The Demand for Medical Care

The Demand for Medical Care
Author: Masako Ii
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 70
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9780821335659

World Bank Technical Paper No. 293. Presents a conceptual framework for understanding the impact of health sector reforms in Central and Eastern Europe. The book analyzes the various factors involved in the reforms and presents strategies adopted by many countries of the region during the early phases of the transition era.

Infrastructure and Poverty in Viet Nam

Infrastructure and Poverty in Viet Nam
Author: Dominique Van de Walle
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 64
Release: 1996
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780821335444

In 1992 the World Bank launched the Africa's Management in the 1990s research program, a comprehensive study of the issues of institutional capacity building in Sub-Saharan Africa and its effects on economic and social development. This report focuses on the program and on how to implement its main message: institutions must be both rooted in the local context and culture and open to outside challenges and influences. Chapters focus on the institutional aspects of capacity building, best practices in public administration, indigenous private sector development, and a framework for reconciliation between institutions.

A Guide to Living Standards Measurement Study Surveys and Their Data Sets

A Guide to Living Standards Measurement Study Surveys and Their Data Sets
Author: Margaret E. Grosh
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 66
Release: 1995-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780821333754

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 302. Presents an alternative way of financing development in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to address the shortcomings of past investment lending. This study discusses sector investment programs (SIPs) as an alternative way of financing development in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to address the shortcomings of past investment lending in the region. The report examines the nature and features of SIPs by drawing on the limited experience with such operations in a number of coutries to date, including Bangladesh, Mozambique, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Zambia. A SIP is distinguished by its comprehensive sector coverage, by close coordination among all parties, including stakholders and donors, and by the requirement that it be formulated under local ownership and management

Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis

Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis
Author: Angus Deaton
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780821349908

In September 2001, staff from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met with the objective of strengthening collaboration between the two organizations in projects of civil service reform. This strengthened collaboration will have key benefits in ensuring consistency between the conflicting goals of the two organizations, establishing realistic objectives within the reform process, and maintaining a core set of wage and employment data. The principal conclusion arrived at was that World Bank and IMF staff should be engaging in collaboration earlier in the reform process. To guide the collaboration, six foundations were identified. These include: develop a medium-term fiscal framework; foster national ownership by making reforms politically feasible; focus and streamline conditionality; agree on sequencing and timing of reforms; and strengthen data collection. These principals will be tested for effectiveness in several focus countries.

The Economics of School Quality Investments in Developing Countries

The Economics of School Quality Investments in Developing Countries
Author: Paul Glewwe
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 383
Release: 1999-07-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1349150320

This book presents a method to estimate the economic returns to investments in school quality. While economists have long had methods to estimate rates of return to additional years of schooling, until now there has been no method for analyzing returns to investments in school quality. This is regrettable, because many, if not most, government education policies focus on school quality. Empirical work using data from Ghana shows that investments in school quality have higher rates of return than investments in increased years in schooling. The bulk of the study is written by Paul Glewwe, with some coauthored and contributed pieces from his co-researchers Jaikishan Desai, Dean Jolliffe, Raylynn Oliver and Wim Vijverberg, who worked as research assistants on this project.

The Curricular Content of Primary Education in Developing Countries

The Curricular Content of Primary Education in Developing Countries
Author: Aaron Benavot
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 56
Release: 1989
Genre: Educacion primaria - Paises en desarrollo
ISBN:

There is no evidence to support the claim that developing countries teach more subjects or emphasize different subject matter in primary schools than developed countries do -- so efforts to change or simplify their primary curricula may be strongly resisted.

The Public Role in Private Post-secondary Education

The Public Role in Private Post-secondary Education
Author: Åke Blomqvist
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 53
Release: 1989
Genre: Educacion - Paises en desarrollo
ISBN:

Should private educational institutions be encouraged, through financial incentives and constraints, to play more role in post-secondary education? What public policies, subsidies, and regulations should be used to influence them?

Children's Health and Achievement in School

Children's Health and Achievement in School
Author: Jere R. Behrman
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 60
Release: 1994-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780821328538

The commonly held view is that extremely poor health hurts educational achievement. This study examined the possibility of biases in standard estimation of effects and illustrated empirically, based on Ghanaian Living Standard of Measurement Study data, that there was not a significant effect of child health on child cognitive achievement. Consideration was given to the endogenous determination of child health. Child health was determined by anthropometry. Cognitive achievement test scores and preschool ability measured schooling success and child endowments respectively. Household and community characteristics and sibling data were used to measure family and community fixed effects. The conclusion, based on ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation and instrumental variable level estimates, was that child health did not impact on child cognitive achievement. The differences between the instrumental variable estimates and the within family and within community estimates suggested bias. Four basic conclusions were drawn. 1) Considerable bias occurred in prior studies, because there was a failure to account for estimation problems. 2) Inclusion of instrumental variables, assumed to be independent of the disturbance term in the cognitive achievement production function, and without controls for simultaneity, suggested a downward bias. 3) The bias was upward when estimates with sibling data were accounted for. Unobserved family and community effects can cause upward biases. 4) Coefficients, which are supposed to represent the impact of child health on schooling, may not do so. In the discussion of model specification, it was pointed out that upward bias can occur with heterogeneity in preferences regarding child quality, in unobserved predetermined family endowments that affect production of child quality, and in unobserved predetermined community endowments that affect child quality production. The unobserved predetermined child characteristics affect both child health and cognitive achievement in the same direction. There can be unobserved heterogeneity in access to capital markets. The 2 stage least squares procedure was found to overstate the impact of child health and cause greater distortions than OLS estimates.