Micro-credit NGOs and Strategic Trust: An Odd Couple?

This study contributes to the micro-credit literature by addressing the lack of philosophical dialogue concerning the issue of trust between micro-credit NGOs and rural poor women. The study demonstrates that one of the root causes of NGOs’ contested roles in Bangladesh is the norm that they use (i.e., trust) to rationalize their micro-credit activities. I argue that Bangladeshi micro-credit NGOs’ trust in poor village women is not genuine because they resort to group responsibility sustained through aggressive surveillance. I maintain so by drawing on a trust-based theoretical framework that uses various philosophical insights. Drawing on the same conceptual framework, I also contend, somewhat softening the previous claim, that if micro-credit trust is trust at all, it is at most strategic, not generalized. For being strategic, it has many undermining effects on local social solidarity norms, rendering Bangladeshi micro-credit NGOs and strategic trust an odd couple with no moral compass. To bring forth the moral impetus in micro-credit activities, I lay out some recommendations intended for organizations, managers, and policymakers, consistent with normative corporate social responsibility initiatives. However, further studies can be initiated based on this paper, suggesting its importance for future research

Gender Segregation and Gender Wage Differences During the Early Labour Market Career

Using German linked employer-employee data this paper investigates the gender wage gap at the time of entering the labour market and its development during workers' early career. The analysis contributes to the existing research on gender wage differentials among young workers by providing evidence on the impact of women's disproportionate concentration in lower-paying industries, occupations, establishments and job-cells, i.e. occupations within establishments. The estimation results reveal that all types of segregation and particularly job-cell segregation are significant determinants of the gender wage gap, while skill endowments and differences in work histories are found to be of minor importance. At the time of labour market entry women's wage disadvantages can almost entirely be explained by the fact that they start their working career in lower-paying occupations and establishments. With progressing labour market experience, however, gender segregation becomes less important and cannot fully account for a slight widening of the wage differential among young men and women. Therefore, part of the early career wage gap remains unexplained.Diese Studie untersucht auf Basis von Linked-Employer-Employee Daten die Entwicklung geschlechtsspezifischer Lohnunterschiede während der frühen Karrierejahre. Die Analyse zeigt, dass die Verteilung von Männern und Frauen auf unterschiedliche Branchen, Berufe und Betriebe einen erheblichen Beitrag zur Erklärung der Lohnnachteile von Frauen leistet. Zu Beginn der beruflichen Karriere existiert zwischen Männern und Frauen, die innerhalb des gleichen Betriebes den gleichen Beruf ausüben, nahezu kein Lohnunterschied. Mit zunehmender Arbeitsmarkterfahrung geht ein Wachstum des geschlechtsspezifischen Lohndifferentials einher, welches weder durch Segregation noch durch Unterschiede in der Arbeitsmarkthistorie erklärt werden kann

Social Network Capital, Economic Mobility and Poverty Traps

The paper explores the role social network capital might play in facilitating poor agents’ escape from poverty traps. We model endogenous network formation among households heterogeneously endowed with both traditional and social network capital who make investment and technology choices over time in the absence of financial markets and faced with multiple production technologies featuring different fixed costs and returns. We show that social network capital can serve as either a complement to or a substitute for productive assets in facilitating some poor households’ escape from poverty. However, the voluntary nature of costly social network formation also creates both involuntary and voluntary exclusionary mechanisms that impede some poor households’ efforts to exit poverty. The ameliorative potential of social networks therefore depends fundamentally on the underlying wealth distribution in the economy. In some settings, targeted public transfers to the poor can crowd-in private resources by inducing new social links that the poor can exploit to escape from poverty

Elaboration d 'un protocole de routine pour l'identification génétique de mammifères sauvages (gibier) à partir d 'échantillons biologiques

L'identification spécifique d'un échantillon biologique récolté sur le terrain n'est pas toujours possible par le biais de méthodes conventionnelles. Afin de remédier à cette situation, nous avons développé un protocole rapide, rigoureux et reproductible, constitué de quatre étapes principales: (i) extraction (isolement) de l'ADN à partir d'échantillons biologiques de provenance variée; (ii) amplification par PCR d'un segment spécifique d'ADN; (iii) détermination de la séquence nucléotidique du segment d'ADN amplifié; (iv) comparaison de la séquence obtenue avec une base de données (si nécessaire, analyse phylogénétique) et détermination de l'espèce la plus proche. Cette approche nous a permis d'identifier sans ambiguïté la totalité des échantillons analysés, représentés par des tissus d'origine variée (sang, biopsies d'organe ou de tissu) d'espèces de mammifères sauvages