Does inequality make us rebel? A renewed theoretical model applied to South Mexico

Since Collier and Hoeffler (1998, 2004), it has been supported that inequality, measured at national level, does not affect the risk of conflict. Based on a renewed theoretical framework, the purpose of the paper is to explore the role of inequality in localized conflicts. We argue that previous findings might be biased by the myopic nature of cross-country analysis. Consistently with the model, Probit estimations indicate that income inequality measured at municipal level was significant in motivating people to support the rebellion in South Mexico. At this geographical level, we also find an increase in income per capita could exacerbate the risk of conflict in a situation where the rebel leader would have greater incentives to loot the local production compared to the opportunity cost associated with fighting for the worker.rebellion, inequality, income, Mexico

Winners and losers among a refugee-hosting population

refugees, Tanzania migration

The Impact of Weather Anomalies on Migration in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper analyzes the effects of weather anomalies on migration in sub-Saharan Africa. Theoretically, we show how weather anomalies induce rural-urban migration that subsequently triggers international migration. We distinguish two transmission channels, an amenity and an economic geography channel. Empirically, based on annual, cross-country panel data for sub-Saharan Africa, our results suggest that weather anomalies increased internal and international migration through both channels. We estimate that temperature and rainfall anomalies caused a total displacement of 5 million people in net terms during the period 1960-2000, i.e. a minimum of 130’000 people every year. Further weather anomalies, based on IPCC projections on climate change, could lead to an additional annual displacement of 11 million people by the end of the 21st century.International migration, urbanization, rural-urban migration, weather anomalies, sub-Saharan Africa.

Price Shocks and Human Capital:Timing Matters

The effect of economic shocks on human capital is theoretically ambiguous due to opposing income and substitution effects. Using child level information on schooling, child labour, and cognitive development, we investigate the effect of cocoa price fluctuations on human capital production in Ghana. We demonstrate that the timing of the price shock matters. For school-aged children, the substitution effect dominates: a price boom decreases schooling and increases child labour. An increase of one standard deviation in the current-year real producer price of cocoa significantly decreases current school attendance by 8.6 percentage points and the likelihood of being in the correct grade in the following year by 5.5 percentage points. For pre-school-aged children, however, the income effect dominates: early life and in utero booms in the real producer price of cocoa significantly increase Raven/IQ scores and grade attainment

A Solve-RD ClinVar-based reanalysis of 1522 index cases from ERN-ITHACA reveals common pitfalls and misinterpretations in exome sequencing

Purpose Within the Solve-RD project (https://solve-rd.eu/), the European Reference Network for Intellectual disability, TeleHealth, Autism and Congenital Anomalies aimed to investigate whether a reanalysis of exomes from unsolved cases based on ClinVar annotations could establish additional diagnoses. We present the results of the “ClinVar low-hanging fruit” reanalysis, reasons for the failure of previous analyses, and lessons learned. Methods Data from the first 3576 exomes (1522 probands and 2054 relatives) collected from European Reference Network for Intellectual disability, TeleHealth, Autism and Congenital Anomalies was reanalyzed by the Solve-RD consortium by evaluating for the presence of single-nucleotide variant, and small insertions and deletions already reported as (likely) pathogenic in ClinVar. Variants were filtered according to frequency, genotype, and mode of inheritance and reinterpreted. Results We identified causal variants in 59 cases (3.9%), 50 of them also raised by other approaches and 9 leading to new diagnoses, highlighting interpretation challenges: variants in genes not known to be involved in human disease at the time of the first analysis, misleading genotypes, or variants undetected by local pipelines (variants in off-target regions, low quality filters, low allelic balance, or high frequency). Conclusion The “ClinVar low-hanging fruit” analysis represents an effective, fast, and easy approach to recover causal variants from exome sequencing data, herewith contributing to the reduction of the diagnostic deadlock

Does inequality make us rebel ? A renewed theoretical model applied to South Mexico

Since Collier and Hoeffler (1998, 2004), it has been supported that inequality, measured at national level, does not affect the risk of conflict. Based on a renewed theoretical framework, the purpose of the paper is to explore the role of inequality in localized conflicts. We argue that previous findings might be biased by the myopic nature of cross-country analysis. Consistently with the model, Probit estimations indicate that income inequality measured at municipal level was significant in motivating people to support the rebellion in South Mexico. At this geographical level, we also find an increase in income per capita could exacerbate the risk of conflict in a situation where the rebel leader would have greater incentives to loot the local production compared to the opportunity cost associated with fighting for the worker

Winners and losers among a refugee-hosting population

PRIFPRI3; ISIDSG

The development push of refugees: Evidence from Tanzania

Every year, thousands of people flee their country of origin to seek protection mainly in neighboring countries. Understanding better the consequences of temporary population shocks on hosting economies should help to guide policies to enhance resilience in emergency situations. This study exploits a 1991–2010 Tanzanian household panel to assess the effects of the temporary refugee inflows originating from Burundi (1993) and Rwanda (1994). We find that the refugee presence has had a persistent and positive impact on the welfare of the local population. We investigate the possible channels of transmission, underscoring the importance of a decrease in transport costs as a key driver of this persistent change in welfare. We interpret these findings as the ability of a temporary shock to induce a persistent shift in the equilibrium through subsequent investments rather than a switch to a new equilibrium in a multiple-equilibrium setting.Non-PRIFPRI1; CRP2; E Building ResilienceDSGD; PIMCGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM