Nighttime lights, calculated from weather satellite recordings, are increasingly used by social scientists as a proxy for economic activity or economic development in subnational regions of ...developing countries where disaggregated data from statistical offices are not available. However, so far, our understanding of what nighttime lights capture in these countries is limited. We use geo-referenced Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from 29 African countries to construct indicators of household wealth, education and health for DHS cluster locations as well as for grid cells of roughly 50 × 50 km. We show that nighttime lights are positively associated with these location-specific indicators of human development, and that the variation in nighttime lights can explain a substantial share in the variation in these indicators. We conclude that nighttime lights are a good proxy for human development at the local level.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
REGIONAL FAVORITISM Hodler, Roland; Raschky, Paul A.
The Quarterly journal of economics,
05/2014, Letnik:
129, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
We complement the literature on distributive politics by taking a systematic look at regional favoritism in a large and diverse sample of countries and by employing a broad measure that captures the ...aggregate distributive effect of many different policies. In particular, we use satellite data on nighttime light intensity and information about the birthplaces of the countries’ political leaders. In our panel of 38,427 subnational regions from 126 countries with yearly observations from 1992 to 2009, we find that subnational regions have more intense nighttime light when being the birth region of the current political leader. We argue that this finding provides evidence for regional favoritism. We explore the dynamics and the geographical extent of regional favoritism and show that regional favoritism is most prevalent in countries with weak political institutions and poorly educated citizens. Furthermore, foreign aid inflows and oil rents tend to fuel regional favoritism in weakly institutionalized countries, but not elsewhere.
We investigate whether foreign aid from China is prone to political capture in aid-receiving countries. Specifically, we examine whether more Chinese aid is allocated to the birth regions of ...political leaders, controlling for indicators of need and various fixed effects. We collect data on 117 African leaders' birthplaces and geocode 1650 Chinese development projects across 2969 physical locations in Africa from 2000 to 2012. Our econometric results show that political leaders' birth regions receive substantially larger financial flows from China in the years when they hold power compared to what the same region receives at other times. We find evidence that these biases are a consequence of electoral competition: Chinese aid disproportionately benefits politically privileged regions in country-years when incumbents face upcoming elections and when electoral competitiveness is high. We observe no such pattern of favoritism in the spatial distribution of World Bank development projects.
•We study the subnational allocation of Chinese aid in Africa.•We combine information of leaders' birthplaces with geocoded Chinese aid data.•Political leaders' birth regions receive more Chinese aid.•Effects are stronger before executive elections and when elections are competitive.•We find no birth-region bias in the allocation of World Bank aid.
Do intense religious experiences increase or decrease terrorism? We argue that fasting during the month of Ramadan offers an ideal setting for studying this question empirically. Reasons are twofold: ...first, daily fasting from dawn to sunset during Ramadan is considered mandatory for most Muslims. Second, the Islamic Hijri calendar is not synchronized with the solar cycle. Therefore, the daily fasting duration during Ramadan is exogenous once we control for latitude and the seasonality of Ramadan, which we can do by using district and country-year fixed effects. Focusing on predominantly Muslim countries, we document three main findings: first, longer and more intense Ramadan fasting has a robust negative effect on the likelihood of local terrorist events and terror deaths over the next year. Second, this negative effect is particularly pronounced for operationally more difficult attack types, which are more dependent on public support for terrorism. Third, using survey data, we show that longer and more intense Ramadan fasting lowers the share of respondents who consider religiously motivated violence to be justified. These findings imply that intense religious experiences may not be a breeding ground for terrorism. Quite the opposite, they can decrease public support for terrorism and, consequently, terrorist attacks.
There is a widely held belief that natural resource rents are a blessing if institutions are strong, but a curse if institutions are weak. We use data from 3,800 Sub-Saharan African districts and ...apply a causal forest estimator to reassess the relationship between institutions and the effects of resource rents. Consistent with this belief, we document that stronger institutions increase the positive effect of the presence of mining activities on economic development and dampen the negative effect of mining activities on conflict. In contrast, we find that the effects of higher world mineral prices on economic development and conflict in mining districts are non-linear and vary little in institutional quality.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
We hypothesize that natural resource revenues may deteriorate contract enforcement if political institutions are weak. As poor contract enforcement leads to low financial development, resource ...revenues may hinder financial development in countries with poor political institutions, but not in countries with comparatively better political institutions. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis based on within-country variation in our sample covering the period 1970–2005 and 133 countries. Our results are robust to the use of additional control variables, different samples, and alternative measures of financial development and political institutions.
Oil spills can lead to irreversible environmental degradation and are a potential hazard to human health. We study how onshore oil spills affect neonatal and infant mortality by combining spatial ...data from the Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor with Demographic and Health Surveys. To identify a causal effect, we compare siblings born to the same mother, conceived before and after a nearby oil spill. We find that nearby oil spills that occur before conception increase neonatal mortality by 38.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, which corresponds to an increase of around 100% on the sample mean. The effect is fairly uniform across girls and boys, socio-economic backgrounds, and locations. We show that this effect is not driven by events related to oil production or violent conflict. Rather, our results are consistent with medical and epidemiological evidence showing that exposure to hydrocarbons can pose risks to fetal development. We provide further evidence suggesting that the effects of oil spills on neonatal mortality persist for several years after the occurrence of an oil spill.
This paper develops a model that can explain why natural resources are a blessing for some countries, but a curse for others. In this model, natural resources cause fighting activities between ...rivalling groups. Fighting reduces productive activities and weakens property rights, making productive activities even less attractive. The aggregate production decrease exceeds the natural resources’ direct positive income effect if and only if the number of rivalling groups is sufficiently large. The model thus predicts that natural resources lower incomes in fractionalized countries, but increase incomes in homogenous countries. Empirical evidence supporting this prediction is provided.
There were large differences in the responses of Arab dictators to the Arab Spring protests. To understand these differences, I present a stylized model of how a dictator responds to mass protests ...for democratization in a polarized country with two ethnic or religious groups. In this model, the dictator's response crucially depends on oil revenues and his affiliation to either the majority or the minority group. I document that the model's predictions are consistent with the observed differences in the Arab dictators' responses. Hence, ethnic politics and religious divides may play an important role in political transitions and regime changes. (JEL D72, D74)
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