Development Policy Review最新文献

Motivation

The COVID-19 pandemic harmed business and employment in two ways: ill health reduced consumer demand for goods and services; and lockdowns to control disease prevented businesses from operating. This article is concerned with the latter effect.

Purpose

This article assesses the losses of full-time and part-time jobs as well as wage cuts in Jordan and Morocco as a result of businesses having to close down under lockdowns.

Methods and approach

We compared firms that closed down under lockdown to those that did not in the two countries. We used propensity score matching to balance the two sets of firms.

We drew on data from two rounds of the COVID-19 World Bank Enterprise Survey, carried out in June–August 2020 for both countries; and November–December 2020 for Jordan and January–February 2021 for Morocco. The surveys included 601 firms in Jordan and 1,096 in Morocco. We used results from the first round to estimate short-term effects, and those from the second round to estimate medium-term effects.

The survey differentiated firms by sector—manufacturing, retailing, and other services—by firm size, by whether they were under foreign ownership, and by whether they were engaged in exporting.

Findings

First we checked the likelihood that firms closed: larger firms and non-exporting firms were significantly less likely than smaller and exporting firms to close down.

When firms closed, they shed jobs, but with marked differences across sectors.

Manufacturing firms laid workers off in the short term, an effect that did not increase in the medium term. However, manufacturing firms did reduce wages in the medium term.

Retail firms shed fewer jobs in the short term but cut more jobs in the medium term—mainly of part-time workers. They also cut wages in the medium term.

For other services, job losses were observed for part-time workers in both the short term and the medium term.

Policy implications

Policy-makers should consider promoting digitization of the economy; programmes to reform and repurpose businesses; and targeted unemployment benefits to protect workers from loss of jobs and earnings from lockdowns.

Motivation

Nepal adopted a federal constitution in 2015 that created autonomous local governments across the country. A prime aim was to encourage ordinary people's participation in local decision-making processes.

Purpose

To what extent do local governments in rural Nepal adopt informal approaches—approaches that reflect local social needs and desires—to participation in decision-making?

Methods and approach

As part of interpretive case studies, the author gathered qualitative evidence as a participant observer of local government in five rural municipalities in Rasuwa District, a remote area on the northern border.

A framework was created to capture the concepts of participatory governance and sociology to guide data collection and analysis.

Findings

In the five municipalities studied, decisions were successively made in forums at village, ward and municipal levels. In the village, participation was considerable: all persons, all voices could be heard. But as proposals were aggregated upwards to ward and municipal levels, citizens participated less, being replaced by elected representatives and civil servants.

Nepal has showcased successful participatory processes by incorporating diverse local groups in a range of policy areas such as community forests, or in the operation of public services such as water or schools. The present research acknowledges their success in widening and deepening citizen participation; it also brings new knowledge to bear on deeply rooted culturally accepted informal participatory methods in rural local governments.

Policy implications

Because each local government has its own circumstances in which to operationalize participatory governance, reforms should recognize the prevalence of informalities in rural municipalities and the dominance of formalities in urban municipalities.

Motivation

Air pollution in general, and indoor air pollution in particular, have been linked to severe, acute ill health. Less attention has been paid to long-term outcomes such as stunting (height for age).

Purpose

Does reduced air pollution inside the home resulting from burning cleaner fuels affect child development?

Methods and approach

We compare stunting of persons aged under 20 years of age in households with and without clean stoves between 1997 and 2000. Data come from the Indonesian Family Life Survey, a repeat survey that includes over 30,000 respondents. We model relations by regression; correcting for endogeneity (wealth affects both health and choice of stove) and confounders by using instrumental variables.

Findings

Using a clean stove leads to a 0.28 standard deviation reduction in stunting. The result is significant and consistent across specifications; the estimate is double the size of estimates that do not address the endogeneity of wealth.

Policy implications

Policy-makers should encourage households to adopt clean stoves and to use clean fuels. Public intervention is especially indicated in rural areas, where many households prefer to use cheaper, but polluting, stoves and fuels.

Motivation

Women are especially vulnerable to not being able to cover the costs of living or meet sudden demands for funds to pay for emergencies (financial vulnerability). The COVID-19 pandemic put additional stress on household incomes and the ability to meet emergency expenses, thus bringing into sharp relief the lack of inclusion of women in formal financial systems and the gender gaps between them and men.

Purpose

How financially vulnerable are women in Latin America? What causes vulnerability? How do financial inclusion, personality traits, cognitive characteristics, and financial literacy affect financial vulnerability?

Methods and approach

Using Financial Capabilities Surveys, we use regression to model the determinants of an index of financial vulnerability for eight countries in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru. We use Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to establish the extent to which the gender arises from the different characteristics of men and women, or from the way in which such characteristics affect groups.

Findings

We find a gender gap in financial vulnerability in most of the eight countries. Individual characteristics that often explain this gap are socioeconomic, such as belonging to a low socioeconomic class and not having a regular income. In addition to gender and socioeconomic characteristics, the use of savings products, some personality traits (ability to plan, self-control), economic preferences, and numeracy skills also drive financial vulnerability.

Policy implications

Interventions to reduce financial vulnerability need, first and foremost, to address socioeconomic conditions. People on low incomes will always be financially vulnerable. In addition, programmes to expand financial inclusion and educate people on finances can help. Given the significant gender gaps, more effort must be made to reduce such gaps in education, employment, and social norms.

Motivation

The Boko Haram insurgency has ravaged north-east Nigeria since 2002. The killing, kidnapping, and burning of homes have left millions homeless in its wake. The insurgency has especially affected women. Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from a school in one instance; abducted partly for ransom and partly because Boko Haram resents Western education, especially for girls and women. Boko Haram has the dubious distinction of deploying the highest number of women as suicide bombers in history.

Purpose

How has displacement by the insurgency affected women's learning and education? How do women affected by Boko Haram experience self-regulated learning? These questions shed light on how individual resilience manifests itself in women affected by violence and how learning opportunities can be taken up.

Methods and approach

Over two years, I repeatedly interviewed, using Skype, 10 women aged 18 years or more living in a camp for displaced persons in north-east Nigeria owing to the violence of the insurgency. I analysed the themes raised in interview using Bandura's self-efficacy and sensemaking theory as a conceptual framework.

Findings

The interviews revealed three main themes with six subthemes. One theme was the suffering of the women expressed as unquantifiable loss and worries about physical sustenance. A second was support by talking with family and friends, expressed as giving them a compass to guide their lives and encouragement to take advantage of opportunities like education in IDP camps. A third theme was tomorrow and hopes, expressed as dreams of a profession or career, and as desired education and marriage. Social relations helped the women to hope and to aspire. The bonds they built with each other to survive in their new circumstances helped them thrive, therefore developing self-efficacy. The camp had schools, to which they were able to send their daughters. Many women and girls who previously had no access to Western education in their former lives in deprived villages now had such access.

Policy implications

The study shows how violence, displacement, and social relations, allied to the concrete opportunity of schooling, allow women to access formal education and create new visions. Policy-makers should recognize the agency of women in camps, and make sure that schools and other means of education are provided.

Motivation

Calls for a green monetary policy are intensifying as the climate crisis deepens. Although the leading central banks of low-inflation countries are the spokesmodels of this discussion, considerations of green central banking under high inflation continue to lag. The motivation of this article is to contribute to this process with a working example from Turkey—an economy under severe inflationary pressure.

Purpose

Our first objective is to document the risks associated with climate change for the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) in terms of its main mandate of price stability and to provide evidence to pursue green policies. We next examine the feasibility of a green monetary design under high inflation.

Methods and approach

We scrutinize the duties and responsibilities of the CBRT as set by law and set out the armoury it would have at its disposal in pursuing a green monetary policy. Exhibiting climate change-related risks to its mandate(s), we find one climate policy-related and two mandate-related reasons for the CBRT to go green, matching them with robust green instruments.

Findings

Adopting a green monetary policy has the potential to improve the CBRT's ability to reach its objective of price stability. Indicating that green central banking in a high-inflation country is more of a need than an option, we also document that greening of the monetary policy does not necessarily conflict with the broad mandates of inflation targeting and financial stability.

Policy implications

Evidence from Turkey supports the greening of the CBRT. This call is both feasible in terms of its capabilities and critical as regards fulfilling the mandate. Furthermore, by exposing carbon bias in the country's loan portfolio, our findings support aligning monetary policy with emissions-abatement instruments, thus contributing to the overall design of Turkey's climate policies.

Motivation

Social business is business that aims primarily to achieve social ends, while at least covering its costs. Social business has been put forward as a means to achieve development aims, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thinking and Working Politically (TWP) is an approach to ensure development interventions are politically feasible and not stymied by political opposition. Are the two approaches compatible?

Purpose

The article asks whether social business can ally with TWP for more effective development, taking a social business for water provision in Cambodia as a case in point.

Methods and approach

A review of development policy literature on social business and TWP is combined with data we collected from fieldwork in Cambodia from November 2018 to February 2019. We interviewed key informants from social business, UNICEF, and government in the capital. At two water kiosks in eastern Cambodia, one successful the other less so, we interviewed 2 kiosk operators, 20 customers, and local leaders; we held four focus groups of customers; and we observed operations at the kiosks. Data was analysed using an ethnographic, or immersive, qualitative approach.

Findings

In this case, UNICEF intuitively used TWP to connect a social business to government departments. Water kiosks depended heavily on local political dynamics. We found Commune officials mindful of their standing in local society who often had the interests of the local community in their hearts, but the compatibility of TWP and social business at the local project level is variable.

Policy implications

TWP can potentially help development actors supporting social business to make political connections, in this case to appropriate government departments and local official. The key, however, is to understand context. The danger is to view social business as a turnkey intervention that can be used without adaptation to context, without consideration of local politics. Donors supporting social business need to appraise each business, case by case.

Donors might also want to consider the motivations of international companies partnering with social business, particularly when different development objectives might be in conflict.