World Bank - Science and Technology Development

This paper reviews the literature on the potential biophysical and economic impacts of climate change in the Himalayas. Existing observations indicate that the temperature is rising at a higher rate in Nepal and Chinese regions of the Himalayas compared with rest of the Himalayas. A declining trend of monsoon in the western Indian Himalayas and an increasing trend in the eastern Indian Himalayas have been observed, whereas increasing precipitation and stream flow in many parts of Tibetan Plateau are noted. Glaciers in both the eastern and western Himalayas are mostly retreating, but the majority of the glaciers in Karakorum are either stable or advancing slowly. Expansion of glacier lakes is reported, with the highest rate in Nepal and Bhutan. Most literature predicts increases in temperature and monsoon precipitations and decreases in winter precipitations in the future thereby leading to monsoon flooding and increased sediments in stream flow. Available hydrological simulations indicate reduced rainfall and shrinkage of glacier thereby leading to shortage of water supply for power generation and irrigation in winter particularly in highly glaciated basins. Projected economic impacts of glacial lake outburst floods can be substantial on the developed river basin with infrastructures and population centers. However, there is a clear gap in knowledge of economic impacts of climate change in the Himalayas. 2013-06-27T04:00:00.000Z2013-06-27T04:00:00.000ZEnvironment|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Science and Technology DevelopmentClimate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Science of Climate Change|Global Environment Facility|Regional Economic Development|Ecosystems and Natural HabitatsThe World Region|South Asia|East Asia and PacificGautam, Mahesh R.|Timilsina, Govinda R.|Acharya, KumudClimate change in the Himalayas : current state of knowledgeEnglishWorld|Nepal|China|BhutanEnvironment|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Science and Technology DevelopmentClimate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Science of Climate Change|Global Environment Facility|Regional Economic Development|Ecosystems and Natural HabitatsWPS6516World|Nepal|China|BhutanEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region|South Asia|East Asia and Pacific

India's huge expansion in rural electrification in the 1980s and 1990s offers lessons for other countries today. The paper examines the long-term effects of household electrification on consumption, labor supply, and schooling in rural India over 1982-99. It finds that household electrification brought significant gains to consumption and earnings, the latter through changes in market labor supply. It finds positive effects on schooling for girls but not for boys. External effects are also evident, whereby households without electricity benefit from village electrification. Wage rates were unaffected. Methodologically, the results suggest sizeable upward biases in past estimates of the gains from electrification associated with how past analyses dealt with geographic effects. 2013-06-28T04:00:00.000Z2013-06-28T04:00:00.000ZMacroeconomics and Economic Growth|Social Protections and Labor|Energy|Science and Technology DevelopmentEnergy Production and Transportation|Engineering|Labor Policies|Economic Theory & Research|Electric PowerSouth Asiavan de Walle, Dominique|Ravallion, Martin|Mendiratta, Vibhuti|Koolwal, GayatriLong-term impacts of household electrification in rural IndiaEnglishIndiaMacroeconomics and Economic Growth|Social Protections and Labor|Energy|Science and Technology DevelopmentEnergy Production and Transportation|Engineering|Labor Policies|Economic Theory & Research|Electric PowerWPS6527IndiaEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperSouth Asia

Information on ecosystem characteristics as well as economic statistics is needed to more fully inform decision makers on the impacts of climate change on human well-being. Climate change risks involve potentially large and irreversible as well as highly uncertain impacts that need to be evaluated with information that complements cost-benefit analysis. Information on the irreversibility of impacts also is relevant for evaluating implications for intergenerational equity. In addition, climate change is subject to a large degree of Knightian uncertainty, making it useful to understand how individuals perceive and evaluate climate change risks. 2014-11-06T05:00:00.000Z2014-11-06T05:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|EnvironmentClimate Change Economics|Environmental Economics & Policies|Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Science of Climate Change|BiodiversityThe World RegionToman, MichaelThe need for multiple types of information to inform climate change assessmentEnglishWorldScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|EnvironmentClimate Change Economics|Environmental Economics & Policies|Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Science of Climate Change|BiodiversityWPS7094WorldEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region

Weak economic statistics in Lebanon impede economic analysis and decision making. This paper presents a new coincident indicator and a leading indicator for the Lebanese economy. A new methodology, based on the National Bureau of Economic Research-Conference Board approach, was used to construct these indicators. The indicators can be used as monthly proxies for the evolution of real gross domestic product with a relatively small time lag (four to five months). Notwithstanding the relatively small sample period, the results reveal promising statistical properties that should make these new indications valuable coincident and leading (one-year ahead) indicators for analyzing the dynamics of the Lebanese economy. However, given limitations on the length of the gross domestic product time series in Lebanon, the accuracy of these indicators in tracking the business cycle of the Lebanese economy is expected to improve over time as more data points become available.2014-06-27T04:00:00.000Z2014-06-27T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Private Sector Development|Finance and Financial Sector DevelopmentEconomic Theory & Research|Access to Finance|Debt Markets|Statistical & Mathematical Sciences|E-BusinessMiddle East and North AfricaMatta, SamerNew coincident and leading indicators for the Lebanese economyEnglishLebanonScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Private Sector Development|Finance and Financial Sector DevelopmentEconomic Theory & Research|Access to Finance|Debt Markets|Statistical & Mathematical Sciences|E-BusinessWPS6950LebanonEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperMiddle East and North Africa

This paper proposes diagnostics to assess the accuracy of survey-to-survey imputation methods and applies them to examine why imputing from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey into the Labor Force Survey fails to accurately project poverty trends in Sri Lanka between 2006 and 2009. Survey-to-survey imputation methods rely on two key assumptions: (i) that the questions in the two surveys are asked in a consistent way and (ii) that common variables of the two surveys explain a large share of the intertemporal change in household expenditure and poverty. In addition, differences in sampling design can lead validation tests to underestimate the accuracy of survey-to-survey predictions. In Sri Lanka, the causes of failure differ across sectors. In the urban sector, the primary culprit is differences between the two surveys in the design of the questionnaire. In the rural and estate sectors, the set of common variables in the prediction model does not adequately capture changes in poverty. The paper concludes that in Sri Lanka, survey-to-survey imputation between the Household Income and Expenditure Survey and the Labor Force Survey cannot produce accurate poverty estimates unless the Labor Force Survey adds additional questions on assets and is redesigned to use a questionnaire that is compatible with the Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Alternatively, a new welfare-tracking survey that satisfies these conditions could be established. 2014-07-01T04:00:00.000Z2014-07-01T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Poverty Reduction|Macroeconomics and Economic GrowthRural Poverty Reduction|Regional Economic Development|Poverty Monitoring & Analysis|Statistical & Mathematical SciencesSouth AsiaNewhouse, D.|Shivakumaran, S.|Takamatsu, S.|Yoshida, N.How survey-to-survey imputation can failEnglishSri LankaScience and Technology Development|Poverty Reduction|Macroeconomics and Economic GrowthRural Poverty Reduction|Regional Economic Development|Poverty Monitoring & Analysis|Statistical & Mathematical SciencesWPS6961Sri LankaEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperSouth Asia

This paper proposes a method for estimating distribution functions that are associated with the nested errors in linear mixed models. The estimator incorporates Empirical Bayes prediction while making minimal assumptions about the shape of the error distributions. The application presented in this paper is the small area estimation of poverty and inequality, although this denotes by no means the only application. Monte-Carlo simulations show that estimates of poverty and inequality can be severely biased when the non-normality of the errors is ignored. The bias can be as high as 2 to 3 percent on a poverty rate of 20 to 30 percent. Most of this bias is resolved when using the proposed estimator. The approach is applicable to both survey-to-census and survey-to-survey prediction.2014-07-02T04:00:00.000Z2014-07-02T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Poverty Reduction|Macroeconomics and Economic GrowthStatistical & Mathematical Sciences|Econometrics|Achieving Shared Growth|Inequality|Economic Theory & ResearchThe World RegionElbers, Chris|van der Weide, RoyEstimation of normal mixtures in a nested error model with an application to small area estimation of poverty and inequalityEnglishWorldScience and Technology Development|Poverty Reduction|Macroeconomics and Economic GrowthStatistical & Mathematical Sciences|Econometrics|Achieving Shared Growth|Inequality|Economic Theory & ResearchWPS6962WorldEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region

This paper poses a question: do firms in developing countries not innovate because they are unwilling to? The question moves away from the conventional focus on the obstacles (such as the lack of access to finance) that hinder firms' innovation ability. The World Bank's Enterprise Survey is used first to estimate the return to firms' innovation across many developing countries, in terms of sales and sales per worker. Then the return to innovation is compared across countries with different levels of institutional quality. In countries with lower institutional quality (specifically, rule of law, regulatory quality, property and patent right protection), the return to firms' innovation is lower. This suggests that poor institutional environment lowers firms' return to innovation and hence discourages them from investing in researching and adopting new products.2014-06-11T04:00:00.000Z2014-06-11T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Social Protections and Labor|Finance and Financial Sector Development|Private Sector DevelopmentDebt Markets|E-Business|Labor Policies|Microfinance|InnovationThe World RegionNguyen, Ha|Jaramillo, Patricio A.Institutions and firms' return to innovation : evidence from the world bank enterprise surveyEnglishWorldScience and Technology Development|Social Protections and Labor|Finance and Financial Sector Development|Private Sector DevelopmentDebt Markets|E-Business|Labor Policies|Microfinance|InnovationWPS6918WorldEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region

This paper documents a significant impact of climate variation on urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa, primarily in more arid countries. By lowering farm incomes, reduced moisture availability encourages migration to nearby cities, while wetter conditions slow migration. The paper also provides evidence for rural-urban income links. In countries with a larger industrial base, reduced moisture shrinks the agricultural sector and raises total incomes in nearby cities. However, if local cities are entirely dependent on servicing agriculture so their fortunes move with those of agriculture, reduced moisture tends to reduce local urban incomes. Finally, the paper shows that climate induces employment changes within the rural sector itself. Drier conditions induce a shift out of farm activities, especially for women, into non-farm activities, and especially out of the workforce. Overall, these findings imply a strong link between climate and urbanization in Africa.2014-06-16T04:00:00.000Z2014-06-16T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Health, Nutrition and Population|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Water Resources|EnvironmentScience of Climate Change|Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Population Policies|Climate Change Economics|Water ConservationAfricaHenderson, J. Vernon|Storeygard, Adam|Deichmann, Uwe50 years of urbanization in Africa : examining the role of climate changeEnglishAfricaScience and Technology Development|Health, Nutrition and Population|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Water Resources|EnvironmentScience of Climate Change|Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Population Policies|Climate Change Economics|Water ConservationWPS6925AfricaEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperAfrica

This paper applies meta-analysis techniques to a sample of 37 studies published during 2004-2011. These papers assess the impact of direct subsidies on business research and development. The results show that the effect of public investment on research and development is predominantly positive and significant. Furthermore, public funds do not crowd out but incentivize firms to revert funds into research and development. The coefficient of additionality impacts on research and development ranges from 0.166 to 0.252, with reasonable confidence intervals at the 95 percent level. The results are highly sensitive to the method used. The high heterogeneity of precision is explained by the wide variety of methodologies used to estimate the impacts and paper characteristics.2013-07-15T04:00:00.000Z2013-07-15T04:00:00.000ZPrivate Sector Development|Science and Technology Development|EducationScientific Research & Science Parks|Science Education|E-Business|Statistical & Mathematical Sciences|Teaching and LearningThe World RegionCorrea, Paulo|Andres, Luis|Borja-Vega, ChristianThe impact of government support on firm R&D investments : a meta-analysisEnglishWorldPrivate Sector Development|Science and Technology Development|EducationScientific Research & Science Parks|Science Education|E-Business|Statistical & Mathematical Sciences|Teaching and LearningWPS6532WorldEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region

Three recent rounds (2003, 2006, and 2009) of the Family Income and Expenditure Survey are matched to rainfall data from 43 rainfall stations in the Philippines to quantify the extent to which unusual weather has any negative effects on the consumption of Filipino households. It is found that negative rainfall shocks decrease consumption, in particular food consumption. Rainfall below one standard deviation of its long-run average causes food consumption to decrease by about 4 percent, when compared with rainfall within one standard deviation. Positive deviations above one standard deviation have a limited impact. Moreover, for households close to a highway or to a fixed-line phone, consumption appears to be fully protected from the impact of negative rainfall shocks.2013-08-20T04:00:00.000Z2013-08-20T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Water Resources|EnvironmentScience of Climate Change|Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Water Conservation|Regional Economic Development|Climate Change EconomicsEast Asia and PacificSafir, Abla|Piza, Sharon Faye|Skoufias, EmmanuelDisquiet on the weather front : the welfare impacts of climatic variability in the rural PhilippinesEnglishPhilippinesScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Water Resources|EnvironmentScience of Climate Change|Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Water Conservation|Regional Economic Development|Climate Change EconomicsWPS6579PhilippinesEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperEast Asia and Pacific

The magnitude and persistence of growth in gross domestic product are topics of intense scrutiny by economists. Although the existing techniques provide a range of tools to study the nature of growth and volatility time series, these usually come with shortcomings, including the need to arbitrarily define acceleration spells, and focus on a particular frequency at a time. This paper explores the application of "wavelet-based" techniques to study the time-varying nature of growth and volatility. These techniques lend themselves to a more robust analysis of short-term and long-term determinants of growth and volatility than the traditional decomposition techniques, as demonstrated on a small sample of countries. In addition to having desirable technical advantages, such as localization in time and frequency and the ability to work with non-stationary series, these techniques also make it possible to accurately decompose the association between growth trajectories of different countries over different time horizons. Such "co-movement" analysis can provide policy makers with important insights on regional integration, growth poles, and how short and long term developments in other countries affect their domestic economy.2013-08-20T04:00:00.000Z2013-08-20T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Poverty Reduction|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Education|Private Sector DevelopmentEconomic Conditions and Volatility|Achieving Shared Growth|Science Education|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Emerging MarketsThe World RegionMaslova, Inga|Onder, Harun|Sanghi, ApurvaGrowth and volatility analysis using waveletsEnglishWorldScience and Technology Development|Poverty Reduction|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Education|Private Sector DevelopmentEconomic Conditions and Volatility|Achieving Shared Growth|Science Education|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Emerging MarketsWPS6578WorldEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region

Can project evaluation methods be used to evaluate programs: complex interventions involving multiple activities? A program evaluation cannot be based simply on separate evaluations of its components if interactions between the activities are important. In this paper a measure is proposed, the total program effect (TPE), which is an extension of the average treatment effect on the treated (ATET). It explicitly takes into account that in the real world (with heterogeneous treatment effects) individual treatment effects and program assignment are often correlated. The TPE can also deal with the common situation in which such a correlation is the result of decisions on (intended) program participation not being taken centrally. In this context RCTs are less suitable even for the simplest interventions. The TPE can be estimated by applying regression techniques to observational data from a representative sample from the targeted population. The approach is illustrated with an evaluation of a health insurance program in Vietnam.2013-09-04T04:00:00.000Z2013-09-04T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Poverty Reduction|Health, Nutrition and Population|EducationPoverty Monitoring & Analysis|Health Monitoring & Evaluation|Science Education|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Statistical & Mathematical SciencesEast Asia and PacificElbers, Chris|Gunning, Jan WillemEvaluation of development programs : randomized controlled trials or regressions ?EnglishVietnamScience and Technology Development|Poverty Reduction|Health, Nutrition and Population|EducationPoverty Monitoring & Analysis|Health Monitoring & Evaluation|Science Education|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Statistical & Mathematical SciencesWPS6587VietnamEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperEast Asia and Pacific

Livestock are an important component of rural livelihoods in developing countries, but data about this source of income and wealth are difficult to collect because of the nomadic and semi-nomadic nature of many pastoralist populations. Most household surveys exclude those without permanent dwellings, leading to undercoverage. This study explores the use of a random geographic cluster sample as an alternative to the household-based sample. In this design, points are randomly selected and all eligible respondents found inside circles drawn around the selected points are interviewed. This approach should eliminate undercoverage of mobile populations. The results of a random geographic cluster sample survey are presented with a total sample size of 784 households to measure livestock ownership in the Afar region of Ethiopia in 2012. The paper explores the data quality of the random geographic cluster sample relative to a recent household survey and discusses the implementation challenges.2013-09-04T04:00:00.000Z2013-09-04T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Agriculture|Rural Development|Environment|EducationLivestock and Animal Husbandry|Rural Development Knowledge & Information Systems|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Wildlife Resources|Science EducationAfricaHimelein, Kristen|Eckman, Stephanie|Murray, SiobhanThe use of random geographic cluster sampling to survey pastoralistsEnglishAfrica|EthiopiaScience and Technology Development|Agriculture|Rural Development|Environment|EducationLivestock and Animal Husbandry|Rural Development Knowledge & Information Systems|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Wildlife Resources|Science EducationWPS6589Africa|EthiopiaEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperAfrica

Survey data from 120 developing countries are used to examine the relation between establishment size and age in the formal sector. Existing research suggests that manufacturing establishments in developing countries do not grow over time, most likely because of market imperfections and regulations. To the contrary, this paper finds that the average plant in developing countries that is more than 40 years old employs almost five times as many workers as the average plant that is five years old or younger. The analysis finds consistent evidence when it looks within a large country, India, based on detailed manufacturing census data over 23 years. It also finds that differences in financial development across Indian states, while substantial, have a minor effect on firm growth, consistent with inefficiency of state-owned financial systems. These results hold controlling for differences in labor regulations across states, capital intensity, labor regulations, and firms born before and after the major reforms. 2013-12-09T05:00:00.000Z2013-12-09T05:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Social Protections and Labor|Education|Finance and Financial Sector DevelopmentMicrofinance|Banks & Banking Reform|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Science Education|Labor MarketsSouth AsiaAyyagari, Meghana|Demirguc-Kunt, Asli|Maksimovic, VojislavSize and age of establishments: evidence from developing countriesEnglishIndiaScience and Technology Development|Social Protections and Labor|Education|Finance and Financial Sector DevelopmentMicrofinance|Banks & Banking Reform|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Science Education|Labor MarketsWPS6718IndiaEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperSouth Asia

"The Impact of Microcredit on the Poor in Bangladesh: Revisiting the Evidence," by David Roodman and Jonathan Morduch (2014) (henceforth RM) is the most recent of a sequence of papers and web postings that seeks to refute the findings of the Pitt and Khandker (1998; henceforth PK) article "The Impact of Group-Based Credit on Poor Households in Bangladesh: Does the Gender of Participants Matter?" that microcredit for women had significant, favorable effects on household consumption and other outcomes. In this version of RM, the authors have backed off many of their prior claims and methods after earlier replies noted their faults (see Pitt (1999), Pitt (2011a), Pitt (2011b), and Pitt and Khandker (2012)). Nonetheless, important claims against PK remain in this new version of RM and are addressed below. Readers should refer to Pitt and Khandker (2012) for a discussion of other issues with RM, including a discussion of the bimodal likelihood.2014-03-11T04:00:00.000Z2014-03-11T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Finance and Financial Sector DevelopmentEconomic Theory & Research|Statistical & Mathematical Sciences|Financial Intermediation|Econometrics|Scientific Research & Science ParksSouth AsiaPitt, Mark M.Re-re-reply to "the impact of microcredit on the poor in Bangladesh : revisiting the evidence"EnglishBangladeshScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Finance and Financial Sector DevelopmentEconomic Theory & Research|Statistical & Mathematical Sciences|Financial Intermediation|Econometrics|Scientific Research & Science ParksWPS6801BangladeshEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperSouth Asia

This paper examines the association between the intensity, timing, and persistence of personal history of mobility on individual support for redistribution. Using both rounds of the Life in Transition Survey, the paper builds measures of downward mobility for about 57,000 individuals from 27 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The analysis finds that more intensive, recent, and persistent downward mobility increases support for redistribution more. A number of extensions and checks are done by, among others, taking into account systematic bias in perceived mobility experience, considering an alternative definition of redistributive preferences, and exploring the severity of omitted variable bias problems. Overall, the results are robust.2014-03-13T04:00:00.000Z2014-03-13T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Transport|Communities and Human Settlements|EducationHousing & Human Habitats|Roads & Highways|Teaching and Learning|Science Education|Scientific Research & Science ParksThe World RegionDabalen, Andrew|Parinduri, Rasyad|Paul, SaumikThe effects of the intensity, timing, and persistence of personal history of mobility on support for redistributionEnglishWorldScience and Technology Development|Transport|Communities and Human Settlements|EducationHousing & Human Habitats|Roads & Highways|Teaching and Learning|Science Education|Scientific Research & Science ParksWPS6803WorldEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region

Using a global panel on research and development (R&D) expenditures, this paper documents that on average poor countries do far less R&D than rich as a share of GDP. This is arguably counter intuitive since the gains from doing the R&D required for technological catch up are thought to be very high and Griffith et al (2004) have documented that in the OECD returns increase dramatically with distance from the frontier. Exploiting recent advances in instrumental variables in a varying coefficient context we find that the rates of return follow an inverted U: they rise with distance to the frontier and then fall thereafter, potentially turning negative for the poorest countries. The findings are consistent with the importance of factors complementary to R&D, such as education, the quality of scientific infrastructure and the overall functioning of the national innovation system, and the quality of the private sector, which become increasingly weak with distance from the frontier and the absence of which can offset the catch up effect. China's and India's explosive growth in R&D investment trajectories in spite of expected low returns may be justified by their importing the complementary factors in the form of multinational corporations who do most of the patentable research.2014-03-19T04:00:00.000Z2014-03-19T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Finance and Financial Sector Development|Private Sector DevelopmentEconomic Theory & Research|Debt Markets|E-Business|Political Economy|Scientific Research & Science ParksThe World Region|South Asia|East Asia and PacificGoni, Edwin|Maloney, William F.Why don't poor countries do R&D ?EnglishWorld|India|ChinaScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Finance and Financial Sector Development|Private Sector DevelopmentEconomic Theory & Research|Debt Markets|E-Business|Political Economy|Scientific Research & Science ParksWPS6811World|India|ChinaEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region|South Asia|East Asia and Pacific

This paper formalizes the design of experiments intended specifically to study spillover effects. By first randomizing the intensity of treatment within clusters and then randomly assigning individual treatment conditional on this cluster-level intensity, a novel set of treatment effects can be identified. The paper develops a formal framework for consistent estimation of these effects, provides explicit expressions for power calculations, and shows that the power to detect average treatment effects declines precisely with the quantity that identifies the novel treatment effects. A demonstration of the technique is provided using a cash transfer program in Malawi.2014-03-31T04:00:00.000Z2014-03-31T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Industry|Social Protections and Labor|Health, Nutrition and Population|EducationDisease Control & Prevention|Science Education|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Technology Industry|Labor PoliciesAfricaBaird, Sarah|Bohren, J. Aislinn|McIntosh, Craig|Ozler, BerkDesigning experiments to measure spillover effectsEnglishMalawiScience and Technology Development|Industry|Social Protections and Labor|Health, Nutrition and Population|EducationDisease Control & Prevention|Science Education|Scientific Research & Science Parks|Technology Industry|Labor PoliciesWPS6824MalawiEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperAfrica

Investment decision making is already difficult for any diverse group of actors with different priorities and views. But the presence of deep uncertainties linked to climate change and other future conditions further challenges decision making by questioning the robustness of all purportedly optimal solutions. While decision makers can continue to use the decision metrics they have used in the past (such as net present value), alternative methodologies can improve decision processes, especially those that lead with analysis and end in agreement on decisions. Such "Agree-on-Decision" methods start by stress-testing options under a wide range of plausible conditions, without requiring us to agree ex ante on which conditions are more or less likely, and against a set of objectives or success metrics, without requiring us to agree ex ante on how to aggregate or weight them. As a result, these methods are easier to apply to contexts of large uncertainty or disagreement on values and objectives. This inverted process promotes consensus around better decisions and can help in managing uncertainty. Analyses performed in this way let decision makers make the decision and inform them on (1) the conditions under which an option or project is vulnerable; (2) the tradeoffs between robustness and cost, or between various objectives; and (3) the flexibility of various options to respond to changes in the future. In doing so, they put decision makers back in the driver's seat. A growing set of case studies shows that these methods can be applied in real-world contexts and do not need to be more costly or complicated than traditional approaches. Finally, while this paper focuses on climate change, a better treatment of uncertainties and disagreement would in general improve decision making and development outcomes.2014-06-04T04:00:00.000Z2014-06-04T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Transport|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Environment|Finance and Financial Sector DevelopmentClimate Change Economics|Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Science of Climate Change|Transport Economics Policy & Planning|Debt MarketsThe World RegionKalra, Nidhi|Hallegatte, Stephane|Lempert, Robert|Brown, Casey|Fozzard, Adrian|Gill, Stuart|Shah, AnkurAgreeing on robust decisions : new processes for decision making under deep uncertaintyEnglishWorldScience and Technology Development|Transport|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|Environment|Finance and Financial Sector DevelopmentClimate Change Economics|Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases|Science of Climate Change|Transport Economics Policy & Planning|Debt MarketsWPS6906WorldEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region

For reason of empirical tractability, analysis of cointegrated economic time series is often developed in a partial setting, in which a subset of variables is explicitly modeled conditional on the rest. This approach yields valid inference only if the conditioning variables are weakly exogenous for the parameters of interest. This paper proposes a new test of weak exogeneity in panel cointegration models. The test has a limiting Gumbel distribution that is obtained by first letting the time dimension of the panel go to infinity and then letting its cross-sectional dimension go to infinity. The paper evaluates the accuracy of the asymptotic approximation in finite samples via simulation experiments. Finally, as an empirical illustration, the paper reports tests of weak exogeneity of disposable income and wealth in an aggregate consumption equation.2014-09-23T04:00:00.000Z2014-09-23T04:00:00.000ZScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|EducationScientific Research & Science Parks|Science Education|Economic Theory & Research|Statistical & Mathematical Sciences|EconometricsThe World RegionMoral-Benito, Enrique|Serven, LuisTesting weak exogeneity in cointegrated panelsEnglishWorldScience and Technology Development|Macroeconomics and Economic Growth|EducationScientific Research & Science Parks|Science Education|Economic Theory & Research|Statistical & Mathematical Sciences|EconometricsWPS7045WorldEnglishPolicy Research Working PaperThe World Region