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SAGA PUBLICATIONS Included here are Working Papers and Conference Papers. Publications on this page are organized by author: RETURN TO MAIN AUTHORS PAGE Gabre-Madhin, Eleni Heterogeneous Impacts of Cooperatives on Smallholders’ Commercialization Behavior: Evidence from Ethiopia May 2007 Tanguy, Bernard, Eleni Gabre-Madhin and Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse This paper examines the impact of marketing cooperatives on smallholder commercialization of cereals using detailed household data in rural Ethiopia. We use the strong government role in promoting the establishment of cooperatives to justify the use of propensity score matching in order to compare households that are cooperative members to similar households in comparable areas without cooperatives. The analysis reveals that while cooperatives obtain higher prices for their members, they are not associated with a significant increase in the overall share of surplus cereal production sold commercially by their members. However, these average results hide considerable heterogeneity in the impact across households. In particular, we find smaller farmers tend reduce their marketable surplus as a result of higher prices, while the opposite is true for larger farmers. Prepared for the AERC-Cornell Conference on “Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” May 31-June 1, 2007, Nairobi, Kenya Gadsden, Chris Budget Reform as a Means to Strengthen the Link Between Macro and Micro Policies October 2004 Taz Chaponda, Neil Cole, Mickie Schoch, and Chris Gadsden The paper argues that a credible budget provides the link between broad macroeconomic policies and strategies and microeconomic policies facilitating the achievement of development and poverty reduction targets. The paper’s thesis centres around the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) which has been lauded as the method to translate broad macroeconomic aggregates into effective public expenditure programmes based on a multi-year fiscal framework. While a number of countries in Africa – most notably South Africa and Uganda – have seen significant benefits, such as increased predictability in resource flows and better planning for microeconomic policies, experiences in other African countries have been mixed. The paper argues that developing credible budgets does not require an ambitious MTEF reform path. What is more important is a commitment to realistic macroeconomic projections, sensible budgeting norms, good accounting practices and regular reporting through transparent budget documents. Paper prepared for the conference “African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage” Cape Town, South Africa October 2004 Gebru, Getachew Women’s Groups in Arid Northern Kenya: Origins, Governance, and Roles in Poverty Reduction June 2006 Coppock, D. Layne, Solomon Desta, Adan Wako, Ibrahim Aden, Getachew Gebru, Seyoum Tezera, and Chachu Tadecha Collective action can be effective means of local development and risk reduction among rural people, but few examples have been documented in pastoral rangeland areas. We conducted extensive qualitative interviews for 16 women’s groups residing in settlements in northern Kenya during early 2005. Our objectives were to understand how groups were formed and governed and what activities they have pursued. Other questions included to what extent such groups can mitigate drought crises and reduce poverty for their members, and what most threatens group sustainability. At the time of interviews, our groups had existed for an average of 10 years, with two being 18-19 years old. Charter memberships averaged about 24 women, 20 of whom were typically illiterate. Half of the groups had been formed after facilitation by a GO or NGO partner and half formed spontaneously. Groups are governed under detailed constitutional frameworks outlining rights and responsibilities of members. All groups have eventually been registered with the Kenya government. Chairladies of the groups are typically elected to two-year terms. Group applicants and candidates for office are carefully screened. Groups primarily form to improve living standards of the members. Groups undertake a wide variety of social and economic activities founded on savings and credit schemes, income diversification, small business development, and expansion of education, health service, and natural resource management functions. The livestock and non-livestock economies become intermixed—commercialized livestock activities provide capital for small business ventures as well as the reverse. Groups have taken an active role in mitigating drought impacts on their members and the scope of drought mitigation appears to expand as groups mature over time. Interview respondents gave many examples of group members that have lifted themselves up from destitution. Relatively few of the groups we interviewed have experienced abject failure, but many have struggled. The greatest threats to the sustainability of these women’s groups come from external factors such as drought, resource scarcity, poverty, and political incitement as well as internal factors such as unfavorable group dynamics and illiteracy. Principles of good group governance and wisdom in business creation and management were repeatedly stated by respondents as the key ingredients for long-term success; making linkages to external development partners is also vital to secure access to technology and small grants. Groups have ambitious plans to further improve their social and economic circumstances; evidence is shown that rates of group formation in the region appear to be increasing. In a highly risky and poverty-stricken environment such as northern Kenya, such groups help create relatively deep pools of social, human, and diversified economic capital. Many of these processes fill large gaps in public service delivery and should be encouraged by policy makers. At the micro-level groups and their GO and NGO facilitators need continued support to strengthen groups. At a macro-level, investments that lead to broader economic development and greater access to formal education in the rangelands may permit further proliferation of sustainable efforts towards collective action. Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006. Gelb, Stephen Inequality in South Africa: Nature, Causes and Responses November 2003 Stephen Gelb Speaking in South Africa’s parliament in 1998 in the debate on the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, (then-Deputy) President Thabo Mbeki argued that "material conditions have divided our country into two nations, the one black, the other white. [the latter] is relatively prosperous and has ready access to a developed economic, physical, educational, communication and other infrastructure...The second, and larger, nation of South Africa is black and poor, [and] lives under conditions of a grossly underdeveloped infrastructure... Neither are we becoming one nation. Unlike the German people [after unification in 1990] we have not made the extra effort to generate the material resources we have to invest to change the condition of the black poor more rapidly than is possible if we depend solely on severely limited public funds, whose volume is governed by the need to maintain certain macroeconomic balances and the impact of a growing economy." This paper examines the nature of the divide which Mbeki pointed to between the ‘two nations’ and the reasons for the limited response to this divide during the post-apartheid era since 1994 at which he hints. This paper argues that this response can be understood only through an historical analysis of the transition to democracy. Section 2 provides an overview of inequality, poverty and economic growth in South Africa and their trends during the past ten years. Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa Gemtessa, Kejela Livelihood Diversification in Borana Pastoral Communities of Ethiopia—Prospects and Challenges June 2006 Gemtessa, Kejela, Bezabih Emana, and Waktole Tiki This paper analyzes the livelihood of the Borana pastoral communities of Southern Oromiya in Ethiopia. The study employed Participatory Rural Appraisal and survey methods. Stakeholders’ consultations were carried out at community, district, and regional levels. The study shows that livestock mobility would continue to ensure high productivity due to changing environment, change water and feed sources, better pasture supply, etc. However, mobility is curtailed by combination of factors such as population growth and settlement in remote grazing areas, existence of claims by different ethnic groups on rangelands, the impartial impact of drought, increasing settlement to get social services, and the declining number of cattle holding per household. In both pastoral and agro-pastoral communities, the contribution of livestock and livestock products to the household's income is the highest for the rich and smallest for the poor owing to the size of livestock they hold. The destitute households have no livestock. Yet the number of poor households is increasing due to drought. The livelihood of the pastoralists diversified into crop production, petty trades, wage, remittance, firewood and charcoal production, and incense collection. The study revealed that the agro-pastoralists are poorer than the pure pastoral communities indicating that farming has been adopted to cope with food insecurity caused by declining livestock herd. But the income discrepancy between the social groups is significantly high. The rich could generate four folds of the income the poor earns. Finally, the researchers recommended that the need for mobility in the use of range resources in order to cope with the ecosystem vulnerability should be understood by the federal and regional governments. Appropriate land use planning for appropriate use of rangeland and delimiting cropland from rangeland is an essential intervention in a participatory manner. Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006. Glick, Peter Early Academic Performance, Grade Repetition, and School Attainment in Senegal: A Panel Data Analysis January 2010 Glick, Peter and David E. Sahn Little is known in developing country environments about how a child’s cognitive skills manifested in the first years of schooling are related to his or her later educational success, because the panel data needed to analyze this question have been lacking. In this study we take advantage of unique data from Senegal, combining test score data for children from the second grade with information on their subsequent school progression from a follow-up survey conducted seven years later. We find that measures of skills from early in primary school, corrected for measurement error using multiple test observations per child, are very strongly positively associated with later school progression. A plausible interpretation is that parents invest more in a child’s education when the returns to doing so are higher. The results point to the need for remedial policies to target lagging students early on to reduce early dropout. A current policy targeting poorly performing students is grade repetition, which is pervasive in Francophone Africa. Using variation across schools in test score thresholds for promotion to identify the effects of second grade repetition, we find that a repeated student is more likely to leave school before completing primary than a student with similar ability who is not held back (and also does not learn more), pointing to the need for alternative measures to improve skills of lagging children. In World Bank Economic Review 24(1): 93-120, January, 2010 Determinants of HIV Knowledge and Condom Use among Women in Madagascar: An Analysis Using Matched Household and Community Data April 2009 Glick, Peter, Josée Randriamamonjy, and David E. Sahn We estimate the determinants of HIV/AIDS knowledge and related behavior (use of condoms) among women in Madagascar, a country where prevalence remains low but conditions are ripe for a rapid increase in infections. In both rural and urban areas, more educated and wealthier women are more likely to know about means of preventing infection, less likely to have misconceptions about transmission, and more likely to use condoms. Community factors such as availability of health centers and access to roads also are associated with greater HIV knowledge. However, most of the large rural-urban difference in mean knowledge is due not to location per se but to differences in schooling and wealth; rather than simply being geographically targeted, AIDS education efforts must be designed to target and be understood by uneducated and poor subpopulations. In African Development Review 21(1): 147-179, April, 2009 Policy Impacts on Schooling Gender Gaps in Developing Countries: The Evidence and a Framework for Interpretation February 2008 Glick, Peter In many regions of the developing world girls continue to receive less education than boys. This paper reviews the evidence on the effects of policies in the education sector and outside it on household schooling investments in girls and boys, distinguishing between policies that are ostensibly gender neutral and those that explicitly target girls. It is frequently (but certainly not universally) found that the demand for girl’s schooling is more responsive than boys’ to gender neutral changes in school cost or distance as well as quality. Although these patterns can be interpreted in terms of parental preferences, this paper shows that they can also plausibly be explained within a human capital investment framework through assumptions about the nature of schooling cost and returns functions. Among these policies, increasing the physical accessibility of schools emerges as a measure that may result in disproportionate enrollment gains for girls. Where gender gaps are large or persistent, however, direct targeting of girls is probably necessary. Formal evidence from a number of demand or supply side interventions, including subsidies to households and to schools to enroll girls and the provision of girls-only schools, suggests the potential for targeted measures to yield substantial gains for girls. Many other policies, such as subsidized childcare or flexible school scheduling that address the opportunity costs of girls’ time, hold promise but for the most part have yet to be subject to rigorous assessment. The paper discusses methodological problems in such assessments and concludes with suggestions for future research on policies to close schooling gender gaps. This is an expanded version of a paper published in World Development 36(9): 1623-46, 2008. Are Africans Practicing Safer Sex: Evidence from Demographic and Health Surveys for Eight Countries January 2008 Glick, Peter and David E. Sahn We use repeated rounds of Demographic and Health Survey data from eight African countries to examine changes in and determinants of three HIV risk behaviors: age at first intercourse; number of current sexual partners, and use of condoms. As a prelude, we assess the within- country comparability of DHS surveys over time. We find some evidence of changes in sample composition, which is easily handled in a multivariate framework, and find evidence as well of changes in how people respond to questions about HIV behavior. Because of the latter, which likely represents an increase in social desirability bias over time, our estimates of risk reduction may be upper bounds on the true effects. Overall the picture is one of reductions in risk behaviors over recent 4-6 year intervals, especially with respect to condom use; in some cases the changes seem large given the short time periods involved. With some exceptions, however, the extent and pervasiveness of these changes seems inadequate in relation to the urgency of the public health crisis represented by AIDS. With respect to the determinants of behaviors, schooling and wealth have contradictory impacts on risk behavior: they both tend to increase the likelihood of using condoms while (for men) also increasing the demand for additional sexual partners. Presented at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) Seminar on “Interactions between Poverty and HIV/AIDS,” Cape Town, South Africa, December 2005. Alternate version in Economic Development and Cultural Change 56(2):397-439, January, 2008 Are Client Satisfaction Surveys Useful? Evidence from Matched Facility and Household Data in Madagascar September 2007 Glick, Peter Client satisfaction surveys in developing countries are increasingly being promoted as a means of understanding health care quality and the demand for these services. However, concerns have been raised about the reliability of responses in such surveys: for example, ‘courtesy bias’ may lead clients, especially if interviewed upon exiting clinics, to provide misleadingly favorable responses. This study uses unique data from Madagascar to investigate these and other issues. Identical questions about satisfaction with local health care centers were asked in user exit surveys and in a population based household survey; the latter would be less contaminated by courtesy bias as well as changes in provider behavior in response to being observed. We find strong evidence that reported satisfaction is biased upward in exit surveys for subjective questions regarding (for example) treatment by staff and consultation quality, but is not biased for relatively objective questions about facility condition and supplies. The surveys do provide useful information on the determinants of consumer satisfaction with various dimensions of provider quality. Still, to obtain reliable estimates of consumer perceptions of health service quality, household based sampling appears to be far superior to the simpler exit survey method. Presented at the Regional Conference on “Education in West Africa: Constraints and Opportunities” in Dakar, Senegal, November 1-2, 2005 This is an expanded version of a paper published in Social Science and Medicine. Cognitive Skills among Children in Senegal: Disentangling the Roles of Schooling and Family Background June 2007 Glick, Peter and David E. Sahn We use unique data to estimate the determinants of cognitive ability among 14 to 17 year olds in Senegal. Unlike standard school-based samples, tests were administered to current students as well as to children no longer—or never—enrolled. Years of schooling strongly affects cognitive skills, but conditional on years of school, parental education and household wealth, as well as local public school quality, have surprisingly modest effects on test performance. Instead, family background primarily affects skills indirectly through its impacts on years of schooling. Therefore closing the schooling gaps between poor and wealthy children will also close most of the gap in cognitive skills between these groups. Presented at the Regional Conference on “Education in West Africa: Constraints and Opportunities” in Dakar, Senegal, November 1-2, 2005 This is an expanded version of a paper published in Economics of Education Review 28(2): 178-188, April, 2009. Reproductive Health and Behavior, HIV/AIDS, and Poverty in Africa May 2007 Glick, Peter This paper examines the complex linkages of poverty, reproductive/sexual health and behavior, and HIV/AIDS in Africa. It addresses the following questions: (1) what have we learned to date about these links and what are the gaps in knowledge to be addressed by further research; (2) what is known about the effectiveness for HIV prevention of reproductive health and HIV/AIDS interventions and policies in Africa; and (3) what are the appropriate methodological approaches to research on these questions. With regard to what has been learned so far, the paper pays considerable attention in particular to the evidence regarding the impacts of a range of HIV interventions on risk behaviors and HIV incidence. Other sections review the extensive microeconomic literature on the impacts of AIDS on households and children in Africa and the effects of the epidemic on sexual risk behavior and fertility decisions. With regard to methodology, the paper assesses the approaches used in the literature to deal with, among other things, the problem of self-selection and non- randomness in the placement of HIV and reproductive health programs. Data requirements for different research questions are discussed, and an effort is made to assess what researchers can learn from existing sources such as Demographic and Health Surveys. Presented at the AERC/Hewlett Foundation Workshop, “Poverty and Economic Growth: The Impact of Population Dynamics and Reproductive Health Outcomes in Africa” in Brussels, Belgium, November 5-6, 2006 Forthcoming in edited volume published by the African Economic Research Consortium, Nairobi, Kenya Changes in HIV/AIDS Knowledge and Testing Behavior in Africa: How Much and for Whom? April 2007 Glick, Peter and David E. Sahn Demographic and Health Survey data from six African countries indicate that HIV prevention knowledge is improving and that more Africans are getting tested. Still, in many cases fewer than half of adult respondents can identify specific prevention behaviors; knowledge appears particularly inadequate in countries not yet fully gripped by the epidemic. Schooling and wealth impacts on prevention knowledge generally have either not changed or have increased, meaning that initial disparities in knowledge by education and wealth levels have persisted or widened. HIV messages therefore need to be made more accessible to and/or better understood by the poor and less educated. Paper prepared for the conference “African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage” Cape Town, South Africa October 2004 In Journal of Population Economics 20(2):383-422, April, 2007 Export Processing Zone Expansion in Madagascar: What are the Labor Market and Gender Impacts? December 2006 Glick, Peter and François Roubaud This paper analyzes part of the controversy over export processing zones—the labor market and gender impacts—using unique time-series labor force survey data from an African setting: urban Madagascar, in which the EPZ (or Zone Franche) grew very rapidly during the 1990s. Employment in the Zone Franche exhibits some basic patterns seen elsewhere in export processing industries of the developing world, such as the predominance of young, semi-skilled female workers. Taking advantage of microdata availability, we estimate earnings regressions to assess sector and gender wage premia. Zone Franche employment is found to represent a significant step up in pay for women who would otherwise be found in poorly remunerated informal sector work. Because it provides relatively high wage opportunities for those with relatively low levels of schooling, export processing development may also eventually have significant impacts on poverty. Further, by disproportionately drawing women from the low-wage sector informal sector (where the gender pay gap is very large) to the relatively well-paid export processing jobs (where pay is not only higher but also similar for men and women with similar qualifications), the EPZ has the potential to contribute to improved overall gender equity in earnings in the urban economy. Along many non-wage dimensions, jobs in the export processing zone are comparable to or even superior to other parts of the formal sector. However, the sector is also marked by very long working hours and high turnover, which may work to prevent it from being a source of long-term employment and economic advancement for women. Paper prepared for the conference “African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage” Cape Town, South Africa October 2004 In Journal of African Economies 15(4): 722-756, 2006 An Assessment of Changes in Infant and under-Five Mortality in Demographic and Health Survey Data for Madagascar September 2006 Glick, Peter, Stephen D. Younger, and David E. Sahn Repeated rounds of nationally representative surveys are an important source of information on changes in the welfare of the population. In particular, policymakers and donors in many developing countries rely heavily on the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to provide information on levels and trends in indicators of the health status of the population, including child survival. The reliability of observed trends, however, depends strongly on the comparability across survey rounds of the sampling strategy and of the format of questions and how interviews ask them. In Madagascar, the most recent (2003/4) DHS indicated very sharp declines in rates of infant and under-five mortality compared with the previous survey from 1997. However, retrospective under-one and under-five mortality data in 1997 and 2003/4 for the same calendar years also show large differences, suggesting that this trend may be spurious. We employ a range of descriptive and multivariate approaches to investigate the issue. Despite evidence of significant interviewer recording errors (with respect to date of birth and age at death) in 2003/4, the most likely source of problems is that the two samples differ: comparisons of time-invariant characteristics of households and of women suggests that the later DHS sampled a somewhat wealthier (hence lower mortality) population. Corrections to the data using hazard survival model estimates are discussed. These suggest a much more modest reduction in infant and under-five mortality than indicated by the raw data for the two surveys. The Demand for Primary Schooling in Madagascar: Price, Quality, and the Choice Between Public and Private Providers February 2006 Glick, Peter, and David E. Sahn We estimate a discrete choice model of primary schooling and simulate policy alternatives for rural Madagascar. Poor households are substantially more price-responsive than wealthy ones, implying that fee increases for public schools will have negative effects on equity in education. Among quality factors, multigrade teaching (several classes being taught simultaneously by one teacher) has a strongly negative impact on public school enrollments. Simulations indicate that providing teachers to reduce by half the number of multigrade classes in public schools would lead to modest improvements in overall enrollments, would be feasible in terms of costs, and would disproportionately benefit poor children. In contrast, consolidation of primary schools combined with quality improvement would be ineffective because of the negative effect of distance to school. Other simulations point to limits to a strategy of public support for private school expansion as a means of significantly increasing enrollment rates or education quality; such an expansion may also reduce overall education equity. In the Journal of Development Economics 79(1):118-145, 2006. Scaling up HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing in Africa: What Can Evaluation Studies Tell Us About Potential Prevention Impacts? August 2005 Glick, Peter Although there is a widespread belief that scaling up HIV voluntary testing and counseling (VCT) programs in Africa will have large prevention benefits through reductions in risk behaviors, these claims are difficult to establish from existing evaluations of VCT. Considerations from behavioral models and the available data suggest that as VCT coverage expands marginal program effects are likely to decline due to changes in the degree of client selectivity, and that potential uptake among those at highest risk is uncertain. The paper also assesses two other common perceptions about VCT in Africa: that a policy of promoting couples-oriented VCT would be more successful than one emphasizing individual testing, and that VCT demand and prevention impacts will be enhanced where scaling up is accompanied by the provision of anti-retroviral drugs. In Evaluation Review 29(4): 331-357, August 2005 The Progression through School and Academic Performance in Madagascar Study: Preliminary Descriptive Results March 2005 Glick, Peter, Harivelo Rajemison, Arsène Ravelo, Yolande Raveloarison, Mamisoa Razakamanantsoa, and David E. Sahn This paper is a preliminary analysis of the Etude sur la Progression Scolaire et la Performance Academique en Madagascar (EPSPAM). The study is based on a nation-wide household survey with a special focus on schooling, complimented by academic and life skills tests and additional surveys of local schools and communities. The survey was designed to investigate the household, community, and school-level determinants of a range of education outcomes in Madagascar: primary and secondary enrollment, grade repetition and dropout during primary and lower secondary school cycles, transitions from primary to secondary school, and learning — both academic (math and French test scores) and non-academic ('life-skills'). It also seeks to understand the association of early academic performance, on the one hand, and subsequent school progression and scholastic attainment, on the other. The study also investigates the knowledge and perceptions of parents about the schools in their communities. In addition, the policy environment in education in Madagascar has been very dynamic in the last several years. Therefore the study also evaluates the implementation and impacts of several important recent policies in education, including the elimination of public primary school fees and the provision of books and supplies, as well as a series of administrative reforms such as the professionalization of the chefs CISCO and efforts to make school finances more transparent. Intertemporal Female Labor Force Behavior in a Developing Country: What Can We Learn from a Limited Panel? February 2005 Glick, Peter and David E. Sahn We analyze intertemporal labor market behavior of women in urban Guinea, West Africa using two distinct methodologies applicable to a short (two-year) panel. A multi-period multinomial logit model with random effects provides evidence of unobserved individual heterogeneity as a factor strongly affecting labor market sector choices over time. Results from simpler single period models that condition on prior sector choices are consistent with either heterogeneity or state dependence. Both approaches perform equally well in predicting individual labor market behavior conditional on past choices. In terms of observable characteristics, the estimates confirm the heterogeneous structure of the urban labor market: informal and formal employment appear to differ significantly in terms of skill requirements, compatibility with child care, and costs of entry. In Labour Economics 12(1):23-45, February, 2005 Progression through School and Academic Performance in Senegal: Descriptive Survey Results July 2004 Dumas, Christelle, Peter Glick, Sylvie Lambert, David E. Sahn, and Leopold Sarr This report provides a preliminary descriptive analysis of some of the data from The Progression through School and Academic Performance in Senegal Study, a joint research project of Cornell University, Centre de Recherche en Economie Appliquée (CREA), and INRA. This project is based around a nation-wide household survey with a special focus on schooling, complimented by academic and life skills tests and additional surveys of local schools and communities. The topics covered in this report focus on the household survey and test score data and include: enrollment rates; school attainment; grade repetition; dropouts and progression to secondary school; academic and life skills test scores; and perceptions about education and schooling. The Distribution of Social Services in Madagascar, 1993-99 December 2002 Glick, Peter and Mamisoa Razakamanantsoa While a number of benefit incidence studies of public expenditures have been carried out for African countries, there are very few studies that look at how the incidence of such expenditures has been changing over time. We use three rounds of nation-wide household surveys to analyze the distribution of public expenditures on education and health services in Madagascar over the decade of the 90s, a period of little economic growth but significant changes in social sector organization and budgets. Education and health services for the most part are found to be distributed more equally than household expenditures: therefore they serve to redistribute welfare from the rich to the poor. By stricter standards of progressivity, however, public services do poorly. Few services other than primary schooling accrue disproportionately to the poor in absolute terms. When we further adjust for differences in the numbers of potential beneficiaries in different expenditure quintiles (e.g., school-age children in the case of education), none of the education or health benefits considered appear to target the poor while several target the non-poor. We also find significant disparities in the use of services between rural and urban areas, and by province. On the other hand, for both education and health services, no notable gender differences exist in coverage. With regard to changes over the decade, primary enrollments rose sharply and also become significantly more progressive; since the country experienced little or no growth in household incomes during the period, this apparently reflects supply rather than demand side factors. The improvement in equity in public schooling occurred in part because the enrollment growth was in effect regionally targeted: it occurred only in rural areas, which are poorer. Also see, "The Distribution of Education and Health Services in Madagascar over the 1990s: Increasing Progressivity in an Era of Low Growth," in Journal of African Economies (October, 2005). Gockel, Augustine Fritz Financial Sector Liberalization on the Labour Market in Ghana April 2003 Augustine Fritz Gockel and Nora Amu One of the expected outcomes of the financial sector liberalization programme was that labour and capital resources would be priced efficiently in a competitive market. In a labour abundant country, labour intensive production techniques will emerge, as real wages fall sufficiently to contain employment and output. The study finds that firms are inclined to increase capital intensity than labour intensity given access to credit facilities. Furthermore, the high-cost-low-wage labour phenomenon plays a role in the low labour absorption in Ghana, especially where labour needs may be seasonal or dependent on the level of output. A more pragmatic labor law that allows flexibility for employers but also adequately compensate seasonal labour is needed. Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana Goldstein, Markus The Economic Impact of AIDS Treatment: Labor Supply in Western Kenya February 2007 Thirumurthy, Harsha, Joshua Graff Zivin, and Markus Goldstein Using longitudinal survey data collected in collaboration with a treatment program, this paper is the first to estimate the economic impacts of antiretroviral treatment in Africa. The responses in two important outcomes are studied: (1) labor supply of adult AIDS patients receiving treatment; and (2) labor supply of children and adults living in the patients’ households. We find that within six months after the initiation of treatment, there is a 20 percent increase in the likelihood of the patient participating in the labor force and a 35 percent increase in weekly hours worked. These results indicate that the labor supply response to treatment is both rapid and large. Since patient health would continue to decline without treatment, these labor supply responses are underestimates of the impact of treatment on the treated. The upper bound of the treatment impact, which is based on plausible assumptions about the counterfactual, is considerably larger and also implies that the wage benefit from treatment is roughly equal to the costs of treatment provision. The responses in the labor supply of patients’ household members are heterogeneous. Young boys work considerably less after initiation of treatment, while girls and other adults in the household do not change their labor supply. In multiple-patient households, only the labor supply of girls remains unaffected. The effects on child labor are particularly important since they suggest significant spillover effects from individual treatment. Prepared for the AERC-Cornell Conference on “Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” May 31-June 1, 2007, Nairobi, Kenya From Independence to Economic Reform: Rural Poverty in Ghana from 1967-1997 July 2004 Markus Goldstein and Rikhil Bhavnani Estimates of poverty and inequality are constructed more accurately from household survey rather than national accounts data, since growth in the latter per force demonstrates that any growth leads to poverty reduction. Household surveys, however, were only systematically conducted from the 1980s onwards, at the prompting of the academic community and the World Bank. Most examinations of poverty reduction and inequality therefore limit themselves to trends since the 1980s, failing to take a sufficiently long duree of their evolution. Similarly, assessments of structural adjustment programs are usually conducted at the macro-level, with before-after or plan-outcome analysis, leaving aside examinations of microeconomic changes, partly due to the absence of such data. The ensuing discussions on poverty, inequality and the efficacy of structural adjustment programs (and macroeconomic policy more generally) thus often form a flimsy basis for national and international policy making, leading many to call for radical changes in data gathering and dissemination practices. Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana Grover, D. K. Alleviating rural poverty through efficient small holders farming systems in Ethiopia: Relevance of macro policies with ground realities October 2004 D. K. Grover and Anteneh Temesgen Ethiopia is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. The country had a real per capita GDP of less than US $100 in 1995, and over 60 per cent of its population lives in absolute poverty. The problem of rural poverty and underdeveloped agriculture are closely linked with both micro as well as macro dimensions. To tackle the challenges of poverty in Ethiopia, the policies need to be initiated both macro and micro in nature and especially the macro-micro linkages are extremely crucial. In order to formulate and implement the macro policies effectively, there is an urgent need to first understand the ground realities of the Ethiopian society in general and of agricultural economy in particular. The micro-level study has been conducted in North Wollo zone, situated in the northeastern part of the country. The linear programming model was used to study the existing farm income and scope of improvement through optimal and alternative plans. The optimal solutions in both base model and alternative optimal plan resulted in an increase in gross margin. This was obtained by using improved seed with fertilizer. Thus, the availability of improved seed, fertilizer, working capital and other inputs is crucial, i.e. modern inputs should be delivered at right time and place with a reasonable cost, so that all farmers can afford to use it. Agricultural and poverty related macro policies and strategies were reviewed to highlight that how effectively the ground realities of smallholders were addressed through the macro level government agricultural policy initiatives in Ethiopia. The utilization of improved seeds has not exceeded 2 per cent of the overall seed requirements of the country. Hence, pragmatic seed policy needs to be formulated and implemented effectively to make available improved seeds to the farmers for improving their income and reducing rural poverty. The macro fertilizer policy should be designed to encourage the farmers to make use of this crucial input for raising their income and reducing poverty. Contrary to it, the present macro policy of decontrolled fertilizer has discouraged the farmers to adopt crops with fertilizers. The credit extended by Commercial Bank of Ethiopia has been increasing yet it should be taken up on priority at macro level in order to improve the economic conditions of rural folk and hence reducing the poverty in the country. The Small Scale and Micro Industry Development Strategy (SSIMD) and related programs initiated by Government of Ethiopia are very much in line with the micro level requirements. Such efforts must be further strengthened for generating rural non-farm employment and hence tackling the problem of rural poverty in the country. On scarce land, improved technology needs to be made available to farmers through macro policies for intensive utilization of the existing land. Besides, government and NGO’s should promote subsidiary activities requiring less land such as poultry and bee keeping. Land-use-planning needs to be initiated to advise the smallholders to use their scarce land only for most desired enterprises and abandon the practice of growing trees like eucalyptus. Besides, Intensive Agricultural Technology Dissemination Programs needs to be chalked out and implemented to improve the efficiency of smallholders farming systems in terms of increasing farm income and reducing rural poverty in Ethiopia. Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa Gunderson, Craig The Demand for Education for Orphans in Zimbabwe October 2004 Craig Gundersen, Thomas Kelly and Kyle Jemison We examine the effect of orphan status on school enrolment in Zimbabwe, a country strongly impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic with a rapidly growing population of orphans. Using data from 2003, after controlling for other determinants of enrolment we find that orphans are less likely to attend school than non-orphans. The result is robust to our correction for selection bias. Two additional results have implications for targeting: we find that the effect of being an orphan is especially large for older children and that, after controlling for previous education, the effect of being an orphan on school enrolment is sharply diminished. Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa Technical Efficiency in Ghanaian Secondary Education April 2005 Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong and Elizabeth N. Appiah This paper uses district-level panel data and a stochastic frontier production function to investigate the existence of, and the correlates of inefficiency in the production of secondary education in Ghana. Using the proportion of students passing the West African Examination Council’s Certificate examination, we find relatively large indices of technical inefficiency in the production of education in Ghana. These technical inefficiencies vary by subject matter and are higher at the Junior Secondary School level than at the Secondary School level. Furthermore, we find large regional differences in technical inefficiencies we estimate in this paper. Technical inefficiency, we find, also varies by subject; there tends to be large inefficiencies in the sciences and mathematics than in English. We find that average per student household expenditure on education, parent’s education, and the number of siblings are highly correlated with technical inefficiencies in the production of secondary education in Ghana. The correlation between these family inputs and technical ineffi- ciency is much stronger at the Senior Secondary School level than at the Junior Secondary School level. We also find that the education production function is neither of the Cobb-Douglas functional form nor constant returns to scale technology. Our results point to the importance of both school and family inputs in the production of cognitive abilities in Ghanaian secondary schools. In Ernest Aryeetey and Ravi Kanbur (editors), The Economy of Ghana: Analytical Perspectives on Stability, Growth and Poverty, James Currey, 2008. Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana Return to MAIN AUTHORS PAGE

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