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Inheritance Law Reform, Empowerment, and Human Capital Accumulation: Second-Generation Effects from India
No full textThis paper uses evidence from three Indian states, one of which amended inheritance legislation in 1994, to assess first- and second-generation effects of inheritance reform using a triple-difference strategy. Second-generation effects on education, time use, and health are larger and more significant than first-generation effects even controlling for mothers' endowments. Improved access to bank accounts and sanitation as well as lower fertility in the parent generation suggest that inheritance reform empowered females in a sustainable way, a notion supported by significantly higher female survival rates
Reforming Electricity Subsidies in Pakistan: Measures to Protect the Poor
No full textAs part of its energy sector reforms, the Government of Pakistan plans to reduce spending on electricity subsidies to 0.3-0.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by mid-2016. The reforms will alleviate a major constraint on the government's budget. However, they will necessitate increases in the price of electricity, which have the potential to measurably reduce the welfare of the poor. The government will need to carefully design the price increases and provide associated compensation to avoid this outcome. This paper demonstrates that that it is possible for the government to protect the poor against most of the costs of the reform while at the same time improving the targeting of remaining subsidy expenditures. Measures that can be taken include targeting subsidies based on poverty scores and providing targeted cash compensation to poor households. The authors illustrate how these measures can be implemented, and estimate their associated welfare impacts
Just Another Carte Blanche? EU GSP Plus Status and Human Rights in Pakistan
No full textThe EU is considering offering Pakistan a Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) in trade which could have huge implications for the economic well-being of Pakistan. However this deal is tied to a package of human rights, labour rights, good governance and environment commitments. In the past Pakistan has signed up to such commitments but has failed to implement them (most starkly perhaps in relation to women’s rights and minority rights). This paper argues that the EU should seek to use the leverage of the GSP+ deal to ensure Pakistani compliance with, and implementation of, its obligations and should be willing to withdraw the deal if it does not. It cautions that the EU should not countenance a "carte blanche" in which Pakistan’s ruling elite reaps the rewards of EU trade liberalisation without any corresponding commitment – beyond lip service - to improve rights, governance, and environmental protection
Study on Tax Expenditures in Pakistan
No full textThe problems of high fiscal deficit, high current account deficit, and high inflation faced by the government of Pakistan are linked to Pakistan's weak tax revenue effort. There are concerns that revenue in Pakistan is raised in an inefficient way by favoring certain sectors and economic activities over others. The assessment of tax expenditures is often complicated because reporting and accounting practices fall far short of what is used for official government expenditures, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate the cost, efficiency and distributional impact of tax expenditures. The purpose of the study is to undertake a detailed assessment of tax expenditure in Pakistan, including an appropriate definition and methodologies for measuring tax expenditures. Considerable effort is required to develop and establish a suitable framework to identify, measure and critically assess the merits of tax expenditures on an annual basis. Pakistan is committed to increasing the transparency of tax policy by providing detailed estimates of tax expenditures. This paper provides a detailed assessment of tax expenditures in Pakistan, framework, and a methodology for measuring tax expenditures
Suffering from Statelessness: Rohingyas in Bangladesh
No full textThe paper deals with the situation of the Rohingyas from Myanmar as stateless refugees
The Anatomy of Failure: An Ethnography of a Randomized Trial to Deepen Democracy in Rural India
No full textPrograms that induce citizen participation to improve the quality of government at the local level are the subjects of large amounts of funding and intense debate. This paper combines a randomized control trial of a citizenship training and facilitation program in rural India, with an in-depth, four-year ethnography of the intervention to understand the underlying mechanisms of change. The quantitative data show no impact from the intervention. Household and village survey data from 100 treatment and 100 control villages show considerable improvement across a wide variety of governance and participation indicators over time, but the differences in the changes between treatment and control villages are not statistically significant. The detailed qualitative data from a 10 percent subsample allow us to unpack the reasons why the intervention "failed," highlighting the role of variations in the quality of facilitation, lack of top-down support, and difficulties with confronting the stubborn challenge of persistent inequality. However, the qualitative investigation also uncovered subtle treatment effects that are difficult to observe in structured surveys. The paper thus demonstrates that a concerted effort to use "thick description" to uncover the process of change using careful and detailed qualitative work can add value to standard impact evaluations
Facing the Hungry Tide: Climate Change, Livelihood Threats, and Household Responses in Coastal Bangladesh
No full textThis paper quantifies the impact of inundation risk and salinization on the family structure and economic welfare of coastal households in Bangladesh. These households are already on the "front line" of climate change, so their adaptation presages the future for hundreds of millions of families worldwide who will face similar threats by 2100. The analysis is based on a household decision model that relates spatial deployment of working-age, migration-capable members to inundation and salinization threats. The analysis uses appropriate estimation techniques, including adjustments for spatial autocorrelation, and finds that households subject to high inundation and salinization threats have significantly higher out-migration rates for working-age adults (particularly males), dependency ratios, and poverty incidence than their counterparts in non-threatened areas. The findings indicate that the critical zone for inundation risk lies within four kilometers of the coast, with attenuated impacts for coastal-zone households at higher elevations. The results paint a sobering picture of life at the coastal margin for Bangladeshi households threatened by inundation and salinization, particularly households that are relatively isolated from market centers. They respond by "hollowing out," as economic necessity drives more working-age adults to seek outside earnings. Those left behind face a far greater likelihood of extreme poverty than their counterparts in less-threatened areas. The powerful results for market access, coupled with previous findings on salinity and road maintenance, suggest that infrastructure investment may offer a promising option. Road improvements that reduce travel times for isolated settlements compensate them for an increase in salinity. Thus, road improvement may warrant particular attention as an attractive adaptation investment in coastal Bangladesh
Infrastructure Gap in South Asia: Inequality of Access to Infrastructure Services
No full textThe South Asia region is home to the largest pool of individuals living under the poverty line, coupled with a fast-growing population. The importance of access to basic infrastructure services on welfare and the quality of life is clear. Yet the South Asia region's rates of access to infrastructure (sanitation, electricity, telecom, and transport) are closer to those of Sub-Saharan Africa, the one exception being water, where the South Asia region is comparable to East Asia and the pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean. The challenge of increasing access to these services across the South Asia region is compounded by the unequal distribution of existing access for households. This study improves understanding of this inequality by evaluating access across the region's physical (location), poverty, and income considerations. The paper also analyzes inequality of access across time, that is, across generations. It finds that while the regressivity of infrastructure services is clearly present in South Asia, the story that emerges is heterogeneous and complex. There is no simple explanation for these inequalities, although certainly geography matters, some household characteristics matter (like living in a rural area with a head of household who lacks education), and policy intent matters. If a poorer country or a poorer state can have better access to a given infrastructure service than in a richer country or a richer state, then there is hope that policy makers can adopt measures that will improve access in a manner in which prosperity is more widely shared
EU-Pakistan Relations and GSP Plus: Towards an End of Europe’s ‘Whitewashing’?
No full textThe article deals with the relations between Pakistan and the European Union. The author points out that the EU has to make sure that Pakistan‘s political establishment and law enforcement agencies do more than merely paying lip service to democratic values and human rights. Furthermore, Europe needs to monitor the implementation of international commitments. It is important for the decision-makers in the EU to demonstrate the political will to implement the opportunities given by GSP Plus to them, and to show that withdrawal of the benefits in case of non compliance with the prerequisites remains a able option
Does Local Financial Development Matter for Firm Lifecycle in India?
No full textThe differences in financial development across Indian states, while seeming substantial, have a minor effect on firm lifecycle and growth. These results hold controlling for differences in labor regulations across states, capital intensity, and for firms born before and after the major reforms. There is no evidence that firms in financially dependent industries have different lifecycle profiles or grow faster in financially developed states than underdeveloped states. Overall, firms in the formal manufacturing sector grow as they age whereas in the informal sector, firms have a declining lifecycle, but in both cases little evidence is found that financial institutions matter for firm lifecycle. The findings of this paper suggest that size and depth differences in financial development across Indian states are likely dwarfed by overall inefficiencies that characterize state-dominated financial systems, with important implications for the reforms of the Indian financial system going forward