Moving up and moving down: a new way of examining country growth dynamics

"Do the countries which grow share the same features as those which decline? How can some countries achieve such long-term sustainable growth while others fail so badly? This paper builds on the emerging literature on growth asymmetries by examining movement across income categories in the World Development Reports over a significant period of time. The results confirm the existence of asymmetries and find that the factors which are correlated with movement upwards or downwards are markedly different. Evidence is presented which suggests that growth episodes share some common features while economic collapse may occur for a broader range of reasons." Authors' Abstracteconomic growth, income growth, Growth dynamics, Growth asymmetries, trade, Economic policy, Conflict, Institutions, Geography,

A typology for vulnerability and agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa:

"This paper considers vulnerability reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from a more aggregated macro viewpoint. We focus on risk related to agriculture, since vulnerability and agriculture are intimately linked in SSA due to the location of the poor, their dependence on agriculture and the inherent risks of an agricultural livelihood. We argue that agricultural growth is one of the most effective means for improving permanent incomes and reducing vulnerability. However, agriculture is not homogeneous, and the inherent risks vary across countries and regions. Therefore, we also discuss appropriate investment strategies and policy instruments for different sets of risks." from Authors' AbstractAgriculture, Vulnerability, Typology,

Do Criminal Representatives Hinder or Improve Constituency Outcomes? Evidence from India

The recent increase in the number of criminally accused politicians elected to state assemblies has caused much furor in India. Despite the potentially important consequences and the widely divergent views, the implications of their elections to state legislative assemblies on constituency-level economic performance are unknown. Using a regression discontinuity design and data on the intensity of night lights in satellite imagery at the constituency level, our results suggest that the cost of electing criminally accused politicians on measures of economic activity is quite large. Using estimates of the elasticity of GDP to light, we find that the election of criminally accused candidates lead to roughly 5 percent lower GDP growth per year on average. These estimated costs increase for candidates with serious accusations, multiple accusations, and accusations regarding financial crimes. Our result survives variety of robustness checks

Do the Lessons From Micro-Conflict Literature Transfer to High Crime Areas?: Examining Mexico’s War on Drugs

Exposure to political violence has been found to affect behavioural parameters. The effects of high levels of criminal violence, however, are largely unknown. We examine the effects of Mexico’s war on drugs on risk aversion, mental health and pro-social behaviour. Using a nonlinear difference-in-differences (DiD) model, we find that the post 2006 surge in violence significantly increased risk aversion and reduced trust in civic institutions without any simultaneous strengthening of kinship relationships. Although the deterioration of mental health due to violence exposure has been hypothesised to explain changes in risk aversion, we find no such effect

Three Essays On Conflict, Insecurity, And Livelihoods

Despite Economics increasing interest in the effects of conflict, our empirical knowledge has lagged behind. Recent studies have highlighted important and varied long run costs to conflict. Due to a lack of research on how households adapt to conflict and insecurity, however, we have little understanding of how these costs emerge and little evidence with which to design policies. This dissertation contributes by examining the responses of households to insecurity, particularly during conflicts. While other authors point to the importance of insecurity, insecurity has never been measured. The dissertation introduces a methodology to create spatially disaggregated measures of conflict risk and uses these to present the first estimates of the relative contributions of insecurity and exposure to violence to the aggregate household costs of conflict. While the dissertation leverages several unique datasets, I show that more widely available data can be used to similar effect. Having established that insecurity accounts for at least half of the costs in rural Northern Uganda, I examine household livelihood responses along both intensive and extensive margins. Lastly, using a ten period panel with the first direct household subjective perceptions of insecurity, I investigate the impact of these perceptions on income and find that these effects differ throughout the year, likely reflecting the heterogeneity of income generating opportunities throughout the year. Moreover, I study the effect of prior perceptions in determining current beliefs and find that prior beliefs have little economic significance. Rather, agro-meteorological conditions, particularly pasture quality (NDVI), drive changes in subjective perceptions of insecurity. The primary contribution of the dissertation is to underline the importance of responses to insecurity in determining the costs to conflict. Despite the focus on exposure to violence, the majority of the aggregate costs of conflict arises from responses to insecurity and may occur irrespective of the presence of violence. More broadly, by focusing on areas and households which experience conflict, current studies conflate the effects of the risk and realization of violence. The results here suggest that the large and varied lasting costs of conflict likely can be traced back to household responses to insecurity

The Cost of Fear: The Welfare Effects of the Risk of Violence in Northern Uganda

The micro-conflict literature focuses almost exclusively on direct exposure to violence and post-conflict outcomes. By focusing only on directly exposed households, the literature ignores the effects of risk on households in surrounding areas. This paper presents the first estimates of the economic costs of the risk of violence separate from the costs of the actual experience of violence, and finds that it is a significant mechanism by which conflict influences development. Using representative community and household data from Northern Uganda, I estimate measures of objective and subjective risk using geo-spatial variation in the distribution of violence over time. On average, the risk of violence lowers per capita household expenditure by 2 to 6 percent. Even within households that are attacked, risk alone accounts for a significant share, between 17 and 38 percent, of their losses. On aggregate, half of conflict-related losses are due to risk as opposed to direct exposure to violence, with much of these risk-related losses in households that are not directly attacked. Compounding these losses over the duration of the conflict, the risk of violence has reduced per capita expenditure in the affected region by roughly 70 percent and national GDP by 4.6 to 8.2 percent. Lastly, I find that food aid reduces risk-related losses by 17 to 30 percent.

A typology for vulnerability and agriculture in Sub-Saharan

agricultural research centers that receive principal funding from governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations, most of which are members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTORS AND PARTNERS IFPRI’s research, capacity strengthening, and communications work is made possible by its financial contributors and partners. IFPRI gratefully acknowledges generous unrestricted funding from Australia

Moving up and moving down: a new way of examining country growth dynamics

Do the countries which grow share the same features as those which decline? How can some countries achieve such long-term sustainable growth while others fail so badly? This paper builds on the emerging literature on growth asymmetries by examining movement across income categories in the World Development Reports over a significant period of time. The results confirm the existence of asymmetries and find that the factors which are correlated with movement upwards or downwards are markedly different. Evidence is presented which suggests that growth episodes share some common features while economic collapse may occur for a broader range of reasons