This paper examines the impact of free trade agreement (FTA) use on import prices. For this analysis, it employs establishment-level import data with information on tariff schemes, that is, the FTA and most-favored-nation schemes used for importing.
... See More + Unlike previous studies, this paper estimates the effects of FTA use on prices by controlling for differences in importing-firm characteristics. There are three main findings. First, the effect of FTA use is overestimated when not controlling for importing firm-related fixed effects. Second, on average, firms' FTA use reduces tariffs by 12 percentage points and raises import prices by 3.6-6.7 percent. Third, in general, a price rise resulting from the costs of complying with rules of origin was not found.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS8416 APR 19, 2018
Transport connectivity is among the most important factors in increasing firm productivity and accelerating economic development. The literature generally supports the idea of agglomeration economies, although there is little evidence of their effectiveness in Africa.
... See More + There are often empirical challenges, such as spatial externalities and endogeneity of infrastructure development. Using firm registry data in Liberia, this study used the instrumental variable spatial autoregressive model to examine the effects of transport connectivity on firms' decisions on where to locate. The study found significant spatial autocorrelation and possible endogeneity related to transport infrastructure, and that firms are more likely to be located where market accessibility is better. The data indicated strong agglomeration economies, indicating that the primary city, Monrovia, is likely to continue to grow and attract more people and firms, and that secondary cities can also grow with greater transport connectivity between populated areas, such as district centers.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS8411 APR 18, 2018
Health care access is an important policy concern, especially in rural areas. It is especially challenging in developing countries, where rural residents are poorer and less likely to be insured than those living in urban areas.
... See More + Using the case of Liberia, this paper examines the effects of transport connectivity on health care access. The Ebola crisis in 2014 and 2015 clearly revealed the vulnerability of the country's transport and health systems to unexpected external shocks. Paying particular attention to the possible challenge of endogeneity associated with infrastructure investment, the study found that transport connectivity, especially greater road density, can increase access to health care, but there was no significant effect of road quality. This may be because of significantly skewed underlying data. The vast majority of roads in Liberia are in poor condition. The study also found that the statistical effect of road density varies depending on distance from a health facility. The effect is particularly significant within a 30- to 50-kilometer radius. Not only rural accessibility, but also broader transport connectivity needs to be developed to increase health care access.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS8413 APR 18, 2018
The rank-based measures of intergenerational mobility have become increasingly popular in economics literature. Recent evidence shows that rank-based measures are less affected by measurement error and life-cycle bias compared with other standard measures such as intergenerational regression coefficient and intergenerational correlation.
... See More + However, most of the available household surveys suffer from sample truncation, because coresidency is used to define household membership. There is no evidence on how sample truncation affects the rank-based mobility estimates relative to intergenerational regression coefficient and intergenerational correlation. This paper provides evidence on this in the context of intergenerational schooling persistence, using two exceptional surveys from India and Bangladesh that include all children irrespective of residency status. The analysis shows that the measures of relative mobility (slopes) are biased downward in coresident samples, but the average bias in rank correlation is less than half of that in intergenerational regression coefficient, and comparable to that in intergenerational correlation in magnitude. The intercept estimates are biased upward, with the largest bias found in the intercept of the regression used for intergenerational correlation. Truncation bias in rank-based absolute mobility estimates is the lowest in most cases. The results strengthen the case for rank-based measures of intergenerational mobility when working with the standard household surveys.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS8414 APR 18, 2018
The methods to select safety net beneficiaries are the subject of frequent policy debates. This paper presents the results from a randomized experiment analyzing how efficiency, legitimacy, and short-term program effectiveness vary across widely used targeting methods.
... See More + The experiment was embedded in the roll-out of a national cash transfer program in Niger. Eligible villages were randomly assigned to have beneficiary households selected through community-based targeting, a proxy-means test, or a formula designed to identify the food-insecure. Proxy-means testing is found to outperform other methods in identifying households with lower consumption per capita. The methods perform similarly against other welfare benchmarks. Legitimacy is high across all methods, but local populations have a slight preference for formula-based approaches. Manipulation and information imperfections are found to affect community-based targeting, although triangulation across multiple selection committees mitigates the related risks. Finally, short-term program impacts on food security are largest among households selected by proxy-means testing. Overall, the differences in performance across targeting methods are small relative to the overall level of exclusion stemming from limited funding for social programs.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS8412 APR 18, 2018
In Armenia, the proportion of women among employed workers increased from 45 to 48 percent between 2008 and 2015. This evolution was accompanied by a fall in the gender earnings gap; however, the difference in average wages of men and women is still among the largest in comparison with countries in the Europe and Central Asia region.
... See More + This study documents the gender wage gap in Armenia through stylized facts and further investigates its sources. The paper finds that the gender wage gap in hourly pay is 20 percent on average. Looking at the different percentiles, the disparity in wages in Armenia in 2015 shows an inverted U-shaped form with a larger differential in wages between men and women in the middle of the distribution. Using a reweighted, re-centered influence function decomposition, the analysis estimates the contribution of each covariate on the wage structure and composition effects along the wage distribution. The decomposition shows that the wage gap in Armenia is mostly driven by the wage structure effect (unexplained component), which accounts for almost all the wage gap in the middle part of the distribution (30th to 55th percentiles) and is even greater at the top, but better endowments of women offset it to some extent. In the bottom part of the distribution however, the composition effect is larger, consistent with lower endowments among women, for example, of skills and human capital.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS8409 APR 17, 2018
