rafmacalaba/data-use-mentions-extended huggingface dataset:
|Country|_AR_(1)|_AR_(2)|_MIDAS_|_MIDAS_ with|_MIDAS_ with|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||||_AR_(1)|_AR_(2)|
|Brazil|0.041|0.038|0.009|0.009|0.011|
|Chile|0.024|0.024|0.022|0.019|0.019|
|Colombia|0.010|0.011|0.011|0.011|0.011|
|Mexico|0.009|0.008|0.007|0.007|0.007|

Table 2. Comparison for predicting the industrial production growth rates (m/m) by using the Root-mean-square error ( _RMSE_ ). Note: The data sample ranges from February 2018 until February 2020 for _AR_ regressions while January 2019 until February 2020 for MIDAS regression.

# **6 Conclusion**

A novel database is used to generate high frequency forecasts of economic activity in the wake of COVID-19. The World Bank and IMF have revised growth estimates significantly downward during COVID-19. The health and economic policy responses and subsequent economic outcomes are very uncertain. To reduce some of this uncertainty this paper details the use of daily mobility and air quality data to predict movements in industrial production, which is typically used to assess within-year movement of GDP growth. The database includes Google’s Community Mobility Report data, air quality data and OECD industrial production data.

Estimation proceeds in three steps: (i) lagged mobility data are patched with air quality data; (ii) the mobility data are then combined to extract a common Mobility Index via Kalman filtering; and finally (iii) a MIDAS approach nowcasts industrial production from the smoothed Mobility Index. The results can be updated daily. This paper illustrates its use for a set
IV. CONCLUSION This paper examines the impact of highly-skilled migrant networks in high income countries on the internationalization of inventive activity between high income and developing economies—measured as cross-country PCT co-patenting (co-inventorship and R&D offshoring). In order to study this relationship, it makes use of a unique dataset on inventors with a migratory background. To my knowledge, there have been few previous attempts to measure the mentioned links, and therefore this constitutes the main contribution of the paper.

The results show a strong and positive association between highly-skilled diasporas and the internationalization of inventive activity between developed and developing countries. The effect is statistically and economically significant: a 10% increase in the inventor diaspora abroad is associated with a 2.0-2.2% increase in international patent collaborations at the level of inventors. The effect found is robust for the large list of controls and robustness checks performed—such as alternative ways of measuring the dependent and the focal explanatory variables. Regressions also include country FE and country-specific time dummies, in order to control for any timeinvariant and time-variant characteristics of the country of origin or the country of destination of the migrants that may affect the relationship between inventor diasporas and international co-patenting. Hence, any source of bias should come from countrypair (omitted) variables, for which an IV approach is used in order to avoid the possibility of the focal regressors picking up any confounding effect that might bias their point estimates. These findings do not suffice to conclude that a “brain gain” exists that makes up for the loss of highly-skilled human capital of sending economies, although they are undeniably necessary elements. Note, however, that boosting 35
were randomly allocated to tree maintenance groups of five, half of which were offered collective PES contracts with payments that increase linearly in the number of trees still alive at endline, and the other half where payments depended on the highest survival threshold that was met at endline. To ensure balance with respect to climatic as well as socio-economic characteristics, treatment allocation was stratified at the sub-forest level.

Consistent with threshold group payments changing the nature of the strategic interaction from a social dilemma to a coordination game, we find that threshold group payment schemes have positive impacts on a number of coordination indicators, such as the number of maintenance planning meetings, trust in fellow group members, and the extent to which group members contributed equally to the maintenance activities. Despite the positive impact on these intermediate coordination indicators – but consistent with Burkina Faso’s very harsh climatic conditions making tree survival very uncertain – we also find that survival rates are significantly higher with linear (as opposed to threshold) group payments. We propose two possible mechanisms giving rise to these results – cooperation dynamics and uncertainty about the effort-survival relationship – and test their relevance using data from our RCT as well as from a real-effort laboratory experiment, implemented using students from Tilburg University, that closely mimics the key features of the tree maintenance task in the We are not the first to consider the issue of how to overcome the financial tragedy of the commons that standard PES payment schemes give rise to. Narloch _et al._ (2012) implemented a lab-in-the-field experiment in Bolivia and Peru and found that individual rewards were more effective in promoting agrobiodiversity conservation than collective rewards. Using a setup similar to that of Narloch _et al._ (2012), Salk _et al._ (2017) find the opposite result in their study in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, possibly because they allowed for open communication. Kerr _et al._ (2014) draw attention to the risk of collective financial compensation resulting in crowding-out of community members’ intrinsic motivation to contribute, and suggest
informality: an intensive margin (hiring some workers illegally) and an extensive margin (not registering the firm at all and thus hiring all workers illegally). This is consistent with the findings of Ulyssea (2018) for Brazil, who also finds evidence of firms’ informal behavior along these margins. Additionally, however, our paper documents one aspect of firm informality not associated with these two margins, where firms employ nonsalaried workers, and are informal but legal.

> 5 Using the Economic Census for 1993, 2003, 2008 and 2013, Levy (2018) shows that the size distribution of firms in Mexico has been practically constant over this 15-year period. Unfortunately, the 1993 Economic Census is not available, which would help to assess the impact that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which started in 1994, had on the size distribution. Other analysis have shown that trade liberalization has changed this distribution. For instance, Nataraj (2011) shows that India’s trade liberalization in the 1990s increased average firm size. Since our data begin in 1998, it already incorporates the effects of Mexico’s main liberalization episode.

8
1 The Role of Justice in Development: Empirical Evidence 6 paper finds that the interaction between state level court efficiency and industry level relationshipspecificity is highly predictive of future growth in India’s formal manufacturing sector.

Using microdata on Indian manufacturing plants, the authors show that in states with weaker enforcement–as measured by judicial lags–production and sourcing decisions appear systematically distorted. Among plants in industries that tend to rely more heavily on inputs that require customization, those in states with more congested courts shift their expenditures away from intermediate inputs, whereas they find the opposite in industries that tend to rely on standardized inputs. The authors find that weak enforcement exacerbates a holdup problem that arises when using inputs that require customization, distorting both the intensive and extensive margins of input use. Poor contract enforcement distorts production in two ways. There is a direct impact: if a producer uses a supplier for which there is a severe contracting friction, use of that input will be distorted, which will directly lower productivity. There is also an indirect impact: a severe contracting problem might lead a producer to switch to a more costly supplier or less efficient technology to avoid the friction. On average across states, the boost to productivity is roughly 5%, and the potential gains of court improvements for the states with the most congested courts are roughly 10%. The authors conclude that economic benefits to improving courts may be large. Preliminary results suggest that, for each year reduction in the average age of pending cases, the state’s aggregate productivity would increase by about 3%.

# **Justice E↵ects on Credit Markets**

There is a general consensus in the literature on the positive effects of strong justice institutions on credit markets. Both the efficiency and quality of courts have been positively associated with better credit availability and the development of credit markets. The consensus also extends to the mechanism behind this effect: prevention of moral hazard through proper enforcement of the credit contracts and increasing competition between lenders. However, caution must
Policy Research Working Paper 8872

# **Abstract**

Mental health, well-being, and lasting economic outcomes are intimately connected. However, in geographies marked by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV), entrepreneurs of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) experience chronic stress and poor mental health on a regular basis. These issues can hamper performance and quality of life for the entrepreneurs, and can dampen the benefits of existing financial and business assistance programs. Few proven rigorous interventions are known. This study tests the hypothesis that a five-week group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) training called Problem Management Plus for Entrepreneurs (PM+E), in combination with financial assistance, could be more effective at reducing psychological stressors of SME entrepreneurs in FCV contexts than financial assistance alone. Meaningful and statistically significant improvements in mental health were achieved, with improvements persisting and increasing beyond the immediate post-intervention period. Based on analysis of pooled data across two follow-up rounds (at five weeks and three months post-intervention), entrepreneurs in the treatment group experienced statistically significant reduction in the intensity and prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms (measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire Anxiety and Depression Scale) and higher levels of well-being (measured by the World Health Organization Well-Being Index) compared with the control group. The effect was marked for those experiencing mild/moderate levels of depression and anxiety, suggesting the clinical value of such low touch interventions. Overall, the study demonstrates that empirical research through Randomized Control Trials (RCTs) can be conducted in challenging, FCV settings through appropriate rapid training of local researchers and non-specialist providers (NSPs) at a low cost, yielding scalable programmatic and policy level lessons.

This paper is a product of the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice in collaboration with the Mind, Behavior and Development Unit. 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
exposure potentially leading to further deterioration in food security due to COVID-19 related income losses. Similarly, PSNP transfers, particularly those in-kind, may be more impactful for households with limited access to markets. PSNP cash transfers may also prove useful given rural transactions take different forms, including reciprocities. Conversely, COVID-19 related disruptions in access to food may have limited impact on households who rely less on markets - often the poor and those residing in remote locations. PSNP would bridge the gap in own production that otherwise would need to be filled through purchases from food markets, an option unavailable for non-beneficiaries.

We test this hypothesis using several disaggregations. In Table 3 we split the sample by wealth quintiles: combining the bottom three quintiles into one group (poorest households) and the top two quintiles into another group (“less poor” households). The results in Table 3 suggest that PSNP transfers are more protective for poorer households’ food security. Relatively, poorer PSNP non-beneficiaries report higher increase in food insecurity experience. In Table 4 we split the sample into remotely located and accessible households, using distance to urban centers. Using median distance to urban centers with population of 20,000 or higher, households located in areas with distances above the median are classified as remote. The results in Table 4 show that households living in remote areas and not receiving any PSNP transfers are more likely to experience a significant deterioration in food security.

Social protection and safety nets can also help households adopt effective coping strategies when they face income losses and related shocks. In our phone survey we elicited households’ coping strategies in the last one month. Households are given a long list of coping strategies, options which are not mutually exclusive as households can choose more than one option. The most dominant strategies include: (i) spent savings, (ii) reduced food consumption, (iii) borrowed money from others, (iv) reduced health and education expenditure, (v) reduced expenditure on agricultural inputs, and (vi) sold assets
consistent with this result.

To explore the possibility that the different groups converged over time at different rates, column 2 of Table 10 contains the period dummy variables interacted with the education variables. The results suggest that the convergence does not differ by period across education groups. This suggests that the convergence in wages that we have seen over the 1999-2013 period was not due to migration of certain factors or due to trade that favored one group over another. Instead, the lack of statistically significant results suggests that macroeconomic factors, such as business cycles, may be driving the convergence.

# **IV. Conclusions: Labor Market Integration as an Indicator of Economic Integration**

Understanding and measuring labor market integration is important for several reasons. Labor market integration offers a measure of economic integration that reflects how well broader mechanisms of economic integration, such as trade and foreign investment, may be affecting the standard of living of a country’s workers. Measuring labor market integration also has the potential for revealing the potential to realize further gains from economic integration. Furthermore, understanding labor market integration helps us understand how well different policies, such as those that foster trade and investment, may actually lead to economic integration.

The goal of this paper is to present and estimate three measures of labor market integration for Latin America. The first two measures are based on short-run shocks: how labor markets respond to shortrun shocks in neighboring countries and how quickly wages in different countries converge back to a longrun differential. The third measure takes a long-run approach and estimates the time series properties of the wage differentials across national borders.

This paper applies these measures to several different data sets, including the macro level of GDP per capita and the micro level of wages of demographically-comparable workers across countries. Using 18 | P a g e
intensifying aquatic salinity with climate change. Understanding household choices will also be critical, since households may respond to localized threats of salinization and inundation by relocating some or all members to areas where expected earnings and survival probabilities are higher (Dasgupta et al, 2014c). Previous studies have assessed the implications of salinization for vegetation patterns in the region (For example, see Iftekhar and Saenger 2008; Hoque et al. 2006), but they have not provided high-resolution spatial estimates of expected changes and their implications for poor communities. This paper attempts to contribute by extending the previous work in both dimensions.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the mangrove species of the region and maps their spatial distribution. Drawing on prior work by Dasgupta, et al. (2015a), Section 3 combines a digital map of aquatic salinity with the mangrove distribution map to develop estimates of the salinity tolerance range of each mangrove species. In Section 4, we project future aquatic salinity in the region using 27 scenarios from Dasgupta et al. (2015a) that combine projections from three IPCC climate scenarios, three global circulation models, and three assumptions about the rate of land subsidence in the lower Ganges Delta. Then we combine the salinity projections with our estimated species salinity tolerance ranges to produce spatial distribution scenarios for mangroves in 2050. Section 5 describes the economic and ecological value of various mangrove species and translates our results to projected changes for the five _upazila_ s in the Sundarbans mangrove region -- Dacope, Koyra, Mongla, Sarankhola and Shyamnagar --and assesses the potential poverty implications. Section 6 summarizes and concludes the paper.

5
.

<mark>The bottom‐up approach yields insights on how trade affects workers, firms, and localities differently. For example, low‐cost imports from China increase unemployment, lower labor force participation, and reduce wages in some local labor markets in the United States, contributing to one‐quarter of the contemporaneous aggregate decline in U.S. manufacturing employment, e</mark> ven though the aggregate welfare gains from trade with China are positive.<sup>47</sup> <mark>The firm‐level approach also reveals that there are significant downward biases in aggregate measures of domestic value added embodied in exports. This is because aggregate statistics are mainly constructed based on data from large firms, which tend to use more imported material inputs and therefore produce less domestic value added. The new firm‐level approach aggregates firms’ domestic value added</mark> from the ground up based on customs transaction data for all firms, not just large ones <mark>. Based on this firm‐level</mark>

> 42 Bruhn, M., McKenzie, D., 2014, “Entry Regulation and Formalization of Microenterprises in Developing Countries”, World Bank Research Observer, 29(2): 186‐201, 2014.

> 43 Bachas, P., Fattal‐Jaef, R. N., Jensen, A., 2019, “Size‐Dependent Tax Enforcement and Compliance: Global Evidence and Aggregate Implications. **”** _Journal of Development Economics, 140._

> 44 Arkolaskis, C., Arnaud C., Rodriguez‐Clare, A., 2012, “New Trade Models, Same Old Gains?” American Economic Review 102(1): 94‐130.

> 45 Caliendo, L., and Parro, F. 2015.  ”Estimates of the Trade and Welfare Effects of NAFTA.”  The Review of Economic Studies 82 (1), 1–44.

> 46 Kee, H.L
public health and government measures to counteract the pandemic have adjusted concurrently. The most consequential public health response has been the rapid production and deployment of several vaccines that have slowed the spread of the pandemic and facilitated the gradual lifting of mobility restrictions. Fourth, the external shocks expected to hit economies, including reductions in remittances, were generally less than initially anticipated (Kpodar et al., 2021; Pauw and Thurlow, 2022; McDermott and Swinnen, 2022). These along with the heterogeneity in the impacts of and responses to the pandemic justify the need to revisit these early projections using new sources of data.

Besides the public health responses, governments’ responses to the pandemic included social protection and stimulus packages to support vulnerable sectors and households. Social protection systems have been reinforced through either increasing the size of transfers or expanding the number of beneficiaries. More than 220 countries and territories have initiated or expanded some form of social protection and safety net systems in response to the pandemic (Gentilini et al., 2020). However, the policy responses among African countries were relatively slow. Furthermore, whether (and how much) such social protection and safety net programs have been effective in mitigating the adverse impacts of the pandemic remains generally unknown. Delivering social protection and safety net transfers during an unfolding pandemic was a daunting task and marred by several challenges. For example, targeting of social protection programs and beneficiaries during a pandemic was difficult, especially in the African context where population registers and administrative data are rarely available. Social protection programs in Africa are characterized by their rural focus and limited size of transfers (e.g., Beegle et al., 2018). Thus, identifying the role of social protection policies and lessons learned in delivering social safety nets in Africa during the pandemic can inform future programing and responses to future crises.

This paper serves two purposes: first we use recent data to estimate and reassess the impact of the pandemic on country-level poverty in Africa for 2020. For this purpose, we combine
In Panel A, we find that poor adults are more likely to be food insecure, especially in the post-ISIS period. This is in contrast to the Iraqi national accounts figures that indicate a yearly average real growth for the agriculture sector of 7.3 percent over the three periods. This signals problems in access to the food distribution networks, as opposed to availability of food. Poor adults also have a weaker outlook on their standard of living improving. During the ISIS period, women are more likely than men to report not having enough money to purchase food. At the same time, men—who are more likely to be the household earner—are more likely to report weak job prospects. In the post-ISIS period, men are significantly more likely to report weaker job prospects and standards of living.

Panel B shows that men are more likely to report perceived corruption in government. In the pre-ISIS period, poor adults were less likely, relative to wealthy adults, to report confidence in national institutions or to approve leadership’s job performance. This flips in the post-ISIS period, when wealthy adults appear to lose confidence in government and leadership performance, and poor adults are relatively more supportive of the government and leadership.

Panel C reports that women are generally more satisfied than men with the education system and health care. The results find no relationship with income—both poor and wealthy adults are generally unsatisfied with the quality of government services.

# **_<u>Horizontal inequality</u>_**

Aside from controlling for individual-level characteristics, our estimations also consider a set of ethnoreligious group classifications to explore changing perceptions among Iraqi adults. During the pre-ISIS period, there were no significantly different perceptions about the quality of life. However, during the period of ISIS-control and post-ISIS, Shias, Kurds, and adults in living in Baghdad were significantly more likely to report a poorer quality of life, as compared to Sunnis (Panel A).

Sunnis' confidence in national government and leadership approval was generally