Women in development : defining the issues

Since women are half the world, every Government decision, and every economic process affects them. The definition of what constitutes a women's issue must be more restrictive than this. Three approaches are suggested. On one, policies are seen as women's issues to the extent that they affect women differentially. The report suggests that this might indeed apply to a wide range of policies. On a second, the report distinguishes problems into equity-based and efficiency based. The third, and most emphasized classification, is in gender specific processes. Four such processes are distinguished, together with their interactions. Women's issues then are a matter of understanding how these processes can be alleviated.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Anthropology,Banks&Banking Reform

The political economy of ethnicity

The paper investigates the effects of ethnic diversity on economic performance and the risk of violent conflict. Diversity has various detrimental microeconomic effects, tending to reduce public sector performance, increase patronage, and lower the level of trust among individuals. However, whether diversity adversely affects overall economic growth depends upon the political environment. Diversity is highly damaging to growth in the context of limited political rights, but is not damaging in democracies. The same relationship holds for the satisfactory performance of World Bank projects: in diverse societies, the risk of project failure is nearly doubled by the absence of political rights. There is a relationship between ethnic diversity and the risk of violent conflict, but it is non-monotonic. Those societies most at risk are the ones in the middle of the range of ethnic diversity. Highly diverse societies, such as are typical of Africa, are actually even safer than homogenous societies. A democratic Africa can thus reap the benefits which ethnic diversity provides in terms of a reduced risk of violence, while avoiding the potential costs of reduced growth. Both income levels and political rights are also important influences on the risk of violent conflict, and of its escalation into full civil war. Once a society has reached full scale civil war the balance of influences appears to change. The persistence of conflict, and the sustainability of a settlement, are more dependent upon ethnic composition and less dependent upon income and political rights, than are the initiation and escalation of violence. Hence, some peace settlements may need to change borders so as to increase (or reduce) the ethnic diversity of the state.

The Macroeconomic Repercussions of Agricultural Shocks and their Implications for Insurance

agriculture, price shocks, insurance, price stabilization, dollarization

Africa : geography and growth

Africa

Opportunities and Choices..

Growth depends upon the interaction of opportunities and choices. A country, or an entire region, may fail to grow either because there are no opportunities, or because choices are made that preclude opportunities being taken. The stark phenomenon we are trying to understand is that for forty years Africa stagnated while other developing regions grew. This chapter attempts to explain this alarming phenomenon in terms of the distinctive opportunities open to the region and the distinctive choices which were made.

Structural policies for shock-prone developing countries

Developing countries frequently face large adverse shocks to their economies. We study two distinct types of such shocks: large declines in the price of a country’s commodity exports and severe natural disasters. Unsurprisingly, adverse shocks reduce the short-term growth of constant-price GDP and we analyse which structural policies help to minimize these losses. Structural policies are incentives and regulations that are maintained for long periods, contrasting with policy responses to shocks, the analysis of which has dominated the literature. We show that some previously neglected structural policies have large effects that are specific to particular types of shock. In particular, regulations which reduce the speed of firm exit substantially increase the short-term growth loss from adverse non-agricultural export price shocks and so are particularly ill-suited to mineral exporting economies. Natural disasters appear to be better accommodated by labour market policies, perhaps because such shocks directly dislocate the population.commodity price shocks; natural disasters; growth, policies

Does aid mitigate external shocks?

This paper investigates the role of aid in mitigating the adverse effects of commodity export price shocks on growth in commodity-dependent countries. Using a large cross-country dataset, we find that negative shocks matter for short-term growth, while the ex ante risk of shocks does not seem to matter. We also find that both the level of aid and the flexibility of the exchange rate substantially lower the adverse growth effect of shocks. While the mitigating effect of aid is significant in both countries with pegs and countries with floats, the effect seems to be smaller for the latter, suggesting that aid and exchange rate flexibility are partly substitutes. We investigate whether aid has historically been targeted at shock-prone countries, but find no evidence that this is the case. This suggests that donors could increase aid effectiveness by redirecting aid towards countries with a high incidence of commodity export price shocks.commodity prices; aid; growth; external shocks

Does Aid Mitigate External Shocks?

This paper investigates the role of aid in mitigating the adverse effects of commodity export price shocks on growth in commodity-dependent countries. Using a large cross-country dataset, we find that negative shocks matter for short-term growth, while the ex ante risk of shocks does not seem to matter. We also find that both the level of aid and the flexibility of the exchange rate substantially lower the adverse growth effect of shocks. While the mitigating effect of aid is significant in both countries with pegs and countries with floats, the effect seems to be smaller for the latter, suggesting that aid and exchange rate flexibility are partly substitutes. We investigate whether aid has historically been targeted at shock-prone countries, but find no evidence that this is the case. This suggests that donors could increase aid effectiveness by redirecting aid towards countries with a high incidence of commodity export price shocks.aid, commodities, export, price shocks

Greed and grievance in civil wars

We investigate the causes of civil war, using a new data set of wars during 1960-99. We test a `greed’ theory focusing on the ability to finance rebellion, against a `grievance’ theory focusing on ethnic and religious divisions, political repression and inequality. We find that greed considerably outperforms grievance. Consistent with the greed theory, both dependence upon primary commodity exports and a large diaspora substantially increase the risk of conflict. Inconsistent with the grievance theory, greater ethnic and religious diversity reduce the risk of conflict. The results are robust to correction for outliers, alternative variable definition, and variations in estimation method.Conflict, Development, Natural Resources, Panel Data

Can the world cut poverty in half ? how policy reform and effective aid can meet international development goals

More effective development aid could greatly improve poverty reduction in the areas where poverty reduction is expected to lag: Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Even more potent would be significant policy reform in the countries themselves. The authors develop a model of efficient aid in which the total volume of aid is endogenous. In particular, aid flows respond to policy improvements that create a better environment for poverty reduction and effective use of aid. They use the model to investigate scenarios-of policy reform, of more efficient aid, and of greater volumes of aid-that point the way to how the world could cut poverty in half in every major region. The fact that aid increases the benefits of reform suggests that a high level of aid to strong reformers may increase the likelihood of sustained good policy (an idea ratified in several recent case studies of low-income reformers). The authors find that the world is not operating on the efficiency frontier. With the same level of concern, much more poverty reduction could be achieved by allocating aid on the basis of how poor countries are as well as on the basis of the quality of their policies. Global poverty reduction requires a partnership in which"third world"countries and governments improve economic policy while"first world"citizens and governments show concern about poverty and translate that concern into effective assistance.Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Services&Transfers to Poor,Poverty Reduction Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Achieving Shared Growth,Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Services&Transfers to Poor,Poverty Assessment