Publication type: Working paper

Title: Cash subsidies for the poor: Evaluating Thailand’s welfare card scheme

Author(s): Wannaphong Durongkaveroj

Excerpt:

This paper examines the poverty-reducing effect of a large-scale unconditional cash transfer program (“the state welfare card scheme”) launched by the government of Thailand in 2017 that covers over 20 per cent of the country’s population. The program’s impact on monetary poverty, measured by consumption expenditure per capita, is estimated using nationally representative household socio-economic survey data collected in 2019. Using a sharp regression discontinuity design, the study finds that the programme does not reduce monetary poverty, as intended.

Date of publication: 2022

» further information

Publication type: Working paper

Title: Manufacturing productivity and firm ownership in a transition economy: Analytical issues and evidence from Vietnam

Author(s): Prema-chandra Athukorala,Hai Thanh Nguyen

Excerpt:

This paper contributes to the fledgling literature on firm ownership and manufacturing productivity in transition economies by drawing on the experience of Vietnam. The empirical analysis uses a new a new establishment-level panel dataset over the period 2006-2017.

Date of publication: 2022

» further information

Publication type: Working paper

Title: Problems with recording the spread of COVID-19 in developing countries: Evidence from a phone survey in Indonesia

Author(s): Budy P. Resosudarmo,Rus'an Nasrudin,Pyan A. Muchtar,Usep Nugraha,Anna Falentina

Excerpt:

During the COVID-19 pandemic governments in developing countries tended to underestimate the actual spread of the pandemic due to limited number of tests. To provide alternative to the government announced COVID-19 figures, many non-governmental agencies/individuals used various methods to gather data on the spread of the pandemic. One of the methods applied is phone survey approach of directly asking respondents whether they are infected and how the sickness impacts on their livelihood.

Date of publication: 2022

» further information

Publication type: Working paper

Title: Heterogeneous effects of aid-for-trade on donor exports: Why is Japan different?

Author(s): Shuhei Nishitateno,Hayato Umetani

Excerpt:

This paper estimates the Aid-for-Trade (AfT)-export elasticity from the donor perspective, using panel data for covering 45 donor countries and 140 recipients over the 2002–2019, focusing on the top-five donor countries: Japan, Germany, France, US, and UK. The method involves estimating a gravity equation with the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) technique. We find that the mean AfT-export elasticity for the 45 donor countries is zero, but the elasticity for Japan is positive and large.

Date of publication: 2022

» further information

Publication type: Working paper

Title: Some reflections on Indonesia and the resource curse

Author(s): Hal Hill,Donny Pasaribu

Excerpt:

Natural resources – blessing or curse? Indonesia provides an excellent case study for an examination of this question. It is a major commodity exporter; the fourth most populous country in the world; and the world’s largest archipelagic state with huge mineral, forest and maritime resources. Indonesia also has three distinctive features that are particularly relevant for such a study. First, with the exception of the Asian financial and pandemic crises it has had at least moderately strong economic performance for the past half century.

Date of publication: 2022

» further information

Publication type: Working paper

Title: Firms' responses to foreign demand shock: The case of Indonesia and the GFC

Author(s): Sulistiyo K. Ardiyono,Arianto A. Patunru

Excerpt:

Export-oriented manufacturing generally create jobs. But a few recent studies on Indonesian manufacturing based on input-output tables reported a declining power of this sector in creating jobs. Using firm-level data to examine manufacturing employment during the global financial crisis (GFC), we find that a 10% increase in the degree of export orientation rises the manufacturing employment by about 1% on average, depending on the firm’s capital intensity.

Date of publication: 2022

» further information

Publication type: Working paper

Title: Structural transformation away from agriculture: What role for trade?

Author(s): Kym Anderson,Sundar Ponnusamy

Excerpt:

An understanding of how and why economies structurally transform away from agriculture as they grow is crucial for developing sensible farm and food policies. Typically, analysts who study this and related structural change issues focus on sectoral shares of gross domestic product (GDP) and employment. This paper draws on trade theory to focus as well on exports. It also notes that the trade costs of some products are too high at early stages of development to make international trade profitable, so a nontradables sector is recognized.

Date of publication: 2022

» further information

Publication type: Working paper

Title: Socio-economic and environmental impact of intended decarbonisation policies in the East Asian region

Author(s): Yuventus Effendi,Budy P. Resosudarmo

Excerpt:

Even though there has been strong evidence that global warming has negative impacts on an economy, global carbon emissions have been increasing. Carbon emissions in the East Asia region has also shown a similar trend. The governments in East Asia have not implemented effective decarbonisation policies, presumably because so far limited analysis of the socio-economic and environmental impacts of these policies has been undertaken.

Date of publication: 2022

» further information