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Microfinance : fighting poverty vs. sustainable banking
Tesař, Martin ; Streblov, Pavel (advisor) ; Bauer, Michal (referee)
The thesis deals with microfinance institutions and their ability to serve very poor clients even without a continuous inflow of subsidies from donors. After disclosing the specificities that distinguish the clientele of these organizations from the clients of commercial banks in the developed world, the analysis of selected institutions from South Asia, including the famous Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, is performed. Using the data gathered from their annual reports of these microfinance institutions, the individual dependence on subsides during one decade is evaluated. The final part of the thesis utilizes the similarities that appear in the individual examination and the econometric analysis of the data for the extraction of the key factors and strategies that can help to decrease the dependence of this sector on donor financial support. The analysis finds that higher depth of outreach of an organization to the very poor does not inevitably lead to lower level of self-sustainability. The way to profitability may reside in appropriate interest rate policy and mobilization of savings. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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Variability Among Determinants of Education Attainment: the Effect of Natural Resources and Institutional Quality in Sub-Sahar Africa
Hanspal, Tobin ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Riegl, Martin (referee)
Master's Thesis: Tobin Hanspal May 18th, 2012 Variability Among Determinants of Education Attainment: The Effect of Natural Resources and Institutional Quality in Sub-Sahara Africa ABSTRACT: This thesis exploits survey data from 21 Sub-Saharan African countries. After constructing a dataset of over 100,000 households to analyze the variability in traditional determinants of schooling attainment across exogenous domains, results indicate strong heterogeneity across countries in the effects of household composition and parental background. Additionally, findings suggest that 1) marginal effects of parental education are on average three times smaller for secondary compared to primary school attainment, 2) countries with lower corruption are correlated with higher levels of educational mobility, 3) dependence on natural resource revenue is associated with increased educational mobility. And finally 4) household wealth becomes a stronger determinant in countries with better institutions. Exogenous factors appears to have a large correlative impact on schooling outcomes, such as individuals belonging to the richest households have almost ten times the chances of completing primary schooling over the poorest quintile in less corrupt states compared to only a marginal advantage in highly corrupt states.
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Household nutritional effects of the DICONSA food subsidy program
Dent, Felix ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Janský, Petr (referee)
This thesis is an empirical research project assessing the household nutritional impact of the DICONSA food subsidy program in Mexico. By employing a combination of propensity score matching and OLS econometric approaches, I conduct an analysis of household survey data contained in La Encuesta Nacional de Ingresos y Gastos de los Hogares (ENIGH) from Mexico. I find strong evidence of a significant increase in household caloric intake in rural areas targeted by the program, driven primarily by increased consumption of DICONSA subsidised cereal products and corn grain in particular. I find no evidence of decreased caloric intake resulting from overriding income effects of subsidisation. However, my investigation into the specifics of participant household food expenditure data suggests that reselling of subsidised commodities may occur amongst poorer households.
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Do Information Cascades Arise Easier under Time Pressure? Experimantal Approach.
Cingl, Lubomír ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Pertold, Filip (referee)
Information cascades as a form of rational herding help to explain real-life phenomena such as fads, fashion, creation of 'bubbles' in financial markets or conformity in general. In this paper I attempt to model propensity to herd and infer its relationship to time-pressure by conducting a laboratory experiment. I let subjects perform a simple cognitive task under different treatment conditions and levels of time pressure with the possibility to herd. The order of decision-making is endogenous and the task is not probabilistic. Rather, I impose uncertainty of private signal by different levels of time pressure. This is expected to make participants prone to imitate the behavior of others. Apart from that I examine the effect of reputation (also called endorsement effect) as an addition to the public pool of information, which is expected to increase the probability to herd. The main findings are that propensity to herd was not significantly influenced by different levels of time pressure. Information cascades arose, but never in a perfect form. Personality traits measured by the Big Five protocol contribute considerably to the explanation of the model, but their relationship is not straightforward. Heart-rate increased during performance of a task, but was not correlated to subjectively stated...
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Sibling Rivalry and Characteristics of Marriage
Klepetko, Tomáš ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Votápková, Jana (referee)
Parents are involved in their children's marriage decisions in a large part of developing world. Resources are scarce, so sibling structure may affect individual marriage and human capital outcomes. Previous literature focused mainly on timing of marriage and education. The objective of this thesis is to test several hypotheses, concerning sibling structure effects on wider range of such characteristics, as spousal quality, domestic violence, polygamy and wealth. In general, we explore the hypothesis that in countries with arranged marriage tradition, women, whose next-youngest sibling is female, are disadvantaged to women, whose next-youngest sibling is male. The hypothesis is empirically tested, using data from five countries in Sub- Saharan Africa. The results show consistent sibling structure effects on early marriage and childbearing across the countries. The effects on education, spousal quality, domestic violence and wealth are less robust. No effect on literacy and polygamy was found. Keywords Sibling Rivalry, Marriage, Childbirth, Education, Spousal Quality, Domestic Violence, Polygamy, Wealth 1
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Essays in Behavioral and Development Economics
Bartoš, Vojtěch ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Martinsson, Peter (referee) ; Morduch, Jonathan (referee)
In the first chapter, I examine the effect of scarcity on sharing norms and preferences. Sharing provides one of few sources of insurance in poor communities. It gains prominence during adverse shocks, often largely aggregate, when it is also costliest for individuals to share. Yet it is little understood how scarcity affects individual willingness to share and willingness to enforce sharing from others, an important ingredient in sustaining prosocial behavior. This is what this paper examines. I conduct repeated within-subject lab-in-the-field experiments among Afghan subsistence farmers during a lean and a post-harvest season of relative plenty. These farmers experience seasonal scarcities annually. Using dictator and third party punishment games I separate individual sharing behavior from the enforcement of sharing norms. While sharing exhibits a high degree of temporal stability at both the aggregate, and, to a large extent, the individual level, the enforcement of sharing norms is substantially weaker during the lean season. The findings suggest that farmers are capable of sustaining mutual sharing through transitory periods of scarcity. It remains an open question whether exposure to unexpected shocks or prolonged periods of scarcity might result in the breakdown of prosociality due to...
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Liberalization of Trade in Peru: Analysis of the Free Trade Agreement with USA and its effect on incomes
Šimůnková, Marta ; Bauer, Michal (advisor) ; Báťa, Karel (referee)
This thesis analyzes the trade liberalization implemented in the form of FTA between Peru and USA in 2009 and its effect on the welfare of different clusters of individuals. In the ambient of economy with high income inequities it evaluates the liberalization separately for different income-level samples. The research is based on the comparison of groups of individuals occupied in sectors that were already liberalized by other market opening tools before 2009 and groups recently affected by the FTA. The analysis is than accomplished on the household survey panel data covering the period between 2007 and 2010. The findings suggest the trade liberalization positively affected not only the wealthier population but also the poor, both from the category of individuals working in sectors producing for domestic consumption. The positive effect on export-oriented producers hasn't been approved.
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