(April 2021) 5 papers...in 5 minutes!
Should development aid always reward better governance? Not if the donor is strongly averse to poverty
François Bourguignon* and Jean-Philippe Platteau
A key issue for development aid donors arises from the need to reconcile demands for efficiency in the use of that aid with its prime objective of reducing poverty. The problem assumes the form of a dilemma insofar as poverty tends to be concentrated in countries with the weakest governance, and particularly in those countries defined as ’fragile’ states...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/3v1I9M4
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Can foods produced with new plant engineering techniques succeed in the marketplace?
Stephan Marette, John Beghin, Anne-Célia Disdier* and Eliza Mojduszka
New Plant Engineering Techniques (NPETs), such as gene editing (GE), are a group of recent biotechnologies allowing to accurately target deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) manipulation of various organisms at a relatively low cost by silencing, suppressing, adding, or altering genetic material without introducing foreign genes...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/2Q8HSs3
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Why can a producer sell the same good to several buyers but at different prices?
François Fontaine*, Julien Martin and Isabelle Méjean
To what extent producers sell the same product at different prices to different buyers? This question may look straightforward but it challenges the way economists understand how markets are functioning. In a competitive environment, the ability to vary prices across consumers is limited because buyers can switch...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/2RFDDV0
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How can different remuneration schemes be combined to match quantity and quality in health care provision?
Bernard Fortin, Nicolas Jacquemet* and Bruce Shearer
Public debate on health care provision often focuses on the capacities of the health system: the number physicians and other care personnel, the number of hospitals and hospital beds, etc. However, for a given level of resources, the supply of health care can vary considerably, depending on how the personnel are paid...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/3v315tH
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Maternal depression and child human capital: A genetic instrumental-variable approach
Giorgia Menta, Conchita d’Ambrosio, Andrew Clark*, Simone Ghislandi and Anthony Lepinteur
The prevalence of mental-health disorders has been rising steadily for over two decades, and these are now estimated to affect over 20% of the population in the UK and the US. Depression is one of the most common of these disorders, with ‘Major Depressive Disorder’ now being the largest worldwide contributor to years lost to disability...
- Short link to this article: https://bit.ly/3ndUI4p
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* PSE members
To read the previous synthesis (since nov. 2013), follow this link