首页期刊导航|World Development
期刊信息/Journal information
World Development
Elsevier Science Ltd.
World Development

Elsevier Science Ltd.

0305-750X

World Development/Journal World DevelopmentSSCIAHCIISSHP
正式出版
收录年代

    Local governance quality and law compliance: The case of Mozambican firms

    Berkel H.Estmann C.Rand J.
    17页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 The Author(s)In sub-Saharan Africa, many micro and small enterprises do not (or at least only partially) comply with official rules and regulations. Given that low compliance rates impede economic growth and human development, it is essential to identify mechanisms that can help improve abidance with laws. This paper investigates how the quality of governance (defined as comprising three dimensions: transparency, legal security and infrastructure quality) is related to firm-level compliance with business laws and regulations in the case of Mozambique. We utilise firms’ subjective perceptions of governance quality and their self-reported law compliance over time to study the governance–compliance nexus, taking into account unobserved firm-level heterogeneity. Furthermore, we examine whether political legitimacy acts as a mediator or a moderator between governance and compliance. Our results suggest that perceived improvements in transparency positively affect firms’ compliance with existing legislation. Requests from provincial government officials for firms to comment on local regulations seem to be especially important for law abidance. We find that legitimacy is independently associated with compliance, but does not seem to mediate or moderate the quality of governance. Overall, our results suggest that, even in one of the least developed and non-democratic parts of the world, active participation in political processes is positively associated with law compliance.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier

    Do remittances reshape household expenditures? Evidence from Nepal

    Mishra K.Kondratjeva O.Shively G.E.
    10页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdLack of economic opportunities in their local communities push many individuals to migrate and send remittances to their families. Remittances can potentially influence household spending in sizeable ways, making it an important source of income. This article investigates the impact of remittances on various categories of household expenditure, including those for food, alcohol and tobacco, clothing, ceremonies, healthcare, education, home improvement, agriculture, and livestock. Using data from 5,987 households observed in the 2010/11 Nepal Living Standards Survey and applying an instrumental variable approach, we show that remittances are positively associated with expenditures on food and education. In contrast, we find a negative association between remittances and expenditures on alcohol and tobacco. We further disaggregate our analysis to investigate any differential impact of remittances by gender of the household head and find qualitatively similar results across both genders, suggesting that both male- and female-headed households generally tend to spend remittances in similar ways. Findings regarding household food consumption and education expenditures are generally consistent with previous research on remittances in Nepal, but expand our understanding by examining the impacts of remittances on expenditures on tobacco and alcohol, ceremony, agriculture, and livestock purchases. Through increased consumption of food and greater expenditures on education, remittances have implications for long-term investments in human capital, which can, in turn, increase labor productivity, wage earnings, and overall economic development.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier

    Impacts of applying for international labor migration before migration occurs

    Takasaki Y.
    12页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThe process of international labor migration is often initiated when potential migrant workers apply for jobs offered by recruitment agencies. This paper reports the first study on the consequences of this initial process of applying for labor migration, before migration occurs. In Fiji, a private recruitment agency defrauded approximately 20,000 people of application fees for labor migration to the Middle East. I conducted a rural household survey after people made application decisions and before they became aware of the fraud. I address the endogeneity of job application by using a fraud-specific factor––proximity to the fraudster––as an instrumental variable. Households with a job applicant received less domestic transfers from other households. The reallocation of transfers was a result of the substitution for prospective but not realized international remittances. Thus, the impacts of international labor migration and remittances extend beyond actual migration and remittances studied in the literature.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier

    It's all about politics: Migration and resource conflicts in the global south

    Wiederkehr C.Seppelt R.Hermans K.Ide T....
    15页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdBoth researchers and policy makers have repeatedly expressed concerns that migration will enhance conflicts regarding renewable resources in destination areas. This concept is fuelled by projections of large future migration flows within the Global South, resulting from armed conflict, global environmental change, and persistent economic inequalities. However, as of yet, there is no conclusive empirical evidence of a nexus between migration, resource competition, and conflict at an aggregate level. Case studies draw contradicting conclusions, and cross-case research on the topic remains scarce. Here, we combine comprehensive qualitative and quantitative data from 20 cases in rural Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on these cases, we investigate why certain areas hosting migrants have resource-related conflicts, while others do not. Using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), we evaluate and elucidate two combinations of conditions under which resource conflict involving migrants in destination areas occurs: (1) high reliance on natural resources and negative othering of migrants in terms of resource use, and (2) government policies supporting parts of the migrant group coupled with limited resource use possibilities due to conservation efforts or industrial activities. By underlining the crucial role of grievances related to perceived unfair resource access and the strong influence of government actions on local migrant-host dynamics, we challenge deterministic narratives of migration, resource scarcity and conflict.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier

    IMF fairness: Calibrating the policies of the International Monetary Fund based on distributive justice

    Daoud A.Subramanian S.V.Herlitz A.
    16页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provides financial assistance to its member countries in economic difficulties but at the same time requires these countries to reform public policies. In several contexts, these reforms have been at odds with population health and material living standards. While researchers have empirically analyzed the consequences of IMF reforms on health, no analysis has yet identified under what conditions tradeoffs between consequences for populations and economic outcomes would be fair and acceptable. Our article analyzes and identifies five principles to govern such tradeoffs and thus define IMF fairness. The article first reviews existing policy-evaluation studies, which on balance show that IMF policies, in their pursuit of macroeconomic improvement, frequently produce adverse effects on children's health and material living standards. Secondly, the article discusses four theories from distributive ethics—maximization, egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and sufficientarianism—to identify which is most compatible with the IMF's core mission of improving macroeconomic conditions, while at the same time balancing the consequences for population outcomes. Using a distributive justice analysis of IMF policies, we argue that sufficientarianism constitutes the most compatible theory. Thirdly, the article formalizes IMF fairness in the language of causal inference. It also supplies a framework for empirically measuring the extent to which IMF policies fulfill the criteria of IMF fairness, using observational data.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier

    “I will sample until things get better – or until I die.” Potential and limits of citizen science to promote social accountability for environmental pollution

    Ruppen D.Brugger F.
    14页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 The Author(s)Mining can cause harm to both human health and ecosystems. Regulators in low-income countries often struggle to enforce decent environmental standards due to financial, technical, and personal capacity constraints and political capture. In such settings, social accountability strategies are often promoted through which citizens attempt to hold governmental and private actors directly to account and demand better governance. However, social accountability initiatives are rarely effective. We demonstrate how political ecology analysis can inform social accountability theory and practice by identifying the power structures that define the potentials and limits of a social accountability strategy. We study the coal mining area of Hwange in Western Zimbabwe, where mining not only supplies coal to power plants and factories of multinational companies but also pollutes the Deka River. Together with local community monitors, we implemented the first citizen science project conducted in Zimbabwe and identified the sources and extent of the pollution. The scientific data strengthened the community monitors’ advocacy for a cleaner environment and empowered them in their exchanges with the companies and the environmental regulator. However, only some of their demands have been met. The political ecology analysis, spanning from the local to transnational levels, reveals why local social accountability initiatives are insufficient to spring the low-accountability trap in a state captured by a politico-military elite, and why corporate governance regimes have not been successful either. We argue that pro-accountability networks are more effective when they include complementary players such as multinational enterprises, provided their responsible procurement approach moves from a corporate risk management to a developmental logic.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier

    Satisfaction with water services delivery in South Africa: the effects of social comparison

    Zenelabden N.Dikgang J.
    15页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThis paper investigates the role of social comparisons in determining the satisfaction of South African households with municipal water service delivery. We use a unique balanced-panel dataset from 2015 to 2017 with national coverage, from Statistics South Africa General Household Surveys. Our results show that social comparison significantly affect household satisfaction with water service delivery. Moreover, we find evidence of both downward and upward comparison, with the latter having the strongest effect. Hence, we find indication of both altruism or risk sharing and information signalling between closer neighbours. We conclude that, since satisfaction with water service delivery seems to be strongly influenced by psychological and behavioural factors such as social comparison, satisfaction surveys serve a limited purpose as a foundation for public policy, because satisfaction is determined in part by factors that are unrelated to the actual service experienced by households. Our empirical evidence confirms this line of reasoning. The findings are robust for variety of reference groups.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier

    Impact of natural disasters on the income distribution

    Pleninger R.
    23页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022During the last decades, the United States experienced an increase in the number of natural disasters and their destructive capability. Several studies suggest a damaging effect of natural disasters on income. In this paper, I estimate the effects of natural disasters on the entire income distribution using county-level data in the United States. In particular, I determine the income fractions that are affected by natural disasters. The results suggest that in the short-term natural disasters primarily affect middle incomes, thereby leaving income inequality levels unchanged. In addition, the paper examines potential channels that intensify or mitigate the effects, such as unemployment insurance or disaster severity. The findings show that unemployment benefits are an important adaptation tool that reduces the effects of natural disasters. In contrast, the occurrence of multiple and severe disasters aggravate the effects. Finally, the analysis detects heterogeneous effects on incomes by disaster type.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier

    Beyond individualistic behaviour: Social norms and innovation adoption in rural Mozambique

    Crudeli L.Mancinelli S.Mazzanti M.Pitoro R....
    12页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThe adoption of new technologies by smallholder farmers to support economic and human development has received increased attention from scholars and development policymakers. This is particularly true for Africa, given the importance of the agricultural sector for economic growth and poverty reduction. Nevertheless, profitable innovations, such as improved seeds, fertilizers, and crop-protection chemicals, are not sufficiently adopted by farmers. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of this limited adoption by examining the drivers and obstacles to innovation by smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a special focus on cultural and behavioural aspects. The concepts of social norms and peer approval are considered in the farmers’ decisions on innovation adoption. The focus is mainly on the social norm of being a ‘good farmer’, a distinction made amongst farming peers, based on the characteristics that are socially approved in the rural community. Adherence to the social norm of being a good farmer is considered one of the main drivers of farmers’ decisions, including innovation adoption. The study is based on a survey of 300 smallholder farmers in Mozambique. The results of our study show that the social norm of being a good farmer differs from that mostly shared in developed countries mainly connected to maximizing farming production. What emerges from our investigation is a socially accepted idea of a good farmer being one who is extremely concerned about others in her or his community. The results of various quantitative analyses on the intensity and adoption of innovations show that this prosocial idea of the good farmer does not prevent farmers from adopting innovations and has a significant impact on the adoption of the most radical innovations. The present study reveals the need to contextualize the analysis of farmers’ decisions in the cultural and social context in which they operate.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier

    Development of agroforestry food resources in Niger: Are farmers’ preferences context specific?

    Agundez D.Alia R.Lawali S.Mahamane A....
    12页
    查看更多>>摘要：? 2022 Elsevier LtdThis study deals with key elements for a better understanding of the management approaches of agroforestry systems in Niger. A contingent ranking was conducted to 399 Nigerien farmers in three agroecological zones based on their different socio-economic and environmental conditions. Results show that farmers are willing to improve their natural resources, taking actions to recover and conserve them. Significant differences are found with respect to not only the various agroecological zones where farmers live but also the socio-economic factors of the population. The Tamou municipality prefers to participate in an agri-environmental program based on the conservation of water thorough half-moons technique. Farmers’ preferences in the Maradi region differ from those in the Tillabéri region; the former rely on managed natural regeneration while the latter on tree plantations. Adansonia digitata and Ziziphus mauritiana are the two-priority species to be regenerated by improved seeds. The farmers of Aguié, Madarounfa, and Simiri would be willing to participate in actions scheduled for 9, 6 and 5 months, respectively. Socio-economic factors such as the life strategy of each ethnic group, the role of men and women, the seasonal migration of young people, and the rights to the resources, influence both the period and duration of participation. The results of this study are valuable to design agroforestry policies that involve participation of small-scale farmers, relying on the dynamism of local communities.
      原文链接:
    • NSTL
    • Elsevier