The most severe impact of the Ebola epidemic, which began in Guinea in December 2013 and quickly spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone, has been in lost human lives and suffering.
... See More + This report, prepared for the World Economic Forum at Davos, focuses on the indirect, economic costs, in particular the effects on economic output in 2015. Most of the economic cost is driven by aversion behavior, which consists of both the actions taken by individuals to avoid exposure to the illness and actions taken by investors in anticipation of those individual choices. The report first estimates the impact of the epidemic on gross domestic product (GDP) in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Here the report builds on sector-specific analysis to update World Bank forecasts for the three countries, and incorporates recent results of World Bank-financed cellphone surveys in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The authors evaluate the economic effects of the epidemic on the continent, beyond the three hardest-hit countries, using assessments by World Bank country economists across the 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the report updates estimates from the global economic model of the research arm of the World Bank, to quantify the 2015 impact of the potential spread of the epidemic to other countries. Updated general equilibrium analysis suggests that further spread of the epidemic to other African economies, if the epidemic is not contained and instances of infection continue to occur in other countries, can potentially exact an economic toll of the order of 6 billion dollars. The results underscore the importance of: (a) Ebola and broader pandemic preparedness in African countries; and (b) reaching the goal of zero new cases as soon as possible in the three most affected countries.
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Working Paper 93721 JAN 20, 2015
Thomas, Mark Roland; Smith, Gregory; Ferreira, Francisco H. G.; Evans, David; Maliszewska, Maryla; Cruz, Marcio; Himelein, Kristen; Over, Mead
Incorporating qualitative methods into the evaluation of development programs has become increasingly popular in recent years, both for the distinctive insights such approaches can bring in their own right and because of their capacity to complement the strengths -- and where necessary correct some of the weaknesses -- of quantitative approaches.
... See More + Some initial work deploying mixed methods has been undertaken in the assessment of investment climate reforms, but considerable room for expansion exists. This paper summarizes some of the key principles and practices underpinning mixed methods evaluations in development, highlight some notable examples of how such work has been conducted (and the particular contributions it has made), and offers some guidelines for those seeking to increase the sophistication and utility of qualitative methods in the evaluation of investment climate reforms.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7145 DEC 01, 2014
This paper quantifies the impact of inundation risk and salinization on the family structure and economic welfare of coastal households in Bangladesh.
... See More + These households are already on the "front line" of climate change, so their adaptation presages the future for hundreds of millions of families worldwide who will face similar threats by 2100. The analysis is based on a household decision model that relates spatial deployment of working-age, migration-capable members to inundation and salinization threats. The analysis uses appropriate estimation techniques, including adjustments for spatial autocorrelation, and finds that households subject to high inundation and salinization threats have significantly higher out-migration rates for working-age adults (particularly males), dependency ratios, and poverty incidence than their counterparts in non-threatened areas. The findings indicate that the critical zone for inundation risk lies within four kilometers of the coast, with attenuated impacts for coastal-zone households at higher elevations. The results paint a sobering picture of life at the coastal margin for Bangladeshi households threatened by inundation and salinization, particularly households that are relatively isolated from market centers. They respond by "hollowing out," as economic necessity drives more working-age adults to seek outside earnings. Those left behind face a far greater likelihood of extreme poverty than their counterparts in less-threatened areas. The powerful results for market access, coupled with previous findings on salinity and road maintenance, suggest that infrastructure investment may offer a promising option. Road improvements that reduce travel times for isolated settlements compensate them for an increase in salinity. Thus, road improvement may warrant particular attention as an attractive adaptation investment in coastal Bangladesh.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7148 DEC 01, 2014
Dasgupta, Susmita; Hossain, Md. Moqbul; Huq, Mainul; Wheeler, David
This brief summarizes the updates from the 2014 paper entitled, The heterogeneous effects of HIV testing, Welfare impacts of rural electrification : evidence from Vietnam, conducted between between 2009 and 2010 in Malawi.
... See More + The study observed the effects of learning oneapos;s HIV status on subsequent risky sexual behaviors. However, many of these studies rely on non-experimental designs; use self-reported outcome measures, or both. This study investigates the effects of a randomly assigned home based HIV testing and counseling (HTC) intervention on risky sexual behaviors and schooling investments among school-age females in Malawi. The study finds no overall effects on HIV, Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-2), or achievement test scores at follow-up. However, among the small group of individuals who tested positive for HIV, a large increase in the probability of contracting HSV-2 is found, with this effect stronger among those surprised by their test results. Similarly, those surprised by HIV-negative test results see a significant improvement in achievement test scores, consistent with increased returns to investments in human capital. The finding of increased HSV-2 prevalence among HIV-positive individuals suggests that the conventional wisdom that those who learn they are HIV-positive will adopt safer sexual practices should be treated with caution.
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Brief 90357 SEP 02, 2014
Baird, Sarah ; Gong, Erick ; McIntosh, Craig ; Ozler, Berk
This note adapts results by Huang and Hidiroglou (2003) on Generalized Least Squares estimation and Empirical Bayes prediction for linear mixed models with sampling weights.
... See More + The objective is to incorporate these results into the poverty mapping approach put forward by Elbers et al. (2003). The estimators presented here have been implemented in version 2.5 of POVMAP, the custom-made poverty mapping software developed by the World Bank.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7028 SEP 01, 2014
For reason of empirical tractability, analysis of cointegrated economic time series is often developed in a partial setting, in which a subset of variables is explicitly modeled conditional on the rest.
... See More + This approach yields valid inference only if the conditioning variables are weakly exogenous for the parameters of interest. This paper proposes a new test of weak exogeneity in panel cointegration models. The test has a limiting Gumbel distribution that is obtained by first letting the time dimension of the panel go to infinity and then letting its cross-sectional dimension go to infinity. The paper evaluates the accuracy of the asymptotic approximation in finite samples via simulation experiments. Finally, as an empirical illustration, the paper reports tests of weak exogeneity of disposable income and wealth in an aggregate consumption equation.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS7045 SEP 01, 2014
This report analyzes Africaapos;s current performance in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) research, as well as future trends. In March 2014 several African governmentsapos; ministers agreed on a Joint Call for Action in Kigali to adopt a strategy that uses strategic investments in science and technology to accelerate Africa toward a developed knowledge-based society within one generation.
... See More + The World Bank and Elsevier are partnering on this report to examine the research enterprise over a decade from 2003 to 2012 of three different geographies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): West and Central Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa. The research performance of these regions is compared to that of South Africa, Malaysia, and Vietnam; the latter two countries had a comparable research base to the SSA regions at the beginning of the period of analysis. This report presents four main developments over the past decade in research in SSA: 1) sub-Saharan Africa has greatly increased both the quantity and quality of its research outputl; 2) SSA research output in STEM lags that of other subject areas significantly; 3) SSA, especially East Africa and Southern Africa, relies heavily on international collaboration and visiting faculty for their research output; and 4) research collaboration in Africa features a number of particular characteristics that are critical to understand for the design of successful policies. Following an overview, this reportapos;s introductory chapter introduces the underlying database and the main methodological approaches and concepts used in the report. The next chapter provides a broad overview of the research enterprise in the different regions and across different subject groupings by using a variety of metrics to examine the quantity, usage, and quality of research output. What types of knowledge and how much are being generated by SSA researchers? By whom and how much is that knowledge being used? Chapter 3 focuses on key aspects of research collaboration for the Africa regions. How frequently do researchers in the different regions co-author articles with international colleagues or colleagues in non-academic institutions? How impactful are those co-authored articles, and with which institutions do researchers collaborate the most? The final chapter focuses on the mobility of researchers to and from the different regions.
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An Enterprise Survey is a firm-level survey of a representative sample of an economy?s private sector. The surveys cover a broad range of business environment topics including access to finance, competition, corruption, crime, gender, infrastructure, innovation, labor, performance measures, and trade.
... See More + The World Bank has collected this data from face-to-face interviews with top managers and business owners in over 130,000 companies in more than 135 economies.
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There is increasing interest in improving hand washing in low- and middle-income countries. The validity of rapid hand washing measures was evaluated by comparing them to hand washing behavior measured during five-hour structured observations.
... See More + Hand washing was measured in the impact evaluation of the global scaling up hand washing project, carried out by the water and sanitation program (WSP) in Peru, Senegal, and Vietnam. Global scaling up hand washing tested the effects of at-scale implementation of hand washing promotion on various outcomes, including behavior and health, in four countries, Peru, Senegal, Tanzania, and Vietnam using cluster-randomized controlled trial designs. Structured observations were carried out among a subset of households participating in end line surveys in each country. Regression was used to model the relationship between the rapid hand washing measure and the probability that hands were washed during the observed event, accounting for the repeated nature of structured observation data. This multi-country analysis of the validity of rapid hand washing measures confirms the utility of observing hand washing materials at the places where people wash hands, at the times most necessary for washing them (after fecal contact and before food preparation). The findings described reinforce the global imperative of improving hand washing behavior for prevention of the leading causes of death in young children.
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UNDP-Water ; Sanitation Program 90744 AUG 01, 2014
Ram, Pavani K.; Sahli, Michelle W.; Arnold, Benjamin; Colford, John M.; Chase, Claire; Briceno, Bertha; Orsola-Vidal, Alexandra; Gertler, Paul
These guidance notes prepare universities, local researchers, and development and humanitarian agencies to use and teach the approach of the Resilience in Education Settings (RES)-Research module, in its entirety or partially.
... See More + This guide It is based upon two regional applications of the RES-Research module in Central America and the South Asia, during the period 2011-2014. RES-Research is a 9 to 12 month training module targeting higher education professors, graduate research students and the professional Development Evaluation community working with humanitarian and development agencies in conflict and violenceaffected contexts. The training is structured around face-to-face workshops and a practical component designed to ground research knowledge and skills. During the practice phase, RES-Research provides local researchers with ongoing technical guidance and seed financial resources to undertake a pilot education resilience study. In addition to enriching the learning experience, these studies then become part of a growing base of international education resilience evidence.
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These guidance notes prepare universities, local researchers, and development and humanitarian agencies to use and teach the approach of the Resilience in Education Settings (RES)-Research module, in its entirety or partially.
... See More + This guide It is based upon two regional applications of the RES-Research module in Central America and the South Asia, during the period 2011-2014. RES-Research is a 9 to 12 month training module targeting higher education professors, graduate research students and the professional Development Evaluation community working with humanitarian and development agencies in conflict and violenceaffected contexts. The training is structured around face-to-face workshops and a practical component designed to ground research knowledge and skills. During the practice phase, RES-Research provides local researchers with ongoing technical guidance and seed financial resources to undertake a pilot education resilience study. In addition to enriching the learning experience, these studies then become part of a growing base of international education resilience evidence.
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Since it began operating in the 1990s in northern Uganda, the LRA has inflicted enormous suffering on millions of civilians in several countries of the Great Lakes and Central African regions.
... See More + In the 1990s and early 2000s, suc¬cessive Ugandan Peoples Defense Force (UPDF) operations in northern Uganda largely drove the LRA into the DRC and what is now South Sudan, and after 2008, into the CAR. Armed conflict negatively affects women and men in different ways and results in gender-specific dis¬advantages which are not always recognized or ad¬dressed in mainstream conflict and reconstruction programs and policies. The Learning on Gender and Conflict in Africa Program (LOGiCA) aims to increase gender-specific programming in post-conflict Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on de¬mobilization and reintegration (D;R) in the Great Lakes region (GLR), and gender specific issues arising from armed conflict including psy¬chosocial aspects.
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Working Paper (Numbered Series) 90137 APR 01, 2014
In this paper on knowledge building environmentally sustainable infrastructure platform the authors state that during the first phase of this initiative, it has worked on the design of the conceptual model of the knowledge platform.
... See More + In addition to the analysis of other platforms / web pages and meetings with potential users, developers and managers of platforms, were carried out conducted a series of workshops. These workshops were mainly intended to gather information from potential users so on one hand it can adapt the design to the needs expressed and secondly to test whether the content decisions were going the right way. Workshop objectives included: Receive input, suggestions and ideas to improve the design of the conceptual model of Knowledge Platform; create interest in the potential users, collaborators or partners and assess their needs and; outline the key points that must be present in the conceptual model of the platform.
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quot;The Impact of Microcredit on the Poor in Bangladesh: Revisiting the Evidence,quot; by David Roodman and Jonathan Morduch (2014) (henceforth RM) is the most recent of a sequence of papers and web postings that seeks to refute the findings of the Pitt and Khandker (1998; henceforth PK) article quot;The Impact of Group-Based Credit on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?
... See More + quot; that microcredit for women had significant, favorable effects on household consumption and other outcomes. In this version of RM, the authors have backed off many of their prior claims and methods after earlier replies noted their faults (see Pitt (1999), Pitt (2011a), Pitt (2011b), and Pitt and Khandker (2012)). Nonetheless, important claims against PK remain in this new version of RM and are addressed below. Readers should refer to Pitt and Khandker (2012) for a discussion of other issues with RM, including a discussion of the bimodal likelihood.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6801 MAR 01, 2014
This paper examines the association between the intensity, timing, and persistence of personal history of mobility on individual support for redistribution.
... See More + Using both rounds of the Life in Transition Survey, the paper builds measures of downward mobility for about 57,000 individuals from 27 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The analysis finds that more intensive, recent, and persistent downward mobility increases support for redistribution more. A number of extensions and checks are done by, among others, taking into account systematic bias in perceived mobility experience, considering an alternative definition of redistributive preferences, and exploring the severity of omitted variable bias problems. Overall, the results are robust.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6803 MAR 01, 2014
The key messages in this brief are as follows: 1) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-related research output and impact are related to a regions long-run economic development. 2) The overall publication output by Sub-Saharan Africa has increased over the past ten years, but not all subregions have grown at the same pace. 3) While relative output in the Health Sciences has increased, relative output in the Physical Sciences/STEM has been stagnant. 4) The impact of research in the Health Sciences is much greater than that in Physical Sciences/STEM, even after controlling for differences in citation norms. 5) Science is an international enterprise, and research collaboration is an important driver of success.
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The key messages in this brief are as follows: 1) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-related research output and impact are related to a regions long-run economic development. 2) The overall publication output by Sub-Saharan Africa has increased over the past ten years, but not all subregions have grown at the same pace. 3) While relative output in the Health Sciences has increased, relative output in the Physical Sciences/STEM has been stagnant. 4) The impact of research in the Health Sciences is much greater than that in Physical Sciences/STEM, even after controlling for differences in citation norms. 5) Science is an international enterprise, and research collaboration is an important driver of success.
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Using a global panel on research and development (R;D) expenditures, this paper documents that on average poor countries do far less R;D than rich as a share of GDP.
... See More + This is arguably counter intuitive since the gains from doing the R;D required for technological catch up are thought to be very high and Griffith et al (2004) have documented that in the OECD returns increase dramatically with distance from the frontier. Exploiting recent advances in instrumental variables in a varying coefficient context we find that the rates of return follow an inverted U: they rise with distance to the frontier and then fall thereafter, potentially turning negative for the poorest countries. The findings are consistent with the importance of factors complementary to R;D, such as education, the quality of scientific infrastructure and the overall functioning of the national innovation system, and the quality of the private sector, which become increasingly weak with distance from the frontier and the absence of which can offset the catch up effect. Chinaapos;s and Indiaapos;s explosive growth in R;D investment trajectories in spite of expected low returns may be justified by their importing the complementary factors in the form of multinational corporations who do most of the patentable research.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6811 MAR 01, 2014
This paper formalizes the design of experiments intended specifically to study spillover effects. By first randomizing the intensity of treatment within clusters and then randomly assigning individual treatment conditional on this cluster-level intensity, a novel set of treatment effects can be identified.
... See More + The paper develops a formal framework for consistent estimation of these effects, provides explicit expressions for power calculations, and shows that the power to detect average treatment effects declines precisely with the quantity that identifies the novel treatment effects. A demonstration of the technique is provided using a cash transfer program in Malawi.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6824 MAR 01, 2014
Baird, Sarah; Bohren, J. Aislinn; McIntosh, Craig; Ozler, Berk