In October 2019, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer jointly won the 51st Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel "for their experimental approach to ...alleviating global poverty." But what is the exact scope of their experimental method, known as randomized control trials (RCTs)? Which sorts of questions are RCTs able to address and which do they fail to answer? This book provides answers to these questions, explaining how RCTs work, what they can achieve, why they sometimes fail, how they can be improved and why other methods are both useful and necessary. Chapters contributed by leading specialists in the field present a full and coherent picture of the main strengths and weaknesses of RCTs in the field of development. Looking beyond the epistemological, political, and ethical differences underlying many of the disagreements surrounding RCTs, it explores the implementation of RCTs on the ground, outside of their ideal theoretical conditions and reveals some unsuspected uses and effects, their disruptive potential, but also their political uses. The contributions uncover the implicit worldview that many RCTs draw on and disseminate, and probe the gap between the method's narrow scope and its success, while also proposing improvements and alternatives. This book warns against the potential dangers of their excessive use, arguing that the best use for RCTs is not necessarily that which immediately springs to mind, and offering opportunity to come to an informed and reasoned judgement on RCTs and what they can bring to development.
This book discusses how citizens can participate more effectively in sustainability science and environmental policy debates. It discusses designs for participatory procedures, and experiences of ...their application to issues of global change. While the focus is on citizen participation, the involvement of specific stakeholders - including water managers and venture capitalists - is also addressed. The book describes how focus group methods were combined with the interactive use of computer models into new forms of participation, tested with six hundred citizens. The results are discussed in relation to other important topics, including greenhouse gas and water management. By combining this with an examination of issues of interactive governance and developing country participation, the book provides state-of-the-art, practical insights for students, researchers and policy makers alike.
In order to promote economic activity, a country needs a productive and sound financial structure and financial development as a backbone of the economic development of the country. Our study thus ...aims to investigate the “resource curse” hypothesis in the presence of globalization, human capital, and economic growth in China during the period 1971–2017. Within a multivariate framework, we provide more rigorous analysis through several econometric methods, for instance, the Bayer and Hanck cointegration, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL), robustness check by fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), canonical cointegrating regression (CCR), and Breitung-Candelon spectral Granger causality testing. Our findings show that the effect of natural resources on financial development is negative and confirm China's resources curse hypothesis, while globalization, human capital, and economic development lead to improving the financial development of the country. The causality analysis reveals that natural resources, human capital, and economic growth have a long-term relationship with financial development, while globalization short and medium-term linked with financial development. In order to promote financial sector development, our empirical outcomes have significant policy implications that highlight the need to encourage globalization and the development of human capital to ensure the effective management of natural resources.
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•We explore the “resource curse” hypothesis in the presence of globalization, human capital, and economic growth in China.•The Bayer and Hanck cointegration, the ARDL bounds cointegration, and robust econometrics techniques are employed.•In the long-run, natural resources, human capital, and economic growth are important predictors for financial development.•Globalization contributes to financial development in the medium-term and short-term.
The Routledge Handbook of Development Ethics provides readers with insight into the central questions of development ethics, the main approaches to answering them, and areas for future research. Over ...the past seventy years, it has been argued and increasingly accepted that worthwhile development cannot be reduced to economic growth. Rather, a number of other goals must be realised: Enhancement of people's well-being Equitable sharing in benefits of development Empowerment to participate freely in development Environmental sustainability Promotion of human rights Promotion of cultural freedom, consistent with human rights Responsible conduct, including integrity over corruption Agreement that these are essential goals has also been accompanied by disagreements about how to conceptualize or apply them in different cases or contexts. Using these seven goals as an organizing principle, this handbook presents different approaches to achieving each one, drawing on academic literature, policy documents and practitioner experience. This international and multi-disciplinary handbook will be of great interest to development policy makers and program workers, students and scholars in development studies, public policy, international studies, applied ethics and other related disciplines.
The financial system needs to develop in order for natural resource exports to have a positive effect on economic growth. Yet, an advanced financial system is crucial for transferring the revenues ...from oil exports to productive investments. If the level of development of the financial system remains under a certain threshold, the effect of natural resource exports on economic growth is too low. In this vein, the determination of the level and the deepness of financial development that has a positive impact on the growth of natural resource exports should be clarified. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the impact of natural resource exports on economic growth and the level of financial deepening by using the data of the selected Next-11 countries for the period of 1996–2016. Nonlinear panel data methodology is used in the study. Based on the empirical results, for the first regime, where the rate of financial deepening is under 45%, the increase in oil exports does not have a statistically significant effect on ecenomic growth. For the second regime, where financial deepening is over 45%, one unit increase in oil exports causes a 7% increase in economic growth.
•Impact of natural resource exports on economic growth and financial deepening of selected Next-11 countries for period 1996-2016.•The stationarity conditions of the series, the CIPS test (Cross Sectionally Augmented IPS), developed by Peasaran (2007).•For the first regime, the increase in oil exports does not have a statistically significant effect on ecenomic growth.•For the second regime, where financial deepening is above 45%, one unit increase in oil exports causes a 7% increase in economic growth.
•Before the pandemic progress toward some SDGs was lacking.•Post-pandemic here may be less financing for attaining the SDGs.•Affordable policies that meet several SDGs simultaneously are ...needed.•Fossil fuel and irrigation subsidy swaps to end water and energy poverty.•Tropical carbon tax to fund natural climate solutions.
Developing countries are highly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic, in part due to the lack of international support for ensuring progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet the mounting financial burden faced by all countries means that additional support is unlikely to be forthcoming in the near future. It is critical that developing countries find innovative policy mechanisms to achieve sustainability and development aims in a cost-effective manner. This requires identifying affordable policies that can yield immediate progress towards several SDGs together and aligns economic incentives for longer term sustainable development. We identify three policies that meet these criteria: a fossil fuel subsidy swap to fund clean energy investments and dissemination of renewable energy in rural areas; reallocating irrigation subsidies to improve water supply, sanitation and wastewater infrastructure; and a tropical carbon tax, which is a levy on fossil fuels that funds natural climate solutions. Such innovative and cost-effective policy mechanisms do not require substantial external support, and they foster greater progress towards achieving the SDGs in poorer economies.
Countries commencing industrialization with relatively low levels of agricultural productivity, hence low wages, enjoy advantages that can also prove host to daunting challenges. The chief advantage ...is a relatively elastic supply of labor for manufacturing; the chief challenge is how to free up farm labor for factory employment through the raising of labor productivity in farming. Key to raising agricultural labor productivity is providing incentives to increase effort levels including hours worked — access to markets being crucial — and improving the quality of labor as measured by health indicators and educational attainment. The willingness of elites to promote improvements in infrastructure — physical infrastructure in the form of roads and railroads and hydroelectric systems; human capital enhancing infrastructure augmenting the educational attainment and health of populations in rural areas; and financial infrastructure — and to invest directly in factories is crucial to the process by which labor is transferred from farming to manufacturing activities. During the period 1850 to 1935 elites in China tended to resist the requisite changes while elites in Japan did not. This legacy played a crucial role in shaping the nature of post-1950 economic development in the two countries.
A rationale for public investment in rural roads is that households can better exploit agricultural and nonagricultural opportunities to employ labor and capital more efficiently. Significant ...knowledge gaps persist, however, as to how opportunities provided by roads actually filter back into household outcomes as well as distributional consequences. This study examines the impacts of two rural road-paving projects in Bangladesh using a new quasi-experimental household panel data set surveying project and control villages before and after program implementation. A household panel fixed-effects methodology controlling for initial area conditions is used to estimate the impact of paved roads on household and individual outcomes and account for potential bias in program placement at the village level. Rural road investments are found to reduce poverty significantly through higher agricultural production, lower input and transportation costs, and higher agricultural output prices at local village markets. Rural road development has also led to higher secondary schooling enrollment for boys and girls, as compared to primary school enrollment. We find that road investments have also benefited the poor, meaning the gains are significant for the poor and in some cases disproportionately higher than for the nonpoor.
The Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 was supposed to be the death knell for the developmental state. The International Monetary Fund supplied emergency funds for shattered economies but demanded ...that states liberalize financial markets and withdraw from direct involvement in the economy. Financial liberalization was meant to spell the end of strategic industry policy and the state-directed "policy lending" it involved. Yet, largely unremarked by analysts, South Korea has since seen a striking revival of financial activism. Policy lending by state-owned development banks has returned the state to the core of the financial system. Korean development banks now account for one quarter of all loans and take the lead in providing low-cost finance to local manufacturing firms in strategic industries.
Elizabeth Thurbon argues that an ideational analysis can help explain this renewed financial activism. She demonstrates the presence of a "developmental mindset" on the part of political leaders and policy elites in Korea. This mindset involves shared ways of thinking about the purpose of finance and its relationship to the productive economy. The developmental mindset has a long history in Korea but is subject to the vicissitudes of political and economic circumstances. Thurbon traces the structural, institutional, political, and ideational factors that have strengthened and at times weakened the developmental consensus, culminating in the revival of financial activism in Korea. In doing so, Thurbon offers a novel defense of the developmental state idea and a new framework for investigating the emergence and evolution of developmental states. She also canvasses the implications of the Korean experience for wider debates concerning the future of financial activism in an era of financialization, energy insecurity, and climate change.
East Asia has three of the most powerful economies on earth, but they are losing steam. Dwight Perkins draws on extensive experience in the region to explain the reasons for this rapid economic ...growth since the 1960s and to ask if the recent slowdown is a local phenomenon or typical of all economies at this stage of development.
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