Governance, Democracy and Poverty Reduction: Lessons drawn from household surveys in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America

Public statistics face quite a challenge when it comes to measuring new dimensions of development (institutions, governance, and social and political participation). To take up this challenge, modules on Governance, Democracy and Multiple Dimensions of Poverty have been appended to household surveys by National Statistics Institutes in twelve African and Latin-American developing countries. This paper presents the issues addressed and the methodological lessons learnt along with a selection of findings to illustrate this innovative approach and demonstrate its analytic potential. We investigate, for instance, the population’s support for democratic principles, the respect for civil and political rights and the trust in the political class; the “need for the State”, particularly of the poorest; the extent of petty corruption; the reliability of expert surveys on governance; the perception of decentralisation policies at local level; the level and vitality of social and political participation, etc. The conclusive appraisal made opens up prospects for the national statistical information systems in the developing countries. The measurement and tracking of this new set of objective and subjective public policy monitoring indicators would benefit from being made systematic.Africa, Latin America, Democracy, Monitoring Mechanism, Household Surveys,

Development, A question of Opportunity. A critique of the 2006 World Development Report, Equity and Development

The World Bank’s World Development Report 2006 addresses Equity and Development. It defines equity as respect for equal opportunities combined with the avoidance of absolute deprivation. Even though justice theories have long been interested in equity (given that equality of opportunity is one of the recognised values of Western society), it has hitherto remained a marginal issue in development economics. Our critique presents a detailed analysis of this report in the light of recent economic studies on this subject and endeavours to place it in the context of the evolution of World Bank thinking and policies. The first part illustrates the wealth of this concept, with its downside being that it is hard to accurately define. The second part demonstrates the gap between the prospects opened up by the enlargement of the development goals beyond poverty reduction and the report’s policy recommendations, which are generally an extension of the World Bank’s traditional analyses. The future of the equity concept for development policy-making could be closely dependent on the development community’s ability to take on board both all its complexity and wealth.

Migration, Self-selection and Returns to Education in the WAMEU

Using data from labour force surveys conducted simultaneously in the capital cities of seven WAEMU countries, we estimate a model of residential location choice, in which expected earnings play a role. The model is first estimated in a reduced form. Estimates are then used to correct for the endogeneity of locational choice in earnings equations estimated for each country. We find that migration behaviour has a significant effect in shaping earnings differentials between education levels and between the seven capital cities. A minimum distance estimator is then used to recover the value of log-earnings in the structural model of residential location choice. Results show that individuals tend to reside in countries in which their expected earnings are higher than elsewhere.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55755/4/IPC-working-paper-041-VreyerGubertRouband.pd

Vietnam's WTO Accession and Export-Led Growth- Introduction

Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007 and became its 150th member. This accession is something of an endorsement of a long process of trade reform and international integration, which started more than two decades before in 1986 with the launch of Doi Moi (Renovation). Indeed, the launch of Doi Moi marked Vietnam's transition to a "socialist-oriented market economy" and the start of a process of trade liberalization and export-led growth. Vietnam's international integration met some initial difficulties, as the country was totally isolated at the beginning of the 1990s following the fall of the Berlin wall. After the end of the American embargo in 1994, Vietnam engaged successively in several regional and bilateral trade agreements: it joined first ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) in 1997, then signed the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) in 2001. It also signed a bilateral trade agreement with the United States (USBTA) in 2000, which opened the US market to Vietnamese products (but with quotas). At the same time, tariff disarmament has been gradual but significant, so that following WTO accession additional trade liberalization for goods is limited: average Vietnamese consolidated tariffs will only decline from 17.4 percent in 2007 to 13.4 percent in 2019.Vietnam; WTO; international trade; Asia; CGEM

Assessing the Potential Impact of the Global Crisis on the Labour Market and the Informal Sector in Vietnam

Although the impact was less dramatic than in other Asian countries, Vietnam has been affected by the international crisis which started in 2008, resulting in a significant slowdown of economic growth. This paper aims at assessing the impact of this economic crisis on employment, unemployment and the informal sector. Contrarily to previous studies on this subject, we anticipate a very small increase of unemployment. According to our estimates, most of the impact of the crisis in terms of employment will actually be felt in the informal sector, where most new entrants on the labour market and laid(off workers will end up working. This feature will result in an urgent need to put in place specific policies to tackle informal sector low productivity and its manpower's lack of labour protection.

The Distributive Impact of Vietnam's Accession to the WTO

Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization in January 2007. The fast economic growth observed for the last decades has resulted in a strong reduction of poverty and increasing inequalities. This paper evaluates the potential distributive impact of the WTO accession using a macro-micro model. The latter couples a CGE model, including imperfect labour markets, with an accounting micro-simulation model. We do not limit ourselves to the tariff impact. We also evaluate the impact of improved market access and of increased foreign direct investment. Our simulations show that WTO accession will have mainly four types of distributional effects: job gains, especially in the manufacturing sector; growth in real wages, especially for unskilled workers; reduction of poverty; and increase in inequalities between rural and urban areas.International trade; WTO; labour; inequalities; Vietnam

JAMA Neurol

Importance Exposure to Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) has been reported to be associated with certain neuropsychiatric disorders. Objective To establish the association between seropositivity to Bb and incidental neuropsychiatric disorders (eg, cognitive decline, incident dementia, and depressive symptoms) as well as functional decline. Design, Setting, and Participants This prospective, 6-year follow-up cohort study was conducted in a rural southwestern region of France and included 689 retired farmers 65 years or older randomly recruited from the Farmer Health Insurance System who agreed to submit a blood sample and were participants in the Aging Multidisciplinary Investigation study, an ongoing epidemiological prospective study of aging initiated in 2007. The data were analyzed from April to May 2019. Exposures Borrelia burgdorferi serology testing was performed in a 2-tiered approach. During the follow-up period, cognitive decline, incident dementia, depressive symptoms, and functional decline were repeatedly assessed. Main Outcomes and Measures Diagnosis of dementia relied on a 3-step procedure; cognitive decline was determined using the Mini-Mental State Examination and depressive symptomatology was assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale. For disability, scores on instrumental and basic activities of daily living were investigated. Results Of 689 participants, 432 (62.2%) were men and the mean (SD) age was 75.8 (6.4) years. The seroprevalence rate of Bb was 6.5%. At baseline, compared with Bb− participants, those who were Bb+ were older, predominantly men, and had lower depressive symptoms. No association between seropositivity and any of the studied outcomes (ie, cognitive decline, depressive symptoms, or functional decline) was found in the crude analysis and after adjusting for confounding variables. Regarding incident dementia, no increased risk was found among Bb+ participants (hazard ratio, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.1-1.17; adjusted for diverse confounders). Conclusions and Relevance To our knowledge, this is one of the few longitudinal studies exploring the risk of neuropsychiatric disorders and functional decline associated with exposure to Bb. Despite its limitations (eg, a lack of information if clinical manifestations of Lyme borreliosis existed, date of exposure, or treatment received), this study suggests that seropositivity to Bb is not a risk factor for incidental neuropsychiatric disorders and functional decline