The World Bank Economic Review

• What Drives the Global "Land Rush"?

  Arezki, R., Deininger, K., Selod, H., 2015-09-24 16:33:27 PM

  We review evidence regarding the size and evolution of the "land rush" in the wake of the 2007–8 boom in agricultural commodity prices, and we study the determinants of foreign land acquisition for large-scale agricultural investment. The use of data on bilateral investment relationships to estimate gravity models of transnational land-intensive investments confirms the central role of agro-ecological potential as a pull factor. However, this finding contrasts the standard literature insofar as the quality of the destination country's business climate is insignificant, and weak tenure security is associated with increased interest for investors to acquire land in the country. Policy implications are discussed.
  Read moreTop

• Gender and Public Goods Provision in Tamil Nadu's Village Governments

  Gajwani, K., Zhang, X., 2015-09-24 16:33:27 PM

  Using data from 144 village-level governments in India's Tamil Nadu state, we investigate political reservations for women and whether the gender of village government leaders influences the provision of village public goods. A knowledge test of village government presidents and a survey about the interaction between village presidents and higher-level officials reveal that female village government presidents have much lower knowledge of the village government system than do their male counterparts and have significantly less contact with higher-level government officials. Although male and female presidents provide similar amounts of some public goods, we find strong evidence that village governments led by a woman built fewer schools and roads—two public goods that require relatively more contact and coordination with higher-level officials.
  Read moreTop

• Mobile Phone Coverage and Producer Markets: Evidence from West Africa

  Aker, J. C., Fafchamps, M., 2015-09-24 16:33:27 PM

  Mobile phone coverage has expanded considerably throughout the developing world, particularly within sub-Saharan Africa. Existing evidence suggests that increased access to information technology has improved agricultural market efficiency for consumer markets and certain commodities, but there is less evidence of its impact on producer markets. Building on the work of Aker (2010), we estimate the impact of mobile phone coverage on producer price dispersion for three commodities in Niger. Our results suggest that mobile phone coverage reduces spatial producer price dispersion by 6 percent for cowpea, a semi-perishable commodity. These effects are strongest for remote markets and during certain periods of the year. The introduction of mobile phone coverage has no effect on producer price dispersion for millet and sorghum, two staple grains that are less perishable and are commonly stored by farmers. There are no impacts of mobile phone coverage on producer price levels, but mobile phone coverage is associated with a reduction in the intra-annual price variation for cowpea.
  Read moreTop

• Can Free Provision Reduce Demand for Public Services? Evidence from Kenyan Education*

  Bold, T., Kimenyi, M., Mwabu, G., Sandefur, J., 2015-09-24 16:33:27 PM

  In 2003 Kenya abolished user fees in all government primary schools. We show that this policy contributed to a shift in demand away from free schools, where net enrollment stagnated after 2003, toward fee-charging private schools, where both enrollment and fee levels grew rapidly after 2003. These shifts had mixed distributional consequences. Enrollment by poorer households increased, but segregation between socio-economic groups also increased. We find evidence that the shift in demand toward private schooling was driven by more affluent households who (i) paid higher ex ante fees and thus experienced a larger reduction in school funding, and (ii) exited public schools in reaction to increased enrollment by poorer children.
  Read moreTop

• North-South Standards Harmonization and International Trade

  Disdier, A.-C., Fontagne, L., Cadot, O., 2015-09-24 16:33:27 PM

  Recent years have seen a surge in economic integration agreements (EIAs) and the development of non-tariff measures (NTMs). As a consequence, a growing number of EIAs include provisions on NTMs. However, little attention has been given in the literature to the effects of NTM liberalization in the context of EIAs. In this paper, we focus on provisions for technical regulations and analyze whether the North-South harmonization of technical barriers affects international trade. Using a gravity equation, we test whether, as a result of the deep integration associated with standards provisions included in the EIA, the Southern partners' trade expands with the North, but at the expense of their trade with non-bloc Southern partners. Empirical results provide strong support for this conjecture. Moreover, harmonization on the basis of regional standards negatively impacts the exports of developing countries to the North.
  Read moreTop

• Do Infrastructure Reforms Reduce the Effect of Corruption? Theory and Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean

  Wren-Lewis, L., 2015-09-24 16:33:27 PM

  This paper investigates the interaction between corruption and governance at the sector level. A simple model illustrates how both an increase in regulatory autonomy and privatization may influence the effect of corruption. The interaction is analyzed empirically using a fixed-effects estimator on a panel of 153 electricity distribution firms across 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean from 1995–2007. Greater corruption is associated with lower firm labor productivity, but this association is reduced when an independent regulatory agency is present. These results survive a range of robustness checks, including instrumenting for regulatory governance, controlling for a large range of observables, and using several different corruption measures. The association between corruption and productivity also appears weaker for privately owned firms compared to publicly owned firms, though this result is somewhat less robust.
  Read moreTop

• The Effect of Weather-Induced Internal Migration on Local Labor Markets. Evidence from Uganda

  Strobl, E., Valfort, M.-A., 2015-09-24 16:33:27 PM

  Relying on census data collected in 2002 and historical weather data for Uganda, we estimate the impact of weather-induced internal migration on the probability for non-migrants living in the destination regions to be employed. Consistent with the prediction of a simple theoretical model, our results reveal a larger negative impact than the one documented for developed countries. They further show that this negative impact is significantly stronger in Ugandan regions with lower road density and therefore less conducive to capital mobility: a 10 percentage points increase in the net in-migration rate in these areas decreases the probability of being employed of non-migrants by more than 10 percentage points.
  Read moreTop