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Centre for finance and development
19 September 2014

First PhD in Development Economics Awarded

On Friday September 19th the first PhD in Development Economics at the Graduate Institute was awarded to Daniel Zaga.

The PhD Programme Development Economics started in 2011 and normally takes eight semesters, Daniel Zaga completed the programme in only six semesters and with that is the first graduate of the programme.

Mr. Zaga was supervised by CFD Director Jean-Louis Arcand and CFD member Martina Viarengo.

The thesis is called: "Coping with vulnerability: Some Mexican Strategies" an abstract is included below:

 

The first chapter, called "Masked Development: Exploring the Hidden Benefits of the Zapatista Conflict", analyzes the consequences of the Zapatista Conflict in Chiapas, Mexico.  In 1994, the Zapatistas took up arms claiming for indigenous people rights. The official civil war lasted twelve days, but since then, the Mexican government has spread a "low intensity war" over the self-declared Zapatista Autonomous Communities. Simultaneously, the Zapatistas started to develop a new set of institutions and policies, which have presumably improved their well-being conditions. This study aims at elucidating this ambiguous theoretical effect on the socio-economic performance of the communities under harassment. The results, robust to different specifications and conflict intensity definitions, imply that the impact of the Zapatista institutions has surpassed the negative effect of the civil strive, suggesting that: i) bottom-up policies carried out by grass-root organizations, even in times of conflict, might represent an appropriate path for endogenous socio-economic development; and ii) the Mexican government should recognize the Zapatista autonomy and its right for self-determination. The second chapter, called "The Impact of Mexican Nutritional Programs: The Case of DIF-Puebla", presents an impact evaluation of three nutritional programs carried out in Puebla, Mexico, by a social assistance institution called DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia). Through the propensity score matching and weighting, this study estimates the causal effect of the programs on different areas: food support, food orientation, education, and health. At the same time, this study examines heterogeneous effects under the following samples: i) general sample; ii) boys; iii) girls; iv) urban localities; and v) rural localities. The main results suggest a strong impact of the programs on anthropometric variables (except in rural areas) but unexpected detrimental effects on education throughout the different samples. The third chapter, called "Networks, Skills, and Mexican Undocumented Migration to the United States", examines the determinants of undocumented migration from Mexico to the United States in the period 1979-2009. In addition, it investigates the effect of migrant networks' quality upon the skill level of subsequent flows of Mexican undocumented migrants. After providing different econometric specifications and diverse migrant network measures, this paper concludes that migrant networks are a strong predictor of the probability of the Mexican-U.S. migration. When skilled heterogeneity is considered by occupation, this study shows that the unskilled migrant network is the main driver of the migration process, specifically for skilled but also for unskilled migrants. These results suggest that even though the restrictive U.S. migration policy may be having a detrimental effect (if any) over the decision of a potential Mexican migrant to cross the border, the low-skilled stock of migrants is the main predictor of the Mexican migration under a much larger scale. The policy implications of this study imply that the U.S. migration policy should be revised. It should acknowledge both the active role of migrant networks and the U.S. need for the Mexican low-skilled labor force, and thus, it should seek to insert the new flows of low-skilled Mexican migrants into a legal framework on a more sophisticated basis.

On Friday September 19th the first PhD in Development Economics at the Graduate Institute was awarded to Daniel Zaga.

The PhD Programme Development Economics started in 2011 and normally takes eight semesters, Daniel Zaga completed the programme in only six semesters and with that is the first graduate of the programme.

Mr. Zaga was supervised by CFD Director Jean-Louis Arcand and CFD member Martina Viarengo.

The thesis is called: "Coping with vulnerability: Some Mexican Strategies" an abstract is included below:

 

The first chapter, called "Masked Development: Exploring the Hidden Benefits of the Zapatista Conflict", analyzes the consequences of the Zapatista Conflict in Chiapas, Mexico.  In 1994, the Zapatistas took up arms claiming for indigenous people rights. The official civil war lasted twelve days, but since then, the Mexican government has spread a "low intensity war" over the self-declared Zapatista Autonomous Communities. Simultaneously, the Zapatistas started to develop a new set of institutions and policies, which have presumably improved their well-being conditions. This study aims at elucidating this ambiguous theoretical effect on the socio-economic performance of the communities under harassment. The results, robust to different specifications and conflict intensity definitions, imply that the impact of the Zapatista institutions has surpassed the negative effect of the civil strive, suggesting that: i) bottom-up policies carried out by grass-root organizations, even in times of conflict, might represent an appropriate path for endogenous socio-economic development; and ii) the Mexican government should recognize the Zapatista autonomy and its right for self-determination. The second chapter, called "The Impact of Mexican Nutritional Programs: The Case of DIF-Puebla", presents an impact evaluation of three nutritional programs carried out in Puebla, Mexico, by a social assistance institution called DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia). Through the propensity score matching and weighting, this study estimates the causal effect of the programs on different areas: food support, food orientation, education, and health. At the same time, this study examines heterogeneous effects under the following samples: i) general sample; ii) boys; iii) girls; iv) urban localities; and v) rural localities. The main results suggest a strong impact of the programs on anthropometric variables (except in rural areas) but unexpected detrimental effects on education throughout the different samples. The third chapter, called "Networks, Skills, and Mexican Undocumented Migration to the United States", examines the determinants of undocumented migration from Mexico to the United States in the period 1979-2009. In addition, it investigates the effect of migrant networks' quality upon the skill level of subsequent flows of Mexican undocumented migrants. After providing different econometric specifications and diverse migrant network measures, this paper concludes that migrant networks are a strong predictor of the probability of the Mexican-U.S. migration. When skilled heterogeneity is considered by occupation, this study shows that the unskilled migrant network is the main driver of the migration process, specifically for skilled but also for unskilled migrants. These results suggest that even though the restrictive U.S. migration policy may be having a detrimental effect (if any) over the decision of a potential Mexican migrant to cross the border, the low-skilled stock of migrants is the main predictor of the Mexican migration under a much larger scale. The policy implications of this study imply that the U.S. migration policy should be revised. It should acknowledge both the active role of migrant networks and the U.S. need for the Mexican low-skilled labor force, and thus, it should seek to insert the new flows of low-skilled Mexican migrants into a legal framework on a more sophisticated basis.