Human Capital Investment and Poverty Reduction over Generations: A Case from the Rural Philippines, 1979-2003

This paper attempts to identify a pathway out of poverty over generations in the rural Philippines, based on long-term panel data spanning for nearly a quarter of a century. Specifically, it sequentially examines the determinants of schooling, subsequent occupational choices, and current non-farm earnings for the same individuals. We found that an initial rise in parental income, brought about by the land reform and the Green Revolution, among other things, improves the schooling of children, which later allows them to obtain remunerative non-farm jobs. These results suggest that the increased agricultural income, improved human capital through schooling and the development of non-farm sectors are the keys to reducing poverty in the long run. It must be also pointed out that the recent development of the rural non-farm sector offers ample employment opportunities for the less educated, which also significantly contributed to the poverty reduction.

Influence of Social Institutions on Inequality in China

This study analyses the impact of changes in social institutions, i.e. in the informal and formal social security system, on income inequality in China. This study uses an inequality decomposition analysis approach comparing household survey data for 1988 with 1995.Three main results emerge from the analysis: first, it findsthat the family based social security is losing its importance mainly through the changes in employment pattern in a household. This change contributes to rising income inequality. Second, thestudy shows that the introduction of new formal social security system helped to equalise the distribution of retired household members' income in urban areas in 1995. Third, however, these changes have only benefited a restricted number of persons. Benefits for rural migrants are low and most of the rural population has still no access to the new system.

Bounding ATE with ITT

We propose the bounds on ATE using intention-to-treat (ITT) estimator when there are compliers/noncompliers in randomized trials. The bounds are given as ITTNACE, (2) noncompliers' average treatment effect (NACE) is nonnegative. We give an example of poverty impacts of health insurance, and effects of adverse selection and moral hazard of health insurance.

能力は有限、知識は無限

1993年にアメリカのロチェスター大学でSergio Rebelo準教授（当時）の経済成長論を履修した。ある授業でRebelo教授に「しばしば人的資本と技術は混同されがちだけれども、両者は財の性質上、大きく異なっている。技術、中でも他人に簡単に伝達できるように文書や設計図に記されている知識は公共財的性質を持っているが、人的資本はむしろ通常の財に似ている。知識は他人に簡単に漏洩し盗用されやすいが、人的資本はその所有者が専有可能である。その上、人的資本はその所有者が死んでしまえば消失するが、知識は記録として残る。この意味で、人的資本蓄積は有限だが、知識の蓄積は無限に可能である」と教わった。自分はそれまで、新古典派成長理論で仮定される「労働に体化された技術進歩」ばかり勉強していたので、技術と人的資本を同一視していた。それだけにこの説明は非常に新鮮であった。（以下略）

開発戦略としてのPro-Poor Growth －貧困層への雇用創出－

本稿は、後発開発途上国においてpro-poor growthを達成する開発戦略を、産業政策との関連から研究したものである。アジアとアフリカの経済発展プロセスにおいて、貧困層にどの産業が雇用機会を提供するか、を研究した。その結果明らかになったのは、1970-90年代の典型的な東アジア高成長経済であるタイと台湾において、貧困層に最も大きな雇用機会を与えたのが農業部門であったのに対して、貧困層の雇用機会増に最も貢献したのが製造業部門であったということである。同様の傾向は、アフリカの輸出指向成長国であるモーリシャスについても観察された。一方、グローバリゼーションの活力が十分に生かされなかったマラウィ、南アフリカ、インドにおいては、製造業が同様の雇用機会を貧困層に提供できなかった。結論として導かれるのは、典型的な後発発展途上国においては、雇用に関して農業のシェアが製造業のシェアを上回るのが一般的であるものの、もし比較優位がグローバリゼーションの中で顕在化できるのであれば、貧困層の雇用機会増に関して、農業よりも製造業の貢献度が大きくなりうる、ということである。一国全体の経済発展という観点のみならず、貧困層に利益をもたらすpro-poor growthという文脈においても、製造業の果たす役割が無視し得ないことが明らかになった。

Pakistani Migration to the United States:An Economic Perspective

The 9-11 attack on the US brought a set of changes in overseas migration from Pakistan. One such change is the sharp increase in remittances sent from the United States. The paper argues that the characteristics of remittances from the United States differ from those originating in the Middle East. Just as the overseas Pakistani communities are diversified, the nature and characteristics of remittances are heterogeneous, depending on where they come from and who sends them. While the importance of remittance flows from the United States is rising, not much academic attention has been paid to this issue because of a lack of data. To better understand the reasons behind the increase in US remittances, and in order to evaluate their sustainability, household surveys are necessary.

Seasonal migration and micro-credit in the lean period : evidence from northwest Bangladesh

This paper investigates the relationship between access to micro-credit and temporary seasonal migration, an issue which is largely ignored in the standard rural-urban migration literature. Seasonal migration due to agricultural downturns is a common phenomenon in developing countries. Using primary data from a cross-sectional household survey from the northwest part of Bangladesh, this study quantifies the factors that influence such migration decisions. Among other results, we find that network effects play a significant role in influencing the migration decision, with the presence of kinsmen at the place of destination having considerable impact. Seasonal migration is a natural choice for individual suffering periodic hardship; however the strict weekly loan repayment rules of Micro-credit Institutes can have an adverse effect on this process, reducing the ability of borrowers to react to a shock. Our result suggests that poor individuals prefer the option of not accessing the micro-credit and opt for temporal seasonal migration during the lean period. The results have numerous potential policy implications, including the design of typical micro-credit schemes.

Ramadan school holidays as a natural experiment : impacts of seasonality on school dropout in Bangladesh

In 2000, Ramadan school vacation coincided with the original annual exam period of December in Bangladesh. This forced schools to pre-pone their final exam schedules in November, which was the month before the harvest begins. 'Ramadan 2000' is a natural experiment that reduced the labor demand for children during the exam period. Using household level panel data of 2000 and 2003, and after controlling for various unobservable variations including individual fixed effects, aggregate year effects, and subdistrict-level year effects, this paper finds evidence of statistically significant impact of seasonal labor demand on school dropout in Bangladesh among the children from agricultural households.

Foctors that prevent children from gaining access to schooling : a study of Delhi Slum households

This paper examines the factors that prevent slum children aged 5 to 14 from gaining access to schooling in light of the worsening urban poverty and sizable increase in rural-to-urban migration. Bias against social disadvantage in terms of gender and caste is not clearly manifested in schooling, while migrated children are less likely to attend school. I argue that the lack of preparation for schooling in the pre-schooling ages and school admission procedures are the main obstacles for migrated children. The most important implication for universal elementary education in urban India is raising parental awareness and simplifying the admission procedures.

Returns to migration : the role of educational attainment in rural Tanzania

Given the migration premium previously identified in an impact evaluation approach, this paper asks the question of why migration is not more prominent, given such high premium associated with it. Using long-term household panel data drawn from rural Tanzania, Kagera for the period 1991-2004, this study aims to answer this question by exploring the contribution of education in the migration premium. By separating migrants into those that moved out of original villages but remained within Kagera and those who left the region, this study finds that, in consumption, the return on investment in education is higher at both destinations. However, whilst the higher return on education fully explains the gains associated with migration within Kagera, it only partly explains those of external migration. These findings suggest that welfare opportunities are higher at the destination and that an individual's limited investment in education plays a major role in preventing short-distance migration from becoming a significant source of raising welfare, which is not the case for long-distance migration. While education plays a role, it appears that other mechanisms may prohibit rural agents from exploiting the arbitrage opportunity when they migrate to the destination at a great distance from the source.

Caste, land, and migration : a preliminary analysis of a village survey in an underdeveloped state in India

This paper explores migration from Bihar, one of the most underdeveloped states in India, by paying particular attention to social class (caste) and landholdings. After describing details of individual migrants, we present our preliminary findings on the determinants of migration, based on our field survey of 200 households in four villages in 2011. In terms of social class, Muslims are more likely to migrate, but Scheduled Castes do not show a high propensity to migrate as is stated in some of the existing literature where the underclass is said to be more mobile. In terms of landholdings, the probability that someone will migrate is high among the landless and smaller landholders but it decreases as the size of the landholding increases. However, as the size of the landholding increases still further, a reverse effect of landholding on decisions regarding migration moves in, with the decline in probability becoming less and less. This result confirms a non-linear relationship between landholdings and the decision to migrate. Some further research questions are raised in the paper.

Factor decomposition of income inequality change : Japan's regional income disparity from 1955 to 1998

We propose a method for the decomposition of inequality changes based on panel data regression. The method is an efficient way to quantify the contributions of variables to changes of the Theil T index while satisfying the property of uniform addition. We illustrate the method using prefectural data from Japan for the period 1955 to 1998. Japan experienced a diminishing of regional income disparity during the years of high economic growth from 1955 to 1973. After estimating production functions using panel data for prefectures in Japan, we apply the new decomposition approach to identify each production factor’s contributions to the changes of per capita income inequality among prefectures. The decomposition results show that total factor productivity (residual) growth, population change (migration), and public capital stock growth contributed to the diminishing of per capita income disparity.

Where does Philippine education go? : the "K to 12" program and reform of Philippine basic education

In 2012 the Philippines launched its "K to 12" Program, a comprehensive reform of its basic education. Through this reform, the Philippines is catching up with global standards in secondary education and is attaching a high value to kindergarten. The structure, curricula, and philosophy of the education system are undergoing reform and improvement. The key points of the new policy are "preparation" for higher education, "eligibility" for entering domestic and overseas higher educational institutions, and immediate "employability" on graduating, all leading toward a "holistically developed Filipino". This policy appears admirable and timely, but it faces some pedagogical and socioeconomic problems. The author wants to point out in particular that the policy needs to address gender problems and should be combined with demand-side approaches in order to promote poverty alleviation and human development in the Philippines.

The Bangladesh gender gap in education : biased intra-household educational expenditures

By investigating the educational expenditure of children over the ten years (2000 to 2010), we evaluate whether there exists any gender specific discrepancy at the household level and the trend of such discrepancy over the years. Using three rounds of nationally representative Household Income & Expenditure Surveys this study reveals that households spend less on education for their school-going girls compared to boys. By disaggregating the total expenditure into fixed and variable components, we find persistent gender imbalance in educational expenditure where households provide better quality of education for boys. Moreover, we find that gender based discrepancy has a very persistent trend and does not show any significant sign of narrowing the gap over the years. Cohort wise difference-in-difference estimation also reveals that the gap has initially widened and later converged but has not diminished beyond the initial level of discrepancy, which may warrant targeted policy intervention.