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This blog is maintained by the Growth and Crisis (GC ) Program of the World Bank Institute.

We bring you timely news, resources, tools, ideas and commentaries on issues related to the global economic crisis and growth.

December 2008

Fridays Academy: Gender and Macroeconomic Management

Submitted by Ignacio on Fri, 12/26/2008 - 03:37

As usual on Fridays, from Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.

 

Empirical Evidence on Impact of Globalization on Women

Available studies and data, which are rather limited, is arranged around some broad themes and discussed below and next week.  Little is known about the impact of macroeconomic policies on women, such as changes in exchange rates, interest rates, minimum wages, and commodity prices.

 

Exchange rate fluctuations

These are common in developing countries while responding to shocks usually emanating from policies in G-3 countries.  Exchange rate fluctuations impact upon domestic investment, prices of tradables, and wages, particularly in more competitive industries, such as textiles, garments, agro-processing, cut-flowers, and low value-added manufacturing goods.  Goldberg (2001) and Tracy find some evidence from the United States that exchange-rate shifts impact upon: (i) the wages of women who remain with their same jobs, (ii) the wages of women who change jobs, and (iii) the frequencies of job-changing.  For example, a 10-percent depreciation of the dollar, for example, is estimated to raise women's wages by roughly 1 percent. However, for women who have changed jobs, the estimated wage increase is over 2 percent, while for women who stay on their jobs the estimated wage increase is 0.75 percent. For both men and women, the strongest effects of exchange rate volatility are observed among the less-educated workers.
 

Factor Mobility

Fridays Academy: Gender and Macroeconomic Management

Submitted by Ignacio on Fri, 12/19/2008 - 12:11

As usual on Fridays, from Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.

 

 Impact of Globalization on Gender

Globalization is defined as the increasingly free flow of ideas, people, goods, services, and capital across countries, both North and South. It therefore deals with policies related to trade, finance, flow of information, technology, management know-how, outsourcing of jobs, and immigration and remittances. As a result of globalization, the difference between local and international markets is blurred, and this is impacting upon the structures of employment and a host of other institutions, including household structure and relationships. There are three main hypothesis as to why and when women find more employment opportunities: (i) during periods of labor shortages as during economic expansions only to be released during recessions (buffer or reserve army hypothesis), or (ii) during periods when output in the sectors in which women are over-represented could be rising more rapidly than output in rest of the economic sectors (segmented market hypothesis) or (iii) over time women gradually replace males into what until then were ‘"male jobs" (substitution hypothesis).

 

Transmission mechanisms

There are several transmission channels through which globalization impacts upon the living standard of both men and women. It is not possible to detail the complex interactions between all the elements of globalization and impact on women but a few observations are in order:

Fridays Academy: Gender and Monetary Policy

Submitted by Ignacio on Fri, 12/12/2008 - 11:58

Like every Friday, from Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.

 
Micro-finance institutions

Africa Development Indicators 2008/09

Submitted by Ignacio on Mon, 12/08/2008 - 14:23

The World Bank launched last week its annual flagship report on Africa, the Africa Development Indicators.

The report presents data from 1965 to 2006 for 53 African countries and 5 regional country groups, arranged in separate tables or matrices for more than 450 indicators of development. It also includes an essay on a specific topic of current interest for Africa. This year: Youth and Employment in Africa – The Potential, the Problem, the Promise.

You can access on-line and download the full report as well as its pocket version, the little data book on Africa.

Fridays Academy: Gender and Monetary Policy

Submitted by Ignacio on Fri, 12/05/2008 - 11:36

From Raj Nallari and Breda Griffith's lecture notes.

 

Competitive Exchange Rates

If the central bank is able to maintain a competitive exchange rate, it may help offset some of the gender bias observed during contractionary inflation-reduction by Braunstein and Heintz (2006).  The underlying reason for this effect is that in many countries the growth of women’s employment, particularly formal employment and wage employment, has tended to be concentrated in tradable sectors and a real depreciation of the exchange rate favors tradable sectors and could help protect women’s employment. To reiterate, Braunstein and Heintz (2006) find empirical evidence that real exchange rates appear to have an impact on the gender bias observed in contractionary inflation-reduction episodes. As discussed last week, in the majority of cases of 51 inflation episodes that they observed, women’s formal employment was disproportionately affected by the slowdown in employment growth. However, about a third of the time, the ratio of women’s to men’s employment actually improved when compared to its long-run trajectory. In each of these cases, the real exchange rate either depreciated or showed no deviation relative to its long-run trend.

World Bank Internship Program - Summer 2009

Submitted by Ignacio on Tue, 12/02/2008 - 12:09

The World Bank is now accepting applications for the 2009 Summer Internship Program. Deadline to apply is January 31st, 2009. You can also apply to Region-Specific Internships.

Please read the instructions carefully. Questions? Here are some answers to the most FAQs. If you have more questions, please contact human resources directly.

Good luck to those who apply.

Today is World AIDS Day

Submitted by Ignacio on Mon, 12/01/2008 - 11:09

This year marks the 20th anniversary of World AIDS day.

A new report from UNAIDS, AIDS OUTLOOK/09, highlights the achievements but also and the pressing challenges in addressing HIV.