A Decomposition of Inequality and Poverty Changes in the Context of Macroeconomic Adjustment: A Microsimulation Study for C.te d'Ivoire

decomposition, income distribution, microsimulation, poverty, C.te d'Ivoire

The medium and long term effects of an expansion of education on poverty in Côte d Ivoire A dynamic microsimulation study

I use a dynamic microsimulation model to analyse the distributional effects of an expansion of education in Côte d'Ivoire in the medium and long term. The simulations are performed in order to replicate several policies in force or subject to debate in this country. Various hypotheses concerning the evolution of returns to education and labour demand are tested. The direct effects between education and income as well as the different transmission channels, such as occupational choices, fertility, and household composition, are analysed. The effects of the educational expansion on the growth of household incomes, their distribution and poverty depend very crucially on the hypothesis made on the evolution of returns to education and labour demand. If returns to education remain constant and the labour market segmented, the effects will be very modest.Education policy, human capital, inequality, Kuznets curve, micro-simulation, poverty

Food Price Inflation and Children's Schooling

I analyze the impact of food price inflation on parental decisions to send their children to school. Moreover, I use the fact that food crop farmers and cotton farmers were exposed differently to that shock to estimate the income elasticity of school enrolment. The results suggest that the shock-induced loss in purchasing power had an immediate effect on enrolment rates. Instrumental variable estimates show that the effect of household income on children's school enrolment is much larger than a simple OLS regression would suggest. Hence, policies to expand education in Sub-Saharan Africa, should not neglect the demand side.Education, Household Income, Inflation, Aggregate Shocks, Africa

Mortality and Survivors' Consumption

In developing countries illness shocks can have a severe impact on household income. Few studies have so fare examined the effects of mortality. The major difference between illness and mortality shocks is that a death of a household member does not only induce direct costs such as medical and funeral costs and possibly a loss in income, but that also the number of consumption units in the household is reduced. Using data for Indonesia, I show that the economic costs related to the death of children and older persons seem to be fully compensated by the decrease of consumption units. In contrast, when prime-age adults die, survivors face additional costs and, in consequence, implement coping strategies. It is shown that these are quite efficient and it seems that in terms of consumption households even overcompensate their loss, although they may face a higher vulnerability in the longer term. The results suggest that the implementation of general formal safety nets can give priority to the insurance of other types of risks, such as unemployment, illness or natural disasters.Mortality, consumption smoothing, risk, micro-model of consumption growth, Indonesia.

Mortality and survivors' consumption

The literature suggests that in developing countries illness shocks at the household level can have a negative and severe impact on household income. Few studies have so fare examined the effects of mortality. The major difference between illness and mortality shocks is that a death of a household member does not only induce direct costs such as medical and funeral costs and possibly a loss in income, but that also the number of consumption units in the household is reduced. Studies so far focused mainly on adult mortality, disregarded the death of other household members and distinguished only insufficiently between the immediate impact, and the impact after coping strategies have been implemented. Using data for Indonesia, I show that the economic costs related to the death of children and older persons seem to be fully compensated by the decrease of consumption units in the household. In contrast, when prime-age adults die, survivors face additional costs due to the loss of income and, in consequence, implement coping strategies. These strategies are quite efficient and it seems that on average households even over-compensate their loss. This suggests that the implementation of general formal safety nets which are still absent in Indonesia?as in most developing countries?can give priority to the insurance of other types of risks, such as unemployment, illness or natural disasters.Mortality,risk,insurance,micro-model of consumption growth,Indonesia

Food price inflation and schooling

In the middle of the nineties the rural population in Burkina Faso was seriously hit by rising food prices. Whereas cotton farmers were able to cope with this shock given the simultaneous boom in the cotton sector, food crop farmers had to withdraw children from school and to let them work more intensively. Using the exogenous character of the income variation as an instrument allows to disentangle the pure effect of parental income from effects related to parental education, family background and other unobservables. A set of simple policy simulations illustrates the potential of unconditional cash transfers to raise schooling levels and to protect investment in childrens education against transitory income shocks. Although the involved effects are not negligible and much higher as simulations based on the pure OLS effect would suggest, they also show that making transfers conditional on attendance might largely increase the efficiency of such transfers. --Child Labor,Education,Income Elasticity of Education,Agricultural Shocks,Cotton Production,Burkina Faso

Food price inflation and schooling

In the middle of the nineties the rural population in Burkina Faso was seriously hit by rising food prices. Whereas cotton farmers were able to cope with this shock given the simultaneous boom in the cotton sector, food crop farmers had to withdraw children from school and to let them work more intensively. Using the exogenous character of the income variation as an instrument allows to disentangle the pure effect of parental income from effects related to parental education, family background and other unobservables. A set of simple policy simulations illustrates the potential of unconditional cash transfers to raise schooling levels and to protect investment in children’s education against transitory income shocks. Although the involved effects are not negligible and much higher as simulations based on the pure OLS effect would suggest, they also show that making transfers conditional on attendance might largely increase the efficiency of such transfers.Child Labor, Education, Income Elasticity of Education, Agricultural Shocks, Cotton Production, Burkina Faso

Removing the anonymity axiom in assessing pro-poor growth

The recent focus on ‘pro-poor growth’ led also to an intense debate on how exactly to define and to measure pro-poor growth. However, all suggested measures, irrespective whether they use the absolute or the relative definition of pro-poor growth have in common that they are based on the anonymity axiom, i.e. they do not distinguish between changes in horizontal and vertical inequality. That means usual assessments of pro-poor growth look at distributional changes over time and ignore how specific groups or households moved. Such a perspective may provide a very incomplete picture given that the common objective of most studies investigating the pro-poorness of growth is to test whether specific policy reforms where beneficial to the initially poor or not. Using panel data from Indonesia and Peru, this paper analyzes and illustrates empirically the implications of removing the anonymity axiom from measurements of pro-poor growth. It is shown that postulating anonymity, when assessing pro-poor growth can lead to misleading conclusions on how a specific policy affected the incomes of the initially poor. For both countries, the analysis shows substantial convergence to the mean, which is, at least for the case of Indonesia, robust to measurement error in the expenditure data.Anonymity axiom, pro-poor growth, income mobility, horizontal equity, inequality, decomposition

Mortality and survivors' consumption.

Des études empiriques montrent que dans les pays en voie de développement des chocs sanitaires peuvent avoir des effets sévères sur le revenu des ménages. Peu d’analyses ont jusqu’à présent analysé l’impact de la mortalité. La différence majeure entre une période de maladie et la mortalité est qu’un décès d’un membre du ménage n’implique pas seulement des coûts directs comme des coûts funéraires et peut-être une perte de revenu, mais que le nombre des unités de consommation dans le ménage est également réduit. Utilisant des données de l’Indonésie, je montre que les coûts économiques reliés à un décès d’un enfant et d’une personne âgée semblent entièrement compensés par la réduction des unités de consommation. A l´inverse, si des adultes en âge d’activité décèdent, les survivants font face à des coûts supplémentaires et, en conséquence, instaurent des stratégies pour surmonter les difficultés engendrées par ces décès. Il est montré que ces stratégies sont très efficaces et il semble qu’en termes de consommation les ménages surcompensent eux-mêmes leur perte, il est cependant possible qu’ils fassent alors face à une plus forte vulnérabilité dans le long terme. Les résultats suggèrent que l’instauration des filets de sécurité peut donner priorité à l’assurance d’autres types de risques, comme le chômage, la maladie ou des catastrophes naturelles.In contrast to health shocks, mortality shocks do not only induce direct costs such as medical and funeral expenses and possibly income loss, but also reduce the number of consumption units in the household. Using data from Indonesia, it is shown that the economic costs related to the death of children and older persons seem to be fully compensated for by the decrease in consumption units. In contrast, when prime-age adults die, survivors face additional costs and, in consequence, use coping strategies. These strategies seem to be quite effective, although households may face higher long-term vulnerability.modèle micro-économique de la croissance de consommation; risque; lissage de consommation; Mortalité; Indonesia; micro-model of consumption growth; risk; consumption smoothing; Mortality; Indonésie;

Can Kinematic Diffraction Distinguish Order from Disorder?

Diffraction methods are at the heart of structure determination of solids. While Bragg-like scattering (pure point diffraction) is a characteristic feature of crystals and quasicrystals, it is not straightforward to interpret continuous diffraction intensities, which are generally linked to the presence of disorder. However, based on simple model systems, we demonstrate that it may be impossible to draw conclusions on the degree of order in the system from its diffraction image. In particular, we construct a family of one-dimensional binary systems which cover the entire entropy range but still share the same purely diffuse diffraction spectrum.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; two typos in the recursion relations for the autocorrelation coefficients were correcte