Do CCT Programmes Have a Pro-Poor Spillover Effect?

Conditional Cash Transfer programmes (CCTs), such as Progresa in Mexico or Bolsa Família in Brazil, have been compared to a ?magic golden bullet in development?. A plethora of rigorous evaluations of such programmes points to a significant increase in food consumption among cash-recipient households. A topic that has not received much attention yet is the impact of cash transfer programmes on the food consumption of households that do not receive the transfer (programme-ineligible households) but that are in the same village as cash recipients.Do CCT Programmes Have a Pro-Poor Spillover Effect?

Why may government transfers to the poor have modest effects on reducing rural inequality?

High levels of inequality are a persistent feature of many rural areas in the developing world. Rural inequality is correlated with major impediments of rural development, such as crime, elite-capture, and lack of collective action. Government transfer programs, such as conditional cash transfer, unemployment insurance, old-age pension or similar programs that target the lower tail of a village's cumulative welfare distribution function have become a very popular public policy to tackle poverty and inequality in rural areas. While the poverty impacts of those programs are well documented in the literature less attention has been given to the redistributive capacity of such policies at the village level. Among the main reasons for the neglect is a common belief that monetary transfers to the lower tail of the village welfare distribution (i.e. ‘the poor'), while excluding the upper tail (i.e. ‘the rich') from the program, must lead to a reduction in inequality. In this paper we show that the impact of such programs on reducing rural inequality may be lower than previously thought. This is because program-eligible lower and program-ineligible upper tail do not behave in isolation from each other. They are linked via interactions in credit & insurance, as well as factor & commodity markets. If, consequently, a government transfer triggers the lower tail to shift then the upper tail follows, leading to modest reductions in local inequality.evaluation of public policies ; inequality ; poverty ; microsimulation ; externalities

Benefiting Without Receiving Money? Externalities of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes on Schooling, Health and the Village Economy

Although cash transfer programmes have been implemented and evaluated for more almost a decade, very little is known about how they affect households that are located in communities where the programme is implemented but that are not officially registered for the programme (either because they are ineligible or are unwilling to participate). The vast majority of evaluations focus on households that are officially registered. Cash transfer programmes, however, are likely to affect all households living in a community, even those that are not participating.Benefiting Without Receiving Money? Externalities of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes on Schooling, Health and the Village Economy

Positivity of the diagonal

We study how the geometry of a projective variety $X$ is reflected in the positivity properties of the diagonal $\Delta_X$ considered as a cycle on $X \times X$. We analyze when the diagonal is big, when it is nef, and when it is rigid. In each case, we give several implications for the geometric properties of $X$. For example, when the diagonal is big, we prove that the Hodge groups $H^{k,0}(X)$ vanish for $k>0$. We also classify varieties of low dimension where the diagonal is nef and big.Comment: 23 pages; v2: updated attributions and minor change

Unintended Effects of Microfinance: An Increase in Child Labour in Some Contexts?

An increasing number of policies in developing countries seek to empower women through female entrepreneurship. Many microfinance institutions (MFIs), for example, lend exclusively to women. Loans are usually combined with capacity building workshops on entrepreneurial activities such as the production of handicrafts, clothes or food to be sold in local markets. While there is evidence that these strategies have been successful in empowering women (Panjaitan-Drioadisuryo and Cloud, 1999), less is known about how such an increase in mothers? non-domestic labour affects the working hours of their children. In the few available studies, the results are ambiguous: see, for example, Hazarika et al. (2007) and Dehejia and Gatti (2002). Drawing on a study of Mexico (Lehman, 2010), this One Pager points out that policies which encourage the small business activities of women may lead to an increase in child labour. It hypothesises that the provision of family and/or social support infrastructure (full-day schools and childcare facilities), and/or policies that encourage investment in the children?s future, may help mitigate these unintended impacts.Unintended Effects of Microfinance: An Increase in Child Labour in Some Contexts?

Sprache und Musik in einem Schumann-Heine-Lied

Das achte der von Schumann unter dem Namen "Dichterliebe" zusammengefaßten und vertonten Heine-Gedichte – "Und wüßten's die Blumen, die kleinen" – soll im folgenden einer Teilanalyse unterzogen werden. Wenn damit auch ein kleiner Beitrag zu dem im Rahmen einer semiotischen Theorie zu behandelnden allgemeinen Problem der Systembeziehungen zwischen Sprache und Musik geleistet werden soll, indem einer solchen Theorie in einer empirischen Untersuchung voranalysiertes Material zur Verfügung gestellt wird, so steht im Mittelpunkt des Interesses doch bloß jenes Lied für sich. Dies bedingt eine Verlagerung des Gesichtspunktes, unter dem das genannte Problem gesehen wird, vom System auf die Struktur, im Hjelmslev'schen Sinne. Die strukturellen Eigenschaften von Heines Gedicht werden verglichen mit denen von Schumanns Vertonung, es werden Beziehungen zwischen dem textuellen und dem musikalischen Ablauf aufgedeckt

Der Relativsatz im Persischen und Deutschen : ein funktionell-kontrastiver Vergleich

Recent developments in typology which put the notions of linguistic function and operation into the focus of interest and establish them as the ultimate base on which languages are comparable prove fruitful for contrastive linguistics. The functional approach is illustrated in a contrastive analysis of Persian and German relative clauses. In a sketch of the theory of the relative clause, four grammatical functions to be fulfilled by relative constructions are deduced, and the two languages are compared with respect to the various ways in which they realize them. Learning problems can thus be predicted with greater confidence, be explained more satisfactorily, and be remedied more efficiently, because they are seen as learner's attempts to transfer, beside the underlying functions and operations, which the languages do have in common, the techniques of their realization, which they do not have in common

Einsatzstrategien von Zeitarbeit in Unternehmen

Zeitarbeit ist eine Boombranche. Zeitarbeit ist prekäre Beschäftigung. Mit Zeitarbeit wird Missbrauch getrieben. Zeitarbeit ist wichtig. Jeder, der die öffentliche Diskussion verfolgt, hat einen dieser Sätze schon einmal gehört. Wir reden über Zeitarbeit, wie über die Frage, ob Entlohnung gut oder schlecht ist. Vergessen wird dabei oft, dass Zeitarbeit nicht gleich Zeitarbeit ist, sondern sich Motive und Einsatz der Zeitarbeit von Unternehmen zu Unternehmen deutlich unterscheiden können. So kann ein Personaldienstleister Hausfrauen an eine Versicherung vermitteln, um dort für die Reinigung und Sauberkeit der Büros zu sorgen. Ebenso kann ein Ingenieurbüro eigene Mitarbeiter an eine Kraftwerksfirma verleihen, um hochspezielle Projektaufgaben an einem Solarkraftwerk zu verrichten. Und genau darum geht es, wenn wir die Zukunft der Zeitarbeit gestalten wollen: herauszufinden, unter welchen Bedingungen und für welche Zwecke Zeitarbeit in Unternehmen eingesetzt wird und was ihre Nutzung fördert bzw. behindert. Um darauf eine Antwort zu haben, muss man zunächst die Verschiedenartigkeit der Zeitarbeit anerkennen. Im Anschluss daran muss man herausfinden, welchen Typ Zeitarbeit man in einem bestimmten Unternehmen vor sich hat, wovon dieser beeinflusst wird und was man anders oder besser machen kann. Es geht in diesem Beitrag also zuallererst darum, Motive der Zeitarbeitsnutzung herauszuarbeiten und zu untersuchen, wie sie zu verschiedenen Formen des Zeitarbeitseinsatzes in Unternehmen führen

Why may government transfers to the poor have modest effects on reducing rural inequality?

High levels of inequality are a persistent feature of many rural areas in the developing world. Rural inequality is correlated with major impediments of rural development, such as crime, elite-capture, and lack of collective action. Government transfer programs, such as conditional cash transfer, unemployment insurance, old-age pension or similar programs that target the lower tail of a village's cumulative welfare distribution function have become a very popular public policy to tackle poverty and inequality in rural areas. While the poverty impacts of those programs are well documented in the literature less attention has been given to the redistributive capacity of such policies at the village level. Among the main reasons for the neglect is a common belief that monetary transfers to the lower tail of the village welfare distribution (i.e. ‘the poor'), while excluding the upper tail (i.e. ‘the rich') from the program, must lead to a reduction in inequality. In this paper we show that the impact of such programs on reducing rural inequality may be lower than previously thought. This is because program-eligible lower and program-ineligible upper tail do not behave in isolation from each other. They are linked via interactions in credit & insurance, as well as factor & commodity markets. If, consequently, a government transfer triggers the lower tail to shift then the upper tail follows, leading to modest reductions in local inequality.Un niveau élevé d'inégalités constitue une caractéristique récurrente des zones rurales des pays en développement. Ces inégalités rurales vont de pair avec nombre d'obstacles majeurs au développement, tel que la criminalité, et le manque d'action collective. Les programmes d'aides gouvernementales, tels que les aides conditionnelles, l'assurance chômage, les pensions vieillesses, ou d'autres programmes du même type ayant pour cible le bas de la distribution des richesses, sont devenus un outil de politique publique très populaire dans la lutte contre la pauvreté et les inégalités en zones rurales. Si l'impact de ces programmes sur la pauvreté a fait l'objet d'importantes recherches, l'impact redistributif de telles politiques n'a été que peu étudié à l'échelle des villages eux-mêmes. Une des raisons pour lesquelles cette thématique n'a pas fait l'objet d'une réelle attention est qu'il est couramment admis que les transferts monétaires dirigés vers le bas de la distribution des richesses ("les pauvres"), en excluant la partie haute ("les riches"), devraient permettre la réduction des inégalités. Le présent article montre que l'impact de programmes de ce type sur la réduction des inégalités en zone rurale pourrait s'avérer plus faible que ce l'on pensait. Le bas de distribution des richesses, éligible, et la partie supérieure, non-éligible, ne fonctionnent en effet pas de manière indépendante. Ils sont liés par leurs interactions sur les marchés du crédit et de l'assurance, ainsi que sur ceux des facteurs et des biens. Si, par conséquent, les aides gouvernementales permettent une élévation du niveau des richesses en bas de la distribution, la partie haute en bénéficiera elle aussi, ce qui se traduit donc in fine par une réduction modeste des inégalités au niveau local