Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Prices and Poverty in India, 1987-2000 Abstract: Using consumption data from the 43rd, 50th and 55th rounds of the National Sample Survey, this paper computes for each of the large Indian states, by urban and rural sectors separately, a range of consumer prices indexes for 1999-2000 relative to 1993-94 and for 1993-94 relative to 1987-88. The main focus of the paper is to explain the methodology underlying the new price indexes and to incorporate them into poverty lines. Creation-Date: 2003-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_prices_poverty_india.pdf Number: 199 Classification-JEL: E31, I32 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_prices_poverty_india.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Adjusted Indian Poverty Estimates for 1999-2000 Abstract: This paper explains a method that can be used to adjust the NSS 55th Round poverty estimates so as to make them comparable with earlier official estimates. After presenting the adjusted head-count ratios for all-India and each of the large states, for both urban and rural sectors, the author turns to some broader issues about poverty monitoring in India, including those raised by the non-comparability of estimates that is his main topic but looking further to issues of future survey design and the choice of poverty lines. Creation-Date: 2003-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_adjusted_poverty_india.pdf Number: 200 Classification-JEL: I32 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_adjusted_poverty_india.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Consumption, health, gender and poverty Abstract: Standard methods of poverty measurement assume that an individual is poor if he or she lives in a family whose income or consumption lies below an appropriate poverty line. Such methods can provide only limited insight into male and female poverty separately. Nevertheless, there are reasons why household resources are linked to the gender composition of the household; women?s earnings are often lower than men, families in some countries control their fertility through differential stopping rules, and women live longer than men. It is also possible to link family expenditure patterns to the gender composition of the household, something we illustrate using data from India and South Africa. Such a procedure provides useful information on who gets what, but cannot tell us how total resources are allocated between males and females. More can be gleaned from data on consumption by individual household members, and for many goods, collecting such information is good survey practice in any case. Even so, we suspect that it will be some time before such information can be used routinely to produce estimates of poverty by gender. A more promising approach is likely to come within a broader definition of poverty that includes health (and possibly education) as well as income. We discuss recent work on collecting self-reported measures of non-fatal health, and argue that such measures are already useful for assessing the relative health status of males and females. The evidence is consistent with non-elderly women generally having poorer health than non-elderly men. We emphasize the importance of simultaneously measuring poverty in multiple dimensions. The different components of wellbeing are correlated, and it is misleading to look at any one in isolation from the others. Creation-Date: 2002-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_deaton_consumption_health_gender.pdf Number: 197 Classification-JEL: I32, J16, E20, I14 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:case_deaton_consumption_health_gender.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Jonathan Morduch Author-X-Name-First: Jonathan Author-X-Name-Last: Morduch Author-Workplace-Name: Harvard University and Stanford University Title: Does Microfinance Really Help the Poor? New Evidence from Flagship Programs in Bangladesh Abstract: The microfinance movement has built on innovations in financial intermediation that reduce the costs and risks of lending to poor households. Replications of the movement's flagship, the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, have now spread around the world. While programs aim to bring social and economic benefits to clients, few attempts have been made to quantify benefits rigorously. This paper draws on a new cross-sectional survey of nearly 1800 households, some of which are served by the Grameen Bank and two similar programs, and some of which have no access to programs. Households that are eligible to borrow and have access to the programs do not have notably higher consumption levels than control households, and, for the most part, their children are no more likely to be in school. Men also tend to work harder, and women less. More favorably, relative to controls, households eligible for programs have substantially (and significantly) lower variation in consumption and labor supply across seasons. The most important potential impacts are thus associated with the reduction of vulnerability, not of poverty per se. The consumption-smoothing appears to be driven largely by income-smoothing, not by borrowing and lending. The evaluation holds lessons for studies of other programs in low-income countries. While it is common to use fixed effects estimators to control for unobservable variables correlated with the placement of programs, using fixed effects estimators can exacerbate biases when, as here, programs target their programs to specific populations within larger communities. Creation-Date: 1998-06 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/morduch_microfinance_poor_0.pdf Number: 198 Classification-JEL: D31, I32 Keywords: microfinance, project evaluation, Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:morduch_microfinance_poor.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Author-Name: Victoria Hosegood Author-X-Name-First: Victoria Author-X-Name-Last: Hosegood Author-Workplace-Name: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Author-Name: Frances Lund Author-X-Name-First: Frances Author-X-Name-Last: Lund Author-Workplace-Name: University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Title: The Reach and Impact of Child Support Grants: Evidence from KwaZulu-Natal Abstract: Poverty is again at the center of debates about development. Dominant international institutions have committed themselves to addressing poverty, notably the World Bank, through its Poverty Reduction Strategies, and the United Nations, through the Millennium Development Goals. Discussion has also focused on alternative roles for the state, with particular interest in the part the state may play in social protection, and in addressing chronic poverty. Creation-Date: 2004-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_hosegood_lund_the_reach_and_impact_of_child_support_grants_dsa.pdf Number: 167 Classification-JEL: I38, J13, O15, O18 Keywords: South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Hosegood_Lund_The_Reach_and_Impact_of_Child_Support_Grants_DSA.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Tom Vogl Author-X-Name-First: Tom Author-X-Name-Last: Vogl Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Socioeconomic Status and Health in Childhood: A Comment on Chen, Martin and Matthews Abstract: Understanding whether the gradient in children's health becomes steeper with age is an important first step in uncovering the mechanisms that connect economic and health status, and in recommending sensible interventions to protect children's health. To that end, this paper examines why two sets of authors, Chen et al (2006) and Case et al (2002), using data from the same source, reach markedly different conclusions about income-health gradients in childhood. We find that differences can be explained primarily by the inclusion (exclusion) of a handful of younger adults living independently. Creation-Date: 2006-05 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_paxson_vogl_socioeconomic_status_and_health_in_childhood_ssm.pdf Number: 157 Classification-JEL: I10 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:case_paxson_vogl_socioeconomic_status_and_health_in_childhood_ssm.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Carlos Bozzoli Author-X-Name-First: Carlos Author-X-Name-Last: Bozzoli Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Climent Quintana-Domeque Author-X-Name-First: Climent Author-X-Name-Last: Quintana-Domeque Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Child mortality, income and adult height Abstract: We investigate the childhood determinants of adult height in populations, focusing on the respective roles of income and of disease. We develop a model of selection and scarring, in which the early life burden of nutrition and disease is not only responsible for mortality in childhood but also leaves a residue of long-term health risks for survivors, risks that express themselves in adult height, as well as in late-life disease. Across a range of European countries and the United States, we find a strong inverse relationship between post-neonatal (one month to one year) mortality, interpreted as a measure of the disease and nutritional burden in childhood, and the mean height of those children as adults. In pooled birth-cohort data over 30 years for the United States and eleven European countries, post-neonatal mortality in the year of birth accounts for more than 60 percent of the combined cross-country and cross-cohort variation in adult heights. The estimated effects are smaller but remain significant once we allow for country and birth-cohort effects. In the poorest and highest mortality countries of the world, there is evidence that child mortality is positively associated with adult height. That selection should dominate scarring at high mortality levels, and scarring dominate selection at low mortality levels, is consistent with the model for reasonable values of its parameters. Creation-Date: 2007-03 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_bozzoli_child_mortality_income_height_march_07_complete_with_abstract.pdf Number: 162 Classification-JEL: I12, J13, O12 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_bozzoli_child_mortality_income_height_march_07_complete_with_abstract.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Health and wellbeing in Udaipur and South Africa Abstract: This paper presents a descriptive account of health and economic status in India and South Africa -- countries in very different positions in the international hierarchy of life expectancy and income. The paper emphasizes the lack of any simple and reliable relationship between health and wealth between and within our sites in rural Rajasthan, in a shack township outside of Cape Town, and in a rural South African site that, until 1994, was part of a Bantustan. Income levels across our sites are roughly in the ratio of 4:2:1, with urban South Africa richest and rural Rajasthan poorest, while ownership of durable goods, often used as a short-cut measure or check of living standards, are in the ratio of 3:2:1. These differences in economic status are reflected in respondents' own reports of financial status. People know that they are poor, but appear to adapt their expectations to local conditions, at least to some extent. The South Africans are taller and heavier than the Indians -- although their children are no taller at the same age. South African self-assessed physical and mental health is no better, and South Africans are more likely to report that they have to miss meals for lack of money. In spite of differences in incomes across the three sites, South Africans and Indians report a very similar list of symptoms of ill-health. Although they have much lower incomes, urban women in South Africa have fully caught up with black American women in the prevalence of obesity, and are catching up in terms of hypertension. These women have the misfortune to be experiencing many of the diseases of affluence without experiencing affluence itself. Creation-Date: 2006-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/health_and_wellbeing_in_udaipur_and_south_africa.pdf Number: 163 Classification-JEL: I12, I31 Keywords: India, South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Health_and_Wellbeing_in_Udaipur_and_South_Africa.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: David Cutler Author-X-Name-First: David Author-X-Name-Last: Cutler Author-Workplace-Name: Harvard University Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Adriana Lleras-Muney Author-X-Name-First: Adriana Author-X-Name-Last: Lleras-Muney Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: The Determinants of Mortality Abstract: Mortality rates have fallen dramatically over time, starting in a few countries in the 18th century, and continuing to fall today. In just the past century, life expectancy has increased by over 30 years. At the same time, mortality rates remain much higher in poor countries, with a difference in life expectancy between rich and poor countries of also about 30 years. This difference persists despite the remarkable progress in health improvement in the last half century, at least until the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In both the time-series and the cross-section data, there is a strong correlation between income per capita and mortality rates, a correlation that also exists within countries, where richer, better-educated people live longer. We review the determinants of these patterns: over history, over countries, and across groups within countries. While there is no consensus about the causal mechanisms, we tentatively identify the application of scientific advance and technical progress (some of which is induced by income and facilitated by education) as the ultimate determinant of health. Such an explanation allows a consistent interpretation of the historical, cross-country, and within-country evidence. We downplay direct causal mechanisms running from income to health. Creation-Date: 2005-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/cutler_deaton_the_determinants_of_mortality_jep.pdf Number: 164 Classification-JEL: I12, O15 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Cutler_Deaton_The_Determinants_of_Mortality_JEP.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Author-Name: Alicia Menendez Author-X-Name-First: Alicia Author-X-Name-Last: Menendez Author-Workplace-Name: University of Chicago and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Author-Name: Cally Ardington Author-X-Name-First: Cally Author-X-Name-Last: Ardington Author-Workplace-Name: University of Cape Town and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Title: Health Seeking Behavior in Northern KwaZulu-Natal Abstract: We examine patterns of health seeking behavior prior to death among 1282 individuals who lived in the Umkhanyakude District of Northern KwaZulu-Natal. Information on the health care choices of these individuals, who died between January 2003 and July 2004, was gathered after their deaths from their primary care-givers. We examine choices made concerning public and private medicine, western and traditional medicine, and non-prescribed self-medication. We find that virtually all adults who were ill prior to death sought treatment from a Western medical provider, visiting either a public clinic or a private doctor. In this district, which is predominantly poor, ninety percent of adults who sought treatment from a public clinic also visited a private doctor. Fifty percent also sought treatment from a traditional healer, suggesting that traditional medicine is seen as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, Western care. Better educated people who were ill for less than a month before dying were significantly more likely to visit a private doctor, while those least well educated were more likely to visit a traditional healer. Controlling for length of illness, better educated and wealthier people sought care from a greater range of providers, and spent significantly more on their treatment. Creation-Date: 2005-04 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_etal_hsb.pdf Number: 165 Classification-JEL: I12 Keywords: Health seeking behavior, demographic surveillance, South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:case_etal_hsb.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: The Great Escape: A Review Essay on Fogel's The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 Abstract: In this essay, I review Robert Fogel's The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700?2100 which is concerned with the past, present, and future of human health. Fogel's work places great emphasis on nutrition, not only for the history of health, but for explaining aspects of current health, not only in comparing poor and rich countries, but in thinking about rich countries now and in the future. I discuss Fogel's analysis alongside alternative interpretations that place greater emphasis on the historical role of public health, and on the current and future role of improvements in medical technology. Creation-Date: 2005-04 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_the_great_escape_jel.pdf Number: 166 Classification-JEL: I10, N30 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_The_Great_Escape_JEL.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Regional poverty estimates for India, 1999-2000 Abstract: This note presents adjusted poverty headcount ratios for the regions of the major state of India using the data from the 55th Round of the Indian National Sample Survey. These estimates are compatible with and extend those presented in Deaton and Dreze (2002) and are designed to be used alongside them. Deaton and Dreze presented estimates for the major states, but did not disaggregate beyond that. For many of the large states, in which poverty is not evenly distributed, there is considerable interest in the regional patterns of poverty and of poverty decline. The tables in this note are address that interest. Creation-Date: 2003-08 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_regionalpovertyindia.pdf Number: 177 Classification-JEL: I32 Keywords: India Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_regionalpovertyindia.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Author-Name: Cally Ardington Author-X-Name-First: Cally Author-X-Name-Last: Ardington Author-Workplace-Name: University of Cape Town and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Title: The impact of parental death on school enrollment and achievement: Longitudinal evidence from South Africa Abstract: We analyze longitudinal data from a demographic surveillance area (DSA) in KwaZulu-Natal, to examine the impact of parental death on children's outcomes. We find significant differences in the impact of mothers' and fathers' deaths. The loss of a child's mother is a strong predictor of poor schooling outcomes. Maternal orphans are significantly less likely to be enrolled in school, and have completed significantly fewer years of schooling, conditional on age, than children whose mothers are alive. Less money is spent on their educations on average, conditional on enrollment. Moreover, children whose mothers have died appear to be at an educational disadvantage when compared to non-orphaned children with whom they live. We use the timing of mothers' deaths relative to children's educational shortfalls to argue that mothers' deaths have a causal effect on children's educations. The loss of a child's father is a significant predictor of household socioeconomic status. Children whose fathers have died live in significantly poorer households, measured on a number of dimensions. However, households in which fathers died were poor prior to fathers' deaths. The death of a father between waves of the survey has no significant effect on subsequent household economic status. While the loss of a father is correlated with poorer educational outcomes, this correlation arises because a father's death is a marker that the household is poor. Evidence from the South African 2001 Census suggests that the estimated effects of maternal deaths on children's school attendance and attainment in the Africa Centre DSA reflect the reality for orphans throughout South Africa. Creation-Date: 2005-02 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_ardington_the_impact_of_parental_death_on_school_enrollment_demography.pdf Number: 168 Classification-JEL: O15 Keywords: Demographic surveillance area, education, orphans, South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Ardington_The_Impact_of_Parental_Death_on_School_Enrollment_Demography.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Health and wealth among the poor: India and South Africa compared Abstract: Health and wealth are the two most important components of well-being. Rankings of well-being based on income will differ from more comprehensive rankings depending on the way that income and health are related. There are strong bidirectional causal links between income and health so that we cannot understand either without understanding both. What we call the wealthier is healthier hypothesis asserts both that income is the main determinant of health, and that the international correlation between income and health is sufficiently tight for income rankings to indicate well-being more broadly. Creation-Date: 2005-04 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_case_health_and_wealth_among_the_poor_aerpp.pdf Number: 169 Classification-JEL: I12, I31, O15 Keywords: India, South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Case_Health_and_Wealth_Among_the_Poor_AERPP.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Measuring poverty Abstract: As the name suggests, economic development was originally thought of as economic growth, but in recent years it has increasingly come to be thought of as poverty reduction. The World Bank proclaims that Our dream is a world free of poverty and increasingly works to direct all of its activities towards poverty reduction. The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted in 2000 a set of Millennium Development Goals the first of which is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, more specifically to reduce by half, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day. How do we know who is poor and who is not? Is poverty the same as hunger? What is the relationship between economic growth and poverty reduction? How will we know whether the Millennium Development Goal has been met, or whether world poverty is falling at all? These are some of the questions that I address in this essay. Creation-Date: 2004-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_povertymeasured.pdf Number: 170 Classification-JEL: O10, I32 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_povertymeasured.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Sex Differences in Morbidity and Mortality Abstract: Women have worse self-rated health and more hospitalization episodes than men from early adolescence to late middle age, but are less likely to die at each age. We use 14 years of data from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey to examine this paradox. Our results indicate that the difference in self-assessed health between women and men can be entirely explained by differences in the distribution of the chronic conditions they face. Although on average women have worse selfrated health than men, women and men with the same chronic conditions have the same self-rated health. The results for hospital episodes are somewhat different. While the effect of poor health on hospital episodes is the same for men and women, men with respiratory cancer, cardiovascular disease, and bronchitis are more likely to experience hospital episodes than women who suffer from the same chronic conditions, implying that men may experience more severe forms of these conditions. The same is true for mortality. Although the effects of many chronic conditions on the probability of death are the same for women and men, men who report having cardiovascular disease and certain lung disorders are significantly more likely to die than women with these conditions. While some of the sex difference in mortality can be explained by differences in the distribution of chronic conditions, an equally large share can be attributed to the larger adverse effects of these conditions on male mortality. Conditions for which we find excess male hospitalizations and mortality are generally smoking-related. Creation-Date: 2004-10 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_paxson_sex_differences_in_morbidity_and_mortality_demography.pdf Number: 171 Classification-JEL: I0, J1, J16 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Paxson_Sex_Differences_in_Morbidity_and_Mortality_Demography.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Joseph Ableidinger Author-X-Name-First: Joseph Author-X-Name-Last: Ableidinger Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Orphans in Africa: Parental Death, Poverty and School Enrollment Abstract: We examine the impact of orphanhood on children's school enrollment in10 Sub-Saharan African countries. Although poorer children in Africa are less likely to attend school, the lower enrollment of orphans is not accounted for solely by their poverty. We find orphans are less likely to be enrolled than are non-orphans with whom they live. Consistent with Hamilton's Rule, the theory that the closeness of biological ties governs altruistic behavior, outcomes for orphans depend on the relatedness of orphans to their household heads. The lower enrollment of orphans is largely explained by the greater tendency of orphans to live with distant relatives or unrelated caregivers. Creation-Date: 2004-03 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_paxson_ableidinger_orphans_in_africa_demography.pdf Number: 183 Classification-JEL: I21, I32, J13, O15 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Paxson_Ableidinger_Orphans_in_Africa_Demography.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Health in an age of globalization Abstract: Disease has traveled with goods and people since the earliest times. Armed globalization spread disease, to the extent of eliminating entire populations. The geography of disease shaped patterns of colonization and industrialization throughout the now poor world. Many see related threats to public health from current globalization. Multilateral and bilateral trade agreements do not always adequately represent the interests of poor countries, the General Agreement on Trade in Services may restrict the freedom of signatories to shape their own health delivery systems, and it remains unclear whether current arrangements for intellectual property rights are in the interests of citizens of poor countries with HIV/AIDS. However, to the extent that globalization promotes economic growth, population health may benefit, and there has been substantial reductions in poverty and in international inequalities in life-expectancy over the last 50 years. Although there is a strong inverse relationship between the poverty and life-expectancy in levels, gains in life expectancy have been only weakly correlated with growth rates and, in the last decade, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has widened international inequalities in life expectancy. The rapid transmission of health knowledge and therapies from one rich country to another has led to a swift convergence of adult mortality rates among the rich of the world, particularly men. Globalization would do much for global health if transmission from rich to poor countries could be accelerated. Creation-Date: 2004-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_healthglobalage.pdf Number: 172 Classification-JEL: F10, I10 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_healthglobalage.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Jed Friedman Author-X-Name-First: Jed Author-X-Name-Last: Friedman Author-Workplace-Name: World Bank Author-Name: Vivi Alatas Author-X-Name-First: Vivi Author-X-Name-Last: Alatas Author-Workplace-Name: World Bank Title: Purchasing power parity exchange rates from household survey data: India and Indonesia Abstract: Purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates are extensively used by researchers and by policymakers. This paper proposes and implements a new methodology for calculating PPPs using information on unit values from household surveys. Although unit values are not identical to prices, they have compensating advantages. Large household surveys contain several million unit values, they are tied to actual transactions, and they are naturally linked to household characteristics such as income. In consequence, it is possible to calculate PPPs for different social groups, including PPPs for the poor. The paper calculates multilateral price indexes for the states and sectors of India, as well as PPPs for rural and urban Indonesia together with rural and urban India. PPPs for the poor are distinguished from general PPPs. The internal PPPs for India are not very different from previous estimates based on bilateral comparisons, but the estimated PPP between India and Indonesia is very different from the numbers calculated by either the Penn World Table or the World Bank. It implies that either India is much better-off, or Indonesia much poorer (or both) than is generally supposed. Creation-Date: 2004-02 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/pppexchangerates.pdf Number: 173 Classification-JEL: F31, E31 Keywords: PPP exchange rates, unit values, household surveys, poverty, India, Indonesia Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:pppexchangerates.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Ingrid le Roux Author-X-Name-First: Ingrid Author-X-Name-Last: le Roux Author-Workplace-Name: Philani Nutrition Center Author-Name: Alicia Menendez Author-X-Name-First: Alicia Author-X-Name-Last: Menendez Author-Workplace-Name: University of Chicago Title: Medical Compliance and Income-Health Gradients Abstract: Wealthier people live longer and experience less morbidity than do poorer people, in both developed and developing countries. While the association between income and health status has been well documented, the mechanisms leading to this correlation are unclear. In this paper, we use data collected from an informal urban township in South Africa to examine the extent to which compliance with medical protocols plays a role in the observed income-health gradient. Specifically, we look at adherence to protocols among individuals diagnosed with hypertension. Creation-Date: 2004-05 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_leroux_menendez_medical_compliance_and_income_health_gradients_aerpp.pdf Number: 174 Classification-JEL: D31, I12, O15 Keywords: South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_leRoux_Menendez_Medical_Compliance_and_Income_Health_Gradients_AERPP.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Abhijit Banerjee Author-X-Name-First: Abhijit Author-X-Name-Last: Banerjee Author-Workplace-Name: MIT Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Esther Duflo Author-X-Name-First: Esther Author-X-Name-Last: Duflo Author-Workplace-Name: MIT Title: Wealth, health, and health services in rural Rajasthan Abstract: What are the determinants of the health and of well-being? Income and wealth are clearly part of the story, but does access to health-care have a large independent effect, as the advocates of more investment in health-care, such as the World Health Organization?s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (2001)), have argued? This paper reports on a recent survey in a poor rural area of the state of Rajasthan in India intended to shed some light on this issue, where there was an attempt to use a set of interlocking surveys to collect data on health and economic status, as well as the public and private provision of health care. Creation-Date: 2003-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/banerjee_deaton_duflo_wealth_health_and_health_services_in_rural-_rajasthan_aer.pdf Number: 175 Classification-JEL: I11, I12, O15 Keywords: India Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Banerjee_Deaton_Duflo_Wealth_Health_and_Health_Services_in_Rural-_Rajasthan_AER.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Author-Name: Victoria Hosegood Author-X-Name-First: Victoria Author-X-Name-Last: Hosegood Author-Workplace-Name: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Author-Name: Frances Lund Author-X-Name-First: Frances Author-X-Name-Last: Lund Author-Workplace-Name: University of Natal, Durban and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Title: The Reach of The South African Child Support Grant: Evidence from KwaZulu-Natal Abstract: The end of apartheid in South Africa brought with it the need to reform one component of the system of social assistance for poorer people -- that dealing with support to women and children. Under the old regime, a State Maintenance Grant had been awarded by government to help mothers without partners support themselves and their children. The program originally "purposefully"excluded African women and, later, when it was opened to Africans living in some parts of the country, it continued largely to exclude those living outside of urban areas. In 1996 the new government moved to reconfigure this form of support, and in April 1998 started phasing out the State Maintenance Grant, replacing it with a means-tested Child Support Grant. This was to be awarded to the primary care givers of poor children under the age of seven. Creation-Date: 2003-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_etal_childgrant.pdf Number: 176 Classification-JEL: H53, I38, J13 Keywords: South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:224 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Measuring poverty in a growing world (or measuring growth in a poor world) Abstract: The extent to which growth reduces global poverty has been disputed for 30 years. Although there is better data than ever before, controversies are not resolved. A major problem is that consumption measured from household surveys, which is used to measure poverty, grows less rapidly than consumption measured in national accounts, in the world as a whole, and in large countries, particularly India, China, and the US. In consequence, measured poverty has fallen less rapidly than appears warranted by measured growth in poor countries. One plausible cause is that richer households are less likely to participate in surveys. But growth in the national accounts is also upwardly biased, and consumption in the national accounts contains large and rapidly growing items that are not consumed by the poor and not included in surveys. So it is possible for consumption of the poor to grow less rapidly than national consumption, without any increase in measured inequality. Current statistical procedures in poor countries understate the rate of global poverty reduction, and overstate growth in the world. Creation-Date: 2004-02 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_measuringpoverty_204.pdf Number: 178 Classification-JEL: I32, O10 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_measuringpoverty_204.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: How to monitor poverty for the Millennium Development Goals Abstract: I consider two issues concerning how to monitor global poverty for the Millennium Development Goals, the selection of poverty lines, and the data sources for monitoring poverty over time. I discuss the choice of a single international line, converted using purchasing power parity exchange rates, versus the use of country-specific poverty lines. I note the difficulties in constructing purchasing power parity exchange rates but argue in favor of a single international line, converted at PPP rates, but which would be regularly updated using domestic price indexes. Re-basing, using updated PPP rates, would be done infrequently. For example, if the global poverty numbers were estimated annually, the PPP rates might be updated once a decade. In any case, it is important that the poverty estimates be calculated much more frequently than the PPP rates are revised. I discuss whether monitoring should be done using national accounts data on income or consumption, supplemented by distributional data so as to make inferences about poverty, or from household survey data. I argue that data from the national accounts are not suitable for measuring poverty and that their use requires assumptions that are unlikely to hold. In particular, monitoring poverty through the national accounts runs the risk of prejudging important issues that are properly the subject of measurement, not assumption, such as the extent to which aggregate growth benefits the poor. I argue that poverty should be directly measured using household survey data, and discuss what needs to be done to enable such monitoring to be placed on a sounder basis. Creation-Date: 2003-03 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_how_to_monitor_poverty_for_the_millennium_development_goals_jhd.pdf Number: 179 Classification-JEL: I32, I38, O15 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_How_to_monitor_poverty_for_the_Millennium_Development_Goals_JHD.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Erica Field Author-X-Name-First: Erica Author-X-Name-Last: Field Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Entitled to Work: Urban Property Rights and Labor Supply in Peru Abstract: Over the past decade, the Peruvian government has issued property titles to over 1.2 million urban households, the largest government titling program targeted to urban squatters in the developing world. This paper examines the labor market effects of increases in tenure security resulting from the program. In particular, I study the direct impact of securing a property title on hours of work, substitution of home for market work and substitution of adult for child labor. To isolate the causal role of ownership security I make use of differences across regions induced by the timing of the program and differences across target populations in the level of pre-program tenure security. My estimates suggest that titling results in a substantial increase in labor hours, a shift in labor supply away from work at home to work in the outside market and substitution of adult for child labor. For the average squatter family, granting of a property title is associated with a 17% increase in total household work hours, a 47% decrease in the probability of working inside the home, and a 28% reduction in the probability of child labor. Creation-Date: 2002-10 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/field_entitled_to_work_qje.pdf Number: 180 Classification-JEL: P14, Q15, J0, J22, R0, O18 Keywords: Property rights, land titling, development policy, urban economics, time allocation and labor supply, employment determination and creation.Peru Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Field_Entitled_to_Work_QJE.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Dean S. Karlan Author-X-Name-First: Dean Author-X-Name-Last: Karlan Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Social Capital and Group Banking Abstract: Lending to the poor is expensive due to high screening, monitoring, and enforcement costs. Group lending advocates believe lenders overcome this by harnessing social connections. Using data from FINCA-Peru, I exploit a quasirandom group formation process to find evidence of peers successfully monitoring and enforcing joint-liability loans. Individuals with stronger social connections to their fellow group members (i.e., either living closer or being of a similar culture) have higher repayment and higher savings. Furthermore, I observe direct evidence that relationships deteriorate after default, and that through successful monitoring, individuals know who to punish and who not to punish after default. Creation-Date: 2005-05 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/karlan_d_soccap_grp_bankingpaper.pdf Number: 181 Classification-JEL: O12, O16, O17, Z13 Keywords: microfinance, group lending, informal savings, social capital, Peru Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:karlan_d_soccap_grp_bankingpaper.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Dean S. Karlan Author-X-Name-First: Dean Author-X-Name-Last: Karlan Author-Workplace-Name: Yale University Title: Using Experimental Economics to Measure Social Capital and Predict Financial Decisions Abstract: Economic theory suggests that market failures arise when contracts are difficult to enforce or observe. Social capital can help solve these failures. The more individuals trust each other, the more able they are to contract with each other.1 Hence, many believe trust is a critical input for both macro- and microeconomic outcomes. The Trust game has become a popular tool, with many researchers conducting it in both university laboratories and field locations in developing countries (Abigail M. Barr, 2003, Joyce E. Berg et al., 1995, Edward L. Glaeser et al., 2000). These studies have found that behaviors in the Trust game correlate intuitively with individual attitudes and the relationships between players. However, these are not outcomes of real interest, but rather proxies (or correlates) for the ability to overcome market failures and complete otherwise difficult to enforce contracts. Creation-Date: 2005-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/karlan_using_experimental_economics_to_measure_social_capital_aer.pdf Number: 182 Classification-JEL: O15, Z13 Keywords: Peru Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Karlan_Using_Experimental_Economics_to_Measure_Social_Capital_AER.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Jean Dreze Author-X-Name-First: Jean Author-X-Name-Last: Dreze Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Poverty and Inequality in India: A Re-Examination Abstract: This paper presents a new set of integrated poverty and inequality estimates for India and Indian states for 1987-88, 1993-94 and 1999-2000. The poverty estimates are broadly consistent with independent evidence on per capita expenditure, state domestic product and real agricultural wages. They show that poverty decline in the 1990s proceeded more or less in line with earlier trends. Regional disparities increased in the 1990s, with the southern and western regions doing much better than the northern and eastern regions. Economic inequality also increased within states, especially within urban areas, and between urban and rural areas. We briefly examine other development indicators, relating for instance to health and education. Most indicators have continued to improve in the nineties, but social progress has followed very diverse patterns, ranging from accelerated progress in some fields to slow down and even regression in others. We find no support for sweeping claims that the nineties have been a period of unprecedented improvement or widespread impoverishment. Creation-Date: 2002-09 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_dreze_poverty_india.pdf Number: 184 Classification-JEL: I12, I32, O15, R23 Keywords: India Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_dreze_poverty_india.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Alessandro Tarozzi Author-X-Name-First: Alessandro Author-X-Name-Last: Tarozzi Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: The Indian Public Distribution System as Provider of Food Security: Evidence from Child Anthropometry in Andhra Pradesh Abstract: We study whether a sudden increase of the price of rice supplied by the Indian Public Distribution System in Andhra Pradesh, a large Indian state, had a negative impact on child weight. After the price increase, the Indian National Family Health Survey started measuring weight in a sample of children in Andhra Pradesh. The data collection continued for several months, so that children measured later in the survey lived for a longer period of time in a less favorable price regime. We study whether this implied a worsening of their nutritional status as measured by weight, but we do not find evidence supporting this hypothesis. Creation-Date: 2002-05 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/tarozzi_the_indian_public_distribution_system_as_provider_of_food_security_eer.pdf Number: 185 Classification-JEL: O13, Q18 Keywords: India Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Tarozzi_The_Indian_Public_Distribution_System_as_provider_of_food_security_EER.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Alessandro Tarozzi Author-X-Name-First: Alessandro Author-X-Name-Last: Tarozzi Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Estimating Comparable Poverty Counts from Incomparable Surveys: Measuring Poverty in India Abstract: We develop a procedure to estimate poverty counts in India from the 55th Round of the Na- tional Sample Survey (NSS), a large household survey run in 1999-2000. The evidence suggests that a change in the survey design caused the reports on household expenditure to change to an extent that it is impossible, without adjustments, to compare poverty estimates from this survey with those obtained from previous NSS Rounds. More generally, the paper addresses the problem of comparing the distribution of a variable across differently designed surveys, when the different design causes the respondents' reports about the variable to be incomparable across the surveys. The proposed procedure requires only the existence of a set of auxiliary variables whose reports are not affected by the different survey design, and whose relation with the main variable of interest is stable across the surveys. The estimator, instead, does not require specific functional form assumptions on the relation between the main variable of interest and the auxiliary variable. In the context of NSS data, we identify a set of variables whose reports are not systematically affected by the changes implemented in the survey design, and we provide evidence of the stability over time of the distribution of per capita total expenditure conditional on these variables. We describe an experiment to evaluate the performance of the estimator, showing that it provides satisfactory results, both in the estimation of poverty counts and in the estimation of the density of per capita expenditure. Finally, we use our estimator to calculate adjusted estimates for poverty in India using data from the 1999-2000 NSS Survey. The results show a sharp reduction in poverty in the nineties, even if in rural areas the reduction is not as large as that implied by the unadjusted figures. Creation-Date: 2002-05 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/tarozzi_estimating_comparable_poverty.pdf Number: 186 Classification-JEL: I32 Keywords: India Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:tarozzi_estimating_comparable_poverty.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Guy Laroque Author-X-Name-First: Guy Author-X-Name-Last: Laroque Author-Workplace-Name: INSEE, Paris Title: A model of commodity prices after Sir Arthur Lewis Abstract: We develop an idea from Arthur Lewis' paper on unlimited supplies of labor to model the long run behavior of the prices of primary commodity produced by poor countries. Commodity supply is assumed infinitely elastic in the long run, and the rate of growth of supply responds to the excess of the current price over the long run supply price. Demand is linked to the level of world income and to the price of the commodity, so that price is stationary around its supply price, and commodity supply and world income are cointegrated. The model is fitted to long-run historical data. Creation-Date: 2002-06 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_laroque_a_model_of_commodity_prices_jde.pdf Number: 201 Classification-JEL: E3, F1, O1 Keywords: Commodity prices, Sir Arthur Lewis, World income, Cointegration Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Laroque_A_model_of_commodity_prices_JDE.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Comment on Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, Education, Poverty, and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection? Creation-Date: 2002-05 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/paxson_krueger_comment.pdf Number: 202 Classification-JEL: I28, I38, K42, O15, I32 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:paxson_krueger_comment.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Darren Lubotsky Author-X-Name-First: Darren Author-X-Name-Last: Lubotsky Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Mortality, inequality and race in American cities and states Abstract: A number of studies have found that mortality rates are positively correlated with income inequality across the cities and states of the US. We argue that this correlation is confounded by the effects of racial composition. Across states and MSAs, the fraction of the population that is black is positively correlated with average white incomes, and negatively correlated with average black incomes. Between-group income inequality is therefore higher where the fraction black is higher, as is income inequality in general. Conditional on the fraction black, neither city nor state mortality rates are correlated with income inequality. Mortality rates are higher where the fraction black is higher, not only because of the mechanical effect of higher black mortality rates and lower black incomes, but because white mortality rates are higher in places where the fraction black is higher. This result is present within census regions, and for all age groups and both sexes (except for boys aged 1?9). It is robust to conditioning on income, education, and (in the MSA results) on state fixed effects. Although it is remains unclear why white mortality is related to racial composition, the mechanism working through trust that is often proposed to explain the effects of inequality on health is also consistent with the evidence on racial composition and mortality. Creation-Date: 2002-02 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_lubotsky_mortality_inequality_and_race_in_american_cities_and_states_ssm.pdf Number: 204 Classification-JEL: I12 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Lubotsky_Mortality_Inequality_and_Race_in_American_Cities_and_States_SSM.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and the NBER Title: Does Money Protect Health Status? Evidence from South African Pensions Abstract: The channels by which better health leads to higher income, and those by which higher income protects health status, are of interest to both researchers and policy makers. In general, quantifying the impact of income on health is difficult, given the simultaneous determination of health and income. In this paper, we quantify the impact on health status of a large, exogenous increase in income -- that associated with the South African state old age pension. Elderly Black and Coloured men and women who did not anticipate receiving large pensions in their lifetimes, and who did not pay into a pension system, are currently receiving more than twice median Black income per capita. These elderly men and women generally live in large households, and this paper documents the effect of the pension on the pensioners, on other adult members of their households, and on the children who live with them. We find, in households that pool income, that the pension protects the health of all household members, working in part to protect the nutritional status of household members, in part to improve living conditions, and in part to reduce the stress under which the adult household members negotiate day to day life. The health effects of delivering cash provide a benchmark against which other health-related interventions can be evaluated. Creation-Date: 2001-08 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_money_protect_nber.pdf Number: 205 Classification-JEL: D10, I10 Keywords: South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:case_money_protect_nber.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: The Primacy of Education Abstract: Many economists, pressed to list the keys to economic development, would turn first to education. Beliefs of the primacy of education in the development process stem both from the fundamental role of education in income generation, and from the many other ways in which education is thought to promote and sustain development and, in turn, to enhance quality of life. Creation-Date: 2004-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/wp_203.pdf Number: 206 Classification-JEL: I24, I25 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:papers/WP_203.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Health, Income and Economic Development Abstract: There is a strong positive relationship between income and health throughout the world. If part of this association represents a causal effect from income to health, then the maintenance and support of incomes becomes a potential policy instrument for promoting population or group health. Policies for income support, such as transfers to the poor, or pensions for the elderly, are instruments that should be assessed, along with the provision of health services, for their ability to improve health. Whether there is a causal link from income to health, and its size, are important research issues for those interested in health in developing countries. This paper uses data from an integrated survey of health and economic well being in South Africa to examine the impact of the South African old age pension on the health of pensioners, and of the prime aged adults and children who live with pensioners. We find evidence of a large and causal effect of income on health status -- one that works at least in part through sanitation and living standards, in part through nutritional status, and in part through the reduction of psychosocial stress. The pension is used to upgrade household facilities, and some of the improvements made have health consequences. We find that the household's water source being on-site and the presence of a flush toilet are both significantly more likely, the greater the number of years of pension receipt in the household. In addition, the presence of a pensioner in the household on average reduces the probability of an adult skipping a meal by 20 percent, and the presence of two pensioners reduces the probability by 40 percent. All adults in the survey were asked a battery of questions of depression, which is inextricably linked to stress and health status. We find that, for households pooling income, the presence of pensioners has a significant effect on reported depression, and that the effect is larger, the greater the number of pensioners. We conclude that governments interested in improving health status may find the provision of cash benefits to be one of the most effective policy tools available to them. Cash provides a yardstick against which other health interventions should be measured. Creation-Date: 2001-05 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_health_income_and_economic_development_wb.pdf Number: 207 Classification-JEL: O15, I15 Keywords: South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Health_Income_and_Economic_Development_WB.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: James P. Vere Author-X-Name-First: James Author-X-Name-Last: Vere Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Education, Technology and the Wage Structure in Taiwan, 1979-1998 Abstract: In this paper we study the wage structure effects of Taiwan's compulsory education policy, to which we attribute substantial changes in the educational composition of the population, and Taiwan?s science and technology development policy, to which we attribute changes in the complementarity of skilled and unskilled labor. In the first part, we quantify these changes and describe differences in educational attainment in Taiwan across birth cohorts. In the second part, we use regression analysis to describe changes in Taiwan's wage structure, decomposing the wage return to education into two components, a fixed birth cohort component and a variable time component. We find evidence for general equilibrium effects reducing the wage return to higher education for better-educated cohorts. In the third part, we present estimates of the elasticities of complementarity between skilled and unskilled labor in Taiwan and evidence that these elasticities have changed over the time period studied in step with the new technology. We conclude that both general equilibrium effects and structural changes in production are needed to account for the observed changes in Taiwan''s wage structure. Creation-Date: 2001-10 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/vere_education_technology_wage.pdf Number: 208 Classification-JEL: J31, O33 Keywords: Taiwan Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:vere_education_technology_wage.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Health, inequality, and economic development Abstract: I explore the connection between health and inequality in both poor and rich countries. My primary focus is on the relationship between income inequality and mortality, but I also discuss the effects of inequalities in other, often more important, dimensions. I discuss a range of mechanisms, including nonlinear income effects, credit restrictions, nutritional traps, public goods provision, and relative deprivation. I review the evidence on the effects of income inequality on the rate of decline of mortality over time, on geographical pattens of mortality, and on individual-level mortality. Much of the literature, both theoretical and empirical, needs to be treated skeptically, if only because of the low quality of much of the data on income inequality. Although there are many remaining puzzles, I conclude that there is no direct link from income inequality to mortality; individuals are no more likely to die or to report that they are in poor health if they live in places with a more unequal distribution of income. The raw correlations that are sometimes found are likely the result of factors other than income inequality, some of which are intimately linked to broader notions of inequality and unfairness. That income inequality itself is not a health risk does not deny the importance for health of other inequalities, nor of the social environment. Whether income redistribution can improve population health does not depend on the existence of a direct link between income inequality and health and remains an open question. Creation-Date: 2002-08 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_health_inequality_and_economic_development_jel.pdf Number: 209 Classification-JEL: D31, I12, O15 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Health_Inequality_and_Economic_Development_JEL.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Martin Gonzalez Rozada Author-X-Name-First: Martin Author-X-Name-Last: Gonzalez Rozada Author-Workplace-Name: Cedes, Sanchez de Bustamante 27, Buenos Aires, Argentina Author-Name: Alicia Menendez Author-X-Name-First: Alicia Author-X-Name-Last: Menendez Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Public University in Argentina: Subsidizing the Rich? Abstract: We analyze some characteristics of the higher education system in Argentina regarding equity and efficiency. Individuals attending the university belong to the top deciles of the income distribution and to relatively highly educated families. Almost 90 percent of the students in tuition-free public universities have higher than median per capita family income and almost 50 percent attended tuition-financed private high schools. We compare these students with those who attend non tuition-free private colleges. Although students in private universities seem to have higher per capita family income, this difference is not large enough to distinguish the two groups after controlling for other variables. These facts imply that there is an implicit transfer to the richest individuals in the society. We argue that equity and efficiency of the system can be improved by charging tuition-fees. Complementary, selective scholarships and loans could be offered to attract the most talented students from poor families. Creation-Date: 2002-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/rozada_menendez_public_university_in_argentina_eer.pdf Number: 210 Classification-JEL: I2, H52 Keywords: University education, tuition fees, subsidy, equity, Argentina Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Rozada_Menendez_Public_University_in_Argentina_EER.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Martin Wittenberg Author-X-Name-First: Martin Author-X-Name-Last: Wittenberg Author-Workplace-Name: University of Witwatersrand Title: Conflictual intra-household allocations Abstract: We present a model in which there is potentially conflict within households about resource allocations. These conflicts are unlikely to be perfectly bargained out and hence there is some residual inefficiency associated with conflict which ought to increase with household size. We also show that individuals who contribute more than their fair share to household resources are likely to leave larger households and households riven with more conflicts sooner than smaller or more harmonious ones. These implications are testable in principle and we provide some evidence from South Africa which is consistent with the theory. Creation-Date: 2001-02 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/wittenberg_intrahousehold_allocations.pdf Number: 211 Classification-JEL: D10, D64, J12, J22 Keywords: Household models, Predation, Altruism, South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:wittenberg_intrahousehold_allocations.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Counting the world's poor: problems and possible solutions Abstract: The World Bank prepares and publishes estimates of the number of poor people in the world. While everyone knows that these numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt, the numbers are arguably important. In an institution where the reduction of poverty is the paramount objective, some overall yardstick of progress (or the lack of it) is required. The numbers are frequently quoted by politicians and by leaders of international organizations, including the Bank itself, who believe the numbers are effective for advocacy. Indeed, there is a long history of studies of poverty mobilizing support among the non-poor for anti-poverty policies. So it is important to know whether the world and national poverty counts are sound enough to support these uses. As recent discussions have made clear, the apparent lack of poverty reduction in the face of historically high rates of economic growth, both in the world as a whole, and in specific countries (most notably India), is providing fuel for the argument that economic growth does little to reduce poverty. How confident can we be that the data actually support these inferences? Are the changes in the poverty counts sufficiently well-measured to support conclusions about growth and poverty reduction? Should the World Bank stand ready to be judged by its success in reducing the current measures of world or even national poverty? If not, can better data collection or better methodologies improve the numbers? Creation-Date: 2000-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_counting_the_worlds_poor_wbro.pdf Number: 212 Classification-JEL: I32, O15 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_worlds_poor.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Darren Lubotsky Author-X-Name-First: Darren Author-X-Name-Last: Lubotsky Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Chutes or Ladders? A Longitudinal Analysis of Immigrant Earnings Abstract: This study uses Social Security earnings records matched to recent cross{sections of the SIPP and CPS to study the earnings progress of U.S. immigrants. The data show that immigrants' earnings grow 10 to 13 percent during their first twenty years in the U.S. relative to the earnings of natives with similar labor market experience. By comparison, estimates of immigrants' relative wage growth from cross{sections of the decennial Census are substantially higher. The divergent results reflect the selective outmigration of low{earning immigrants. The longitudinal earnings histories also show that 14 percent of immigrants have earnings in the U.S. prior to their most recent date of arrival, which points to a significant amount of back{and{forth migration between the U.S. and immigrants' home countries. The misclassification in previous work of these largely low{wage immigrants as recent arrivals accounts for close to one{third of the measured decline in the level of earnings of immigrant arrival cohorts between 1960 and 1980. The new evidence presented here, therefore, suggests that previous analyses had overestimated both the rate of earnings growth among immigrants who remain in the U.S. and the secular decline in the level of earnings across arrival cohorts. Creation-Date: 2000-08 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/chutes_or_ladders.pdf Number: 214 Classification-JEL: C24, J1, J31, J61 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Chutes_or_Ladders.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Diana E. Clark Author-X-Name-First: Diana Author-X-Name-Last: Clark Author-Workplace-Name: University of California at Berkeley Author-Name: Chang-Tai Hsieh Author-X-Name-First: Chang-Tai Author-X-Name-Last: Hsieh Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Schooling and Labor Market Impact of the 1968 Nine-Year Education Program in Taiwan Abstract: The extension of basic schooling from six to nine years in 1968 was the largest expansion of education in Taiwan's modern history. More than 140 new junior high schools were opened in 1968 under this program, increasing the number of junior high schools by 70 percent from 1967 to 1968. We evaluate the effect of this program on education and wages by analyzing cohort differences in educational attainment induced by the timing of the program and by combining these cohort differences with differences across counties in the number of schools built. These estimates suggest that children who were between the ages of 6 and 11 in 1968 received 0.6 additional years of education for every school constructed per 1000 children between the ages of 12 to 14. We use the exogenous variation in schooling due to this program to construct instrumental variable (IV) estimates of the returns to education. We find that IV estimates based on cohort differences in education are lower than the corresponding OLS estimates, but IV estimates based on regional differences in inter-cohort patterns are not significantly different from the OLS estimates. Creation-Date: 2000-06 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/clark_hsieh_school_labormarket.pdf Number: 215 Classification-JEL: I26 Keywords: Taiwan Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:clark_hsieh_school_labormarket.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Martin Gonzalez Author-X-Name-First: Martin Author-X-Name-Last: Gonzalez Author-Workplace-Name: CEDES Author-Name: Alicia Menendez Author-X-Name-First: Alicia Author-X-Name-Last: Menendez Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: The Effect of Unemployment on Labor Earnings Inequality: Argentina in the Nineties Abstract: In this paper we develop a methodology that allows us to quantify the effect of changes in unemployment rates on labor income inequality. We estimate individual earnings functions for employed people conditional on a working status polychotomous model and we establish a formal procedure to assign wages to unemployed workers. We simulate the probability distribution of unemployed persons of particular year on a base year. By computing inequality measures using the actual and simulated populations we are able to assess the impact of unemployment on earnings inequality. Additionally, we simulate changes in participation and in the returns to human capital. An application using microdata from Argentina is presented. The results suggest that unemployment accounts for a large part of the increase in earnings inequality that this country experienced between 1991 and 1998. Creation-Date: 2000-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/menendez_unemployment_ar.pdf Number: 216 Classification-JEL: C25, D31, E24 Keywords: Income inequality, Selectivity bias, Unemployment, Wages, Argentina Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:menendez_unemployment_ar.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Salman Zaidi Author-X-Name-First: Salman Author-X-Name-Last: Zaidi Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates For Welfare Analysis Abstract: Poverty is a complex phenomenon involving multiple dimensions of deprivation, of which the lack of goods and services is only one. Even so, there is a good deal of consensus on the value of using a consumption aggregate as a summary measure of living standards, itself an important component of human welfare. In recent years, in much of the World Bank's operational work as well as in applied research, consumption aggregates constructed from survey data have been used to measure poverty, to analyze changes in living standards over time, and to assess the distributional impacts of various programs and policies. Creation-Date: 1999-09 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_zaidi_consumption.pdf Number: 217 Classification-JEL: I31, I32, D63 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_zaidi_consumption.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Margaret Grosh Author-X-Name-First: Margaret Author-X-Name-Last: Grosh Author-Workplace-Name: The World Bank Title: Designing Household Survey Questionnaires for Developing Countries Lessons from Ten Years of LSMS Experience, Chapter 17: Consumption Abstract: The measurement and understanding of living standards are overarching goals of the living standards surveys. Much of the focus is on poverty or deprivation, the lack of adequate living standards. Standard economic measure of deprivation are concerned with the lack of goods, or the lack of resources -- income, expenditure, or assets -- with which to obtain goods. But it is always important to keep in mind that many of the most important aspects of deprivation go beyond purely material deprivation. Deprivation of health, deprivation of education, deprivation of freedom from crime, and deprivation of political liberty are all important?and often more important than deprivation of material living standards. The role of development in freeing people from deprivation in a wide sense has been forcefully argued by Amartya Sen, see Sen (1999) for a recent and comprehensive account. Data from the living standards surveys frequently help us take a broad view of poverty, particularly data from the modules on health and education. Other important aspects of broadly construed living standards, such as life expectancy, infant mortality, or the threat of crime, must be constructed in other ways. Nevertheless, measuring the material basis of living standards will always play an important role in the assessment of levels of living, and how to collect data for a consumption-based measure is the topic of this chapter. Creation-Date: 1998-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_grosh_consumption.pdf Number: 218 Classification-JEL: C83, C81 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_grosh_consumption.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Motohiro Yogo Author-X-Name-First: Motohiro Author-X-Name-Last: Yogo Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Schools in South Africa Abstract: The effect of school inputs on labor market outcomes is an important and controversial topic, both in the United States and in developing countries. A large literature about American schools has not settled debate on the issue. Card and Krueger (1992) estimate the effect of pupil/teacher ratios and teachers? salaries on the rate of return to education for men born between 1920 and 1950, observed in the 1980 census. Controlling for state of birth effects, state of residence effects, and differences in returns to education between regional labor markets, they find a large, negative and significant effect of pupil/teacher ratios on the rate of return to education. Hanushek et al. (1996) and Heckman et al. (1996) challenge aspects of the Card and Krueger analysis. Hanushek et al. notes that the level at which school characteristics are aggregated affects the estimation results, and claims that aggregation biases upward estimated school quality effects. Heckman et al., replicating the Card and Krueger results in the 1970, 1980, and 1990 censuses, makes clear the importance of allowing for non-linearities in the returns to education when estimating the impact of school resources, and of allowing for differences in the impact of school quality across labor markets. They find school quality effects are weak for those with exactly 12 years of schooling, and strong only for those who attend college. Card and Krueger (1996) present a thorough review and discussion of this literature, but debate on how to interpret the literature on American schools is far from settled. Creation-Date: 1999-09 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_yogo_school_quality.pdf Number: 219 Classification-JEL: I20, O10 Keywords: South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:case_yogo_school_quality.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Jessica L. Baraka Author-X-Name-First: Jessica Author-X-Name-Last: Baraka Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Does Type of Degree Explain Taiwan's Gender Gap? Abstract: Research in the U.S. shows that differences between the sexes in college major explain a substantial portion of the gender gap in wages, and that shifts toward a more equal sex composition in choice of major have led to a decrease in the gap. In this paper, I examine whether a similar phenomenon has occurred in Taiwan. From the 1960's through the 1980?s, the government of Taiwan attempted to increase the proportion of vocational/technical degrees as a percentage of all degrees held by its citizens. Using data from Taiwan's annual Manpower Utilization Survey, I find that the government was quite successful in encouraging people to pursue vocational education. In addition, I find that the type of degree a person receives may be as important to his or her earnings as his or her education level. However, the importance of degree type varies by gender, having a more substantial impact on earnings for men than for women. Consistent with the U.S. literature, I find that degree type does little to explain the overall gender gap in earnings in Taiwan, but may explain a substantial portion of the gap in a sample limited to university graduates. Creation-Date: 1999-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/baraka_degree_type.pdf Number: 220 Classification-JEL: J16, J31, I26 Keywords: Taiwan Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:baraka_degree_type.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Jessica L. Baraka Author-X-Name-First: Jessica Author-X-Name-Last: Baraka Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: The Gap Remains: Gender and Earnings in Taiwan Abstract: The female-male gender gap in earnings in Taiwan has remained nearly constant over the past two decades, despite rapid change in the structure of the labor market. Using data from a series of 17 cross-sectional household surveys, I discuss the shifts that have taken place in the composition of the workforce in Taiwan. I then analyze the gender gap by performing a traditional decomposition of the gap into "explained" and "unexplained" portions, and find that the unexplained portion of the gap has increased substantially over time. I also examine how changes in the overall level of inequality in the economy have contributed to the stability of the gap. Finally, I look at whether the increased relative supply of female workers in Taiwan over time can account for their unchanged relative earnings in the face of increasing relative skills. I find little evidence that women are not treated as substitutes for men in production, but suggestive evidence that discrimination depresses women's earnings in Taiwan. Creation-Date: 1999-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/baraka_gender_gap.pdf Number: 221 Classification-JEL: J16, J31 Keywords: Taiwan Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:baraka_gender_gap.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Jessica L. Baraka Author-X-Name-First: Jessica Author-X-Name-Last: Baraka Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Returns to Education in Taiwan: A Cross-Sectional and Cohort Analysis Abstract: The last two decades have seen a rapid increase in the average educational attainment of the population of Taiwan. This paper examines the effects of that educational expansion on Taiwan's wage structure. I examine not only changes in the cross-sectional return to education, but the experiences of synthetic birth cohorts. I find that in younger cohorts, those with university degrees have seen a decline in their earnings premium. I then look to see whether this decline can be explained by the increase in supply of better-educated workers, rather than by a combination of supply and demand factors. I conclude that under certain reasonable assumptions, changes in the earnings structure in Taiwan may be attributed to changes in the relative size of education-level groups. Creation-Date: 1999-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/baraka_education_taiwan.pdf Number: 222 Classification-JEL: I26 Keywords: Taiwan Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:baraka_education_taiwan.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Guy Laroque Author-X-Name-First: Guy Author-X-Name-Last: Laroque Author-Workplace-Name: INSEE, Paris Title: Housing, land prices, and the link between growth and saving Abstract: This paper is concerned with the relationship between saving and growth. Within an overlapping- generations model of economic growth, we ask how the existence of a fixed supply of land for housing, for which consumers must save prior to ownership, and whose price is bid up by economic growth, affects the steady state growth path of the economy. Creation-Date: 1999-04 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_laroque_housing_land_prices_and_the_link_between_growth_and_savings_jeg.pdf Number: 223 Classification-JEL: R31, D14 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Laroque_Housing_Land_Prices_and_the_Link_between_Growth_and_Savings_JEG.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Growth, demographic structure, and national saving in Taiwan Abstract: This paper is concerned with the effects that changes in demographic structure have had on Taiwan's national saving rate, and how coming changes in its age structure -- notably population aging -- will affect the future saving rate. We examine this topic within the framework of the life-cycle hypothesis (LCH). Life-cycle theory is a natural starting place, since it implies that changes in demographic structure can exert potentially large effects on national saving: increases in the number of people who save (presumably those in middle age) relative to those who save little or dissave (the very young and the elderly) will increase the aggregate saving rate. A related implication of the LCH is that changes in the rate of growth of per capita income affect saving: higher rates of economic growth increase the life-time wealth of the young relative to the old, and the effects on saving of higher growth are much the same as the effects of increasing the numbers of young relative to the old. The LCH also delivers a rich set of predictions about interactions between economic growth and the age structure. As is emphasized in the variable rate-of-growth models of Fry and Mason (1982) and Mason (1987, 1988), the effects of changes in age structure on the saving rate will depend on the life-time wealth of individuals in different age groups, something determined by economic growth. These interactions are important for understanding how the Taiwanese saving rate has evolved over time, and how it may change in the future. Creation-Date: 1999-06 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_paxson_growth_demographic_structure_and_national_saving_in_taiwan_pdr.pdf Number: 224 Classification-JEL: E21, O15, J11 Keywords: Taiwan Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Paxson_Growth_Demographic_Structure_and_National_Saving_in_Taiwan_PDR.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Saving and growth: another look at the cohort evidence Abstract: In recent years, as longer time series of cross-sectional household surveys have become available, it has become possible to look at the consumption and saving behavior of birth cohorts in a number of developing and developed economies. The cohort evidence is singularly appropriate for the analysis of life-cycle models of consumption because, at least in its simpler forms, the life-cycle hypothesis (LCH) predicts that the cohort average of the logarithm of consumption in any year can be additively decomposed into a time-invariant cohort effect and an age effect, both of which can be readily recovered from the cohort data by linear regression on dummy variables. The results of these cohort level analyses have not been favorable for the LCH interpretation of the international correlation between growth and saving. According to this, higher rates of economic growth drive up rates of national saving by expanding the lifetime resources of younger generations, who are saving, relative to the lifetime resources of older generations, who are dissaving. While it is typically possible to interpret the cohort results in a way that is consistent with the LCH, it is a good deal harder to rescue the prediction that higher growth means higher national saving rates, or at least that the effect is large enough to be consistent with the international relationship in which a one percentage point increase in the rate of per capita growth is associated with a roughly two percentage point increase in the saving rate. In Section 1, we review existing cohort studies from a range of rich and poor countries, and also present new results for Indonesia. This evidence shows no strong negative relationship between saving rates and age, so that when higher growth redistributes lifetime resources towards the young, the effect on savings is modest, and in some cases even negative. Creation-Date: 1998-02 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_paxson_saving_and_growth_among_individuals_and_households_res.pdf Number: 225 Classification-JEL: D14 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Paxson_Saving_and_Growth_Among_Individuals_and_Households_RES.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Poverty among children and the elderly in developing countries Abstract: This paper is concerned with the measurement of the relative poverty of people in different age groups in developing countries. In many instances it is useful to know, for example, whether a higher fraction of children are in poverty than are adults. However, it is difficult to make even simple poverty comparisons of this sort. A perennial difficulty is the passage from household data to individual welfare. We need to document the poverty and living standards of individuals, not households. Yet almost all of our data come from household surveys that collect data on the incomes or consumption expenditures of households or families. Although more could be done to collect data on individual income, consumption, and intrahousehold transfers, there are both conceptual and practical problems in directly observing individual levels of living. Many goods are pooled so that it is close to impossible to disentangle individual consumption levels, and there are important family public goods where consumption by one person does not exclude, or only partially excludes consumption by another. Creation-Date: 1997-11 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_paxson_poverty_children_paper.pdf Number: 226 Classification-JEL: I32 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_paxson_poverty_children_paper.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Election Goals and Income Redistribution: Recent Evidence From Albania Abstract: This paper examines the impact of political competition on block grants from federal to sub-federal levels of government. We model the extent and direction of income redistribution as determined proximately by the political agendas of central decisionmakers and, at a deeper level, by the institutions within which they find themselves operating. We contrast two institutional frameworks that give way to differing political objective functions and, in turn, to strikingly different empirical predictions of the ways in which politics should affect fiscal policy. Lessons learned here may prove important in understanding limits on the types of redistribution possible via block grants, given the institutional framework, in both developing and developed countries. Creation-Date: 1997-04 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_election_goals_and_income_redistribution_eer.pdf Number: 227 Classification-JEL: P35, H77, D31, D72, O15, O17 Keywords: Albania Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Election_Goals_and_Income_Redistribution_EER.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Timothy Besley Author-X-Name-First: Timothy Author-X-Name-Last: Besley Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Diffusion as a Learning Process: Evidence from HYV Cotton Abstract: This paper develops new methods for studying the adoption of technologies that, at the time of their introduction, are of uncertain profitability. We focus on the rols played by learning in the evolution of a diffusion path and present a model that allows learning from the behavior of others as well as from the adopter's own experience. Equilibrium behavior explicitly allows for interaction between individuals when information is a public good. We consider both cooperative and non-cooperative models and apply our model to the adoption of HYV cotton in the semi-arid tropics, using data from ICRISAT village level surveys. Creation-Date: 1994-05 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/besley_case_diffusion.pdf Number: 228 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:174 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Stature and status: Height, ability, and labor market outcomes Abstract: It has long been recognized that taller adults hold jobs of higher status and, on average, earn more than other workers. A large number of hypotheses have been put forward to explain the association between height and earnings. In developed countries, researchers have emphasized factors such as self esteem, social dominance, and discrimination. In this paper, we offer a simpler explanation: On average, taller people earn more because they are smarter. As early as age 3 ? before schooling has had a chance to play a role ? and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests. The correlation between height in childhood and adulthood is approximately 0.7 for both men and women, so that tall children are much more likely to become tall adults. As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns. Using four data sets from the US and the UK, we find that the height premium in adult earnings can be explained by childhood scores on cognitive tests. Furthermore, we show that taller adults select into occupations that have higher cognitive skill requirements and lower physical skill demands. Creation-Date: 2006-08 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_paxson_stature_and_status_jpe.pdf Number: 232 Classification-JEL: I1, J3 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Paxson_Stature_Status_8312006.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Cally Ardington Author-X-Name-First: Cally Author-X-Name-Last: Ardington Author-Workplace-Name: University of Cape Town Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and NBER Author-Name: Victoria Hosegood Author-X-Name-First: Victoria Author-X-Name-Last: Hosegood Author-Workplace-Name: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Title: Labor supply responses to large social transfers: Longitudinal evidence from South Africa Abstract: The South African old-age social pension has been much studied by both researchers and policy makers, in part for the larger lessons that might be learned about behavioral responses to cash transfers in developing countries. In this paper, we quantify the labor supply responses of prime-aged individuals to changes in the presence of old-age pensioners in their households, using longitudinal data recently collected in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Our ability to compare households and individuals before and after pension receipt, and pension loss, allows us to control for a host of unobservable household and individual characteristics that may determine labor market behavior. We find that large cash transfers to elderly South Africans lead to increased employment among prime-aged members of their households. Perhaps more importantly, pension receipt influences where this employment takes place. We find large, significant effects on labor migration among prime-aged members upon pension arrival. The pension's impact is attributable both to the increase in household resources it represents, which can be used to stake migrants until they become self-sufficient, and to the presence of pensioners who can care for small children, which allows prime-aged adults to look for work elsewhere. Creation-Date: 2007-09 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/ardington_case_hosegood_final_labor_supply_jan2008.pdf Number: 1003 Classification-JEL: H31, J20, O12 Keywords: South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Ardington_Hosegood_NBER_w13442_oct07.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and NBER Author-Name: Alicia Menendez Author-X-Name-First: Alicia Author-X-Name-Last: Menendez Author-Workplace-Name: University of Chicago Title: Sex Differences in Obesity Rates in Poor Countries: Evidence from South Africa Abstract: Globally, men and women face markedly different risks of obesity. In all but of handful of (primarily Western European) countries, obesity is more prevalent among women than men. In this paper, we examine several potential explanations for this phenomenon. We analyze differences between men and women in reports and effects of the proximate causes of obesity -- physical exertion and food intake -- and the underlying causes of obesity -- childhood and adult poverty, depression, and attitudes about obesity. We evaluate the evidence for each explanation using data collected in an African township outside of Cape Town. Three factors explain the greater obesity rates we find among women. Women who were nutritionally deprived as children are significantly more likely to be obese as adults, while men who were deprived as children face no greater risk. In addition, women of higher adult socioeconomic status are significantly more likely to be obese, which is not true for men. These two factors can fully explain the difference in obesity rates we find in our sample. Finally (and more speculatively), women's perceptions of an 'ideal' female body are larger than men's perceptions of the 'ideal' male body, and individuals with larger 'ideal' body images are significantly more likely to be obese. Creation-Date: 2007-10 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_and_menendez_ehb_dec_2009.pdf Number: 1004 Classification-JEL: D13, I10 Keywords: South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_and_Menendez_EHB_Dec_2009.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and NBER Author-Name: Diana Lee Author-X-Name-First: Diana Author-X-Name-Last: Lee Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and NBER Title: The Income Gradient In Children's Health: A Comment On Currie, Shields And Wheatley Price Abstract: This paper reexamines differences found between income gradients in American and English children's health, in results originally published by Case, Lubotsky and Paxson (2002) for the US, and by Currie, Shields and Wheatley Price (2007) for England. We find that, when the English sample is expanded by adding three years of data, and is compared to American data from the same time period, the income gradient in children's health increases with age by the same amount in the two countries. In addition, we find that Currie, Shields and Wheatley Price's measures of chronic conditions from the Health Survey of England were incorrectly coded. Using correctly coded data, we find that the effects of chronic conditions on health status are larger in the English sample than in the American sample, and that income plays a larger role in buffering children's health from the effects of chronic conditions in England. We find no evidence that the British National Health Service, with its focus on free services and equal access, prevents the association between health and income from becoming more pronounced as children grow older. Creation-Date: 2007-10 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_lee_paxson_the_income_gradient_in_childrens_health_jhe.pdf Number: 1005 Classification-JEL: D1, I1 Keywords: England, Great Britain; United Kingdom: United States; USA Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Lee_Paxson_The_Income_Gradient_in_Childrens_Health_JHE.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Height, Health and Cognitive Function at Older Ages Abstract: Research across a number of disciplines has highlighted the role of early life health and circumstance in determining health and economic outcomes at older ages. Nutrition in utero and in infancy may set the stage for the chronic disease burden that an individual will face in middle age. Childhood health may also have significant effects on economic outcomes in adulthood. Collectively, a set of childhood health measures can account for a large fraction of the explained variance in employment and social status observed among a British cohort followed from birth into adulthood. Creation-Date: 2008-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_paxson_height_health_and_cognitive_function_at_older_ages_aer.pdf Number: 1007 Classification-JEL: I12, J11, J14 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_Paxson_Height_health_and_cognitive_function_at_older_ages_AER.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Price trends in India and their implications for measuring poverty Abstract: The Indian national sample surveys collect data on the unit values of a large number of foods which can be used to compute price index numbers that can be compared with the official national price indexes, the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL) for rural India, and the Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPIIW) for urban India. Over the five years from 1999?2000 to 2004-05, the food component of the CPIAL understated the rate of food price inflation. This overstatement is likely attributable to the use of long outdated weights (from 1983), and the resultant overweighting of cereals, particularly coarse cereals, whose prices fell relative to other foods. The overall weight of food in the CPIAL is also too large, so that the growth in the general CPIAL was understated during this period when food prices fell relative to nonfood prices. Under conservative assumptions, I calculate that the 5 year growth in the reported CPIAL of 10.6 percent should have been 14.3 percent. Indian poverty lines are held constant in real terms and are updated using the food and non-food components of the official indices weighted by the food shares of households near the poverty line. Because these weights come from a 1973?4 survey, food is heavily over weighted for the contemporary poor, and the nominal poverty lines are understated, both because the CPIAL food index is understated, and because too much weight is assigned to food in a period when food prices have been falling relative to nonfood prices. As a result, and ignoring other problems with the counts (doubtful interstate and intersectoral price indexes and the growing discrepancy between surveys and national accounts), the official poverty counts for rural India in 2004-5 are too low; the official headcount ratio of 28.3 percent should be closer to 31 percent; at current rates of rural poverty reduction, this eliminates more than three years of progress. More generally, it is clear that the weights used for price indexes should be updated more frequently than is presently the case, something that could be straightforwardly done using India's regular system of household expenditure surveys. Creation-Date: 2008-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_price_trends_in_india_and_their_implications_for_measuring_poverty_epw.pdf Number: 1008 Classification-JEL: I32, E31 Keywords: India Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Price_trends_in_India_and_their_implications_for_measuring_poverty_EPW.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Height, health, and inequality: the distribution of adult heights in India Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between adult heights and the distribution of income across populations of individuals. There is a long literature that examines the relationship between mean adult heights and living standards. If adult height is set by the balance between food intake and charges to disease in early childhood, it is informative about economic and epidemiological conditions in childhood. Because taller populations are better-off, more productive, and live longer, the relationship between childhood conditions and adult height has become an important focus in the study of the relationship between health and wealth. Here I follow one of the tributaries of this main stream. A relationship between income and height at the individual level has implications for the effects of income inequality on the distribution of heights. These relationships parallel, but are somewhat more concrete than, the various relationships between income inequality and health that have been debated in the economic and epidemiological literatures, Richard G. Wilkinson (1996), Angus Deaton (2003). Creation-Date: 2008-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_height_health_and_inequality_the_distribution_of_adult_heights_in_india_aerpp.pdf Number: 1009 Classification-JEL: D31, I12, J11, O15 Keywords: India Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Height_health_and_inequality_the_distribution_of_adult_heights_in_India_AERPP.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Cally Ardington Author-X-Name-First: Cally Author-X-Name-Last: Ardington Author-Workplace-Name: University of Cape Town Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Victoria Hosegood Author-X-Name-First: Victoria Author-X-Name-Last: Hosegood Author-Workplace-Name: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies Title: Labor supply responses to large social transfers: Longitudinal evidence from South Africa Abstract: In many parts of the developing world, rural areas exhibit high rates of unemployment and underemployment. Understanding what prevents people from migrating to find better jobs is central to the development process. In this paper, we examine whether binding credit constraints and childcare constraints limit the ability of households to send labor migrants, and whether the arrival of a large, stable source of income -- here, the South African old-age pension -- helps households to overcome these constraints. Specifically, we quantify the labor supply responses of prime-aged individuals to changes in the presence of pensioners, using longitudinal data collected in KwaZulu-Natal. Our ability to compare households and individuals before and after pension receipt, and pension loss, allows us to control for a host of unobservable household and individual characteristics that may determine labor market behavior. We find that large cash transfers to elderly South Africans lead to increased employment among prime-aged members of their households, a result that is masked in cross-sectional analysis by differences between pension and non-pension households. Pension receipt also influences where this employment takes place. We find large, significant effects on labor migration upon pension arrival. The pension's impact is attributable both to the increase in household resources it represents, which can be used to stake migrants until they become self-sufficient, and to the presence of pensioners who can care for small children, which allows prime-aged adults to look for work elsewhere. Creation-Date: 2008-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/ardington_case_hosegood_final_labor_supply_jan2008.pdf Number: 1010 Classification-JEL: O12, H31, J20 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Ardington_Case_Hosegood_FINAL_labor_supply_jan2008.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Jean Dreze Author-X-Name-First: Jean Author-X-Name-Last: Dreze Author-Workplace-Name: Allahabad University Title: Nutrition in India: Facts and Interpretations Abstract: In spite of India's rapid economic growth, there has been a sustained decline in per capita calorie consumption during the last twenty-five years. While the decline has been largest among better-off households, it has taken place throughout the range of household per capita total expenditure. For both adults and children, anthropometric indicators of nutritional status in India are among the worst in the world. While these indicators have shown improvement over time, the rate of progress is slow relative to what might be expected based on international and historical experience. This paper presents the basic facts about growth, poverty and nutrition in India, it points to a number of puzzles, and it sketches a preliminary story that is consistent with the evidence. The reduction in calorie consumption cannot be attributed to declining real incomes, nor to any increase in the relative price of food. Our leading hypothesis, on which much work remains to be done, is that, as real incomes and wages have increased, leading to some nutritional improvement, there has been an offsetting reduction in calorie requirements due to declining levels of physical activity and possibly also to various improvements in the health environment. If correct, this analysis does not imply that Indians are currently adequately nourished; nothing could be further from the truth. Calorie intake has serious limitations as a nutritional intake; while calories are extremely important, there are too many sources of variation in calorie requirements for standard, invariant, calorie-norms to be usefully applied to large sections of the population. We conclude with a plea for better, and more regular, monitoring of nutritional status in India. Creation-Date: 2008-04 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_nutrition_in_india_facts_and_interpretations_epw.pdf Number: 1071 Classification-JEL: Q18, I18 Keywords: India Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Nutrition_in_India_Facts_and_Interpretations_EPW.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Mahnaz Islam Author-X-Name-First: Mahnaz Author-X-Name-Last: Islam Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Making Sense of the Labor Market Height Premium: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey Abstract: We use nine waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) to investigate the large labor market height premium observed in the BHPS, where each inch of height is associated with a 1.5 percent increase in wages, for both men and women. We find that half of the premium can be explained by the association between height and educational attainment among BHPS participants. Of the remaining premium, half can be explained by taller individuals selecting into higher status occupations and industries. These effects are consistent with our earlier findings that taller individuals on average have greater cognitive function, which manifests in greater educational attainment, and better labor market opportunities. Creation-Date: 2008-05 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/w14007_case_paxson_and_islam.pdf Number: 1072 Classification-JEL: I21, J12, J24 Keywords: Great Britain; United Kingdom; England, British Household Panel Survey, BHPS Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:w14007%20Case%20Paxson%20and%20Islam.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Carlos Bozzoli Author-X-Name-First: Carlos Author-X-Name-Last: Bozzoli Author-Workplace-Name: DIW - Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research) Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Climent Quintana-Domeque Author-X-Name-First: Climent Author-X-Name-Last: Quintana-Domeque Author-Workplace-Name: Universidad de Alicante Title: Adult height and childhood disease Abstract: Taller populations are typically richer populations, and taller individuals live longer and earn more In consequence, adult height has recently become a focus in understanding the relationship between health and wealth. We investigate the childhood determinants of population adult height, focusing on the respective roles of income and of disease. Across a range of European countries and the United States, we find a strong inverse relationship between postneonatal (one month to one year) mortality, interpreted as a measure of the disease and nutritional burden in childhood, and the mean height of those children as adults. Consistent with these findings, we develop a model of selection and stunting, in which the early life burden of nutrition and disease is not only responsible for mortality in childhood but also leaves a residue of long-term health risks for survivors, risks that express themselves in adult height, as well as in late-life disease. The model predicts that, at sufficiently high mortality levels, selection can dominate scarring, leaving a taller population of survivors. We find evidence of this effect in the poorest and highest mortality countries of the world, supplementing recent findings on the effects of the Great Chinese famine. Creation-Date: 2008-10 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_adult_height_and_childhood_disease_demography.pdf Number: 1119 Classification-JEL: D630, I000, I320, J130, D190 Keywords: Height, childhood disease, wealth, health, Great Chinese famine Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_adult_height_and_childhood_disease_demography.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Jane Fortson Author-X-Name-First: Jane Author-X-Name-Last: Fortson Author-Workplace-Name: University of Chicago Author-Name: Robert Tortora Author-X-Name-First: Robert Author-X-Name-Last: Tortora Author-Workplace-Name: Gallup Organization Title: Life (evaluation), HIV/AIDS, and death in Africa Abstract: We use data from the Gallup World Poll and from the Demographic and Health Surveys to investigate how subjective wellbeing (SWB) is affected by mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, including mortality from HIV/AIDS. The Gallup data provide direct evidence on Africans' own emotional and evaluative responses to high levels of infection and of mortality. By comparing the effect of mortality on SWB with the effect of income on SWB, we can attach monetary values to mortality to illuminate the often controversial question of how to value life in Africa. Large fractions of the respondents in the World Poll report the mortality of an immediate family member in the last twelve months, with malaria typically more important than AIDS, and deaths of women in childbirth more important than deaths from AIDS in many countries. A life evaluation measure (Cantril's ladder of life) is relatively insensitive to the deaths of immediate family, which suggests a low value of life. There are much larger effects on experiential measures, such as sadness and depression, which suggest much larger values of life. It is not clear whether either of these results is correct, yet our results demonstrate that experiential and evaluative measures are not the same thing, and that they cannot be used interchangeably as measures of happiness in welfare economics. Creation-Date: 2008-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/life_and_death_in_africa_dec08_complete.pdf Number: 1121 Classification-JEL: O550, J110, J170, I000 Keywords: Africa, AIDS, Gallup World Poll, wellbeing, HIV, mortality, value of life Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Life_and_death_in_Africa_Dec08_Complete.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Instruments of development: Randomization in the tropics, and the search for the elusive keys to economic development Abstract: There is currently much debate about the effectiveness of foreign aid and about what kind of projects can engender economic development. There is skepticism about the ability of econometric analysis to resolve these issues, or of development agencies to learn from their own experience. In response, there is movement in development economics towards the use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to accumulate credible knowledge of what works, without over-reliance on questionable theory or statistical methods. When RCTs are not possible, this movement advocates quasi-randomization through instrumental variable (IV) techniques or natural experiments. I argue that many of these applications are unlikely to recover quantities that are useful for policy or understanding: two key issues are the misunderstanding of exogeneity, and the handling of heterogeneity. I illustrate from the literature on aid and growth. Actual randomization faces similar problems as quasi-randomization, notwithstanding rhetoric to the contrary. I argue that experiments have no special ability to produce more credible knowledge than other methods, and that actual experiments are frequently subject to practical problems that undermine any claims to statistical or epistemic superiority. I illustrate using prominent experiments in development. As with IV methods, RCT-based evaluation of projects is unlikely to lead to scientific progress in the understanding of economic development. I welcome recent trends in development experimentation away from the evaluation of projects and towards the evaluation of theoretical mechanisms. Creation-Date: 2009-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/deaton_instruments_of_development_keynes_lecture_2009.pdf Number: 1122 Classification-JEL: I380, D100, F350, D630, H300 Keywords: Randomized controlled trials, instrumental variables, development, foreign aid, growth, poverty reduction Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Instruments_randomization_and_learning_about_development_JEL.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: The impact of the AIDS pandemic on health services in Africa: Evidence from Demographic Health Surveys Abstract: We document the impact of the AIDS crisis on non-AIDS related health services in fourteen sub-Saharan African countries. Using multiple waves of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for each country, we examine antenatal care, birth deliveries, and rates of immunization for children born between 1988 and 2005. We find deterioration in nearly all of these dimensions of health care over this period. The most recent DHS survey for each country collected data on HIV prevalence, which allows us to examine the association between HIV burden and health care. We find that erosion of health services is highly correlated with increases in AIDS prevalence. Regions of countries that have light AIDS burdens have witnessed small or no declines in health care, using the measures noted above, while those regions currently shouldering the heaviest burdens have seen the largest erosion in treatment for pregnant women and children. Using semi-parametric techniques, we can date the beginning of the divergence in health services between high and low HIV regions to the mid-1990s. Creation-Date: 2009-03 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/the_impact_of_the_aids_pandemic_on_health_services.pdf Number: 1139 Classification-JEL: I000, I180, I380, J130, C010 Keywords: AIDS, Africa, children, health care Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case%20Paxson%20The%20impact%20of%20the%20AIDS%20pandemic%20March%206.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Taryn Dinkelman Author-X-Name-First: Taryn Author-X-Name-Last: Dinkelman Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: The Effects of Rural Electrification on Employment: New Evidence from South Africa Abstract: This paper estimates the impact of electrification on employment growth by analyzing South Africa's mass roll-out of electricity to rural households. Using several new data sources and two different identification strategies (an instrumental variables strategy and a fixed effects approach), nd that electrification significantly raises female employment within 5 years. This new infras- tructure appears to increase hours of work for men and women, while reducing female wages and increasing male earnings. Several pieces of evidence suggest that household electrification raises employment by releasing women from home production and enabling micro-enterprizes. Migration behavior may also be affected. Creation-Date: 2010-08 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/dinkelman_electricity_0810.pdf Number: 1255 Classification-JEL: J080, J160, J200, J600, J160 Keywords: electrification, labor markets, women, electricity, employment, South Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:dinkelman_electricity_0810.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Alan Heston Author-X-Name-First: Alan Author-X-Name-Last: Heston Author-Workplace-Name: University of Pennsylvania Title: Understanding PPPs and PPP-based national accounts Abstract: PPP-based national accounts have become an important part of the database for macroeconomists, development economists, and economic historians. Frequently used global data come from the Penn World Table (PWT) and the World Bank?s World Development Indicators; a substantial fraction of the world is also covered in the PPP accounts produced by the OECD and the European Union. This paper provides an overview of how these data are constructed, and discusses both the theory and the practical problems of implementing it. All of these data are underpinned by the International Comparison Program (ICP), which collects data on prices worldwide. The most recent round of the ICP was for 2005 with final results published in early 2008; version 7.0 of the Penn World Table will soon incorporate these results. The 2005 ICP, like earlier rounds, involved substantial revisions to previous data, most notably revising downwards the size of the Chinese (40 percent smaller) and Indian (36 percent) economies. We discuss the reasons for the revisions, and assess their plausibility. We focus on four important areas: how to handle international differences in quality, the treatment of urban and rural areas of large countries such as China, India, and Brazil, how to estimate prices for government services, health, and education, and the effects of the regional structure of the ICP. All of these affect the interpretation of previous data, as well as the current revisions. We discuss previous revisions of the PWT, and their effects on various kinds of econometric analysis. The paper concludes with health warnings that should be kept in mind when using these data, which are not always suitable for the purposes to which they are put. Some international comparisons are close to impossible, even in theory, and in others, the practical difficulties make comparison exceedingly hazardous. Creation-Date: 2009-11 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/understanding_ppps_and_ppp_based_national_accounts_aea_2010.pdf Number: 1186 Classification-JEL: C100, C820, D400, E010, E270 Keywords: purchasing power parities, health policy, China, India, Brazil, Penn World Table, International Comparison Program Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:deaton_heston_complete_nov10.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Olivier Dupriez Author-X-Name-First: Olivier Author-X-Name-Last: Dupriez Author-Workplace-Name: World Bank Title: Purchasing power parity exchange rates for the global poor Abstract: The first of the Millennium Development Goals targets global poverty. The numbers that support this goal are estimated by the World Bank, and come from a worldwide count of people who live below a common international poverty line. This line, loosely referred to as the dollar-a-day line, is calculated as an average over the world's poorest countries of their national poverty lines expressed in international dollars. The counts of those living below the line come from household surveys, the number and coverage of which have steadily increased over the years. National poverty lines are converted to international currency using the purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates from the various rounds of the International Comparison Program (ICP). These PPPs, unlike market exchange rates, are constructed as price indexes that compare the level of consumer prices across countries. Creation-Date: 2009-11 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/purchasing_power_parity_exchange_rates_for_the_global_poor_aea_2011.pdf Number: 1187 Classification-JEL: C100, C820, D400, E010, E270 Keywords: purchasing power parities, health policy, International Comparison Program, poverty Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Purchasing_power_parity_exchange_rates_for_global_poor_Nov11.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Price indexes, inequality, and the measurement of world poverty Abstract: I discuss the measurement of world poverty and inequality, with particular attention to the role of PPP price indexes from the International Comparison Project. Global inequality increased with the latest revision of the ICP, and this reduced the global poverty line relative to the US dollar. The recent large increase of nearly half a billion globally poor people came from an inappropriate updating of the global poverty line, not from the ICP revisions. Even so, PPP comparisons between widely different countries rest on weak theoretical and foundations. I argue for wider use of self-reports from international monitoring surveys, and for a global poverty line that is truly denominated in US dollars. Creation-Date: 2010-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_price_indexes_inequality_and_the_measurement_of_world_poverty_aer.pdf Number: 1207 Classification-JEL: C800, D310, D630, E010, I320 Keywords: poverty measurement, price indexes, International Comparison Project Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Price_Indexes_Inequality_and_the_Measurement_of_World_Poverty_AER.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Causes and Consequences of Early Life Health Abstract: We examine the consequences of childhood health for economic and health outcomes in adulthood, using height as a marker of health in childhood. After reviewing previous evidence, we present a conceptual framework that highlights data limitations and methodological problems associated with the study of this topic. We present estimates of the associations between height and a range of outcomes, including schooling, employment, earnings, health and cognitive ability, using data collected from early to late adulthood on cohort members in five longitudinal data sets. We find height is uniformly associated with better economic, health and cognitive outcomes, a result only partially explained by the higher average educational attainment of taller individuals. We then turn to the NLSY79 Children and Young Adult Survey to better understand what specific aspects of early childhood are captured by height. We find, even among maternal siblings, taller siblings score better on cognitive tests and progress through school more quickly. Part of the differences found between siblings arises from differences in their birth weights and lengths attributable to mother?s behaviors while pregnant. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that childhood health influences health and economic status throughout the life course. Creation-Date: 2010-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_and_paxson_demography_2010.pdf Number: 1213 Classification-JEL: D1, I12, J13 Keywords: childhood health, economic status, height, wellbeing Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_and_Paxson_Early_Life_Health_w15637.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Instruments, randomization, and learning about development Abstract: There is currently much debate about the effectiveness of foreign aid and about what kind of projects can engender economic development. There is skepticism about the ability of econometric analysis to resolve these issues, or of development agencies to learn from their own experience. In response, there is increasing use in development economics of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to accumulate credible knowledge of what works, without over-reliance on questionable theory or statistical methods. When RCTs are not possible, the proponents of these methods advocate quasi-randomization through instrumental variable (IV) techniques or natural experiments. I argue that many of these applications are unlikely to recover quantities that are useful for policy or understanding: two key issues are the misunderstanding of exogeneity, and the handling of heterogeneity. I illustrate from the literature on aid and growth. Actual randomization faces similar problems as does quasi-randomization, notwithstanding rhetoric to the contrary. I argue that experiments have no special ability to produce more credible knowledge than other methods, and that actual experiments are frequently subject to practical problems that undermine any claims to statistical or epistemic superiority. I illustrate using prominent experiments in development and elsewhere. As with IV methods, RCT-based evaluation of projects, without guidance from an understanding of underlying mechanisms, is unlikely to lead to scientific progress in the understanding of economic development. I welcome recent trends in development experimentation away from the evaluation of projects and towards the evaluation of theoretical mechanisms. Creation-Date: 2010-03 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_instruments_randomization_and_learning_about_development_jel.pdf Number: 1224 Classification-JEL: C010, C800, D600, F350, I320 Keywords: Randomized controlled trials, mechanisms, instrumental variables, development, foreign aid, growth, poverty reduction Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_Instruments_randomization_learning_all_04April_2010.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Understanding the Mechanisms of Economic Development Abstract: I argue that progress in understanding economic development (as in other branches of economics) must come from the investigation of mechanisms; the associated empirical analysis can usefully employ a wide range of experimental and non-experimental methods. I discuss three different areas of research: the life-cycle saving hypothesis and its implication that economic growth drives higher rates of national saving, the theory of speculative commodity storage and its implications for the time-series behavior of commodity prices, and the relationship between economic growth and nutritional improvement. None of these projects has yet been entirely successful in offering a coherent account of the evidence, but all illustrate a process of trial and error, in which although mechanisms are often rejected, unlikely theoretical propositions are sometimes surprisingly verified, while in all cases there is a process of learning about and subsequently modifying our understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Creation-Date: 2010-04 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/deaton_understanding_the_mechanisms_of_economic_development_jep.pdf Number: 1225 Classification-JEL: D600, E010, I000, O400, D100 Keywords: economic development, mechanisms, life-cycle savings, commodity prices, economic growth, nutritional improvement Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Deaton_understanding_mechanisms_of_economic_development_with_abstract_apr_2010.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Taryn Dinkelman Author-X-Name-First: Taryn Author-X-Name-Last: Dinkelman Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Vimal Ranchhod Author-X-Name-First: Vimal Author-X-Name-Last: Ranchhod Author-Workplace-Name: University of Cape Town Title: Evidence on the impact of minimum wage laws in an informal sector: Domestic workers in South Africa Abstract: What happens when a previously uncovered labor market is regulated? We exploit the introduction of a minimum wage in South Africa and variation in the intensity of this law to identify increases in wages and formal contract coverage, and no significant effects on employment on the intensive or extensive margins for domestic workers. These large, partial responses to the law are somewhat surprising, given the lack of monitoring and enforcement in this informal sector. We interpret these changes as evidence that external sanctions are not necessary for new labor legislation to have a significant impact on informal sectors of developing countries, at least in the short-run. Creation-Date: 2010-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/dinkelman_ranchhod_minwages_0710.pdf Number: 1254 Classification-JEL: J080, J210, J300, J800 Keywords: Minimum wage, informal sector, Africa Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:dinkelman_ranchhod_minwages_0710.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Christina Paxson Author-X-Name-First: Christina Author-X-Name-Last: Paxson Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: The Long Reach of Childhood Health and Circumstance: Evidence from the Whitehall II Study Abstract: We use data from the Whitehall II Study to examine the joint evolution of health status and economic status over the life course. We study the links between health and socioeconomic status in childhood and health and employment status in middle and older ages. Because the population from which this cohort was drawn consisted almost exclusively of white collar civil servants, the Whitehall II sample will in general provide inconsistent estimates of the association between childhood conditions and adult outcomes for the population as a whole. To sign the direction of the bias, we compare our findings for Whitehall II with those from two nationally representative data sets in which we can mimic selection into white collar positions. We find that the Whitehall II estimates are systematically lower than those from our nationally representative cohorts, until we restrict those cohorts to their white collar members only. In contrast to researchers who have used the Whitehall II data to argue against parental disadvantage as an explanation of socioeconomic inequality in health, we find early life socioeconomic status is significantly associated with health over the life course. Using fixed effect first-difference models, we examine the association between health and employment status in middle age and health and employment status at older ages. We find that current position in the civil service is not associated with future health, but current self-assessed health is significantly associated with promotion in the civil service. Creation-Date: 2011-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/case_and_paxson_whitehall_jan_2011.pdf Number: 1285 Classification-JEL: I320, H510, D310, D630, H310 Keywords: health status and economic status, Whitehall II Study, employment, health and socioeconomic status in childhood Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Case_and_Paxson_Whitehall_Jan_2011.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: What does the empirical evidence tell us about the injustice of health inequalities? Abstract: Whether or not health inequalities are unjust, as well as how to address them, depends on how they are caused. I review a range of health inequalities, between men and women, between aristocrats and commoners, between blacks and whites, and between rich and poor within and between countries. I tentatively identify pathways of causality in each case, and make judgments about whether or not each inequality is unjust. Health inequalities that come from medical innovation are among the most benign. I emphasize the importance of early life inequalities, and of trying to moderate the link between parental and child circumstances. I argue that racial inequalities in health in the US are unjust and add to injustices in other domains. The vast inequalities in health between rich and poor countries are arguably neither just nor unjust, nor are they easily addressable. I argue that there are grounds to be concerned about the rapid expansion in inequality at the very top of the income distribution in the US; this is not only an injustice in itself, but it poses a risk of spawning other injustices, in education, in health, and in governance. Creation-Date: 2011-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/what_does_the_empirical_evidence_tell_us_about_the_injustice.pdf Number: 1284 Classification-JEL: I320, H510, D310, D630, H310 Keywords: health inequalities, medical innovation, racial inequalities, parental and child circumstances Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:What_does_the_empirical_evidence_tell_us_about_the_injustice.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Jishnu Das Author-X-Name-First: Jishnu Author-X-Name-Last: Das Author-Workplace-Name: World Bank and Center for Policy Research, New Delhi Author-Name: Jeffrey Hammer Author-X-Name-First: Jeffrey Author-X-Name-Last: Hammer Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Carolina Sanchez-Paramo Author-X-Name-First: Carolina Author-X-Name-Last: Sanchez-Paramo Author-Workplace-Name: World Bank Title: The Impact of Recall Periods on Reported Morbidity and Health Seeking Behavior Abstract: Between 2000 and 2002, we followed 1621 individuals in Delhi, India using a combination of weekly and monthly-recall health questionnaires. In 2008, we augmented these data with another 8 weeks of surveys during which households were experimentally allocated to surveys with different recall periods in the second half of the survey. We show that the length of the recall period had a large impact on reported morbidity, doctor visits; time spent sick; whether at least one day of work/school was lost due to sickness and; the reported use of self-medication. The effects are more pronounced among the poor than the rich. In one example, differential recall effects across income groups reverse the sign of the gradient between doctor visits and per-capita expenditures such that the poor use health care providers more than the rich in the weekly recall surveys but less in monthly recall surveys. We hypothesize that illnesses--especially among the poor--are no longer perceived as "extraordinary events" but have become part of ?normal? life. We discuss the implications of these results for health survey methodology, and the economic interpretation of sickness in poor populations. Creation-Date: 2011-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/hammer_the_impact_of_recall_periods_on_reported_morbidity_and_health_seeking_behavior.pdf Number: 1320 Classification-JEL: D190, I000, J130 Keywords: public health, doctor visits, India, surveys, questionnaires, poor, rich Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Hammer_The_Impact_of_Recall_Periods_on_Reported_Morbidity_and_Health_Seeking_Behavior.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and World Bank Author-Name: Olivier Dupriez Author-X-Name-First: Olivier Author-X-Name-Last: Dupriez Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and World Bank Title: Spatial price differences within large countries Abstract: National and international statistical systems are strangely reticent on differences in price levels within countries. Nations as diverse as India and the United States publish inflation rates for different areas, but provide nothing that allows comparisons of price levels across places at a moment of time. The International Comparison Project, which at each round collects prices and calculates price indexes for most of the countries of the world, publishes nothing on within country differences, and in some important cases including China, Brazil, and India, rural prices are either not collected or are underrepresented, which potentially distorts the comparison between large and small countries, Deaton and Heston (2010). Yet spatial price indexes are required if we are to compare real incomes across areas, and both national and global poverty estimates require intra- as well as inter-national price indexes. There are also good grounds for suspecting that price levels differ across regions. Several large Indian states are larger than most countries, and consumption patterns are sharply different across the subcontinent. And for the same reasons that we expect price levels to be lower in poorer countries the Balassa-Samuelson theorem we would expect prices to be lower in poorer areas within countries, at least if people are not completely mobile across space. Creation-Date: 2011-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/spatial_price_differences_in_large_countries-_10-jul_2011_complete.pdf Number: 1321 Classification-JEL: D030, D400, E300, E600 Keywords: prices, consumption, inflation, access, comparisons, rural, urban Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:spatial_price_differences_in_large_countries-_10-jul_2011_complete.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Lant Pritchett Author-X-Name-First: Lant Author-X-Name-Last: Pritchett Author-Workplace-Name: Harvard Kennedy School and Center for Global Development Author-Name: Salimah Samji Author-X-Name-First: Salimah Author-X-Name-Last: Samji Author-Workplace-Name: Harvard Kennedy School Author-Name: Jeffrey Hammer Author-X-Name-First: Jeffrey Author-X-Name-Last: Hammer Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: It's All About MeE: Using Structured Experiential Learning ('e') to Crawl the Design Space Abstract: Organizations that fund development projects whether they be governments, multi-laterals, bilateral agencies, or NGOs have to make hard decisions about what to fund. In this decision there is an inherent tension between funding activities that have solid evidence about effectiveness and funding innovative activities that promise even greater effectiveness but are untested. Evidence based approaches that promote greater use of Rigorous Impact Evaluations (including randomized control trials) and evidence from those evaluations in policy and programming have added more rigor to the E (evaluation) in traditional M&E. Here we extend the basic idea of rigorous impact evaluation?the use of a valid counter-factual to make judgments about causality to evaluate project design and implementation. This adds a new learning component of experiential learning or a little e to the M&RIE so that instead of just M&E development projects are all about MeE. Structured experiential learning allows implementing agencies to actively and rigorously search across alternative project designs using the monitoring data that provides real time performance information with direct feedback into project design and implementation. The key insight is that within- project variations can serve as their own counter-factual which dramatically reduces the incremental cost of evaluation and increases the usefulness of evaluation to implementing agencies. The right combination of MeE provides for rigorous learning while the providing needed space for innovation. Creation-Date: 2012-06 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/hammer_its_all_about_me.pdf Number: 1399 Classification-JEL: D610, D780, H110, C400 Keywords: development, innovation, projects, funding Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Hammer_Its_All_About_Me.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Dean Spears Author-X-Name-First: Dean Author-X-Name-Last: Spears Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: How much international variation in child height can sanitation explain? Abstract: Physical height is an important economic variable reflecting health and human capital. Puzzingly, however, differences in average height across developing countries are not well explained by differences in wealth. In particular, children in India are shorter, on average, than children in Africa who are poorer, on average, a paradox which is often called the Asian enigma. The primary contribution of this paper is to document that cross-country variation in sanitation statistically explains a large and important fraction of international height differences. Over a billion people worldwide and more than half of Indian households defecate openly without using a toilet or latrine, introducing germs into the environment that cause disease and stunt children's growth. I apply three complementary empirical strategies to Demographic and Health Survey data to identify the fraction due to sanitation: country-level regressions using collapsed DHS surveys; within-country analysis of differences between India's first and second DHS surveys; and econometric decomposition of the India-Africa height difference in child-level data. Open defecation, which is exceptionally widespread in India, accounts for much of the excess stunting in India. Creation-Date: 2012-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/spears_how_much_international_variation.pdf Number: 1436 Classification-JEL: R290, D630, I100, I390, Q530 Keywords: India, children, growth rate, height, sewage, wealth Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Spears_Height_and_Sanitation.pdf.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Tom Vogl Author-X-Name-First: Tom Author-X-Name-Last: Vogl Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and NBER Title: Differential Fertility, Human Capital, and Development Abstract: Discussions of cross-sectional fertility heterogeneity and its interaction with economic growth typically assume that the poor have more children than the rich. Micro-data from 48 developing countries suggest that this phenomenon is very recent. Over the second half of the twentieth century, these countries saw the association of economic status with fertility and the association of the number of siblings with their education flip from generally positive to generally negative. Because large families switched from investing in more education to investing in less, heterogeneity in fertility across families initially increased but now largely decreases average educational attainment. While changes in GDP per capita, women?s work, sectoral composition, urbanization, and population health do not explain the reversal, roughly half of it can be attributed to the rising aggregate education levels of the parent generation. The results are most consistent with theories of the fertility transition based on changing preferences over the quality and quantity of children, and somewhat less so with theories that incorporate subsistence consumption constraints. Creation-Date: 2013-03 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/vogl_family_size_v2.pdf Number: 1452 Classification-JEL: D190, D600, I000, I320, Keywords: Fertility, children, poor countries, family size, siblings, consumption Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:vogl_family_size.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Tom S. Vogl Author-X-Name-First: Tom Author-X-Name-Last: Vogl Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and NBER Title: Education and Health in Developing Economies Abstract: This paper reviews recent research on the relationship between education and health in poor countries. Multiple causal pathways link the two domains, across different phases of an individual's life cycle and across generations in a family. Within an individual, childhood health enhances schooling outcomes, longevity incentivizes human capital investment, and education improves adult health. Across generations, the health and education of parents -- particularly mothers -- boost both outcomes in their children. Creation-Date: 2012-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/vogl_ed_health_review.pdf Number: 1453 Classification-JEL: D190, D600, I000, I320, Keywords: health, poverty, poor people, lifecycles, education level, families Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:vogl_ed_health_review.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Janet Currie Author-X-Name-First: Janet Author-X-Name-Last: Currie Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Tom Vogl Author-X-Name-First: Tom Author-X-Name-Last: Vogl Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Early-Life Health and Adult Circumstance in Developing Countries Abstract: A growing literature documents the links between long-term outcomes and health in the fetal period, infancy, and early childhood. Much of this literature focuses on rich countries, but researchers are increasingly taking advantage of new sources of data and identification to study the long reach of childhood health in developing countries. Health in early life may be a more significant determinant of adult outcomes in these countries because health insults are more frequent, the capacity to remediate is more limited, and multiple shocks may interact. However, the underlying relationships may also be more difficult to measure, given significant mortality selection. We survey recent evidence on the adult correlates of early-life health and the longterm effects of shocks due to disease, famine, malnutrition, pollution, and war. Creation-Date: 2012-08 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/currie_vogl_ar.pdf Number: 1454 Classification-JEL: D190, D600, I000, I320, Keywords: health, children, war, disease, links Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:currie_vogl_AR.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and NBER Author-Name: Arthur A. Stone Author-X-Name-First: Arthur Author-X-Name-Last: Stone Author-Workplace-Name: Stony Brook University Title: Grandpa and the snapper: the wellbeing of the elderly who live with children Abstract: Elderly Americans who live with people under age 18 have lower life evaluations than those who do not. They also experience worse emotional outcomes, including less happiness and enjoyment, and more stress, worry, and anger. In part, these negative outcomes come from selection into living with a child, especially selection on poor health, which is associated with worse outcomes irrespective of living conditions. Yet even with controls, the elderly who live with children do worse. This is in sharp contrast to younger adults who live with children, likely their own, whose life evaluation is no different in the presence of the child once background conditions are controlled for. Parents, like elders, have enhanced negative emotions in the presence of a child, but unlike elders, also have enhanced positive emotions. In parts of the world where fertility rates are higher, the elderly do not appear to have lower life evaluations when they live with children; such living arrangements are more usual, and the selection into them is less negative. They also share with younger adults the enhanced positive and negative emotions that come with children. The misery of the elderly living with children is one of the prices of the demographic transition. Creation-Date: 2013-07 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/grandpa_and_the_snapper_complete_version_2.pdf Number: 1471 Classification-JEL: D190, D630, J120, J140, J130 Keywords: elderly, grandparents, anger, life evaluation, children, parents Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:Grandpa_and_the_snapper_complete_version_2.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Angua Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angua Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century Abstract: This paper documents a marked increase in the all-cause mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women in the United States between 1999 and 2013. This change reversed decades of progress in mortality and was unique to the United States; no other rich country saw a similar turnaround. The midlife mortality reversal was confined to white non-Hispanics; black non-Hispanics and Hispanics at midlife, and those aged 65 and above in every racial and ethnic group, continued to see mortality rates fall. This increase for whites was largely accounted for by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis. Although all education groups saw increases in mortality from suicide and poisonings, and an overall increase in external cause mortality, those with less education saw the most marked increases. Rising midlife mortality rates of white non-Hispanics were paralleled by increases in midlife morbidity. Self-reported declines in health, mental health, and ability to conduct activities of daily living, and increases in chronic pain and inability to work, as well as clinically measured deteriorations in liver function, all point to growing distress in this population. We comment on potential economic causes and consequences of this deterioration. Creation-Date: 2015-09 File-URL: http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full.pdf?sid=c9772399-e254-46a8-9da6-33b3fdf014dd Number: Classification-JEL: J10 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:15078.full.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Nancy Cartwright Author-X-Name-First: Nancy Author-X-Name-Last: Cartwright Author-Workplace-Name: Durham University and University of California San Diego Title: Understanding and Misunderstanding Randomized Controlled Trials Abstract: RCTs are valuable tools whose use is spreading in economics and in other social sciences. They are seen as desirable aids in scientific discovery and for generating evidence for policy. Yet some of the enthusiasm for RCTs appears to be based on misunderstandings: that randomization provides a fair test by equalizing everything but the treatment and so allows a precise estimate of the treatment alone; that randomization is required to solve selection problems; that lack of blinding does little to compromise inference; and that statistical inference in RCTs is straightforward, because it requires only the comparison of two means. None of these statements is true. RCTs do indeed require minimal assumptions and can operate with little prior knowledge, an advantage when persuading distrustful audiences, but a crucial disadvantage for cumulative scientific progress, where randomization adds noise and undermines precision. The lack of connection between RCTs and other scientific knowledge makes it hard to use them outside of the exact context in which they are conducted. Yet, once they are seen as part of a cumulative program, they can play a role in building general knowledge and useful predictions, provided they are combined with other methods, including conceptual and theoretical development, to discover not "what works," but why things work. Unless we are prepared to make assumptions, and to stand on what we know, making statements that will be incredible to some, all the credibility of RCTs is for naught. Creation-Date: 2016-08 File-URL: http://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/downloads/Deaton_Cartwright_RCTs_with_ABSTRACT_August_25.pdf Number: Classification-JEL: C53 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:August_25.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Marcos A. Rangel Author-X-Name-First: Marcos Author-X-Name-Last: Rangel Author-Workplace-Name: Duke University and BREAD Author-Name: Tom S. Vogl Author-X-Name-First: Tom Author-X-Name-Last: Vogl Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University, BREAD, and NBER Title: Agricultural Fires and Infant Health Abstract: Fire has long served as a tool in agriculture, but this practice’s human capital consequences have proved difficult to study. Drawing on data from satellites, air monitors, and vital records, we study how smoke from sugarcane harvest fires affects infant health in the Brazilian state that produces one-fifth of the world’s sugarcane. Because fires track economic activity, we exploit wind for identification, finding that late-pregnancy exposure to upwind fires decreases birth weight, gestational length, and in utero survival, but not early neonatal survival. Other fires positively predict health, highlighting the importance of disentangling pollution from economic activities that drive it. Creation-Date: 2016-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/rangel_vogl_fires.pdf Number: Classification-JEL: I00; Q19; J13 Keywords: Brazil Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:rangel_vogl_fires.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Shoumitro Chatterjee Author-X-Name-First: Shoumitro Author-X-Name-Last: Chatterjee Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Tom S. Vogl Author-X-Name-First: Tom Author-X-Name-Last: Vogl Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Growth and Childbearing in the Short- and Long-Run Abstract: Despite being key to theories of economic growth and the demographic transition, evidence on how fertility responds to aggregate income change is mixed. We analyze economic growth and fertility change in the developing world over six decades, using data on 2.3 million women from 255 surveys in 81 countries. We find that fertility responds differently to fluctuations and long-run growth, and the nature of these responses varies over the life cycle. Fertility is procyclical, falling during recessions, but also declines and delays with long-run growth. Lifetime fertility is affected by fluctuations near the end of the reproductive period but not those at prime reproductive age. Our results are consistent with models linking demography, human capital, and long-run growth, extended to include a life cycle with liquidity constraints. Creation-Date: 2016-12 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/sc_tv_growth_fertility.pdf Number: Classification-JEL: J13; O40 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:SC_TV_growth_fertility.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Tom S. Vogl Author-X-Name-First: Tom Author-X-Name-Last: Vogl Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University, BREAD, and NBER Title: Aggregating the Fertility Transition: Intergenerational Dynamics in Quality and Quantity Abstract: Fertility change is distinct from other forms of social and economic change because it directly alters the size and composition of the next generation. This paper studies how changes in population composition over the fertility transition feed back into the evolution of average fertility across generations. Theory predicts that changes in the relationship between human capital and fertility first weaken and then strengthen fertility similarities between mothers and daughters, a process that first promotes and then restricts aggregate fertility decline. Consistent with these predictions, microdata from 40 developing countries over the second half of the 20th century show that intergenerational fertility associations strengthen late in the fertility transition, due to the alignment of the education-fertility relationship across generations. As fertility approaches the replacement level, the strengthening of these associations reweights the population to raise aggregate fertility rates, pushing back against aggregate fertility decline. Creation-Date: 2017-01 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/vogl_intergen_dynamics.pdf Number: Classification-JEL: J13 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:vogl_intergen_dynamics.pdf Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Anne Case Author-X-Name-First: Anne Author-X-Name-Last: Case Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Mortality and Morbidity in the 21st Century Abstract: Building on our earlier research (Case and Deaton 2015), we find that mortality and morbidity among white non-Hispanic Americans in midlife since the turn of the century continued to climb through 2015. Additional increases in drug overdoses, suicides, and alcohol-related liver mortality—particularly among those with a high school degree or less—are responsible for an overall increase in all-cause mortality among whites. We find marked differences in mortality by race and education, with mortality among white non-Hispanics (males and females) rising for those without a college degree, and falling for those with a college degree. In contrast, mortality rates among blacks and Hispanics have continued to fall, irrespective of educational attainment. Mortality rates in comparably rich countries have continued their premillennial fall at the rates that used to characterize the United States. Contemporaneous levels of resources—particularly slowly growing, stagnant, and even declining incomes—cannot provide a comprehensive explanation for poor mortality outcomes. We propose a preliminary but plausible story in which cumulative disadvantage from one birth cohort to the next—in the labor market, in marriage and child outcomes, and in health—is triggered by progressively worsening labor market opportunities at the time of entry for whites with low levels of education. This account, which fits much of the data, has the profoundly negative implication that policies—even ones that successfully improve earnings and jobs, or redistribute income—will take many years to reverse the increase in mortality and morbidity, and that those in midlife now are likely to do worse in old age than the current elderly. This is in contrast to accounts in which resources affect health contemporaneously, so that those in midlife now can expect to do better in old age as they receive Social Security and Medicare. None of this, however, implies that there are no policy levers to be pulled. For instance, reducing the overprescription of opioids should be an obvious target for policymakers. Creation-Date: 2017 File-URL: http://www.princeton.edu/~accase/downloads/Mortality_and_Morbidity_in_21st_Century_Case-Deaton-BPEA-published.pdf Number: Classification-JEL: I12 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:2017-Spring Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Angus Deaton Author-X-Name-First: Angus Author-X-Name-Last: Deaton Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University and University of Southern California Title: What do self - reports of wellbeing say about life - cycle theory and policy? Abstract: I respond to Atkinson's plea to revive welfare economics, and to considering alternative ethical frameworks when making policy recommendations. I examine a measure of self-reported evaluative wellbeing, the Cantril Ladder, and use data from Gallup to examine well-being over the life-cycle. I assess the validity of the measure, and show that it is hard to reconcile with familiar theories of intertemporal choice. I find a worldwide optimism about the future; in spite of repeated evidence to the contrary, people consistently but irrationally predict they will be better off five years from now. The gap between future and current wellbeing diminishes with age, and in rich countries, is negative among the elderly. I also use the measure to think about income transfers by age and sex. Policies that give priority those with low incomes favor the young and the old, while utilitarian policies favor the middle aged, and men over women. Creation-Date: 2018-02 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/welfare_revision_with_figures-abstract_fixed.pdf Number: Classification-JEL: A20; D60 Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:2018-02 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Iva Trako Author-X-Name-First: Iva Author-X-Name-Last: Trako Author-Workplace-Name: Paris School of Economics and World Bank Author-Name: Maria Micaela Sviatschi Author-X-Name-First: Maria Author-X-Name-Last: Sviatschi Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Author-Name: Guadalupe Kavanaugh Author-X-Name-First: Guadalupe Author-X-Name-Last: Kavanaugh Author-Workplace-Name: Rutgers University Title: Access to Justice, Gender Violence and Children: Evidence from Women’s Justice Centers in Peru Abstract: Many developing countries have unequal access to justice, especially for women. What are the implications for gender-based violence, intra-household bargaining and investments in children? This paper provides quasi-experimental evidence on women’s justice centers (WJCs) a community based approach to reduce violence against women that has been gradually rolled out across Peru. Using administrative data from health providers and district attorney offices, we find that after the opening of these centers, there is a reduction in domestic violence, female mortality due to aggression, femicides and mental health problems. More over, we find that the WJCs substantially increase human capital investments for children, increasing enrollment, attendance, test scores, while decreasing child labor. These results are consistent with a bargaining model in which the threat point is determined by access to justice. In sum, the evidence in this paper shows that providing access to justice for women can be a powerful tool to reduce gender-based violence and increase the human capital of children, implying a positive intergenerational benefit. Creation-Date: 2018-03 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/sviatschi_access-to-justice-gender-violence-and-children_march2018.pdf Number: Classification-JEL: J12, J16, I25, K38 Keywords: Peru; gender-based violence, access to justice, children, household bargaining Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:2018-03 Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Maria Micaela Sviatschi Author-X-Name-First: Maria Author-X-Name-Last: Sviatschi Author-Workplace-Name: Princeton University Title: Making a Narco: Childhood Exposure to Illegal Labor Markets and Criminal Life Paths Abstract: What explains the development of illegal markets and criminal careers in developing countries? I exploit the timing of a large anti-drug policy that shifted cocaine production to locations in Peru that were well-suited to growing coca. In these areas, children harvest coca leaves and transport processed cocaine. Using administrative data, I show that individuals exposed to illegal markets during childhood are 30% more likely to be incarcerated for violent and drug-related crimes as adults. The biggest impacts on adult criminality are seen among children who experience high coca prices in their early teens, the age when child labor responds the most. No effect is found for individuals that grow up working in places where the coca produced goes primarily to the legal sector, suggesting that it is the accumulation of human capital specific to the illegal industry that fosters criminal careers. However, consistent with a model of parental incentives for human capital investments in children, the rollout of a conditional cash transfer program that encourages schooling mitigates the effects of exposure to illegal industries, providing further evidence on the mechanisms. Finally, I show how the program can be targeted to take into account the geographic distribution of coca suitability and spatial spillovers. Overall, this paper takes a first step towards understanding how criminals are formed by unpacking the way in which crime-specific human capital is developed at the expense of formal human capital in "bad locations." Creation-Date: 2018-03 File-URL: https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/sviatschi_making-a-narco_march2018.pdf Number: Classification-JEL: J24, O10, I25 Keywords: Peru Handle: RePEc:pri:rpdevs:sviatschi_making-a-narco_march2018.pdf