rafmacalaba/data-use-mentions-extended huggingface dataset:
# **5. Conclusion and policy implications**

Using an expanded and updated dataset for 184 countries in the period 2000-2022, this paper contributes to the existing evidence on fiscal policy cyclicality across the world. A more granular assessment of the direction, intensity, and sources of cyclicality of fiscal policy is provided, with particular focus on countries in the MENA region, including those that managed to switch from procyclical to countercyclical fiscal policy during the past two decades. High-income countries are found to generally have led countercyclical fiscal policy compared to low- and middle-income countries where it is found to be predominantly procyclical or neutral.

In a novelty to the literature, breaking down revenues to tax and non-tax revenues and expenditures into subsidies (including grants and other social benefits) and other fiscal expenditures, we show that non-tax revenues tend to be more in line with countercyclical fiscal policy than tax revenues. This is likely the result of relatively weak automatic stabilizers within the tax system (e.g., progressive income taxes, unemployment insurance, capital income taxes) and this seems to be especially the case in low- and middle-income countries, including those in the MENA region. On the expenditure side, countercyclical fiscal policy in MENA countries is less supported by subsidies, grants and other social benefits (which exhibit weak countercyclicality) than by other spending categories. This may also be a result that subsidies in many countries operate more as a fixed entitlement, fairly independent of the business cycle rather than discretionary expenditures that respond to the cyclical changes in output.

Within the MENA region, we find that many countries show procyclical fiscal policy, consistent with the literature. At the same time, we also identify several countries (notably Jordan, Oman, Qatar) which recently managed to shift from procyclical to countercyclical fiscal policy. Nevertheless, many low- and middle-income countries, in MENA and the rest of the world, continue to follow procyclical behavior, potentially being caught in a fiscal pro-cyclicality trap whereby fiscal policy is _persistently_ procyclical, thereby reinforcing the
EU‐Poverty Map at the NUTS 3 level, the CAP administrative records at the NUTS 3 levels, and the Farm Structure Survey for several years including 2010 and 2011. This paper is structured as follows. In Section 2 we start by briefly motivating the need for additional policies that foster inclusive growth, as suggested by the state of inequality and poverty in the post‐crisis period. Section 3 introduces the main framework, and the results from the analysis of the relationship between poverty and agriculture. Section 4 then briefly introduces the CAP and proceeds to analyze the relationship between poverty and the CAP. Section 5 wraps up the main results, by presenting an integrative analysis taking results from the previous sections, and finally Section 6 concludes.

# **2. Motivation**

_The current state of inequality and poverty in the European Union_ After the global financial crisis of 2008, some of the economic indicators across the European Union have been under recovery, however others still lag behind, one of these being inequality. Thus, the current state of inequality and poverty in the EU points to the need for inclusive policies that promote shared prosperity. In this section we describe the current state of these indicators in the region. Convergence in agricultural income is also introduced and briefly discussed as an important channel for overall income convergence across EU member states.

Inequality has become an important topic in the policy discussion of the EU, especially since the Great Recession. Even though inequality in the EU member states is low compared to other parts of the developed world (OECD, 2017), inequality in the region has become a topic of concern. The recent member state expansion towards countries with lower levels of average income has contributed to an increase of inequality across the EU. In order to further explore this, we perform an analysis by treating the EU as a single country, thus pooling the income of all member countries together and ranking them along the same distribution. The resulting Gini coefficient is higher than the coefficient associated to any single
Policy Research Working Paper 9049

# **Abstract**

This paper uses data obtained from three Moroccan household surveys that took place between 2000 to 2013, to address issues related to the so-called “Arab puzzle.” Welfare inequalities are low and declining in Arab countries and exist against the backdrop of a growing sense of dissatisfaction and frustration. The paper hypothesizes that welfare inequality plays a role, if seen through the lens of absolute measures and notably absolute polarization. The paper argues that the relatively worse perception of poor, vulnerable, and lower middle-class Moroccan households mirrors the ongoing hollowing out of the welfare distribution process and its concentration in the tails. The results of a multi-logit regression indicate that polarization is significantly correlated to perception and, importantly, that this correlation is asymmetric. The poorer are the households, the more polarization is perceived to link negatively to the well-being of households; and the richer are the households, the more polarization will positively correlate with their perceived well-being. The results are robust to the use of classes or quintiles for ranking social groups from the poorest to the richest.

This paper is a product of the Poverty and Equity 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 vmolini@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
Policy Research Working Paper 5996

# **Abstract**

International river basins will likely face higher hydrologic variability due to climate change. Increased floods and droughts would have economic and political consequences. Riparians of transboundary basins governed by water treaties could experience noncompliance and inter-state tensions if flow falls below levels presumed in a treaty. Flow information is essential to cope with these challenges through water storage, allocation, and use.

This paper demonstrates a simple yet robust method, which measures gauge station runoff with wetness values derived from satellite data (1988-2010), for expanding sub-basin stream flow information to the entire river basin where natural flow information is limited. It demonstrates the approach with flow level data that provide estimates of monthly runoff in near real time in two international river basins: Zambezi and Mekong. The paper includes an economic framework incorporating information on existing institutions to assess potential economic and political impacts and to inform policy on conflict and cooperation between riparians. The authors conclude that satellite data modeled with gauge station runoff reduce the uncertainty inherent in negotiating an international water agreement under increased hydrological variability, and thus can assist policy makers to devise more efficient institutional apparatus.

This paper is a product of the Computational Tools and Environment and Energy Teams, Development Research Group. 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 atbblankespoor@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
flow of rural-to-urban migration beginning in the early 1990s. A new land law in 1993 also contributed to the rate of migration by granting individuals and households the right to transfer, exchange, mortgage, lease, and inherit land.

The _ho khau_ system was subsequently reformed twice to further relax restrictions on domestic migration (Liu and Dang, 2019; Demombynes and Vu, 2016). A series of empirical studies on the effects of these reforms find declining poverty rates and positive returns to migrants, their families, and host communities in urban areas (Coxhead, Cuong, and Vu, 2015; Liu and Dang, 2019; Demombynes and Vu, 2016). Also consistent with HT models and the new economic geography literature, the shares of the industrial and service sectors in Vietnam’s GDP rose quickly following the introduction of market reforms in 1986. According to the World Bank’s WDI database, the share of employment in agriculture stood at more than 66 percent in 1994, falling to less than 40 percent by 2018. At the same time, output per agricultural worker (in constant 2010 USD) rose from $494 to 21
to an emerging literature that explores the potential threats of scaling up interventions (Araujo, Rubio-Codina, and Shady, 2021; Al - Ubaydli et al., 2019).

The purpose of this work is to fill this gap in the literature for the case of child nutrition. While its impact is manifested in the short-run, an improvement in the nutritional status of children has longlasting effects. Evidence shows that malnutrition in early childhood is associated with deficits in cognitive development, greater risk of infant and child mortality and morbidity, as well as worse health status and lower earnings during adulthood (Martorell, 1999; Martorell et al., 2005; Strauss and Thomas, 1995).

There are a few papers in the literature that evaluate the impact of the program on child nutrition, and focus on height as one of their outcomes of interest.<sup>1</sup> However, all the available evidence is based on the Oportunidades evaluation data which only represents the poorest communities in Mexico. These data consist of two samples. A rural evaluation sample selected in 1997, at the time the program first started; and an urban evaluation sample, selected in 2001 at the time the program expanded to cover urban areas. Both baseline samples are complemented with a series of followup surveys. The expansion of the program followed an explicit geographic targeting rule, where more disadvantaged areas were covered earlier. Thus, a key aspect of these data is that they represent very specific geographic areas of Mexico. As a result, the current evidence only speaks to the impact of the program on communities incorporated early in time, but there is no evidence on the performance of the intervention in places incorporated later, which are relatively better-off.

In contrast to previous evidence, this is the first time population-representative data are used to analyze this program, which allows performing an impact analysis at the national level. The data

> 1 See Parker et al. (2008) for a summary of the literature.

3
Figure 11: Rural and Urban Incomes in Sudan, 2014/15 <!-- Start of picture text --> (a) Rural<br>Agriculture Non-Agriculture Wage<br>0.5<br>0.4<br>0.3<br>0.2<br>0.1<br>0<br>Rural Non-Poor Rural Poor Rural (All)<br><!-- End of picture text --> <!-- Start of picture text --> (b) Urban<br>Agriculture Non-Agriculture Wage<br>0.6<br>0.5<br>0.4<br>0.3<br>0.2<br>0.1<br>0<br>Urban Non-Poor Urban Poor Urban (All)<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source_ : Authors’ calculations using NHBPS 2014/15 and NBHS 2009.

Across states, there is significant variation in the dependence on agriculture (Figure 12a). In the Darfur and Kordofan regions, agriculture is the main source of income for most households. In Khartoum, the Red Sea, and Al-Gadarif, nonagricultural activities and income from wages and salaries are the main sources of household income. In states such as Al-Gezira, Sinnar, Kassala, and the River Nile, wages and salaries are important sources of income for households, but due to the importance of irrigated agriculture in these states, such wages and salaries are mostly tied to agricultural employment.

Households in states in the irrigation belt rely heavily on wages and salaries as their main source of income (Figure 12a). These are in the Blue and White Nile regions of Sudan, including the states of AlGezira, the White Nile, Sinnar, and the Blue Nile, and in the rural areas of the states of Khartoum and the River Nile. Households that earn incomes from wages and salaries are often employed in agrarian
(5.54%) and is only slightly smaller in the case of SMEs (4.85%). By contrast, the increase in employment growth is just under 1 percentage point for larger firms. Thus, introduction of CBs results in an increase in employment growth that is over 6 times larger among MSMEs than large firms. Statistically, we confirm using t-tests that the estimates for MSMEs and SMEs are higher than those for large firm at the 99% confidence level.

In addition to the year of introduction of CB’s, the World Bank Doing Business reports<sup>24</sup> also gather information on the coverage of the CBs as a percentage of total population. The estimation of equation (2) using CB reform above switches from 0 to 1 with their introduction, thus treating all CBs in the same manner. It is reasonable to assume that if CBs are introduced with varying degrees of coverage, the subsequent shock to credit supply will be proportionally varying. As a robustness check, we introduce this information into equation 2 by replacing CB reform variable with the interaction of CB reform and CB coverage.<sup>25</sup> Results provided in the Appendix Table A4 show that increases in coverage do appear to have varying degrees of impact on job creation due to a differential effect on credit supply. Countries that introduce CB reform with a 1 percentage point higher coverage, on average, grow employment at a 0.05 percentage point higher rate in the Enterprise Survey sample and a 0.16 percentage point higher rate in the Orbis sample. To put these estimates in context, consider a change in coverage from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile of countries, which corresponds to 37.4 percent increase in coverage. Such an increase in coverage, according to the estimates in Table A4, would lead to an additional 2 percentage point increase in the growth of employment in the ES sample and 6 percentage point increase in job growth in the Orbis sample. The gulf
**Figure 8: One year survival probability for infants by education of the mother, from birth histories in the Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey 2000**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 1<br>0.98<br>0.96<br>0.94<br>0.92<br>0.9<br>0.88<br>0.86<br>0.84<br>0.82<br>0.8<br>70-74 75-79 80-84 85-89 90-94 95-99<br>Birth cohort<br>Mother with secondary education Mother with less than secondary education<br>One year survival probability<br><!-- End of picture text --> 28
# **Cartels, Antitrust Enforcement, and Industry Performance: Evidence from Mexico**<sup>∗</sup>

Tristan Reed<sup>a</sup> , Mariana Pereira L ́opez<sup>b</sup> , Ana Urrutia Arrieta<sup>c</sup> , Leonardo Iacovone<sup>d</sup> Originally published in the Policy Research Working Paper Series on _December 2022._ This version is updated on _March 2023._ To obtain the originally published version, please email prwp@worldbank.org.

<u>JEL Classifications:</u> K21, L40, 047 <u>Keywords:</u> abuse of dominance, antitrust, antitrust enforcement, cartels, collusion, competition law, Federal Competition Commission, Federal Economic Competition Commission, market power, Mexico, monopolistic practices, per se illegal, rule of reason

> ∗The authors thank Alejandro Casta ̃neda Sabido, Seidu Dauda, Santiago Levy Algazi, Penny Goldberg, Charl Jooste, Pete Klenow, Eduardo Mart ́ınez Chombo, Graciela Miralles Murciego, James A. Robinson, James Sampi, Chad Syverson, Ekaterina Vostroknutova, Shang-Jin Wei and seminar participants at Banco de M ́exico, CIDE, COFECE, Colegio de M ́exico, Universidad Iberoamericana, and the World Bank for extremely valuable comments and suggestions. Francisco Lucero Bravo and Joaquin Ramirez Cabaracas provided excellent research assistance. Reed thanks the Development Research Group Research Support Budget and the Knowledge for Change Program III for funding. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank or its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank, their Managements, or the governments they represent. The authors thank Natalia Volkow and INEGI for access to the Economic Census microdata. All results have been reviewed to ensure that confidential information is not released. Any errors remain our own. a: World
> Indirect subsidies applied to wheat in urban areas and kerosene in all parts of the country<sup>6</sup> are estimated based on what the household spends on these items. The total value of the subsidy is calculated based on subsidy rates per kilogram for wheat and per liter for kerosene, as derived from government import and sales data.<sup>7</sup> This study does not include such categories as corporate income, international trade, and infrastructure investments, although these directly influence income distribution and poverty. It also does not consider the operations of state-owned enterprises. Moreover, this study does not consider behavioral, life cycle, or general equilibrium effects, and it assumes that both consumer demand and labor supply are perfectly inelastic. In estimating the monetized values of in-kind transfers, our calculations do not consider possible differences in the quality of services delivered to different income groups in each region. Nor do we capture whether individuals fail to visit health centers because of expected fees, which more heavily burden poorer individuals. Furthermore, we treat the social security contributions of employees as saving. The study does not evaluate whether specific taxes and spending are desirable.

> 3 The average annual growth rate of education and health spending is estimated based on nine years of spending data. 4 Because these expenditures would also serve future generations, we took into account only 10 percent of capital spending in tertiary education as the benefit current students are receiving.

> 5 We estimate public health service beneficiaries by region and nationally using ESS data.

> 6 As it is difficult to identify which household in which area is benefitting from the wheat subsidy, we assume that it targets the entire urban population. This assumption is based on evidence that indicates subsidized wheat is available in most urban centers (see World Bank 2018).

> 7 One data gap in wheat subsidy allocation is the lack of disaggregated consumption items for wheat products. We therefore calculate the subsidy based on wheat consumption in any form.

8
# **6 Explaining women’s higher returns to the use of technology**

Understanding FTM’s higher returns to technology adoption is critical for policy. In this section, we describe some tentative channels based on available data. The first possible channel is the link between women’s managerial style and their capacity to optimize technology adoption. For instance, women’s collaborative managerial style (Rosener, 1998) can facilitate employees’ willingness to adopt new technologies and use them productively. Atkin et al. (2017) show that workers can be reluctant to adopt new production methods when incentives are misaligned within firms. Workers can resist adoption in various ways, including by misinforming owners about the value of the technology. Women are more likely to encourage participation by soliciting input from others and keeping open communication channels with their subordinates (Rosener, 1998; Dezs ̈o and Ross, 2012), thus easing workers’ reluctance to use the technologies in the production process productively.

The second potential channel can relate to FTM’s more frequent interactions with universities, suppliers, and buyers, which can strengthen the adoption of certain technologies. For example, in the first wave of the FAT survey in Brazil, Viet Nam, and Senegal, firms were asked about the primary source of external consultants or organizations the establishment used to aid in adopting and using new machines. Figure 4 shows that FTM are substantially more likely to interact with universities when adopting new technologies while less likely to rely on government agencies and business associations. Furthermore, when searching for information about new technologies, Figure 5 shows that FTM are more likely to interact with suppliers and buyers to make decisions. This access to external knowledge can be critical in adjusting the new technologies to the business functions of the firm.

A third potential channel relates to how technology allows women to overcome many social barriers. Women are often responsible for juggling multiple roles, which requires a high level of organizational skills and efficient use of time, which digital technologies can help.
foreigners. The French started the textile industries in Veracruz and Puebla, and foreigners also started Mexico’s first iron and steel plant in 1903, the Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey, which would anchor what is now the premier industrial city in the country (Haber, 1997; Buffington & William, 1999). Though Mexican entrepreneurs emerged to play important roles, the census data, confirms the large foreign participation even deep into the 20th century.

This outcome does not appear a result of access to finance. Accounts from S ̃ao Paulo, Brazil (Bresser Pereira, 1994), Minas Gerais, Brazil (Birchal, 1999), Barranquilla, Colombia, Becerra & Restrepo (1987) and as discussed below, Chile, show that immigrant entrepreneurs were predominantly middle class or below and most of their ventures were self-financed.

Further, foreigners dominate across the product space, but especially in the more technologically advanced sectors. For Argentina, Annex Table A.1 selectively draws from a 200 sector disaggregation to show that in only a few sectors is there a high or dominant participation of locals and these are the traditional ones, such as sugar cane processing mills sugar refining, and wool fabric. Immigrants dominate in fields ranging from seemingly basic sectors (espadrilles, shoes, shirt-making, dressmaking carpentry, baking furniture making, tailoring and tanneries) as well as the most technically advanced sectors sectors (lumber mills, carriages and other vehicles, trolleys, iron works and mechanics shops). In Barranquilla, Colombia, foreigners again dominate all industries related to the new steam technologiessteam boats-the critical innovation for integration of the country via the Magdalena river-, steam sawmills, as well as insurance, telephones and trading houses. Colombians are most represented, although not always dominant, in brokerage, canned foods, retail, and hostelry.

In Mexican manufacturing, table A.2 does not suggest patterns as clear as those found in Argentina or Barranquilla. However, Table A.3 allows us to examine the extraction-related industries and reveals