Refugees and “Missing” Arms Trade

Millions of people are killed or wounded by small arms each year. The aim of this study is to enhance our understanding of “missing” arms trade across countries. We proceed in two steps. First, we measure the extent of missing arms trade on the basis of official trade statistics. We construct a measure of the gap in arms trade based on the discrepancy between the value of arms exports reported by the exporting country and the value of arms imports recorded by the importing country. Second, we uncover the link between refugee movements and missing arms trade. Refugee flows, by reducing the ability of the receiving country to patrol its borders and its customs, are found to be correlated with arms smuggling across the border into the importing country. A series of robustness checks confirm the above findings.international trade, refugees, arms, customs.

The effect of mafia on public transfers

Organized crime is a worldwide, widespread phenomenon, which affects developing as well as developed countries, and entails deep economic and social consequences. The purpose of this study is to enhance our understanding of organized crime activities. By using an innovative data set on Sicilian mafia activity available at municipality level, we test whether firms located in municipalities with mafia-related crimes obtain more public subsidies. In order to deal with the endogeneity of the relationship, we explore the origins of mafia. We instrument current mafia activity with exogenous historical and geographical shifters of land productivity, i.e. rainfall in the XIX century and geographical features at municipality level. We provide evidence that the presence of mafia affects the allocation of public transfers: municipalities with mafia activity receive larger public funding. The estimated impact of mafia is also economically relevant and equals one standard deviation of the dependent variable. According to our estimates the presence of mafia increases the total amounts of funds by about 35% on average. A series of robustness checks confirms the above findings.organized crime, public transfers

Differentiated products and evasion of import tariffs

Emerging literature has demonstrated some unique characteristics of trade in differentiated products. This paper contributes to the literature by postulating that differentiated products may be subject to greater tariff evasion due to the difficulties associated with assessing their quality and price. Using product-level data on trade between Germany and 10 Eastern European countries during 1992-2003, the authors find empirical support for this hypothesis. They show that the trade gap, defined as the discrepancy between the value of exports reported by Germany and the value of imports from Germany reported by the importing country, is positively related to the level of tariff in 8 out of 10 countries. Further, the authors show that the responsiveness of the trade gap to the tariff level is greater for differentiated products than for homogeneous goods. A one-percentage-point increase in the tariff rate is associated with a 0.6 percent increase in the trade gap in the case of homogeneous products and a 2.1 percent increase in the case of differentiated products. Finally, the data indicate that greater tariff evasion observed for differentiated products tends to take place through misrepresentation of the import prices.Free Trade,International Trade and Trade Rules,Water and Industry,Markets and Market Access,Commodities

Does reinforcing spouses’ land rights improve children’s outcomes? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in rural Vietnam

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between laws strengthening women’s rights, and children’s outcomes, namely child labor and educational attainment. We analyze the effects of a land reform introduced in Vietnam in 2003 that had the objective of reinforcing women’s land rights within households. The introduction of the 2003 Land Law represents a quasi-natural experiment which allows us to analyze how legal reforms are transformed and adopted by social norms. We investigate the effects of being part of the population of households targeted by the land law with the help of a household survey that permits detailed investigation of property rights at the plot level. We show that the land reform contributed to reducing girls’ participation in household agricultural production and to increasing girls’ educational attainment. We do not find comparable effects for boys.Child labor, education, land rights, gender, land reform, Vietnam.

Political Institutions, Voter Turnout and Policy Outcomes

We question whether the impact of constitutions on economic outcomes (Persson and Tabellini, 2004) is direct. We show that voter turnout is a channel through which forms of government affect economic policies. We provide evidence of the existence of two relationships: the first links constitutions to voter turnout; the second connects voter turnout to policy outcomes. Presidential regimes are found to induce less voter participation in national elections. We then analyze the impact of constitutional variables and voter participation in shaping fiscal policies. Forms of governments lose their explanatory power once participation is accounted for. Higher participation induces an increase in government expenditure, total revenues and welfare state spending. We conclude that forms of government affect policy outcomes through electoral participation.

Services inputs and firm productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa : evidence from firm-level data

The authors investigate the relationship between the productivity of African manufacturing firms and their access to services inputs. They use data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for over 1,000 firms in 10 Sub-Saharan African countries to calculate the total factor productivity of firms. The Enterprise Surveys also contain unique measures of firms'access to communications, electricity, and financial services. The availability of these measures at the firm level, both as subjective and objective indicators, allows the authors to exploit the variation in services performance at the subnational regional level. Furthermore, by using the regional variation in services performance, they are also able to address concerns about the possible endogeneity of the services variables. The results show a significant and positive relationship between firm productivity and service performance in all three services sectors analyzed. The authors thus provide support for the argument that improvements in services industries contribute to enhancing the performance of downstream economic activities, and thus are an essential element of a strategy for promoting growth and reducing poverty.Economic Theory&Research,Education for the Knowledge Economy,Rural Communications,Commodities,Urban Economics

Migrant Remittances and Information Flows: Evidence from a Field Experiment*

Do information flows matter for remittance behavior? We design and implement a randomized control trial to quantitatively assess the role of communication between migrants and their contacts abroad on the extent and value of remittance flows. In the experiment, a random sample of 1,500 migrants residing in Ireland was offered the possibility of contacting their networks outside the host country for free over a varying number of months. We find a sizable, positive impact of our intervention on the value of migrant remittances sent. Our results exclude that the remittance effect we identify is a simple substitution effect. Instead, our analysis points to this effect being a likely result of improved information via factors such as better migrant control over remittance use, enhanced trust in remittance channels due to experience sharing, or increased remittance recipients’ social pressure on migrants.NORFACE Research Programme “Migration in Europe - Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics”, Department of Economics and the Arts and Social Sciences Benefactions Fund at Trinity College Dublin, Nova Forum at Nova University of Lisbo

Telecracy: Testing for Channels of Persuasion

We consider the long-lived slant towards Berlusconi in political information on Italian television (TV ). We exploit a shock to the slanted exposure of viewers: idiosyncratic deadlines to switch to digital TV from 2008 to 2012, which increased the number of freeview channels tenfold. The switch caused a drop in the vote share of Berlusconi’s coalition by between 5.5 and 7.5 percentage points. The effect was stronger in towns with older and less educated voters. At least 20 percent of digital users changed their voting behavior after the introduction of digital TV. Our evidence is consistent with the existence of persuasion- biased viewers

The Role of Technology, Investment and Ownership Structure in the Productivity Performance of the Manufacturing Sector in Vietnam

This paper explores the productivity performance of the manufacturing sector in Vietnam between 2001 and 2007. Total Factor Productivity indices are computed using an index number approach and the productivity performance of manufacturing sub-sectors is analysed. We find that productivity increases in almost all sectors and that for many sectors the dispersion in productivity is declining over time. However, for the most productive sectors the gap is widening suggesting that productivity is being driven by the most productive enterprises getting better, leaving the least productive behind. The empirical analysis reveals investment and technology usage as important determinants of enterprise productivity levels. Specifically, higher levels of productivity are found in foreign- and state-owned enterprises, driven almost entirely by higher levels of investment and technology usage. Our results provide a strong quantitative basis in support of ongoing government initiatives aimed at encouraging investment in technology and innovation. They also point to the clear need for such initiatives to be complemented by measures to provide a more balanced distribution of investment, such that a level playing field is created for the different types of enterprises.