Income Volatility, Risk-Coping Behavior and Consumption Smoothing Mechanisms in Developing Countries: A Survey

This paper provides a review of the general concepts and infl uential fi ndings of empirical research on risk-coping behavior and consumption smoothing arrangements in rural economies of developing countries. Low-income individuals live with high levels of risk and limited access to formal fi nancial systems for credit and insurance. In general, the evidence indicates that their informal mechanisms to mitigate risk play an important role in partially protecting their consumption. However, these alternatives do not allow rural households to achieve an optimal allocation of risk across time and income cycles and are costly on equity grounds. In addition, risks that remain uninsured seem to have adverse long term welfare consequences. Public interventions can play a signifi cant role in improving the income security of rural households. In doing so, it is crucial to have a good understanding of the causes and not simply the symptoms of informal risk-coping behavior and its social welfare implications.Risk coping behavior, consumption smoothing arrangements, income volatility, informal insurance, developing countries

patrimonio intelectual

Actas de congresoLas VI Jornadas se realizaron con la exposición de ponencias que se incluyeron en cuatro ejes temáticos, que se desarrollaron de modo sucesivo para facilitar la asistencia, el intercambio y el debate, distribuidos en tres jornadas. Los ejes temáticos abordados fueron: 1. La enseñanza como proyecto de investigación. Recursos de enseñanza-aprendizaje como mejoras de la calidad educativa. 2. La experimentación como proyecto de investigación. Del ensayo a la aplicabilidad territorial, urbana, arquitectónica y de diseño industrial. 3. Tiempo y espacio como proyecto de investigación. Sentido, destino y usos del patrimonio construido y simbólico. 4. Idea constructiva, formulación y ejecución como proyecto de investigación. Búsqueda y elaboración de resultados que conforman los proyectos de la arquitectura y el diseño

Early mobilisation in critically ill COVID-19 patients: a subanalysis of the ESICM-initiated UNITE-COVID observational study

Background Early mobilisation (EM) is an intervention that may improve the outcome of critically ill patients. There is limited data on EM in COVID-19 patients and its use during the first pandemic wave. Methods This is a pre-planned subanalysis of the ESICM UNITE-COVID, an international multicenter observational study involving critically ill COVID-19 patients in the ICU between February 15th and May 15th, 2020. We analysed variables associated with the initiation of EM (within 72 h of ICU admission) and explored the impact of EM on mortality, ICU and hospital length of stay, as well as discharge location. Statistical analyses were done using (generalised) linear mixed-effect models and ANOVAs. Results Mobilisation data from 4190 patients from 280 ICUs in 45 countries were analysed. 1114 (26.6%) of these patients received mobilisation within 72 h after ICU admission; 3076 (73.4%) did not. In our analysis of factors associated with EM, mechanical ventilation at admission (OR 0.29; 95% CI 0.25, 0.35; p = 0.001), higher age (OR 0.99; 95% CI 0.98, 1.00; p ≤ 0.001), pre-existing asthma (OR 0.84; 95% CI 0.73, 0.98; p = 0.028), and pre-existing kidney disease (OR 0.84; 95% CI 0.71, 0.99; p = 0.036) were negatively associated with the initiation of EM. EM was associated with a higher chance of being discharged home (OR 1.31; 95% CI 1.08, 1.58; p = 0.007) but was not associated with length of stay in ICU (adj. difference 0.91 days; 95% CI − 0.47, 1.37, p = 0.34) and hospital (adj. difference 1.4 days; 95% CI − 0.62, 2.35, p = 0.24) or mortality (OR 0.88; 95% CI 0.7, 1.09, p = 0.24) when adjusted for covariates. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate that a quarter of COVID-19 patients received EM. There was no association found between EM in COVID-19 patients' ICU and hospital length of stay or mortality. However, EM in COVID-19 patients was associated with increased odds of being discharged home rather than to a care facility. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04836065 (retrospectively registered April 8th 2021)

Three essays on children\u27s well-being in developing countries

Several factors that increase the prevalence of poverty and threaten children\u27s well-being persist in the developing world. Two specific issues are the focus of this dissertation: the consequences of fertility and risks on health and human capital formation in three developing countries. The first chapter uses exogenous variation in fertility from parental preferences for sex-mix among their children to identify the causal effect of family size on investments in children. Results using data from Colombia suggest that family size has negative effects on average child quality as measured by less schooling and weaker health and nutrition. It also reduces mother labor participation and increases child labor. The second chapter exploits the exogenous variation in the trajectory of a hurricane that hit Nicaragua in October in 1998 to examine the consequences of large and aggregated shocks in the well-being of children. The results show that this natural disaster had adverse medium-run effects in terms of health, nutrition and labor force participation. Children in affected areas were 30% less likely to be taken for medical consultation, four times more likely to be undernourished and more likely to join the labor market. Further evidence suggests that children were disproportionately affected by the shock as the nutritional status of mothers and adult consumption in affected areas were largely unchanged by the storm. Finally, the third chapter turns the attention to another type of shock: the migration of refugees from civil wars. Kagera--a region in northwestern Tanzania--received more than 500,000 refugees from the genocides of Burundi and Rwanda. This region is home to a series of geographic natural barriers, which resulted in exogenous variation in refugee intensity. This variation is used to investigate the short and long run causal effects of hosting refugees on the outcomes of local children. The results in the short run point to a deterioration of children\u27s anthropometrics and an increase in children\u27s morbidity and mortality. Childhood exposure to the massive arrival of refugees reduced height in early adulthood by 1.8 cm (1.2%), schooling by 0.2 years (7.1%) and literacy by 7 percentage points (8.6%) in the long run

Deforestation risk in the Peruvian Amazon basin

The prevention of tropical forest deforestation is essential for mitigating climate change. We tested the machine learning algorithm Maxent to predict deforestation across the Peruvian Amazon. We used official annual 2001-2019 deforestation data to develop a predictive model and to test the model's accuracy using near-real-time forest loss data for 2020. Distance from agricultural land and distance from roads were the predictor variables that contributed most to the final model, indicating that a narrower set of variables contribute nearly 80% of the information necessary for prediction at scale. The permutation importance indicating variable information not present in the other variables was also highest for distance from agricultural land and distance from roads, at 40.5% and 14.3%, respectively. The predictive model registered 73.2% of the 2020 early alerts in a high or very high risk category; less than 1% of forest cover in national protected areas were registered as very high risk, but buffer zones were far more vulnerable, with 15% of forest cover being in this category. To our knowledge, this is the first study to use 19 years of annual data for deforestation risk. The open-source machine learning method could be applied to other forest regions, at scale, to improve strategies for reducing future deforestation

Prosperous places: advancing spatially inclusive development in Türki̇ye

Türkiye’s economic growth in the last two decades has been remarkably rapid and inclusive, raising household incomes and bringing millions of people out of poverty. Growth has been broad based and has benefited long-lagging regions. Gaps in fundamental aspects of development such as access to education and healthcare have been closing fast, but other gaps persist and some are narrowing only slowly, including returns to factors of production and local market development. Against that backdrop, this study sought to advance understanding of the remaining regional inequality in household welfare in Türkiye, uncover key factors constraining convergence in welfare between lagging and leading regions, and build a strong evidence base for policy strategies to tackle long-standing barriers to spatially inclusive growth. This study takes stock of regional development inequalities in Türkiye, identifies the main drivers and constraints to progress toward regionally inclusive prosperity, and proposes an evidence-based policy framework to address remaining bottlenecks so that the gains of future economic progress are more broadly shared

CacaoFIT: the network of cacao field trials in Latin America and its contribution to sustainable cacao farming in the region

A network of agronomists, researchers, and practitioners associated with cacao farming provided open access to their independent field trials across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). A centralized dataset was assembled using qualitative and quantitative data from 25 experimental field trials (hereafter referred to as “CacaoFIT”) spanning several LAC agroecosystems. This dataset was used to document the main traits and agroclimatic attributes of the cacao cultivation model being tested within the CacaoFIT network. By synthesizing data from an entire network of cacao trials, this study aimed to highlight specific design features and management practices that may contribute to better cacao farming sustainability. The CacaoFIT network comprises 200 ha of field trials testing over 150 cacao genotypes and set up under different shade canopy design, management, and research goals. Small-sized trials were common across Mesoamerica, whereas medium to large-size trials were distinct to South America. Cacao trials were 15 years old (on average) and ranged from 3 to 25 years of establishment. Most cacao trials were managed conventionally (i.e., 55%), while 20% were under organic practices, and the remaining 25% presented both conventional and organic management approaches. Most field trials (ca. 60%) planted an average of 10 international clones or national cultivars at high (1,230–1,500 plants ha−1) and medium density (833–1,111 plants ha−1). Mixed shade canopies were the dominant agroforestry model, while timber vs. leguminous shade canopies were also common. The diversity and depth of research domains examined across the CacaoFIT network varied widely. Agronomy and agroforestry topics dominated the research agenda across all trials, followed by environmental services domains. Cacao physiology and financial performance were researched to a lesser extent within the network. Five featured field trials from CacaoFIT offered technical guidelines to inform cacao farming within similar contexts. This collaborative work is a scaffold to encourage public–private partnerships, capacity building, and data sharing amongst cacao researchers across the tropics