QuBE Working Papers

2021

• #062
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  Customized Credit Transfer and Women Empowerment: Evidence from Randomized Controlled Trials in Bangladesh

  Jinnat Ara and Dipanwita Sarkar

  This study focuses on a randomized experiment conducted by BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra poor (TUP) program in rural Bangladesh and examines the effect of an intervention that combines the availability of credit with supports offered through transfer programs on women empowerment. Using two years panel data, this study investigates if the credit program had an effect on women’s ability to influence in intra-household decision-making, communal cohesion, boosting consciousness for their rights inside and outside the household, competitiveness and self-confidence– a behavioural trait that women in rural Bangladesh are severely lacking in, and which is likely to be correlated with empowerment. Despite randomization, we estimate the effects of the intervention using difference-in-difference after controlling for respondent’s socio-demographic characteristics. Our empirical results show positively significant effects on enhancing sole and joint decision-making capabilities, social inclusion, and awareness about social and legal issues while domestic violence against women is likely to decrease after the intervention.

• #061
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  Keywords:

  Bangladesh, Child labor, Gender, Working hours, Asset transfer

  Like mother like daughter? Occupational mobility among children under asset transfer program in Bangladesh

  Jinnat Ara, Dipanwita Sarkar and Jayanta Sarkar

  Using longitudinal data from Randomized Controlled Trials, this study estimates the effect of BRAC’s Targeting the Ultra-Poor program on the nature of work among the children of the program beneficiaries. Since the program provides assets to the main female of the household, this transfer is expected to alter their children’s study time, market and non-market activities. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we find that the likelihood of a child adopting self-employment increases significantly across all waves as a result of asset transfer. However, there is significant temporal and gender differences in the effects on their study time: the effect is negative in the short run but positive in the long run for the boys, but not significantly so for the girls. Our findings corroborate the Beckerian model of time allocation: in the short run asset transfer expands the earning opportunities inducing substitution of study time for work, especially among the boys. Eventually as income rises over time, demand for education rises study time. Our results also show that the asset transfer program is likely to reduce gender gap in skilled employment as girls become less likely to undertake unskilled work both relative to the boys in her household and all children in the non-participating households. The children of program participant households who were involved in unskilled work at the start of the program are likely to spend significantly more time on agricultural self-employment and less time on unskilled work uniformly across time.

• #060
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  JEL-Codes:

  H75, H77, I14, I18, R58

  Keywords:

  Decentralization, Health resources, Intergovernmental relations, policy evaluation, China

  Decentralization and health resource allocation: Quasi-experimental evidence from China

  Yue Dong, Dipanwita Sarkar and Jayanta Sarkar

  This paper examines the causal impacts of decentralization of health resource allocation in China. We use the province-managing-county reform that expanded the administrative and fiscal powers of the counties as a quasi-natural experiment and exploit its staggered implementation across counties for identification. Combining a longitudinal county-level data from 2000 to 2012 with a generalized difference-in-difference design, we find that the introduction of the reform led to an increase in health resources at the county level. Moreover, the expansion of administrative power at the county level had a greater impact on health resources than fiscal power, while the simultaneous expansion of both powers had a more significant impact. Our results highlight the importance of designing deep and appropriate decentralization reforms to balance local health resources and promote health equity in China.

• #059
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  Health Technology and Inequality in China: Insights from Analysis of Hospital Patents

  Yue Dong, Kam Ki Tang and Dongjie Wut

  Background: Health technology has great potential to promote public health, yet it also contributes to health inequalities through uneven diffusion and utilization. This article examines the quantity, quality, and distribution of innovative technologies in China’s health sector over 1985-2015. Methods: We use data on hospital patents as a proxy of innovative health technologies. We use the Gini coefficient and the concentration index to measure the distribution of hospital patents. Regression models are used to examine the degree of convergence of hospital patents over 2000 to 2015. Results: Compared with hospital beds and doctors, inequality in hospital patents was remarkably large in China. Hospital patents are concentrated in the well-developed eastern and coastal regions. These results still hold after adjustment for quality differences between the different types of patents. We do not observe any overall reduction in the unequal distribution of patents over time. Conclusion: Substantial spatial and socioeconomic inequalities in innovative technologies have been observed in China’s health sector but have not yet been addressed. Inequality in health technology is not only much larger than the inequalities in labour and capital inputs in the health sector but also rising steadily.