Model-Selection Inference for Causal Impact of Clusters and Collaboration on MSMEs in India.

Do firms benefit more from agglomeration-based spillovers than the technical know-how obtained through inter-firm collaboration? Quantifying the relative value of the industrial policy of cluster development vis-à-vis firm's internal decision of collaboration can be valuable for policy-makers and entrepreneurs. I observe the universe of Indian MSMEs inside an industrial cluster (Treatment Group 1), those in collaboration for technical know-how (Treatment Group 2) and those outside clusters with no collaboration (Control Group). Conventional econometric methods to identify the treatment effects would suffer from selection bias and misspecification of the model. I use two data-driven, model-selection methods, developed by (Belloni, A., Chernozhukov, V., and Hansen, C. (2013). Inference on treatment e ects after selection among high-dimensional controls. Review of Economic Studies, 81(2):608 650.) and (Chernozhukov, V., Hansen, C., and Spindler, M. (2015). Post selection and post regulariza- tion inference in linear models with many controls and instruments. American Economic Review, 105(5):486 490.), to estimate the causal impact of the treatments on GVA of firms. The results suggest that ATE of cluster and collaboration is nearly equal at 30%. I conclude by offering policy implications.

Actor Roles and Networks in Implementing Urban Water Innovation: A Study of Onsite Water Reuse in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As climate change and rapid urbanization stress our aging water infrastructure, cities are under increasing pressure to develop more flexible, resilient, and modular water management systems. In response, onsite water reuse practices have been adopted by several cities globally. In addition to technological innovation, these novel water treatment systems also require new stakeholder collaborations, relationships, and processes to support them. There are, however, few models for stakeholder arrangements that support and encourage the adoption and success of such infrastructure. In this paper, we use interviews with stakeholders involved in onsite water reuse projects in the San Francisco Bay Area to create a social network map that describes the interactions between stakeholders at large and during specific phases of project implementation. Using qualitative content analysis of expert interviews and social network analysis, we identify four actor roles that are key to the functioning of this novel water infrastructure paradigm─specialists, continuity providers, program champions, and conveners─and discuss the importance of each role through the course of project implementation. These findings can be helpful for policy interventions and outreach efforts by other cities and communities looking to implement onsite water systems.

Institutional Arrangements for Providing HIV and AIDS Services in Uganda: A Transaction Cost Economics Analysis.

Transaction cost economics (TCE) theory predicts that features of institutional arrangements determine the intensity of their governance instruments. Consequently, institutional features link to transaction costs, but the linkages have received little attention in the public health literature. This study sought to address this gap. It examined the governance features of institutional arrangements and their transaction cost implications for providing HIV prevention and social support services in Uganda. The analysis was based on 4 proposed TCE governance instruments: administrative controls, adaptation, incentives and contract laws. These governance instruments were assessed in 3 modes of delivery( institutional arrangments) for HIV and AIDS Services in Uganda: Contracting-Out - the case of DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe); a Public-Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) partnership - the case of the CHAI (Community-led HIV/AIDS Initiative); and direct Public Sector Delivery. These assessed delivery modes follow Williamson's TCE framework of 3 institutional arrangements to deliver goods and services, notably market, hybrid (partnership) and internal (hierarchy) delivery, with related governance features. Within this framework, the discriminating alignment hypothesis guided the analysis. According to the hypothesis, the delivery modes of goods and services result in smaller transaction costs when their governance features are as predicted by TCE. The hypothesis was assessed by analysing, with qualitative methods, the differences in HIV and AIDS services characteristics across the 3 arrangements and their differences with theory prediction, and hence the difference in transaction cost implications. The study found that the delivery arrangements that minimised cost are those whose HIV and AIDS services were aligned with the TCE theory prediction. The aligned 'public-NGO partnership' arrangement (CHAI) had fewer sources of transactional costs than the misaligned arrangements - 'contracting-out' (DREAMS) and 'public sector'. The analysis revealed that the DREAMS and public sector delivery models suffered some flaws in efficiencies. DREAMS had high administrative controls, high-powered tangible incentive intensity and intensive monitoring mechanisms for performance adaptation due to the lack of 'trust' on the part of the financing agency, contrary to the TCE prediction. In contrast with the TCE prediction, low administrative controls in the public sector arose from the failure to invest in performance monitoring systems. The high-powered incentive intensity and low administrative controls observed in the CHAI arrangement primarily stemmed from the reliance on informal institutions (trust, social expectations and reputation) rather than principal-agent arms-length sanctions. These results suggest that the level of transaction costs is associated with features of institutional arrangements. The valuable insights from TCE could contribute to policymaking during the design of institutional arrangements to efficiently deliver HIV and AIDS services.

Arranjos institucionais para a implantação de programa municipal de pagamento por serviços ambientais hídricos: estudo de caso de São José dos Campos (SP) / Institutional arrangements for implementation of a municipal payment program for water environmental services: case study of Sao José dos Campos (SP)

RESUMO O uso de instrumentos econômicos como indutores de qualidade ambiental vem ganhando destaque mundial. Na última década, o Brasil vivenciou a implantação de programas de Pagamento por Serviços Ambientais (PSA) para promover a restauração e a conservação de recursos naturais, com reconhecidos ganhos ambientais. Considerada a incipiência do uso dessa estratégia como política pública municipal, o presente trabalho foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de apresentar o estudo de caso do projeto de PSA em implantação no município de São José dos Campos (SP), na microbacia do ribeirão das Couves. A realização desta pesquisa foi subsidiada por revisão bibliográfica, análise documental e entrevistas estruturadas, contemplando desde a sua gênese, em 2010, até o ano de 2017. Com base nos resultados, foi possível verificar que os agentes públicos municipais invitaram esforços durante os cinco primeiros anos para adquirir conhecimento, estabelecer meios regulatórios, garantir recursos econômicos, envolver agentes sociais afetados por essa política, até que fosse possível iniciar o projeto. Nesse período foi estabelecido o arranjo institucional, motivado pela viabilidade de aprendizado das entidades parceiras e oportunidade de contribuição e partilha. Os principais ganhos com a implantação do projeto relacionam-se ao incremento de vegetação nativa e à melhoria de qualidade das águas na microbacia que são utilizadas como manancial para abastecimento público local. Entre os desafios destacados pelos gestores públicos está a inexistência de recursos humanos, materiais e financeiros dedicados à iniciativa. Por fim, destaca-se que o aprendizado gerado pelo projeto servirá ao município para a continuidade do programa e a projetos semelhantes.

ABSTRACT The use of economic instruments as inductors of environmental quality has gained worldwide prominence. In the last decade, Brazil experienced the implementation of Payment for Environmental Services (PES) programs to promote the restoration and conservation of natural resources, with recognized environmental gains. Considering the incipience of the use of this strategy as a municipal public policy, the present work was developed with the purpose of presenting the case study of the PES project in implantation in the municipality of São José dos Campos, in the Couves creek. The accomplishment of this research was subsidized by bibliographical revision, documental analysis and structured interviews, contemplating from its genesis, in 2010, until 2017. From the results, it was possible to verify that the municipal public agents invited efforts during the first five years to acquire knowledge, to establish regulatory means, to guarantee economic resources, to involve social agents affected by this policy, until it was possible to start the project. During this period the institutional arrangement was established, motivated by the viability of learning of the partner entities and the opportunity of contribution and sharing. The main gains from the implementation of the project are related to the increase of native vegetation and the improvement of water quality in the watershed that are used as source for local public supply. Among the challenges highlighted by public managers is the inexistence of resources: human, material, and financial dedicated to the initiative. Finally, it is highlighted that the learning generated by the project will serve the municipality for the continuity of the program and similar projects.

A multisectoral institutional arrangements approach to integrating civil registration, vital statistics, and identity management systems.

This paper reviews the essential components of a recommended institutional arrangements framework of integrated civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) and civil identification systems. CRVS typically involves several ministries and institutions, including health institutions that notify the occurrence of births and deaths; the judicial system that records the occurrence of marriages, divorces, and adoptions; the national statistics office that produces vital statistics reports; and the civil registry, to name a few. Considering the many stakeholders and close collaborations involved, it is important to establish clear institutional arrangements-"the policies, practices and systems that allow for effective functioning of an organization or group" (United Nations Development Programme, Capacity development: a UNDP primer. New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2009). An example of a component of institutional arrangements is the establishment of a multisectoral national CRVS coordination committee consisting of representatives from key stakeholder groups that can facilitate participatory decision-making and continuous communication. Another important component of institutional arrangements is to create a linkage between CRVS and the national identity management system using unique identification numbers, enabling continuously updated vital events data to be accessible to the civil identification agency. By using birth registration in the civil registry to trigger the generation of a new identification and death registration to close it, this link accounts for the flow of people into and out of the identification management system. Expanding this data link to enable interoperability between different databases belonging to various ministries and agencies can enhance the efficiency of public and private services, save resources, and improve the quality of national statistics which are useful for monitoring the national development goals and the Sustainable Development Goals. Examples from countries that have successfully implemented the recommended components of an integrated CRVS and national identity management system are presented in the paper.

Análise do Programa Mais Médicos à luz dos arranjos institucionais: intersetorialidade, relações federativas, participação social e territorialidade / Analysis of the Mais Médicos (More Doctors) Program in terms of its institutional arrangements: sector cooperation, federative relations, social participations and territoriality

Resumo O artigo analisa o Programa Mais Médicos, adotando como referencial o conceito de arranjo institucional, compreendido como as regras, organizações e processos que definem o desenho específico de uma determinada política pública, estabelecendo a articulação entre os seus atores e interesses. A adoção desse conceito permite compreender a dinâmica dos atores participantes desse arranjo e como se articulam a governança, a construção da decisão e a governabilidade dos atores, bem como o reflexo de todos esses fatores no desempenho da política pública. O aprofundamento da análise baseou-se em quatro categorias, consideradas fundamentais, para se compreender um arranjo organizacional no caso brasileiro: a intersetorialidade, as relações federativas, a participação social e a territorialidade.

Abstract This article analyzes the Mais Médicos (More Doctors) program based on the concept of an institutional arrangement, understood as the set of rules, organizations and processes that define the specific design of a given public policy, defining how it will articulate across players and interests. This concept will allow us to understand the dynamics of the players in this arrangement, as well as their governance, decision-making and governability, and how these factors reflect on public policy performance. A deeper analysis is based on four categories considered essential to understand an organizational arrangement in Brazil: sector cooperation (sometimes referred to as intersecoriality), federative relationships, social involvement and territoriality.

The data not collected on community forestry.

Conservation and development practitioners increasingly promote community forestry as a way to conserve ecosystem services, consolidate resource rights, and reduce poverty. However, outcomes of community forestry have been mixed; many initiatives failed to achieve intended objectives. There is a rich literature on institutional arrangements of community forestry, but there has been little effort to examine the role of socioeconomic, market, and biophysical factors in shaping both land-cover change dynamics and individual and collective livelihood outcomes. We systematically reviewed the peer-reviewed literature on community forestry to examine and quantify existing knowledge gaps in the community-forestry literature relative to these factors. In examining 697 cases of community forest management (CFM), extracted from 267 peer-reviewed publications, we found 3 key trends that limit understanding of community forestry. First, we found substantial data gaps linking population dynamics, market forces, and biophysical characteristics to both environmental and livelihood outcomes. Second, most studies focused on environmental outcomes, and the majority of studies that assessed socioeconomic outcomes relied on qualitative data, making comparisons across cases difficult. Finally, there was a heavy bias toward studies on South Asian forests, indicating that the literature on community forestry may not be representative of decentralization policies and CFM globally.

Addressing governance challenges in the provision of animal health services: A review of the literature and empirical application transaction cost theory.

Providing adequate animal health services to smallholder farmers in developing countries has remained a challenge, in spite of various reform efforts during the past decades. The focuses of the past reforms were on market failures to decide what the public sector, the private sector, and the "third sector" (the community-based sector) should do with regard to providing animal health services. However, such frameworks have paid limited attention to the governance challenges inherent in the provision of animal health services. This paper presents a framework for analyzing institutional arrangements for providing animal health services that focus not only on market failures, but also on governance challenges, such as elite capture, and absenteeism of staff. As an analytical basis, Williamson's discriminating alignment hypothesis is applied to assess the cost-effectiveness of different institutional arrangements for animal health services in view of both market failures and governance challenges. This framework is used to generate testable hypotheses on the appropriateness of different institutional arrangements for providing animal health services, depending on context-specific circumstances. Data from Uganda and Kenya on clinical veterinary services is used to provide an empirical test of these hypotheses and to demonstrate application of Williamson's transaction cost theory to veterinary service delivery. The paper concludes that strong public sector involvement, especially in building and strengthening a synergistic relation-based referral arrangement between paraprofessionals and veterinarians is imperative in improving animal health service delivery in developing countries.