rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
AIDS and dualism : Ethiopia's
            burden under rational expectations
An AIDS epidemic threatens Ethiopia with
            a long wave of premature adult mortality, and thus with an
            enduring setback to capital formation and economic growth.
            The authors develop a two-sector model with three
            overlapping generations and intersectorally mobile labor, in
            which young adults allocate resources under rational
            expectations. They calibrate the model to the demographic
            and economic data, and perform simulations for the period
            ending in 2100 under alternative assumptions about mortality
            with and without the epidemic. Although the epidemic does
            not bring about a catastrophic economic collapse, which is
            hardly possible in view of Ethiopia's poverty and high
            background adult mortality, it does cause a permanent,
            downward displacement of the path of output per head,
            amounting to 10 percent in 2100. An externally funded
            program to combat the disease is socially very profitable.
Paying the price for unreliable
            power supplies : in-house generation of electricity by firms
            in Africa
This paper documents the prevalence of
            in-house generation of electric power by firms in
            Sub-Saharan Africa and attempts to identify the underlying
            causes. The analysis is based on two data sources. The UDI
            World Electric Power Plants Data Base (WEPP), a global
            inventory of electric power generating units, provides a
            detailed inventory of in-house generation at the country
            level. The World Bank's Enterprise Survey Database
            captures business perceptions of the obstacles to enterprise
            growth for 8,483 currently operating firms in 25 African
            countries. Overall, so-called own generation by firms-which
            has been on the rise in recent years-accounts for about 6
            percent of installed generation capacity in Sub-Saharan
            Africa (equivalent to at least 4,000 MW of installed
            capacity). However, this share doubles to around 12 percent
            in the low-income countries, the post-conflict countries,
            and more generally on the Western side of the continent. In
            a handful of countries own generation represents more than
            20 percent of capacity. Rigorous empirical analysis shows
            that unreliable public power supplies is far from being the
            only or even the largest factor driving generator ownership.
            Firm characteristics have a major influence-in particular,
            the probability of owning a generator doubles in large firms
            relative to small ones. Our model predicts that the
            prevalence of own generation would remain high (at around 20
            percent) even if power supplies were perfectly reliable,
            suggesting that other factors, such as emergency back-up and
            export regulations, play a critical role in the decision to
            own a generator.
Paying the price for unreliable
            power supplies : in-house generation of electricity by firms
            in Africa
WPS4913 Policy ReseaRch WoRking PaPeR 4913 Paying the Price for Unreliable Power Supplies In-House Generation of Electricity by Firms in Africa _Vivien Foster Jevgenijs Steinbuks_ The World Bank Africa Region African Sustainable Development Front Office April 2009
Regulatory reform : integrating paradigms
The Subprime crisis largely resulted
            from failures to internalize systemic risk evenly across
            financial intermediaries and recognize the implications of
            Knightian uncertainty and mood swings. A successful reform
            of prudential regulation will need to integrate more
            harmoniously the three paradigms of moral hazard,
            externalities, and uncertainty. This is a tall order because
            each paradigm leads to different and often inconsistent
            regulatory implications. Moreover, efforts to address the
            central problem under one paradigm can make the problems
            under the others worse. To avoid regulatory arbitrage and
            ensure that externalities are uniformly internalized, all
            prudentially regulated intermediaries should be subjected to
            the same capital adequacy requirements, and unregulated
            intermediaries should be financed only by regulated
            intermediaries. Reflecting the importance of uncertainty,
            the new regulatory architecture will also need to rely less
            on markets and more on "holistic" supervision, and
            incorporate countercyclical norms that can be adjusted in
            light of changing circumstances.
Tax policy to reduce carbon
            emissions in south Africa
Noting that South Africa may be one of
            the few African countries that could contribute to
            mitigating climate change, the authors explore the impact of
            a carbon tax relative to alternative energy taxes on
            economic welfare. Using a disaggregate general-equilibrium
            model of the South African economy, they capture the
            structural characteristics of the energy sector, linking a
            supply mix that is heavily skewed toward coal to energy use
            by different sectors and hence their carbon content. The
            authors consider a "pure" carbon tax as well as
            various proxy taxes such as those on energy or
            energy-intensive sectors like transport and basic metals,
            all of which achieve the same level of carbon reduction. In
            general, the more targeted the tax to carbon emissions, the
            better the welfare results. If a carbon tax is feasible, it
            will have the least marginal cost of abatement by a
            substantial amount when compared to alternative tax
            instruments. If a carbon tax is not feasible, a sales tax on
            energy inputs is the next best option. Moreover, labor
            market distortions such as labor market segmentation or
            unemployment will likely dominate the welfare and equity
            implications of a carbon tax for South Africa. This being
            the case, if South Africa were able to remove some of the
            distortions in the labor market, the cost of carbon taxation
            would be negligible. In short, the discussion of carbon
            taxation in South Africa can focus on considerations other
            than the economic welfare costs, which are likely to be
            quite low.
Weakly relative poverty
Prevailing measures of relative poverty
            put an implausibly high weight on relative deprivation, such
            that measured poverty does not fall when all incomes grow at
            the same rate. This stems from the (implicit) assumption in
            past measures that very poor people incur a negligible cost
            of social inclusion. That assumption is inconsistent with
            evidence on the social roles of certain private expenditures
            in poor settings and with data on national poverty lines.
            The authors propose a new schedule of "weakly
            relative" lines that relax this assumption and estimate
            the implied poverty measures for 116 developing countries.
            The authors find that there is more relative poverty than
            past estimates have suggested. In 2005, one half of the
            population of the developing world lived in relative
            poverty, half of whom were absolutely poor. The total number
            of relatively poor rose over 1981-2005, despite falling
            numbers of absolutely poor. With sustained economic growth,
            the incidence of relative poverty becomes less responsive to
            further growth. Slower progress against relative poverty can
            thus be seen as the "other side of the coin" to
            success against absolute poverty.
Is the developing world catching up
            global convergence and national rising dispersion
The present study uses the GIDD, a
            CGE-microsimulation model for Global Income Distribution
            Dynamics, to understand the ex-ante dynamics of global
            income distribution. Three main robust results emerge.
            First, under a set of realistic assumptions, there will be a
            reduction in global income inequality by 2030. This
            potential reduction can be fully accounted for by the
            projected convergence in average incomes across countries,
            with poor and populous countries growing faster than the
            rest of the world. Second, this convergence process will be
            accompanied by a widening of income distribution in
            two-thirds of the developing countries; the main cause being
            increasing skill premia. Third, a trend that may
            counter-balance the potential anti-globalization sentiment
            is the emergence of a global middle class: a group of
            consumers who demand access to, and have the means to
            purchase, international goods and services. The results show
            that the share of these consumers in the global population
            is likely to more than double in the next 20 years. These
            ex-ante trends in global income distribution suggest that
            the mid-1990s could be seen as a turning point after which
            global inequality began showing a negative tendency.
Poverty reduction without economic
            growth explaining Brazil's poverty dynamics, 1985-2004
Brazil's slow pace of poverty
            reduction over the last two decades reflects both low growth
            and a low growth elasticity of poverty reduction. Using GDP
            data disaggregated by state and sector for a twenty-year
            period, this paper finds considerable variation in the
            poverty-reducing effectiveness of growth-across sectors,
            across space, and over time. Growth in the services sector
            was substantially more poverty-reducing than was growth in
            either agriculture or industry. Growth in industry had very
            different effects on poverty across different states and its
            impact varied with initial conditions related to human
            development and worker empowerment. The determinants of
            poverty reduction changed around 1994: positive growth rates
            and a greater (absolute) elasticity with respect to
            agricultural growth contributed to faster poverty reduction.
            But because there was so little of it, economic growth
            played a relatively small role in accounting for
            Brazil's poverty reduction between 1985 and 2004. The
            taming of hyperinflation (in 1994) and substantial
            expansions in social security and social assistance
            transfers, beginning in 1988, accounted for a larger share
            of the overall reduction in poverty.
Poverty reduction without economic
            growth explaining Brazil's poverty dynamics, 1985-2004
WPS4431 Policy ReseaRch WoRking PaPeR 4431 Poverty Reduction without Economic Growth? Explaining Brazil’s Poverty Dynamics, 1985-2004 _Francisco H. G. Ferreira Phillippe G. Leite Martin Ravallion_ The World Bank Development Research Group Poverty Team December 2007
Pension institutions and annuities
            in Denmark
This paper considers the overall
            structure of the Danish pension system, reviews the relative
            role of different types of pension institutions, and
            discusses their asset allocation strategies and investment
            performance. The paper also examines the regulation and
            supervision of providers of pension services, the growing
            reliance on risk-based supervision, and the application of
            the so-called contribution principle. The Danish pension
            system includes a modest universal social pension with a
            supplement for low-income pensioners and near universal
            participation in occupational and personal pensions that are
            primarily based on defined contribution plans. The annuity
            market is well developed: 50 percent of annual contributions
            are allocated to the purchase of deferred annuities, while
            immediate annuities are also purchased at or even after
            retirement. However, detailed comprehensive data on the rate
            of annuitization are lacking. Distinct features of the
            Danish pension system include the widespread use of profit
            participating contracts with minimum guaranteed benefits and
            regular provision of bonuses, covering both the accumulation
            and payout phases, and extensive use of group deferred
            annuity contracts. A new traffic light system with periodic
            stress testing has resulted in greater emphasis on asset
            liability matching and hedging strategies by pension
            institutions and a shift in investment policies in favor of
            foreign bonds and long-term swap contracts.
Developing countries and enforcement
            of trade agreements : why dispute settlement is not enough
Poor countries are rarely challenged in
            formal World Trade Organization trade disputes for failing
            to live up to commitments, reducing the benefits of their
            participation in international trade agreements. This paper
            examines the political-economic causes of the failure to
            challenge poor countries, and discusses the static and
            dynamic costs and externality implications of this failure.
            Given the weak incentives to enforce World Trade
            Organization rules and disciplines against small and poor
            members, bolstering the transparency function of the World
            Trade Organization is important for making trade agreements
            more relevant to trade constituencies in developing
            countries. Although the paper focuses on the World Trade
            Organization system, the arguments also apply to reciprocal
            North-South trade agreements.
Bypassing health providers : the
            quest for better price and quality of health care in Chad
This paper investigates
            individuals' bypassing behavior in the health sector in
            Chad and the determinants of individuals' facility
            choice. The authors introduce a new way to measure bypassing
            using the patients' own knowledge of alternative health
            providers available to them instead of assuming that
            information as previously done. The authors analyze how
            perceived health care quality and prices impact
            patients' bypassing decisions. The analysis uses data
            from a Quantitative Service Delivery Survey in Chad's
            health sector carried out in 2004. The survey covers 281
            primary health care centers and 1,801 patients. The matching
            of facility data and patient data allows the analysis to
            control for a wide range of important patient and facility
            characteristics, such as income, severity of illness,
            quality of health care, or price of services. The findings
            show that income inequalities translate into health service
            inequalities. There is evidence of two distinct types of
            bypassing activities in Chad: (1) patients from low-income
            households bypass high-quality facilities they cannot afford
            to go to low-quality facilities, and (2) rich individuals
            bypass low-quality facilities and aim for more expensive
            facilities that also offer a higher quality of care. These
            significant differences in patients' facility choices
            are observed across income groups as well as between rural
            and urban areas.
Services trade and growth
The competitiveness of firms in open
            economies is increasingly determined by access to low-cost
            and high-quality producer services - telecommunications,
            transport and distribution services, financial
            intermediation, etc. This paper discusses the role of
            services in economic growth, focusing in particular on
            channels through which openness to trade in services may
            increase productivity at the level of the economy as a
            whole, industries and the firm. The authors explore what
            recent empirical work suggests could be done to enhance
            comparative advantage in the production and export of
            services and how to design policy reforms to open services
            markets to greater foreign participation in a way that
            ensures not just greater efficiency but also greater equity
            in terms of access to services.
Finding missing markets (and a
            disturbing epilogue) : evidence from an export crop adoption
            and marketing intervention in Kenya
In much of the developing world, many
            farmers grow crops for local or personal consumption despite
            export options that appear to be more profitable. Thus many
            conjecture that one or several markets are missing. This
            paper reports on a randomized controlled trial conducted by
            DrumNet in Kenya that attempts to help farmers adopt and
            market export crops. DrumNet provides smallholder farmers
            with information about how to switch to export crops, makes
            in-kind loans for the purchase of the agricultural inputs,
            and provides marketing services by facilitating the
            transaction with exporters. The experimental evaluation
            design randomly assigns pre-existing farmer self-help groups
            to one of three groups: (1) a treatment group that receives
            all DrumNet services, (2) a treatment group that receives
            all DrumNet services except credit, or (3) a control group.
            After one year, DrumNet services led to an increase in
            production of export oriented crops and lower marketing
            costs; this translated into household income gains for new
            adopters. However, one year after the study ended, the
            exporter refused to continue buying the cash crops from the
            farmers because the conditions of the farms did not satisfy
            European export requirements. DrumNet collapsed in this
            region as farmers were forced to sell to middlemen and
            defaulted on their loans. The risk of such events may
            explain, at least partly, why many seemingly more profitable
            export crops are not adopted.
Bank financing to small and
            medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Colombia
The objective of this paper is to shed
            light on current trends and policy challenges in the
            financing of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by
            banks in Colombia. The paper is motivated by the
            well-documented financing gap for SMEs, whose causes are
            complex and multi-dimensional. Based on data collection and
            interviews with the authorities, a representative sample of
            banks, and other relevant entities, the authors analyze the
            evolution and characteristics of this market in recent
            years. Bank financing to SMEs is becoming a strategic
            segment for Colombian credit institutions. The current
            business and risk management models for SME lending are
            still relatively underdeveloped, but greater sophistication
            is expected as the market matures. Important institutional
            and policy constraints to SME lending remain, but are not
            yet binding. In order to address these constraints before
            they "begin to bite", the authors identify and
            describe a potential policy reform agenda.
Are there lessons for Africa from
            China's success against poverty
At the outset of China's reform
            period, the country had a far higher poverty rate than for
            Africa as a whole. Within five years that was no longer
            true. This paper tries to explain how China escaped from a
            situation in which extreme poverty persisted due to failed
            and unpopular policies. While acknowledging that Africa
            faces constraints that China did not, and that context
            matters, two lessons stand out. The first is the importance
            of productivity growth in smallholder agriculture, which
            will require both market-based incentives and public
            support. The second is the role played by strong leadership
            and a capable public administration at all levels of government.
Where in the world are you Assessing
            the importance of circumstance and effort in a world of
            different mean country incomes and (almost) no migration
Suppose that all people in the world are
            allocated only two characteristics: country where they live
            and income class within that country. Assume further that
            there is no migration. This paper shows that 90 percent of
            variability in people's global income position
            (percentile in world income distribution) is explained by
            only these two pieces of information. Mean country income
            (circumstance) explains 60 percent, and income class (both
            circumstance and effort) 30 percent of global income
            position. The author finds that about two-thirds of the
            latter number is due to circumstance (approximated by the
            estimated parental income class under various social
            mobility assumptions), which makes the overall share of
            circumstance unlikely to be less than 75-80 percent. On
            average, "drawing" one-notch higher income class
            (on a twenty-class scale) is equivalent to living in a 12
            percent richer country. Once people are allocated their
            income class, it becomes important, not only whether the
            country they are allocated to is rich or poor, but whether
            it is egalitarian or not. This is particularly important for
            the people who "draw" low or high classes; for the
            middle classes, the country's income distribution is
            much less important than mean country income.