We use administrative data from the lottery-based open enrollment system in Beijing middle schools to obtain unbiased estimates of school fixed effects on student performance. To do this, we classify children in selection channels, with each channel representing a unique succession of lotteries through
which a child was assigned to a school, given his parents’ choice of schools and the schools’ enrollment quotas. Within each channel, students had an equal probability of being assigned to a given school. Results show that school fixed effects are strong determinants of student performance. These fixed effects are shown to be highly correlated with teacher qualifications measured in particular by their official ranks. Furthermore, teacher qualifications have about the same predictive power for student test scores as do school fixed effects, implying that observable aspects ofschool quality almost fully account for the role ofschool quality differences.

We study the eects of the Mexican conditional cash transfer program Progresa (now re-named Oportunidades) on school enrollment and performance in passing grades. We develop a theoretical framework of the dynamics of the educational process including endogeneity and uncertainty of school performance. It provides predictions for the eect on performance of a cash transfer conditional on school attendance. Using a randomized experiment implemented under Progresa, we identify the eect of the program on enrollment and performance in the first year of the program, before performance-induced dynamic selection took place. We find that the program had a positive impact on school enrollment at all grade levels whereas for performance it had a positive impact at the primary school level but a negative impact at the secondary level. According to our theoretical framework, this can be due to the disincentives created by termination of program benets after the third year of secondary school.

It has been proposed that changes in global climate have been responsible for episodes of widespread violence and even the collapse of civilizations. Yet previous studies have not shown that violence can be attributed to the global climate, only that random weather events might be correlated with conflict in some cases. Here we directly associate planetary-scale climate changes with global patterns of civil conflict by examining the dominant interannual mode of the modern climate, the El Nin˜o/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Historians have argued that ENSO may have driven global patterns of civil conflict in the distant past, a hypothesis that we extend to the modern era and test quantitatively. Using data from 1950 to 2004, we show that the probability of new civil conflicts arising throughout the tropics doubles during El Nin˜o years relative to La Nin˜a years. This result, which indicates that ENSO may have had a role in 21% of all civil conflicts since 1950, is the first demonstration that the stability of modern societies relates strongly to the global climate.

This paper estimates the total value that individuals derive from their state's tax-and-transfer program, and shows how this value varies by income. The paper decomposes this total value into two components: redistributive value, which is due to predictable changes in income (and family circumstances), and insurance value, which occurs when taxes and transfers compensate for unexpected income shocks. Our approach is a forward-looking one, where we examine income and transfers net of taxes over a 10-year period. We model state taxes (personal income taxes, the EITC, and sales taxes) and state means-tested transfers (AFDC/TANF and Medicaid/SCHIP). The calculations are made using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and allow for analysis of the role of changes in tax-and-transfer programs, demographics, and income in the value of state net benefits over a period of more than 30 years. Wefind that the redistributive value of state tax-and-transfer programs sharply declines with income, but that the insurance value is increasing in income. The resulting
total value still declines with income, but not nearly as sharply as the redistributive value. Hence, the insurance value mitigates the incentives for mobility that would “undo” state redistributive spending.

New information and communication technologies provide governments with opportunities to deliver public services more effectively to their citizens. But we know little about the reasons for variation in the adoption of these technologies across countries. Using cross-national data on government use of information technologies to reform public service delivery, or eGovernment, I argue that politicians’ expectations about the effects of more transparent service delivery on established patterns of rent seeking play an important role in shaping variation in the character of reforms. I show that the level of pre-existing corruption in a country is a robust predictor of eGovernment outcomes, with more corrupt governments less likely than their less corrupt peers to implement high quality public service reforms using information technology. This finding contrasts with those analyses that emphasize the role of economic conditions or regime type in explaining technological diffusion.

If voters are biased against female candidates, only the most talented, hardest working female candidates will succeed in the electoral process. Furthermore, if women perceive there to be sex discrimination in the electoral process, or if they underestimate their qualifications for office, then only the most qualified, politically ambitious females will emerge as candidates. We argue that when either or both forms of sex-based selection are present, the women who are elected to office will perform better, on average, than their male counterparts. We test this central implication of our theory by studying the relative success of men and women in delivering federal spending to their districts and in sponsoring legislation. Analyzing changes within districts over time, we find that congresswomen secure roughly 9% more spending from federal discretionary programs than congressmen. Women also sponsor and cosponsor significantly more bills than their male colleagues.

Governments need the capacity to manage price instability and its social consequences; but in countries where people suffer most, they are least able to respond, because of limited fiscal and institutional resources. This article argues that policies used by middle- and high-income countries are unsuitable for poorer, agricultural countries; it recommends instead that these nations promote broader access to land and raise land productivity. The authors explain why instruments used by richer countries, such as those that control prices and cheapen food, fail in poorer countries. They describe the features of smallholder farmers in poorer countries, drawing upon evidence from India, Peru, and Guatemala to demonstrate how subsistence farming can be part of policy responses to the distress of a food crisis in both the short and medium term. They call upon donors to improve their understanding of and support for smallscale, subsistence-oriented farming.

The Indian government has set the challenging goal of increasing its electricity capacity six- to eight-fold in the next 30 years in the context of significant capacity shortfalls and a financially ailing electricity sector. The central and state governments are subsidizing renewable energy because of energy security concerns, to promote domestic resources and a diversity of fuel supply. International funds made available through the international climate change regime could potentially provide much needed support to pay the higher costs that most renewable energy requires. This article performs a case study analysis of the history of the development of one renewable energy technology in India – cogeneration of sugarcane waste – focusing on the barriers this technology has faced in the past and now faces, and how well international and domestic efforts have worked to overcome these barriers. The goal of this work is to lend insight into the effective structure of future international support mechanisms being discussed for inclusion under the post-2012 climate change regime. This study finds that bagasse cogeneration has faced layers of informational, technical, regulatory and financial barriers that have changed over time, and differed significantly between the private and cooperative sugar sectors. Each of the programmes designed to support bagasse cogeneration had a role to play in enabling the bagasse cogeneration currently installed, and no single programme would have been successful on its own. Some barriers to the technology needed directed efforts designed to address the specific context of the sugar sector in India; simply subsidizing the technology or putting a price on carbon was not enough. Where climate (global) and development (local) priorities differ, projects that bring about international goals risk running into conflict with other more pressing domestic goals. Interviews at mills attempting to access carbon financing through the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) indicate that additionality-testing is a challenge to the effectiveness of this mechanism. Any effort to exploit the remaining 86% of the estimated national potential for high efficiency bagasse cogeneration will need to address the special financial and political conditions facing cooperative mills.