rafmacalaba/data-use-mentions-extended huggingface dataset:
percent in 1962). The government entered a stabilization- cum-structural adjustment program in 1981, achieving a substantial turn-around in the fiscal deficit after 1982. Stabilization of the fiscal and external accounts was extremely costly: real growth stagnated in 1981 and then fell for three successive years.

Problems associated with asymmetric expenditure adjustment do not appear to be confined to the public sector in low-income Africa. Using data on 25 countries in SSA between 1970 and 1980, Wheeler (1984) finds that rea. GDP tends to grow significantly more slowly on average in countries with (1) low 'ability to retrench', in the sense that imports respond **less** to declines in export revenues than to increases in export revenues, or (2) high 'habit formation, in imports of capital goods and non-food consumer goods (where high habit formation means high dependence of these imports on their lagged values).<sup>18</sup> Jaycox, et al. (1986, p.57) identify inability to reduce domestic consumption levels downward after commodity booms as one of the key common denominators in the development of the debt problem in Eastern and Southern Africa.

There are relatively few examples of successful handling of large commodity price fluctuations in low-lncome Africa. The main lesson for fiscal policy is the benefits of conservatism (Tanzi, 1982). In the two consistently successful cases, Botswana (beef and diamonds) and Cameroon (cocoa, coffee, and oil), governments exercised expenditure restraint in periods of commodity 18 Note that Wheeler's measures refer to total imports and exports, not public sector expenditures and revenues. Interestingly, Wheeler's results suggested a relatively high 'ability to retrench' for Cote d'lvoire (6th in a sample of 29 countries). On the other hand, Cote d'$voire also showed relatively high persistence in imports of non-food consumer goods and above-median persistence in capital goods imports (Wheeler, 1984).

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Productivity Impacts of 19 Infrastructure Measures’, _World Development_ . Pergamon, 37(9), pp. 1522–1539. doi: 10.1016/J.WORLDDEV.2009.01.008.

Fisher‐Vanden, K., Mansur, E. T. and Wang, Q. (Juliana) (2015) ‘Electricity shortages and firm productivity: Evidence from China’s industrial firms’, _Journal of Development Economics_ . North‐Holland, 114, pp. 172–188. doi: 10.1016/J.JDEVECO.2015.01.002.

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10 focusing on the details of competition their sample size shrinks to 43 countries during the period 1990-1998. They find that privatization and competition positively affect performance regardless how they are measured, and that if they work together the gains are even bigger. Regarding the details of reforms, they find that privatizing by offering public shares positively contributes to the performance of the mobile sector. Additionally, they find that granting exclusivity periods reduces the gains from privatization. Wallsten (2004) uses data on 32 privatized telecom firms representing 28 countries and finds that exclusivity periods are associated with significant increases in the firm’s sale price and significant decreases in the incumbent’s investment in telecom network and in the number of payphones, mobile subscribers, and international outgoing minutes.

The research on regulation points to a number of fundamental questions to be asked by reformers. The importance of sequencing is one of the key ones. Using panel data for 200 countries from 1985-1999, Wallsten (2003) finds that establishing an IRA before the privatization takes place improves telecom investment and penetration. Then with a sample of 33 countries he shows that investors are willing to pay more for firms if a regulatory reform took place prior to privatization. Somewhat surprisingly, he finds that privatization and IRA are negatively correlated with the number of mainlines. Another important contribution is the debate on the relevance of the independence of the regulators. Wallsten (2003) suggests that too much independence may be harmful if politics capture consumers’ preferences, as it weakens the relationship between consumers and government and strengthen the relationship between private firms and government. In other words, it might be easier for telecom firms to influence the regulator than for consumers.

A final issue to be considered is the endogeneity of reforms. To illustrate its relevance, Gual and Trillas (2004) first estimate two policy indexes (one for openness and one for the existence of an IRA) and then analyze their impact on performance. They find that pro-entry policies and the creation of an independence agency have positive effects on network
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- Saez, Emmanuel and Gabriel Zucman (2019b). _The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay_ . W.W.Norton. isbn: 9780393531732. url: https: .

- //taxjusticenow.org/#/

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- .

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# _Figure 6: VAT payments as a percentage of household income_

<!-- Start of picture text --> 6<br>5<br>4<br>3<br>2<br>1<br>0<br>h_d0 h_d1 h_d2 h_d3 h_d4 h_d5 h_d6 h_d7 h_d8 h_d91 h_d921 h_d922 h_d923 h_d924<br>Household Deciles<br>Base VAT reform<br>percent<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: South Africa CGE model simulations

# **6. Conclusion**

In this paper, we analyze the VAT in South Africa, using the effective rates observed in the Social Accounting Matrix for 2001. We find:

- The VAT in South Africa is mildly regressive; the over all tax system is not.

- The marginal cost of funds for the VAT is higher for low-income households than for high-income households.

- A VAT is the most effective instrument for generating government revenue.

- One can restructure the VAT system to make it less regressive, or even progressive.

- There is scope for redesigning the tax system without imposing serious strain on highincome households. Minor changes in the tax structure can have a substantial impact on the tax burden for low-income households. We illustrate a few possibilities in this paper. When we remove the VAT and increase the income tax rates for high income households, all rates are under 33 percent. Alternatively, when we restructure the VAT rates and eliminate the VAT on commodities important to low-income household consumption, other VAT rates increase by 16.4 percent. One can construct an alternative mix of VAT and other taxes that is more progressive than the existing VAT system.

19
in Nigeria. However, a lot of research still needs to be done to explain many of the findings in this paper.

# 6.2. **Beyond the Poverty Profile**

Considering the severe constraints imposed on the poverty profile by the difficulties in accessing and cleaning the Nigerian data sets, it is important that consideration be given to follow-up strategies to improve in-country capacity for data collection and analysis and establishing poverty monitoring systems. A systematic study is needed to fully assess useroriented data needs for Nigeria. This paper recommends the establishment of an annual monitoring report on poverty and welfare in Nigeria. Year-to-year changes in Nigeria were very drastic as we saw, and there is no reason to think that these changes will not occur again. The paper also recommends that both household expenditure and basic needs information is needed, since neither is by itself sufficient to give a full picture of welfare. We recommend that once in every five years an integrated living standards survey be carried out to permit in-depth analysis of household behavior and response.

Apart from that, there should be other quicker monitoring surveys, or even some sort of priority surveys, focusing only on selected basic needs variables of the sort indicated before - for example, for the rural areas, the mix of crops they farm, the quality of their land, the value of their assets such as livestock, or even the degree to which they rely on wage labor compared to better off farmers. There is no information on the asset base, typical of the poor and the sort of
define and analyze binding first stages as those that are positive and statistically significant with a t-statistic greater than 1.96, indicating a robust relationship. Figure 1 shows the 16 countries with relevant reforms (and up to 39 country-reforms, with multiple binding reforms in some countries). Table A3 in the Online Appendix shows all first stages with positive effects, including those that are not statistically significant. Countries in the main analysis include Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. We exclude countries, such as the United Kingdom, where reforms occurred at the sub-national level and do not map cleanly to the ESS data.

> 10By using all rounds of the ESS to determine strong first stages, we have more power to estimate the true effect of compulsory schooling laws beyond the country’s time trend.

7
Suppose the elaborate tables and graphs of the LIC DSF did not exist and all we had were Table 2 and market signals on Ghana’s perceived credit standing. The first telling observation would be the more than 20 percentage points of GDP increase in public debt with a rising share of $ debt in just two years. Second, we would see a big drop in the primary fiscal deficit-to-GDP ratio, pd, indicating a commendable fiscal effort but also raising the question of how sustainable it is, given political economy and the quality of fiscal institutions. Third, we would see that r is highly volatile and high. It jumps from 6% in 2013 to 19% in 2014 and one might guess that the high share of $ debt has something to do with this. Indeed, the public DSA table in IMF (2016) indicates that the real exchange rate depreciated by 26% in 2014. Fourth, real GDP growth, g, is on a downward trend, with (r-g) swinging from negative to highly positive.

A safe bet is that economists acquainted with debt crises in EMs would be alarmed by the results in Table 2. It depicts the public debt-to-GDP ratio, d, on an explosive path with d far above levels at which major crises occurred in EMs (for example, the Russian Federation 1998, Argentina 2001).

In keeping with the quote above from IMF and IDA (2004) that Ghana’s debt sustainability cannot be “de-linked from the sentiments of the market, as embodied in spreads on market interest rates,” let’s take a look at market signals prevalent at the time. The secondary market yields on Ghana's Eurobonds were above 15% in January 2016, signaling high default risk. Its credit rating had been lowered by Moody’s from B2 to B3 (equivalent to B-, six levels below investment grade) in March 2015, with a negative outlook.

The combination of Ghana’s debt fundamentals with market signals should have triggered urgency for a
the school, via the headmaster. Spending decisions were made at the Annual General Meeting, before the start of the school year. The share of this funding in overall school funding was considerable: for 76% of schools it was the only public funding for non-salary inputs, while its average share in total school resources was 86%. The scheme also attracted much publicity, increasing its transparency; combined with the simplicity of the allocation rule, this ensured that the grants reached their intended recipients. Disbursement was fast and reliable and 95 percent of all schools had received the stipulated amounts by the time of the survey and the remainder within 1 month of survey completion (Das et al. 2003).<sup>14</sup> Therefore, we expect that in the year of the survey the fixed cash grants would be anticipated by households making their educational investment decisions for the year, contrary to discretionary sources, which had become highly unpredictable and therefore unanticipated. Furthermore, because the grants were fixed in size, there was considerable variation across schools in per-student terms due to underlying differences in enrollment. We use the variation in per-student amounts to examine the crowding-out of household expenditures, a strategy discussed further below.

# **3.2 Sampling and Data**

We collected data in 2002 from 172<sup>15</sup> schools in 4 provinces of Zambia (covering 58 percent of the population), where the schools were sampled to ensure that every enrolled child had an equal probability of inclusion. The results are therefore externally valid within the 4 provinces of the study. The school surveys provide basic information on school materials and funding as well as test scores for mathematics and English for a sample of 20 students in grade 5 in every school, who were tested in 2001 as part of an independent study and were then retested in 2002 to form a panel.

To supplement these data, we also collected information for 540 households matched to a sub-sample of 34 schools identified as "remote" using
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Two potentially-important problems with our current specification should be addressed in future work. The first relates to possible endogeneity in the relationship between CO2 emissions and mass transit investments. The second concerns joint determination of CO2 emissions and income per capita. Our results are consistent with the EKC hypothesis, but we recognize the need for more work on the problem. In a related vein, future research should explore the directions and sources of change in the emissions/income relationship. For example, the recent priority given to CO2 reduction in wealthier countries may already be changing the position or shape of the relationship at high income levels. Research on this issue should also investigate the intervening relationship between income and climate policies, which are now being registered in sources like the LSE’s climate policy database (LSE/Grantham 2021).

# **7.3 Non-Pigouvian Policies**

This paper has focused on subways because we have been able to use a large subway data set constructed by Turner and Gonzalez-Navarro (2018). However, we readily acknowledge that other mass transit systems may also have important effects on CO2 emissions (e.g., regional rail and bus rapid transit systems). As global data sets expand to include these systems, they should be incorporated into the analysis.

Explicit incorporation of mass transit investments into the econometric model will provide another avenue for future research. As previously noted, the possible joint determinacy of subway investments and CO2 emissions may warrant the use of instrumental variables in the expanded model. In addition, future research should investigate the contribution of subways and other mass transit investments to synergies between Pigouvian and non-Pigouvian policies. For example, a dynamic modeling exercise for the Paris urban area by Avner, Rentschler and Hallegatte (2014) suggests that the fuel price elasticity of carbon emissions can be much higher in cities with robust public transport options. An extension of the current econometric research would incorporate relevant price variables (e.g., fuel prices), as well as their interactions with transit investment variables to
**Table 1: Loans Requiring Collateral in the MENA Region (%)**

|**Country**|**Loans to Firms requiring collateral (%)**|
|---|---|
|Algeria|79|
|Egypt|84.4|
|Jordan|97.6|
|Lebanon|67.5|
|Morocco|90|
|Oman|73.8|
|West Bank/Gaza|84.5|

_Source:_ WB Enterprise Surveys 2006-10 The importance of collateral is also supported by empirical studies conducted with financial institutions in OECD and emerging market countries on the role of collateral in the overall credit decision and risk management process. Prevailing lending practices in a diverse group of countries reveal that, while their primary focus is on the capacity to repay the loan, availability of collateral is also a condition precedent to lending.<sup>12</sup> Collateral and credit information<sup>13</sup> are critical elements of a functioning credit system. The lack of these elements creates information asymmetry and a risk premium for borrowers who want to access credit. Credit is constrained in markets with information asymmetry (Stiglitz and Weiss, 1981). Moral hazard and adverse selection will be reduced if collateral frameworks and credit information systems are improved, creating a more robust financial sector in the region.

# **Part of the Solution to Increase Access to Credit Lies in Reforming Secured Transactions**

**Laws and Registries** _._ Providing legal structures through which movable assets in emerging markets can be effectively used as collateral will significantly improve access to finance to those firms that need it the most.  Even in the most advanced jurisdictions where reliable credit information and a wide range of financial products are available, only the largest and best connected businesses can obtain unsecured loans. The rest have to offer collateral. A sound legal and institutional infrastructure is critical to maximize the economic potential of movable assets so that they can
includes climatic variables (rainfall and NDVI anomalies), economic factors (food prices, agricultural wages), and a set of control variables to capture structural determinants of food security. The model is estimated using monthly data with twelve lags. To summarize, the coefficients are combined to represent the cumulative impact over 12 months, with marginal effects indicating the corresponding change in probability.

### **Seasonal Effects**

Before analyzing the impacts of the climatic variables, it is useful to first consider the average seasonal dynamics captured by the seasonal controls. In Afghanistan, floods most often occur during the spring, particularly from March to June, due to snowmelt from mountainous regions and seasonal rainfall. As temperatures rise, snow from higher altitudes melts, and combined with heavy rainfall, this leads to flooding, especially in river valleys and lower-lying areas. Floods can also occur during the summer, particularly during the monsoon season from July to September, though this impact is less widespread than in the spring.

Droughts in Afghanistan typically occur during the summer and autumn, especially from June to November, due to limited rainfall. Areas that rely on seasonal rain or snowmelt for water are particularly affected. The arid and semi-arid climate, combined with climate variability, makes the country highly susceptible to droughts. Droughts are often worsened by insufficient winter snowpack or reduced spring rains, leading to water shortages, reduced agricultural output, and declining groundwater levels.

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