy-efficient products generally offer a win-win proposition, because they pay for themselves. End users can reduce their energy costs, and power utilities can avoid costly investments in extra generation capacity. Moreover, energy efficiency can contribute to mitigating global warming. This paper casts light on the sustainability of the residential use of compact fluorescent lamps after the free compact fluorescent lamp distribution program in Ethiopia. It is found that the direct program effect has been sustained for at least four years after the program. The effect of the distributed compact fluorescent lamps may taper off, if some of the program beneficiaries reinstall relatively cheap incandescent bulbs when the compact fluorescent lamps are burned out. However, many households replaced burned out compact fluorescent lamps with new compact fluorescent lamps. This effect is found to be statistically significant, particularly among relatively low-income households, whose demand is more price-elastic. All the indications are that program participants were generally convinced that compact fluorescent lamp bulbs are more cost-effective in the long run and the program effect is sustained over time
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7811
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 26
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    Labor Drops : Experimental Evidence on the Return to Additional Labor in Microenterprises (2016)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (60 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als de Mel, Suresh Labor Drops: Experimental Evidence on the Return to Additional Labor in Microenterprises
    Abstract: The majority of enterprises in many developing countries have no paid workers. This paper reports on a field experiment conducted in Sri Lanka that provided wage subsidies to randomly chosen microenterprises to test whether hiring additional labor would benefit such firms. In the presence of labor market frictions, a short-term subsidy could have a lasting impact on firm employment. Using 12 rounds of surveys to track dynamics four years after the end of the subsidy, the study finds that firms increased employment during the subsidy period, but there was no lasting impact on employment, profitability, or sales. Two supplementary interventions and treatment heterogeneity suggest the lack of impact is not due to complementarities with capital or management skills, and detailed survey data help rule out a number of theoretical mechanisms that could result in sub-optimally low employment. The study concludes that the urban labor market facing microenterprises does not have large frictions that would prevent own-account workers from becoming employers
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7924
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 27
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    Can Enhancing the Benefits of Formalization Induce Informal Firms to Become Formal? Experimental Evidence from Benin (2016)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (60 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Benhassine, Najy Can Enhancing the Benefits of Formalization Induce Informal Firms to Become Formal? Experimental Evidence from Benin
    Abstract: Governments around the world have introduced reforms to attempt to make it easier for informal firms to formalize. However, most informal firms have not gone on to become formal, especially when tax registration is involved. A randomized experiment based around the introduction of the entreprenant legal status in Benin is used to provide evidence from an African context on the willingness of informal firms to register after introducing a simple, free registration process, and to test the effectiveness of supplementary efforts to enhance the presumed benefits of formalization by facilitating its links to government training programs, support to open bank accounts, and tax mediation services. Few firms register when just given information about the new regime, but 9.6 percentage points more register when they were visited in person and the benefits were explained. The full package of supplementary efforts boosts the impact on the formalization rate to 16.3 percentage points, demonstrating that enhancing the benefits of formalization does induce more firms to formalize. Firms that are larger, and that look more like formal firms to begin with, are more likely to formalize, providing guidance for better targeting of such policies. However, formalization appears to offer limited benefits to the firms, and the costs of personalized assistance are high, suggesting that such enhanced formalization efforts are unlikely to pass cost-benefit tests
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7900
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 28
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    The Demand for, and Impact of, Youth Internships : Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Yemen (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (22 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David The Demand for, and Impact of, Youth Internships: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Yemen
    Abstract: This paper evaluates a youth internship program in the Republic of Yemen that provided firms with a 50 percent subsidy to hire recent graduates of universities and vocational schools. The first round of the program took place in 2014 and required both firms and youth to apply for the program. The paper examines the demand for such a program, and finds that in the context of an economy facing substantial political and economic uncertainty, it appears there is an oversupply of graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and a relative undersupply of graduates in marketing and business. Conditional on the types of graduates firms were looking to hire as interns, applicants were then randomly chosen for the program. Receiving an internship resulted in an almost doubling of work experience in 2014, and a 73 percent increase in income during this period compared with the control group. A short-term follow-up survey conducted just as civil conflict was breaking out shows that internship recipients had better employment outcomes than the control group in the first five months after the program ended
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7463
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 29
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    Crop Choice and Infrastructure Accessibility in Tanzania: Subsistence Crops or Export Crops? (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (35 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Crop Choice and Infrastructure Accessibility in Tanzania: Subsistence Crops or Export Crops?
    Abstract: Macroeconomics and Economic Growth
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7306
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 30
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    Firms' Locational Choice and Infrastructure Development in Rwanda (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (28 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Firms' Locational Choice and Infrastructure Development in Rwanda
    Abstract: Finance and Financial Sector Development
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7279
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 31
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    Firm Productivity and Infrastructure Costs in East Africa (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (35 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Firm Productivity and Infrastructure Costs in East Africa
    Abstract: Energy
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7278
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 32
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    The Long-Term Impacts of International Migration : Evidence from a Lottery (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (35 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Gibson, John The Long-Term Impacts of International Migration: Evidence from a Lottery
    Abstract: This study examines the long-term impacts of international migration by comparing immigrants who had successful ballot entries in a migration lottery program, and first moved almost a decade ago, with people who had unsuccessful entries into those same ballots. The long-term gain in income is found to be similar in magnitude to the gain in the first year, despite migrants upgrading their education and changing their locations and occupations. This results in large, sustained benefits to the migrants' immediate family, who have substantially higher consumption, durable asset ownership, savings, and dietary diversity. In contrast, the study finds no measureable impact on extended family
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7495
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 33
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    Firm Inventory Behavior in East Africa (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (33 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Firm Inventory Behavior in East Africa
    Abstract: Finance and Financial Sector Development
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7280
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 34
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    The Additionality Impact of a Matching Grant Program for Small Firms : Experimental Evidence from Yemen (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (23 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David The Additionality Impact of a Matching Grant Program for Small Firms: Experimental Evidence from Yemen
    Abstract: Matching grants are one of the most common types of private sector development programs used in developing countries. But government subsidies to private firms can be controversial. A key question is that of additionality: do these programs get firms to undertake innovative activities that they would not otherwise do, or merely subsidize activities that would take place anyway? Randomized controlled trials can provide the counterfactual needed to answer this question, but efforts to experiment with matching grant programs have often failed. This paper uses a randomized controlled trial of a matching grant program for firms in the Republic of Yemen to demonstrate the feasibility of conducting experiments with well-designed programs, and to measure the additionality impact. In the first year, the matching grant is found to have led to more product innovation, firms upgrading their accounting systems, marketing more, making more capital investments, and being more likely to report their sales grew
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7462
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  • 35
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    Firms' Locational Choice and Infrastructure Development in Tanzania : Instrumental Variable Spatial Autoregressive Model (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (28 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Firms' Locational Choice and Infrastructure Development in Tanzania: Instrumental Variable Spatial Autoregressive Model
    Abstract: Macroeconomics and Economic Growth
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7305
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 36
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    Agriculture Production and Transport Infrastructure in East Africa : An Application of Spatial Autoregression (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (43 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Agriculture Production and Transport Infrastructure in East Africa: An Application of Spatial Autoregression
    Abstract: Rural Development
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7281
    URL: Volltext  (Deutschlandweit zugänglich)
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  • 37
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    Social and Economic Impacts of Rural Road Improvements in the State of Tocantins, Brazil (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (55 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Iimi, Atsushi Social and Economic Impacts of Rural Road Improvements in the State of Tocantins, Brazil
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide feedback on the question of socioeconomic benefits from rural road development and the impact of transport infrastructure on the poor, particularly the poorest and the bottom 20 percent of the population. This paper relies on impact evaluation methodologies, which are traditionally used in social sectors but less so in the transport sector. The study, including first surveys, was launched in 2003 under the Tocantins Sustainable Regional Development Project. The paper highlights the context that led to the project's design, which included an impact evaluation of the works envisaged under the project. The paper also highlights some of the main challenges faced by this impact evaluation and how these challenges were addressed for the present study. It then provides details about the data collected during the surveys and the key relevant characteristics of the population targeted by the surveys. It discusses the possible estimation methods envisioned to undertake the study and provides the main results of the assessment based on these methods. The analysis shows that improved rural roads changed people's transport modal choice. People used more public buses and individual motorized vehicles after the rural road improvements. The paper also finds that the project increased school attendance, particularly for girls. Although the evidence is relatively weak in statistical terms, it indicates that the project contributed to increasing agricultural jobs and household income in certain regions
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7249
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  • 38
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    Short-Term Impacts of Formalization Assistance and a Bank Information Session on Business Registration and Access to Finance in Malawi (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (43 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Campos, Francisco Short-Term Impacts of Formalization Assistance and a Bank Information Session on Business Registration and Access to Finance in Malawi
    Abstract: Despite regulatory efforts designed to make it easier for firms to formalize, informality remains extremely high among firms in Sub-Saharan Africa. In most of the region, business registration in a national registry is separate from tax registration. This paper provides initial results from an experiment in Malawi that randomly allocated firms into a control group and three treatment groups: a) a group offered assistance for costless business registration; b) a group offered assistance with costless business registration and (separate) tax registration; and c) a group offered assistance for costless business registration along with an information session at a bank that ended with the offer of business bank accounts. The study finds that all three treatments had extremely large impacts on business registration, with 75 percent of those offered assistance receiving a business registration certificate. The findings offer a cost-effective way of getting firms to formalize in this dimension. However, in common with other studies, information and assistance has a limited impact on tax registration. The paper measures the short-term impacts of formalization on financial access and usage. Business registration alone has no impact for either men or women on bank account usage, savings, or credit. However, the combination of formalization assistance and the bank information session results in significant impacts on having a business bank account, financial practices, savings, and use of complementary financial products
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7183
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  • 39
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    Finding a Path to Formalization in Benin : Early Results after the Introduction of the Entreprenant Legal Status (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (39 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als Benhassine, Najy Finding a Path to Formalization in Benin: Early Results after the Introduction of the Entreprenant Legal Status
    Abstract: In April 2014, the Government of Benin launched the entreprenant status, a simplified and free legal regime offered to small informal businesses to enter the formal economy. This paper presents the short-term results of a randomized impact evaluation testing three different versions of the entreprenant status on business registration decisions, each version including incremental incentives to registration: (i) information on the new legal status and its benefits, (ii) business training, counseling services, and support to open a bank account, (iii) tax mediation services. The study included 3,600 informal businesses operating with a fixed location in Cotonou, Benin, which were randomly allocated between three treatment groups and one control group. One year after the program launch, all versions of the program had significant impact on formalization rates. The impact was 9.1 percentage points in the first treatment group; 13 percentage points in the second group; and 15.8 percentage points in the last group. The program had a higher impact on male business owners, with more education, operating outside Dantokpa Market, in sectors other than trade, and that before being offered the incentives to formalization had characteristics similar to businesses that were already formal. Data from a second follow-up survey, which is expected to take place in March 2016, will explore the impacts on other outcomes, like business performances or access to banking
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7510
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  • 40
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    Identifying and Spurring High-Growth Entrepreneurship : Experimental Evidence from a Business Plan Competition (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (74 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David Identifying and Spurring High-Growth Entrepreneurship: Experimental Evidence from a Business Plan Competition
    Abstract: Almost all firms in developing countries have fewer than 10 workers, with the modal firm consisting of just the owner. Are there potential high-growth entrepreneurs with the ability to grow their firms beyond this size? And, if so, can public policy help alleviate the constraints that prevent these entrepreneurs from doing so? A large-scale national business plan competition in Nigeria is used to help provide evidence on these two questions. The competition was launched with much fanfare, and attracted almost 24,000 entrants. Random assignment was used to select some of the winners from a pool of semi-finalists, with US
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7391
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  • 41
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    Business Practices in Small Firms in Developing Countries (2015)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: 1 Online-Ressource (42 p)
    Series Statement: World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Erscheint auch als McKenzie, David Business Practices in Small Firms in Developing Countries
    Abstract: Management has a large effect on the productivity of large firms. But does management matter in micro and small firms, where the majority of the labor force in developing countries works? This study developed 26 questions that measure business practices in marketing, stock-keeping, record-keeping, and financial planning. These questions have been administered in surveys in Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka. This paper shows that variation in business practices explains as much of the variation in outcomes-sales, profits, and labor productivity and total factor productivity-in microenterprises as in larger enterprises. Panel data from three countries indicate that better business practices predict higher survival rates and faster sales growth. The effect of business practices is robust to including many measures of the owner's human capital. The analysis finds that owners with higher human capital, children of entrepreneurs, and firms with employees employ better business practices. Competition has less robust effects
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-7405
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  • 42
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    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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  • 43
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    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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  • 44
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    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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  • 45
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    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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  • 46
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    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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  • 47
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    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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  • 48
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    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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  • 49
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    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
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  • 50
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    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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  • 51
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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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  • 52
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    Multidimensional Auctions for Public Energy Efficiency Projects : Evidence from the Japanese ESCO Market (2013)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (49 p)
    Edition: 2013 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Iimi, Atsushi Multidimensional Auctions for Public Energy Efficiency Projects
    Abstract: Competitive bidding is an important policy tool to procure goods and services from the market at the lowest possible cost. Under traditional public procurement systems, however, it may be difficult to purchase highly customized objects, such as energy efficiency services. This is because not only prices but also other nonmonetary aspects need to be taken into account. Multidimensional auctions are often used to evaluate multidimensional bids. This paper examines the bidding strategy in multidimensional auctions, using data from public energy service company projects in Japan. It shows that multidimensional auctions work well, as theory predicts. The competition effect is significant. In addition, strategic information disclosure, including walk-through and preannouncement of reserve prices, can also promote energy savings and investment. Risk sharing arrangements are critical in the energy service company market. In particular, the public sector should take regulatory risk
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6485
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  • 53
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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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  • 54
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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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  • 55
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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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  • 56
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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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  • 57
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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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  • 58
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    Impact Evaluation of Free-of-Charge CFL Bulb Distribution in Ethiopia (2013)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (24 p)
    Edition: 2013 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Costolanski, Peter Impact Evaluation of Free-of-Charge CFL Bulb Distribution in Ethiopia
    Abstract: Electricity infrastructure is one of the most important development challenges in Africa. While more resources are clearly needed to invest in new capacities, it is also important to promote energy efficiency and manage the increasing demand for power. This paper evaluates one of the recent energy-efficiency programs in Ethiopia, which distributed 350,000 compact fluorescent lamp bulbs free of charge. The impact related to this first phase is estimated at about 45 to 50 kilowatt hours per customer per month, or about 13.3 megawatts of energy savings in total. The overall impact of the compact fluorescent lamp bulb programs, thanks to which more than 5 million bulbs were distributed, could be significantly larger. The paper also finds that the majority of the program beneficiaries were low-volume customers-mostly from among the poor-although the program was not targeted. In addition, the analysis determines the distributional effect of the program: the energy savings relative to the underlying energy consumption were larger for the poor. The evidence also supports a rebound effect. About 20 percent of the initial energy savings disappeared within 18 months of the program's completion
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6383
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  • 59
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    Optimizing the Size of Public Road Contracts (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (27 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Atsushi Iimi Optimizing the Size of Public Road Contracts
    Abstract: Procurement packaging has important effects on not only the bidders' bidding behavior, but also contractors' performance. By changing the size of public contracts, procurers can encourage (or discourage) market competition and improve contract performance, avoiding unnecessary cost overruns and project delays. In practice, there is no single solution about how to package public contracts. With procurement data from road projects in Nepal, this paper examines the optimal size of road contracts in rural areas. The optimum varies depending on policy objectives. To maximize the bidder participation, the length of road should be about 11 kilometers. To minimize cost overruns and delays, the contracts should be much larger at 17 and 21 kilometers, respectively. Compared with the current procurement practices, the findings suggest that procurers take more advantage of enlarging road packages, although contracts that are too large may increase the risk of discouraging firms from participating in public tenders
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6028
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  • 60
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    Adapting Road Procurement to Climate Conditions (2012)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (23 p)
    Edition: 2012 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Atsushi Iimi Adapting Road Procurement to Climate Conditions
    Abstract: The world's climate is changing. It is well recognized that technical standards and project specifications of public infrastructure have to be adjusted, depending on the climate. However, it is less recognized that the public infrastructure procurement also needs to be adjusted. This paper examines a particular case of rural road procurement in Nepal. Severe weather conditions, such as heavy rains and storms, are likely to interrupt civil works and wash away unpaved or gravel roads. It is found that heavy precipitation causes delays, but not cost overruns. The paper also shows that budgetary efficiency and credibility could be improved by taking climate conditions into account. If future precipitation were anticipated by backward-looking expectations, many large project delays could be avoided. If the autoregressive precipitation model were used, the vast majority of the observed delays could be eliminated
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-6029
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  • 61
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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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  • 62
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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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  • 63
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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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  • 64
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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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  • 65
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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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  • 66
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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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  • 67
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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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  • 68
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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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  • 69
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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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  • 70
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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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  • 71
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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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  • 72
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    The impacts of metering and climate conditions on residential electricity demand : the case of albania (2011)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (52 p)
    Edition: 2011 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Iimi, Atsushi The impacts of metering and climate conditions on residential electricity demand
    Abstract: Albania is among the most vulnerable countries to external energy shocks and climatic conditions, because of its high dependency on hydropower for electricity. Given highly volatile international energy prices and expected global warming, it is becoming increasingly important to manage the demand for electricity. However, the country has long been faced with a significant problem of electricity metering. About one-third of total energy is lost for technical and nontechnical reasons. This paper estimates the residential demand function by applying a two-stage system equation method for an endogenous censored variable, because the lack of metering makes the electricity consumption partially observable for the econometrician. It is found that metering is important to curb non-essential electricity use by households. The electricity demand could also be reduced by raising the first block rate and lowering the second block rate and the threshold between the two blocks. In addition, weather conditions and home appliance ownership would affect the demand for electricity. But the latter looks more influential than the former
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5520
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  • 73
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    Efficiency in Public Procurement in Rural Road Projects of Nepal (2011)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (78 p)
    Edition: 2011 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Benamghar, Radia Efficiency in Public Procurement in Rural Road Projects of Nepal
    Abstract: Transport infrastructure is important for economic growth. In Nepal, about 20 percent of rural residents have to spend more than 3 hours to go to the nearest marketplace or agriculture center. Public procurement is an important policy instrument to use resources wisely and efficiently. This paper analyzes a series of policy questions, from procurement design to contract management and project quality assurance. The paper finds that the competition effect is significant. To enhance competition, bidding documents can be distributed free of charge on a website. The bid preparation period can be extended. Security issues are also found to be particularly important to avoid unnecessary cost overruns and project delays. Heavy rainfall and the bidders' low-balling strategy are identified as other factors of project delays. The quality of roads would deteriorate with not only security incidence but also time, precipitation and traffic volume
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5736
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  • 74
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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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  • 75
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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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  • 76
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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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  • 77
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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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  • 78
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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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  • 79
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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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  • 80
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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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  • 81
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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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  • 82
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    Price Elasticity of Nonresidential Demand for Energy in South Eastern Europe (2010)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (61 p)
    Edition: 2010 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Iimi, Atsushi Price Elasticity of Nonresidential Demand for Energy in South Eastern Europe
    Abstract: Recent volatility in international energy prices has revealed South Eastern Europe as one of the most vulnerable regions to such external shocks. Under the current global economic downturn, in addition, the region’s energy-intensive industries are faced with the challenge of the weakening demand for their outputs. This paper casts light on the relationship between the price and the demand for energy. Based on firm level data, it is shown that the price elasticity of industrial energy demand is about -0.4 on average. There are a number of data issues to interpret the results correctly. But Albania and Macedonia are systematically found to have a relatively elastic demand for energy on the order of -0.7 to -0.8. In these countries, therefore, price adjustments would be one of the effective policy options to balance demand with supply during the period of energy crisis. In other countries, the demand response would be much weaker; pricing cannot be the only solution. Other policy measures, such as facilitation of firm energy efficiency and improvements in the quality of infrastructure services, may be required
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-5167
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  • 83
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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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  • 84
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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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  • 85
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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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  • 86
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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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  • 87
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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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  • 88
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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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  • 89
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    Procurement in Infrastructure : What Does Theory Tell Us? (2009)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (40 p)
    Edition: 2009 World Bank eLibrary
    Parallel Title: Estache, Antonio Procurement in Infrastructure
    Abstract: Infrastructure has particular challenges in public procurement, because it is highly complex and customized and often requires economic, political and social considerations from a long time horizon. To deliver public infrastructure services to citizens or taxpayers, there are a series of decisions that governments have to make. The paper provides a minimum package of important economic theories that could guide governments to wise decision-making at each stage. Theory suggests that in general it would be a good option to contract out infrastructure to the private sector under high-powered incentive mechanisms, such as fixed-price contracts. However, this holds under certain conditions. Theory also shows that ownership should be aligned with the ultimate responsibility for or objective of infrastructure provision. Public and private ownership have different advantages and can deal with different problems. It is also shown that it would be a better option to integrate more than one public task (for example, investment and operation) into the same ownership, whether public or private, if they exhibit positive externalities
    DOI: 10.1596/1813-9450-4994
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  • 90
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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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  • 91
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    (UN)Bundling Public-Private Partnership Contracts In The Water Sector : Competition In Auctions And Economies of Scale In Operation (2008)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (26 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Iimi, Atsushi (UN)Bundling Public-Private Partnership Contracts In The Water Sector
    Keywords: Competitive Bidding ; Industry ; Local Water ; Municipal Water ; Private Participation ; Sewerage Services ; Town Water Supply and Sanitation ; Urban Water Supply and Sanitation ; Water Conservation ; Water Districts ; Water Resources ; Water Sector ; Water Services ; Water Supply ; Water Supply and Sanitation ; Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions ; Water Utilities ; Water and Industry ; Competitive Bidding ; Industry ; Local Water ; Municipal Water ; Private Participation ; Sewerage Services ; Town Water Supply and Sanitation ; Urban Water Supply and Sanitation ; Water Conservation ; Water Districts ; Water Resources ; Water Sector ; Water Services ; Water Supply ; Water Supply and Sanitation ; Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions ; Water Utilities ; Water and Industry ; Competitive Bidding ; Industry ; Local Water ; Municipal Water ; Private Participation ; Sewerage Services ; Town Water Supply and Sanitation ; Urban Water Supply and Sanitation ; Water Conservation ; Water Districts ; Water Resources ; Water Sector ; Water Services ; Water Supply ; Water Supply and Sanitation ; Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions ; Water Utilities ; Water and Industry
    Abstract: In public-private partnership transactions in the water sector, one of the alleged concerns is that there is little market competition at the auction stage. This paper casts light on a tradeoff between the competition effect at the auction level and potential economies of scale in service operation. If the authorities design a large-scale public-private partnership water transaction, it is expected to exploit operational scale economies. But the competition effect may have to be sacrificed. The paper shows a risk that the selection of the contract size could be a very restrictive condition that excludes many prospective bidders. Moreover, the paper quantifies the optimal size of public-private partnership contracts in the sector by estimating a cost function. The analysis shows that economies of scale exist but tend to diminish quickly as production increases. When the amount of water sold exceeds about 40 million m3, the statistical significance of economies of scale disappears. And there is no rationale for auctioning the water operation with annual water delivery of more than 400 million m3 under a single contract
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  • 92
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    Bidder Asymmetry In Infrastructure Procurement : Are There Any Fringe Bidders? (2008)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (24 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Estache, Antonio Bidder Asymmetry In Infrastructure Procurement
    Keywords: Affiliated ; Affiliated organizations ; Auction ; Auctions ; Bid ; Bidders ; Bidding ; Competition ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Government Procurement ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; International development ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Markets and Market Access ; Private Sector Development ; Public disclosure ; Affiliated ; Affiliated organizations ; Auction ; Auctions ; Bid ; Bidders ; Bidding ; Competition ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Government Procurement ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; International development ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Markets and Market Access ; Private Sector Development ; Public disclosure ; Affiliated ; Affiliated organizations ; Auction ; Auctions ; Bid ; Bidders ; Bidding ; Competition ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Government Procurement ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; International development ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Markets and Market Access ; Private Sector Development ; Public disclosure
    Abstract: Asymmetric auctions are among the most rapidly growing areas in the auction literature. The potential benefits from improved auction efficiency are expected to be enormous in public procurement auctions related to official development projects. Entrant bidders are considered a key to enhance competition in an auction and break potential collusive arrangements among incumbent bidders. Asymmetric auction theory predicts that weak (fringe) bidders would bid more aggressively when they are faced with a strong (incumbent) opponent. Using official development assistance procurement data, this paper finds that in the major infrastructure sectors, entrants submitted systematically aggressive bids in the presence of an incumbent bidder. The findings also show that a high concentration of incumbents in an auction would harm auction efficiency, raising procurement costs. The results suggest that auctioneers should encourage fringe bidders to actively participate in the bidding process while maintaining the quality of the projects. This is conducive to enhancing competitive circumstances in public procurements and improving allocative efficiency
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  • 93
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    Procurement Efficiency For Infrastructure Development And Financial Needs Reassessed (2008)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (44 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Estache, Antonio Procurement Efficiency For Infrastructure Development And Financial Needs Reassessed
    Keywords: Costs ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Economic Theory and Research ; Em ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Infrastructure ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Infrastructure development ; Infrastructure investment ; Infrastructure projects ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Investments ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Private Sector Development ; Public Sector Economics and Finance ; Road ; Roads ; Sanitation ; Transport ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Costs ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Economic Theory and Research ; Em ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Infrastructure ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Infrastructure development ; Infrastructure investment ; Infrastructure projects ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Investments ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Private Sector Development ; Public Sector Economics and Finance ; Road ; Roads ; Sanitation ; Transport ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Costs ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Economic Theory and Research ; Em ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Infrastructure ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Infrastructure development ; Infrastructure investment ; Infrastructure projects ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Investments ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Private Sector Development ; Public Sector Economics and Finance ; Road ; Roads ; Sanitation ; Transport ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning
    Abstract: Infrastructure is the engine for economic growth. The international donor community has spent about 70-100 billion U.S. dollars on infrastructure development in developing countries every year. However, it is arguable whether these financial resources are used efficiently, particularly whether the current infrastructure procurement prices are appropriate. Without doubt a key is competition to curb public procurement costs. This paper analyzes procurement data from multi and bilateral official development projects in three infrastructure sectors: roads, electricity, and water and sanitation. The findings show that the competition effect is underutilized. To take full advantage of competition, at least seven bidders are needed in the road and water sectors, while three may be enough in the power sector. The paper also shows that not only competition, but also auction design, especially lot division, is crucial for reducing unit costs of infrastructure. Based on the estimated efficient unit costs, the annual financial needs are estimated at approximately 360 billion U.S. dollars. By promoting competition, the developing world might be able to save at most 8.2 percent of total infrastructure development costs
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  • 94
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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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  • 95
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    Joint Bidding In Infrastructure Procurement (2008)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (30 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Estache, Antonio Joint Bidding In Infrastructure Procurement
    Keywords: Access to Markets ; Affiliated ; Affiliated organizations ; Auction ; Bidding ; Competition ; Competition policy ; Decentralization ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Foreign companies ; Foreign firms ; ICT Policy and Strategies ; Information and Communication Technologies ; International Economics & Trade ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Markets and Market Access ; Microfinance ; Public Sector Corruption and Anticorruption Measures ; Public disclosure ; Access to Markets ; Affiliated ; Affiliated organizations ; Auction ; Bidding ; Competition ; Competition policy ; Decentralization ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Foreign companies ; Foreign firms ; ICT Policy and Strategies ; Information and Communication Technologies ; International Economics & Trade ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Markets and Market Access ; Microfinance ; Public Sector Corruption and Anticorruption Measures ; Public disclosure ; Access to Markets ; Affiliated ; Affiliated organizations ; Auction ; Bidding ; Competition ; Competition policy ; Decentralization ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Foreign companies ; Foreign firms ; ICT Policy and Strategies ; Information and Communication Technologies ; International Economics & Trade ; Investment and Investment Climate ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Markets and Market Access ; Microfinance ; Public Sector Corruption and Anticorruption Measures ; Public disclosure
    Abstract: To utilize public resources efficiently, it is required to take full advantage of competition in public procurement auctions. Joint bidding practices are one of the possible ways of facilitating auction competition. In theory, there are pros and cons. It may enable firms to pool their financial and experiential resources and remove barriers to entry. On the other hand, it may reduce the degree of competition and can be used as a cover for collusive behavior. The paper empirically addresses whether joint bidding is pro- or anti-competitive in Official Development Assistance procurement auctions for infrastructure projects. It reveals the possible risk of relying too much on a foreign bidding coalition and may suggest the necessity of overseeing it. The data reveal no strong evidence that joint bidding practices are compatible with competition policy, except for a few cases. In road procurements, coalitional bidding involving both local and foreign firms has been found pro-competitive. In the water and sewage sector, local joint bidding may be useful to draw out better offers from potential contractors. Joint bidding composed of only foreign companies is mostly considered anti-competitive
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  • 96
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    Multidimensionality And Renegotiation : Evidence From Transport-Sector Public-Private-Partnership Transactions In Latin America (2008)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (30 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Estache, Antonio Multidimensionality And Renegotiation
    Keywords: Costs ; Debt Markets ; Diesel ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Infrastructure ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Infrastructure development ; Policies ; Railway ; Railway industry ; Road ; Transparency ; Transport ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Costs ; Debt Markets ; Diesel ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Infrastructure ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Infrastructure development ; Policies ; Railway ; Railway industry ; Road ; Transparency ; Transport ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Costs ; Debt Markets ; Diesel ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Infrastructure ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Infrastructure development ; Policies ; Railway ; Railway industry ; Road ; Transparency ; Transport ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning
    Abstract: Multidimensional auctions are a natural and practical solution when auctioneers pursue more than one objective in their public-private-partnership transactions. However, it is difficult to achieve auction efficiency with multiple award criteria. Using auction data from road and railway concessions in Latin America, the probability of renegotiation this paper estimates by a two-stage least squares technique with a binary selection in the first-stage regression. The findings show that auctioneers tend to adopt the multidimensional format when the need for social considerations, such as alleviation of unemployment, is high. This implies that such political considerations could hinder efficiency and transparency in auctions. The analysis also shows that the renegotiation risk in infrastructure concessions increases when multidimensional auctions are used. Rather, good governance, particularly anti-corruption policies, can mitigate the renegotiation problem
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  • 97
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    Effects of improving infrastructure quality on business costs : evidence from firm-level data (2008)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (24 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Iimi, Atsushi Effects of improving infrastructure quality on business costs
    Keywords: Communities & Human Settlements ; Driving ; Elasticity ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Infrastructure development ; Infrastructure investment ; Private Participation in Infrastructure ; Private Sector Development ; Road ; Road quality ; Road sector ; Roads ; Town Water Supply and Sanitation ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Transportation ; Transportation costs ; Urban Slums Upgrading ; Water Supply and Sanitation ; Communities & Human Settlements ; Driving ; Elasticity ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Infrastructure development ; Infrastructure investment ; Private Participation in Infrastructure ; Private Sector Development ; Road ; Road quality ; Road sector ; Roads ; Town Water Supply and Sanitation ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Transportation ; Transportation costs ; Urban Slums Upgrading ; Water Supply and Sanitation ; Communities & Human Settlements ; Driving ; Elasticity ; Infrastructure Economics ; Infrastructure Economics and Finance ; Infrastructure development ; Infrastructure investment ; Private Participation in Infrastructure ; Private Sector Development ; Road ; Road quality ; Road sector ; Roads ; Town Water Supply and Sanitation ; Transport ; Transport Economics, Policy and Planning ; Transportation ; Transportation costs ; Urban Slums Upgrading ; Water Supply and Sanitation
    Abstract: Economic development is affected by infrastructure services in both volume and quality terms. However, the quality of infrastructure is relatively difficult to measure and assess. The current paper, using firm-level data collected by a business environment assessment survey in 26 countries in Europe and Central Asia, estimates the marginal impacts on firm costs of infrastructure quality. The results suggest that the reliability or continuity of services is important for business performance. Firm costs significantly increase when electricity outages occur more frequently and the average outage duration becomes longer. Similarly, increased hours of water supply suspensions also reduce firms' competitiveness. In these countries, it is found that the total benefit for the economy from eliminating the existing electricity outages ranges from 0.5 to 6 percent of gross domestic product. If all water suspensions are removed, the economy could receive a gain of about 0.5 to 2 percent of gross domestic product. By contrast, the quality of telecommunications services seems to have no significant impact
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  • 98
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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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    MPI Ethno. Forsch.
  • 99
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    Price Structure And Network Externalities In The Telecommunications Industry : Evidence From Sub-Saharan Africa (2007)
    Washington, D.C : The World Bank
    Details
    Language: English
    Pages: Online-Ressource (1 online resource (43 p.))
    Edition: Online-Ausg. World Bank E-Library Archive
    Parallel Title: Iimi, Atsushi Price Structure And Network Externalities In The Telecommunications Industry
    Keywords: Access to Markets ; Data ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Economic Theory and Research ; Electricity ; Emerging Markets ; Fax ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Infrastructure Development ; International Economics & Trade ; International Telecommunication ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Markets and Market Access ; Mobile Phone ; Mobile Phone Subscribers ; Mobile Telephone ; Network ; Penetration Rate ; Private Sector Development ; Telecommunications Infrastructure ; Access to Markets ; Data ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Economic Theory and Research ; Electricity ; Emerging Markets ; Fax ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Infrastructure Development ; International Economics & Trade ; International Telecommunication ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Markets and Market Access ; Mobile Phone ; Mobile Phone Subscribers ; Mobile Telephone ; Network ; Penetration Rate ; Private Sector Development ; Telecommunications Infrastructure ; Access to Markets ; Data ; Debt Markets ; E-Business ; Economic Theory and Research ; Electricity ; Emerging Markets ; Fax ; Finance and Financial Sector Development ; Infrastructure Development ; International Economics & Trade ; International Telecommunication ; Macroeconomics and Economic Growth ; Markets and Market Access ; Mobile Phone ; Mobile Phone Subscribers ; Mobile Telephone ; Network ; Penetration Rate ; Private Sector Development ; Telecommunications Infrastructure
    Abstract: Many developing countries have experienced significant developments in their telecommunications network. Countries in Africa are no exception to this. The paper examines what factor facilitates most network expansion using micro data from 45 fixed-line and mobile telephone operators in 18 African countries. In theory the telecommunications sector has two sector-specific characteristics: network externalities and discriminatory pricing. It finds that many telephone operators in the region use peak and off-peak prices and termination-based price discrimination, but are less likely to rely on strategic fee schedules such as tie-in arrangements. The estimated demand function based on a discreet consumer choice model indicates that termination-based discriminatory pricing can facilitate network expansion. It also shows that the implied price-cost margins are significantly high. Thus, price liberalization could be conducive to development of the telecommunications network led by the private sector. Some countries in Africa are still imposing certain price restrictions. But more important, it remains a policy issue how the authorities should ensure reciprocal access between operators at reasonable cost
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    MPI Ethno. Forsch.
  • 100
    Online Resource
    Online Resource
    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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