47 research outputs found
Phone Survey Data from Western Terai Panel Survey
No full textThis dataset contains phone survey responses from the Western Terai Panel Survey. The data includes phone surveys from 2,636 rural households in 90 villages in the districts of Kailali and Kanchanpur in the western Terai region of Nepal, collected from August 2019 through October 2020
Replication Data for "COVID-19 and mental health in eight Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A prospective cohort study"
No full textReplication data and code for the paper "COVID-19 and mental health in eight Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A prospective cohort study"
COVID‐19 through the lens of seasonal agriculture in South Asia
No full text75% of the world's poor reside in rural areas where the local economy is tied to agriculture. We interpret new panel data on COVID-19 from Nepal and Bangladesh in relation to agricultural seasonality. Conditions in April–June 2020 were comparable to a typical lean season even though the pandemic arrived at harvest time. Income losses stem from both depressed local employment as well as lower migration and remittances. We also document indirect adverse health impacts on nutrition and mental health. Findings are specific to the nature of economic activity at harvest, and effective pandemic policy must evolve with the agricultural season
Falling living standards during the COVID-19 crisis: Quantitative evidence from nine developing countries
No full textDespite numerous journalistic accounts, systematic quantitative evidence on economic conditions during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic remains scarce for most low- and middle-income countries, partly due to limitations of official economic statistics in environments with large informal sectors and subsistence agriculture. We assemble evidence from over 30,000 respondents in 16 original household surveys from nine countries in Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone), Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, Philippines), and Latin America (Colombia). We document declines in employment and income in all settings beginning March 2020. The share of households experiencing an income drop ranges from 8 to 87% (median, 68%). Household coping strategies and government assistance were insufficient to sustain precrisis living standards, resulting in widespread food insecurity and dire economic conditions even 3 months into the crisis. We discuss promising policy responses and speculate about the risk of persistent adverse effects, especially among children and other vulnerable groups
Migration costs and observational returns to migration in the developing world
No full textMigration costs and observational returns to migration in the developing worl
Migration and the labour market impacts of COVID-19
No full textUsing detailed microdata, we document how migration-dependent households are especially vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. We create pre- and post-COVID panel datasets for three populations in Bangladesh and Nepal, leveraging experimental and observational variation in prior migration dependence. We report 25 per cent greater declines in earnings and fourfold greater prevalence of food insecurity among migrant households since March. Causes include lower migration rates, less remittance income per migrant, isolation in origin communities, and greater health risks. We compile a large set of secondary data to demonstrate the extent of vulnerability worldwide and conclude with recommendations for policy targeted at migrants
Migration costs and observational returns to migration in the developing world
No full textRecent studies find that observational returns to rural-urban migration are near zero in three developing countries. We revisit this result using panel tracking surveys from six countries, finding higher returns on average. We then interpret these returns in a multi-region Roy model with heterogeneity in migration costs. In the model, the observational return to migration confounds the urban premium and the individual benefits of migrants, and is not directly informative about the welfare gain from lowering migration costs. Patterns of regional heterogeneity in returns, and a comparison of experimental to observational returns, are consistent with the model’s predictions
Migration and resilience during a global crisis
No full textThis study explores the relationship between migration and household resilience during a global crisis that eliminated the option to migrate. We link prior data from four populations in Bangladesh and Nepal to new phone surveys conducted during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. While earnings fell universally, pandemic-induced declines were 14%–25% greater among previously migration-dependent households and urban migrant workers, with household remittance losses far exceeding official statistics. Heightened economic exposure during the pandemic erased prior gains achieved by transnational migrants and caused fourfold greater prevalence of food insecurity among domestic subsistence migrants. Economic distress spilled over onto non-migrants in high-migration villages and labor markets. We show that migration contributed to economic contagion independent of its role in disease transmission. Losing the option to migrate differentially increased the vulnerability of migration-dependent households during a crisis
Migration and the labour market impacts of COVID-19
No full textUsing detailed microdata, we document how migration-dependent households are especially vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. We create pre- and post-COVID panel datasets for three populations in Bangladesh and Nepal, leveraging experimental and observational variation in prior migration dependence. We report 25 per cent greater declines in earnings and fourfold greater prevalence of food insecurity among migrant households since March. Causes include lower migration rates, less remittance income per migrant, isolation in origin communities, and greater health risks. We compile a large set of secondary data to demonstrate the extent of vulnerability worldwide and conclude with recommendations for policy targeted at migrants
