Policy Research Working Paper series publication roundup for April 16-April 30, 2022

This blog is a biweekly feature highlighting recent working papers from around the World Bank Group that were published in the World Bank’s Policy Research Working Paper Series. This entry introduces six papers published from April 16 to April 30 on various topics, including gender, transportation, flooding and migration.   

The first two papers relate to gender related topics. In Intimate Partner Violence against Women: Prevalence, Formal Reporting, and Risk Factors in Chile, Manuel Contreras-Urbina and coauthors conducted a study in Chile that analyzes what factors determine the likelihood that a woman will be subjected to violence perpetrated by her partner or ex-partner and what factors determine the probability of reporting the abuse. In Women’s Labor Force Participation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq : A Study of Social and Psychological Barriers, Zeina Afif and coauthors use recent methods in the measurement of social norms and cultural beliefs to investigate a number of social and psychological barriers to labor force participation of women.  

• In Chile, one in four women who have been in a relationship report having experienced some type of partner violence in the past 12 months, whether psychological, physical, sexual, or economic. However, only 22 percent of female victims of intimate partner violence file a formal complaint. Intimate Partner Violence against Women: Prevalence, Formal Reporting, and Risk Factors in Chile analyzes what factors determine the likelihood that a woman will be subjected to violence perpetrated by her partner or ex-partner and what factors determine the probability of reporting the abuse. The study finds that factors increasing the risk include being young, having fewer years of education, having a disability, and having been a victim of sexual abuse in childhood.  The likelihood that a woman will formally report intimate partner violence is mainly determined by the frequency of the episodes, characteristics of the partners or ex-partners, economic empowerment, and whether she has support networks. 

• Women’s Labor Force Participation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq : A Study of Social and Psychological Barriers investigates a number of social and psychological barriers to women’s labor force participation in the Kurdistan Region. Women’s labor force participation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is very low, at 14 percent. The paper finds that while 70 percent of women and men support women’s participation in the private sector, several challenges remain. Findings show that traditional gender role expectations may still impede women’s labor force participation. Perceptions of common societal practices and beliefs of other members from the same household are all correlated with women’s work.  

The next two papers take us to Africa. In Estimating the Demand for Informal Public Transport: Evidence from Antananarivo, Madagascar, Atsushi Iimi, analyzes the demand behavior in the “informal” minibus sector in Antananarivo, Madagascar, taking advantage of a recent user survey of thousands of people. In Benefits and Costs of Public Schooling in Ghana, Dhushyanth Raju and Stephen D. Younger examine the monetary benefits and costs of the quantity of public schooling in Ghana.  

• As urban infrastructure development tends to lag rapid population growth, informal public transport often meets the growing gap between demand and supply in urban mobility. Estimating the Demand for Informal Public Transport: Evidence from Antananarivo, Madagascar analyzes the demand behavior in the informal minibus sector in Antananarivo, Madagascar, taking advantage of a recent user survey of thousands of people. The paper finds that the demand for informal public transport is generally inelastic. Essentially, people have no other choice. Unlike formal public transportation, the demand also increases with income. Regardless of income level, everyone uses minibuses.  

• Benefits and Costs of Public Schooling in Ghana examines the monetary benefits and costs of the quantity of public schooling as well as the monetary benefits and costs of some aspects of the quality of public schooling, measured by the gains in achievement produced by selected interventions in public schools in Ghana. In general, the authors find that the benefit-cost ratios are greater than one (see table below), so public spending on schooling in Ghana provides good value for money. The paper also finds that several different types of remedial teaching methods have considerably higher benefit-cost ratios than does providing an additional year of schooling at any level. This suggests that the returns to improving the teaching of students already in school may be higher than getting more students in school.  

Table 1: Summary of Benefit-Cost Ratios 

 

The last two papers of the roundup deal with very timely topics. In Rapid Urban Growth in Flood Zones: Global Evidence since 1985, Jun Rentschler and coauthors provide a global analysis of spatial urbanization patterns and the evolution of flood exposure between 1985 and 2015. In Displacement and Return in the Internet Era : How Social Media Captures Migration Decisions in Northern Syria,  Erin Walk and coauthors analyze how the widespread use of social media has recorded migration considerations for Syrian refugees using social media.  

• Rapid Urban Growth in Flood Zones: Global Evidence since 1985  uses high-resolution annual data to show that settlements across the world grew by 85 percent to over 1.28 million square kilometers. In the same period, settlements exposed to the highest flood hazard level increased by 122 percent. In many regions, risky growth is outpacing safe growth, particularly in East Asia, where high-risk settlements have expanded 60 percent faster than safe ones. Developing countries are driving the recent growth of flood exposure: Since 1985, 36,500 square kilometers of settlements were built in the world’s highest-risk zones–82 percent of which are in low- and middle-income countries. In comparison, recent growth in high-income countries has been relatively slow and safe. These results document a divergence in countries’ exposure to flood hazards. Rather than adapting their exposure to climatic hazards, many countries are actively increasing their exposure. 

Figure 1: Share of Settlements by Flood Hazard Level 

 

• Displacement and Return in the Internet Era : How Social Media Captures Migration Decisions in Northern Syria analyzes how the widespread use of social media has recorded migration considerations for Syrian refugees using social media text and image data from three popular platforms (Twitter, Telegram, and Facebook). Leveraging survey data on the presence of IDPs and returnees, it uses topic modeling and image analysis to find that areas without return have a higher prevalence of violence-related discourse and images while areas with return feature content related to services and the economy. Figure 2 below shows that discussion around organized war violence, such as “Regime military action, Air strike”, is more represented in areas without return and without IDPs, with an increase of 0.045 between neither and both (52% more prevalent). Other violence related topics such as “Air strike warning” (0.05, 29%), “Liberation army, Regime military” (0.029, 49%), and “anti-ISIS campaign” (0.01, 33%) are also more prevalent in areas without returnees or IDPs. This result supports research indicating that individuals are unlikely to want to return to areas with ongoing violence and military campaigns, especially if they were exposed to violence prior to leaving 

Figure 2: Topic prevalence based on presence of returnees and IDPs, Location Mentions dataset 

 

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The following are other interesting papers published in the last two weeks of April. Please make sure to read them as well.  

1. ^{The Legal Profile of Russian Eurobonds : Engineered against Speed (Farah Yacoub,Juan Pablo)} 

2. ^{Effects of Data Collection Methods on Estimated Household Consumption and Survey Costs: Evidence from an Experiment in the Marshall Islands (Sharp,Michael K.,Buffière,Bertrand,Himelein,Kristen,Troubat,Nathalie,Gibson,John)} 

3. ^{Unemployment Benefits, Active Labor Market Policies, and Labor Market Outcomes : Evidence from New Global Data (Ulku,Hulya,Georgieva,Dorina Peteva)} 

4. ^{Cash and In-Kind Transfers in Humanitarian Settings : A Review of Evidence and Knowledge Gaps (Jeong,Dahyeon,Trako,Iva)} 

5. ^{Exploring the Sources of the Agricultural Productivity Gender Gap : Evidence from Sri Lanka (Fukase,Emiko,Kim,Yeon Soo,Chiarella,Cristina Andrea)} 

6. ^{Social Cohesion, Economic Security, and Forced Displacement in the Long-Run : Evidence from Rural Colombia (Tellez,Juan Fernando,Balcells,Laia)} 

7. ^{Forced Displacement, Exposure to Conflict and Long-run Education and Income Inequality : Evidence from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Kovac,Dejan,Efendic,Adnan,Shapiro,Jacob N.)} 

8. ^{Displacement and Social Empowerment : Evidence from Surveys of IDPs in Iraq, the Philippines, and Uganda (Vinck,Patrick Thierry,O’Mealia,Thomas,Wei,Carol,al-Saiedi,Abdulrazzaq,Irwani,Muslih,Pham,Phuong Ngoc} 

9. ^{Superstitions and Civilian Displacement : Evidence from the Colombian Conflict} 

10. ^{Extortion and Civic Engagement among Guatemalan Deportees (Denny,Elaine Kathryn,Dow,David,Levy,Gabriella,Villamizar-Chaparro,Mateo)} 

11. ^{Calamities, Debt, and Growth in Developing Countries (Rachel Yuting Fan,Lederman,Daniel,Ha Nguyen,Rojas Guzman,Claudio Jeremias)} 

12. ^{Determining the Caloric Content of Food Consumed away from Home : An Application to the Construction of a Cost-of-Basic-Needs Poverty Line (Himelein,Kristen)} 

13. ^{Childcare, COVID-19 and Female Firm Exit : Impact of COVID-19 School Closure Policies on Global Gender Gaps in Business Outcomes (Goldstein,Markus P.,Gonzalez Martinez,Paula Lorena,Papineni,Sreelakshmi,Wimpey,Joshua Seth)} 

14. ^{The Gender Labor Productivity Gap across Informal Firms (Islam,Asif Mohammed,Amin,Mohammad)} 

15. ^{New Algorithm to Estimate Inequality Measures in Cross-Survey Imputation : An Attempt to Correct the Underestimation of Extreme Values (Betti,Gianni,Molini,Vasco,Mori,Lorenzo)} 

16. ^{Unequal Households or Communities Decomposing the Inequality in Nutritional Status in South Asia (Brown,Caitlin Susan,Kandpal,Eeshani,Lee,Jean Nahrae,Williams,Anaise Marie)} 

17. ^{Rising Incomes, Transport Demand, and Sector Decarbonization (Lebrand,Mathilde Sylvie Maria,Theophile,Ewane)} 

18. ^{Absolute and Relative Poverty Measurement : A Survey (Decerf,Benoit Marie A)} 

19. ^{Air Pollution and Poverty : PM2.5 Exposure in 211 Countries and Territories (Maruyama Rentschler,Jun Erik,Leonova,Nadia)} 

20. ^{Quantifying Vulnerability to Poverty in Uganda (Atamanov,Aziz,Mukiza,Chris Ndatira,Ssennono,Vincent Fred)}