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This study addresses the question of how climate variability, in terms of seasonal rainfall variation, might affect food security in Malawi. It hypothesizes that seasonal rainfall variation could cause food insecurity and that the consequences of weather hazards possibly differ within the country. An additional aim of this study is therefore to map local resilience in Malawi to estimate the adaptation ability by analyzing two subsamples. The hypothesis is tested by using a two-way fixed effect regression analysis and panel data for 28 districts in Malawi covering the years 2000, 2004, 2010 and 2015. This study finds no statistically significant effect of seasonal rainfall variation on children’s health for the examined years.

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have become the most important social policy in Latin America, and their influence has spread to countries around the world. A number of studies provide strong evidence of the positive impacts of these programs on the main targeted outcomes, education and health, and have proved successful in other outcomes such as nutrition, household income, and child labor. As we expect CCT programs to remain a permanent aspect of social policy for the foreseeable future, demand for evidence of the indirect effects of CCT programs has grown beyond the initial emphasis of these programs. My research pays particular attention to these relevant but unintended outcomes, which have been discussed less extensively in the literature. Familias en Accion (FA), a CCT program in Colombia, started operating in 2002 and has benefited approximately 1,500,000 households since its beginning. The results of the program’s evaluation survey, representative of poor rural households in Colombia, are a very good source or investigating not only the unintended effects of the program but also the microeconomic behavior of poor households and social policy issues in the country. Using a panel dataset from FA, I address three empirical policy questions: (i) to what extent is consumption of beneficiary households better insured against income shocks? (ii) has the program displaced child labor as a risk-coping instrument?, and (iii) are there any incentive effects of the cash transfers and the associated conditionalities on the labor supply of adults in recipient households? Each of my research questions is addressed separately; however, the results, taken together, can be informative in understanding the safety net value of the program and their potentialities to reduce poverty in the long term. I find that the program serves as an instrument for consumption smoothing. In particular, FA is effective in protecting food consumption, but not nonfood consumption, and it reduces consumption fluctuations in response to idiosyncratic shocks but not to covariate shocks. Results also reveal that FA works as insurance for the schooling of the poor but is not able to completely displace child labor. Finally, the results also show that beneficiary mothers are devoting more time to household chores and that girls and female adult labor are complementary. Male labor supply has increased while boys have increased leisure time as a response to the program.

No description available.

No description available.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-06-23T19:43:06Z No. of bitstreams: 1 juliagoesdasilva.pdf: 980905 bytes, checksum: df0e8068aa03e5a954830f862e4dc02a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-07-13T15:41:31Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 juliagoesdasilva.pdf: 980905 bytes, checksum: df0e8068aa03e5a954830f862e4dc02a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-13T15:41:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 juliagoesdasilva.pdf: 980905 bytes, checksum: df0e8068aa03e5a954830f862e4dc02a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-12-19 / A discussão teórica em torno da mobilidade do capital pode ser divida em dois pontos de referência: um conduzido pela mensuração da relação entre poupança e investimento domésticos, conforme Feldstein e Horioka (1980); o outro pela análise das variâncias da conta corrente teórica e observada, como propõe Ghosh (1995). Ambos trouxeram importantes contribuições para testar suposições sobre o fluxo de capital entre nações, entretanto, o presente trabalho segue a linha de Ghosh (1995), se preocupando com a análise da conta corrente sob as hipóteses de equilíbrio intertemporal, limitando-se ao caso brasileiro no período de 1970 a 2007. Com o fim de encontrar evidências sobre o grau de mobilidade internacional do capital para o país, e sobre o comportamento suavizador da conta corrente, seguiu-se em boa medida a metodologia utilizada em Huang (2010), que levanta a hipótese da importância de incluir as variáveis taxa real de juros mundial e termos de troca no modelo básico de Ghosh (1995). Utilizando o método de Variável Instrumental, não foi possível estabelecer o grau de mobilidade de capital para o Brasil entre 1970-2007, pois o parâmetro que capta a relação entre produto líquido e conta corrente mostrou-se estatisticamente não diferente de zero. Todavia, a inclusão dos termos de troca e da taxa de juros ao modelo, resultou em melhor ajustamento das estimativas, confirmando a importância dessas para explicar os movimentos da conta corrente. Os resultados obtidos pelo VAR mostraram que a série gerada para a conta corrente teórica não se ajusta à observada. Entretanto, os resultados reafirmam a importância de incluir aquelas variáveis, e conduzem à constatação de excesso de mobilidade do capital entre 1970-2007. Mas, quando se observa a série teórica em subperíodos, de 1970-1989, de 1990-2007 e de 1994-2007, verifica-se que, para o modelo expandido (que inclui as variáveis propostas),o excesso de mobilidade não ocorre após 1994. / The theoretical debate on capital mobility can be divided into two strands in the literature: one based on measuring the saving-investment correlation following Feldstein and Horioka (1980) seminal paper; the other one comparing the variance of the theoretical current account derived from an intertemporal equilibrium model with its actual counterpart, as proposed by Ghosh (1995). In the present work it is analyzed the Brazilian case from 1970 to 2007 following the line of Ghosh (1995) who focuses on the analysis of the current account under the hypothesis of intertemporal equilibrium. In order to find evidence of the degree of international capital mobility, and of the behavior of smoothing current account, it is followed largely the model developed in Huang (2010) who investigated the importance of including world real interest rate and terms of trade in the basic model of Ghosh (1995). Using the method of Instrumental Variable as proposed in Huang (2010) the degree of capital mobility for Brazil between 1970 and 2007 could not be correctly evaluated because the key parameter that measures the degree of capital mobility was not statistically different from zero in all models estimated. However, it is found that the inclusion of terms of trade and interest rate in the estimated models improve the model fit to the actual current account, confirming the importance of these variables to explain its movements. Comparing the variances it is found that the generated theoretical current account does not match the volatility of the observed one leading to the finding of “excess mobility” as defined in Ghosh (1995) in the whole sample. Nevertheless, when we divide the theoretical series in three periods, namely, 1970-1989, 1990-2007 and 1994-2007, a different result emerges for the complete model (comprising all the variables proposed) with the “excess mobility” no longer holding after 1994.