Policy Research Working Paper series publication roundup for December 1-December 15, 2021

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 December 1 to December 15 on various topics, including COVID-19, transnational terrorism and the internet and electric vehicles.

The first three papers we introduce for the last blog post of 2021 are timely as they cover issues related COVID-19. In Political Prioritization of Early Childhood Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic : A Comparative Policy Analysis of Low- and Middle-Income Countries, Michelle J. Neuman and  Shawn Powers analyze what factors have contributed to the lack of priority for early childhood education in distance learning and school reopening plans, by applying a political prioritization framework to the pandemic context in several low and middle-income countries. In Occupational Hazards : Why Migrants Faced Greater Economic and Health Risks during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Caglar Ozden and coauthors  investigate the economic and health risks arising from the COVID-19 pandemic for migrant workers in the European Union. Finally, in Can Business Grants Mitigate a Crisis? Evidence from Youth Entrepreneurs in Kenya during COVID-19, Bilal Zia and coauthors take a look at the causal impact of grants and business development services as potential mitigation measures to youth entrepreneurs and their businesses. 

• Political Prioritization of Early Childhood Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic : A Comparative Policy Analysis of Low- and Middle-Income Countries applies a political prioritization framework to the pandemic context in four low- and middle-income countries: Ethiopia, Jamaica, Liberia, and Pakistan. The paper reveals that some aspects of the pre-COVID-19 status quo, which disfavored early childhood education, have continued, including a lack of cohesive support from civil society and a greater focus by international partners on norm promotion and technical assistance. The pandemic has also put early childhood education at an even greater disadvantage. This includes perceptions that early childhood education is less suited to distance delivery than other levels of education, concerns about young children’s ability to comply with health protocols, and competition with high-stakes examinations for education ministries’ attention.
• Occupational Hazards : Why Migrants Faced Greater Economic and Health Risks during the COVID-19 Pandemic assesses migrants’ economic and health vulnerabilities using ex ante measures based on both supply and demand shocks. The analysis finds that immigrants were more vulnerable than native-born workers to both income- and health-related risks, and that this greater exposure stems from the occupations in which migrant workers are concentrated. Migrants work to a greater degree than native-born citizens in occupations that are less amenable to teleworking arrangements, and in economic sectors that experienced greater reductions in demand during the pandemic. This has led to an increase in both their income and employment risks. Immigrants from regions outside Europe were more vulnerable than those from within Europe or native-born workers. The paper shows that individual characteristics, such as educational attainment, age, and geographical location, fail to explain the native-migrant gap in exposure to economic and health risks posed by the pandemic. Limited language ability, the concentration of migrants in jobs with labor shortages among native-born workers, and a reliance on immigrant networks to find jobs all appear to play significant roles in migrants’ exposure to pandemic-related risks. Figure 1 below shows both native and migrant workers, younger cohorts and those with lower levels of education suffered higher demand shocks in their sectors of employment.

Figure 1: Demand shock across age groups, education levels, income, and nativity

• Can Business Grants Mitigate a Crisis? Evidence from Youth Entrepreneurs in Kenya during COVID-19 uses phone surveys to analyze the impact of grants to youth entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis finds that youth who are assigned business grants or a combination of grants and business development services are significantly more likely to maintain a business, earn more revenue and profits, retain employees, and report higher confidence and satisfaction with life. These results suggest that cash infusion for young entrepreneurs in times of an aggregate shock can be instrumental in moderating its immediate harmful impacts.

The last two papers we introduce pertain to two fascinating topics that have caught the attention of the world in the last couple of decades: terrorism and electric vehicles. In Transnational Terrorism and the Internet, Quy-Toan Do and coauthors examine whether the internet enables the recruitment of transnational terrorists. In The Global Diffusion of Electric Vehicles: Lessons from the First Decade, Fan Zhang and coauthors provide a comprehensive analysis of the diffusion of passenger electric vehicles based on detailed data on model-level electrical vehicle sales across the world from 2013 to 2020.

• Transnational Terrorism and the Internet uses geo-referenced population census data and personnel records from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant to show that internet access has facilitated the organization’s recruitment of foreign fighters from Tunisia. The positive association between internet access and Daesh recruitment is robust.

Figure 2: Recruits, internet access, and lightning strikes in Tunisia

Please refer to paper for more details, including all tables mentioned in the caption.  

• The Global Diffusion of Electric Vehicles: Lessons from the First Decade shows that the highly uneven electrical vehicle penetration across countries is partly driven by cross-country variation in incentives and especially in the availability of charging infrastructure. Investment in charging infrastructure would have been much more cost-effective than consumer purchase subsidies in promoting electrical vehicle adoption. This finding suggest the importance of expanding charging infrastructure in the next phase of deeper electrical vehicle diffusion.

The following are other interesting papers published in the first half of December. Please make sure to read them as well.

1. Lost in Interpretation : Why Spouses Disagree on Who Makes Decisions (Liaqat,Sundas, Donald,Aletheia Amalia,Jarvis,Forest Brach,Perova,Elizaveta,Johnson,Hillary C.)
2. A Puzzle with Missing Pieces : Explaining the Effectiveness of World Bank Development Projects (Ashton,Helen  Louise,Friedman, Jed,Goldemberg, Diana,Hussain, Mustafa Zakir,Kenyon,Thomas, Khan,Akib, Zhou,Mo)
3. What Explains Wage Differentials for Urban Wage Earners : Returns to Education for Ethiopia’s Urban Wage Employed (Nath,Shanjukta,Wieser,Christina)
4. Monetary, Fiscal, and Structural Drivers of Inflation in Ethiopia : New Empirical Evidence from Time Series Analysis (Ndikumana,Léonce,Nkurunziza,Janvier D.,Sanchez Martin,Miguel Eduardo,Mulugeta,Samuel,Getachew Kelbore,Zerihun)
5. Estimating a Poverty Line for Brazil Based on the 2017-18 Household Budget Survey (Lara Ibarra,Gabriel,Paffhausen,Anna Luisa,Vasconcellos Archer Duque,Daniel)
6. Taxation, Accountability, and Cash Transfers : Breaking the Resource Curse (Devarajan,Shantayanan,Do,Quy-Toan)
7. Short-Term Impacts of Targeted Cash Grants and Business Development Services : Experimental Evidence from Entrepreneurs in Burkina Faso (Grimm,Michael, Soubeiga,Sidiki,Weber,Michael)
8. Mobilizing Parents at Home and at School : An Experiment on Primary Education in Angola (Di Maro,Vincenzo,Leeffers,Stefan,Serra,Danila,Vicente,Pedro C.)
9. Building State Capacity : What Is the Impact of Development Projects (Di Maro,Vincenzo,Evans,David K.,Khemani,Stuti,De Gouvea Scot De Arruda,Thiago)