Overview: Getting a More Balanced View of What is Working in Agriculture to Reduce Hunger

This article suggests that to understand better what is working in agriculture in order to reduce hunger, a strengthening and transformation of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in agricultural research and development is needed. It presents the Agricultural Learning and Impacts Network (ALINe) as the initiative that has commissioned this IDS Bulletin , reflecting aspects of the current status and role of M&E, how it can be strengthened and ultimately transformed, and some of the reasons for why such change is possible. ALINe argues that asking farmers about their priorities, and what is and is not working and embedding this data into performance management systems is vital for improving accountability, value for money and the impact of agricultural development on people's lives. The article also introduces the other articles in this collection and commentaries on them by Southern practitioners and specialists

Remittances and informal work

© 2016, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of remittances on informal employment in the migrants’ countries of origin, looking both at the remittance-receiving and non-migrant households. Design/methodology/approach: Using data from a large survey conducted in six transition economies of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the determinants of three labour market outcomes – not working, working formally and working informally – are estimated in a multinomial probit model. The endogeneity of remittances is dealt with instrumental variables following the two-stage residual inclusion technique. To assess possible impact of remittances on non-migrant households, conditional correlations between the labour market outcomes of non-migrant households and the region-level share of remittance receivers are obtained. Findings: Both correlational and instrumental variable analyses suggest that that receiving remittances increases the likelihood of working informally. At the regional level, high prevalence of remittances is associated with a higher likelihood of informal work among the non-migrant households. Migration and remittances may thus be contributing to informal employment in migration-sending countries. Research limitations/implications: The empirical analysis is based on cross-sectional data, which do not allow isolating the effects of unobserved respondent heterogeneity. To deal with this issue, future research could use panel data. Originality/value: The study explicitly considers the effects of remittances on formal and informal employment of remittances receivers as well as people who do not receive remittances. It advances the understanding of what drives informality in developing and transition economies

Structural Change in Industrial Output: China 1995-2010.

Purpose The aim of this paper is to learn about some patterns of sectoral and industrial structural change of the Chinese economy over the 1995-2010 period, which also complements a previous paper of the author. The chosen period is about (and conveniently) bounded by two international crises: the Southeast Asian crisis of 1997 and the world crisis that started in 2007/2008. Design/methodology/approach To such a purpose, this paper set up a quantitative methodology via input-output modelling, which allows us to decompose gross output into some key demand sources or contributions. These are then analyzed over the full period. Findings It can be shown that the trajectory of the main structural patterns over the period was not smooth and was pretty unbalanced and that they generally responded to both domestic policy and international shocks. Export demand and heavy industry appeared to be the main engines of the economy, which showed massive increases in their share of output, at the expense of domestic demand, services and agriculture. Despite the high growth rates over this period, the Chinese economy seemed to be in need of rebalancing, which seems to have started toward the end of the authors’ period. Originality/value The decomposition method has been applied before by the author and others, but the variations in this paper are original, just as original is the application to China (never been done before), which in addition is not confined to two or so snapshots separated by many years, as is the usual use, but to the full year-after-year change of the sectoral and industrial structure over this study’s focus period

On export rivalry and the greening of agriculture?the role of eco-labels

Abstract: Why do some countries establish their own national eco-labeling programs and others do not? In this paper, we provide theoretical arguments and empirical evidence sug-gesting that the answer to this question can shed new light on three questions that have taken center-stage in the trade and environment debate: (i) does trade exacerbate the exploitation of the environment; (ii) are countries competing in export markets engaged in a race to the bottom in environmental performance; and (iii) do market-based environmental instruments benefit the rich and hurt the poor

M&E and Budget Program Performance Measurement in Ukraine: Current State and Needs for Improvement

The key elements of a performance-based budgeting methodology have already become a part of the mechanism for public expenditure management in Ukraine. At the same time, there still remains the issue of linking budget expenditures to specific results achieved by specific budget programs which defines the necessity of applying modern approaches to carrying out M&E. This study presents an analysis of the current state of M&E in Ukrainian public expenditure program management and offers some solutions which could improve its functioning. The analysis has revealed the absence of rigorous selection of performance indicators to evaluate budget program implementation, a need to better institutionalize the monitoring and evaluation activities through functional differentiation of budget programs and changes in approaches to their assessment

Aid?effectiveness: The Micro?Macro Paradox

SUMMARY Over the last 20 years measured aid?effectiveness has been high at the project level, in the sense that ex post rates of return are more than satisfactory, but low at the macro level, in the sense that it is impossible to establish any statistically significant correlation between aid flows and increases in growth across a sample of recipient countries. Three possible explanations of this paradox are considered: (i) errors in the data; (ii) switching of expenditure within the public sector; (iii) indirect effects of aid on the private sector. Some evidence of the second and third of these is found, to give a partial and incomplete explanation of the ‘micro?macro paradox’ in the case of Kenya. SOMMAIRE Efficacité de l'aide: le paradoxe micro — macro Durant les dernières 20 années l'efficacité mesurée de l'aide à été haute au niveau de projets, dans le sens que les taux de remboursement ex post sont plus que satisfaisant, mais a été basse au niveau macro, dans le sens qu'il est impossible d'établir une corrélation statistique significative entre le montant de l'aide et la croissance à travers un échantillon de pays recevants. Trois explications possibles pour ce paradoxe sont sonsidérées: (i) des erreurs de données; (ii) une réallocation des dépenses dans le secteur public; (iii) des effets indirects de l'aide pour le secteur privé. Le cas du Kenya semble soutenir la deuxième et la troisième, et nous donne une explication partielle et incomplète de ce ‘paradoxe micro — macro’. RESUMEN Efectividad de la ayuda: la paradoja macro/microeconómica La medición de la efectividad de la ayuda durante los últimos 20 años, demuestra que ésta ha sido alta a nivel de proyectos, en el sentido de que las tasas de retorno ex post son más que satisfactorias. Sin embargo, a nivel macroeconómico éstas son bajas, en el sentido de que es imposible establecer correlaciones estadísticamente significativas entre flujos de ayuda y aumentos en el crecimiento en una muestra de países receptores. Se consideran tres posibles causas de esta paradoja: (i) errores en los datos, (ii) cambios de la estructura del gasto fiscal, (iii) efectos indirectos de la ayuda en el sector privado. Una explicación parcial e incompleta de la paradoja en el caso de Kenya, se encuentra en la segunda y tercera de las causas mencionadas

Is Aid for Trade Effective? A Panel Quantile Regression Approach

This paper investigates whether Aid for Trade (AfT) leads to greater exports in recipient countries. Using panel data and panel quantile regression techniques, our results suggest that total AfT disbursements promote the export of goods and services, but is limited primarily to exporters above the .35 quantile of the conditional distribution of exports. When disaggregating by type of AfT, we find that aid to improve trade policy and regulation is not associated with higher exports. Aid to build productive capacity is effective for almost all quantiles of the export distribution but the 10th, with the effect being stronger at the higher tails of the conditional distribution. Aid used to build infrastructure is found to affect exports only at the 0.10 quantile. In contrast, aid disbursed for general budget support (an untargeted type of aid) is not associated with greater export levels irrespective of the quantile