Well-Being Dynamics and Poverty Traps

Barrett, Chris; Garg, Teevrat; McBride, Linden

doi:10.1146/annurev-resource-100815-095235

Cited by 124 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 183 publications

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“…At the same time, governments and policy makers should expect the dependence on their social programs to increase in the face of climate change. Given the central role of human capital accumulation as a pathway out of poverty in poor countries (Barrett, Garg and McBride, 2016), climate change will not only disproportionately affect the rural poor but absent social programs also likely perpetuate persistent poverty.…”

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confidence: 99%

Human Capital Costs of Climate Change: Evidence from Test Scores in India

Garg¹,

Jagnani

Taraz

2017

SSRN Journal

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We present estimates of the effect of temperature on cognitive performance, and find that an additional 10 days in a year above 29C reduces math and reading test scores by 0.03 and 0.02 standard deviations respectively. However, in contrast to prior work, we find evidence for an income mechanism -hot days during the growing season reduce agricultural yields and test score performance with comparatively modest effects of hot days in the non-growing season. The roll-out of a conditional cash transfer program, by providing a safety net for the poor, weakens the link between temperature and test scores. Our results suggest that climate change will have disproportionate and large negative impacts on human capital accumulation of poor populations in agrarian economies, likely increasing the persistence of poverty.JEL Codes: H41, I0, Q5, Q54

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confidence: 99%

Human Capital Costs of Climate Change: Evidence from Test Scores in India

Garg¹,

Jagnani

Taraz

2017

SSRN Journal

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“…At the same time, tropical forests in developing countries are increasingly under threat. These forests not only provide global carbon benefits but also provide important local ecosystems which support biodiversity as well as the generally poor populations that rely on them (Barrett, Garg and McBride, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ecological Impact of Transportation Infrastructure

Asher

Garg

Novosad

2020

The Economic Journal

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Abstract There is a long-standing debate over whether new roads unavoidably lead to environmental damage, especially forest loss, but causal identification has been elusive. Using multiple causal identification strategies, we study the construction of new rural roads to over 100,000 villages and the upgrading of 10,000 kilometers of national highways in India. The new rural roads had precisely zero effect on local deforestation. In contrast, the highway upgrades caused substantial forest loss, which appears to be driven by increased timber demand along the transportation corridors. In terms of forests, last mile connectivity had a negligible environmental cost, while expansion of major corridors had important environmental impacts.

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“…Poverty traps have long been used to explain disparities of incomes across countries and to justify a "big push", a coordinated investment in many sectors to unleash growth [41,68,69,70]. Yet many big pushes have failed [71], and understanding why is paramount.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contagious disruptions and complexity traps in economic development

Brummitt

Huremović

et al. 2017

Nat Hum Behav

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Poor economies not only produce less; they typically produce things that involve fewer inputs and fewer intermediate steps. Yet the supply chains of poor countries face more frequent disruptions---delivery failures, faulty parts, delays, power outages, theft, government failures---that systematically thwart the production process. To understand how these disruptions affect economic development, we model an evolving input--output network in which disruptions spread contagiously among optimizing agents. The key finding is that a poverty trap can emerge: agents adapt to frequent disruptions by producing simpler, less valuable goods, yet disruptions persist. Growing out of poverty requires that agents invest in buffers to disruptions. These buffers rise and then fall as the economy produces more complex goods, a prediction consistent with global patterns of input inventories. Large jumps in economic complexity can backfire. This result suggests why "big push" policies can fail, and it underscores the importance of reliability and of gradual increases in technological complexity.Comment: Main text: 10 pages, 6 figures. Supplementary Information: 15 pages, 1 figur

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Well-Being Dynamics and Poverty Traps

Cited by 124 publications

References 183 publications

Human Capital Costs of Climate Change: Evidence from Test Scores in India

Human Capital Costs of Climate Change: Evidence from Test Scores in India

The Ecological Impact of Transportation Infrastructure

Contagious disruptions and complexity traps in economic development

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