Does the group leader matter? The impact of monitoring activities and social ties of group leaders on the repayment performance of groupbased lending Eritrea

This paper analyzes whether the effects of monitoring and social ties of the group leader and other group members on repayment performance of groups differ, using data from an extensive questionnaire held in Eritrea among participants of 102 groups. We hypothesize that the monitoring activities and social ties of the group leader have a stronger positive impact on the repayment performance of groups. The results show that social ties of the group leader do have a positive effect on repayment performance of groups, whereas this is not true for social ties of other group members. We do not find evidence for the hypothesis that monitoring activities of the group leader have a stronger positive impact on group repayment performance. All variables measuring monitoring activities, either of the group leader or the other group members, are found to be statistically insignificant.

Got Milk? The Impact of Heifer International\u27s Livestock Donation Programs in Rwanda on Nutritional Outcomes

International animal donation programs have become an increasingly popular way for people living in developed countries to transfer resources to families living in developing countries. We evaluate the impact of Heifer International’s dairy cow and meat goat donation programs in Rwanda. We find that the program substantially increases dairy and meat consumption among Rwandan households who were given a dairy cow or a meat goat, respectively. We also find marginally statistically significant reductions in weight-for-height z-scores and weight-for-age z-scores of about 0.4 standard deviations among children aged 0-5 years in households that were recipients of meat goats, and reductions in heightfor- age z-scores of about 0.5 standard deviations among children in households that received dairy cows. Our results suggest that increasing livestock ownership in developing countries may significantly increase consumption of nutrient dense animal-source foods and improve nutrition outcomes

Microfinance at the Margin: Experimental Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina

We use an RCT to analyse the impact of microcredit on poverty reduction in Bosnia. The study population are loan applicants that would normally have just been rejected based on regular screening. We find that access to credit allowed borrowers to start and expand small-scale businesses. Households that already had a business and where the borrower had more education ran down their savings, presumably to complement the loan and to achieve the minimum amount necessary to expand their business. In less-educated households, however, consumption went down. A key new result is that there was a substantial increase in the labor supply of young adults (16-19 year olds). This was accompanied by a reduction in school attendance

A Typology of Child Sponsorship Activity

Framing the debate over child sponsorship in terms of legitimacy and changing perceptions of credible international humanitarian interventions, this chapter takes exception to the tendency of child sponsorship critics to assume that sponsorship funded activity is much the same everywhere and similar today when compared to sponsorship practice in the past. Mindful of ongoing critique of child sponsorship, this chapter seeks to position those international non-governmental organisations that utilise child sponsorship to fund interventions, in a landscape of contested ideas. It argues that informed critique of child sponsorship is best achieved through a typology of funded interventions. Four key types of sponsorship funded activity are identified as emerging over time, some of which are currently deemed to be less legitimate in terms of poverty reduction and are best seen as welfare measures aimed at individual children rather than community development or advocacy activities

Avaliação dos efeitos atmosféricos no albedo e NDVI obtidos com imagens de satélite

O albedo é um elemento importante em estudos relacionados aos balanços de radiação e energia. Por conseguinte, alterações ocorridas em diversos biomas trazem grandes implicações ao conforto humano e animal. Neste sentido, o monitoramento do albedo através de imagens orbitais possibilita identificar a antropização de grandes áreas e seus impactos ambientais. O presente trabalho foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de avaliar o impacto da correção atmosférica na estimativa do albedo da superfície e do NDVI, utilizando-se a metodologia tradicional do SEBAL (Bastiaanssen, 2000) e a correção atmosférica no cômputo da refletância, banda a banda (Allen et al., 2007b), para quatro imagens Landsat 5 - TM da região do Cariri cearense. Os resultados mostraram diminuição no albedo da superfície e acréscimo no NDVI, corrigidos os efeitos atmosféricos para todas as áreas amostrais. De acordo com o teste de Student as diferenças entre os albedos e NDVIs, obtidas segundo os dois procedimentos considerados, são significativas a nível de significância de 0,01.The albedo is an important element in studies related to radiation and energy balances. Consequently, changes in different biomes bring major implications for human and animal comfort. Accordingly, the monitoring of the albedo by orbital images enables to identify the anthropic influence of large areas and their environmental impact. This work was developed with the objective of assessing the impact of atmospheric correction at surface albedo and the NDVI using the traditional method of SEBAL (Bastiaanssen, 2000) and atmospheric correction band to band (Allen et al., 2007b) for four Landsat 5 TM images covering Cariri mesoregion of Ceará State. The results showed decrease in the surface albedo and increase in NDVI, corrected for atmospheric effects for all sample areas. According with Student test there was significant difference between the albedo and NDVI under the two methods, significant at 0.01 level

The New Economic Case for Migration Restrictions: An Assessment

For decades, migration economics has stressed the effects of migration restrictions on income distribution in the host country. Recently the literature has taken a new direction by estimating the costs of migration restrictions to global economic efficiency. In contrast, a new strand of research posits that migration restrictions could be not only desirably redistributive, but in fact globally efficient. This is the new economic case for migration restrictions. The case rests on the possibility that without tight restrictions on migration, migrants from poor countries could transmit low productivity ("A" or Total Factor Productivity) to rich countries – offsetting efficiency gains from the spatial reallocation of labor from low to high-productivity places. We provide a novel assessment, proposing a simple model of dynamically efficient migration under productivity transmission and calibrating it with new macro and micro data. In this model, the case for efficiency-enhancing migration barriers rests on three parameters: transmission, the degree to which origin-country total factor productivity is embodied in migrants; assimilation, the degree to which migrants' productivity determinants become like natives' over time in the host country; and congestion, the degree to which transmission and assimilation change at higher migrant stocks. On current evidence about the magnitudes of these parameters, dynamically efficient policy would not imply open borders but would imply relaxations on current restrictions. That is, the new efficiency case for some migration restrictions is empirically a case against the stringency of current restrictions

Social norms and the time allocation of Women's labor in Burkina Faso

Metadata only recordThis article argues that social norms are a major factor in determining the allocation of women's time and in regulating their economic activities. This view contradicts the assumption that time allocation depends on household economic level. Norms are gender specific and determine social penalties, such as verbal or physical abuse for women who have to travel to trade. In Burkina Faso social norms differ between the two ethnic groups: Mossi (more-conservative) and Bwa (less-patriarchical group). Results show that women from these groups react to changes differently. Women's labor include working on their husbands' fields, home and children, and on their own activities such as farming, selling, brewing, making Karite butter

Data for: Developing Educational and Vocational Aspirations through International Child Sponsorship: Evidence from Kenya, Indonesia, and Mexico

Pooled data set from study of impact of child sponsorship on children's aspirations.THIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV

How Efficient are Africa's Emerging Stock Markets?

The development of financial institutions has been viewed in recent years as critical to the economic development process. This research uses recent data from the eight largest African stock markets to test whether these markets meet the criterion of weak-form stock market efficiency with returns characterised by a random walk. Results are then compared with similar tests on emerging stock markets in South-east Asia and Latin America. Conclusions from the research indicate that test results for weak-form efficiency in the emerging African stock markets compare favourably with those performed on other emerging stock markets.development of financial institutions, African stock markets, weak-form efficiency, emerging stock markets,