Natural disasters, self-Insurance, and human capital investment: Evidence from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Malawi

"This paper uses panel data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Malawi to examine the impacts of disasters on dynamic human capital production. Our empirical results show that accumulation of biological human capital prior to a disaster helps children maintain investments during the post-disaster period. Biological human capital formed in early childhood (for example, good long-term nutritional status) helps insure resilience to disasters by protecting schooling investments and outcomes, even though disasters have negative impacts on the actual investments (for example, by destroying schools). In Bangladesh, children with more biological human capital are less adversely affected by flood, and the rate of investment increases with the initial human capital stock during the post-disaster recovery process. In Ethiopia and Malawi, where droughts are relatively frequent, repeated drought exposure reduces schooling investments in some cases, with larger negative impacts seen among children who embody less biological human capital. Asset holdings prior to disaster (especially intellectual human capital stock in the household) also help maintain schooling investments to at least the same degree as the stock of human capital accumulated in the children prior to the disaster. Our results suggest that as the frequency of natural disasters increases due to global warming, the insurance value of investments in child nutrition will increase. Public investments in child nutrition therefore have the potential to effectively protect long-term human capital formation among children who are vulnerable to natural disasters." from authors' abstractDisasters, Human capital, Nutrition, Schooling, Self-insurance, Poverty reduction, Social protection, Shocks, Asset dynamics, Education,

Risks, ex-ante actions, and public assistance: Impacts of natural disasters on child schooling in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Malawi

"This paper uses panel data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Malawi to examine the impacts of natural disasters on schooling investments, with a particular focus on the roles of ex-ante actions and ex-post responses. We find that the importance of ex-ante actions depends on disaster risks and the likelihood of public assistance, potentially creating substitution between the two actions. We find that higher future probabilities of disaster increase the likelihood of agents holding more human capital and/or livestock relative to land; this asset-portfolio effect is significant in disaster-prone areas. Our empirical results support the roles of both ex-ante and ex-post (public assistance) responses in coping with disasters, but we see interesting variations across countries. In Ethiopia, public assistance plays a more important role than ex-ante actions in mitigating the impact of shocks on child schooling. In contrast, Malawi households rely more on private ex-ante actions than on public assistance. The Bangladesh example shows that active roles are played by both ex-ante and ex-post actions. These observations are consistent with our findings on the relationship between ex-ante actions and disaster risks. Our results also show that among ex-ante actions, human capital accumulated in the household prior to disasters helps mitigate the negative effects of a disaster in both the short and long runs." from authors' abstractNatural disasters, Ex-ante actions, Ex-post responses, Human capital investment, Poverty reduction, Social protection, Gender, Childcare and work,

ALTERNATIVE METHODS OF ACCOUNTING FOR LIVESTOCK CAPITAL FORMATION: AN APPLICATION TO SOUTHERN U.S. AGRICULTURE

Livestock Production/Industries,

Natural disasters, self-insurance and human capital investment : evidence from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Malawi

This paper examines the impacts of disasters on dynamic human capital production using panel data from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Malawi. The empirical results show that the accumulation of biological human capital prior to disasters helps children maintain investments in the post-disaster period. Biological human capital formed in early childhood (long-term nutritional status) plays a role of insurance with resilience to disasters by protecting schooling investment and outcomes, although disasters have negative impacts on investment. In Bangladesh, children with more biological human capital are less affected by the adverse effects of floods, and the rate of investment increases with the initial human capital stock in the post-disaster recovery process. In Ethiopia and Malawi, where droughts are rather frequent, exposure to highly frequent droughts in some cases reduces schooling investment but the negative impacts are larger among children embodying less biological human capital. Asset holdings prior to the disasters, especially the household's stock of intellectual human capital, also helps maintain schooling investments at least to the same degree as the stock of human capital accumulated in children prior to the disasters.Natural Disasters,Hazard Risk Management,Access to Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

A gendered 1993-94 Social Accounting Matrix for Bangladesh

This working paper documents the construction of a 1993-94 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Bangladesh. The SAM distinguishes 10 agricultural sectors —including two different kinds of rice technology — and 19 manufacturing sectors, out of 43 sectors in total. It also differentiates between twelve socio-economic groups, allowing detailed analysis of household welfare and poverty. The SAM has ten factors of production: one type of capital, one type of land and eight different types of labor which are disaggregated by both level of education and gender. The innovative feature of the SAM is that it separates out female and male labor value-added for each educational level and in eachsector of the economy, providing a base for gender-sensitive analyses of policy changes. The SAM is estimated with a cross-entropy approach, which makes efficient use of all available data in a framework that incorporates prior information and constraints.Mathematical models. ,Households. ,Labor Gender issues. ,Rice Bangladesh. ,TMD ,

Agroindustrialization through institutional innovation

Some small-holders are able to generate reliable and substantial income flows through small-scale dairy production for the local market; for others, a set of unique transactions costs hinders participation. Cooperative selling institutions are potential catalysts for mitigating these costs, stimulating entry into the market, and precipitating growth in rural communities. Trends in cooperative organization in East-African dairy are evaluated. Empirical work focuses on alternative techniques for effecting participation among a representative sample of peri-urban milk producers in the Ethiopian highlands. The techniques considered are a modern production practice (cross-bred cow use), a traditional production practice (indigenous-cow use), three intellectual-capital-forming variables (experience, education, extension), and the provision of infrastructure (as measured by time to transport milk to market). A Tobit analysis of marketable surplus generates precise estimates of non-participants' ‘distances' to market and their reservation levels of the covariates—measures of the inputs necessary to sustain and enhance the market. Policy implications focus on the availability of cross-bred stock and the level of market infrastructure, both of which have marked effects on participation, the velocity of transactions in the local community and, inevitably, the social returns to agroindustrialization.Dairy farming Ethiopia. ,Collective farms Ethiopia. ,

The Revised Philippine System of National Accounts

This article presents the revision made to the 1991 System of National Accounts that initially covered the years 1980-1987. The whole link series from 1946-1990 has been completed while the sources and methods of the revised system are still being finalized for publications.data and statistics, national account

The Revised Philippine System of National Accounts

This article presents the revision made to the 1991 System of National Accounts that initially covered the years 1980-1987. The whole link series from 1946-1990 has been completed while the sources and methods of the revised system are still being finalized for publications.data and statistics, national account

Changing pattern of fertility behaviour in a time of social and economic change: evidence from Mongolia

In 1989, after a long period of socialist rule, Mongolia initiated a democratisation process of its political system together with a transition towards a market economy. This paper examines how changes in socio-economic conditions in Mongolia have affected fertility patterns in recent times. It also provides an outline of changes that have taken place in terms of pro-natalist policies. The study is based on data from the Reproductive Health Survey of Mongolia (RHSM) conducted in 1998. In terms of economic activity we find an inverse, although weak, relationship for older cohorts. This is in strong contrast to the young cohort, for which the economic downturn has had a strongly depressing effect on fertility. We also find important effects of micro level variables, including education and housing. Our findings suggest that the fertility decline observed for the older cohorts are very much part of the first demographic transition, in which the collapse of pro-natalist policies has been influential. (AUTHOR)

Do Tenure Differences Influence the Improvement of Quality of Rented Land? Empirical Evidence from Rural Ghana

The implications of migrant agricultural production for the environment have interested policy makers in sub-Saharan Africa of late. The impacts in the region of migrant destination may be short-term including initial felling of trees, intensive land use, and application of techniques. In the longer term, tenants are expected to adjust their techniques to that of the indigenous landowners. This paper explains how migrant tenants manage the quality of rented plots in the absence of clearly defined property rights with a survey data from rural area in Ghana. An empirical model explaining the probability to invest in land improvements is formulated. The empirical results indicate that tenure differences and income levels of migrants and indigenous landowners play a critical role in investments in land improvements.Land Economics/Use,