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This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project on 'The politics of group-based ine... more This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project on 'The politics of group-based inequality-measurement, implications, and possibilities for change', part of a larger research project on 'Disadvantaged groups and social mobility'. Abstract: For the first time in Indonesia, we jointly analyse several economic statistics and ethnic diversity indicators at national and local levels. Nationally, we find very high levels of economic inequality, measured from household asset values or consumption expenditure. In contrast, the levels of ethnic diversity, while non-negligible, are much lower, whether they reflect fractionalization, polarization, or ethnic inequality based on individual living standards. All ethnic inequality indicators surged after the Asian economic crisis. Ethnic inequality based on education is much lower and decreasing. In panel data models, individual participation in community activities is found to be much determined by local patterns of ethn...

This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project on 'The political economy of social... more This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project on 'The political economy of social protection systems', which is part of a larger research project on 'The economics and politics of taxation and social protection'. Abstract: Social programmes for poverty alleviation involve eligibility rules and transfer rules that often proxy-means tests. We propose to specify the estimator in connection with the poverty alleviation problem. Three distinct stages emerge from the optimization analysis: the identification of the poor, the ranking of their priorities and the calculus of the optimal transfer amount. These stages are implemented simultaneous by using diverse distribution regression methods to generate fitted-values of living standards plugged into the poverty minimization programme to obtain the transfer amounts. We apply these methods to Egypt in 2013. Recentered Influence Function (RIF) regressions focusing on the poor correspond to the most efficient transfe...

It is not known to what extent welfare measures result from seasonal and geographical price diffe... more It is not known to what extent welfare measures result from seasonal and geographical price differences rather than from differences in living standards across households. Using data from Rwanda in 1983, we show that the change in mean living standard indicators caused by local and seasonal price deflation is moderately significant at every quarter. By contrast, the differences in poverty measures caused by this deflation can be considerable, for chronic as well as transient or seasonal poverty indicators. Thus, poverty monitoring and anti-poverty targeting can be badly affected by inaccurate deflation of living standard data. Moreover, when measuring seasonal poverty, the deflation based on regional prices instead of local prices only partially corrects for spatial price dispersion. Using annual local prices instead of quarterly local prices only yields a partial deflation, which distorts the measure of poverty fluctuations across seasons and biases estimates of annual and chronic ...

This paper introduces a new methodology to target direct transfers against poverty. Our method is... more This paper introduces a new methodology to target direct transfers against poverty. Our method is based on estimation methods that focus on the poor. Using data from Tunisia, we estimate ‘focused’ transfer schemes that highly improve anti-poverty targeting performances. Post-transfer poverty can be substantially reduced with the new estimation method. In terms of P2, the most popular axiomatically valid poverty indicator, a 30 percent reduction in poverty from transfer schemes based on OLS method to focused transfer schemes, requires only a few hours of computer work based on methods available on popular statistical packages. Finally, the obtained levels of under-coverage of the poor is so low that reforms based on ‘proxy-means ’ focused transfer schemes are likely to avoid social unrest.

IVIE working papers offer in advance the results of economic research under way in order to encou... more IVIE working papers offer in advance the results of economic research under way in order to encourage a discussion process before sending them to scientific journals for their final publication. * This research has been funded by the programme PARADI at the Université Laval. I am grateful to G. Lanot for his collaboration on a previous project of which this paper is a continuation. I would like to thank participants in seminars at Journées PARADI and Université Laval in Canada; CREST and DIAL

In this paper we develop a test to detect the presence of endogeneity in different quantiles in t... more In this paper we develop a test to detect the presence of endogeneity in different quantiles in the conditional distribution of a variable of interest. This Hausman test type is based on one estimator consistent only under no endogeneity at the examined quantile and another estimator consistent in both the null and the alternative hypotheses. We derive the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic. Moreover, we study the finite sample properties of this test with Monte Carlo simulations of which results exhibit substantial power in the studied cases. Finally, we apply our test to Engel curve estimation with UK data. We find that the pattern of the endogenenity of the total expenditure for various commodities (food, alcohol, fuel, transport, services) is complex when examining it across quantiles.

IVIE working papers offer in advance the results of economic research under way in order to encou... more IVIE working papers offer in advance the results of economic research under way in order to encourage a discussion process before sending them to scientific journals for their final publication. * I would like to thank participants in a seminar in Nottingham University. Remaining errors are mine. This research was supported by the ESRC under Grant No R000230316. I am also grateful for the financial support

In an approach broadening incentives to non-economic dimensions, we analytically investigate dece... more In an approach broadening incentives to non-economic dimensions, we analytically investigate decentralized incentives, exogenous shocks and self-selection in explaining political violence in civil conflicts and wars. The focus in on the mechanisms that trigger individuals’ decisions to: (1) join the combatants, (2) actually fight, or (3) donate resources to support the combatants. In a game theory model of self-sorting into combatant vs. producer roles, we identify some main driving forces that trigger violent conflicts: opportunistic versus defence incentives, and coordination of producers and combatants through transfers and protection. We derive economic, demographic and ideological determinants of (1) the share of loot allocated to soldiers, (2) the relative size of the army, and (3) the soldiers’ fighting intensity. Beyond a rich comparative statics, three increasingly violent types of society emerge from the analysis that may explain violence escalation. We discuss the existen...

Fertility analysis in Tunisia is revisited by focusing on regulation instruments instead of the n... more Fertility analysis in Tunisia is revisited by focusing on regulation instruments instead of the number of births or the number of children alive. In Muslim societies, in which marriage is the exclusive acknowledged childbearing context, a woman may be seen as starting her fertility regulation period by postponing her age at marriage. Once married, she can adjust the delay before her first birth control. Then, she can decide whether or not to use a contraceptive, and finally she can select a specific contraception method. These four decisions, approximately arranged sequentially, may somewhat interact with the sequential stages of the woman’s lifecycle and involve distinct motivations: (1) enrolment in higher education; (2) participation in the labor market; (3) a given fertility objective; and (4) dealing with middle age and old age health problems. Using data from the 2001 Tunisian PAP-FAM survey data, we estimate econometric models that provide an approximate description of fertil...

Over the last half century, violent conflicts between ethno-religious organizations and states ha... more Over the last half century, violent conflicts between ethno-religious organizations and states have shaped the political and economic development context in developing countries. However, global empirical evidence on the dynamic and strategic underpinnings of these phenomena is lacking. Here, we investigate the dynamic violent relationships between the organizations that represent minorities at risk and the governments in Middle-Eastern and North African countries. Our estimates of dynamic panel datamodels of discrete strategic responses reveal dampened cycles of violence between states and insurgent politico-ethnic organizations due to violent mutual responses. However, such cycles are absent when the organizations target civilians instead, which is more likely after an insurgency spell. Finally, we provide an original game-theoretical interpretative framework for our results, which allows us to identify, on average and under sensible restrictions, the Stag Hunt game as an appropri...

IVIE working papers offer in advance the results of economic research under way in order to encou... more IVIE working papers offer in advance the results of economic research under way in order to encourage a discussion process before sending them to scientific journals for their final publication. * I would like to thank participants in a seminar in Nottingham University. Remaining errors are mine. This research was supported by the ESRC under Grant No R000230316. I am also grateful for the financial support