Much ado about something: response to Haughton's reply to Duvendack and Palmer-Jones

PRIFPRI3; ISIDSG

Quasi-experimental study designs series –Paper 9: Collecting Data from Quasi-Experimental Studies

Objective: To identify variables that must be coded when synthesizing primary studies that use quasi-experimental designs.  Study Design and Setting: All quasi-experimental (QE) designs.  Results: When designing a systematic review of QE studies potential sources of heterogeneity – both theory-based and methodological – must be identified. We outline key components of inclusion criteria for syntheses of quasi-experimental studies. We provide recommendations for coding content-relevant and methodological variables, and outlined the distinction between bivariate effect sizes and partial (i.e., adjusted) effect sizes. Designs used and controls employed are viewed as of greatest importance. Potential sources of bias and confounding are also addressed.  Conclusion: Careful consideration must be given to inclusion criteria and the coding of theoretical and methodological variables during the design phase of a synthesis of quasi-experimental studies. The success of the meta-regression analysis relies on the data available to the meta-analyst. Omission of critical moderator variables (i.e., effect modifiers) will undermine the conclusions of a meta-analysis

Fintech, financial inclusion and income inequality: A quantile regression approach

Although theory suggests that financial market imperfections – mainly information asymmetries, market segmentation and transaction costs – prevent poor people from escaping poverty by limiting their access to formal financial services, new financial technologies (FinTech) are seen as key enablers of financial inclusion. Indeed, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN-2030-ASD) and the G20 High-Level Principles for Digital Financial Inclusion (G20-HLP-DFI) highlight the importance of harnessing the potential of FinTech to reduce financial exclusion and income inequality. This paper investigates the interrelationship between FinTech, financial inclusion and income inequality for a panel of 140 countries using the Global Findex waves of survey data for 2011, 2014 and 2017. We posit that FinTech affects inequality directly and indirectly through financial inclusion. We invoke quantile regression analysis to investigate whether such effects differ across countries with different levels of income inequality. We uncover new evidence that financial inclusion is a key channel through which FinTech reduces income inequality. We also find that while financial inclusion significantly reduces inequality at all quantiles of the inequality distribution, these effects are primarily associated with higher-income countries. Overall, our results support the aspirations of the UN-2030-ASD and G20-HLP-DFI

Quasi-experimental study designs series – Paper 10: Synthesizing evidence for effects collected from quasi-experimental studies presents surmountable challenges

Objective: To outline issues of importance to analytic approaches to the synthesis of quasi-experiments (QEs), and to provide a statistical model for use in analysis. Study Design and Setting: We drew on the literatures of statistics, epidemiology, and social-science methodology to outline methods for synthesis of QE studies. The design and conduct of quasi-experiments, effect sizes from QEs, and moderator variables for the analysis of those effect sizes were discussed. Results: Biases, confounding, design complexities and comparisons across designs offer serious challenges to syntheses of QEs. Key components of meta-analyses of QEs were identified, including the aspects of QE study design to be coded and analyzed. Of utmost importance are the design and statistical controls implemented in the QEs. Such controls and any potential sources of bias and confounding must be modeled in analyses, along with aspects of the interventions and populations studied. Because of such controls, effect sizes from QEs are more complex than those from randomized experiments. A statistical meta-regression model that incorporates important features of the QEs under review was presented. Conclusion: Meta-analyses of quasi-experiments provide particular challenges, but thorough coding of intervention characteristics and study methods, along with careful analysis, should allow for sound inferences

The impact of government policies on income inequality and the translation of growth into income poverty reduction: protocol for two systematic reviews

The eradication of poverty has been a central aim of international development for several decades, and the importance of reducing inequality is also increasingly accepted. This paper presents the protocols for two systematic reviews on the government policies and interventions that affect in-country income inequality and the translation of economic growth into reductions in income poverty. The paper describes the background to the reviews and the links between them, their aims and scope, the inclusion criteria, search strategy and synthesis options

Micro-finance, women’s empowerment and fertility decline in Bangladesh: How important was women’s agency?

As Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen has argued “[Bangladesh’s development achievements have] important lessons for other countries across the globe, [in particular a focus on] reducing gender inequality”. A major avenue through which this emphasis has been manifest lies, according to this narrative, in enhancements to women’s agency for instrumental and intrinsic reasons particularly through innovations in family planning and microfinance. The “Bangladesh paradox” of improved wellbeing despite low economic growth over the last four decades is claimed as a paradigmatic case of the spread of both modern family planning programmes and microfinance leading to women’s empowerment and fertility reduction. In this paper we show that the links between microfinance, empowerment and fertility reduction, are fraught with problems, and far from robust; hence the claimed causal links between microfinance and family planning via women’s empowerment needs to be further reconsidered

Revisiting the economics of transactional sex: evidence from Tanzania

Transactional sex has been identified as one of the key structural drivers of the HIV epidemic. Mainstream economic analyses of this practice primarily conceptualise transactional sex in the language of rational choice, with the focus on behavioural decisions that women make over whether to engage in transactional interactions (or not). However, whilst providing some important insights in relation to the role of poverty and the importance of acknowledging that women are more than passive agents, these approaches fail to address the social and economic complexities of this practice that are reflected in the broader literature. Further, due to the technical framework used, there is a failure to deal with the broader socio-economic and historical underpinnings of this practice. Using evidence from fieldwork undertaken in Tanzania, we revisit the economics of transactional sex, and offer an alternative economic approach to understanding this practice. We explore the notion that transactional sex is an established local sexual norm, and how this norm is creatively applied and reapplied in a range of situations by different actors, including through participation in local value chains. Our analysis has a number of implications for future prevention efforts that differ from the current focus on microfinance as a means of empowering women

Is fin-tech the new panacea for poverty alleviation and local development? Contesting Suri and Jack’s M-Pesa findings published in Science

Financial technology, or simply ‘fin-tech’, is increasingly seen as one of the key tools to facilitate poverty reduction and local economic development. One article in particular by Tavneet Suri and William Jack published in the leading publication Science has played a hugely influential role in promoting the fin-tech model in the global South using the example of Kenya’s iconic M-Pesa money transfer platform. The authors’ central claim is that M-Pesa has been instrumental in facilitating a major episode of poverty reduction. Our analysis shows that their analysis and claims are extremely problematic

Impact of financial inclusion in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review of reviews

Financial inclusion programmes seek to increase access to financial services such as credit, savings, insurance and money transfers and so allow poor and low-income households in low- and middle-income countries to enhance their welfare, grasp opportunities, mitigate shocks, and ultimately escape poverty. This systematic review of reviews assesses the evidence on economic, social, behavioural and gender-related outcomes from financial inclusion. It collects and appraises all of the existing meta-studies - that is systematic reviews and meta-analyses - of the impact of financial inclusion. The authors first analyse the strength of the methods used in those meta-studies, then synthesise the findings from those that are of a sufficient quality, and finally, report the implications for policy, programming, practice and further research arising from the evidence. Eleven studies are included in the analysis

Poverty and Wellbeing Impacts of Microfinance : What Do We Know?

Over the last 35 years, microfinance has been generally regarded as an effective policy tool in the fight against poverty. Yet, the question of whether access to credit leads to poverty reduction and improved wellbeing remains open. To address this question, we conduct a systematic review of the quantitative literature of microfinance’s impacts in the developing world, and develop a theory of change that links inputs to impacts on several welfare outcomes. Overall, we find that the limited comparability of outcomes and the heterogeneity of microfinance-lending technologies, together with a considerable variation in socio-economic conditions and contexts in which impact studies have been conducted, render the interpretation and generalization of findings intricate. Our results indicate that, at best, microfinance induces short-term dynamism in the financial life of the poor; however, we do not find compelling evidence that this dynamism leads to increases in income, consumption, human capital and assets, and, ultimately, a reduction in poverty