Sonia Bhalotra

Assessing the Impact of Microcredit: A Zambian Case Study

Expectations are high, but evidence of the impact of microcredit remains in short supply. This article estimates the impact of an urban credit programme in Zambia on business performance and on a range of indicators of wellbeing. Borrowers who obtained a second loan experienced significantly higher average growth in business profits and household income. Inflexible group enforcement of loan obligations resulted in some borrowers, especially amongst those who had taken only one loan, being made worse off. Our methodological investigations suggest that the supply of rigorous impact studies can be increased by basing them on data collection that serves a wider range of purposes, including market research.

THE PUZZLE OF JOBLESS GROWTH IN INDIAN MANUFACTURING

In the 1980s, India experimented with deregulation in industry and trade. Manufacturing output accelerated but employment declined, raising doubts about the desirability of the policy reforms. This paper proposes an explanation of employment behavior in terms of increases in total factor productivity, in actual hours worked, and in the product wage. Using robust methods, it is shown that neglect of hours worked results in a substantial upward bias in estimates of the wage elasticity. Growth in productivity and hours appears to be associated with the reform process, with the increase in hours worked reflecting recovery of lost time. To the extent that hours must hit a ceiling, the drop in employment on this count is expected to be temporary. Other things being equal, employment prospects appear to depend considerably on the course of productivity growth. Copyright 1998 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

The puzzle of Muslim advantage in child survival in India.

The socioeconomic status of Indian Muslims is, on average, considerably lower than that of upper-caste Hindus. Muslims nevertheless exhibit substantially higher child survival rates, and have done for decades. This paper analyses this seeming puzzle. A decomposition of the survival differential confirms that some compositional effects favour Muslims but that, overall, differences in characteristics and especially the Muslim deficit in parental education predict a Muslim disadvantage. The results of this study contribute to a recent literature that debates the importance of socioeconomic status (SES) in determining health and survival. They augment a growing literature on the role of religion or culture as encapsulating important unobservable behaviours or endowments that influence health, indeed, enough to reverse the SES gradient that is commonly observed.

The Impact of Economic Liberalization on Employment and Wages in India

Examines changes in the level and structure of employment and wages during economic reforms in India, focusing on the 1980s and 1990s. Relates the changes to trends in productivity.

Effect of an early perinatal depression intervention on long-term child development outcomes: follow-up of the Thinking Healthy Programme randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND Perinatal depression has been linked with deleterious child development outcomes, yet maternal depression interventions have not been shown to have lasting effects on child development, and evidence is not available from countries of low or middle income. In the Thinking Healthy Programme cluster-randomised controlled trial, a perinatal depression intervention was assessed in Pakistan in 2006-07. The intervention significantly reduced depression levels 12 months post partum compared with a control. We aimed to assess the effect of this same intervention on the cognitive, socioemotional, and physical development of children at around age 7 years. METHODS Mother-child dyads who participated in the Thinking Healthy Programme cluster-randomised controlled trial were interviewed when the index child was about 7 years old. A reference group of 300 mothers who did not have prenatal depression and, therefore, did not receive the original intervention, was enrolled with their children at the same time. The primary cognitive outcome was the score on the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-IV); primary socioemotional outcomes included scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Spence Childrens Anxiety Scale (SCAS); and primary physical outcomes were height-for-age, weight-for-age, and body-mass index (BMI)-for-age Z scores. Generalised linear modelling with random effects to account for clustering was the main method of analysis. Analyses were by intention to treat. The Thinking Healthy Programme cluster-randomised trial was registered at ISRCTN.com, number ISRCTN65316374. FINDINGS Of 705 participating mother-child dyads interviewed at the end of the Thinking Healthy Programme randomised controlled trial, 584 (83%) dyads were enrolled. 289 mothers had received the intervention and 295 had received a control consisting of enhanced usual care. The mean age of the children was 7·6 years (SD 0·1). Overall, cognitive, socioemotional, or physical development outcomes did not differ between children in the intervention or control groups whose mothers had prenatal depression. When compared with the reference group of children whose mothers did not have prenatal depression, the Thinking Healthy Programme trial children had worse socioemotional outcomes; mean scores were significantly higher on the SDQ for total difficulty (11·34 vs 10·35; mean difference 0·78, 95% CI 0·09-1·47; p=0·03) and on the SCAS for anxiety (21·33 vs 17·57; mean difference 2·93, 1·15-4·71; p=0·0013). Cognitive and physical outcomes did not differ. INTERPRETATION Our findings show that cognitive, socioemotional, and physical developmental outcomes of children at age 7 years whose mother had prenatal depression did not differ between those who received the Thinking Healthy Programme intervention and those who received the control. Further investigation is needed to understand what types of complex interventions or approaches are needed for long-term gains in maternal and child wellbeing. Prolonged, detailed, and frequent follow-up is warranted for all interventions. FUNDING Grand Challenges Canada (Government of Canada), Saving Brains programme.

Child Labour in Africa

This paper presents an overview of child labour in Africa. It discusses the incidence and nature of child labour, possible causes, and actual and potential policy instruments. It answers some questions and raises others. Africa has the highest incidence of child labour in the world. While child labour has been declining in Asia and Latin America, economic decline, war, famine and HIV/AIDS have combined to prevent this in Africa. Contrary to the popular image of child labour in factories managed by Dickensian employers, the overwhelming majority of working children in Africa are employed on household-run farms and enterprises. Recent theoretical and policy-level discussion has neglected to recognise the implications of this fact. Thus, for example, considerable attention has been dedicated to consideration of the impact on child labour of minimum wages or trade sanctions when, given the nature of work performed by most children in Africa (and, indeed, by the majority in other ... Le present document donne une vision d’ensemble du travail des enfants en Afrique. On y examine l’incidence et la nature de ce travail, les causes possibles de ce phenomene, ainsi que les instruments en place ou potentiels d’action des pouvoirs publics dans ce domaine. En Afrique, l’incidence du travail des enfants est superieure a celle que l’on observe dans n’importe quelle autre region du monde. Si le taux d’activite des enfants a diminue en Asie et en Amerique latine, la conjonction du marasme economique, des guerres, des famines et de la pandemie VIH/sida a empeche l’Afrique d’evoluer dans la meme direction. Contrairement a l’image que l’on se fait habituellement des enfants travaillant dans des usines dirigees par des patrons tout droit sortis des romans de Charles Dickens, l’ecrasante majorite des petits travailleurs africains sont employes dans des exploitations agricoles ou des entreprises familiales. Sur le plan theorique comme sur celui de l’action des pouvoirs ...

Shadows of the Captain of the Men of Death: Early Life Health Interventions, Human Capital Investments, and Institutions

We leverage introduction of the first antibiotic therapies in 1937 to examine impacts of pneumonia in infancy on adult education, employment, disability, income and income mobility, and identify large impacts on each. We then examine how racial segregation in the pre-Civil Rights Era moderated the long-run benefits of antibiotics among blacks. We find that blacks born in more segregated states reaped smaller and less pervasive long run benefits despite sharp drops in pneumonia exposure. Our findings demonstrate causal effects of early life health on economic mobility and the importance of an investment-rewarding institutional environment in realization of the full potential of a healthy start.We exploit the introduction of sulfa drugs in 1937 to identify the causal impact of exposure to pneumonia in infancy on later life well-being and productivity in the United States. Using census data from 1980-2000, we find that cohorts born after the introduction of sulfa experienced increases in schooling, income, and the probability of employment, and reductions in disability rates. These improvements were larger for those born in states with higher pre-intervention levels of pneumonia as these were the areas that benefited most from the availability of sulfa drugs. These estimates are, in general, larger and more robust to specification for men than for women. With the exception of cognitive disability and poverty for men, the estimates for African Americans are smaller and less precisely estimated than those for whites. This is despite our finding that African Americans experienced larger absolute reductions in pneumonia mortality after the arrival of sulfa. We suggest that pre-Civil Rights barriers may have inhibited their translating improved endowments into gains in education and employment.

The linked survival prospects of siblings: Evidence for the Indian states

This paper reports an analysis of micro-data for India that shows a high correlation in infant mortality among siblings. In 13 of 15 states, we identify a causal effect of infant death on the risk of infant death of the subsequent sibling (a scarring effect), after controlling for mother-level heterogeneity. The scarring effects are large, the only other covariate with a similarly large effect being mothers (secondary or higher) education. The two states in which evidence of scarring is weak are Punjab, the richest, and Kerala, the socially most progressive. The size of the scarring effect depends upon the sex of the previous child in three states, in a direction consistent with son-preference. Evidence of scarring implies that policies targeted at reducing infant mortality will have social multiplier effects by helping avoid the death of subsequent siblings. Comparison of other covariate effects across the states offers some interesting new insights.

Child Activities in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa: a Comparative Analysis

While South Asia has the largest number of working children, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of child labour. Child work participation rates are 41 per cent in Africa as compared with 21 per cent in Asia and 17 per cent in Latin America (Ashagrie, 1998). Comparative work is a first step in gaining an insight into the universality of the problem of child work. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are clearly very different environments, their common ground being that the average household, at least in rural areas, is poor. We compare the determinants of child labour in the two countries, including household living standards, household human capital and demographics, and community-level data on schools and infrastructure. The data describe prominent differences in the environment that children grow up in. We then present a summary of the determinants of the variation in child work across households within each country. Interesting contrasts across country and gender are highlighted.

Changes in Utilization and Productivity in a Deregulating Economy

This paper provides an estimate of the production cost of losses in official working hours and of utilization-adjusted productivity growth using robust methods on a panel of industry-region data for Indian manufacturing in the 1980s. Time losses such as arise on account of power cuts and materials shortages appear to have cost the economy a sixth of its potential manufacturing output in 1979. Concomitant with deregulation and increased public investment in infrastructure in the 1980s, there was a significant recuperation of lost time. Although this contributed 25% of the observed acceleration in output, it has escaped notice so far. Recognizing the increase in factor utilization produces more modest estimates of productivity growth and casts doubt on its sustainability.