Narrow Results

This paper examines the effects on educational attainment of assistance programs that provided typhoon-resistant secondary schools and instructional resources in the Philippines. Using the variation in the availability of assistance programs and differences in exposure across age cohorts induced by the timing of the allocation of program packages, I find positive and statistically significant impacts on education outcomes for both boys and girls. For boys, the presence of typhoon-resistant schools equipped with instructional resources led to an average increase of 0.26–0.31 years of education, while the presence of instructional resources alone led to an average increase of 0.23–0.26 years of education. For girls, the availability of both components led to an average increase of 0.23–0.32 years of education, while the availability of either component alone did not seem to have an effect.

This paper examines the theory of Dutch disease and its implications for practical policy questions. Dutch disease is a term that is well-known to economists and development practitioners. But it is also a concept that is often conflated with "resource curse" and misinterpreted as a "disease" that necessarily causes adverse impacts on the economy. The paper points out that many of the seemingly well-established arguments in this field are not necessarily grounded in theory or empirical evidence. Great care is needed in diagnosing Dutch disease and formulating policy prescriptions based on the theoretical framework, given the restrictive assumptions that may not be fully applicable and the limited relevance to today's inextricably intertwined trade flows.

With growing exposure to extreme events, there is a pressing need to identify effective strategies for mitigating and coping with losses. Two widely implemented policies — subsidized insurance and ex post compensation — are compared in this paper. First, a conceptual framework is presented and provides insight into the net benefits and distributional effects of these programs. Then, a case study of flood insurance and compensation uses a benefit–cost analysis (BCA) to illustrate the distribution of net benefits across stakeholders. Findings from the conceptual framework and BCA suggest that an intervention to increase uptake of subsidized flood insurance does not deliver net social benefits relative to the status quo compensation program. Furthermore, subsidized insurance delivers subsidies to wealthier households, while increasing taxpayer burden that can be disproportionately borne by the poor. These results imply that aid and insurance programs should be better coordinated since interactions between these two strategies influence household decisions and the cost of disaster policy. Overall, findings suggest that means-tested or lump sum aid payments could shift benefits to less wealthy households and are reasonable policies in cases where the alternative is a voluntary insurance program with subsidized premiums.