rafmacalaba/data-use-mentions-extended huggingface dataset:
substituted more expensive credit with subsidized loans.

Calice et al. (2018) study the impact of BNDES credit on resource misallocation in Brazil, using manufacturing rm-level data from 2003 until 2014. The paper rst estimates measures of resource misallocation based on Hsieh and Klenow (2009), documenting high variation in rms' capital and output distortions. It then estimates the eect of access to BNDES loans on distortions and their dispersions. The analysis nds some preliminary evidence that the use of BNDES credit is not associated with a more ecient allocation of resources. The lower cost of BNDES loans reduces the marginal cost of capital and induces rms to reallocate inputs from labor to capital. This eect is amplied for more nancially dependent rms. The authors point out that their results only reect the eectiveness of a particular credit line, FINAME, which nances the acquisition of machines and equipment in the domestic

> 15Bank (2017b) reviews the costs and benets of business support policies in Brazil, including subsidized credit policies by public banks. Bank (2017a) provides a detailed evaluation of the impact on productivity of subsidized credit programs and other business support policies in Brazil. Calice et al. (2018) provide a review of the literature on the eects of BNDES credit on several performance indicators and analyzes its eects on misallocation.

15
containerization of cargo; and (2) development of larger and deeper specialized ships. These transformations have led to some new requirements for seaports to modernize their infrastructures and to buy new equipment in order to continue to be able to provide services to shipping companies.

Regarding the first change, it can be observed in the figures on the world traffic of containers. The fast growth of this mode of transport started in Europe, the US and Japan, but it is now spreading elsewhere. _Box 5_ presents figures for different regions in the world, and it is remarkable to observe the spectacular growth rates of South America, Asia and India, and in general, all developing countries. Four of the five largest world ports in terms 14
input in the construction sector and thus in aggregate investment, with the average economy spending 1.3 percent of GDP on it in our data. We combine a recent panel of internationally comparable prices from the 2011 and 2017 rounds of the International Comparison Program (ICP) with a directory of cement plants in 96 economies on all continents. These data allow us to tease apart and quantify drivers of markups and costs in the global cement industry. We do so by estimating a model of a cross-section of markets in which identification of markups and costs is well understood.

Analysis of the model yields four main insights. First, in an industry characterized by a relatively homogeneous product, differences in marginal costs and markups contribute roughly an equal share to the average difference in prices across economies. Africa stands out because it had the highest average US dollar cement price of any continent in 2011, the highest average marginal cost, and the highest average markup, at about 50 percent.

Second, by 2017 the average cement price in Africa had fallen by one-third, due threefifths to a decline in marginal cost and two-fifths to a decline in the markup. These de2
the entire formal sector, providing a more comprehensive sample than survey data. The data provided detailed information on labor income and COVID-19 support programs. The monthly number of taxpayers varies between 6.9 million and 7.4 million. This data is less prone to selective non-reporting at the top of the income distribution and contains detailed information collected frequently. Electronic collection of tax data reduces errors, improving the data's accuracy. Tax data measures income variables with high precision. In contrast, survey data might be subject to self-

> 2 Though available, data on self-employees was not used for this analysis as the focus was on employees.

8
Jaunpur district in the state of Uttar Pradesh (Figure A.1). According to the 2015-16 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) of India, the total fertility rate in rural Uttar Pradesh (3.8) is high relative to other states; 20 percent of women have an unmet need for FP;<sup>14</sup> and the share of demand satisfied by modern methods is only 47 percent. Therefore, our intervention is highly relevant for this context.

Figure A.2 describes our sample selection process. We began by conducting a listing exercise for all households (N = 2,781) that were located within a 10-kilometer radius of our partner clinic, the Arogyaneer Diagnostic Clinic (ADC), situated in the village of Chandwak. The ADC was chosen based on its proximity to our sample women (many of whom lived in Chandwak), more reliable supply of a wide range of FP methods, and higher quality of service, relative to other clinics in the area. A total of 698 households were identified to have

> 14These statistics from the 2015-16 DHS calculate unmet need for FP as the proportion of women who: (1) are not pregnant and not postpartum amenorrhoeic, are considered fecund, and want to either postpone their next birth for two or more years or stop childbearing altogether, but are not using a contraceptive method; (2) have a mistimed or unwanted current pregnancy; or (3) are postpartum amenorrhoeic and their last birth in the last two years was mistimed or unwanted (NFHS, 2016).

5
The legal enforceability of the PTA obligations is established according to the language used in the text of the agreements. In other words, it is assumed that commitments expressed with a clear, specific and imperative legal language, can more successfully be invoked by a complainant in a dispute settlement proceeding, and therefore are more likely to be legally enforceable. In contrast, unclearly formulated legal language might be related with <u>policy areas that are covered but that might not be legally enforceable.</u> <!-- Start of picture text --> Figure 18: PTA depth, selected economies (2015)<br>a. Latin America b. BRICS Countries<br>35 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 22 8 10 13 35 1 4 8 11 18<br>30 30<br>25 25<br>20 20<br>15 15<br>10 10<br>5 5<br>0 ‐<br>max depth avg. Depth # of agreements max depth avg. Depth # of agreements<br>Source: Calculations based on World Bank PTA content dataset (2016).<br><!-- End of picture text --> Compared to other agreements, Mercosur does not include disciplines such as investment, competition policy, export taxes, customs and movement of capital. Appendix Tables A3 and A4 illustrate policy areas where Mercosur “performs” better than (green), worse than (red) or as well as (yellow) other agreements in terms of coverage of provisions. Compared to other agreements signed by countries in the Latin America region, Brazil does relatively better in terms of coverage of disciplines such as TBT, SPS and anti‐dumping. However, provisions such as customs, export taxes, public procurement, TRIPs and countervailing measures (CVM), that are currently not in force in Mercosur, are legally enforceable in at least 74 percent of agreements signed by Latin American countries. In the same way
India, Smith (2015) find that the increase in undernourishment at the time of falling poverty rates can be partly explained by lack of measurement of calorie consumption from FAFH. Borlizzi and Cafiero (2017) show that failure to account for children’s school meal consumption in Brazil results in an overestimation of inequality in calorie consumption. Farfan, Genoni, and Vakis (2017) find that total poverty rates are 16 percent lower (or almost 6 percentage points) while extreme poverty rates are 18 percent higher (or 1 percentage point) when FAFH is taken into account. The impacts on the poverty gap and severity of poverty indicators are even larger. Furthermore, the direction of the change cannot be established ex-ante. Despite the importance of FAFH for welfare measurement, no study has rigorously tested the accuracy of different methods for collecting FAFH consumption information. This lack of evidence is highlighted in the methodological guidelines on food consumption recently endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission, which call for more research on the collection of FAFH (FAO and WB, 2018). Our study is the first to undertake this effort.

2
and value-added decomposition, we analyze the association between inflation co-movement and several indices of GVC participation and trade which are as described below.

> 4The concordance table from SITC Rev2 to BEC can be found on the UN Trade Statistics webpage: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/trade/classifications/correspondence-tables.asp .

> 5In particular, see Bems et al. (2011) and Johnson (2018)

8
" fee of 1% that affiliates to the private pillar were required to pay.

As observed in the case of Chile and other countries which operate AFP systems, there is a large discrepancy between the number of affiliates and those who actually regularly contribute to their accounts. In Peru, the share of affiliates who are regularly contributing to their accounts is estimated to be around 45 percent.

There are various reasons for this discrepancy. In the case of dependent workers, employers may default on their payment obligations and mistakes are made in the contribution data submitted to 10
Policy Research Working Paper 9620

# **Abstract**

This paper evaluates the performance of different small area estimation methods using model and design-based simulation experiments. Design-based simulation experiments are carried out using the Mexican Intra Censal survey as a census of roughly 3.9 million households from which 500 samples are drawn using a two-stage selection procedure similar to that of Living Standards Measurement Study surveys. Several unit-level methods are considered as well as a method that combines unit and area level information, which has been proposed as an alternative when the available census data is outdated. The findings show the importance of selecting a proper model and data transformation so that the model assumptions hold. A proper data transformation can lead to a considerable improvement in mean squared errors. The results from design-based validation show that all small area estimation methods represent an improvement, in terms of mean squared errors, over direct estimates. However, methods that model unit level welfare using only area level information suffer from considerable bias. Because the magnitude and direction of the bias are unknown ex ante, methods that rely only on aggregated covariates should be used with caution, but they may be an alternative to traditional area level models when these are not applicable.

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 pcorralrodas@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.
WWEP, to coordinate survey questions across the LFS and LSMS, will also test questions on decision making in agriculture (Gaddis and Palacios-Lopez, 2018, Walsh, 2018).

## A closer look at decision making over earnings

Questions on decision-making over wage earnings, as well as income from self-employed farm/off-farm operations are receiving increasing attention in surveys, as well as recent rounds of the LSMS-ISA. A main issue with decision-making questions, however, is the choice of respondent, which as seen earlier with Ethiopia’s RCBP can lead to gender inequalities in program targeting. A growing number of within and crosscountry studies are also showing that men and women within the same household can respond very differently to the same sets of questions on the main decision maker (see Donald et al, 2017 for a crosscountry study from Sub-Saharan Africa; Anderson et al, 2017 from rural Tanzania). One approach to address this issue (albeit more costly) is to ask both the most knowledgeable adult man and adult woman in the household. The Demographic and Health Surveys ask both husbands and wives, for example, in decision making questions over their spouse’s earnings and large household purchases. Within farming, the WEAI survey module also asks both men and women about decision making roles in production and income (Malapit and Quisumbing, 2015). The Uganda GSARS pilot also had two respondents for the module on decision making – (a) the plot holder, and (b) the holder’s spouse/partner if they lived in the household and were also engaged in agricultural work on the holding (GSARS, 2017).

Similarly with enterprise income, cross-checking ownership and management of the enterprise across male/female respondents would be important, to understand whether gender norms affect reporting of these outcomes — including whether women entrepreneurs themselves underreport their decisionmaking roles in the business, as was found in an entrepreneurship training program in rural Pakistan (Giné and Mansuri, 2014). Using the 2016-17 Malawi survey, for example, Figure 7 compares
rate over the period 1980-95, i.e., 1.51% instead of 0.32%.

Table A3 presents additional evidence on the importance of efficient judicial systems for financial sector development at the industry level. Previous research has shown that industries that depend more heavilny on external finance grow faster in countries with a higher level of financial development.l The results in Table A3 indicate that industries with a higher need of external finance grow faster in a legal and institutional environment in which contracts and creditor rights are enforced more effectively. Given an average dependence on external finance of 21 percent (the ratio of external financing relative to investment) across Brazilian industries, **6** The index of accounting standard has been created by the Center for International Financial Analysis and Research and assesses the quality of income statements and balance sheets in 1990 for 41 countries. This index takes has possible maximum value of 90 and a possible minimum of 0.

See Levine, Loayza and Beck (2000) and Japelli and Pagano (1999).

**8** For a methodologically more rigorous analysis of the link between finance and growth and between the legal environment and finance, see Levine, Loayza, and Beck (2000). For an exploration of the link between inflation and financial development, see Boyd, Levine, and Smith (2000).

9 Both scenarios control for other determinants, including macroeconomic conditions, of financial development and GDP per capita growth, respectively. The data are averaged over 1980-95.

**10** See Rajan and Zingales (1998). The dependence on external finance is defined as the share of investmen **t** hat cannot be financed through internal cash flow and is calculated from a sample of U.S. firns.

5
**MONGOLIA'S INFORMAL SECTOR** -

**Preface**

ii

# **Preface**

The research embodied in this report was undertaken in the winter and spring of 1997. Most of the interviews and informal sector surveys were conducted in February and March, and a first draft of the report followed soon thereafter. But one learns quickly in Mongolia that while the pace of change can be exasperatingly slow at times, it can be breathtakingly rapid at other times. The spring of 1997 fell in the latter category. In only a few months, there have been significant changes with regard to policies that impact on the informal sector. Many kiosks and garages were summarily moved by order of the city administration, customs duties have been largely abolished, vehicles taxes were increased, and the principal tax legislation affecting informals was revised. The revisions of the "Informal Sector Income Tax Law" in the late spring of 1997 led to controversy, popular revolt, and an ultimate policy reversal, a sequence of events that provides important lessons about the diversity of experience within Mongolia's informal sector, lessons that must be understood if future policy mistakes are to be avoided. The changes in the "Informal Sector Income Tax Law" will therefore provide the lone exception to the rule that this report will reference the policies in place at that time the surveys and interviews were conducted, March 1997.
# **3.3.5 Data models, Internet access, and institutions**

Much of digital services trade takes place over the internet. This is especially true for information services, telecommunications, and computer services, because they rely extensively on internet technologies that enable their tradability. Having access to an open internet is therefore an important factor to promote trade in digital services. This importance is substantiated in Figure 9, which shows a positive relationship between countries’ greater access to the internet and per capita digital services trade. The access to an open Internet is measured through the Freedom on the Net indicators of the Freedom House, which cover the extent to which the internet in each country experiences infrastructural and economic barriers to access, government efforts to block specific internet technologies, as well as legal, regulatory and ownership control over internet and mobile phone access providers, and the independence of regulatory bodies.

Figure 9: Digital services trade, data models, and Internet access (2015) <!-- Start of picture text --> Digital services trade and data model<br>By obstacles to internet access<br>100<br>10<br>1<br>.1<br>5 10 15 20 25<br>Free from obstacles to internet access<br>Open Coditional Limited Free Internet No Free Internet<br>Per capita exports in 1000 Mln. USD (log)<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: Authors’ calculations using TiVA trade data, World Bank WDI and Freedom House. Countries are categorized on the basis of the data model regarding the cross-border data transfers.

This proxy indicator of internet access from the Freedom House forms part of a wider assessment of whether the Internet is qualified as free, partly free and not free. Thus, besides economic access to the internet, the institute assesses whether the Internet is free on the basis of many other noneconomic criteria, such as content access and free speech,
0.799|0.794|0.794|0.796|0.803|

Notes: Standard errors in parentheses; *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. Survey weights are used in all regressions. All regressions control for establishment characteristics.

The results discussed thus far suggest that improved management practices are associated with higher productivity, and that their impact is concentrated among larger establishments. These are based on combining the data for all countries, which may mask some important differences in how effective these practices can be in different contexts. The seven countries analyzed differ in terms of their level of development (Bolivia, for example, is, according to World Bank classifications, a lower‐middle income economy, while Argentina is classified as high income), their industry composition (in Argentina, 46 percent of establishments are engaged in manufacturing; compared to 18 percent in Ecuador where the service industry dominates) and their institutional environments (Peru ranked number 68 out of 190 countries in the 2019 Doing Business report, while Bolivia was much farther down the rankings at 156). All these aspects, as well as many others, could impact the effectiveness of management practices.

Table 9 below considers the relationship between improved management practices and labor productivity in each of the seven countries separately. It shows that a significant relationship exists between the average management score and sales per worker in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Uruguay. However, in 20
which is 10% of a 600 kWh household monthly bill. However, lighting is disproportionately used “on peak”. Therefore, the resulting reduction is actually 21% of the household peak load demand.<sup>51</sup> For a transformer with about 20% of all households treated, this would equal approximately a 4% reduction in transformer peak load.<sup>52</sup> Using household survey data on the number of days without electricity (due to outage) during the month prior, we provide suggestive evidence of an aggregate impact of transformer-level treatment on unplanned outages.<sup>53</sup> In Figure 4, we plot the reported outages at follow-up by treatment group. As shown, the distribution of reported outages among households in treated transformers is shifted leftward (towards zero outages) in comparison to the graphed responses of households in the control transformers. This figure motivates the regression analysis that follows.

# **6.2 Estimating aggregate impacts**

We use the transformer-level randomization to estimate the impact on reported unplanned electricity outages using the following equation: where _Oig_ is the number of days without electricity due to outages in the month prior to the follow-up survey as reported by household _i_ in transformer _g_ ; _Hig_ indicates if household _i_ is in a higher-saturation transformer, with between 15 to 18 percent of all households assigned to treatment; _Lig_ indicates whether household _i_ is in a lower-saturation transformer, with between 10 to 14 percent of households assigned to treatment;<sup>54</sup> _Treatig_ remains the household’s own treatment status; and _Xg_ is a vector of transformer-level controls. Standard

> 51According to the utility, times of peak demand are between 6 to 9 am and 6 to 10 pm. The calculation assumes a reduction of peak demand of 1.5 kW peak, and switching from 100 W incandescent bulbs to 21 W CFLs (Appendix Calculation 3).

> 52We “ground-truth” these results by discussing them with our utility collaborators