scholarly journals Youth Bulges and Civil Conflict

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (9) ◽  
pp. 1932-1962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Flückiger ◽  
Markus Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Population Group ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Percent Increase ◽  
Youth Population ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Instrumental Variable Approach

The presence of an exceptionally large youth population, that is, a youth bulge, is often associated with an elevated risk of civil conflict. In this article, we develop an instrumental variable approach in which the size of the youth cohorts in Sub-Saharan Africa is identified using variation in birth-year drought incidence. Our results show that an increase in the size of the population group aged fifteen to nineteen raises the risk of low-intensity conflict. A 1 percent increase in the size of this age-group augments the likelihood of civil conflict incidence (onset) by 2.3 (1.2) percentage points. On the other hand, we do not find any association between the size of the two adjacent youth cohorts, that is, the population groups aged ten to fourteen and twenty to twenty-four.

scholarly journals Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime, and the July 2005 Terror Attacks

2011 ◽  
Vol 101 (5) ◽  
pp. 2157-2181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirko Draca ◽  
Stephen Machin ◽  
Robert Witt
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Terror Attacks ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Percent Increase ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Causal Impact ◽  
Instrumental Variable Approach ◽  
Police Activity

In this paper we study the causal impact of police on crime, looking at what happened to crime and police before and after the terror attacks that hit central London in July 2005. The attacks resulted in a large redeployment of police officers to central London as compared to outer London. During this time, crime fell significantly in central relative to outer London. The instrumental variable approach we use uncovers an elasticity of crime with respect to police of approximately -0.3 to -0.4, so that a 10 percent increase in police activity reduces crime by around 3 to 4 percent. JEL: K42

scholarly journals Employment effects of language training for unemployed immigrants

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Lang
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Market Integration ◽  
Language Training ◽  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
Labor Market Integration ◽  
Employment Effects ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Integration Of Immigrants ◽  
Instrumental Variable Approach

AbstractProficiency in the host country’s language is an important factor for the successful labor market integration of immigrants. In this study, I analyze the effects of a language training program for professional purposes on the employment opportunities of participants in Germany. I apply an instrumental variable approach and exploit differences in lagged local training intensities. Bivariate probit estimates show that 2 years after the program started, the employment probability of immigrants who were unemployed in 2014 and participated in the program had increased by more than nine percentage points as a result of language training.

International Remittances and Private Healthcare in Kerala, India

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-460
Author(s):  
Mohd Imran Khan ◽  
Valatheeswaran C.
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Healthcare Expenditure ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Private Healthcare ◽  
International Remittances ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Instrumental Variable Approach

The inflow of international remittances to Kerala has been increasing over the last three decades. It has increased the income of recipient households and enabled them to spend more on human capital investment. Using data from the Kerala Migration Survey-2010, this study analyses the impact of remittance receipts on the households’ healthcare expenditure and access to private healthcare in Kerala. This study employs an instrumental variable approach to account for the endogeneity of remittances receipts. The empirical results show that remittance income has a positive and significant impact on households’ healthcare expenditure and access to private healthcare services. After disaggregating the sample into different heterogeneous groups, this study found that remittances have a greater effect on lower-income households and Other Backward Class (OBC) households but not Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) households, which remain excluded from reaping the benefit of international migration and remittances.

scholarly journals Causes of corruption: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Ato Forson ◽  
Theresa Yaaba Baah-Ennumh ◽  
Ponlapat Buracom ◽  
Guojin Chen ◽  
Peng Zhen
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
National Development ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Press Freedom ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Government Effectiveness ◽  
Regulatory Quality ◽  
Sub Saharan

This study explores the causes of corruption in 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa from 1996 to 2013. The sources of corruption are grouped into three main thematic areas – historical roots, contemporary causes and institutional causes to make way for subjective and objective measures. The subjective measures allow for assessment of the effectiveness of anticorruption policies. Using pooled OLS, fixed-effect and instrumental-variable approaches, and focusing on the perceived level of corruption as the dependent variable, we find that ethnic diversity, resource abundance and educational attainment are markedly less associated with corruption. In contrast, wage levels of bureaucrats and anticorruption measures based on government effectiveness and regulatory quality breed substantial corruption. Press freedom is found to be variedly associated with corruption. On the basis of these findings, we recommend that the fight against corruption on the continent needs to be reinvented through qualitative and assertive institutional reforms. Anticorruption policy decisions should focus on existing educational systems as a conduit for intensifying awareness of the devastating effect of corruption on sustainable national development.

scholarly journals Errors-in-Variables Identification in Dynamic Networks by an Instrumental Variable Approach

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 2335-2340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne Dankers ◽  
Paul M.J. Van den Hof ◽  
Xavier Bombois ◽  
Peter S.C. Heuberger
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Dynamic Networks ◽  
Errors In Variables ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Instrumental Variable Approach

Local Industrial Policy and Sectoral Hubs

2021 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 526-531
Author(s):  
Esteban Rossi-Hansberg ◽  
Pierre-Daniel Sarte ◽  
Felipe Schwartzman
Keyword(s):  
Optimal Policy ◽  
Spatial Model ◽  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Professional Services ◽  
Specific Production ◽  
Production Externalities ◽  
Industrial Policies ◽  
Coastal Cities ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Instrumental Variable Approach

We study the desirability of industrial policies that generate sectoral hubs using a quantitative spatial model with cognitive nonroutine and other occupations. The productivity of each occupation in an industry depends on sector-specific production externalities, which we estimate using a model-implied instrumental variable approach. We find that the optimal policy gives rise to national hubs in coastal cities in tradable services, like professional services, and smaller regional hubs in less tradable services, like health and education. The optimal policy prescribes developing manufacturing in smaller towns. We decompose the implied changes in local costs and the available varieties in each sector.

Land and poverty: the role of soil fertility and vegetation quality in poverty reduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-333
Author(s):  
Martin Philipp Heger ◽  
Gregor Zens ◽  
Mook Bangalore
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Vegetation Growth ◽  
Variable Approach ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Negative Impacts

AbstractThe debate on the land–poverty nexus is inconclusive, with past research unable to identify the causal dynamics. We use a unique global panel dataset that links survey and census derived poverty data with measures of land ecosystems at the subnational level. Rainfall is used to overcome the endogeneity in the land–poverty relationship in an instrumental variable approach. This is the first global study using quasi-experimental methods to uncover the degree to which land improvements matter for poverty reduction. We draw three main conclusions. First, land improvements are important for poverty reduction in rural areas and particularly so for Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, land improvements are pro-poor: poorer areas see larger poverty alleviation effects due to improvements in land. Finally, irrigation plays a major role in breaking the link between bad weather and negative impacts on the poor through reduced vegetation growth and soil fertility.

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