ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a transformative technology shaping economic development and technological innovation, especially in emerging economies. The factors that influence the adoption of AI, however, are under‐researched, particularly in structurally heterogeneous settings like the E7 countries. This study examines the impact of education spending, foreign direct investment (FDI), economic growth and environmental pressures (proxied by CO 2 emissions) on AI adoption in E7 economies from 2004 to 2024. The research uses a distribution‐sensitive panel estimation method to account for the diverse effects at various levels of AI usage rather than relying on the average effect approach. The empirical results show that education spending and economic growth have a significant positive relationship with AI adoption, with FDI having mixed effects depending on institutional capacity and its development. Environmental pressures display a complex relationship with AI diffusion, reflecting both efficiency‐driven and structural constraints. The results reveal that the adoption of AI is multifaceted and evolves in various stages, influenced by economic capacity, institutional quality and environmental factors. This study adds to resource‐based theory, institutional theory and digital transformation theory by emphasizing the conditional and nonlinear aspects of the adoption of AI in emerging economies. It also provides valuable policy guidance, highlighting the need for holistic strategies that integrate the development of human resources, institutional capacity, sustainable investment flows and the green digital transition. The findings offer practical recommendations for policymakers aiming to drive inclusive and sustainable growth of AI‐driven AI power in emerging economies.
ABSTRACT Internal displacement represents a growing global challenge with significant economic and social welfare implications. By 2024, more than 63 million conflict‐affected internally displaced persons (IDPs) were recorded worldwide, underscoring the need for coordinated and sustained policy responses in conflict‐affected states. This study examines the economic consequences of conflict‐induced internal displacement and its implications for social welfare across 50 countries and territories over the period 2009–2022. Employing fixed effects, generalized least squares (GLS), generalized estimating equations (GEE) and panel‐corrected standard errors (PCSE), the analysis provides robust evidence of adverse macroeconomic and health impacts of conflict‐affected internal displacement. The results indicate that a 1% increase in conflict‐affected internal displacement is associated with a 0.107% decline in GDP growth, a reduction of USD 7.63 in GDP per capita and an increase of 1.02 infant deaths per 1000 live births. The findings further show that stronger rule of law, greater political stability and higher levels of development assistance are positively associated with improved economic outcomes in conflict‐affected regions. These results highlight the relevance of internal displacement for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 3 (Good health and well being), SDG 8 (Economics growth) and SDG 16 (Peace, justice and strong institutions), and emphasize the importance of policies that support economic recovery, strengthen public health systems and enhance institutional capacity in conflict‐affected settings.
ABSTRACT This paper presents an updated analysis of the patterns of economic development in Africa over the last 60 years. The analysis stresses the heterogeneity of development trajectories among sub‐Saharan African (SSA) countries. We examine the joint dynamics of income and population in 35 SSA countries. We document how population and income interact as they affect income dynamics. We uncover evidence of resilience as economic growth responds positively to adverse economic conditions. Our results also show negative effects of population on per‐capita income and little support for endogenous growth. While we document the presence of much heterogeneity in income dynamics, we also find that this heterogeneity is difficult to explain, reflecting the complexities of the process of economic growth and a limited understanding of the structural transformations that support economic development.
This study examines why some evaluation agencies and departments of bilateral aid donors report more unintended effects than others. It does so by analysing Belgian, Dutch and German evaluation practices. Using a comparative political economy approach, it evaluates the rigour and independence vis-& agrave;-vis implementers of their systems. Findings show that evaluation systems designed to actively detect unintended effects do identify more of them. Departments and agencies that are structurally separated from the aid implementers find relatively more than two times as much negative unintended effects than those agencies that are embedded within the aid implementer's structure. The study shows (1) how institutional commitment shapes attention to unintended effects and that (2) independence vis-& agrave;-vis aid implementers contributes to more reporting on negative unintended effects.
This study examines whether income inequality predicts homicide rates in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Drawing on relative deprivation and violent competition theories, we assess whether the inequality-violence relationship varies across national contexts and whether economic growth reduces homicide. Using panel data from 1990 to 2020, we estimate a spatial generalized additive model that allows non-linear and country-specific effects of inequality, GDP per capita and economic growth on homicide rates. The model includes spatial smooths, country and year fixed effects and country-specific functional forms. The results show that income inequality is positively associated with homicide rates only in Canada, offering partial support for theoretical expectations. In the United States and Mexico, inequality does not significantly predict homicide levels. In Mexico, however, current and historical inequality display contrasting patterns consistent with Simpson's paradox. Economic growth does not reduce homicide in any country. The findings indicate that the inequality-violence relationship is neither universal nor linear. National context conditions whether structural pressures become lethal violence, implying that inequality-reduction policies must address institutional and competitive constraints.
ABSTRACT Drawing on Lipsky's theory of street‐level bureaucracy, this study explores how frontline workers' discretionary judgements influence Ghana's Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) cash transfer programme. Using van Oorschot's CARIN framework of deservingness ( Control, Attitude, Reciprocity, Identity and Need ), this study examines how administrators and community actors categorise clients. Based on in‐depth interviews, findings reveal that officials prioritise Control, Attitude and Need , favouring clients perceived as grateful, genuinely needy and lacking control over their circumstances. These subjective frames exclude some eligible beneficiaries, demonstrating how deservingness judgements can reinforce inequality and emphasising the need for training and clearer operational guidelines.
ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between the neopatrimonial state and the informal economy in a systematic cross‐national panel framework. Neopatrimonialism refers to the coexistence of formally modern state institutions with personalistic rule through patronage networks, clientelism, and selective enforcement, and it creates structural incentives for firms and workers to operate outside formal regulatory frameworks. Despite a rich theoretical literature linking the patrimonial state to informality, no prior study has tested this relationship using a dedicated, multidimensional neopatrimonialism measure. Using panel data for up to 151 countries from 1990–2020, the V‐Dem Neopatrimonial Rule Index, and a correlated random‐effects specification that separates within‐country from between‐country variation, we find that neopatrimonialism is positively associated with larger shadow economies in the between‐country dimension. The relationship is structural rather than short‐run and survives controls for democratic accountability, suggesting that neopatrimonialism is not reducible to regime type or electoral accountability. However, broader institutional‐quality controls, especially corruption and bureaucratic/legal quality, substantially attenuate the coefficient, indicating that these institutional features are channels through which neopatrimonial political orders shape informality. JEL Classifications: D73, O17, O43, P48
ABSTRACT This study provides systematic review and meta‐analytical evidence on how parental migration affects children left behind. We reviewed 44 papers on education and child labour, plus 57 studies on remittances and aspirations. We find no meaningful average effect of parental migration on education or labour outcomes. However, after correcting for publication bias and other study characteristics, migration is linked to less school disruption, likely due to improved finances, with no effect on educational performance/spending/duration, and mixed impacts on child labour. This aligns with the systematic reviews: Remittances tend to increase investment in education but do not necessarily translate into improved school performance. The aspiration channel stresses competing mechanisms between motivation derived from the observed parental sacrifice and a culture of migration reducing educational aspirations. Importantly, effects vary by context: benefits appear in low‐income countries, while disruption dominates in upper‐middle‐income settings and particularly the Chinese context, highlighting the need for targeted policy support and calling policymakers of countries with high emigration and/or internal labour migration to be aware of the possible challenges of left‐behind children and provide programs and safety nets for them.
ABSTRACT This article examines the political economy of aid in Afghanistan, analysing the relationship between foreign aid and political loyalty under the presidencies of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani, alongside the Taliban insurgency (2001–2021). Drawing on Alex de Waal's political marketplace framework and first‐hand field data, it explores how aid availability shapes the tradable and nontradable loyalties between the state and local elites, and between the state and rebel groups, and what the implications of these dynamics are for conflict and stability. I argue that abundant aid flows enable rulers to purchase local elites' loyalty, thereby sustaining stability, whereas declining aid fuels conflict. Loyalty, however, is not uniformly tradable across all actors. While local elites' loyalty depended on aid‐based patronage, the Taliban's access to alternative buyers of loyalty, their orientation as total spoilers and shifts in the position of international patron rendered their loyalty nontradable. By theorising why loyalty becomes tradable and nontradable, this article advances the political marketplace framework and offers new insights into the literature.
ABSTRACT Building individual capacities is essential for effective climate adaptation, yet evidence of its benefits remains limited. This case study evaluates the outcomes of a virtual training programme on climate risk and adaptation (CRA), developed through international cooperation to support Brazil's National Adaptation Agenda. The programme engaged 187 participants across multiple sectors and government levels. Effectiveness was assessed through a posttraining survey with 58 responses, analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show substantial improvements in awareness, information literacy and knowledge, alongside more modest gains in institutional commitment and evaluative capacity. Although not systematically assessed, illustrative examples from this case suggest that sustained engagement and complementary support may facilitate the translation of these capacities into adaptation‐relevant actions. The findings demonstrate that targeted virtual training can be an effective and low‐cost approach for strengthening adaptation‐relevant competencies. More broadly, the study underscores the role of learning and international cooperation in fostering resilience and offers practical insights for governments and aid agencies seeking to design and scale capacity‐building initiatives for climate adaptation.
Strategies for sustainable intensification of livestock are critical for food system transformation. In dairying systems, herd health management is among such strategies. Although adoption patterns and productivity gains have been analysed in previous studies, the social implications are still not well understood. This paper provides insights into the relationship between herd health management and intrahousehold labour demand as well as women's empowerment. We test the hypotheses that the adoption of herd health management practices increases intrahousehold labour demand among male and female household members and, thereby, affects women's empowerment. We use primary data from smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya on time use, women's participation in decision-making and livestock asset ownership, adoption status of important herd health management practices and household demographic characteristics. We apply censored regression and multinomial logit regression models to test our hypotheses. The results show that adopting herd health management practices is associated with more labour demand in dairy production for both men and women. The magnitude of the change differs across production systems but is always higher for men. Additionally, herd health management practices are negatively associated with different aspects of women's empowerment including women's livestock asset ownership and control over income from dairy. The study underscores the importance for gender sensitivity in the sustainable intensification of livestock production in the Global South.
Studies on NGO-academic collaboration in international development focus on the joint conduct of research, often neglecting other cooperation activities. Here, we inductively explore and catalogue a fuller picture of NGO-academic relations, including practitioner perspectives towards academia. Based on 20 interviews with European development NGO staff and 51 survey responses, we devise a typology to capture the types and purposes of, as well as barriers to, NGO-academic collaboration and find that joint research conduct is rare. We reason that this is due to the systemic incompatibility of development practice and academic research-known across disciplines as the academic-practitioner divide-and conclude that more collaborative research is unlikely as long as the respective merit systems do not change.
Time poverty is an increasingly important dimension of welfare in developing countries, where individuals often combine long hours of paid and unpaid work under conditions of economic uncertainty. While existing studies have identified several structural determinants of time poverty, relatively little is known about the role of behavioural factors such as subjective time preferences. This study examines the relationship between subjective time preferences and time poverty in Ghana, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of committed time in informal work and consumption-based welfare. Using data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS 7) and an instrumental variable mediation framework to address potential endogeneity, we find that households headed by more impatient individuals are 3% less likely to be associated with time poverty. Decomposing this association reveals that adjustments in committed time in informal work are the dominant mediating channel, accounting for a substantial share of the total effect. The finding suggests that impatience can reduce time poverty by limiting prolonged engagement in time-intensive informal activities. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative association between impatient household heads and time poverty is stronger among males, adults, urban residents and noninsured households. The results highlight the importance of incorporating behavioural preferences into analyses of time poverty and point to policies that improve work quality, welfare and labour market stability as key levers for reducing excessive time burdens.
Food insecurity remains a persistent challenge in rural Colombia, driven by structural inequalities, livelihood constraints and exposure to shocks. This paper examined the determinants and predictive drivers of household food insecurity using nationally representative data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Data in Emergencies Monitoring (DIEM) surveys collected in 2023, covering 2771 rural households. The analysis integrated machine learning techniques with logistic regression to capture both predictive performance and interpretability, guided by the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. The results showed that ensemble machine learning models achieved strong predictive accuracy, with the up-sampled logistic regression model performing competitively (AUC = 0.758), confirming its suitability as a benchmark. Explainable machine learning and regression estimates consistently identified education, income, household size, agricultural participation and exposure to shocks as key determinants of food insecurity. In particular, participation in agriculture reduced the likelihood of food insecurity, while higher food prices, health-related shocks and reliance on adverse coping strategies significantly increased vulnerability. Geographic disparities were also evident, with households in regions such as Bol & iacute;var, Cesar and La Guajira facing substantially higher risks. The findings demonstrated that food insecurity reflects the interaction of structural, livelihood and shock-related factors rather than isolated effects. Integrating predictive modelling with a livelihood-based framework improved the identification of high-risk households and strengthened the evidence base for targeted, timely and context-specific policy interventions to reduce food insecurity in rural Colombia.
Agricultural security stands as a critical cornerstone of national security and a key domain for global sustainable development. Using export trade data of agricultural products from the 1995-2021 FAOSTAT database, we construct a global agricultural product trade network via complex network analysis. We employ a staggered DID method to examine the BRI's impact on the intensity of agricultural product trade networks and explore its underlying mechanisms. The key findings are as follows: (1) The BRI can significantly enhance the position of participating countries within agricultural product trade networks; (2) the benefits of the initiative are particularly prominent among the least developed countries and low-income, food-deficit countries; (3) through three main channels-an inclusive development effect, cross-border capital allocation effect and agricultural production efficiency effect-the BRI plays multiple roles in boosting the intensity of participating countries' agricultural product trade networks; (4) a subcategory analysis on grains, fruits and vegetables shows that the BRI exerts an apparent positive effect on various types of crucial agricultural product trade networks; (5) tests of spatial effects demonstrate that the BRI produces significant spillover effects, lifting neighbouring countries' positions in the agricultural product trade network.
A large majority of Black South Africans remain restricted by intergenerational education and economic disadvantages. Labour market returns to tertiary qualifications are high, but the share of youth accessing post-secondary education remains low. Under such circumstances, graduates may face unique responsibilities to financially support family members, over and above their income or employment status. We fit a Heckman model for the decision to offer financial support (remit), recognising that the mechanisms associated with offering support may differ from the determinants of support value. Results indicate that Black graduates are more likely to remit than other Black individuals and remit higher amounts conditional on remitting. Part of this responsibility arises from graduate status alone-that is, over and above employment characteristics and living arrangements. Similar dynamics may emerge in contexts with high private returns to tertiary education, unequal access to post-secondary schooling, persistent socio-economic inequalities and where extended family support obligations shape economic mobility.
This article examines whose research is cited in economy-related policy documents produced by organizations in countries of the Global South. Using Overton's Economy topic, we link 243 675 policy documents from 155 Global South countries to 68 550 Web of Science articles cited in those documents. We classify cited articles by country group, language, organizations and funders and use network measures to track changes in North-South collaboration over time. Approximately two-thirds of the cited articles originate from institutions in the Global North. At the same time, the share of South-only and North-South co-authored articles rises after 2005, and several Global South countries move closer to the core of collaboration networks. The results also show a broad set of policy-producing sources across Global South countries, but a much narrower set of research institutions and funders behind the cited literature. The study provides large-scale evidence on persistent asymmetries in research visibility in policy citations, alongside a gradual increase in the presence of Global South research in written policy outputs.
Providing social assistance to poor populations in remote communities in times of crises, such as pandemics, is challenging but crucial. This paper examines how food assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic affected people's behaviour, using our surveys among over 400 rural communities without road access in the Peruvian Amazon. Food assistance affected people's travel to cities by riverboat to collect cash assistance in distinct ways, depending on transportation costs. Both government and nongovernment food assistance increased social distancing, but nongovernment assistance may have unintentionally led to further contagion of the virus through river travel. We discuss mechanisms underlying these impacts, shaped by the distinct geographic targeting of assistance providers.
This paper addresses the question as to whether interethnic marriages reduce cattle rustling and its related violence in rural Kenya? Previous findings on the relationship between interethnic marriages and violent conflicts in rural areas are mixed. On the one hand, contacts resulting from interethnic marriages can build closer ties among ethnic groups. On the other hand, inter-group competition resulting from closer interaction may breed friction, especially in communities with a history of deep inequalities and injustices. At the centre of this dialectical relation lies the question of the mitigating effect of interethnic border markets. We use randomised perception survey data to compare the rate of interethnic marriages among the Luo, Abakuria and Maasai and measure the prevalence of cattle rustling and its related violence, notably killings, within the three ethnic cleavages (i.e., Luo-Abakuria, Abakuria-Maasai, Maasai-Luo). The survey is complimented with qualitative data. Results show that the overall interethnic marriage rate is 1.9 out of 3, indicating that interethnic marriage is relatively common, albeit constricted. The qualitative data complement the results and shed light on critical nuances resulting from cultural and political factors in interethnic relations in Kenya.
After the end of the Cold War, DAC donors increased their efforts of democracy promotion in developing countries. Among other instruments, DAC donors increasingly use democracy aid to improve democracy abroad. However, DAC donors differ in their allocation and delivery strategy of democracy aid. Some donors favour a bottom-up approach which consists of enhancing civil society participation. Other donors favour a top-down approach which consists of enhancing recipient states' institutions. This study argues that donors' political economy ideologies entail different conceptions of democracy, leading to distinct theories of democratization and, consequently, democracy promotion approaches. These ideological underpinnings shape the priority, organization and staff of national aid bureaucracies, which in turn influences patterns of democracy aid allocation. To test the hypothesis, this article employs a country-year fixed effect regression model using data from the OECD Credit Reporting System (CRS) dataset. This dataset contains detailed information on all democracy aid projects delivered by the 23 DAC donors in 156 recipient countries from 1990 to 2021. Results confirm that DAC donors' domestic ideology influences democracy aid approaches. These findings contribute to the understanding of the varieties of democracy promotion, democracy aid allocation strategies and effectiveness in developing countries' democratization process.
