Jonathan Haughton

Handbook on Poverty and Inequality

The handbook on poverty and inequality provides tools to measure, describe, monitor, evaluate, and analyze poverty. It provides background materials for designing poverty reduction strategies. This book is intended for researchers and policy analysts involved in poverty research and policy making. The handbook began as a series of notes to support training courses on poverty analysis and gradually grew into a sixteen, chapter book. Now the Handbook consists of explanatory text with numerous examples, interspersed with multiple-choice questions (to ensure active learning) and combined with extensive practical exercises using stata statistical software. The handbook has been thoroughly tested. The World Bank Institute has used most of the chapters in training workshops in countries throughout the world, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Malawi, Pakistan, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Thailand, as well as in distance courses with substantial numbers of participants from numerous countries in Asia (in 2002) and Africa (in 2003), and online asynchronous courses with more than 200 participants worldwide (in 2007 and 2008). The feedback from these courses has been very useful in helping us create a handbook that balances rigor with accessibility and practicality. The handbook has also been used in university courses related to poverty.

Son preference in Vietnam.

This article assesses the strength of son preference in Vietnam, as reflected in fertility behavior. It formulates and estimates a proportional hazards model applied to birth intervals, and a contraceptive prevalence model, using household survey data from 2,636 ever-married women aged 15-49 with at least one living child who were interviewed for the Vietnam Living Standards Survey 1992-1993. Son preference is found to be strong by world standards, but nevertheless, it has a minor effect on fertility; in its absence, the total fertility rate would fall by roughly 10 percent from the current level of about 3.2 children per woman of reproductive age.

Ethnic minority development in Vietnam

Abstract This study examines the disparities in living standards between and among the different ethnic groups in Vietnam. Using data from the Vietnam Living Standards Surveys and 1999 Census, we show that ‘majority’ Kinh and Hoa households have substantially higher living standards than ‘minority’ households from Vietnams 52 other ethnic groups. While the Kinh, Hoa, Khmer and Northern Highland Minorities benefited from economic growth in the 1990s, the position of the Central Highland Minorities stagnated. Decompositions show that even if minority households had the same endowments as Kinh households, this would close no more than a third of the gap in their per capita expenditures. While some ethnic minorities seem to be doing well out of a strategy of assimilating with the Kinh-Hoa majority, others groups are attempting to integrate economically while retaining distinct cultural identities, and a third group is largely being left behind by the growth process.

Explaining Child Nutrition in Vietnam

UNICEF has written that widespread malnutrition in Vietnam stems not from the insufficient production of food but from problems of availability distribution and demand. The authors estimated two models of child nutrition using data from a representative and relatively large sample of Vietnamese households surveyed in 1992-93. No evidence was found of gender bias in nutrition for either stunting or wasting. These findings are consistent with the lack of gender bias in Vietnam in providing health care and education to preteen children. Birth order and mother and fathers education are however important with the effect of education remaining even when income is included in the regression equations. The effect of education upon nutrition therefore appears to work directly rather than through its influence upon income. Families in the northern regions rural households and families belonging to ethnic minority groups have significantly higher levels of malnutrition than do those elsewhere in the country.

Household enterprises in Vietnam : survival, growth, and living standards

In Vietnam almost a quarter of adults worked in nonfarm household enterprises in 1998. Based on household panel data from the Vietnam Living Standards Surveys of 1993 and 1998, the authors find some evidence that operating an enterprise leads to greater affluence. The data show that nonfarm household enterprises are most likely to be operated by urban households, by those with moderately good education, and by the children of proprietors. The authors were able to construct a panel of nonfarm household enterprises; 39 percent of enterprises operating in 1993 were still in business in 1998. Those in the (more affluent) south of the country were less likely to survive, as were smaller and younger businesses. A pattern emerges from the data. In poor areas the lack of education, credit, and effective demand limits the development of nonfarm household enterprises. In rich areas there is the attraction of wage labor. Nonfarm household enterprises are thus most important in the period of transition, when agriculture is declining in importance but before the formal sector becomes established. The authors expect these enterprises to continue to play a modest supporting role in fostering economic growth in Vietnam.

Explaining the pattern of regional unemployment: The case of the Midi-Pyrénées region

Abstract. Unemployment rates vary widely at the sub-regional level. We seek to explain why such variation occurs, using data for 174 districts in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France for 1990–1991. A set of explanatory variables is derived from theory and the voluminous literature. The best model includes a correction for spatially autocorrelated errors. Unemployment rates are higher in urban areas and, where per capita income is higher, are consistent with the view that unemployment differences largely reflect variations in “amenities.” Along with a lack of evidence of housing market rigidities, these suggest that subregional variations in unemployment are not mainly the result of labor market disequilibrium.

Falling fertility in Vietnam.

This study examines the evidence for a decline in fertility in Vietnam relies on Bongaarts proximate determinants of fertility and discusses the disparity between high fertility and high contraceptive use and abortion. Data were obtained from the 1992-93 Vietnam Living Standards Survey. Total fertility declined to 3.2 children/woman by 1993 from 5.6 in 1979. The rate of fertility decline in Vietnam was comparable to declines in Taiwan Singapore Hong Kong Malaysia and Thailand during periods of rapid demographic transition. Only China had a faster decline in fertility. Bongaarts estimates indicate that predicted total fertility was below the observed total fertility for 1989 and 1993. Predicted total fertility declined by 0.8 which was comparable to the actual decline in fertility. However the gap between observed and predicted fertility was large. When the Bongaarts model was adjusted for overestimation of contraceptive use the predicted total fertility figure of 3.3 in 1993 came very close to the actual value of 3.2 from the Living Standards Survey data. It is argued that the shift to a market-based economy did not reduce the pressure on parents to have smaller families. Desired family size values obtained from other surveys for 1993 and 1994 indicate that women desired about 2.3 to 2.8 children. It is expected that fertility will continue to decline. Declines will be attributed to more effective contraceptive use.

Information criteria and harmonic models in time series analysis

In this paper we present a novel methodology for estimating harmonic models in time series. The amplitude density function is derived from an inversion of the spectral representation of the series and is found to have the property of strong consistency. It is used in conjunction with non-linear least squares regression in an iterative procedure to yield precise estimates of the frequencies in the model. Information criteria are then used in determining how many frequencies to include in the model. The optimal procedure was tested using Monte Carlo techniques, and proved successful at correctly estimating the underlying harmonic model. The methodology was applied to a series of magnitudes of a variable star, to a series of signed sunspot numbers, and to a series of temperature data. A class of iterative procedures was investigated, and an optimal procedure proposed, which involves the use of non-linear least squares and an update of the amplitude density function after each new frequency has been estimated...

Using a mixture model to detect son preference in Vietnam

Son preference is strong in Vietnam, according to attitudinal surveys and studies of contraceptive prevalence and birth hazards. These techniques assume a single model is valid for all families, but it is more plausible that son preference is found for some, but not all, families. Heterogeneous preferences may be addressed with a mixture model. This paper specifies and estimates a two-Weibull regression model, applied to the interval between the second and third births. The data come from the Vietnam Living Standards Survey of 1992-93. Applying information criteria, graphs, and martingale-based residuals, the two-Weibull model is found to fit better than a one-Weibull model. Roughly half of parents have son preference and, curiously, a propensity for fewer children. The other group has more children, no son preference, and is colourless in the sense that the birth interval is difficult to predict on the basis of the regressors used.

Student Performance in an Introductory Business Statistics Course: Does Delivery Mode Matter?

Approximately 600 undergraduates completed an introductory business statistics course in 2013 in one of two learning environments at Suffolk University, a mid-sized private university in Boston, Massachusetts. The comparison group completed the course in a traditional classroom-based environment, whereas the treatment group completed the course in a flipped-hybrid environment, viewing lecture material online prior to once-a-week, face-to-face meetings. After controlling for observable differences, students in the hybrid environment performed better on the common final exam; however, there were no significant differences in the final grades or student satisfaction between the two environments.