1,721,594 research outputs found
No Small Matter : The Impact of Poverty, Shocks, and Human Capital Investments in Early Childhood Development
No full textThe relative lack of attention to early
childhood development in many developing countries remains a
puzzle, and an opportunity. There is increasing evidence
that investments in the nutritional, cognitive, and
socio-emotional development of young children have high
payoffs. Researchers and development practitioners are
building on this evidence to raise the topic's profile
and bring it to the attention of decision makers. This
volume is an important contribution to these efforts. It
thoroughly and carefully reviews the most recent empirical
literature linking early childhood development outcomes,
poverty, and shocks. In doing so, it brings an added
perspective to the debate and makes the case that
investments in the first years of life have the potential to
be a critical component of poverty reduction strategies. The
volume also goes beyond simply documenting the consequences
of insufficient or inadequate focus on early childhood and
identifies the range of policy options available to policy
makers. The Human Development Perspectives series seeks to
present thorough research findings on issues of critical
strategic importance for developing countries. At its core
is the perspective that investments in human capital are an
essential aspect of efforts to promote global development
and eradicate poverty. This volume makes it convincingly
clear that investing in and protecting the human capital of
young children is no small matter
Intercommodity price transmittal : analysis offood markets in Ghana
Full text linkThis report expands on a dynamic model of market integration to investigate how information is transmitted across commodities. The author investigates one property of an efficient market : the full use of available information. Studies of spatial price integration simultaneously looks at the flow of information and commodities. The author investigates the flow of information within a single spatial market and the relationship between prices in spatially separate markets. He studies intercommodity price transmittal from two perspectives. First, he asks whether the government can concentrate on a single commodity price, yet achieve policy objectives in a broader arena. This is important in Ghana because no single commodity dominates consumers'food budgets. The author finds that price movements for the main cereal consumed in the country (maize) are fully transmitted to other regions. Second, he investigates the working of commodity markets in developing countries. He notes imperfections in the way markets process information. There are several possible explanations for this market inefficiency. Traders may set prices for other coarse grains in response to information about maize prices. Another possibility is that some traders may not deal in all grains and thus have different costs of acquiring information. In short the author's dynamic model of price integration indicates functional efficiency in Ghana.Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Agricultural Research
The Mayor Alderman Harold Heard in conversation with guests at the Mayor's Lunch, February 1963
No full textBlack and white negative of the Mayor, Alderman Harold Heard, in conversation with two guests at the annual Mayor's Lunch in 1963
Mayor Alderman Harold Heard addressing guests at the Mayor's Lunch, February 1963
No full textBlack and white negative of Mayor Alderman Harold Heard addressing his guests at the Mayor's annual Lunch in 1963. His Civic Attendant is standing at his shoulder and guests are seated at dining tables
With the help of one's neighbors - externalities in the production of nutrition in Peru
Full text linkBoth public, and private resources contribute to children's nutritional status. And investments by one household may improve health in other neighborhood households, by improving the sanitation environment, and increasing shared knowledge. The authors measure the externalities of investments in nutrition, by indicatingthe impact of women's education in Peruvian neighborhoods, on children's nutrition in other households, after controlling for those households'education, and income. They find that in rural areas this shared knowledge has a significant impact on nutrition. The coefficient of an increase in the average education in the neighborhood is appreciably larger than the coefficient of education in isolation. That is, educating women in rural areas, improves all children's nutritional status, even for those whose caregivers are themselves not educated. In both urban, and rural areas, they observe externalities from investments in sanitation made by neighboring households. They do not find the same externalities in the case of investments, only in the household water supply. There is a direct link between the caregivers'education, and their children's health status. Education transmits information about health, and nutrition. It teaches numeracy, and literacy, which help caregivers read labels, and instructions. Bu exposing caregivers to new environments, it makes them receptive to modern medical treatment. It gives women the confidence to participate in decision-making within a household, and it gives men, and women the confidence to interact with health care professionals.Health Economics&Finance,Urban Services to the Poor,Urban Services to the Poor,Decentralization,Public Health Promotion,Urban Services to the Poor,Urban Services to the Poor,Health Economics&Finance,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Town Water Supply and Sanitation
The Major Alderman Harold Heard, and guests in coversation in the dining room, attending the Mayor's Lunch, February 1963
No full textBlack and white negative of the Mayor Alderman Harold Heard, sitting at a dinner table with three male guests smoking and in conversation, at the annual Mayor's Lunch, 1963
Food security and health security : explaining the levels of nutrition in Pakistan
Full text linkMost influential studies of malnutrition and public policy have focused on energy availability and consumption, tending to equate hunger with malnutrition. But recent studies have explored how other factors - notably infection and levels of maternal education - affect nutrition. Alderman and Garcia's study of nutrition levels in Pakistan shows that raising household food consumption, for example, has less impact on nutritional levels than raising a mother's education does. They found that educating mothers to at least the primary level tends to reduce the level of child stunting 16.5 percent, or roughly 10 times the impact achieved by increasing per capita income 10 percent. (The impact of education is not immediately realized; the diffusion of knowledge about good hygiene and child care associated with learning has a cumulative effect.) Alderman and Garcia found that in Pakistan, food security alone is not enough to improve children's nutritional status. There may be welfare justifications for various food policies, but in rural Pakistan, especially, it is equally important to improve health and reduce infection.Health Economics&Finance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Early Child and Children's Health,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems
Child nutrition, child health, and school enrollment : a longitudinal analysis
Full text linkBetter health and nutrition are thought to improve children's performance in school, and therefore their productivity after school. Most literature ignores the fact that child health and schooling reflect behavioral choices, so the estimated impact of health and nutrition on a child's schooling reflects biases in the studies. Using an explicit dynamic model for preferred estimates, the authors use longitudinal data to investigate how children's health and nutrition affect school enrollment in rural Pakistan. They use price shocks when children were of preschool age to control for behavior determining the measure of children's health and nutrition stock. The authors find that children's health and nutrition is three times more important for enrollment than is suggested by"naive estimates"that assume that children's health and nutrition is predetermined rather that determined by household choices. Not only does improved nutrition increase enrollments, it does so more for girls, thus closing a portion of the gender gap. These results strongly reinforce the importance of using estimation methods that are consistent with the economic theory of households to explore the impact of some choice variables on others, using socioeconomic behavioral data. Private behaviors and public policies that affect the health and nutrition of children have much greater effect on school enrollment and on eventual productivity than suggested by early literature methods.Teaching and Learning,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Primary Education,Early Child and Children's Health,Public Health Promotion,Science Education,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Economic Theory&Research,Primary Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation
Assessing the Targeting Performance of Social Programs: Cape Verde
Full text linkBudget constraints faced by governments in developing countries imply that the targeting performance of public subsidies and social programs (whether the subsidies are provided in cash or in kind) is important for reducing poverty. In this paper, we analyze the distributional properties of the main existing social programs in Cape Verde and assess whether various targeting systems (including proxy means testing and geographic targeting) could help to improve targeting performance.Poverty; social programs; targeting; Cape Verde; benefit incidence; geographic targeting; proxy means testing
Preschool Nutrition and Subsequent Schooling Attainment: Longitudinal Evidence from Tanzania
Full text linkThis study analyses how childhood health determines future academic performance in Kagera region in Tanzania. Academic outcomes considered are years of education and delay in enrollment, while the measure of childhood health is (relative to the median) height. The repercussions of malnutrition in childhood on subsequent learning and school performance are analyzed by using a unique longitudinal dataset. Result indicate the degree to which malnutrition leads to reduced lifetime earning capacity due to both delays in schooling and declines in total schooling
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