M Shahe Emran
Biographic Data
| ID | 1142121 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Shahe Emran |
| GIVEN NAMES | M Shahe |
| FAMILY NAME | Emran |
| SIGNATURE | EMRAN M S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4375-0958 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 31 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Making the most of coresident data
Many available data sets are not used for estimating intergenerational mobility owing to concerns about sample truncation bias in coresident data. Using data from Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, India, Indonesia, and Mexico, we report the first evidence that the bias in estimated sibling correlation, a broad measure of relative mobility, is small in coresident samples (4.30%), much smaller than that in intergenerational regression coefficient (10.25%).…
Is gender destiny? Gender bias and intergenerational educational mobility in India
We develop a model of intergenerational educational mobility incorporating gender bias against girls in the family, school, and labor market. Mobility and investment equations from the model are estimated for India using data not truncated by coresidency. The standard linear model misses important heterogeneity and yields misleading conclusions. Daughters of uneducated fathers face lower relative and absolute mobility (rural and urban). We find g…
Temporary trade shocks and regional development
Can temporary trade restrictions reshape regional development? To analyze this, we exploit the Cote d’Ivoire civil war that disrupted access to Abidjan port for neighboring land-locked countries: Mali and Burkina Faso. Estimates from a difference-in-difference design suggest negative effects on economic activity and a reverse structural change in the treatment communes. We find evidence of persistence through irreversible investment in built-up a…
Growing up Together
This paper presents credible and comparable evidence on intergenerational educational mobility in 53 developing countries using sibling correlation as a measure, and data from 230 waves of Demographic and Health Surveys. It is the first paper to provide estimates of sibling correlation in schooling for a large number of developing countries using high quality standardized data. Sibling correlation is an omnibus measure of mobility as it captures …
Occupational dualism and intergenerational educational mobility in the rural economy
We extend the Becker-Tomes model to a rural economy with farm-nonfarm occupational dualism to study intergenerational educational mobility in rural China and India. Using data free of coresidency bias, we find that fathers’ nonfarm occupation and education were complementary in determining sons schooling in India, but separable in China. Sons faced lower mobility in India irrespective of fathers’ occupation. Sensitivity analysis using the Altonji…
Bridge to bigpush or backwash? Market integration, reallocation and productivity effects of Jamuna Bridge in Bangladesh
We study the effects of Jamuna Bridge in Bangladesh that reduced the average trade costs by 50% and connected 26 million people by road to the capital city. We use a difference-in-difference design where the isolated Padma hinterland constitutes the comparison. Balance tests for an array of economic characteristics support the parallel trends assumption. The bridge led to economic revival in the Jamuna hinterland with increased agricultural produ…
Gender Bias and Intergenerational Educational Mobility
This paper incorporates gender bias against girls in the family, school and labor market in a model of intergenerational persistence in schooling where parents self-finance children's education because of credit market imperfections. Parents may underestimate a girl's ability, expect lower returns, and assign lower weights to their welfare (“pure son preference”). The model delivers the widely used linear conditional expectation function under co…
Distributional Effects of Corruption When Enforcement is Biased
In many models of corruption where enforcement is unbiased, the rich are more likely to pay bribes for their children's education, implying that corruption reduces educational inequality. We develop models of bribery that reflect the fact that in developing countries, anticorruption enforcement is not unbiased, and higher income of a household is associated with higher bargaining power and better quality of institutions. In models of biased enfor…
Economic approach to intergenerational mobility
This paper provides a critical survey and synthesis of the recent economic literature on intergenerational mobility in developing countries, with a focus on data and methodological challenges. The attenuation due to measurement error is compounded by sample truncation resulting from co-residency and causes substantial downward bias in intergenerational regression coefficient. In contrast, intergenerational correlation and intergenerational rank c…
Estimating Intergenerational Mobility with Incomplete Data
The rank-based measures of intergenerational mobility have become increasingly popular in economics literature. Recent evidence shows that rank-based measures are less affected by measurement error and life-cycle bias compared with other standard measures such as intergenerational regression coefficient and intergenerational correlation. However, most of the available household surveys suffer from sample truncation, because coresidency is used to…
Beyond dualism
When Measure Matters
Biases from truncation caused by coresidency restriction have been a challenge for research on intergenerational mobility. Estimates of intergenerational schooling persistence from two data sets show that the intergenerational regression coefficient, the most widely used measure, is severely biased downward in coresident samples. But the bias in intergenerational correlation is much smaller, and is less sensitive to the coresidency rate. The pape…
Are the Children of Uneducated Farmers Doubly Disadvantaged? Farm, Nonfarm and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Rural China
This paper relaxes the single-factor model of intergenerational educational mobility and analyzes heterogeneous effects of family background on children’s education in villages, with a focus on the role of nonfarm occupations. The analysis uses data from rural China that cover three generations, and are not subject to coresident sample selection. Evidence from a battery of econometric approaches shows that the mean effects of parents’ education m…
Gender, Geography, and Generations
Assessing the Frontiers of Ultrapoverty Reduction
This article uses household panel data to provide robust evidence on the effects of BRAC’s (Building Resources across Countries) Targeting the Ultra-poor (TUP) program in Bangladesh. We use alternative treatment-comparison pairs; in addition to BRAC’s own classification, we exploit type 1 errors in assignment in BRAC’s selection process to create a second treatment-comparison pair. This allows us to estimate the program effects on the target grou…
Education and Freedom of Choice
Using household data from Vietnam, we provide evidence on the effects of education on freedom of spouse choice. We use war disruptions and spatial indicators of schooling supply as instruments. The point estimates indicate that a year of additional schooling reduces the probability of an arranged marriage by about 14 percentage points for an individual with eight years of schooling. We also estimate bounds on the effect of education on arranged m…
Admission is Free Only If Your Dad is Rich! Distributional Effects of Corruption in Schools in Developing Countries
In the standard model of corruption, the \n rich are more likely to pay bribes for their children's \n education, reflecting higher ability to pay. This prediction \n is, however, driven by the assumption that the probability \n of punishment for bribe-taking is invariant across \n households. In many developing countries lacking in rule of \n law, this assumption is untenable, because the enforcement \n of law is not impersonal or unbiased and t…
Access to Markets and Rural Poverty
This paper presents evidence on the effects of access to domestic and international markets on per capita consumption of households using data from rural China. The econometric analysis uses alternative identification schemes to address the potential endogeneity of access to markets. We use straight-line distances to coastline and navigable river, along with the topography of the intervening counties, as sources of exogeneous variations. We also …
Public Information and Inflation Expectations
Governments provide public information to reduce information imperfections. Do households rely on public signals to inform themselves about market conditions? To identify the importance of public information in households' price expectations, we take advantage of a unique natural experiment in Ecuador where the published inflation rate had been different from the correct rate over a period of fourteen months due to a software error. We find that …
Revenue-increasing and welfare-enhancing reform of taxes on exports
Gender, Generations, and Nonfarm Participation
The authors present an empirical \n analysis of intergenerational links in nonfarm participation \n with a focus on gender effects. Using survey data from \n Nepal, the evidence shows that the mother exerts a strong \n influence on a daughter's employment choice. Having a \n mother in a nonfarm sector raises a daughter's \n probability of nonfarm participation by 200 percent. The \n effects are truly dramatic for skilled nonfarm jobs. Having \n a…
Gender, Geography, and Generations
Revenue-increasing and welfare-enhancing reform of taxes on exports
Bridge to bigpush or backwash? Market integration, reallocation and productivity effects of Jamuna Bridge in Bangladesh
We study the effects of Jamuna Bridge in Bangladesh that reduced the average trade costs by 50% and connected 26 million people by road to the capital city. We use a difference-in-difference design where the isolated Padma hinterland constitutes the comparison. Balance tests for an array of economic characteristics support the parallel trends assumption. The bridge led to economic revival in the Jamuna hinterland with increased agricultural produ…
Beyond dualism
Is gender destiny? Gender bias and intergenerational educational mobility in India
We develop a model of intergenerational educational mobility incorporating gender bias against girls in the family, school, and labor market. Mobility and investment equations from the model are estimated for India using data not truncated by coresidency. The standard linear model misses important heterogeneity and yields misleading conclusions. Daughters of uneducated fathers face lower relative and absolute mobility (rural and urban). We find g…
Occupational dualism and intergenerational educational mobility in the rural economy
We extend the Becker-Tomes model to a rural economy with farm-nonfarm occupational dualism to study intergenerational educational mobility in rural China and India. Using data free of coresidency bias, we find that fathers’ nonfarm occupation and education were complementary in determining sons schooling in India, but separable in China. Sons faced lower mobility in India irrespective of fathers’ occupation. Sensitivity analysis using the Altonji…
Distributional Effects of Corruption When Enforcement is Biased
In many models of corruption where enforcement is unbiased, the rich are more likely to pay bribes for their children's education, implying that corruption reduces educational inequality. We develop models of bribery that reflect the fact that in developing countries, anticorruption enforcement is not unbiased, and higher income of a household is associated with higher bargaining power and better quality of institutions. In models of biased enfor…
Assessing the Frontiers of Ultrapoverty Reduction
This article uses household panel data to provide robust evidence on the effects of BRAC’s (Building Resources across Countries) Targeting the Ultra-poor (TUP) program in Bangladesh. We use alternative treatment-comparison pairs; in addition to BRAC’s own classification, we exploit type 1 errors in assignment in BRAC’s selection process to create a second treatment-comparison pair. This allows us to estimate the program effects on the target grou…
Gender, Generations, and Nonfarm Participation
The authors present an empirical \n analysis of intergenerational links in nonfarm participation \n with a focus on gender effects. Using survey data from \n Nepal, the evidence shows that the mother exerts a strong \n influence on a daughter's employment choice. Having a \n mother in a nonfarm sector raises a daughter's \n probability of nonfarm participation by 200 percent. The \n effects are truly dramatic for skilled nonfarm jobs. Having \n a…
Revenue-increasing and welfare-enhancing reform of taxes on exports
Public Information and Inflation Expectations
Governments provide public information to reduce information imperfections. Do households rely on public signals to inform themselves about market conditions? To identify the importance of public information in households' price expectations, we take advantage of a unique natural experiment in Ecuador where the published inflation rate had been different from the correct rate over a period of fourteen months due to a software error. We find that …
Education and Freedom of Choice
Using household data from Vietnam, we provide evidence on the effects of education on freedom of spouse choice. We use war disruptions and spatial indicators of schooling supply as instruments. The point estimates indicate that a year of additional schooling reduces the probability of an arranged marriage by about 14 percentage points for an individual with eight years of schooling. We also estimate bounds on the effect of education on arranged m…
Admission is Free Only If Your Dad is Rich! Distributional Effects of Corruption in Schools in Developing Countries
In the standard model of corruption, the \n rich are more likely to pay bribes for their children's \n education, reflecting higher ability to pay. This prediction \n is, however, driven by the assumption that the probability \n of punishment for bribe-taking is invariant across \n households. In many developing countries lacking in rule of \n law, this assumption is untenable, because the enforcement \n of law is not impersonal or unbiased and t…
Access to Markets and Rural Poverty
This paper presents evidence on the effects of access to domestic and international markets on per capita consumption of households using data from rural China. The econometric analysis uses alternative identification schemes to address the potential endogeneity of access to markets. We use straight-line distances to coastline and navigable river, along with the topography of the intervening counties, as sources of exogeneous variations. We also …
Assessing the Frontiers of Ultrapoverty Reduction
This article uses household panel data to provide robust evidence on the effects of BRAC’s (Building Resources across Countries) Targeting the Ultra-poor (TUP) program in Bangladesh. We use alternative treatment-comparison pairs; in addition to BRAC’s own classification, we exploit type 1 errors in assignment in BRAC’s selection process to create a second treatment-comparison pair. This allows us to estimate the program effects on the target grou…
Are the Children of Uneducated Farmers Doubly Disadvantaged? Farm, Nonfarm and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in Rural China
This paper relaxes the single-factor model of intergenerational educational mobility and analyzes heterogeneous effects of family background on children’s education in villages, with a focus on the role of nonfarm occupations. The analysis uses data from rural China that cover three generations, and are not subject to coresident sample selection. Evidence from a battery of econometric approaches shows that the mean effects of parents’ education m…
Gender, Geography, and Generations
When Measure Matters
Biases from truncation caused by coresidency restriction have been a challenge for research on intergenerational mobility. Estimates of intergenerational schooling persistence from two data sets show that the intergenerational regression coefficient, the most widely used measure, is severely biased downward in coresident samples. But the bias in intergenerational correlation is much smaller, and is less sensitive to the coresidency rate. The pape…
Estimating Intergenerational Mobility with Incomplete Data
The rank-based measures of intergenerational mobility have become increasingly popular in economics literature. Recent evidence shows that rank-based measures are less affected by measurement error and life-cycle bias compared with other standard measures such as intergenerational regression coefficient and intergenerational correlation. However, most of the available household surveys suffer from sample truncation, because coresidency is used to…
Beyond dualism
Economic approach to intergenerational mobility
This paper provides a critical survey and synthesis of the recent economic literature on intergenerational mobility in developing countries, with a focus on data and methodological challenges. The attenuation due to measurement error is compounded by sample truncation resulting from co-residency and causes substantial downward bias in intergenerational regression coefficient. In contrast, intergenerational correlation and intergenerational rank c…
Gender Bias and Intergenerational Educational Mobility
This paper incorporates gender bias against girls in the family, school and labor market in a model of intergenerational persistence in schooling where parents self-finance children's education because of credit market imperfections. Parents may underestimate a girl's ability, expect lower returns, and assign lower weights to their welfare (“pure son preference”). The model delivers the widely used linear conditional expectation function under co…
Distributional Effects of Corruption When Enforcement is Biased
In many models of corruption where enforcement is unbiased, the rich are more likely to pay bribes for their children's education, implying that corruption reduces educational inequality. We develop models of bribery that reflect the fact that in developing countries, anticorruption enforcement is not unbiased, and higher income of a household is associated with higher bargaining power and better quality of institutions. In models of biased enfor…
Bridge to bigpush or backwash? Market integration, reallocation and productivity effects of Jamuna Bridge in Bangladesh
We study the effects of Jamuna Bridge in Bangladesh that reduced the average trade costs by 50% and connected 26 million people by road to the capital city. We use a difference-in-difference design where the isolated Padma hinterland constitutes the comparison. Balance tests for an array of economic characteristics support the parallel trends assumption. The bridge led to economic revival in the Jamuna hinterland with increased agricultural produ…
Growing up Together
This paper presents credible and comparable evidence on intergenerational educational mobility in 53 developing countries using sibling correlation as a measure, and data from 230 waves of Demographic and Health Surveys. It is the first paper to provide estimates of sibling correlation in schooling for a large number of developing countries using high quality standardized data. Sibling correlation is an omnibus measure of mobility as it captures …
Occupational dualism and intergenerational educational mobility in the rural economy
We extend the Becker-Tomes model to a rural economy with farm-nonfarm occupational dualism to study intergenerational educational mobility in rural China and India. Using data free of coresidency bias, we find that fathers’ nonfarm occupation and education were complementary in determining sons schooling in India, but separable in China. Sons faced lower mobility in India irrespective of fathers’ occupation. Sensitivity analysis using the Altonji…
Temporary trade shocks and regional development
Can temporary trade restrictions reshape regional development? To analyze this, we exploit the Cote d’Ivoire civil war that disrupted access to Abidjan port for neighboring land-locked countries: Mali and Burkina Faso. Estimates from a difference-in-difference design suggest negative effects on economic activity and a reverse structural change in the treatment communes. We find evidence of persistence through irreversible investment in built-up a…
Making the most of coresident data
Many available data sets are not used for estimating intergenerational mobility owing to concerns about sample truncation bias in coresident data. Using data from Bangladesh, Chile, Ghana, India, Indonesia, and Mexico, we report the first evidence that the bias in estimated sibling correlation, a broad measure of relative mobility, is small in coresident samples (4.30%), much smaller than that in intergenerational regression coefficient (10.25%).…
Is gender destiny? Gender bias and intergenerational educational mobility in India
We develop a model of intergenerational educational mobility incorporating gender bias against girls in the family, school, and labor market. Mobility and investment equations from the model are estimated for India using data not truncated by coresidency. The standard linear model misses important heterogeneity and yields misleading conclusions. Daughters of uneducated fathers face lower relative and absolute mobility (rural and urban). We find g…
Economics (19 works) · Demographic economics (11 works) · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies (10 works) · Economic growth (8 works) · Mathematics (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Geography (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Econometrics (6 works) · Statistics (6 works)