rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Understanding forests'
            contribution to poverty alleviation : a framework for
            interventions in forested areas
This paper develops a broad framework to
            conceptualize the multiple ways forests contribute to
            poverty reduction and inform interventions in forest
            landscapes. The paper identifies five key strategies for
            reducing poverty in forest landscapes: (a) improvements in
            the productivity of forest land and labor; (b) strengthened
            community, household, and women's rights over forests
            and land; (c) regional complementary investments in
            institutions, infrastructure, and public services that
            facilitate poverty reduction for the forest poor; (d)
            increased access to markets for timber or non-timber forest
            products; and (e) mechanisms that enhance and enable the
            flow of benefits from forest ecosystem services to the poor.
            The practical utility of the framework is tested through a
            portfolio review of forestry lending by the World Bank
            Group, the largest public investor in the forestry sector.
            The paper concludes with a discussion of some key issues
            that need to be addressed for forest-related investments in
            poverty reduction to succeed.
Sustainable development goal
            diagnostics : the case of the Arab Republic of Egypt
The United Nations 2030 Agenda and the
            Sustainable Development Goals are comprehensive and holistic
            in nature, encompassing 17 goals and 169 targets covering
            economic, social, and environmental dimensions of
            development. Countries face the challenge of translating the
            Sustainable Development Goals into feasible and realistic
            development plans. This paper provides a simple analytical
            framework to assist countries in prioritizing across
            competing Sustainable Development Goals and evaluating data
            availability to monitor them. The paper offers an analysis
            of potential financial resources that can be used to finance
            the investments needed to implement the 2030 Agenda. It uses
            cross-country regressions of the Sustainable Development
            Goals to benchmark a country's current outcomes against
            those of other countries, given levels of gross national
            income per capita, and projects its levels in 2030 if a
            statistically significant relationship exists with gross
            national income per capita. The paper applies the framework
            to the Arab Republic of Egypt and as such, summarizes
            Egypt's progress on the Sustainable Development Goals
            since 2000 and projects expected values for the attainment
            of future targets by 2030; (b) provides an assessment of
            Egypt's current capacity to produce the data needed to
            monitor the Sustainable Development Goals, and (c) assesses
            options for increasing financing for development. Finally,
            the paper compares Egypt's economic condition and
            trends with those of its peers, the Republic Korea and Poland.
Rural roads and local economic development
Nearly one billion people worldwide live
            in rural areas without access to the paved road network.
            This paper measures the impacts of India's $40 billion
            national rural road construction program using regression
            discontinuity and data covering every individual and firm in
            rural India. The main effect of new feeder roads is to allow
            workers to obtain nonfarm work. However, there are no major
            changes in consumption, assets or agricultural outcomes.
            Nonfarm employment in the village expands only slightly,
            suggesting the new work is found outside of the village.
            Even with better market connections, remote areas may
            continue to lack economic opportunities.
Inequality and economic growth : the
            role of initial income
This paper estimates a panel model in
            which the relationship between inequality and gross domestic
            product per capita growth depends on countries' initial
            incomes. Estimates of the model show that the relationship
            between inequality and gross domestic product per capita
            growth is significantly decreasing in countries'
            initial incomes. The results from instrumental variables
            regressions show that in low-income countries, transitional
            growth is boosted by greater income inequality. In
            high-income countries, inequality has a significant negative
            effect on transitional growth. For the median country in the
            world that in 2015 had a purchasing power parity gross
            domestic product per capita of around US$10,000,
            instrumental variables estimates predict that a 1 percentage
            point increase in the Gini coefficient decreases gross
            domestic product per capita growth over a five-year period
            by over 1 percentage point; the long-run effect on the level
            of gross domestic product per capita is around -5 percent.
Transport connectivity, Medical
            supplies, and people's health care access : evidence
            from Madagascar
Health care access is a challenge in
            rural areas in Africa. On the demand side, rural people are
            often poor, and transport connectivity is typically bad in
            rural and remote areas. Because of limited transport
            connectivity, the quality of health care services provided
            is also often compromised. In Madagascar, the poor condition
            of the road network has long hampered the sustainability of
            the medical supply chain in rural areas. The paper shows
            that people's demand for health care services is
            affected not only by local transport connectivity, but also
            availability of medical supplies at the health facility
            level, which is also determined by primary and secondary
            road network connectivity. This in turn further suppresses
            people's demand in rural areas. The results also
            indicate that it is important to ensure financial
            affordability among the poor, which is found to be one of
            the most crucial constraints.
Do politically connected firms
            innovate, contributing to long-term economic growth
This paper presents new evidence that
            cronyism reduces long-term economic growth by discouraging
            firms' innovation activities. The analysis is based on
            novel establishment survey data from The Arab Republic of
            Egypt which provides information on establishments'
            political connections, their innovation activities, and
            their access to policy privileges. The analysis finds that
            the probability that firms invest in products new to the
            firm increases from under 1 percent for politically
            connected firms to over 7 percent for unconnected firms. The
            results are robust across different innovation measures.
            Despite innovating less, politically connected firms are
            more capital intensive, as they face lower marginal cost of
            capital due to the generous policy privileges they receive,
            including exclusive access to input subsidies, public
            procurement contracts, favorable exchange rates, and
            financing from politically connected banks. These privileges
            are largest when compared with their direct competitors
            operating in the same 4-digit sectors. The findings suggest
            that connected firms out-rival their competitors by lobbying
            for privileges instead of innovating. In the aggregate,
            these policy privileges reduce Egypt's long-term growth
            potential by diverting resources away from innovation to the
            inefficient capital accumulation of a few large, connected
            firms. A wide array of supporting evidence suggests that
            this effect is causal and not due to selection.
Taking stock of the political
            economy of power sector reforms in developing countries : a
            literature review
The power sector reform experiences of
            developing countries vary greatly. To help explain this from
            a political economy perspective, this paper reviews several
            dozen statistical analyses, multi-country case studies, and
            development practice publications. The frame of reference is
            the model of market-oriented reforms that became a global
            norm in the 1990s. Findings are organized in terms of the
            history, theory, motives, processes and outcomes of reforms.
            Market orientation emerged around the 1980s as part of a
            shift in economic theory and policy away from state control,
            and was expected to improve efficiency and investments.
            Reform advocates never took political economy issues into
            full consideration. Yet, policy makers have had
            sociopolitical as well as technical motives for reform, such
            as crisis response. International norms and competition for
            foreign investment and trade pulled governments to model
            reforms, while development partners pushed them as a
            condition of aid. Reform implementation has been
            characterized by strong tensions among different public and
            private interests. Concretely, 1990s model reforms were
            based on a logic of depoliticizing pricing and investment
            decisions; often placing policy makers in a conflict of
            interest situation. Thus, the political costs and risks of
            reform have often exceeded the benefits perceived by local
            decision makers, especially as reforms did not generally
            result in immediate benefits for citizens. In practice,
            incremental, inclusive processes may be better than quick
            and stealthy reforms that sidestep stakeholders'
            concerns. While there was limited evidence of efficacy at
            the time the reforms were implemented, ex post the outcomes
            of reforms are ambiguous, as improvements in some areas have
            been offset by negative results elsewhere. For increasing
            access to electricity and clean energy, 1990s model reforms
            may help, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient, nor
            did they focus on these objectives. In conclusion, the
            success or failure of policy prescriptions such as 1990s
            model reforms are contingent on dynamic, context-specific
            institutions as well as factors beyond the sector. More work
            is needed on integrated, flexible approaches to think and
            work politically in the sector, and to account for new
            technology and diverse sector development objectives.
Productivity shocks and repayment
            behavior in rural credit markets : a framed field experiment
Improving rural credit markets requires
            a good understanding of the root causes of market failures
            and taking necessary steps to address them. This paper
            investigates the role of productivity shocks in
            borrowers' repayment choices. Using a framed field
            experiment that simulated a repeated interaction in an input
            credit market, the analysis finds strong evidence that
            negative productivity shocks lead to higher default, even
            when they do not induce negative returns. This relationship
            is robust to the presence of an information exchange system
            enforcing dynamic incentives. The findings suggest that
            recurrent agricultural production shocks resulting from the
            negative effects of climate change could exacerbate failures
            in rural credit markets, undermining hard-won progress
            toward rural financial inclusion.
Who are America's star firms
There is wide spread concern about a
            growing gap between top-performing publicly listed firms and
            the rest of the economy and the implications of this for
            rising inequality in the U.S. Using conventional return
            calculations, there is indeed a widening gap between star
            firms (defined as those in top 10 percent of return on
            invested capital in any year) and the rest of the economy
            over time, especially in industries that rely on a skilled
            labor force. However, once measurement error in intangible
            capital is accounted for, this gap shrinks dramatically and
            has not been widening over time. While pricing power, as
            measured by markups, predicts star firm status, a large
            fraction of star firms have low markups and there is no
            evidence that star firms are cutting output or investment
            more than other firms for the same markup. The effect of
            star status is persistent. Five years later, star firms have
            higher growth, profits, and Tobin’s Q. A small subset of
            exceptional firms may pose more pressing policy concerns
            with much higher returns and the potential to exercise
            market power in the future.
Inequality in earnings and adverse
            shocks in early adulthood
The inequality of opportunity theory
            postulates that achievement gaps arising because of factors
            beyond the individual's control are morally
            unacceptable and should therefore be compensated by society.
            These factors or circumstances range from the
            individual's social background to adverse shocks. Most
            studies have focused on the contribution of social
            background and genetic and other childhood-related
            circumstances to inequality of opportunity. Borrowing
            insights based on the impressionable years hypothesis in
            social psychology, this paper tests how exposure to adverse
            shocks, such as war, in early adulthood (ages 18-25) affects
            the individual's future labor earnings and subsequently
            contributes to earnings inequality. The application to the
            Democratic Republic of Congo is associated with two
            significant takeaways. First, all else equal, individuals
            who experience intensely violent conflict at a young age
            earn significantly less than their counterparts. Second,
            after controlling for the individual's social
            background, the share of overall inequality in earnings
            accounted for by the experience of adverse shocks in early
            adulthood is not negligible, ranging from 2.5 to 3.5
            percent. These insights broaden our understanding in the
            discussion on inequality of opportunity and represent a new
            path in the design of allocation policies that seek to
            reduce inequality and poverty.
Dynamics of off-farm employment in
            Sub-Saharan Africa : a gender perspective
Off-farm income constitutes a
            significant share of the household livelihood portfolios
            across Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, the determinants and
            dynamics of individuals' participation in off-farm
            employment activities have not received adequate attention
            due to the weaknesses in individual-level data collection
            and the lack of longitudinal studies. This paper uses
            national panel household survey data from Ethiopia, Malawi,
            Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda; provides empirical evidence
            on individual-level off-farm (wage and self) employment
            participation rates; analyzes the extent and drivers of
            entry into off-farm employment and continued employment; and
            conducts the analysis by gender and rural/urban location. A
            significant share of the rural and urban working-age
            individual population is found to participate in off-farm
            employment, ranging at the national level from 34 percent in
            Ethiopia to 58 percent in Malawi. Men participate in wage
            and self-employment to a significantly greater extent
            compared with women across time as well as within and across
            countries, apart from women's participation in non-farm
            enterprises being more common in Nigeria and Tanzania. The
            population weighted cross-country gender difference in
            off-farm employment stands at 9 percentage points, but this
            has declined over time in most countries. A substantial
            share of the population, amounting to about 39 million
            individuals across the five countries, is estimated to have
            entered and exited employment between 2010 and 2016,
            pointing to the dynamic nature of off-farm employment.
            Drivers of entry into off-farm employment and continued
            employment are country- and gender-specific, with
            demographic factors, occurrence of shocks, and job
            characteristics emerging as the most important determinants.
Long-term impacts of alternative
            approaches to increase schooling : evidence from a
            scholarship program in Cambodia
This paper reports on a randomized
            experiment to investigate the long-term effects of a primary
            school scholarship program in rural Cambodia. In 2008,
            fourth-grade students in 207 randomly assigned schools (103
            treatment, 104 control) received scholarships based on the
            students' academic performance in math and language or
            their level of poverty. Three years after the program's
            inception, an evaluation showed that both types of
            scholarship recipients had more schooling than
            nonrecipients; however, only merit-based scholarships led to
            improvements in cognitive skills. This new study reports
            impacts, nine years after program inception, on the
            educational attainment, cognitive skills, socioemotional
            outcomes, socioeconomic status and well-being, and labor
            market outcomes of individuals who are, on average, 21 years
            old. The results show that both types of scholarships led to
            higher long-term educational attainment (about 0.21-0.29
            grade level), but only merit-based scholarships led to
            improvements in cognitive skills (0.11 standard deviation),
            greater self-reported well-being (0.18 standard deviation),
            and employment probability (3.4 percentage points). Neither
            type of scholarship increased socioemotional skills. The
            results also suggest that there are labeling effects: the
            impacts of the scholarship types differ even for individuals
            with similar characteristics.
Measuring the Middle Class in
            Kazakhstan : A Subjective Approach
This paper proposes a model-based
            approach to estimate income boundaries for identifying the
            middle class in Kazakhstan over 2003-15. The approach
            exploits the subjective evaluation of Kazakhstan households
            about their social status, relating self-declared social
            class membership to income. Income data come from the
            Kazakhstan Household Budget Survey, which also includes a
            specific module on quality of life and perceived social
            status. As social status is intrinsically an ordinal
            response, the paper estimates a proportional odds model with
            income as the key explanatory variable. Although other
            factors influence the self-perception of being in the middle
            class, income is by far the most important determinant.
            Benchmarking on 2013, the estimated middle class lower bound
            is $14 at 2011 purchasing power parity and the upper bound
            is $52. The Kazakhstan middle class has increased massively
            in size and income concentration. The increase is
            essentially due to a growth effect rather than a
            redistributive cause.
Gender Gaps in Property Ownership in
            Sub-Saharan Africa
Women's ownership, use, and control
            over property matter for their well-being and agency and can
            influence outcomes for the second generation -- women's
            daughters and sons. Additionally, gender gaps in property
            ownership induce allocative inefficiencies and foregone
            economic output, thus having economywide implications. This
            paper uses data for 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to
            shine a spotlight on gaps between men and women in land and
            housing (property) ownership and analyze patterns across and
            within countries. The results indicate that men are about
            three times as likely as women to claim sole ownership over
            property. Gender gaps are smaller if joint ownership is
            taken into consideration, but still materially disadvantage
            women. Men are significantly more likely to own property
            than women even after controlling for a host of other
            factors. This paper is an important step toward a better
            understanding of gender gaps in property ownership in Africa
            and outlines an agenda for future data collection and
            analytic efforts.
The poverty effects of market concentration
This paper contributes to the limited
            literature on the welfare impacts of market concentration by
            developing a simple model that shows how exogenous
            variations in market power affect poverty. Increased market
            power leads to economy-wide welfare losses, because it
            raises the prices of goods and services for all agents in an
            economy and thus reduces the relative incomes of households,
            particularly among the poor. Declines in poverty in this
            context are only possible in the case wherein the poor have
            access to a share of oligopolistic rents. Although this
            scenario seems highly unlikely, this result has important
            implications for public policy, particularly for economies
            with less-than-perfect markets and social objectives of
            poverty eradication. This result suggest the possibility of
            taxing extranormal rents extracted by firms with market
            power and redistributing them through targeted lump-sum
            social transfers, thereby contributing to poverty reduction
            by mitigating welfare losses from the negative price effect.