http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/20586/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/40374/ 2013-05-31T00:00:00Z Based on household survey data and event history interviews undertaken in a highly shock prone country, this paper investigates which shocks trigger which coping responses and why? We find clear differences in terms of coping strategies across shock types. The two relatively covariate shocks, that is, economic and natural shocks are more likely to trigger reductions in savings and in food consumption while the sale of assets and borrowing is less common. Coping with relatively idiosyncratic health shocks is met by reductions in savings, asset sales and especially a far greater reliance on borrowing as compared to other shocks. Reductions in food consumption, a prominent response in the case of natural and economic shocks is notably absent in the case of health shocks. Across all shock types, households do not rely on gifts from family and friends or on enhancing their labour supply as coping approaches. The relative insensitivity of food consumption to health shocks based on the shocks-coping analysis presented here is consistent with existing work which examines consumption insurance. However, our analysis leads to a different interpretation. We argue that this insensitivity should not be viewed as insurability of food consumption against health shocks but rather as an indication that a reduction in food consumption is not a viable coping response to a health shock as it does not provide cash to meet health care needs. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39494/ 2013-03-30T00:00:00Z This paper assesses insurance uptake in three community based health insurance (CBHI) schemes located in rural parts of two of India’s poorest states and offered through women’s self-help groups (SHGs). We examine what drives uptake, the degree of inclusive practices of the schemes, and the influence of health status on enrollment. The most important finding is that a household’s socio-economic status does not appear to substantially inhibit uptake. In some cases Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) households are more likely to enroll. Second, households with greater financial liabilities find insurance more attractive. Third, access to the hospital insurance scheme (RSBY) does not dampen CBHI uptake, suggesting that the potential for greater development of insurance markets and products beyond existing ones would respond to a need. Fourth, recent episodes of illness and selfassessed health status do not influence uptake. Fifth, insurance coverage is prioritized within households, with the household head, the spouse of the household head and both male and female children of the household head, more likely to be insured as compared to other relatives. Sixth, offering insurance through women’s SHGs appears to mitigate concerns about the inclusiveness and sustainability of CBHI schemes. Given the pan-Indian spread of SHGs, offering insurance through such groups offers the potential to scale-up CBHI. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39705/ 2013-03-25T00:00:00Z Inspired by Narayana's article published in this journal, this comment revisits the conclusion of a policy-driven decline in daughter elimination in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu using recently released data from Census 2011. Consistent with Narayana's work we find evidence to support the conclusion that government and non-governmental organization interventions have played a role in reducing gender differences in survival. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38648/ 2013-02-04T00:00:00Z Between 2000 and 2011, Ethiopia rapidly expanded its health-care infrastructure recording an 18-fold increase in the number of health posts and a 7-fold increase in the number of health centers. However, annual per capita outpatient utilization has increased only marginally. The extent to which individuals forego necessary health care, especially why and who foregoes care are issues that have received little attention in the context of low-income countries. This paper uses five clinical vignettes covering a range of context-specific child and adult-related diseases to explore the health-seeking behavior of rural Ethiopian households. We find almost universal preference for modern care. There is a systematic relationship between socioeconomic status and choice of providers mainly for adult-related conditions with households in higher consumption quintiles more likely to seek care in health centers, private/NGO clinics as opposed to health posts. Similarly, delays in care-seeking behavior are apparent mainly for adult-related conditions. The differences in care seeking behavior between adult and child related conditions may be attributed to the recent spread of health posts which have focused on raising awareness of maternal and child health. Overall, the analysis suggests that the lack of health-care utilization is not driven by the inability to recognize health problems or due to a low perceived need for modern care but due to other factors. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39912/ 2013-02-01T00:00:00Z The impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on domestically owned firms in developing countries has been widely debated in the literature. It has been argued that FDI provides access to advanced technologies and other intangible assets, which may spill over to the host country and allow domestic firms to improve their performance. While there is a substantial literature on this issue, for obvious reasons, little is known about the effect of FDI on domestic firms in the African context. Noting this gap, this paper uses two-period (2003 and 2007) firm level panel data from South Africa to examine the impact of FDI on the labour productivity of domestic firms. A key policy change during this time period was the passage of the broad-based black economic empowerment act (BB-BEE) and we also examine the effect of the interaction between foreign firm ownership and BEE on labour productivity. Regardless of the empirical specification, we find no spillover effects and no evidence that a greater degree of BEE compliance by foreign firms influences labour productivity. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38561/ 2012-11-10T00:00:00Z This response to “Declining Child Sex Ratio and Sex Selection in India: A Demographic Epiphany”? (EPW, 18 August 2012) argues that contrary to the assertion in that article, state and non-governmental organisation interventions seem to have played an important role in reversing the decline in the 0-6 sex ratio in Tamil Nadu. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/39067/ 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z A well-known feature of demographic trends in several East and South Asian countries is the continuing decline in the proportion of females to males, which is evocatively captured in the phrase ‘missing’ women as coined by Sen (1990).1 In contrast to the female-male population ratio in Europe and the United States which is about one, and the sex ratio at birth which typically lies between 944 and 962 females per 1000 males, unusually low female-male population and sex ratios at birth have been recorded in Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and South Korea (United Nations 2004). http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32374/ 2012-05-22T00:00:00Z This paper argues that since 2005, the global security discourse has confused maritime piracy off the Horn of Africa with terrorism. American and European policymakers and financiers have tapped a vulnerable public imaginary to exaggerate Somali pirates as ‘maritime terrorists’ linked to Shabaab and Al Qaeda, driving the militarization and legal obfuscation of counter-piracy operations. The discursive conflation of piracy and terrorism has thereby launched a tactical and legal War on Piracy that mirrors the War on Terror. This approach is pushing pirates to become more daring and dangerous in response. We conclude that the tactical extension from counterterrorism to counter-piracy is unlikely to succeed, as it is insensitive to the origins, motives and modus operandi of Somali pirates. The paper proposes a shift from military to developmental responses to piracy, with an emphasis on respecting local institutions of law enforcement and governance in Somalia. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/31741/ 2012-03-06T00:00:00Z The importance of ever-earlier interventions to help children reach their physical and cognitive potential is increasingly being recognized. In part, as a result of this, in developing countries, antenatal care is becoming an important element of strategies to prevent child stunting in utero and later. Notwithstanding their policy relevance and substantial expansion, empirical evidence on the role of antenatal care (ANC) programs in combating stunting is scarce. This study analyzes the role of ANC programs in determining the level and distribution of child stunting in three Andean countries - Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru - where since the 1990s, expanding access to such care has been an explicit policy intervention to tackle child malnutrition. We find that the use of such services is associated with a reduction in the level of malnutrition and at the same time access to such services is relatively equally distributed. While this is a positive sign, it also suggests that further expansion of ANC programs is unlikely to play a large role in reducing inequalities in malnutrition. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38555/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Introduction. The immediate goal of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is to ensure a social safety net for vulnerable groups by providing a fall-back source of employment when other alternatives are scarce. However, its long-term goals are to create durable rural assets and infrastructure which meet local needs and help address chronic poverty and to foster a model of governance based on the principles of grass-root democracy and transparency (Ministry of Rural Development, 2008). While several papers have examined pertinent aspects of the functioning of the programme, such as targeting (Jha et al., 2009), impact on consumption (Ravi and Engler, 2009) and various implementation issues including corruption (Rai, 2008; Institute of Applied Manpower Research, 2008) there is limited work on the quality and upkeep of the infrastructure built through the programme and indeed whether the constructed projects meet local needs. ... http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38560/ 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z Abstract. Inspired by Narayana (2008), published in this journal, this comment revisits the conclusion of a policy-driven decline in daughter elimination in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu using recently released data from Census 2011. Consistent with Narayana's work we find evidence to support the conclusion that government and NGO interventions have played a role in reducing gender differences in survival. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/32703/ 2011-07-01T00:00:00Z This article examines the impact of Argentina's Plan Jefes, an unemployment assistance program, on the probability of transiting to employment between the period May 2002 and May 2003. While the program does seem to have had positive effects and the existing work highlights the role of the Plan in terms of providing a safety net, this article complements the literature by focusing on the effect of the Plan on influencing the probability of finding a job in the wider labor market. While Argentina has a variety of passive and active labor market interventions to protect unemployed workers, at the moment, the two main programs are a passive unemployment insurance (UI) program and Plan Jefes, an unemployment assistance (UA) program. The UI system was introduced in 1991 and provides monthly income support to unemployed workers previously engaged in the formal sector. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23836/ 2011-03-02T00:00:00Z Dominant development policy approaches recommend women's employment on the grounds that it facilitates their well-being. However, empirical work on the relationship between women's employment status and well-being as measured by freedom from marital violence yields ambiguous results. Motivated by the ambiguity, this paper uses data from Uttar Pradesh, to examine the effect of women's employment and asset status as measured by their participation in paid work and house ownership, respectively, on spousal violence. Unlike the existing literature, we treat women's work status as endogenous and find that engagement in paid work and house ownership, are associated with reductions in violence. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22287/ 2010-10-09T00:00:00Z This study of the functioning of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme between February 2006 and July 2009 in Birbhum district, West Bengal reveals that in order to serve as an effective “employer of last resort”, the programme should provide proportionately more job-days during the agricultural lean season and wages should be paid in a timely manner. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22285/ 2010-06-05T00:00:00Z Tamil Nadu’s two decade old Cradle Baby Scheme tries to ensure that female babies who would otherwise have been killed are given up for adoption. Civil society activists are not happy with the scheme because they feel that it only encourages parents to abandon female babies and is not a substitute for tackling the crime of sex selection and female foeticide. However, until the girl child is welcome in families, such a scheme will be needed. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22289/ 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z In 1997, Guyana started to receive debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. In 2001, to qualify for the Enhanced HIPC Initiative, Guyana developed a Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) that committed the country to a reorientation of its economic and social policies towards the objectives of the PRS and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Against this background, this article examines whether the HIPC initiatives and the accompanying PRS have translated into increases in the level and quality of social expenditure. We find that there has been a substantial increase in social spending since 1997. In terms of quality of expenditure, our analysis suggests that without further strengthening of institutions responsible for managing and monitoring public expenditure, debt relief is unlikely to provide more than temporary succour. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21015/ 2009-11-28T00:00:00Z The Girl Child Protection Scheme in Tamil Nadu was introduced in 1992; surveys and data analysis show that between the late 1990s and 2002-03, daughter elimination has declined sharply. However, a close look at the scheme reveals that its implementation is not targeted at districts with a high prevalence of female infanticide, that it assumes only poor families are anti-daughters, and given the sterilisation condition, that families with only daughters and strong son preference are not likely to volunteer. Also, to what extent it has altered attitudes towards daughters – one of its aims – is unclear. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18716/ 2009-08-01T00:00:00Z The south Indian state of Tamil Nadu is a relatively recent entrant to the list of Indian states exhibiting the phenomenon of ‘missing girls’. A substantial proportion of these missing girls may be attributed to the differential survival of girls and boys in the 0-6 age group due to daughter elimination in the form of sex selection, neglect and infanticide. Notwithstanding the state’s relatively recent history of daughter elimination, the government and NGOs in Tamil Nadu have been active in terms of data collection to track gender differences in survival and in introducing interventions to prevent daughter elimination. Against this background, this paper has two aims. First, it provides a temporal and spatial analysis of patterns of daughter deficits in Tamil Nadu over the period 1996 to 2003. Second, it undertakes an examination of the modus operandi, underlying assumptions, strengths and weaknesses of various interventions and assesses their effect on daughter limination. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21022/ 2009-08-01T00:00:00Z 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. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17438/ 2009-06-01T00:00:00Z Over the last decade Ecuador has experienced a strong increase in financial transfers from migrated workers. 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. Our results show that remittances in- crease school enrollment 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. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18337/ 2009-01-17T00:00:00Z Between 1961 and 2001, India’s 0-6 sex ratio has steadily declined. Despite evidence to the contrary, this ratio is often characterised in terms of a diagonal divide with low 0-6 sex ratios in northern and western India and normal 0-6 sex ratios in eastern and southern India. While unexpectedly high rates of female infant mortality have been reported in Tamil Nadu, it is still regarded as lying outside the ambit of states with unusually low 0-6 sex ratios. Based on an analysis of patterns in sex ratio at birth, infant mortality rates and under-5 mortality rates for Tamil Nadu, this paper traces the development of daughter deficit in the state and examines the validity of the diagonal divide in sex ratios across India. We find evidence of daughter deficit in more than half the state’s districts with a majority of the shortfall arising before birth. The evidence presented here, combined with earlier work on declining 0-6 sex ratios outside northwestern India, suggests that the diagonal divide is no longer an appropriate distinction. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/17104/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z 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 sample used, we find 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. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18340/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z The Dynamics of Job Creation and Job Destruction: Is Sub-Saharan Africa Different? This paper analyzes the creation, destruction and reallocation of jobs in order to understand the micro-dynamics of aggregate employment change in African manufacturing. The nature and magnitude of gross job flows are examined using a unique panel data of Ethiopian manufacturing establishments over the period 1996-2007. We also assess the relative importance of firm demographics, industry effects and business cycles for job flows. The rates and patterns of job creation and destruction in our sample are comparable to the findings from developed and emerging economies suggesting that African firms adjust their labor force in a manner broadly similar to firms elsewhere and that African labor markets are not uniquely restrictive in terms of undermining job reallocation across firms. We also find, as in many other countries, that job reallocation is relatively higher in industries dominated by smaller and younger establishments. However, unlike other regions, job reallocation in our sample is pro-cyclical and its variation across industries bears little similarity to the patterns found in other developed and emerging economies. Small firms in Africa create jobs mainly at the point of market-entry and play a limited role in terms of contributing to manufacturing employment through post-entry expansion. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/21034/ 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z Abstract In this review, we argue that the pattern of trafficking needs to be understood through the impact of legislative forces and human rights policies in place in the host countries of trafficking. Analyzing trafficking patterns solely through the lens of economic, labor market and demographic variables leaves a key question unanswered: how much of the incidence of trafficking into host countries is due to perverse incentives created for traffickers by the provision and enforcement of policies that grant human rights (such as amnesty) to trafficked victims? The reason why we focus on this particular policy is twofold. First, the role of amnesty in creating possible perverse incentives for traffickers is controversial and has not been explored in the literature. While economic and enforcement factors affecting the “market” for trafficked victims for commercial sexual exploitation through incentives for traffickers have received a fair amount of attention, the impact of legislation surrounding anti-trafficking activities in host countries on the incentives for traffickers remain an equally important but unexplored issue. Second, from a normative point of view, the role of amnesty for trafficked victims needs careful evaluation. We argue that while the policy of amnesty does protect the rights of trafficked victims in host countries, it cannot be viewed as a policy that deters traffickers, but as one that may in fact increase the incentive to select countries that offer amnesty as destination countries for victims. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22390/ 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z The current debate on child labour focuses on developing countries. However, Portugal is an example of a relatively developed country where child labour is still a matter of concern as between 8% and 12% of Portuguese children may be classified as workers. This paper studies the patterns of child labour in Portugal and assesses the consequences of working on the educational success of Portuguese children. The analysis controls for typically unobserved attributes such as a child’s interest in school and educational ambitions and uses geographical variation in policies designed to tackle child labour and in labour inspection regimes to instrument child labour. We find that economic work hinders educational success, while domestic work does not appear to be harmful. Furthermore, after controlling for a host of socio-economic variables, factors such as a child’s interest in school and educational ambitions have a large effect on boosting educational success and reducing economic work. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18735/ 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z Over the last decade Ecuador has experienced a strong increase in financial transfers from migrated workers. 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. 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. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18746/ 2007-11-01T00:00:00Z This paper uses historical and current data covering the period 1850 to 2001 to provide a history of child labour in Portugal. The Portuguese experience is set against the backdrop of the country’s changing economic structure, changes in education and minimum working age policies and the changing norms espoused by its people. The paper highlights the rapid post-1986 decline in child labour which is interpreted in terms of the cascading effect of policies that operated synchronously. Our assessment of the Portuguese experience suggests that while legal measures such as minimum working age requirements and compulsory schooling laws do help reduce child labour, no single legislation or policy is likely to be effective unless the various pieces come together. The use of children in the labour market appears to be driven mainly by the needs of the economic structure of the country, which in turn may be reflected in the norms and values espoused by its political leaders and their willingness to pass and implement legal measures. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/18747/ 2007-10-01T00:00:00Z In 2001-02, Argentina experienced a wrenching economic crisis. Plan Jefes, implemented in May 2002, was Argentina’s institutional response to the increases in unemployment and poverty triggered by the crisis. The program provided a social safety net and appears to have successfully protected 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, the empirical approach and the control group, the evidence assembled in this paper shows that for the period under analysis individuals enrolled in the Plan are at least 20 percentage points less likely to transit to employment as compared to individuals who are not on 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 work incentives. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19188/ 2006-07-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19174/ 2005-08-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19140/ 2003-08-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19146/ 2003-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19103/ 2002-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19091/ 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19065/ 2000-09-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19066/ 2000-08-01T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/19068/ 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z