Public sector pay and private sector wage premiums: testing alternative models of wage determination.

The paper focuses on a labour market dominated by a public sector where the links between pay and effort are weak, as in many developing countries. This feature is incorporated in an extension of the basic Shapiro-Stiglitz model of shirking in order to explain the coexistence of high wages (in both private and public sectors) and high unemployment. Using data from panel surveys of households and of manufacturing firms, the empirical test attempts to identify why firms in the private sector do not bid down wages but offer a premium over the reservation wage of the marginal worker. The robustness of the premium is tested by controlling for the heterogeneity of workers, and the dispersion in wage offers and reservation wages of workers relative to the marginal worker. The premium appears to be driven by efficiency wage considerations rather than alternatives such as bargaining models and specific investments in workers.Reservation wages, efficiency wages, matched employee-employer survey, panel data.

38P. MAMS - A Unified Approach for Assessing E-readiness of SMEs

ICT adoption to facilitate business processes is a growing trend in today’s global environment. As SMEs play an important role in a country’s economy, they cannot lag behind in ICT adoption. In order to join the e-business bandwagon, SMEs need to understand the barriers in the path and the benefits offered by e-business adoption. This paper has reviewed the extant literature of barriers, benefits of e-business adoption before proposing some key enablers that facilitate the adoption. Six existing e-readiness tools that are used globally to measure e-readiness are also reviewed. The review of different aspects of e-business readiness has motivated their unification and the definition of an holistic framework (Motivation Application Measurement Support e-readiness framework). The MAMS framework can be utilized as a reference to assess, design and implement a supplementary strategic approach for e-business readiness of SMEs

Changes in poverty in rural Ethiopia 1989-1995: measurement, robustness tests and decomposition

Assessing changes in poverty levels over time is bedevilled by problems in questionnaire design, the choice of the poverty line, the exact timing of the survey and uncertainty about the appropriate cost-of-living deflators. In this paper, we focus on testing the robustness of measured changes in poverty to these common problems, using household panel data collected in rural Ethiopia in 1989, 1994 and 1995: in particular, we implement a simple graphical technique for assessing the impact of uncertainty in measured inflation rates. We find that poverty declined between 1989 and 1994, but remained virtually unchanged between 1994 and 1995. However, the last result disguises substantial seasonal fluctuations in 1994. We also find that households with substantial human and physical capital, and better access to roads and towns have both lower poverty levels and are more likely to get better off over time. Human capital and access to roads and towns also reduce the fluctuations in poverty across the seasons.

Informal insurance, public transfers and consumption smoothing

In developing countries, public programs in the form of food aid distribution are often meant to protect vulnerable households from consumption downturns by providing a safety net. Few studies have evaluated the impact of these programs. Furthermore, households often use a variety of informal mechanisms to cope with risk. We look into the extent to which food aid helps to smooth consumption by reducing the impact of negative shocks, controlling for program placement effects and informal risk-sharing. Using panel data from Ethiopia, we find that despite poor targeting, the programs reduce some of the vulnerability to common shocks via intra-village risk sharing.

UPAYA PENGEMBANGAN PANTAI TELUK PENYU SEBAGAI OBYEK WISATA UNGGULAN DI KABUPATEN CILACAP

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui: 1) Potensi pariwisata yang ada di Pantai Teluk Penyu, 2) Kebijakan Pemerintah Daerah terhadap obyek wisata Pantai Teluk Penyu, 3) Upaya pengembangan obyek wisata Pantai Teluk Penyu, 4) Hambatan serta solusi dalam upaya pengembangan obyek wisata Pantai Teluk Penyu, dan 5) Arahan pengembangan sebagai obyek wisata unggulan di Kabupaten Cilacap. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian deskriptif kualitatif. Informan penelitian ini adalah dua orang dari Dinas Pariwisata dan Kebudayaan, dua orang dari Pemerintah Desa, dua orang dari pengelola, dan dua orang dari wisatawan. Metode pengumpulan data: wawancara mendalam, observasi, dan dokumentasi. Teknik analisis data yang digunakan adalah analisis kualitatif dan untuk pemeriksaan keabsahan data menggunakan triangulasi sumber. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa: 1) Sumber daya alami yang dimiliki Pantai Teluk Penyu yaitu panorama laut yang indah dan pemandangan Pulau Nusakambangan. 2) Potensi sosial Pantai Teluk Penyu berupa: kehidupan nelayan tradisional, tempat pelelangan ikan, kerajinan kerang, kapal-kapal tanker, perahu-perahu nelayan tradisional dan tegarnya kilang pertamina. 3) Potensi budaya Pantai Teluk Penyu berupa: Sedekah Laut dan Perahu Naga. 4) Rencana program yang sudah dapat terealisasi adalah penataan kios dengan pembangunan cafeteria. 5) Dinas Pariwisata berupaya menambah sarana dan prasarana dalam hal pendidikan dengan membangun gedung IPTEK (Ilmu Pengetahuan dan Teknologi). 6) Hambatan pengembangan obyek wisata berupa: dana anggaran yang tidak mencukupi, tanah milik TNI AD, terdapat jalur pipa pertamina, sulitnya mengatur masyarakat, masih kurangnya rasa memiliki dari masyarakat, tingkat SDM yang rendah dan kurangnya dukungan untuk bekerjasama mengembangkan Pantai Teluk Penyu. 7) Solusi untuk mengatasi hambatan seperti: melakukan usulan pengajuan dana kepada Pemerintah Kabupaten Cilacap, sosialisai dan pengaragahan tentang pengembangan Pantai Teluk Penyu kepada masyarakat dan menjalin kerjasama setiap tahunnya dengan TNI AD sebagai pemilik lahan obyek wisata. 8) Kondisi obyek wisata Pantai Teluk Penyu sudah sesuai dengan kajian yang ada di RTRW. 9) Kondisi obyek wisata Pantai Teluk Penyu dapat dikatakan sesuai dengan RIPP, namun banyak beberapa program yang belum dapat terealisasi. 10) Kebijakan yang ditetapkan belum dapat dimanfatkan pengelola secara maksimal. Kata kunci: potensi, pengembangan obyek wisata, kebijakan Pemerintah Daera

Food Aid and Informal Insurance

risk-sharing, informal insurance, safety nets, food aid

Food aid and informal insurance

Households in developing countries use a variety of informal mechanisms to cope with risk, including mutual support and risk-sharing. These mechanisms cannot avoid that they remain vulnerable to shocks. Public programs in the form of food aid distribution and food-for-work programs are meant to protect vulnerable households from consumption and nutrition downturns by providing a safety net. In this paper we look into the extent to which food aid helps to smooth consumption by reducing the impact of negative shocks, taking into account informal risk-sharing arrangements. Using panel data from Ethiopia, we find that despite relatively poor targeting of the food aid, the programs contribute to better consumption outcomes, largely via intra-village risk sharing.risk-sharing, informal insurance, safety nets, food aid

In sickness and in health ... risk-sharing within households in rural Ethiopia

To investigate risk-sharing within the household, we model nutritional status as a durable good and we look at the consequences of individual health shocks. For household allocation to be pareto-efficient, households should pool shocks to income. We also investigate whether households can smooth nutritional levels over time. Using data from rural Ethiopia on adult nutritional status, we find that poor households are affected by idiosyncratic agricultural shocks, while richer households are more successful in smoothing nutritional levels. All individuals adjust to predictable changes in earnings and the nutritional status of poor individuals is responsive to seasonal food price fluctuations. Poor southern households are not sharing risk; women in these households bear the brunt of adverse shocks. Finally, we look at the role of inside and outside options in determining the intrahousehold allocation of nutrition of married couples. We find that wives’ relative position improves with a smaller age gap between partners, in younger marriages, as well as by favourable customary laws on settlements upon divorce – but the most important variable affecting allocation is household wealth.

Teacher Shocks and Student Learning: Evidence from Zambia

Following a tradition that relates household-level shocks to educational attainment, we examine the impact of teacher-level shocks on student learning. As a plausible measure for these shocks, we use teacher absenteeism during a 30-day recall period. A 5-percent increase in teacher absence rate reduced learning by 4 to 8 percent of average gains over the year, for both Mathematics and English. The estimated impacts are substantial and, in addition to the losses due to time away from class, likely reflect lower teaching quality when in class and less lesson-preparation when at home. Health problems-primarily their own illness and the illnesses of family members-account for more than 60 percent of teacher absenteeism. This suggests both that households are unable to substitute adequately for school-level teaching inputs and that, to support human capital formation, insurance at the school-level may be a policy priority that is worth exploring further