While the salience of ethnicity as a factor in African politics has been documented in the literature, less is known about its impacts on economic development. Using data from Ethiopia, we study the developmental impacts of ethnically asymmetric political representation. We find that enhanced political representation improves access to public goods. Moreover, regional disparities of access to public goods due to improved political representation are more pronounced in rural than in urban areas. To complement our empirical analysis, we construct a theoretical model that suggests potential mechanisms through which public goods provision favors regions with better political representation.
%B Economics of Governance %V 24 %P 519-547 %G eng %N 4 %0 Journal Article %J Global Policy Journal (GP Analysis) %D 2021 %T Ethiopia Must Accommodate the Legitimate Demands of the Federalist Camp – or Perish %XThe article argues that faced with limited options the international community must support a political settlement between Ethiopia’s warring federalist and the unitary camps.
%B Global Policy Journal (GP Analysis) %G eng %U https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/30/03/2021/ethiopia-must-accommodate-legitimate-demands-federalist-camp-or-perish %0 Magazine Article %D 2021 %T Ethiopia's Breakup Doesn't Have to Be Violent %XA confederation of states must choose whether to follow the bloody path of the former Yugoslavia or the prosperous model of the European Union.
Robert Kaplan’s selective reading of history bolsters proponents of a centralized state while ignoring the legitimacy of federalists’ demands.
%B Foreign Policy %G eng %U https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/22/ethiopias-problems-stem-from-internal-colonialism/ %0 Journal Article %J Global Policy Journal (GP Analysis) %D 2021 %T US Sanctions on Ethiopia: Good Policy or Violation of Ethiopia’s Sovereignty? %XThe article explores claims of state sovereignty by a regime increasingly embattled at home and abroad.
%B Global Policy Journal (GP Analysis) %G eng %U https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/06/2021/us-sanctions-ethiopia-good-policy-or-violation-ethiopias-sovereignty %0 Journal Article %J International Migration %D 2020 %T Parental health outcomes of children’s migration: Experimental evidence from Ethiopia %A Teferi Mergo %X This study uses experimental data from the United States Diversity-Visa (DV) lottery to explore the impact of migration of children on the sending parents’ health, helping to overcome the selection bias issue that plagues similar studies. Based on the inverted U-shaped relationship between BMI and longevity, the study finds that the health prospects of senders with BMIs under 25 increase weakly with migration, decreasing for those in the overweight category. In families with more educated fathers, migration improves the health status of the senders in all weight groups. Overall, it affects the emotional health of the senders adversely, but not in families which gain access to improved sanitation facilities due to migration. The most plausible explanations for this finding are that migration inflicts emotional costs on the senders due to separation from a family member, and that it potentially changes the senders’ perception of what constitutes good health. %B International Migration %V 58 %P 153 - 170 %G eng %U https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imig.12703 %N 6 %0 Magazine Article %D 2020 %T The War in Tigray is a Fight Over Ethiopia's Past -- and Future %XEthiopia’s current conflict is the latest battle in a long-running war over the country’s identity as a unitary or federal state. The United States can restore its credibility as an honest broker by helping resolve it.
About a million people have migrated to the US via the Diversity Visa (“DV”) lottery. The DV was instituted by an Act of the United States Congress to diversify the U.S. population through a lottery made available to people from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the country. In any given year, the probability of winning the lottery is less than 1%, with millions of people from around the world competing for a maximum of 55,000 immigrant visas that can be obtained through this migration channel. Using Ethiopian DV participants, which have consistently made up between 6% and 8% of all DV immigrants, I study the causal effects of emigration on the well-being of the migrant sending families. I infer that migration contributes positively to the welfare of the source families. Overall, migration increases consumer expenditure, but has no effect on savings and business ownership of the senders. The positive treatment effects do not diminish with duration of emigration. Migrant men contribute more to the increase in their families’ standard of living than their female counterparts do: while expenditure on food and energy are invariant to the migrants’ gender, the gains in terms of durable ownership, access to clean water, and sanitation facilities occur almost entirely in families where the emigrants are men. I find that DV participants are favorably selected relative to the overall population.
%B World Development %V 84 %P 69-81 %G eng %U http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16303515 %0 Journal Article %J Science %D 2014 %T Is low fertility really a problem? Population aging, dependency, and consumption. %A Lee, R. et al %XLonger lives and fertility far below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman are leading to rapid population aging in many countries. Many observers are concerned that aging will adversely affect public finances and standards of living. Analysis of newly available National Transfer Accounts data for 40 countries shows that fertility well above replacement would typically be most beneficial for government budgets. However, fertility near replacement would be most beneficial for standards of living when the analysis includes the effects of age structure on families as well as governments. And fertility below replacement would maximize per capita consumption when the cost of providing capital for a growing labor force is taken into account. Although low fertility will indeed challenge government programs and very low fertility undermines living standards, we find that moderately low fertility and population decline favor the broader material standard of living.
%B Science %V 346 %P 229-234 %G eng %U http://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6206/229 %N 6206