rafmacalaba/data-use-mentions-extended huggingface dataset:
Policy Research Working Paper 9994

# **Abstract**

The last expenditure survey released by India’s National Sample Survey organization dates back to 2011, which is when India last released official estimates of poverty and inequality. This paper sheds light on how poverty and inequality have evolved since 2011 using a new household panel survey, the Consumer Pyramids Household Survey conducted by a private data company. The results show that: (1) extreme poverty is 12.3 percentage points lower in 2019 than in 2011, with greater poverty reductions in rural areas; (2) urban poverty rose by 2 percentage points in 2016 (coinciding with the demonetization event) and rural poverty reduction stalled by 2019 (coinciding with a slowdown in the economy); (3) poverty is estimated to be considerably higher than earlier projections based on consumption growth observed in national accounts; and (4) consumption inequality in India has moderated since 2011.

This paper is a product of the Poverty and Equity Global Practice and the Development Research Group, Development Economics. 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 ssinharoy@worldbank.org and rvanderweide@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
.1.2. Firm-level evidence_

Table 2 shows the results of the estimation of specification (2). According to column I, the coefficients _α1_ and _α2_ on the e-filing indicator variables are negative and highly significant. The probability of being inspected by a tax official, therefore, drops by 9 percent and 8 percent respectively when a transactional e-filing or a transactional e-filing with e-payment is adopted. The impact on the number of tax visits is statistically significant at only 10 percent and only when transactional e-filing is adopted (column II). In that case, the number of visits drops by 4 percent.

Overall, our results suggest that e-filing implementation directly decreases tax compliance costs. Remarkably, our results from firm-level analysis are consistent with country-level estimates, despite using different measures of the same concept. These findings are also supported by the fact that firm managers are less likely to perceive tax administration as an obstacle to firms’ operation and growth when transactional e-filing with e-payment is adopted (column III). We also find that the adoption of transactional e-filing reduces the probability of paying bribes to tax officials by 5 percent (column IV). These results remain qualitatively the same if we also control for overall business environment in a

> 12 To derive the estimated effect, we compute: 1 – exp(���,�) and 1 – exp(���,�).

> 13 Since no cross-national data are available on expenditures on e-government we are unable to provide any costbenefit analysis of these investments in e-government. Clearly these returns also depend on whether governments adequately maintain the ICT infrastructure, and on data integrity and cyber-security.

10
Goldberg and Knetter (1999) or Bernhofen and Xu (2000).<sup>10</sup> Our study, which is close in spirit to those papers, links the literature on PTM with that on trade policy and competition.

We also contribute to the recent literature documenting the effect of tariffs and NTMs on exporters’ performance. Fontagn ́e _et al._ (2015) use French firm-level data and show that SPS concerns raised at the WTO increase firms’ unit values and inhibit their entry. Interestingly, they show that these effects are not neutral on the distribution of firms, as smaller ones seem to react more strongly. Using a similar strategy, Fontagn ́e and Orefice (2018) study TBT concerns instead and show that firms’ exit probability increases in destinations with restrictive TBTs, an effect that is magnified in multi-destination firms that can divert their exports to TBT-free destinations. Fernandes _et al._ (2015) focus on the impact of pesticide standards on firms’ exports of agricultural products and show that more restrictive standards lower the firms’ probability to export as well as their export values and quantities. These papers help understand the mechanisms through which NTMs affect trade. However, they do not speak directly about their impact on market power, which cannot be directly measured in the absence of information on the entire set of firms, both foreign and domestic. In that sense, we view our paper as complementary to these works: we focus on a somewhat narrower question (we look at only one outcome), but we are able to cleanly identify the link between trade policy and market power.

Finally, our paper also relates to a vast literature on the determinants of PTM. We build on the predictions of a variety of models featuring endogenous markups, and heterogeneous PTM across firms. In these models, the perceived price elasticity of demand faced by each firm varies

> 8Blonigen _et al._ (2013) estimate a positive but mostly insignificant effect on market power. Konings and Vandebussche
monitoring (Table 1). The fraction of teachers with a college degree increased by over 40 percent (from 41 to 58 percent), the fraction reporting getting paid regularly rose by around 60 percent (from 49 to 78 percent), and the fraction reporting the existence of teacher recognition schemes rose by over 60 percent (50 to 81 percent). While the fraction of teachers who report a formal teaching credential fell by 12 percent (77 to 68 percent), the main contributor to this decline was the large increase in the hiring of contract teachers in several large states, which led to an increase in the fraction of contract teachers from 6 to 30 percent. The student-teacher ratio also fell by around 16 percent (from 47.2 to 39.8).

School facilities and infrastructure improved on almost every measure. The fraction of schools with toilets and electricity more than doubled (from 40 percent to 84 percent for toilets and 22 percent to 45 percent for electricity); the fraction of schools with functioning midday meal programs nearly quadrupled (from 22 percent to 79 percent); the fraction of schools with a library increased by over 35 percent (from 51 percent to 69 percent), and almost all schools now have access to drinking water (96 percent). Initiatives outside the education ministry to increase road construction have also led to increased proximity of schools to paved roads increasing the accessibility of schools for teachers who choose to live farther away. Relative to the distribution observed in 2003, a summary index of school infrastructure improved by 0.9 standard deviations.

Table 1 also documents improvements in both ‘top-down’ administrative and ‘bottom-up’ community monitoring of schools over this period. The fraction of schools inspected in the three months prior to a survey visit increased by over 40 percent (from 38 percent to 56 percent). This increase in inspection probability is even more pronounced over shorter time windows, increasing by over 60 percent for the previous two months and over 70 percent for the previous month.
15.95)|(0.22)|(0.38)|(0.28)|(0.88)|(2.64)|
|Corruption Perception (Transparency Int’l)|23.84|0.03|0.10|-0.49|-0.57|1.12|
||(17.43)|(0.29)|(0.23)|(0.36)|(1.06)|(2.25)|
|Panel B of Table 8|||||||
|De-jure fnancial openness index|-3.26***|-2.41**|-2.66***|-1.94***|-1.92|-5.95***|
||(0.77)|(0.98)|(0.18)|(0.73)|(1.53)|(1.97)|
|Private sector credit (% of GDP)|0.33|-0.14|0.18|0.31|0.16|-0.47|
||(0.98)|(0.54)|(0.40)|(1.09)|(2.78)|(2.46)|
|Corruption Perception (Transparency Int’l)|-1.56*|-0.21|-0.62*|-0.39|-0.62|-1.51|
||(0.83)|(0.71)|(0.32)|(0.86)|(0.75)|(3.20)|
|Country fxed efects|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|Yes|

56
we were able to gather the complete time series of the VAT rate since its introduction. However, since our study focuses on the output implications of tax changes, we only use those tax changes for which we have real GDP data collected on a quarterly basis (as opposed to interpolated data). As discussed in detail in Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013), relying on interpolated quarterly data creates serious problems associated with measurement error. The coverage, which varies across countries, starts as early as 1970:Q1 and ends as late as 2014:Q4 (see column 1 in Table 1 for country-speci...c coverage). As sources for the narrative analysis, we use contemporaneous International Monetary Fund (IMF) documents, OECD Economic Surveys, and news articles to gather evidence on policymakers’intentions and primary motivations for VAT rate changes. IMF documents include Sta¤Reports and Background Material for Article IV Consultations, as well as additional IMF country reports and publications such as Recent Economic Developments, Selected Issues, and Public Information Notices. IMF documents published prior to 1997 are available in digitalized hard copies at the IMF Archives in Washington, D.C., whereas documents from 1997 and onward are available at the IMF website. News articles were obtained from global media including BBC, Bloomberg News, EU Business, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Reuters, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, Wall Street Journal, and Xinhua News Agency as well as from individual countries’media outlets such as Mmegi (Botswana), National Post (Canada), The Globe and Mail (Canada), Prague Daily Monitor (Czech Republic), Intellinews-Czech Republic Today (Czech Republic), Irish Times (Ireland), The Belfast News Letter (Ireland), Sunday Business Post-Cork (Ireland), Baltic News Service (Latvia), The Southland Times (New Zealand), Sunday Star-Times (New Zealand)
for a growing population.

3. The scope for solving the problem by building new government housing is very limited, first because the amount of additional supply that even efficient governments can provide in relation to the number of households living in substandard conditions is very small. Second, while governments may build new affordable housing on the one hand, on the other hand their policies, investment programs and administration of land often make it difficult for anyone in either the public or private sector to provide legal formal housing with good infrastructure services on large scale. Put otherwise, government’s indirect impact on the operation of the market far outweighs their direct impact on supply by building houses.

**4.** This is the case in Ahmedabad. **About one third of households live in slums and challis, and the number of households living in slums has increased by 18% over the last ten years** . This has happened even though the city economy is thriving and median income in Ahmedabad has increased to 2.7 times what it was in 2001. Median household expenditure based on National Sample Surveys has increased in real terms by over 5 percent annually from 2004/2005 to 2009/2010. But available data indicate that formal housing prices have increased by 70 percent in the last four years, more than double the rate of increase of prices in the state (as calculated using the GDP deflator). So affordability remains a problem even in an economy of relative prosperity. **Today, roughly half of the population could not afford to buy a well located new formal home.**

32 Economically Weaker Sections and Low Income Groups
15 Table 4. Estimated Effects of Population, Per Capita Income, and Population Density on Road Length

|||_C_|_oefficient estimate_|_s_a|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|_Dependent variable_|_Functional_<br>_specification_|_Population_|_Per capita_<br>_income_|_Population_<br>_density_|
|_At the national level_|||||
|Length of total road|Cross section|1.0 *|0.5*|-0.3*|
||20-year first differences|0.4|0.5|n.a.|
|Length of paved road|Cross section|1.0 *|1.0*|0.0|
||20-year first differences|1.3 *|0.8*|n.a.|
|_At the urban level_|||||
|Lengti of road|Cross section|0.8 *|variesb|-1.0*|
||First differences|0.5 *|0.1*|-0.4 *|

* Statistically significant at the 0.05 level.

a. All variables are in natural logarithm, and elasticities are jointly estimated.

b. The income elasticity increases with income level.

Source: estimated in Ingram and Liu (1997,1998).

network,<sup>3</sup> ' and gasoline prices have little influence on the length of either paved or unpaved roads at the national level. These estimates were based mainly on the crosssectional variation in panel data, but estimates based on first differences over time in the same panel data produced generally similar results (except for the relation of total road length with population), as shown in table 4.

The major implication of these findings is that at the national level paved road length increases with per capita income at roughly the same rate as vehicle ownership. As a
would be to increase the immediate costs associated with risky behavior by increasing the possibility of future reward (cash). Several studies of CM interventions have found a positive relationship between the magnitude of the reward and the impact on the target behavior (and laboratory-confirmed health impact) (Sindelar et al., 2007; Stitzer and Bigelow, 1983), at least during the treatment period; the effect appears to weaken during follow up (Higgins et al., 2007). However, the magnitude of incentive required for shaping sexual behavior is unknown. Preliminary assessments can be obtained through focus group discussions, survey data, and discrete choice experiments, but these are no substitute for direct measures of impact achieved by randomly assigning different sized payments to individuals participants.

In the RESPECT study, we chose an incentive amount of approximately $20 at each 4-month testing point. Mean earnings in the study population are approximately $200 per year, thus staying STI negative could increase income by about 30%, which is in a similar ballpark as Mexico‘s Oportunidades program. This amount was discussed extensively with local populations, some of whom argued for much higher amounts (which would not be able to be feasibly scaled-up), but others of whom agreed that $20 sounded reasonable. We then chose to include a second incentivized arm with a reward half that size, in order to test dose-response. One concern about our ability to test this dose response, however, is that randomization is at the individual-level, thus individuals in the $10 group may feel ―cheated‖ and respond less robustly than if they were not aware of the higher group.

In addition, we also chose to assess the acceptability and feasibility of lotterybased incentives. All enrollees were eligible for a $100 village and gender-specific lottery drawing at the 4-month, 8-month, and 12-month testing rounds (thus on average the chances of winning were approximately one in 100 at each 4 month time point). However, if individuals in the cash reward arms tested STI positive,
concern<br>Central Bank of Kenya 2015||
|2|China takes a sizeable share of total Kenyan imports (2012-2014)<br>IMF World Economic Outlook Database 2014||
|3|China and India are major sources of imports (2004-2013) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|5|
|4|Kenya imports rubber manufactures from China (2010-2014)<br>UN Comtrade database 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|6|
|5|Kenya imports rubber footwear, tires, and fabrics from China (2012-2014)<br>UN Comtrade database 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|7|
|6|Kenyan exports to China small relative to total exports (2012-2014)<br>IMF World Economic Outlook Database 2014||
|7|Kenya exports metals and hides and skins to China (2010-2014)<br>UN Comtrade database 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|8|
|8|Kenya exports titanium ores and copper to China (2012-2014)<br>UN Comtrade database 2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|9|
|9|Metals prices have been falling since January 2010 (1990-2015)<br>World Bank Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|9|
|10|
registered in the applicant’s name; (ii) located outside of conflict affected areas; and (iii) declared to have been cultivated in 2022. It aimed at providing working capital support to prevent decapitalization or liquidation of small and medium farms in response to the hardship inflicted by the war. Implementation was swift: applications for the full amount of grants available had been received by November 15, 2022, leading to closure of the application process about two months after the program had been launched and disbursement of money to beneficiaries once administrative formalities had been completed 6-8 weeks after applications had been closed.

including (i) a land parcel identification system (LPIS) is used to identify all agricultural land parcels; (ii) a geo-spatial application (GSA) that allows beneficiaries to visually indicate the areas for which they apply for aid; (iii) the area monitoring system (AMS) that is used to observe, track and assess agricultural activities using remotely sensed data; and (iv) a system to identify beneficiaries.

> 10 Farmers can carry out the required actions digitally rather than by filling paper forms, including uploading scanned documents and photos or providing authorization for providers of certain services to access specific types of personal information stored on the system.

> 11 For example, the SAR automatically gathers information on any outstanding debts to the state (which would legally disqualify them from receiving state support) and on farmers’ registered livestock from the animal registry. The government plans to add information from other registries, including the registry of court cases, in the near future. Development of SAR has been supported by the World Bank and the EU.

> 12 Funds were transferred from the EU to the state budget and implemented as a standard state support program with responsibility for administration and cross-checking delegated to the farmer support fund of Ukraine. To support sign-up and applications, a call center was established and, between Aug. 12 when the SAR was launched and Dec. 31, 2022, received 26,197 calls. The
Policy Research Working Paper 9794

# **Abstract**

This paper employs high frequency transactions data on the world’s oldest and most extensive centralized peer-to-peer Bitcoin market, which enables trade in the currencies of more than 135 countries. It presents an algorithm that allows, with high probability, the detection of “crypto vehicle transactions” in which crypto currency is used to move capital across borders or facilitate domestic transactions. In contrast to previous work which has used “on-chain” data, this paper’s approach enables one to investigate parts of the vastly larger pool of “off-chain” transactions. Finding that, as a conservative lower bound, over 7 percent of the 45 million trades on the exchange we explore represent crypto vehicle transactions in which Bitcoin is used to make payments in fiat currency. Roughly 20 percent of these represent international capital flight/flows/remittances. Although this work cannot be used to put a price on cryptocurrencies, it provides the first systematic quantitative evidence that the transactional use of cryptocurrencies constitutes a fundamental component of their value, at least under the current regulatory regime.

This paper is a product of the Office of the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, Development Economics Vice Presidency. 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 cgrafvonluckner@worldbank.org and creinhart@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
strike that more than doubled the incidence of children not attending school in affected regions, and even led to an increase in children not attending school nationally, has received little-to-no attention by the international media.7 Given the difficulty of identifying all the significant events to which interventions need to be sensitive in a conflict setting that is being actively followed, it is likely even more difficult to try and identify many of the effects of conflictrelated shocks using data on educational attainment by cohorts collected decades after conflict has ended. In order to better inform possible education interventions in the midst of protracted conflicts, it is important to perform more data collection during conflict and to further closely monitor reports from key informants, news organizations, and humanitarian organizations to fully understand the conflict-related events happening on the ground.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes the background of the conflict and education in Yemen; Section 3 describes the data; Section 4 reports the correlation between school attendance and violence in the district of residence of the entire sample; Section 5 reports the impacts of the four major shocks on school attendance; Section 6 provides an example illustrating how conflict shocks aside from the proximity to violence can potentially be misattributed; and Section 7 concludes.

# **Section 2. Background**

Houthi forces from the north of the country, upset with the outcome of a transition to a new constitution following the Arab Spring, began an assault on the national government in 2014 (e.g., Baron 2015). They captured the capital Sana’a, and then captured much of the south of the country. Beginning in March 2015, the conflict significantly escalated after a coalition of nine countries began an extensive bombing campaign to recover the territory captured by Houthi forces (e.g., World Bank 2017b). During the period under analysis, Houthi forces were the de facto authorities (DFA) in most of the north of the country, and the IRG controlled most of the south of the country.