rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Poverty and development : the Human
            Development Report and the World Development Report, 1990
After the "adjustment decade"
            of the 1980s, attention in the 1990s seems to be turning
            once again to longer-term issues of development -
            particularly of poverty alleviation. Just as the 1980s were
            heralded by a series of reports on adjustment, so the 1990s
            have seen two major reports on poverty: World Development
            Report 1990: Poverty, by the World Bank, and Human
            Development Report 1990 by the UNDP. The author presents an
            overview of conceptual issues and the best policies for
            alleviating poverty, based on a review of these two reports.
            He poses basic questions on the definition and measurement
            of poverty, looks at what has actually happened to poverty
            in developing countries in the last three decades, and
            reviews policies to help alleviate poverty. The consensus
            represented in these two reports, he concludes, offers hope
            that the polarization of policy analysts into
            "camps" is a thing of the past - and that policies
            for the 1990s can be built on fundamental agreement about
            the basics: (a) that poverty alleviation requires growth,
            but growth is not enough; (b) that growth must be
            broad-based and labor-intensive, and must go hand in hand
            with targeted basic social expenditures; and (c) that the
            international community must do its share, by supporting
            these efforts in the 1990s through greatly increased capital
            flows to development countries.
Quantifying the magnitude and
            severity of absolute poverty in the developing world in the mid-1980s
In counting the poor, and measuring the
            severity of absolute poverty, one faces a number of
            difficult questions. What poverty line should be used?
            Should one use the same poverty line across all countries?
            How should one adjust for differences across countries in
            the purchasing power of their currencies at official
            exchange rates? This paper proposes a methodology for
            addressing these questions and others, and gives aggregate
            results for 86 developing countries in the mid-1980s. The
            paper aims to make a necessarily rough but methodologically
            consistent assessment of the magnitude and severity of
            absolute poverty, based on recent available data. It
            suggests three possible interpretations of an "absolute
            poverty line" which might be considered appropriate for
            this purpose. It is followed by an empirical examination of
            poverty lines for a number of countries, both developing and
            developed. It discusses issues which arise in measuring
            poverty from readily available data on income distribution
            and outlines the approach used to measure poverty in
            countries for which such data are not available. The paper
            presents and discusses estimates of the prevalence and
            severity of absolute poverty in the developing countries in
            the mid-1980s. It also discusses some of the implications of
            these results, particularly their bearing on the prospects
            for future poverty alleviation.
Whither Hungary and the European communities
Recent political changes in Eastern
            Europe will help to cement improving economic relations with
            the European Communities (EC). Hungary has little
            alternative but to seek to continue strengthing these ties.
            It faces important supply constraints and needs injections
            of fresh capital to help it gear up to seize market
            opportunities. In the past, Hungary has been somewhere near
            the bottom of the EC's pyramid of privileges as far as
            tariff and non-tariff barrier (NTB) treatment are concerned.
            Hungary has been examining the options of applying for EC
            membership, European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
            membership, and examining other forms of association such as
            those the EC has with a number of Mediterranean countries.
            From a simulation exercise, the authors conclude that
            membership of the EC could lead to an expansion of Hungarian
            exports to the Communities of some 48 percent, with meats,
            iron and steel, fruit and vegetables, textiles, and clothing
            being the main sectors to gain. This results from setting
            tariffs to zero and eliminating non-tariff barriers. If EC
            or EFTA membership is ruled out, Hungary must seek a closer
            relationship with the EC, encompassing agriculture as well
            as manufactures, and covering tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
Adjustment programs and Bank support
            : rationale and main results
This paper reviews the rationale for
            programs and then evaluates the design, implementation, and
            effectiveness of Bank-supported adjustment programs and
            discusses lessons that have emerged from the analysis of
            adjustment problems and programs. In countries that are
            experiencing acute macroeconomic imbalances manifested in
            the form of high fiscal deficits, balance of payments crisis
            and high open or repressed inflation, adjustment should
            start with policy and institutional reforms to deal wtih the
            ultimate causes of the macroeconomic crisis. Once enough
            progress has been achieved in reducing inflation and the
            fiscal and balance of payments deficits, other structural
            reforms aimed at improving resource allocation and achieving
            sustainable and equitable growth should be attempted. Among
            the latter reforms, the most common are: public sector
            reforms, trade/domestic competition reforms and financial
            sector reforms. Labour market reforms are not as common as
            they should be. The Bank can assist the adjustment process
            by providing both finance and policy advice. Furthermore,
            the Bank helps countries in mobilizing other sources of
            finance. The ultimate success of the adjustment programs
            depends not only on getting the right policies in place but
            also on increasing investment -- including efficient public
            investment, saving and growth.
Government revenue from financial repression
This paper explores the theoretical
            underpinnings and empirical relevance to public finance of
            financial repression - of controls on international capital
            flows and on domestic financial intermediaries.  It
            concludes, in principle, countries should not resort to
            financial repression when they face no constraints on
            taxation, but such constraints as administrative cost and
            income distribution objectives might justify an implicit tax
            on domestic financial markets.  The revenue from financial
            repression can be substantial. The unweighted cross-country
            average is about 2 percent of GDP and 9 percent of total
            government revenue, but varies significantly among
            countries.  Reform aimed at liberalizing financial markets
            should first estimate what amount of government revenue
            comes from financial repression and provide for the revenue
            shortfall that will result from financial liberalization.
            Finally, this paper concludes that countries with higher
            rates of inflation tend to raise more revenue from financial
            repressions because the relative costs of foreign and
            domestic borrowing are influenced by the domestic
            currency's rate of depreciation, since domestic nominal
            interest rates are normally fixed administratively.
The transition to export-led growth
            in South Korea : 1954-1966
In analyzing the turning point in
            Korea's transition in the early 1960s from a strategy
            of import substitution to one of export-oriented industrial
            growth, the authors examine not just the economics of change
            but the politics of economic policy and reform - the
            incentives facing state and business elites and the
            institutional context in which they operated. Their analysis
            shows that the transition to export-led growth in South
            Korea was a product of the interplay of four factors:
            pressure from the United States; the dominance of the
            executive branch; institutional reform within the
            bureaucracy; and a restructuring of relations between the
            state and business. Conclusions are drawn about the role of
            outside pressure in policy reform, about the importance to
            reform administrative capability and organization, and about
            the politics of policy change.
Deposit insurance in developing countries
About a dozen developing countries have
            deposit insurance systems and several others are considering
            establishing them.  These systems are typically created to
            prevent contagious bank runs, to provide a formal national
            mechanism for handling failing banks, and to protect small
            depositors from losses when banks fail.  Without a deposit
            insurance system, many developing nations in recent years
            have extended implicit deposit protection to depositors on a
            discretionary, ad hoc basis.  Deposit insurance systems have
            several advantages over these implicit protection schemes.
            Deposit insurance probably gives the banking system more
            protection against bank runs, provides more protection for
            small depositors, and provides a faster, smoother
            administrative process.  On the other hand, deposit
            insurance probably creates more moral hazard for depositors,
            thereby contributing to the erosion of market discipline and
            increased bank risk-taking.  Deposit insurance also tends to
            be a more expensive mechanism for protecting depositors
            because it offers less freedom of action to policymakers
            than an implicit scheme. Finally, developing countries often
            do not adequately fund their deposit insurance schemes.  As
            a result, the systems often lack credibility in the
            marketplace and bank supervisors may be unable to close
            insolvent banks because the insurer would be unable to pay
            off insured depositors.
International capital mobility and
            the costs of U.S. import restraints
In a series of recent papers, Neary and
            others have established the importance of trade in factor
            services, especially capital, in determining the welfare
            effects of import restrictions by tariffs, QRs, and VERs. In
            the absence of induced terms-of-trade changes and rental
            rate effects, Neary demonstrates that international capital
            mobility raises the costs of tariff protection and lowers
            that of QRs and VERs. This paper examines the impact of
            international capital mobility on the welfare effects of
            import protection by tariff, QRs, and VERs. Generalizing the
            work of Neary and others to take explicit account of induced
            terms-of-trade and rental rate effects, this paper
            demonstrates that the qualitative influence of capital
            mobility on the costs of protection cannot be ascertained
            unambiguously. The aggregate welfare effects of import
            restraints for the U.S. are simulated under different
            assumptions about international capital mobility, and the
            influence of the size of the U.S. in world markets. The
            paper sets up an analytical model that indicates the general
            links between international capital mobility and the welfare
            effects of different forms of import restraint. It reports
            on the estimated welfare impact of international capital
            mobility on the welfare effects of U.S. import protection.
Restrictive labor practices in seaports
Containerization and modern bulk
            handling methods can substantially increase ship and labor
            productivity.  This paper argues that many ports have failed
            to change their labor practices and to accept the inevitable
            reduction in their labor force that technological advances
            call for.  Those ports are doubly penalized by incurring
            investment costs and continuing to pay labor as if earlier
            labor-intensive methods still applied.  The author analyzes
            limits on entry to work in the port, an exclusive definition
            of dock work, job demarcation to prevent interchanging
            labor, work-sharing requirements within groups that prevent
            specialization, work-extending practices, restrictive work
            hours, and restrictions on output.  The paper then analyzes
            how restrictive practices increase shipping costs and how
            employment would be affected if these practices were
            abolished.   Examples of three approaches to abolishing
            restrictive practices are given.
Inefficient private renegotiation of
            sovereign debt
The negotiation of sovereign debt
            repayments and of new loans after default may yield
            inefficient outcomes that justify intervention by creditor
            country governments and international financial
            institutions. The author analyzes possible distortions
            arising in renegotiations between private creditors and
            sovereign borrowers. He argues that legal privileges
            accorded to existing creditors in their home jurisdictions
            can distort the flow of resources for capital formation
            abroad. Seniority privileges for old lenders convey to them
            some of the social returns from new lending, reducing the
            potential rewards for those who might provide the new funds.
            Hence the author urges investigation of official alienation
            of these privileges, regulatory reform, and introduction of
            alternative financial instruments that embody opportunities
            for creditor commitment.
Industrial organization implications
            of QR trade regimes : evidence and welfare costs
Quantitative restrictions (QRs) are the
            most common form of protection in many developing countries.
            Often this type of protection emerges during balance of
            payments crises but, once in place, is not removed. Students
            of developing countries' foreign exchange regimes have
            long noted that QRs have deleterious effects beyond those
            that would emerge from calculations relying strictly on the
            "tariff equivalent" of quotas. So far most
            analysis has concentrated on quantifying the cost of
            rent-seeking activities which allegedly accompany QRs. The
            purpose of this paper is to extend this analysis by
            parametrizing two stylized observations that have often been
            noted about the manufacturing sector of QR-ridden foreign
            trade regimes: (a) unrealized economies of scale; and (2)
            lack of competition among domestic firms. The first arises
            because of the small size of the domestic market; the second
            arises because of the made-to-measure protection of QR trade
            regimes. This paper reviews evidence on linkages between
            firm behaviour, firm size and restrictiveness of the trade
            regime in semi-industrial developing countries and reports
            on simulations from a three sector model that explores the
            sensitivity of numerical estimates to the parameters
            describing foreign trade and firm behavior under increasing
            returns of scale.
What do alternative measures of
            comparative advantage reveal about the composition of
            developing countries' exports
Despite their extensive applications in
            research and policy studies, no product level comparisons
            had been made between Bela Balassa's
            "revealed" comparative advantage (RCA) index and
            indices associated with the National Bureau of Economic
            Research (NBER) that reflect the standard Hecksher-Ohlin
            theory of comparative advantage. The author conducted
            several empirical tests for developing countries'
            exports of manufactured products, partly to identify factors
            that often lead to differences between the two indices. The
            results show that products in which developing countries
            have achieved a revealed comparative advantage are highly
            concentrated in a broad group of labor-intensive products;
            for other items, their RCAs are generally below unity.
            Within the labor-intensive group, however, developing
            countries failed to develop a revealed comparative advantage
            for about half of the items. A regression model suggests
            that in the labor-intensive group, revealed comparative
            advantage falls as the requirements increase for natural
            resources, for physical capital, and for human capital -
            including higher per capita wages, and more professional or
            technical personnel.
Tax reform in Malawi
This paper examines Malawi's recent
            efforts to reform its tax system. Malawi embarked on a
            comprehensive tax reform with World Bank assistance in the
            latter half of the 1980s.  This paper concentrates on the
            problems in the revenue system that provided the impetus to
            reform, the nature of the solutions that were offered, and
            the issues raised in implementing the reforms.  Since many
            of these reforms are still being introduced into
            Malawi's economy, their ultimate success will have to
            await future analysis.  This paper gives an overview of
            Malawi's economy and tax system and discusses its
            evolution up to the time of the Bank's involvement in
            the mid-1980s.  The reform agenda is outlined and the
            implementation of that agenda to date is discussed.  The
            paper concludes with a brief set of lessons that can be
            learned from the Malawi experience.
Financing health services in Africa
            : an assessment of alternative approaches
This paper outlines a strategy for
            financing health services in sub-Saharan Africa. The
            individual components of the strategy are as follows:
            general tax revenues, international finance, a system of
            user charges, community finance, health insurance, and
            contributions from nongovernmental organizations, including
            the private sector. The author states that financial
            positions of public health care systems in sub-Saharan
            Africa would be greatly enhanced if governments in the
            region were to adopt policies that would use each of the
            above sources of finance. Since a strong financial base is a
            prerequisite for an effective health care system, such
            policies would considerably improve the health status of the
            population. It is important that for each country different
            policies be pursued at various levels of society, and in
            different sectors of the economy.
Improving the supply and use of
            essential drugs in sub-Saharan Africa
Few people in sub - Saharan Africa have
            access to essential drugs. And where drugs are available,
            they are inequitably distributed and improperly used.
            Shortages of drugs in Africa are caused not only by lack of
            funds, although in many countries this is the major reason.
            Poor utilization and wastage of drugs in public and private
            sectors are also responsible and can be improved; and the
            wastage of available foreign exchange can be reduced. While
            the private sector has a role to play, it is important to be
            realistic about its ability to serve the whole population
            and about the quality of the service it provides. Producing
            local drugs would need to be evaluated in a realistic manner
            taking account of individual country circumstances. Specific
            measures to improve selection, quantification, procurement,
            storage and distribution, and prescription and use of drugs
            have been implemented in a number of African countries,
            resulting in significant improvements in the availability of drugs.
Supporting safe motherhood : a
            review of financial trends : full report
This study is designed to measure
            financial trends and new initiatives in support of the Safe
            Motherhood (SM) Initiative, identify issues of statistical
            methodology that may constrain the analysis, and establish a
            baseline for 1988 against which to measure future financial
            trends. Global support for specific safe motherhood
            activities is limited. Funding for selected safe motherhood
            activities is estimated to have increased (in current
            dollars) from $691.5 million in 1986 to $818.8 million in
            1988. About half this amount was for so-called core
            activities, including family planning services. The
            magnitude of support for prevention of the complications of
            pregnancy is less certain. General health, population and
            nutrition sector flows increased substantially over the same
            period and estimated World Bank safe motherhood expenditures
            in 1989 are triple the previous year's total. New
            specific safe motherhood activities are beginning to emerge
            in the form of care for the complications of pregnancy,
            better secondary and tertiary facilities, training and
            promotional workshops. In conclusion, it is clear that
            policies to support maternal health are widely endorsed.
            However, the effectiveness of donor financing may require
            far greater attention to two special problems: (a) improving
            data on SM financial trends; and (b) strengthening recipient
            countries' capacity to activate project demand.