Aziz Atamanov

Microeconomic analysis of rural nonfarm activities in the Kyrgyz Republic: What determines participation and returns?

This paper uses two representative household budget surveys from the Kyrgyz Republic to analyze factors influencing participation and returns from different types of nonfarm activities in 2005 and 2006. Nonfarm activities are found to be most important for the poor, who are pushed out of agriculture due to limited and poor land resources. We also show that different nonfarm activities have different human capital requirements. Unlike other studies, we use the double hurdle model which allows us to demonstrate that a number of variables have different effects on participation and income from nonfarm activities. For example, residing in remote areas and lack of capital are found to stimulate participation in nonfarm activities, but decrease nonfarm income. Overall, the empirical analysis confirms the importance of rural nonfarm activities and indicates that equipping poor households to enable them to move towards better remunerative nonfarm activities should be a priority for Kyrgyz rural policy makers.

International Migration and Local Employment: Analysis of Self-Selection and Earnings in Tajikistan

This paper addresses the issue of self-selection of individuals in international labour migration, non-agricultural and agricultural employment in Tajikistan and its link to earnings from these activities. Unlike most empirical studies, we could attribute selection bias on unobservable characteristics to the allocation of individuals to alternative employment sectors and analyse its impact on earnings abroad and at home. We have found positive selection in migration against local non-agricultural activities and positive selection in local non-agricultural activities against local agricultural activities. This indicates that the most capable individuals with regards to unobservable characteristics choose to migrate, while the somewhat less able choose non-agricultural activities, and individuals with the worst capabilities stay in poorly-paid agricultural activities. Controlling for self-selection, labour income returns to education of migrants and individuals in non-agricultural activities are slightly lower than those from Ordinary Least Squares (OLS).

Energy Subsidies Reform in Jordan: Welfare Implications of Different Scenarios

Facing a fiscal crisis, Jordan initiated substantial petroleum subsidy reforms in 2012. The government has also long contemplated how to cut electricity subsidies, which surpass the fiscal burdens imposed by the petroleum subsidies. This paper estimates the impacts of the 2012 petroleum subsidies reform on household welfare and government revenues. It also simulates the distributional and fiscal impacts from ending subsidies in the electricity sector, where the pricing structure is more complex than petroleum prices. The paper looks at the direct and indirect impacts of reform. Moreover, the paper discusses the political economy considerations of reform. While the full removal of petroleum subsidies would have increased poverty, the compensatory cash transfer program the government instituted is estimated to have fully offset the negative impact for the poorer population. The impact of reforms in the electricity sector will depend significantly on the implementation method chosen. A flat increase of tariffs toward cost recovery will put a huge burden on the poorest households. However, a progressive increase in tariffs will generate substantial savings for the government, even with compensatory mechanisms to mitigate the strong negative impact on the vulnerable population. The immediate compensation of the losers from reform appears to be a crucial factor in the successful implementation of reforms in Jordan.

Pathways to the Middle Class in Turkey: How Have Reducing Poverty and Boosting Shared Prosperity Helped?

Turkeys poverty reduction performance in the 2000s has been remarkably consistent. Extreme and moderate poverty have fallen considerably since 2003. Between 2002 and 2011, extreme poverty fell from 13 percent to 5 percent, while moderate poverty halved from 44 percent to 22 percent (respectively, defined using the World Banks Europe and Central Asia regional poverty lines of 2.5 and 5 USD/PPP). Most of this poverty reduction (89 percent) has been driven by growth, a performance consistent with most countries in Europe and Central Asia. This is substantially different form the recent performance of other regions, such as Latin America, where redistribution contributed to poverty reduction almost four times more than in Turkey. Turkey has also achieved sustained consumption growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population, even during the years of the world recession. Turkeys performance in poverty reduction and increased shared prosperity has been complemented by the systematic expansion of the middle class by 20 percentage points. This paper analyzes the main drivers of poverty reduction, shared prosperity, and changes in inequality in Turkey from 2002 to 2011. The analysis shows that labor markets, demographics, pensions, and social assistance have played a critical role in this process. It further explores some of the mechanisms that have facilitated these changes.

Technical Assistance to CIS Countries

During the last two decades the CIS countries have received very significant amounts of technical assistance from international development organizations and bilateral donors. While this has played a positive and important role in the transformation of these societies, practically all stakeholders currently share the opinion that many problems have accumulated in the area of technical cooperation with CIS countries. This paper intends to outline these problems, analyze their underlying reasons - including the changing environment for technical cooperation in the CIS - and the interaction of the interests of beneficiaries, donors and providers in the process of implementing technical cooperation projects. The analysis suggests that a good understanding, recognition and coordination of the interests of all TC stakeholders and a reduction in the information gap between the various participants in the technical cooperation process are necessary for improving the effectiveness of technical cooperation.

Poverty Reduction and Shared Prosperity in Tajikistan : A Diagnostic

Tajikistan was one of the fastest growing countries in the Europe and Central Asia region during the last decade. The economic growth was widely shared by the population and as a result poverty (measured by the national poverty line) declined from 73 percent in 2003 to 47 percent in 2009 accompanied by falling inequality. Consumption growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population -- a measure of shared prosperity proposed by the World Bank- was positive, pointing out that the growth was shared among the less well off. This work presents a diagnostic of shared prosperity and poverty reduction in Tajikistan during 2003-2009. The paper also focuses on quantifying the main drivers of poverty reduction, shared prosperity, and intra-generational mobility (class transitions). Some of the mechanisms of poverty reduction are explored in detail. Finally, main impediments to inter-generational mobility are discussed.

Determinants of Remittances in Central Asia: Evidence Based on the Household Budget Survey in the Kyrgyz Republic

Remittances play important role for the economy of Central Asian countries. This article uses a unique representative household budget survey from the Asian Development Bank to analyze the determinants of remittances for permanent and seasonal migrants from the Kyrgyz Republic. Empirical investigation using Tobit and OLS with instrumental variables reveals that both groups send remittances for different reasons. Altruism and insurance seem to drive remittances from seasonal migrants, while the positive relations between income, assets and remittances from permanent migrants may be a result of bequest, loan repayment and exchange motives.

Energy Subsidies Reform in the Republic of Yemen: Estimating Gains and Losses

Subsidizing fuel products and electricity has a long history in Yemen. Falling hydrocarbon revenues and the increasing fiscal deficit in 2014 urged the government to adjust fuel prices and initiate subsidies reform. This chapter explores the distributional and fiscal impacts of different reform options including the actual increase in prices in August 2014, focusing on fuel and electricity subsidies. The distributional analysis shows that only kerosene subsidies are pro-poor, and that subsidies for other products are pro-rich. Full removal of the remaining subsidies on LPG, diesel, and gasoline is expected to generate a negative impact increasing poverty by 1.1 percentage points. Full removal of subsidies on electricity is not a feasible option to consider. Instead, a more realistic reform would be introducing more brackets and a progressive increase in tariffs partially removing electricity subsidies. In terms of political economy, the history of unsuccessful reforms in Yemen suggests that successful implementation of subsidies reforms depends crucially on the right timing and a sound compensation scheme with targeted benefits. In addition, adequate public campaigns are needed to inform the public about the benefits of reforms. Finally, introducing automatic adjusting mechanisms of domestic prices to international commodities prices by law may reduce the politicians’ ability to manipulate prices.

Robustness of Shared Prosperity Estimates: How Different Methodological Choices Matter

This paper is the first to systematically test the robustness of shared prosperity estimates to different methodological choices using a sample of countries from all regions in the world. The tests that are conducted include grouped versus microdata, nominal welfare aggregate versus adjustment for spatial price variation, and different treatment of income with negative and zero values. The empirical results reveal an only minimal impact of the proposed tests on shared prosperity estimates. Nevertheless, there are important caveats. First, spatial adjustment can change the ranking of households, affecting the distribution of the population in the bottom 40 percent. Second, the negligible impact of spatial deflation holds only if price adjustments are carried out consistently over time. Finally, the treatment of negative and zero income numbers can potentially lead to substantial differences in shared prosperity, depending on the magnitude of negative income and the share of households with negative and zero numbers across years.

Constructing robust poverty trends in the Islamic Republic of Iran : 2008-14

This paper constructs and tests the robustness of consistently measured poverty trends in the Islamic Republic of Iran after 2008, using international poverty lines based on U.S. dollars at 2011 purchasing power parity. The constructed estimates reveal three distinct periods of welfare in the Islamic Republic of Iran: increase in poverty and inequality between 2008 and 2009, decline in poverty and inequality between 2009 and 2012, and gradual deterioration of both indicators again after 2012. The results are robust regardless of the choice of welfare aggregate, inclusion or exclusion of different components, and spatial adjustment accounting for regional variation in food and housing prices.