rafmacalaba/data-use-mentions-extended huggingface dataset:
intended to allow borrowers to self-select into forbearance. This has advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, allowing borrowers to opt into forbearance improves the targeting of benefits to liquidity constrained households, who can use forbearance like a line of credit that they can draw on when necessary to avoid debt distress. The available evidence suggests that this is in fact how forbearance is used in practice: households that select into forbearance are, on average, more financially constrained but no more likely to default based on observables than borrowers who do not opt into forbearance (Cherry et al., 2021; Battaglia et al., 2023; Fiorin et al., 2023).

On the other hand, selection into forbearance has important distributional effects and makes the benefits of forbearance more regressive, given that borrowers with larger loans have a higher incentive to select into forbearance. Cherry et al. (2021), examine the characteristics of households that selected into forbearance under the CARES act in the United States and find that forbearance benefits are indeed skewed towards wealthier households – 55 percent of the total dollar amount of forbearance accrued to borrowers with above median incomes. The regressive impact of forbearance is an even more important concern in emerging economies, where access to credit is highly unequal so that qualifying for forbearance requires an even higher income cutoff.

Another channel through which debt moratoria can have distributional effects is their potential impact on credit scores. When forbearance is mandated, it is typically accompanied by a freeze on credit reporting. However, in many cases where forbearance is voluntary, selection into forbearance has the potential to damage a borrower’s credit score. This may add as a deterrent to take up forbearance or disproportionately reduce access to finance for borrowers with a thinner credit file. This is especially relevant for low-income households and microfinance borrowers whose loans are increasingly likely to be included in conventional credit bureau data, and who are less likely to be informed about the consequences of a debt moratorium on their credit score and future access to finance (de Janvry
, after decades of competitive elections, turnover of political parties in office, and rise of lower-caste political leaders, on platforms of empowering the lower castes. Indeed, our survey data are consistent with inclusive politics, uncovering quite astonishing rates of political aspiration, and sophisticated political thinking among citizens in rural Bihar, across caste groups (discussed in the section below).

Taking stock of the literature on institutions, two World Bank reports have argued that the reason historical institutions have persistent effects is because they work through norms– 23
**_<u>________________________________________________________</u>_**

- Statistical Database

- An overview of trade flows between the EU and non-EU countries, accessed by simply entering an HS code or product description, can be obtained from this section.

- Studies

- Full text reports on market access related studies referring to geographical areas, selected business sectors or relevant horizontal issues (e.g. labelling).

# _<u>United States International Trade Commission (USITC): Dataweb</u>_

The USITC Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb provides international trade statistics and U.S. tariff data to the public full-time and free of charge. U.S. import statistics, U.S. export statistics, U.S. tariffs, U.S. future tariffs and U.S. tariff preference information are available on a selfservice, interactive basis. The USITC DataWeb responds to user-defined queries integrating international trade statistics with complex tariff and customs treatment, and allows both expert and non-expert users to create and save customized country and product lists for future re-use from anywhere in the world.

International trade data are available for years 1989- present on a monthly, quarterly, annual, or year-to-date basis and can be retrieved in a number of classification systems, including the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS), the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC), or the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Pre-defined reports on international trade statistics are also available by geographic region and partner country. Current U.S. tariffs, which are maintained and published by the USITC as a statutory responsibility, can be accessed via the USITC DataWeb, and retrieved with relevant international trade data.

The United States Trade Representative 2005 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers The 2005 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE) is the twentieth in an annual series that surveys significant foreign barriers to U.S. exports. The report provides, where feasible, quantitative estimates of the impact of
a positive correlation indicates procyclicality, while a negative correlation indicates countercyclicality.<sup>6</sup> These correlations are calculated for 182 countries using annual data for 1980-2020.

Economies are placed into two groups—“commodity exporters” and “commodity importers”—by applying the classification criteria used in World Bank (2022). An economy is classified as a commodity exporter if, on average in 2017–19, either its combined exports of all commodities accounted for 30 percent or more of its total exports or its exports of any single commodity accounted for 20 percent or more of its total exports. Economies are excluded if they reached either threshold only because of reexports (imports that were exported without being changed). Based on these criteria, 92 economies are classified as commodity exporters of which 87 are EMDEs and five are advanced economies. Commodity importers are economies not classified as commodity exporters (Table 1). The panel is unbalanced due to lack of data for some countries for the whole sample period.

# **II.1 Basic features of procyclicality**

The analysis of correlations produces four stylized facts. First, in the period 1980-2020, fiscal policy in EMDEs has been procyclical while that in advanced economies has been acyclical (Figure 2.A). The correlation between the cyclical components (derived using the Hodrick-Prescott filter) of real government expenditure and real GDP for EMDEs is 0.40, while that for advanced economies is slightly negative. Second, although fiscal policy in both commodity exporters and commodity importers has been procyclical among all EMDEs in the sample, commodity exporters are 30 percent more procyclical than commodity importers on average (Figure 2.B). The correlation between the cyclical components of real government spending and real GDP for commodity exporters is 0.46 compared with 0.36 for commodity importers, with both coefficients as well as the difference between them being statistically significant. Commodity exporters tended to have more procyclical fiscal policy than commodity importers regardless of their major commodity export—agricultural products
Targeting Scheme

||1999|2009|1999|2009|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Original FGT2|0.2000|0.2000|1.00|1.00|
|FGT2 after:|||||
|Uniform transfer|0.1673|0.1724|0.84 (1.00)|0.86 (1.00)|
|Province Level Targeting|0.1522|0.1555|0.76 (0.90)|0.78 (0.91)|
|District-level targeting|0.1443|0.1465|0.72 (0.86)|0.73 (0.85)|
|Commune-level targeting|0.1390|0.1372|0.70 (0.83)|0.69 (0.80)|

Note: Budget=5% of (Total Population * 25<sup>th</sup> Percentile Per Capita Expenditure). Poverty Line= Per capita expenditure defining bottom quintile of population (pre-transfer). The two last columns are the poverty gap indexes normalized to one. The figures in parentheses are the ratio of normalized P0 in the case of targeting transfer to the normalized P0 in the case of uniform transfer. The number of provinces, districts and communes in 1999 is 61, 614, and 10474, respectively. The number of provinces, districts and communes in 2009 is 63, 685, and 10896, respectively.

We only have access to a 15% sample of the Population Census, which is not representative on a commune-level. Therefore, it must be noted that the commune-level estimates of poverty may not be representative of the actual welfare levels, making our district-level results more on the point. However, as the government does have the full Census in its possession, a potential geographic targeting policy could successfully target aggregation levels as low as
# **<mark>Mahalabiya</mark>** **<u><mark>Covenant of Honor (2020)</mark></u>**

The Mahalabiya Covenant was brokered to facilitate the return of a comparatively small number of IDP families and had comparatively high rates of community engagement. IDPs accused of ISIL affiliation were represented by their tribal leaders, although family members of returnees were included in the peace process. The Covenant engaged community members as signatories and incorporated civil society actors in activities post-signature to counter radical and extremist views. The Covenant addressed accountability for ISIL atrocities, preventing false accusations, and countering extremist views. The pre-existing Local Peace Committee was mandated to monitor the Covenant, although did not appear to play a role in vetting IDPs prior to return. The context before and after the LPA appears similar, but there is a slight increase in blocked returns and tensions in public life (although these may be partially attributed to military operations in the surrounding areas).<sup>81</sup>

> 81 According to IOM’s DTM Master List, the rate of IDP return increased only marginally following the signature of the LPA in Mahalabiya (likely influenced by the timing of the LPA and the fact that many IDPs had returned already.) Prior to signature, 28,572 IDPs had returned, which increased to 29,994 after signature. Context indicators such as blocked return, social cohesion and movement restriction remained similar, according to IOM’s Return Index 12.

17
.8<br>VAT (indirect effect) -3.0<br>Fuel excise (total) -2.7<br>VAT (direct effect) -2.5<br>Fuel excise (indirect effect) -2.3<br>Pension contributions -1.6<br>Fuel excise (direct effect) -0.5<br>PIT Poverty increasing -0.4<br>Property -0.0<br>Fuel subs. (direct effect) 0.0<br>Near-cash transfers 0.2<br>Fuel subs. (total) 0.3<br>Fuel subs. (indirect effect) 0.3<br>Elec. subs. (direct effect) 0.6<br>Pension income 2.0<br>Cash Transfer Program (CTP) 2.2<br>-6 -4 -2 0 2<br>Marginal contribution at Consumable income (percentage points)<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: Authors' estimates based on PECS 2016/2017; LFS 2017.

Notes:

- [1] Marginal contributions are calculated as the change in a poverty or inequality indicator that results with the inclusion of a tax or transfer of interest. [2] A positive bar represents a reduction in poverty or inequality, while a negative bar represents an increase. [4] We don't calculate contributions to poverty for in-kind subsidies.

70 VAT Progressivity in this fiscal incidence study is driven by the fact that the model accounts for households’ consumption informality (which is higher among poorer households), which improves VAT progressivity (Bacha et al. 2020). In contrast, for the case of customs duties, the model assumes the Law of One Price.

44
These data are relevant in two respects. First of all, they indicate parliaments’ potential for effective oversight by showing which institutional arrangements have been adopted to enhance oversight. And second, they can be used to investigate whether the distribution of oversight tools is related to other variables such as a country’s form of government, the national income level and a country’s level of democracy as measured by the Gastil index.

# <u>The Distribution of Oversight Tools and the Potential for Oversight</u>

The data presented in Table 1 provide interesting information in at least three respects. First of all, these data indicate that there is considerable variation in how common are these various tools of parliamentary oversight.

For example, parliamentarians can put oral or written questions to the government in 79 of the 82 countries for which data are available or in 96.3 percent of the cases. Committees of inquiry and committee hearings are also common instruments of parliamentary control, utilized in more than 95 percent of the countries for which data are available. By contrast, interpellations and the ombudsman are substantially less common, with interpellations to the government used in about 75 percent of the countries while an ombuds office is instituted in less than 73 percent of the countries. Data are presented in Table 2.

Second, the analysis of the data indicates that all countries adopt some parliamentary oversight tools and that most of them use more than one tool. Complete information is 6
5) and, without accelerated progress, is unlikely to achieve the MDG targets by 2015. Although the proportion of deliveries at facility has improved, maternal mortality remains a significant challenge, particularly for disadvantaged populations. The national maternal mortality ratio in the 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) was statistically unchanged at 438 deaths per 100,000 live births compared to the 2006 DHS. Perinatal and maternal morbidity and mortality remain major causes of the high national disease burden, accounting for 20.4 percent of the burden.<sup>1</sup> Hemorrhage, abortion, sepsis, obstructed labor, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and malaria make up the major causes of maternal deaths and stillbirths. Owing to poor-quality services and limited access to skilled delivery services, compounded by the high cost of care, in the five years prior to the 2011 DHS, 43 percent of pregnant women delivered at home without the assistance of skilled health personnel with many of the home births disproportionately occurring among the poor and in rural areas. The provision of comprehensive emergency obstetric care in particular faced many challenges.

The need to reverse poor maternal health outcomes was and remains a key priority for Uganda. The four main strategies to reverse poor maternal health outcomes highlighted in the Road Map for Acceleration of Maternal and Neonatal Mortality and Morbidity (2006–15) include (1) improving and expanding the quality of maternal and newborn care, (2) improving access to family planning services, (3) providing adolescent reproductive health services, and (4) strengthening supply-chain management for reproductive health commodities in the public and private sectors. In this respect, the government, in collaboration with the World Bank and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW, German Development Bank), designed the RHVP, building on the earlier STI OBA voucher scheme also financed by KfW.

The RHVP was in line with the World Bank’s Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) and Reproductive Health Action Plan (RHAP). Uganda is a priority country in the World Bank’s
following five forms of work in the past 7 days: 1) paid labor for someone else; 2) unpaid labor in an off-farm family business; 3) non-agricultural self-employment; 4) agricultural self-employment; and 5) participation in unpaid training or workshops to foster skills. Each item was asked separately and independently to all individuals (age > 14), and we also analyze the binary indicators of each category separately.

The _school attendance_ indicator equals one if an individual is currently attending school (or college). Note that school attendance is nominally compulsory up to the age of 14 in Nigeria. We thus chose age 14 as the cut-off point for school attendance and employment alike.

**Gender and household composition indicators.** The female indicator at the individual level equals one if an individual is female. Our primary indicator at the household level equals one when the household head is female, which has traditionally been a key indicator in academic studies and in policy and practice. To go beyond the headship level, we use the very detailed, sex-disaggregated survey data to construct other key measures of gender and composition at the household level, and thus provide a more nuanced assessment of the role of gender (Hanmer et al. 2021; Klugman, 2022). Based on age, we study a dependency difference indicator, which is the difference between the number of adults and the number of children in the household. Based on gender, we study a gender difference indicator, which is the difference between the number of female and male members in the household. Based on gender and age, we study age-specific indicators of gender differences, for example the difference between the number of boys and girls in the household. Based on gender, age and employment information, we study a gender difference indicator in economic activity, which is the difference between the number of economically active women and men in the household.

7
Local currency unit (LCU) relative to the EUR.

The TTC values are the long-run equilibrium values of the four macroeconomic variables of interest. We compute these equilibrium values as simple arithmetic averages us- _−_ ing quarterly data over the period from 1996:Q1 2012:Q4. In addition, we use two yearahead consensus forecasts to increase the effective sample size when calculating these avValues used in the baseline PIT scenario are the market consensus forecasts.<sup>39</sup> The erages. data for both the TTC and PIT scenarios were obtained from the Economic Intelligence Unit.

The country specific scenario labeled as “Stress VAR” in Table 3 is the four step-ahead dynamic forecast of the macroeconomic variables from a VAR(1) model. The stress values correspond to the adverse 1% tail values of the respective forecast distributions. The _−_ VAR(1) model was estimated on country specific data covering the period from 1996:Q1 2010:Q4, and standard lag length selection criteria were used to determine the appropri-

> 39One could also use the four step-ahead point forecasts from the VAR model.

50
they are expressed relative to Singapore’s; we then recalculate _LAYS_ by multiplying that relative quality measure by the Barro-Lee average years of schooling of the cohort of 25- to 29-year-olds.

The left panel of Figure 5.8 compares Kaarsen’s (renormalized) education quality variable to the measure of learning per year relative to Singapore that we use (that is, the data underpinning Figure 2.1); the right panel compares the _LAYS_ estimates that follow from the two approaches. Kaarsen’s approach suggests that there are larger differences across countries in

> 24 The data for Grades 3 and 7 were made available to him as a result of personal communication with the IEA, the organization that produces TIMSS.

> 25 According to Kaarsen’s calculations, the average TIMSS test-score gain in math at the secondary level is 29.4 points, and in science at the secondary level it is 36.5 points.

37
# Result 1: Using Only Hong Kong SAR as Control City.

We begin by estimating the causal impact of a strict lockdown policy on traffic congestion in Bogotá, New Delhi, New York City, and Paris. We use traffic conditions in Hong Kong SAR as well as daily temperature and precipitation data for the relevant treated cities as well as for the control series. The control covariates of the regression sub-model in the BSTS are unlikely to be directly affected by the Covid-19 restriction policies in the treated cities, as Hong Kong SAR did not implement any lockdown measure and Covid-19 cannot plausibly explain short-term variations in the weather variables.

As shown in both Figure 3 and Panel A of Table 1, we find that Covid-19 lockdown policies drastically reduced daily traffic congestion—as measured by the logarithm of the traffic congestion index—in each of the four selected cities that implemented strict stay-at-home orders during the pandemic. Overall, the BSTS model fits very well the trajectory of the traffic congestion index during the pre-lockdown period in all cities. For example, the synthetic control series using Hong Kong SAR and the weather series did a remarkable performance of picking up nearly all episodes of spike and dip of the pre-lockdown traffic conditions, especially in New Delhi and Paris (Figure 3).

There is also an unambiguous divergence between observed traffic conditions and the counterfactual predictions following the implementation of the Covid-19 lockdown policies, with much less traffic congestion in the post-lockdown period. More specifically, as shown in Panel A of Table 1, the lockdown-induced reduction in the traffic congestion index varies between 68% and 81% in comparison to a counterfactual _business-as-usual_ scenario in the treated cities. Bogotá and Paris exhibit the largest decline in relative congestion with 81% and 79.5%, respectively, followed by New Delhi (-77%) and New York City (-68%). These estimated causal effects are substantial and statistically significant, according to the 95% posterior confidence interval reported in brackets, which excludes 0 for all treated cities. Furthermore, the
the economy. A 2008 World Bank study found that the Yemeni government spent about USD 6,000 for each of 8,000 jobs that investment incentives helped create – more than six times the country’s per capita income.<sup>61</sup> A 1999 World Bank study estimated that investment incentives in Thailand cost the government 16 times the average annual wage of an industrial worker.<sup>62</sup> While tax incentives often aim to attract FDI and stimulate business growth, they are not the most effective tool for this purpose. Findings from global studies show that tax incentives on their own do not have a significant impact on foreign direct investment. The World Bank’s Investment Advisory Surveys in developing countries found that factors related to business climate (e.g. ease of import and export, regulatory framework, infrastructure) were more important as a primary motivation for investment than tax incentives.<sup>63</sup> So, improvement of regulatory climate, including by introducing a transparent tax policy and administration that treat all investors equally, will do more to attract investment than special tax schemes.

Similarly, there is no evidence that VAT exemptions in the region helped support select industries or economic activities. Such practices break VAT chain and result in economic distortions. Another problem is that multiple indirect taxes are levied on the same base. This increases the cost of goods and services and reduces competitiveness of South Asian businesses.

> 60 India Ministry of Finance. Revenue foregone under the Central Tax System: Financial Years 2012‐13 and 2013‐14 and Pakistan Ministry of Finance. Pakistan Economic Survey 2013‐14: Tax Expenditure. _In both countries, most of the tax expenditure is on indirect taxes._

> 61 James, Sebastian. 2013. Tax and Non‐tax Incentives and Investments: Evidence and Policy Implications, World Bank, Washington DC

> 62 Ibid

> 63 Ibid

24