Suchergebnisse

Frequent and strictly scheduled repayments and savings in microfinance often deteriorate the liquidity of members in the face of negative shocks. Previous articles suggest the introduction of a contingent repayment system that allows such members to be rescheduled, but the unavailability of a suitable dataset makes it difficult to examine how it would actually work. This study is one of the first to evaluate the impact of this repayment system on household livelihood. In employing a unique dataset from Bangladesh, I show that rescheduling reduces the possibility of binding credit constraints and borrowing from moneylenders, and may also reduce transitory poverty. However, short‐term rescheduling has insignificant effects. Indebted members with less liquid assets are more likely to be rescheduled.

BACKGROUND: Frequent mutations of the COVID-19 virus, such as the Delta and Omicron variants, have prolonged the pandemic. Rich countries have approved the booster shots (3(rd) doses) of vaccine, but this causes further delay of vaccination in developing countries. This raises the risk of further mutations, which may lower the efficacy of currently available vaccines. As herd immunity by universal vaccination is essential to end the pandemic, the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) facility has been established to provide developing countries with subsidized vaccines. However, a critical issue is that the developing countries also need to effectively deploy vaccines to citizens. Although this argument suggests positive effects of good national governance on vaccination coverage, to the best of our knowledge, there is no cross-country evidence on the role of national governance in increasing the coverage of COVID-19 vaccines among citizens. The goal of this study was to examine the association between the national governance and vaccination coverage among developing countries. METHODS: Using cross-country data, an ordinary least squares regression was conducted to examine the association between the national governance index and three outcomes: (1) the number of days until the administration of the first dose in the country since December 2019, (2) the number of doses per 100 citizens as of the end of July 2021, and (3) the selection of approved vaccine manufacturers. The results were compared between the model including all countries and the model excluding the member countries of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). RESULTS: A one standard deviation increase in the national governance index was associated with 9.1 days (95%CI: -15.76, -2.43) earlier administration of vaccines in the country, and a 12.1 dose increase (95%CI: 4.76, 19.34) per 100 citizens. These associations were larger in the non-OECD sample. The results also indicated the role of governance in the selection of the ...

AbstractWe tested four alternative hypotheses concerning the motivations behind the participation by rural households in community work: public goods investment, production network formation, risk‐sharing network formation, and pure altruism. We used a unique dataset from an irrigation project in Sri Lanka under a natural experimental situation where a significant portion of irrigated land was allocated through a lottery mechanism. In addition, we elicited the level of altruism using the dictator game. By combining these data, we showed that community participation patterns fit the motive to form risk‐sharing networks better than the other major motives. Only a few studies have empirically investigated the process of risk‐sharing network formation, and our analysis fills the gap in the literature.

Abstract
While it is known that access to physical infrastructure enhances household welfare, there are very few micro-econometric studies that analyze its role in mitigating chronic and transient poverty. This paper aims to bridge this gap in the existing literature by evaluating the impact of a large-scale irrigation infrastructure project implemented in Sri Lanka. It identifies the treatment effect of irrigation access by exploiting a situation where the government used lotteries to distribute irrigated plots. Furthermore, in order to disentangle the channels through which the irrigation reduces poverty, we extend the seasonal consumption smoothing model of Paxson (1993; "Consumption and Income Seasonality in Thailand." Journal of Political Economy 191(1):39–72) by introducing endogenous credit constraints. Using unique household level monthly panel data over a year, it is shown that with irrigation accessibility, not only the average income increases but also the patterns of income fluctuation changes and the probability of binding credit constraint declines through which transient poverty is mitigated. These empirical results suggest that irrigation infrastructure has a positive impact on reducing both chronic and transient poverty directly and indirectly by improving income and relaxing credit constraints.