rafmacalaba/data-use-mentions-extended huggingface dataset:
digital investments, which could be rather lumpy.

Figure 17: Probability of digital or innovation response and severity of initial shock <!-- Start of picture text --> (a) Increase use of digital tech. (b) Investment in digital solutions<br>80 50<br>60 40 36<br>53<br>48 29<br>30<br>24<br>40 36<br>27 20<br>15<br>20<br>10<br>0 0<br>Below median Above median Below median Above median<br>Drop in mobility in wave 1 Drop in mobility in wave 1<br>Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 1 Wave 2<br>(c) Probability of introducing new products<br>30<br>20<br>20<br>15<br>10<br>0<br>Below median Above median<br>Drop in mobility in wave 1<br>Probability of investing in digital<br>Probability of starting/increasing use of digital<br>Probability<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Third_ , firms’ adjustment responses (e.g. in terms of digital upgrading) are associated with increased market concentration and may widen the gaps in performance (and productivity) between smaller and mid-sized or larger firms. The concentration of online sales in a few firms, especially in the retail industry is striking although not surprising given that the option to sell online is usually adopted by retailer chains. Based on the BPS data in Vietnam, we find that the top 5% largest firms accounted for a share of online sales that increased from 65% in the first wave to 77% in the second wave in barely a six-month period. This is especially worrying in the light of recent evidence of increasing market concentration at the global level (De Loecker and Eeckhout, 2018).

This tendency towards heterogeneous responses
BURKINA FASO’S INFRASTRUCTURE: A CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE

# **Table 14. Benchmarking ICT indicators**

<!-- Start of picture text --> Unit Nonfragile, low- Burkina Faso Middle-income<br>income countries countries<br>2005 2005 2007–0) 2005<br>GSM coverage % population under signal 48 41 61 97<br>International bandwidth Mbps/capita 6 5.8 14.6 30<br>Landline Subscribers/100 people 1 0.7 0.9 9<br>Mobile phone Subscribers/100 people 15 5.3 16.8 87<br>Burkina Faso Countries without Countries with Other developing<br> US dollars 2007 submarine cable submarine cable regions<br>Price of monthly mobile basket 14.6 11.1 11.12 9.9<br>Price of monthly fixed-line basket 11.2 13.6 13.58 —<br>Price of 20-hour Internet package 90.5 68.0 47.00 11.0<br>Price of a call to the United States per minute 0.4 0.86 0.48 0.66<br>Price of an inter-Africa telephone calls per minute 1.6 0.7 0.57 n.a.<br>Source: Mali 2005 data together with benchmarks are taken from the AICD database. Mali 2007–08 data are compiled from a variety of World<br>Bank sources (including an information and communication technology for development database) to give a sense of the progress made during<br>the past four to five years; Ampah and others 2009; AICD national database (www.infrastructureafrica.org/aicd/tools/data).<br>Note: Numbers reported in the table as of 2007. GSM = global system for mobile communications; Mbps = megabits per second.<br>— = Not available.<br>n.a. = Not applicable.<br>Figure
and medium size firms, thereby allowing us to study the issue of collateralized borrowing across countries and firm characteristics.

We restrict our analyses to 22,263 firms across 131 countries between 2008 and 2017 (the list of countries is given in Table A1). These 22,263 firms are those that were currently borrowing, and the loan was issued within three years before the survey. For example, if the firm is surveyed in 2009 and the loan was issued earlier than 2006, then, we drop the firm. In the data, some existing loans were granted as far back as 1930s. Loans that were granted more than three years from the time of the survey were dropped because they were too far back to be determined by firms’ current characteristics. Effectively, the loan and collateral data are from 2005 to 2017, although the survey years are from 2008 to 2017. The dataset is effectively cross-sectional since the firms do not repeat, i.e. each firm only appears once in the dataset. The dataset includes countries from six regions of the world: Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), East Asia and Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Middle East and North Africa (MENA), South Asia (SAR). The summary statistics of all the variables are presented in Table A3.

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Policy Research Working Paper 10299

# **Abstract**

Tax evasion and avoidance generate distortions in tax systems and cause significant revenue losses for African economies. International cooperation is one of the most effective methods of combating tax evasion and tax avoidance. As such, many countries are participating in global initiatives toward the exchange of information between national administrations for tax purposes. This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the revenue effects of tax-related exchange of information for African countries. The regressions are carried out on a sample of 54 African countries on data from 1990–2020. The findings indicate that the exchange of information for tax purposes between national tax jurisdictions has a positive and statistically significant impact on tax revenue. The estimation results show that exchange of information could increase tax revenue collection by a magnitude ranging from 5 to 19 percent. These findings reiterate the importance of international cooperation for combating tax evasion and stimulating tax collection in Africa.

This paper is a product of the Governance Global Practice. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at yarvanitis@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
Policy Research Working Paper 10568

# **Abstract**

Most developing economies rely on foreign capital to finance their infrastructure needs. These projects are usually structured as long-term (25–35 years) franchises that pay in local currency. If investors evaluate their returns in terms of foreign currency, exchange rate volatility introduces risk that may reduce the level of investment below what would be socially optimal. This paper proposes a mechanism with very general features that hedges exchange rate fluctuation by adjusting the concession period. Such mechanism does not imply additional costs to the government and could be offered as a zero-cost option to lenders and investors exposed to currency fluctuations. This general mechanism is illustrated with three alternative specifications and data from a 25-year highway franchise is used to simulate how they would play out in eight different countries that exhibit diverse exchange rate trajectories.

This paper is a product of the Economic Policy Research Department, International Finance Corporation. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank. org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at Luciano-decastro@uiowa.edu, claudio.frischtak@interb.com.br, and arthur.mauriciorodrigues@gmail.com.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
trade in these goods experienced major contractions. However, a shortcoming of the "affected" concept is that the magnitude of the trade response may vary considerably from product to product. While recent applications of equation (1) are normally made directly with tariff line data, we have utilized Walter's "affected" commodity concept in this study so all indices would be directly comparable. Direct trade coverage indices could not be computed for the 1960. since the required tariff line level trade data were not generally available.
nevertheless notable how much difference there is in the elasticity based on the NSS consumption growth rates versus the NAS growth rates for the post-1991 period; the surveybased elasticities are about twice as high (in absolute terms) as the national accounts based elasticities. The much lower NAS elasticities reflect the NAS-NSS drift (much faster NASbased growth relative to that based on the NSS) post-1991.

Our results are qualitatively robust to the choice of poverty measure. However, it is notable that the growth elasticities tend to be highest (in absolute value) for SPG and higher for PG than H. The higher growth elasticity of PG than H implies that the depth of poverty (as measured by the mean poverty gap relative to the poverty line) is also reduced by growth. Similarly, the even higher elasticity of SPG implies that inequality amongst the poor (as measured by the coefficient of variation) is reduced by growth. Thus the impacts of growth within and between sectors are not confined to households in a neighborhood of the poverty line.

To summarize: The responsiveness of poverty to growth when measured from the surveys is generally greater in the post-1991 period. This is also true of the responsiveness of the headcount index to growth measured through the national accounts, but not for the two poverty gap indices (PG and SPG), which are similarly responsive to growth in the two periods.

# **5. Poverty and the urban-rural pattern of growth**

Our proposed test for whether the sectoral composition of growth matters entails estimating the following regression equation on the discrete time-series data on poverty and growth: Here  is the discrete-time difference operator (such that  _xt_  _xt_  _xt_  1 ), _sit_  _= nit_  _it /_  _t_ is sector _i_ ’s share of mean consumption at survey round _t_ and  _it_ is the mean consumption for sector _i_ . The  's are parameters to be estimated. To motivate this test regression, notice that, under the null hypothesis that  _u_  
# **Figure 10. Tariff rates considerably decreased**

**Figure 11. Trade openness also decreased** Total trade as percentage of GDP

Tariff rate of all products in percentage <!-- Start of picture text --> 20 160<br>140<br>15<br>120<br>10<br>100<br>5<br>80<br>0 60<br>Source: Authors’ elaboration using data from Our Source: Authors’ elaboration using data from Our<br>World in Data (https://ourworldindata.org/) World in Data (https://ourworldindata.org/)<br>2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020<br><!-- End of picture text --> Unlike other developing economies that promoted trade liberalization, Jordan’s export sector did not grow as expected. Total exports as a percentage of GDP dropped from 41.8 percent in 2000 to 36.7 percent in 2019 after peaking at 56 percent in 2008 (Figure 12). At the same time, imports have increased more than exports and the total trade balance has become even more negative (Figure 13).

**Figure 12. Exports decreased after 2008** Exports as percentage of GDP

**Figure 13. Trade balance has remained negative**

Total balance, billions US$ <!-- Start of picture text --> 60 JC<br>50<br>40<br>30<br>20<br>Source: Authors’ elaboration using data from the World<br>Integrated Trade Solutions<br>(https://wits.worldbank.org/).<br>Black dotted line in the year of implementation of the<br>JC.<br>2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018<br><
unique database which has information on all new work contracts issued to Filipino workers over the 1992 to 2009 period, including information on the destination country and contracted wage.

The Philippines provides an excellent setting to examine how migration responds to shocks at destination. It was the first country to implement temporary overseas contract work on a wide scale, and Filipinos now migrate in large numbers to a very diverse set of countries, which have experienced substantial heterogeneity in macroeconomic conditions over the period of our data. In 2007, 1.7 million Filipinos were working outside of the Philippines in 181 countries, with overseas contract work the primary channel of emigration.

Using these data, we estimate how the number of contract workers and the wages they are paid respond to economic shocks in destination countries. We find a strong and significant positive relationship between migrant numbers and GDP fluctuations at destination, with the point estimate suggesting migrant quantities respond more than one-for-one to proportional GDP changes. In contrast, we find that the wages migrants are paid has no large or statistically significant relationship with GDP changes at destination. This pattern is consistent with the existence of binding minimum wages that lead to migrant labor supply exceeding labor demand at the contracted wages. This occurs for both low- and high-skilled workers, suggesting the distortion comes not just from national minimum wages in destination countries, but also from restrictions on the wages that migrants of higher skill levels can be paid. For example, the United States H1B program that many IT professionals and foreign professors use to work in the United States requires that employers pay the “prevailing wage” obtained from a salary survey, as do a number of other immigration categories in the U.S.; Australia requires employers to pay their overseas workers the market salary rate and on top of this, specifies a threshold (currently A$49,330) that skilled migrants must make;<sup>1</sup> and the Philippines’ bilateral labor contracts require workers to be paid the prevailing wage for their positions in
to their origin regions (e.g., World Bank 2017b; D’Souza et al. 2022; etc.).

The escalation of the conflict in 2015 also led to a dramatic worsening in living standards and precipitated a humanitarian crisis, which might also have forced displacement. There was an immediate and widespread loss of livelihoods (e.g., EFSNA 2017; Tandon 2019; etc.); transportation costs and the prices of key goods and services escalated (e.g., World Bank 2018; ACAPS 2020); and there was a breakdown of access to basic services such as health care, sanitation, and electricity (OCHA 2018). However, the regions that experienced the most violence were not the regions suffering from the worst of the humanitarian crisis, likely due in part to specific instances of violence having had impacts far beyond the location where they occurred and other conflict-related factors having had a larger impact on the humanitarian situation (e.g., Tandon and Vishwanath 2020).

Given all of these challenges, estimates of poor food access, which are the most reliable welfare indicators that have been measured since the conflict began, increased precipitously. The 2015 Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) estimated a 21 percent increase in the share of the population classified as IPC 3 (Crisis) or worse relative to 2014— only three months after the conflict escalated; and the Emergency Food Security and Nutrition Assessment (EFSNA) in November 2016 estimated that 65 percent of Yemenis had poor or borderline food consumption in 2016, a 57 percentage point increase relative to 2014 (EFSNA 2017; World Bank 2017). Importantly, there was an affordability crisis where households were not able to afford either food or basic services available for purchase (e.g., World Bank 2018; ACAPS 2020; Favari et al. 2021). Given the desperate humanitarian situation immediately following the escalation of the conflict, there was and continues to be an unprecedented scale-up of humanitarian and development assistance, on which
(4). By the third year, overall profits have grown 2,554 KSH per week (9.2% of the control mean, not statistically significant), overall sales in the market by 15,353 KSH per week (13.7% of the control mean, significant at the 5 percent level), and the total number of customers in the market per week by 318 (16.7% of the control mean). These results are consistent with the overall market growing, at least over the longer-term.

In rounds 2 and 4 we also conducted a market census to determine whether there were new entrants to the market since the time of training, and whether these new entrants along with existing firms that did not pass our eligibility filters had cut back on profits due to some firms being trained. Columns 3 through 6 show positive and insignificant impacts on the numbers of new entrants in these markets, the total number of firms not in our survey, and the weekly profits of these firms. The success of those trained therefore also does not come from crowding out new entrants.

# **6. Why do these impacts arise? Causal Chain and Mechanisms**

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Table D5: Difference-in-Difference Regressions by Urban/Rural [Dependent Variable: Food Insecurity] <!-- Start of picture text --> Fractional Index 3 Fractional Index 4<br>Ethiopia Malawi Ethiopia Malawi<br>-1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 -1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 -1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 -1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1<br>Effect on Food Insecurity Effect on Food Insecurity Effect on Food Insecurity Effect on Food Insecurity<br>Nigeria Nigeria<br>-1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 -1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1<br>Effect on Food Insecurity Effect on Food Insecurity<br>Mild Moderate Severe Index Mild Moderate Severe Index<br>HHI 1 HHI 2<br>Ethiopia Malawi Ethiopia Malawi<br>-1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 -1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 -1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 -1 -.8 -.6 -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1<br>Effect on Food Insecurity Effect on Food Insecurity Effect on Food Insecurity Effect on Food Insecurity<br>Nigeria Nigeria<br>-1 -.8 -.6
Policy Research Working Paper 10840

# **Abstract**

Submarine cables enable international connectivity and are essential for high-speed internet access. This paper tests their potential to improve the affordability of internet access by supporting a price drop through cost savings or increased competition intensity. The empirical framework relies on a dataset that combines the capacity of submarine cables with price data on fixed and mobile internet across 150 countries over a decade. Using a two-way fixed effects estimator, the analysis finds that the expansion of submarine cables is associated with a statistically significant drop in the price of internet access, up to 14–21 percent, depending on the technology, for every doubling of the capacity of submarine cables, and with large regional disparities. These effects stem from cost savings in the short run and tend to decline over time, concomitant with a rise in domestic telecom market concentration. The analysis also finds that these effects can be enhanced by telecom regulations, especially de-jure independence of the regulator, and the regulation of network interconnection and access, shared telecom infrastructure, and competition from international players across the broadband value chain. The main findings are robust to alternative estimation strategies, including an instrumental variable and a staggered difference in differences.

This paper is a product of the International Finance Corporation. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at joel.cariolle@ferdi.fr, ghoungbonon@ifc.org, tsilue@ifc.org, and dstrusani@ifc.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited
in treatment communities vis-à-vis control communities. There is no significant difference in hemoglobin levels and anemia between the control and treatment groups.

Anthropometric measurements (weight, height, arm and head circumference, body mass index) were taken for all children under five years old at the time of the baseline in the surveyed households. Child anthropometric measurements provide useful information about nutritional intake and so are adversely affected by illnesses such as diarrhea. Weight (conditional on height and gender) typically varies in the short-term so is used as a measure of current health status whereas height, given age and gender, is an indicator of longer-term health and welfare (Thomas, et al., 1991).

To assess the child’s growth and general nutritional status, we used a standardized age- and gender-specific growth reference based on the WHO (2006, 2007) standard to calculate _z_ -scores for a) weight-for-height, b) height-for-age, c) weight-for-age, d) body-mass-index, e) head circumference-for-age, and f) arm circumference-for-age.<sup>18</sup> All of the child growth measures

> 18 For example, a _z_ -score for height subtracts from the child’s height, the median height in the reference population, for a child of the same gender and age in months, and divides by the standard deviation of height in the reference population, also for a child of the same gender and age in months. A weight-for-height _z_ -score is defined in an analogous manner, except that the standardization is done using the reference population median and standard

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instance, oil rich gulf countries collect on average 3.6 percent of GDP as taxes (UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset 2022). At the subnational level, transfers from the central government may dampen the motivation for local taxation. In Brazil, jurisdictions hit by a negative shock to federal transfers resulting from an update in their population count increased local tax collection by approximately 30 percent (Ferraz et al., 2023). Localities achieved these expansions of tax collection by broadening the tax base through increased investment in tax capacity, like improving property-tax registers and higher spending on tax agents.

The remarkable expansion of tax collection in Lagos State, Nigeria, offers an interesting historical case indicating the role of political competition, alongside other factors, in generating political support for taxation. Nigeria’s government has a strong reliance on oil revenues and correspondingly low levels of non-resource tax collection, with only about 6 percent of GDP collected in non-oil taxes. Following the return to democracy in 1999, Lagos state recorded a dramatic growth in annual tax revenues (Figure 4), from about ₦30 billion in 1999 to over ₦150 billion in 2011 (measured in Nigerian naira in 2010 prices),<sup>11</sup> amounting to a fivefold increase in a little over a decade, before the growth tapers off. This revenue growth was greater than in the rest of the country.

> 11 At 2010 exchange rate of 150 Naira to 1 USD, this is equivalent to growth from 200 million USD to 1 billion USD.

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