rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
4 specific firm at the request of the employer. The permit application must specify the prospective employee, his/her country of origin, the job to be perforrned and the duration of the job. The number of permits granted to employers is subject to a dependency ceiling, or dependency ratio, which is defined as the maximum share of foreign workers in a firm's total employment. Dependency ceilings are set for each sector and are uniform across firms. Although this restriction is unduly rigid, since it imposes a single limit that is unlikely to be optimal for all firms within a sector, the Singapore authorities apparently have the capacity to monitor and enforce it.<sup>2</sup> The four permit types are: (i) work permit for unskilled workers; (ii) work permit for skilled workers; (iii) employment pass; and (iv) entry/re-entry pernmit (see Table I for a detailed summary). Higher levies apply to the less-skilled categories, thus discouraging over-reliance on cheap unskilled foreign labor.

**Work permit for unskilled workers.** Unskilled workers who fall below a maximum salary cap equal to S$2,000 per month (equivalent to US$1,190 per month) are eligible for a work permit.<sup>3</sup> Durations can last up to two years and are renewable up to a cumulative total of 4 years. The monthly fee for an unskilled work permit starts at S$330 (US$196), which applies to the service and harbor craft sectors, domestic workers (e.g. maids, gardeners) and manufacturing firms whose dependency ratio is under 40 percent. For employees of manufacturing firms who fall between the dependency ratios of 40 and 50 percent, the monthly fee is S$400 (manufacturing firms are subject to a two-tiered dependency ceiling). The maximum fee, equal to S$470 per month, is applicable to construction workers. Employers are required to post a S$5,000 (almost US$3,000) security bond for each worker, in order to guarantee repatriation following the expiration of the permit. Additional restrictions to dissuade perrnanent settlement of unskilled foreign workers include limits to personal freedoms such as prohibiting reunion of workers' dependents, marriage to a Singapore national and pregnancy. The extreme restriction of personal liberties is illustrated by the fact that women are subject to mandatory pregnancy tests and are deported in the case of a positive result. Workers holding unskilled work permits are ineligible for permanent residence and must leave the country within 7 days of permit expiry, upon threat of deportation. The dependency ratios are lowest for services, at 1:3 (one foreign worker for every three

> 2 A flexible system of tradable dependency ceilings could achieve a more efficient allocation of foreign workers that responds to firm-specific needs while achieving the same aggregate foreign employment objective. There is a rich literature on the related concept of tradable pollution rights.

> 3 Throughout the paper, conversions from Singapore to U.S. dollars are calculated using the average exchange rate over the first three quarters of 1998 equal to 1.68S$/US$ (International Monetary Fund, 1998).
- 12 -

1.12 Political Overtones. Government involvement in the provision of urban services may also be influenced by contingent political considerations, especially in metropolitan areas and provincial capitals which represent large and visible pools of voting power. Numerous countries of Latin America have recently introduced democratic institutions and their governments are increasingly dependent on the outcome of popular elections."/1 But even governments which are apporently less conditioned by democratic consensus show a concern with the political restiveness of urban communities, with the organized claims of urban workers for minimum wage increase or larger fringe benefits, with the street riots engendered by proposed adjustments of bus fares or utility tariffs or from the mob protests stemming from the service deficiencies or uncertain tenure of large squatter settlements./1

1.13 Fiscal Impact of Urban Services Provision. As the subnational provision of urban services acquired increasing weight in public budgets it also became the object of growing concern by fiscal economists. Examination of public finance statistics reveals that in some countries, like Argentina, Brazil and Colombia,5' about one third of all government spending is financed through subnational government budgets (see Table 1.13) and that this type of expenditures accounts for a share of aggregate government deficit which is as large, and often larger than that of all public enterprises combined (Table 3.1). In addition, a new perspective on the performance of urban economies has gained ground, recognizing that they play an essential role in national recovery and financial adjustment. This realization shed a new light on the status of intergovernmental fiscal relations. The main objectives of the reforms under consideration are to achiave (i) better control and predictability over the volume of annual transfers to subnational governments; (ii) greater accountability of local authorities for the use of the resources transferred; (iii) improved financial planning, budgeting, and programming activities of the regional and local governments; and (iv) promotion of fiscal effort and cost awareness among subnational authorities.

- 1/ Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Uruguay have adopted democratic rule during the last decade.

- j4/ Hernando de Soto provides a vivid account of social struggles in Lima in his book: El Otro Sendero (Editorial El Barrancr,, L'ma 1986).

- 1/ By contrast, the share of subnational expenditures is very small in all other countries examined, including Mexico and Venezuela which, despite their size remain highly centralized in this respect.
Table 6: Impact of therapy on mental health outcomes.

||(1)<br>**Prim**<br>_Minimal d_|(2)<br>**ary**<br>_epression_|(3)|(4)<br>_D_|(5)<br>**Secondary**<br>_iscrete scor_|(6)<br><br>_es_|(7)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||=1 if<br>PHQ8_≤_4|=1 if<br>GHQ12_<_3|PHQ8|GHQ12|Self-<br>Esteem|Resilience|Locus of<br>control|
|_Panel A: Rapid Resurvey _|_(immediate _|_post-interven_|_tion)_|||||
|IPT-G|0.031|0.061|-0.354|-0.484|-0.037|0.078|0.059|
||(0.022)|(0.024)|(0.297)|(0.193)|(0.175)|(0.265)|(0.136)|
|Control mean|0.256|0.256|8.198|5.002|17.755|43.136|5.123|
|Control SD|0.437|0.437|4.842|3.166|3.599|4.789|3.242|
|Observations|1669|1669|1669|1669|1610|1608|1610|
|H0: IPT-G=0 p-values|0.172|0.011|0.236|0.014|0.833|0.770|0.664|
|FDR adj. q-values|0.172|0.023|0.590|0.069|0.833|0.833|0.833|
|_Panel B: Midline (12 mo_|_nths follow-_|_up)_||||||
|IPT-G|0.054|0.054|-0.404|-0.181|-|-|-|
||(0.020)|(0.024)|(0.277)|(0.170)||||
|Control mean|0.184|0.278|9.226|4.900|-|-|-|
|Control SD|0.388|0.449|5.137|3.235||||
|Observations|1001|1001|1001|1001||||
|H0: IPT-G=0 p-values|0.009|0.030|0.149|0.293|-|-|-|
|FDR adj. q-values|0.017|0.030|0.293|0.293||||
|_Panel C: Endline (24 mo_|_nths follow-_|_up)_||||||
|IPT-G|0.004|0.014|0.275|0.222|-0.085|0.094|-0.185|
||(0.027)|(0.027)|(0.437)|(0.226)|(0.224)|(0.304)|(0.107)|
|Control mean|0.248|0.285|8.919|4.935|13.111|43.454|6.075|
|Control SD|0.432|0.452|5.529|3.482|3.163|5.292|2.838|
|Observations|901|884|901|884|873|833|882|
|H0: IPT-G=0 p-values|0.889|0.597|0.532|0.329|0.704|0.759|0.088|
|FDR adj. q-values|0.889|0.889|0.759|0.759|0.759|0.759|0.441|

Notes: This table shows ITT estimates of the impact of IPT-G on the primary and secondary mental health outcomes, comparing the control group to the IPT-G only group; The full sample is used in Panel A as the Cash treatment arm was implemented after the Rapid Resurvey; All regression models include randomization block fixed effects centered and fully interacted with treatment; Standard errors clustered at the club level in parentheses; Estimates at endline are weighted to account for the probability of selection for intensive tracking; Columns 1-2 show results for the primary outcomes, indicators for whether the PHQ-8 score is _≤_ 4 or the GHQ-12 score is _<_ 3; Columns 3-7 show results for the secondary outcomes, the PHQ-8 and GHQ-12 raw scores, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale, the Child and Youth Resilience Measure-Revised, and Locus of Control, all in terms of their raw scores; The rows marked as _H0:..._ show the p-value for a t-test of the indicated null hypothesis on the regression coefficients and the corresponding q-values adjusting for the false discovery rate within primary and secondary outcomes (primary and secondary) and per round, as per Benjamini and Hochberg (1995); Sample size differences across outcomes are due to shorter tracking questionnaires being administered to difficult-to-reach subsets of CRs.

36
survey, individuals who answer negatively can be labeled as truly returned migrants. It is important to ask further about the activities of a returned migrant in order to establish that the individual is truly a return migrant committed to staying.

Governments may want to encourage return migration, as migrants come back with valuable human and social capital acquired abroad. If programs exist to encourage return migration, such as job training or rural development programs, then the questionnaire should explicitly ask about whether migrants took part in any such programs. However, one might also want to know about the likelihood of return for current out-migrants, which is difficult to determine without a survey in the destination country. One can add questions to the survey about the integration of the migrant in the destination country or area. Specifically, one can ask whether or not the spouse lives with the migrant, if the migrant has children who were born or live at the destination, how often the migrant returns home, and whether or not the migrant has investments at home. If children live with migrants away from home, in cases of international migration or countries where multiple languages are spoken, one should also ask whether or not children living at the destination speak the native language.

In addition, migration itself can be affected by changing opportunities at potential destinations. As the populations of developed countries age, many developed-country governments realize that migrants can help fill gaps in their labor market that native workers would not fill, particularly prime-age workers. As migrants usually keep close ties to the households and communities they leave, policies that encourage temporary migration followed by a return can benefit both the source and destination countries.

33
- Fujita, M, P. Krugman, and A. Venables. 1999. The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions and International Trade. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA..

- Hall, Robert E., and Charles Jones 1999.  “Why Do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output per Worker than Others?”  Quarterly Journal of Economics, volume 114: ( February): 83-116.

- Hallward-Driemeier, M. S. Wallsten and L. Xu, 2003, “The Investment Climate and the Firm: Firm Level Evidence from China,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3003.

- Haltiwanger, J. and H. Schweiger. 2005. “Allocative Efficiency and Business Climate,” mimeo, University of Maryland, January.

- Henderson, V., A. Kuncoro and M. Turner (1995), “Industrial development in cities. Journal of Political Economy”, 103, 1067-1090.

- Knack, Steven and Philip Keefer.1995.  “Institutions and Economic Performance:  Cross Country Tests Using Alternative Measures.”  Economics and Politics 7:207-227

Krugman, P.1991. “Increasing Returns and Economic Geography.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 99, pp.483-499.

- Lall, S.V., Z. Shalizi and U. Deichmann. (2004). “Agglomeration Economies and Productivity in Indian Industry.” Journal of Development Economics, 73, 2, 643673, 2004.

Lall, S.V. and S. Chakravorty .2005. “Industrial Location and Spatial Inequality: Theory and Evidence from India”. Review of Development Economics, 9, 47-68, 2005.

Levenson, A. and K. Willard. 2000. “Do Firms Get the Financing they Want? Measuring Credit Rationing Experienced by Small Businesses in the U.S., Small Business Economics, vol. 14, pp. 83-94.

- Levinsohn, James and Amil Petrin 2003.  “Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables.” Review of Economic Studies, vol . 70 (2), pp. 317-342

- Olley, Steven and Ariel Pakes 1996.  “The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry.”  Econometrica, 64: 1263-1297

36
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# **1 Introduction**

In spite of great strides since the late 1990s, low-income country exports are still marginal in world trade and suffer from various vulnerabilities, ranging from low unit values to volatility, concentration and low survival (see for example Fugazza and Molina 2009). Low survival is not necessarily a sign of welfare loss if it reflects strong experimentation at the extensive margin, but it can be inefficient if sunk costs of entry and exit are substantial, as suggested by the work of Das, Robert and Tybout (2007). In particular, the weak contribution of the extensive margin to overall export growth (Besedes and Prusa 2007) may be explained by high failure rates, the flip side of low survival. Thus, identifying drivers of the ‘sustainability margin’ of exports is important for our understanding of the constraints to low-income country export growth. This is what the present paper sets up to do, using a new transaction-level export dataset obtained from Customs authorities in four African countries.

The key contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we document, for a sample of four low income African countries, a set of stylized facts on export survival that is broadly consistent with the emerging firm-level literature, so far confined to OECD or middle-income countries. Second, we provide novel evidence on a key outcome of interest, namely survival beyond the first year after entry into export markets. In particular, we identify a cross-firm “synergy effect” suggestive of external economies in export survival, a potential driver of sustainability that has been hitherto overlooked in the literature. Increasing the number of exporters of similar products to the same destination exerts a positive externality on new entrants. That is, the more similar they are, the higher the survival probability of new entrants. When evaluating the mechanisms behind these results we find evidence consistent with the existence of information spillovers driving them. For a Senegalese exporter, for instance, the probability of surviving past the first year (22% in 2001) would rise to 26% if the number of national competitors selling the same product (product identified at HS 6 digits) on the same destination market were to double from the baseline 22 to 44.

Our results may help explain a finding highlighted in Easterly, Resheff and Schwenkenberg (2009), namely, that national export success often takes the form of ‘big hits’, with one narrow export item suddenly growing rapidly.

2
Self-employment earnings are lower than wages, while more risky entrepreneurship potentially brings more reward. It is more complex to measure earnings from selfemployment as such information relies mostly on what people report (unless a full analysis of their business is done). The LFS however attempts to measure such earnings. Own-account workers earn on average about 80 percent of what wage workers earn (Table 20). An even greater share of these workers is therefore likely to be low-wage earners. Employers on the other hand earn on average much more than wage workers, but their earnings are much more volatile. This is consistent with this sort of employment being more risky than wage employment, but potentially more rewarding.

**Table 20: Hourly earnings by employment status (2009)**

||Mean<br>Thousand VND|Std. Dev.|Median|Frequency|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Employer|22.2|57.6|13.9|2273176|
|Self-account worker|9.1|35.8|6.1|21156565|
|Wage worker|11.2|10.1|8.8|15956925|
|Member of cooperative|6.7|4.8|6.9|51772.2|
|Others|5.9|7.7|5.2|35969.1|
|Total|10.7|30.4|7.4|39474407|

_Source: (LFS, 2009)_ Average hourly wages are not significantly different for underemployed in selfemployment compared with other self-employed (Table A 1). But ethnic wage differentials observed for wage workers hold for the self-employed: non-Kinh selfemployed earn on average 64 percent of the earnings of Kinh self-employed workers. The gender earnings differential is slightly more marked for the Kinh ethnic group: women are paid 76.8 percent of men’ hourly earnings, while non-Kinh women earn 79.4 percent of what non-Kinh men earn on average (LFS, 2009). Young self-employed are paid 78 percent of the earnings of adults.

Employers’ earnings are very variable and it is difficult to find any significant differentials by sector or other firms characteristics. However, on average they are better paid than wage workers and self-account workers in all sectors. Self-account workers do well in all sectors compared to wage workers, and they are paid significantly less only in the manufacturing sector.

26
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Comparing the characteristics of SME financing across countries, we find many significant differences (Table 3). In fact, we find more differences comparing SME financing features across countries than the differences we unveiled in SME versus large firm financing. In particular, we find that the share of loans to small and medium-sized firms relative to total loans and the percentage of investment loans are significantly lower among developing countries, while loan fees and interest rates on both small and medium-sized firm loans are significantly higher in these countries, relative to developed countries.

There also are some differences in SME financing characteristics across bank ownership types, but these are less significant than what we found comparing developed and developing countries (Table 4). In particular, the share of applications approved by foreign banks is statistically lower while their loans fees are statistically higher than those observed for government-owned banks. At the same time, the share of secured loans is higher among foreign relative to domestic-owned banks. Relative to government-owned banks, private banks have a lower share of secured loans, higher fees, and higher interest rates. It should be noted, however, that differences in fees and interest rates are only significant at 10%.

Summarizing, banks are less exposed and charge higher interest rates and fees to SMEs relative to large firms. At the same time, banks experience higher non-performing loans from lending to SMEs. Though there are some differences in SME financing across government, private, and foreign-owned banks, the most significant differences are found comparing banks in developed and developing countries. Banks in developing countries tend to provide a lower share of investment loans and to charge higher fees and interest rates. Overall, the evidence suggests that the lending environment is more important in shaping bank financing to SMEs than firm size or bank ownership type.

# **VI. Conclusions**

This paper reports on a survey of banks around the world to document the state of SME financing across countries and to compare it to large firm financing, wherever possible. We find that across countries, banks perceive serving SMEs as a profitable endeavor and almost all banks have SME clients. Though we find significant differences in exposure, lending practices, business models, drivers and obstacles of SME finance for banks operating in developed vis-à15