Who participates : the supply of volunteer labor and the distribution of government programs in rural Peru

Numerous analysts have linked volunteering and participation to positive economic and political outcomes. The author uses the 1994 Peru Living Standards Measurement Survey to analyze volunteering patterns in rural Peru. He finds that volunteers in rural Peru have a high opportunity cost of time. They are more educated and more likely to hold a job. Other household characteristics, such as gender, marital status, length of residence, and ethnicity, are also important predictors of the probability of volunteering. Controlling for household characteristics, communities differ widely in aggregate volunteer levels. These differences seem unrelated to differences in patterns of government expenditures. Volunteering may have important benefits in building social capital and encouraging greater ownership of development projects. For example, many public programs in rural Peru and elsewhere ask that the intended beneficiaries"participate"as a means of building trust and social capital, increasing the sustainability of investments and helping self-target investments to the poor. But the author finds that encouraging participation by potential beneficiaries is unlikely to be an effective form of self-targeting, since people with a higher opportunity cost of time volunteer more. Moreover, social programs that require participation may have difficulty reaching some vulnerable groups, such as women and the illiterate.Health Economics&Finance,Labor Policies,Decentralization,Public Health Promotion,Environmental Economics&Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Housing&Human Habitats,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Assessment

The (positive) effect of macroeconomic crises on the schoolingand employment decisions of children in a middle-income country

The impact of macroeconomic crises on parents'investments in the human capital of their children is a widely contested issue. The author analyzes the effects of the profound macroeconomic crisis in Peru in 1988-92 on the schooling and employment decisions made by urban school-age children. He arrives at two basic findings: First, the crisis had no effect on the attendance rates of school-age children. But the share of children who were both employed and in school fell significantly during the crisis. Second, mean educational attainment was significantly higher for children who were exposed to the crisis than for those who were not. THe author argues that these findings may be related: children who are not employed have more time available and may therefore put more effort into school. He concludes with a discussion of the implications of his findings for the design of appropriate social protection policies.Public Health Promotion,Primary Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,Poverty Assessment,Primary Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Youth and Governance,Environmental Economics&Policies

Picking the poor : indicators for geographic targeting in Peru

Geographic targeting is perhaps the most popular mechanism used to direct social programs to the poor in Latin America. The author empirically compares geographic targeting indicators available in Peru. He combines household-level information from the 1994 and 1997 Peru Living Standards Measurement Surveys and district-level information from the 1993 Peru Population and Housing Census. He then conducts a series of simulations that estimate leakage rates; concentration curves; the impact of transfers on poverty as measured by the headcount index, poverty gap, and [poverty]measures of the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke family; and nonparametric (kernal) densities when transfers are based on alternative indicators. He concludes that there is substantial potential for geographic targeting in Peru. The differences in outcomes across geographic targeting indicators are small and not statistically significant.Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Rural Poverty Reduction,Safety Nets and Transfers,Services&Transfers to Poor,Health Economics&Finance

Seeking votes - the political economy of expenditures by the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES), 1991-95

President Alberto Fujimori created the Peruvian social Fund (FONCODES) in 1991 with the stated objectives of generating employment, helping to alleviate poverty, and improving access to social services. The author uses province-level data on monthly expenditures, socio-economic indicators, and electoral outcomes to analyze political influences on the timing and geographic distribution of FONCODES expenditures between 1991 and 1995. He finds that: 1) FONCODES expenditures increased significantly before elections. 2) FONCODES projects were directed at poor provinces, as well as provinces in which the marginal political impact of expenditures was likely to be greatest. The results are robust to many specifications and controls. The Peruvian data thus support predictions made in the literature on political business cycle as well the literature on political influences on the allocation of discretionary funds.Decentralization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Parliamentary Government,Health Economics&Finance,Election Systems,Health Economics&Finance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Parliamentary Government,Election Systems,Business in Development

Convexity and sheepskin effects in the human capital earnings function : recent evidence for Filipino men

Much attention has been paid to the issue of possible nonlinearities in the relationship between log wages and schooling in the literature on both the United States and developing countries. The author uses data from a recent household survey for the Philippines, the 1998 Annual Poverty Indicator Survey, to test the fit of the log-linear specification for Filipino men. He presents results based on various estimation strategies, including spline regressions and semi-parametric regressions with a large number of dummy variables for years of schooling and experience. He concludes that: 1) There appear to be large differences between rates of return to education across different levels in the Philippines. The wage premia for both primary and secondary education are significantly smaller than those for tertiary education. 2) Within each level - primary, secondary, and university - the last year of schooling is disproportionately rewarded in higher wages. That is, there appear to be clear sheepskin effects associated with graduation.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Teaching and Learning,Curriculum&Instruction,Gender and Education,Primary Education