rafmacalaba/data-use-mentions-extended huggingface dataset:
This puzzling result depends on two main factors. First, the measure of trade policy uncertainty is based on the presence of the words “uncertainty” and “trade” in proximity within press articles. This approach does not allow us to distinguish between different types of uncertainty which could have different effects on trade. Specifically, whether the trade policy uncertainty is “negative”, about the implementation of tariff increases, or “positive,” as about the conclusion of a new trade liberalization agreement. Second, the measure fails to distinguish between whether the trade policy uncertainty measure for a specific country relates to its policies vis-à-vis all other countries or specific countries. Threats of escalating tariffs solely on trade between the US and China increase policy uncertainty worldwide. But its impact on US-China trade could be very different from the effect on trade between the US (or China) and third parties, which may benefit from uncertaintyinduced trade diversion.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the existing literature on policy uncertainty. Section 3 presents the empirical strategy. Section 4 discusses the key results using the economic policy uncertainty index, while the trade policy uncertainty index is used in Section 5. Concluding remarks follow.

# **2. Literature on policy uncertainty and trade**

There is a large body of theoretical and empirical work that studies the impact of uncertainty, and of policy uncertainty, on growth and other macroeconomic variables. For example, Bernanke (1983) noted that high uncertainty can induce firms to delay investment and hiring when it is costly to undo investment projects or to hire and fire workers. Precautionary spending cuts by households and an increase in the cost of finance are also reasons why uncertainty has a dampening effect (Pastor and Veronesi, 2013).

Baker et al. (2016) provide a new measure of policy uncertainty based on newspaper coverage frequency and study the impact of this index on output, investment and employment. In a panel VAR setting for 12 large economies, they find that increases
<!-- Start of picture text --> Total number of Female refugees Total No. of male refugees<br>500000<br>400000<br>300000<br>200000<br>100000<br>0<br>Adjumani Arua Hoima Isingiro Kampala Kamwenge Kanungu Kiryandongo Kisoro Kitgum Kyegegwa Masindi Moyo Yumbe<br><!-- End of picture text --> Figure 4: Aggregate distribution of refugees (disaggregated by sex) in Uganda _(Source: Authors’ illustration using study dataset)_ Uganda’s refugee management approach, backed by its Refugees Act of 2006 and Refugees Regulations of 2010, is among the most progressive refugee approaches in the world (World Bank, 2019). Enshrined in the country’s refugee regulatory framework are important principles and freedoms which are protective of the refugees hosted within the country. Firstly, refugees are not settled in camps but mostly live in refugee settlements (Kreibaum, 2016; UNDP, 2017). Refugee settlements, according to Jacobsen (2001), are expanses of land segregated purposely to host refugees for protracted periods of time. In contrast with camps therefore, refugee settlements are usually characterized by relatively more permanent housing structures, they are planned for population growth and land for farming is provided to support refugees in attaining self-sufficiency, among other differences (Jacobsen, 2001). Refugees in Uganda also have the freedom of movement and association, a right to find or establish jobs/employment, a right to access social services including education and health, and a right to own property and access land, among others (Betts et al., 2017; Betts et al., 2019; World Bank, 2019). As recommended by the 1999 refugees Self-Reliance Strategy (SRS), refugees are supposed to be given seeds and land to encourage farming, among other things (Betts et al., 2017; Betts et al., 2019). The refugees SRS was formalized through the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM
for new investments were the two fundamental reasons behind the opening up of concessions to private companies in the highway sector. As Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Treasury Minister between 1996 and 1998 and President of the Republic from 1999, reported in a meeting at the Italian Parliament in 1997: “ _the fundamental objectives of our privatization program are two (...) first of all, (...) to enlarge, reinforce and modernize the Italian market (...) secondly, the privatization program is aimed at reducing public expenditure and the stock of national debt._ ”<sup>5</sup> For this reason, in 1999 the largest highway concessionaire, Autostrade, managing more than 40 percent of the total national network, was sold for 7 billion euros (2.5 from a private group, Atlantia, and 4.5 from the share market) with a 40 year concession<sup>6</sup> and opened the way to further initiatives. In fact, between 1999 and 2006 more than 64 percent of the existing Italian highway network was auctioned to private companies, with two main private groups dominating the market, as Figure 2 shows.

> 2 Law 498/92 available in Italian only at <u>http://pa.leggiditalia.it/</u>

> 3 Article 18bis of Law 492/75 which states that: “ _it is also suspended the construction of new highways or part of them or tunnel for which a tender has not been issued yet_ ”(...è altresì sospesa la costruzione di nuove autostrade o tratte autostradali e di trafori di cui non sia stato effettuato l'appalto).

> 4 Transport section on the online European statistical database, Eurostat,

> <u>http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database</u>

5 Source: Audizione sulle privatizzazioni alle Commissioni riunite Bilancio Finanze Attivi” available on the Treasury Ministy
utilities. The urban growth rate over the period between 1980 and 2000 was 3.8 percent annually. The population of Monrovia alone grew from 0.7 to 1.2 million people during the last decade of the conflict.

## **Achievements**

Relative to benchmark countries Liberia has relatively limited reliance on surface water and a high level of coverage for groundwater. The standardized Demographic and Health Surveys conducted across Africa provide the best basis for making international comparisons (table 5). According to this source, access to private taps and public stand posts in Liberia is just under 3 and 7 percent of the population, respectively, well below what is found in other resource-rich and low-income countries. This appears to be compensated by high access to wells and boreholes, which serve 76 percent of the population, a much higher level than in the peer groups. Less than 15 percent of the population in Liberia is forced to rely on surface water.

**Table 5. Benchmarking water and sanitation indicators**

||Unit|Resource-rich<br>countries|**Liberia**|<br>Low-income<br>countries|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Access to piped water<sup>*</sup>|% pop|12.0|**2.9**|10.5|
|Access to stand posts<sup>*</sup>|% pop|12.6|**6.8**|16.2|
|Access to wells/boreholes<sup>*</sup>|% pop|49.0|**76.2**|38.3|
|Access to surface water<sup>*</sup>|% pop|23.7|**14.4**|37.4|
|Access to flush toilets<sup>*</
et al, 2024). Database building algorithms were adapted to the specificities of the source websites and data repositories. The combined national public procurement dataset includes 148,637 contracts for the period 2011-2019, characterized by 129 variables. Micro-level company data was also matched to the processed public procurement dataset, using standardized company IDs and when those were missing, using company name and address. The details of data collection and processing are outlined in Annex 1.

Measuring the impact of public procurement on private sector growth requires representative firm-level data that can be linked to the procurement transaction data through unique firm identifiers. We thus employ a large firm-level panel dataset with such unique identifiers in Bulgaria from 2010-18 from Orbis which is a commercial database provided by Bureau van Dijk. The data are collected from the national offices of the Registrar of Companies. They include accounting data and information from firms’ balance sheets. For Bulgaria, the Orbis data cover all formal firms, independent of their size, in all economic activities apart from agriculture. The effective sample of joint nonmissing information for all production function variables in Bulgaria comprises over 4 million firm-year observations, implying almost 500,000 firms per year. We follow the integrated control function approach of De Loecker and Warzynski (2012) to estimate the unbiased measures for the output elasticities of inputs, allowing to compute total factor productivity. We also compute labor productivity as the log of value added per worker. We measure output as real value added. Capital, labor, and intermediate inputs are measured as real fixed tangible assets, the total number of employees, and total material costs. We also account for firms' age and firms and (partially) state-owned enterprises (SOEs).<sup>1</sup> We deflate the nominal variables using detailed 2-digit NACE code producer price indices.

# 3.2 Identifying green public procurement

Precisely identifying GPP in all its diverse forms is a key goal of this paper, which is challenging on its own. The above GPP definition encompasses a range of
- Sarkar, S., Kanungo, D.P., 2004. An Integrated Approach for Landslide Susceptibility Mapping Using Remote Sensing and GIS 70, 617–625.

- Schuster, R.L., Wieczorek, G.F., 2002. Landslide triggers and types, in: Proceedings of the 1st European Conference on Landslides, Prague. Balkema, Rotterdam. pp. 59–78.

- Svetnik, V., Liaw, A., Tong, C., Christopher Culberson, J., Sheridan, R.P., Feuston, B.P., 2003. Random Forest: A classification and regression tool for compound classification and QSAR modeling. Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences 43, 1947– 1958. https://doi.org/10.1021/ci034160g

- Tangestani, M.H., 2009. A comparative study of Dempster-Shafer and fuzzy models for landslide susceptibility mapping using a GIS: An experience from Zagros Mountains, SW Iran. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 35, 66–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jseaes.2009.01.002

- The World Bank, 2022. The World Bank Database [WWW Document]. URL https://data.worldbank.org/ (accessed 5.20.21).

- Turner, A.K., 2018. Social and environmental impacts of landslides. Innovative Infrastructure Solutions 3, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41062-018-0175-y

- Tversky, A., Kahneman, D., 1981. The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science 211, 453–458.

- Ullman, D.G., 2001. Robust decision-making for engineering design. Journal of Engineering Design 12, 3–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/09544820010031580

- Youssef, A.M., Pourghasemi, H.R., Pourtaghi
official diary. Data on municipal level Fonden expenditures, and days between disaster and authorization of funds are provided by the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

Given the introduction of the percentile 90 heavy rainfall rule in 2004 and the availability of log night lights, we are primarily interested in two samples. When working with annual composites, the set of relevant events will be those that occur between 2004 and 2011.<sup>4</sup> In this period we observe 3,083 municipal heavy rainfall requests. Of these, we have complete weather and Fonden threshold information for 1,745. As shown in table 1, using 2000 census data, we find no evidence of systematic differences between municipalities with missing and complete information. When we turn to monthly composites we are able to use the complete sample of heavy rainfall request which covers the period between 2004 and 2013. In this case we observe 5,652 municipal heavy rainfall requests and we have complete information for 2,825. Tables 2 and 3 present summary statistics of the key variables for each sample.

> 4Note that while annual night light data are available until 2012, we are interested in the change in night lights between the year the disaster takes place and the following year.

8
31 Third, policies to promote technology dissemination and productivity spillovers need to be based on the recognition that MNC affiliates compare the costs of providing support with the benefits of obtaining higher-quality and more cost-effective local inputs in return. Therefore, host economy governments need to devise policies that lower the costs and increase the benefits for MNC affiliates. This can be done by creating programs in which MNC affiliates and domestic firms jointly participate so that performance improvements that result from technology dissemination are used to improve inputs for the foreign-owned firms.

Fourth, regarding host economy conditions, it is important that a clear and transparent FDI policy is in place, helping MNC affiliates with their entry, start-up, and continued operations. Furthermore, governments need to support and continue to institutionalize a liberalized and open economic environment that fosters competition and allows the most productive firms to thrive. In cooperation with MNC affiliates and domestic firms, this also involves investing in areas of the economy that are characterized by indivisibilities and public good dimensions, including education, infrastructure, finance, and research and development.

# **5.2 Suggestions for Further Research**

Our survey of the available evidence suggests several avenues for future research. The voluminous econometric literature on productivity spillovers in general and on the effects of characteristics of MNC affiliates and local firms is still characterized by a substantial bias toward intra-industry spillovers. Given that the available evidence indicates that productivity spillovers between MNC affiliates and local suppliers are much more prevalent in a wider variety of host economy settings, more research is required into the occurrence and the drivers of this type of spillover. Given the strong implications for policy making, research into backward linkages needs to include a further examination of the effects of the technology gap and the geographical dimensions of productivity spillovers. Also, research on backward linkages will benefit from adopting broader definitions of their economic impact on local suppliers, including productivity spillovers, effects on exporting activities, innovation, and product complexity and quality.

Another aspect that needs further attention concerns the decision processes that MNC affiliates apply
Figure 2: Fundamental reading skills acquired and improved in both primary and secondary education <!-- Start of picture text --> Reading proficiency of participants with different years of schooling (rolling average)<br>0.5<br>0.3<br>0.1<br>‐0.1<br>‐0.3<br>‐0.5<br>‐0.7<br>‐0.9<br>‐1.1<br>‐1.3<br>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12<br>Number of years of schooling<br>Reading proficiency score (standardized)<br><!-- End of picture text --> Note: Sample of participants from 5 STEP countries and reading proficiency score is standardized in pooled data. Source: Authors’ calculation based on World Bank (2016a) 20
Policy Research Working Paper 6150

# **Abstract**

Armenia meets about 75 percent of its energy needs through imports, with natural gas imports from Russia accounting for about 80 percent of total energy imports and 60 percent of total primary energy supply. Because of high dependence on imported energy, Armenia is vulnerable to external energy price shocks, which are often beyond the control of its policymakers. A most recent case in point was the 2010 Russian gas tariff increase, which led to a nearly 40 percent increase in the retail gas price for residential consumers. Coming on the heels of the global economic recession that hit Armenia’s economy hard, the price hike amplified the impact on households that rely primarily on gas for heating and cooking. Using aggregate energy consumption data and a nationally representative household survey immediately before the crisis, this paper provides an overview of household energy consumption patterns, highlights Armenia’s energy vulnerability, and estimates the direct poverty and distributional impacts of the increase in the cost of imported gas. The analysis shows that the gas price hike resulted in a significant increase in energy expenditures, with disproportionately higher impact on the poor and vulnerable households. The paper concludes with a discussion on the effectiveness of the mitigation measures employed by the Government of Armenia.

This paper is a product of the Human Development Sector Unit, Europe and Central Asia Region. 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://econ.worldbank.org. The author may be contacted at lersado@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,
for all _j_ = _t − J, . . . , t_ and _ρ_ 1 _,_ 2 the weighted correlation coefficient between the Google Mobility Index and the normalized series.

## **4.3 Nowcasting industrial production**

In this section we consider the Mixed Data Sampling (MIDAS) regression of Ghysels et al. (2004) for nowcasting industrial production growth rates (sourced from OECD Main Economic Indicators database), _xt_ . Industrial production is published on a monthly basis. _ft_<sup>(</sup><sup>_d_)</sup><sup>_,MLE_</sup> represents the daily ”Google Mobility Index”, which is observed _d_ days in a particular _M_ month. Specifically, we want to predict the variable _xt_ onto a history of lagged observations of _ft_<sup>(</sup> _−_<sup>_d_)</sup> _j_<sup>_,MLE_</sup> . The superscript ( _d_ ) denotes the higher frequency sampling and its exact timing lag is expressed as a fraction of the unit interval between months _M_ and _M −_ 1. The MIDAS regression is expressed as follows: for _t_ = 1 _, . . . , T_ , and where _B_ ( _L_<sup>1</sup><sup>_/d_</sup> ; Θ) =<sup>�</sup><sup>_K_</sup> _k_ =0<sup>_B_(</sup><sup>_k_; Θ)</sup><sup>_Lk/d_and</sup><sup>_L_1</sup><sup>_/d_isalagoperator</sup> such that _L_<sup>1</sup><sup>_/d_</sup> _ft_<sup>_d,MLE_</sup> = _ft_<sup>_d,MLE_</sup> _−
to look at the effects of input-liberalization on quality up-grading. The Prowess database does not provide any information on quantities to compute unit values as a proxy of quality of intermediate goods. Despite that we can not observe the quality of intermediate goods, for imported capital goods we can infer that they are more advanced or of a higher

> 22See Topalova and Khandelwal (2011), Topalova (2004), Goldberg et al. (2010), Goldberg et al. (2009), Alfaro and Chari (2009), DeLoecker et al. (2016).

> 23Variables are deflated with industry-specific wholesale price indices from India’s national accounts statistics.

> 24We used the BACI database provided by the CEPII as well as the Broad Economic Categories (BEC) classification of HS6 products by intermediates, capital goods and consumption goods.

25
We focus on four indicators of quality for health service delivery: (i) provider’s knowledge, (ii) availability of vaccines for children, (iii) availability of essential medicines; and (iv) availability of antenatal care (ANC) tests. All service delivery variables are calculated from the SDI data. Providers' knowledge is measured using the diagnostic accuracy rate aggregated at the facility level for general illnesses and diseases of children and pregnant women. Availability of vaccines is the percentage of vaccines available at the facility as a proportion of the seven essential vaccines asked in the survey: Rubella, Polio (OPV/IPV), Rotavirus, Pentavalent, Pneumonia, Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG), and Vitamin A. Likewise, availability of medicines is defined as the proportion of medicines available at the time of the survey in relation to the 19 essential medicines asked in the survey according to the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO). Finally, ANC tests refer to the number of the type tests available at the facility out of four test types (see Appendix for complete list of medicines and ANC tests).

Access to infrastructure is captured by five variables at the facility level: (i) access to electricity, differentiated by stable and unstable access,<sup>12</sup> (ii) the use of ICT for supply management, (iii) the availability of fridges for vaccine storage, (iv) distance to a primary or secondary road of at least fair quality<sup>13</sup> and (v) cellphone internet access (2G or 3G). Extensive description of the construction of the variables is provided in the Appendix. To refer to the specific questions used to construct the indicators, see Table A4.

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for the main variables used, indicating the source of each of them (whether SDI or Geospatial information). A large fraction of health facilities is located in rural areas (76%), and over half of the
In a scenario of high bankruptcy costs, inefficient firms would be reluctant to file for bankruptcy and would continue to operate at a financial loss (Gimeno, Folta, Cooper, and Woo, 1997). In any economy, letting some failing firms exit is essential to economic health (Ahlstrom and Bruton, 2004; Khanna and Poulsen, 1995), and can be beneficial for the society as a whole (Miller and Reuer, 1996; Venkataraman, 1997). In Spain, firm exits actually have a positive impact on total industry factor productivity (Callejon and Segarra, 1999). Similar findings have been reported about post-1997 Asia (Ahlstrom and Bruton, 2004; Carney, 2004; White, 2004).

Previous literature also shows that well functioning bankruptcy regimes are necessary to ensure financial discipline in successful market economies (Smaoui and Boubakri, 2004; Nellis, 2003). For instance, since the ease of bankruptcy determines the maximum downside risk of a venture, only high-risk entrepreneurs will be willing to make significant investments in start-ups in countries with unfriendly bankruptcy regimes. Thus, by limiting downside risks and increasing upside gains entrepreneurship is encouraged, leading to an increase in and the number and variety of people pursuing entrepreneurial activities (Lee, Peng and Barney, 2007). Indeed, data from a Eurobarometer survey<sup>v</sup> show that the fear of bankruptcy is one of the most important reasons given by individuals for not forming their own businesses, although the extent of the deterrent effect varies across countries (Armour and Cumming, 2007).

Speedier court resolutions can also reduce uncertainty for entrepreneurs, creditors, and management, and improve assets value and transparency. Actions that expedite court procedures include minimizing dependence on the courts (through appointment of a receiver for distressed companies, e.g. Georgia), establishing special courts (e.g. India, Thailand, Indonesia and Uganda), and limiting appeals and introducing time limits (Djankov et al., 2008).

5