Jeffrey Bloem, Khandker Wahedur Rahman, and Harshada Karnik are PhD students in Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota
In this series of posts we provide brief summaries of many papers presented at the2018 Midwest International Economic Development Conference (MIEDC). Unfortunately, we were unable to attend every session. Apologies to the presenters we missed.
Poverty
Efficiency and Equity of Land Policy in Developing Country Cities: Evidence from Mumbai Mills Redevelopment [Michael Getcher]
One of the benefits of cities is the efficacy gains associated with employment density. In cities within developing countries, the density of employment is much less concentrated than cities within developed countries. With this reality in mind, the authors ask, what is the effect of urban development on neighboring sites? To answer this question the authors exploit a natural experiment in Mumbai, India where a city policy prompted the rapid redevelopment of run-down mills. Using neural network learning algorithms the authors find evidence of spillovers from redevelopment sites onto nearby sites. This effect is good in terms of economic efficiency, but perhaps bad for economic and social equity.
Income, Psychological Well-Being, and the Dynamics of Poverty: Evidence from South Africa [Mo Alloush]
What is the effect of income on psychological wellbeing and what is the effect of psychological wellbeing on income? The existence of a feedback loop between income and psychological well-being could lead to a psychological poverty trap. That is, negative economic outcomes lead to diminished psychological well-being and this, in turn, often leads to additional negative economic outcomes. Using a GMM panel approach to estimate a system of dynamic and simultaneous equations, the author finds evidence of a feedback loop between psychological well-being and income. Moreover, these average effects are largely driven by changes in psychological well-being near a threshold commonly-used by psychologists to screen for depression. Finally, these dynamics are strongest among the poor, indicating important implications for poverty alleviation dynamics.
Labor and Migration
Effect of Foreign Migration on School Choice of Kids Remaining Back at Home: Analysis Using Bangladesh HIES Data [Khandker Wahed Rahman]
In Bangladesh, religious educational institutions, called madrasas, remain popular despite the widely-understood limits of the economic returns to this form of education. At the same time international migration is an increasingly likely phenomenon. These two realities beg the question, what is the effect of a household sending a migrant abroad on likelihood a household sends a child to a madrasa? Using household data from Bangladesh, the author finds that sending a migrant abroad, and primarily to gulf countries, has a positive effect on the likelihood a household sends a child to a madrasa. These results may have important implications for understanding the consequences of migration policy.
Political Economy
Leadership and Gender Discrimination: Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia [Shanthi Manian]
All around the world women are underrepresented in leadership positions. Using a lab-in-the-field experiment the authors address the question, what is the effect of the gender of a leader on indicators of discrimination? Additionally, the authors study whether providing information about the ability of a leader changes attitudes and the gender gap. The experiment highlights the existence of discrimination against female leaders in the absence of information about the leader’s ability. However, when information is provided about the leader’s ability, the gender gap is reversed. These results suggest the presence of statistical discrimination, rather than taste-based discrimination.
Upstream Effects of Female Political Reservations [Daniel Rosenblum]
In India, more women are running and winning elected office. Additionally, state level regulations explicitly reserved specific elected offices to be held by women. How much of the recent trend of women in politics is attributable to the local level reservations policy? The authors investigate this question by using data on state and national Indian elections. The authors find that there is a significant effect of the reservation policy on the number of women who run for political office and a weak effect on women who win political office. These results provide important implications for affirmative action policies.
Intergovernmental Conflict and Censorship-Evidence from China’s Anti-Corruption Campaign [Maiting Zhuang]
What do we know about conflict of interest within an autocracy? Outwardly there are strong incentives to communicate unity and broad agreement, however in practice is there any evidence of intergovernmental conflict? The author investigates this question by using information about the reporting patterns of local level Chinese newspapers. Results show evidence of underreporting of corruption. Further analysis suggests that this effect is likely in response to local government pressure to suppress coverage of corruption at the local level. This effect contradicts a popular and well-known campaign of the national Chinese government to clean up corruption in the Chinese government.
Methodology
How Many Friends Do You Have? An Empirical Investigation into Censoring-Induced Bias in Social Network Data [Alan Griffith]
The typical way of measuring social network data on most questionnaire forms is to ask respondents to list their 5 (or some other finite number) closest friends. The author points out that social network data collected with a censored list of friends may lead to biased estimates of peer-effects. This is because there is omitted information about peer relationships with other individuals within the data. Omitting this data can lead to tricky limitations on empirical estimates of peer effects. The author provides several potential solutions for solving this problem, such as performing extensive pre-testing of questionnaires before data collection begins, but the problem is quite problematic.
Violence Against Children in Nyarugusu Refugee Camp: Reporting and Perceptions Across Generations [Seth Gitter]
There are lots of displaced children in the world and many are at risk of exposure to violence within refugee camps. Despite general knowledge about the presence of violence within these settings, little is known about the specific dynamics of this violence and how to react to it. This study investigates this issue in the Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania by eliciting information about social norms about reporting violence against children. To complete this task the authors administer fictional vignettes with randomized characteristics. Answers to questions about this hypothetical child provide measures of both parents’ and children’s perceptions of violence.
Constructing Internally Consistent BMI Z-scores for Adults and Children to Examine Intra-Household Health Effects [Felix Naschold]
Understanding the intra-household allocation of resources is an increasingly understood need in development economics. This is evident from recent studies indicating that a large share of the poor around the world live within non-poor households. This raises the question, how can we best measure individual-level well-being measures in order to better assess intra-household allocation. The author develops a method for calculating comparable BMI z-scores for both children and adults. This method constitutes an improvement over existing methodologies of accurately assessing intra-household distributions of health outcomes.
