Journal of International Development最新文献

This study aimed to empirically analyse the relationship between technological intensity profile and local socio-economic development, using the theories of path dependence and microregional agglomeration economies. We applied the technique of linear hierarchical modelling with data from 645 municipalities in Brazil. Our results demonstrated that current municipal socio-economic development could be explained by the local technological path itself but even more so by the technological intensity of the microregion. This article's contribution lies in its union of two theoretical perspectives and its adoption of a quantitative approach, allowing for the analysis of municipal development at two levels, local and microregional.

Though evidence indicates the presence of coca increases violence, changes to the price of coca products can have both negative and positive effects on conflict. This study addresses this matter. Using novel data on local prices of coca products, production and supply chains, this study disentangles the returns to employment in the agricultural sector (cultivators) and employment in the criminal sector (guerillas and paramilitaries). I identify each agents' respective exposure to price changes and estimate the effect of such changes on violence. The results show the presence of the opportunity cost effect: an increase in income from coca results in a reduction in violence. This reduction comes with an increase in school attendance for rural households. An increase in the objective prize (OP) leads to more violence. Moreover, guerillas flock to the area that witnesses such an increase, resulting in higher levels of competition which coincides with the timing of the increase in violence. Additionally, increasing expected returns to joining an armed group can lead to higher school dropout rates among children.

The onset of the war on drugs in Mexico at the beginning of 21^st century had far-reaching effects on its citizens, including most obviously, an unprecedented increase in the homicide rate. We analyse the correlation between violence on social capital in the 32 federal states of Mexico from January 2004 to December 2016. Given the lack of data in the conflict regions of Mexico, we apply the indirect approach proposed by Guriev and Melnikov (2016), which uses internet search engine data to proxy social capital. Our results show a negative relationship between violence and social capital in Mexico. Moreover, we document a positive spatial correlation for social capital. Overall, we present an example of how the analysis of internet-based data can contribute to the understanding of socioeconomic developments in conflict regions with unreliable standard data.

This article details findings from research to re-design a postgraduate course on development practices in Development Studies in Aotearoa New Zealand, aiming to include the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Reviewing literature, surveying recently graduated students and interviewing senior staff in international development organisations, five topics emerged as forces shaping development practices in a post-covid-19 world. Analysis suggests interviewed staff aligned with views in literature. However, comparing views of the current and next generation of development practitioners reveals quite diverging views as to what would be most important for a course on development practices.

To better balance economic growth and environmental protection, China is encouraging green foreign direct investment (FDI), but the environmental impact remains unclear. Our study examines the environmental impact of green FDI at small spatial scales using a unique dataset. Results show that green FDI significantly alleviates local air pollution. This effect is more pronounced in the vicinity of green FDI enterprises' sites and decays as the distance increases. Also, it is more salient in areas where local governments highlight environmental protection. Heterogeneous analysis finds that the effect is more significant for enterprises that are small-scale, sole-venture or in manufacturing industries.

This study investigates the effect of economic freedom on education in Sub-Saharan Africa. We used a panel of 41 countries covering the period 2000–2019 and the two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) estimates. We find that economic freedom fosters secondary education. Furthermore, we find that the five components of economic freedom have varying effects on education. Indeed, size of government increases secondary education. Legal system increases secondary and tertiary education, while freedom to trade fosters primary and secondary education. In contrast, sound money has a negative impact on primary and tertiary education. These results are robust when we consider education by gender.

The World Bank has been inserting capital in various developing states at the onset of the decolonization period. The nature of this involvement within the context of extractives in these spaces remains understudied through the postcolonial lens. This study fills this void by examining the World Bank's Climate Smart Mining and counter-responses by the Khuthala Environmental Care Group. Utilizing Said's Imaginative Geographies and discourse analysis, this study shows that the World Bank's CSM documents reproduce the development rhetoric of the 1950s and these values are not shared by local communities. This research suggests that the World Bank needs to substantively alter its agenda for meaningful social and ecological reform.

A call to action has been issued for cross-sector partnerships such as academic–practitioner collaborations to develop evidence-based solutions to address development challenges. This study investigated correlations between factors such as motivation, involvement in co-creation of research, usability of research outputs and past partnering experiences with the future participation in such collaborations. Using survey data from members of the LASER PULSE Consortium, we not only present empirical evidence on the mismatch of expectations between academics and practitioners but also recommend a framework to maximise the potential of such collaborations by understanding value propositions and managing partnering experience.

The promulgation of the Hyogo Framework for Action and the Sendai Framework has seen many countries strengthening their disaster legislations in order to reduce disaster risk/losses. This study, therefore, assessed the usefulness of Zimbabwe's disaster legislation in reducing disaster risk/losses. The study used 27 semi-structured interviews with disaster experts. The findings revealed that the legislation is largely promoting a reactionary approach to disasters in a top-down manner. The study concludes that for disaster legislations to be adequate guiding frameworks for reducing disaster risks and losses, they need to be backed by clear funding mechanisms, which would allow investing in resilience.

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