The Dynamics of Job Creation and Job Destruction: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Different?

Agricultural production is an important source of income and employment for developing countries, yet it is the cause of serious environmental problems. Though ECO-labels appear as a promising alternative to control the negative effects of agriculture on the environment and to increase the income of rural poor, the proportion of agricultural land and exports certified as is quite small. We investigate the factors that affect the adoption of certified organic coffee in Colombia and in particular study the effect of economic incentives on adoption. We find that those who have lower cost of adoption are more likely to be certified as organic. Correcting for sample selection, we find that certified organic production is 40% less productive and 31% less costly than non-certified production. Given the price premium in 2007, certified organic production is 15% less profitable than non-organic production. We find that in order to make organic production attractive, the price premium of certified organic coffee should be about 5 times higher than in 2007. --Job Creation,Job Destruction,Job Reallocation,Firm Dynamics,Africa,Ethiopia

The Impact of a Cash Transfer Program on Cognitive Achievement: The Bono de Desarrollo Humano of Ecuador

Throughout Latin America, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs play an important role in social policy. These programs aim to influence the accumulation of human capital, as well as reduce poverty. In terms of educational outcomes, a number of impact evaluation studies have shown that such programs have led to an increase in school enrollment, ensured regular school attendance and led to a reduction in child labor. Theoretically, such cash transfer programs may also be expected to exert a positive impact on students’ test scores, but related empirical evidence is scarce. Accordingly, this paper evaluates the impact of a cash transfer program, the Bono de Desarrollo Humano of Ecuador, on students’ cognitive achievements. The paper uses a regression discontinuity strategy to identify the impact of the program on second grade cognitive achievement. Regardless of the specification and the sample used, we find that there is no impact of the program on test scores, suggesting that attempts at building human capital, as measured by cognitive achievement, require additional and alternative interventions.cash transfers, test scores, regression discontinuity

The Impact of Interest in School on Educational Success in Portugal

Notwithstanding increased educational expenditure, Portugal continues to record poor educational outcomes. Underlining the weak expenditure-educational success link, a large body of work in educational economics displays that there is a tenuous relationship between a range of school inputs and cognitive achievement. Among others, the inability to establish a clear link between inputs and success has been attributed to the difficulty of controlling for unobserved attributes such as ability, motivation and interest. Against this background, and inspired by a large body of work in educational psychology which explicitly measures constructs such as educational motivation and interest, this paper examines whether a child’s interest in school has any bearing on educational success after controlling for the kinds of variables typically used in educational economics analyses. We rely on two data sets collected in Portugal in 1998 and 2001 and examine the interest-educational success link using both cross-section and panel data. Our estimates suggest that after controlling for time-invariant unobservable traits and for the simultaneous determination of interest and achievement, there is little support for the idea that prior interest in school has a bearing on future educational success.schooling, Portugal, educational outcomes, interest in school

Remittances, Liquidity Constraints and Human Capital Investments in Ecuador

Over the last decade Ecuador has experienced a strong increase in financial transfers from migrated workers, amounting to 6.4 percent of GDP and 31.5 percent of total exports of goods and services in 2005. This paper investigates how remittances via trans-national networks affect human capital investments through relaxing resource constraints and facilitate households in consumption smoothing by reducing vulnerability to economic shocks. In particular, we explore the effects of remittances on school enrolment and child work in Ecuador. Identification relies on instrumental variables, exploiting information on source countries of remittances and regional variation in the availability of bank offices that function as formal channels for sending remittances. Our results show that remittances increase school enrolment and decrease incidence of child work, especially for girls and in rural areas. Furthermore, we find that aggregate shocks are associated with increased work activities, while remittances are used to finance education when households are faced with these shocks. This suggests that liquidity constraints and vulnerability to covariate risk are especially relevant in rural areas, as it affects household’s investments in human capital of school age children. In this context both child labour supply and transnational remittances serve as coping mechanisms.migration, remittances, trans-national networks, education, child labour, Ecuador

Unemployment Assistance and Transition to Employment in Argentina

In 2001-02, Argentina experienced a wrenching economic crisis. Plan Jefes, implemented in May 2002, was Argentina’s institutional response to the increase in unemployment and poverty triggered by the crisis. The program provided a social safety net and appears to have successfully protected some families against indigence. Despite this success, the continued existence of the program, which provides benefits to eligible unemployed individuals for an unlimited duration, may have unappealing long-term consequences. Reliance on the plan may reduce the incentive to search for work and in the long-run may damage individual employability and perpetuate poverty. Motivated by these concerns, this paper examines the effect of participating in Plan Jefes on the probability of exiting from unemployment. Regardless of the data set, the specification and the empirical approach, the evidence assembled in this paper shows that for the period under analysis individuals enrolled in the Plan are between 12 to 19 percentage points less likely to transit to employment as compared to individuals who applied but did not join the Plan. The negative effect of the program tends to be larger for females and as a consequence, over time, the program becomes increasingly feminized. Prima facie, the estimates suggest that programs such as Plan Jefes need to re-consider the balance between providing a social safety net and dulling job-search incentives.unemployment assistance programs, unemployment transitions, Argentina

Marital Violence and Women's Employment and Property Status: Evidence from North Indian Villages

Dominant development policy approaches recommend women's employment on the grounds that it facilitates their empowerment, which in turn is believed to be instrumental in enhancing women's well-being. However, empirical work on the relationship between women's employment status and their well-being as measured by freedom from marital violence yields an ambiguous picture. Motivated by this ambiguity, this paper draws on testimonies of men and women and data gathered from rural Uttar Pradesh, to examine the effect of women's employment and asset status as measured by their participation in paid work and their ownership of property, respectively, on spousal violence. Unlike the existing literature, we treat women's work status and violence as simultaneously determined and find that women's engagement in paid work and ownership of property, are associated with sharp reductions in marital violence.domestic violence, employment status, property ownership, India

Unemployment Assistance and Transition to Employment in Argentina

In 2001-02, Argentina experienced a wrenching economic crisis. Plan Jefes, implemented in May 2002, was Argentinas institutional response to the increase in unemployment and poverty triggered by the crisis. The program provided a social safety net and appears to have successfully protected some families against indigence. Despite this success, the continued existence of the program, which provides benefits to eligible unemployed individuals for an unlimited duration, may have unappealing long-term consequences. Reliance on the plan may reduce the incentive to search for work and in the long-run may damage individual employability and perpetuate poverty. Motivated by these concerns,this paper examines the effect of participating in Plan Jefes on the probability of exiting from unemployment. Regardless of the data set, the specification and the empirical approach, the paper shows that individuals enrolled in the Plan are between 12 to 19 percentage points less likely to transit to employment as compared to individuals who applied but did not join the Plan. The negative effect of the program tends to be larger for females and as a consequence, over time, the program becomes increasingly feminized. Prima facie, the estimates suggest that programs such as Plan Jefes need to re-consider the balance between providing a social safety net and dulling job-search incentives. --Unemployment assistance programs,unemployment transitions,Argentina

The Dynamics of Job Creation and Job Destruction in an African Economy: Evidence from Ethiopia

A growing share of manufacturing in GDP and in employment is a common feature observed in successful developing countries. Manufacturing, however, has not been a major source of employment in Ethiopia and in other Sub-Saharan African countries. This paper relies on a unique census-based panel data covering the period 1996–2007 to analyse the micro-dynamics of aggregate employment changes. The analysis shows that the weak employment performance of Ethiopian manufacturing is not due to limited job creation but a consequence of simultaneous offsetting processes of job creation and destruction. We find strong evidence of intra-industry job mobility and attribute a substantial proportion of job creation and destruction to firm entry and exit. However, jobs created by small firms tend to be transitory and there has been a re-allocation of jobs from small to larger firms during periods of faster aggregate net employment growth. Overall, the evidence suggests that employment growth and job re-allocation are not necessarily restrained by labour laws and regulations