Phone surveys can be useful tools for data collection for agricultural statistics in low- and middle-income countries / Phone surveys can be useful tools for data collection for agricultural statistics in low- and middle-income countries / Phone surveys can be useful tools for data collection for agricultural statistics in low- and middle-income countries / Shutterstock
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 five papers published in the first half of September 2022 on various topics, including COVID-19 and taxation.
The first three papers we introduce in this roundup explore topics related to COVID-19. In Inferring COVID-19 Vaccine Attitudes from Twitter Data: An Application to the Arabic Speaking World, Roy van der Weide investigates whether Twitter data can be used to infer attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination with an application to the Arabic speaking world. In From Necessity to Opportunity: Lessons for Integrating Phone and In-Person Data Collection for Agricultural Statistics in a Post-Pandemic World, Philip Wollburg and coauthors reflect on how phone surveys may be incorporated into survey and data systems in low- and middle-income countries. In Revisiting Poverty Trends and the Role of Social Protection Systems in Africa during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Nishant Yonzan and coauthors combine per capita gross domestic product growth from national accounts with data from High-Frequency Phone Surveys for several countries to estimate the net impact of the pandemic on poverty.
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Inferring COVID-19 Vaccine Attitudes from Twitter Data: An Application to the Arabic Speaking World uses Twitter data find that COVID vaccination hesitancy on Twitter in the Middle East is estimated at just below 20 percent. With regards to effective messengers and messages in the discourse on COVID vaccination, the authors find that the most effective tweets on the anti-vaccine side highlight claims that the vaccine causes serious life-threatening side effects -- while on the pro-vaccine side, tweets showing public figures receiving the vaccine are found to be most effective. Finally, state-news accounts are found to receive the overwhelming majority of retweets in the author’s database making them the most effective messengers. Figure 1 below labels the top-40 most retweeted tweets based on their attitude towards vaccination. The most retweeted tweets are from user accounts that champion COVID vaccination.
Figure 1: Number of retweets garnered by top-40 tweets
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From Necessity to Opportunity: Lessons for Integrating Phone and In-Person Data Collection for Agricultural Statistics in a Post-Pandemic World reviews evidence and experiences from before and during the pandemic to analyze and provides guidance on the scope of and considerations for using phone surveys for agricultural data collection. It addresses the domains of sampling and representativeness, post-survey adjustments, questionnaire design, respondent selection and behavior, interviewer effects, as well as cost considerations, all with an emphasis on the particularities of agricultural and rural surveys. Ultimately, the integration of phone interviews with in-person data collection offers a promising opportunity to leverage the benefits of phone surveys while addressing their limitations, including the depth of content constraints and potential coverage biases, which are especially challenging for agricultural and rural populations in low- and middle-income countries.
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Revisiting Poverty Trends and the Role of Social Protection Systems in Africa during the COVID-19 Pandemic uses recent data to estimate and reassess the impact of the pandemic on country-level poverty in Africa for 2020 assess as well as to synthesize empirical evidence on the role of social protection systems to mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic in Africa. It finds that the pandemic increased poverty in Africa by 1.5–1.7 percentage points in 2020, relatively smaller than early estimates and projections. The paper also finds that countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence experienced the greatest increases in poverty, about 2.1 percentage points in 2020.
The last two papers we introduce touch upon topics related to taxation. In Increasing Tax Collection in African Countries: The Role of Information Technology, Fabrizio Santoro and Oyebola Okunogbe, examine how African countries may take advantage of recent advances in technology to improve tax administration. In How Does the Progressivity of Taxes and Government Transfers Impact People’s Willingness to Pay Tax ? Experimental Evidence across Developing Countries, Christopher Hoy examines how the progressivity of taxes and government transfers impacts people’s willingness to pay tax.
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Many African countries struggle to collect an adequate amount of taxes. Increasing Tax Collection in African Countries: The Role of Information Technology examines how African countries may use recent advances in technology to improve tax administration. The paper provides an overview of the potential and challenges of different tax categories in Africa: consumption taxes, real estate taxes, trade taxes, and income taxes. It then describes the ways in which technology solutions may be deployed to address these challenges by helping to identify the tax base, monitor compliance, and facilitate compliance.
Figure 2: Composition of Taxes by Country Income Level
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How Does the Progressivity of Taxes and Government Transfers Impact People’s Willingness to Pay Tax ? Experimental Evidence across Developing Countries examines whether people are more (less) willing to pay tax when the tax and/or transfer system in their country is progressive (not progressive). Through a randomized survey experiment with over 30,000 respondents across eight developing countries, the paper finds that respondents increased (decreased) their willingness to pay taxes when they received accurate information that taxes in their country are progressive (not progressive).
The following are other interesting papers published in the first half of September. We encourage you to read them as well.
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