rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Migration, remittances, poverty, and
            human capital : conceptual and empirical challenges
This paper reviews common challenges
            faced by researchers interested in measuring the impact of
            migration and remittances on income, poverty, inequality,
            and human capital (or, in general, "welfare") as
            well as difficulties confronting development practitioners
            in converting this research into policy advice. On the
            analytical side, the paper discusses the proper formulation
            of a research question, the choice of the analytical tools,
            as well as the interpretation of the results in the presence
            of pervasive endogeneity in all decisions surrounding
            migration. Particular attention is given to the use of
            instrumental variables in migration research. On the policy
            side, the paper argues that the private nature of migration
            and remittances implies a need to carefully spell out the
            rationale for interventions. It also notices the lack of
            good migration data and proper evaluations of
            migration-related government policies. The paper focuses
            mainly on microeconomic evidence about international
            migration, but much of the discussion extends to other
            settings as well.
Are cash transfers made to women
            spent like other sources of income
How cash transfers made to women are
            used has important implications for models of household
            behavior and for the design of social programs. In this
            paper, the authors use the randomized introduction of an
            unconditional cash transfer to poor women in rural Ecuador
            to analyze the effect of transfers on the food Engel curve.
            There are two main findings. First, the authors show that
            households randomly assigned to receive Bono de Desarrollo
            Humano (BDH) transfers have a significantly higher food
            share in expenditures than those that were randomly assigned
            to the control group. Second, they show that the rising food
            share among BDH beneficiaries is found among households that
            have both adult males and females, but not among households
            that only have adult females. Bargaining power between men
            and women is likely to be important in mixed-adult
            households, but not among female-only households, where
            there are no men to bargain with. Finally, the authors show
            that within mixed-adult households, program effects are only
            significant in households in which the initial bargaining
            capacity of women was likely to be weak. This pattern of
            results is consistent with an increase in the bargaining
            power of women in households that received BDH transfers.
A ricardian analysis of the impact
            of climate change on African cropland
This study examines the impact of
            climate change on cropland in Africa. It is based on a
            survey of more than 9,000 farmers in 11 countries: Burkina
            Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Niger,
            Senegal, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The study uses
            a Ricardian cross-sectional approach in which net revenue is
            regressed on climate, water flow, soil, and economic
            variables. The results show that net revenues fall as
            precipitation falls or as temperatures warm across all the
            surveyed farms. In addition to examining all farms together,
            the study examined dryland and irrigated farms separately.
            Dryland farms are especially climate sensitive. Irrigated
            farms have a positive immediate response to warming because
            they are located in relatively cool parts of Africa. The
            study also examined some simple climate scenarios to see how
            Africa would respond to climate change. These uniform
            scenarios assume that only one aspect of climate changes and
            the change is uniform across all of Africa. In addition, the
            study examined three climate change scenarios from
            Atmospheric Oceanic General Circulation Models. These
            scenarios predicted changes in climate in each country over
            time. Not all countries are equally vulnerable to climate
            change. First, the climate scenarios predict different
            temperature and precipitation changes in each country.
            Second, it is also important whether a country is already
            hot and dry. Third, the extent to which farms are irrigated
            is also important.
Labor regulation and employment in
            India's retail stores
A new dataset of 1,948 retail stores in
            India compiled by the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys
            shows that 27 percent of the stores report labor regulations
            as a problem for their business. Using these data we analyze
            the effect of labor regulation on employment at the store
            level. We find that stricter labor regulation has a strong
            negative effect on employment. Our estimates show that labor
            reforms are likely to increase employment by 22 percent of
            the current level for an average store.
Landlockedness, infrastructure and
            trade : new estimates for central Asian countries
This paper assesses the impact of
            internal infrastructure and landlockedness on Central Asian
            trade using a panel gravity equation estimated on a large
            sample of countries (167 countries over 1992-2004). The
            panel structure of the dataset makes it possible to control
            for country-pair specific effects (as opposed to the usual
            importer and exporter effects) that would otherwise be
            captured by the coefficients of time-invariant variables
            such as distance or landlockness. Our findings highlight the
            need to pursue a dual policy agenda. First, transit
            corridors are regional public goods and should be managed as
            such through international cooperation. International
            Financial Institutions can -and do- play a key role in this
            regard through assistance, coordination and policy dialogue.
            Second, the Central Asian countries should actively seek
            diversification of their transit corridors to prevent the
            creation or maintenance of monopoly positions in transit and
            bottleneck points such as trans-shipment platforms.
Corruption, the business
            environment, and small business growth in India
This paper estimates a dynamic business
            growth equation on a sample of small-scale manufacturers.
            The results suggest that excessive labor regulation, power
            shortages, and problems of access to finance are significant
            influences on industrial growth in India. The expected
            annual sales growth rate of an enterprise is lower where
            labor regulation is greater, power shortages are more
            severe, and cash flow constraints are stronger. The effects
            of each of the three factors on business growth seem also to
            depend on a fourth element, namely, corruption.
            Specifically, labor regulation affects the growth only of
            enterprises for which corruption is not a factor in business
            decisions. By contrast, power shortages seem to be a drag on
            the growth only of enterprises self-reportedly held back by
            corruption. Lastly, sales growth is constrained by cash flow
            only in businesses that are not affected by labor
            regulation, power shortages, or corruption. The analysis
            uses corruption as a proxy for the quality of "property
            rights institutions" and considers labor regulation and
            small business financing as instances of "contracting
            institutions." The findings on the interaction between
            corruption and other aspects of business environment then
            seems to indicate that the quality of property rights
            institutions exerts more abiding influence on economic
            outcomes than the quality of contracting institutions.
            Moreover, there might also be a hierarchy among contracting
            institutions in their effect on manufacturing growth.
Measuring the economic impact of
            climate change on Ethiopian agriculture : Ricardian approach
This study uses the Ricardian approach
            to analyze the impact of climate change on Ethiopian
            agriculture and to describe farmer adaptations to varying
            environmental factors. The study analyzes data from 11 of
            the country's 18 agro-ecological zones, representing
            more than 74 percent of the country, and survey of 1,000
            farmers from 50 districts. Regressing of net revenue on
            climate, household, and soil variables show that these
            variables have a significant impact on the farmers' net
            revenue per hectare.The study carries out a marginal impact
            analysis of increasing temperature and changing
            precipitation across the four seasons. In addition, it
            examines the impact of uniform climate scenarios on
            farmers' net revenue per hectare. Additionally, it
            analyzes the net revenue impact of predicted climate
            scenarios from three models for the years 2050 and 2100. In
            general, the results indicate that increasing temperature
            and decreasing precipitation are both damaging to Ethiopian
            agriculture. Although the analysis did not incorporate the
            carbon fertilization effect, the role of technology, or the
            change in prices for the future, significant information for
            policy-making can be extracted.
Estimating global climate change
            impacts on hydropower projects : applications in India, Sri
            Lanka and Vietnam
The world is faced with considerable
            risk and uncertainty about climate change. Particular
            attention has been paid increasingly to hydropower
            generation in recent years because it is renewable energy.
            However, hydropower is among the most vulnerable industries
            to changes in global and regional climate. This paper aims
            to examine the possibility of applying a simple vector
            autoregressive model to forecast future hydrological series
            and evaluate the resulting impact on hydropower projects.
            Three projects are considered - in India, Sri Lanka, and
            Vietnam. The results are still tentative in terms of both
            methodology and implications; but the analysis shows that
            the calibrated dynamic forecasts of hydrological series are
            much different from the conventional reference points in the
            90 percent dependable year. The paper also finds that
            hydrological discharges tend to increase with rainfall and
            decrease with temperature. The rainy season would likely
            have higher water levels, but in the lean season water
            resources would become even more limited. The amount of
            energy generated would be affected to a certain extent, but
            the project viability may not change so much. Comparing the
            three cases, it is suggested that having larger installed
            capacity and some storage capacity might be useful to
            accommodate future hydrological series and seasonality. A
            broader assessment will be called for at the project
            preparation stage.
The long-run impact of orphanhood
This paper presents unique evidence that
            orphanhood matters in the long run for health and education
            outcomes, in a region of Northwestern Tanzania. The paper
            studies a sample of 718 non-orphaned children surveyed in
            1991-94, who were traced and re-interviewed as adults in
            2004. A large proportion, 19 percent, lost one or more
            parents before the age of 15 in this period, allowing the
            authors to assess the permanent health and education impacts
            of orphanhood. The analysis controls for a wide range of
            child and adult characteristics before orphanhood, as well
            as community fixed effects. The findings show that maternal
            orphanhood has a permanent adverse impact of 2 cm of final
            height attainment and one year of educational attainment.
            Expressing welfare in terms of consumption expenditure, the
            result is a gap of 8.5 percent compared with similar
            children whose mother survived till at least their 15th birthday.
Structure and performance of the
            services sector in transition economies
This paper examines the structure and
            performance of the services sector in Eastern European and
            Central Asian countries during 1997-2004. Services represent
            an increasing share of total value added and employment with
            the major sub-sectors being wholesale trade, retail trade,
            inland transport, telecommunications, and real estate
            activities. A clear divide separates EU-5 countries from
            South Eastern European countries and Ukraine in terms of
            services labor productivity. Although a large gap in
            productivity also separates EU-8 countries from EU-15
            countries, that gap was reduced from 1997 to 2004 as most
            services sub-sectors experienced fast productivity growth.
            High skill intensive sub-sectors and information and
            communications technology producers and users have exhibited
            higher productivity levels and growth rates relative to
            other sub-sectors since 2000. The author finds a positive
            effect of services liberalization on the productivity growth
            of services sub-sectors. The author also finds a positive
            and significant effect of services liberalization in both
            finance and infrastructure on the productivity of downstream manufacturing.
Foreign direct investment in Latin
            America during the emergence of China and India : stylized facts
In spite of the growing concerns about
            foreign direct investment being diverted from Latin America
            to China and India, the best available data show that Latin
            America has performed relatively well since 1997. Foreign
            capital stocks from OECD countries   and the United States
            in particular   in China and India are still far from those
            in the largest Latin American economies. The evidence shows
            that foreign capital stocks in China increased more than in
            Latin America during 1990-1997, but not as much since 1997.
            In fact, Latin America has actually performed better than
            China since 1997 given its lack of relative growth. The
            growth of foreign capital stocks in India was more stable
            than in China. Nonetheless, after controlling for shocks
            emanating from the source countries and bilateral distance
            between source and host countries, this paper finds a
            significant change in foreign capital stocks relative to
            China between 1990 and 1997, but no change relative to India.
Non-traditional crops, traditional
            constraints : the adoption and diffusion of export crops
            among guatemalan smallholders
This paper uses a duration analysis
            based on adoption data spanning more than 25 years from six
            communities in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. The
            analysis explores how household characteristics and external
            trends play into both the adoption and diffusion processes
            of non-traditional exports among smallholders. Adoption was
            initially widespread and rapid, which led nontraditional
            exports to be hailed as a pro-poor success, reaching all but
            the smallest landholders.  However, over time more than
            two-thirds of adopters eventually dropped out of production
            of nontraditional exports. Based on the analysis, production
            of nontraditional exports appears to have delivered less
            prosperity to adopters than initially promised.  Although
            smallholders may be enticed into entering into
            nontraditional exports markets when conditions are
            favorable, they may lack the capacity to overcome the
            difficulties that inevitably arise in complex types of
            cultivations and in highly variable global agricultural
            markets. Governmental and non-governmental organizations can
            attempt to mitigate these difficulties, but market forces
            may overwhelm their efforts, with some adopters still unable
            to compete in global markets.
Trade costs, barriers to entry, and
            export diversification in developing countries
This paper finds that a 1 percent
            reduction in the cost of exporting or the cost of
            international transport is associated with an export
            diversification gain of 0.3 percent or 0.4 percent
            respectively. Lower domestic market entry costs can also
            promote diversification, but the elasticity is weaker
            (-0.1). To obtain these results, the authors construct new
            measures of export diversification for 118 developing
            countries using highly detailed 8-digit mirror data from the
            European Union. The analysis also incorporates new export
            cost data from the World Bank's Doing Business
            database, covering document preparation, inland transport,
            administrative fees, and port/customs charges. Findings are
            highly robust, including to the use of geography and
            colonial history as instruments for trade and entry costs.
            Both the signs and relative magnitudes of these effects are
            consistent with predictions from a heterogeneous firms model
            of trade with asymmetric costs.
Absenteeism and beyond :
            instructional time loss and consequences
Studies have shown that learning
            outcomes are related to the amount of time students engage
            in learning tasks. However, visits to schools have revealed
            that students are often taught for only a fraction of the
            intended time, particularly in lower-income countries.
            Losses are due to informal school closures, teacher
            absenteeism, delays, early departures, and sub-optimal use
            of time in the classroom. A study was undertaken to develop
            an efficient methodology for measuring instructional time
            loss. Thus, instructional time use was measured in sampled
            schools in Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, and the Brazilian state
            of Pernambuco. The percentage of time that students were
            engaged in learning vis-à-vis government expectations was
            approximately 39 percent in Ghana, 63 percent in Pernambuco,
            71 percent in Morocco, and 78 percent in Tunisia.
            Instructional time use is a mediator variable that is
            challenging to measure, so it often escapes scrutiny.
            Research suggests that merely financing the ingredients of
            instruction is not enough to produce learning outcomes;
            students must also get sufficient time to process the
            information.  The quantity-quality tradeoff that often
            accompanies large-scale enrollments may be partly due to
            instructional time restrictions. Time wastage also distorts
            budgetary outlays and teacher salary rates. To achieve the
            Millennium Development Goals students must get more of the
            time that governments, donors, and parents pay for.
Designing economic instruments for
            the environment in a decentralized fiscal system
When external effects are important,
            markets will be inefficient, and economists have considered
            several broad classes of economic instruments to correct
            these inefficiencies.  However, the standard economic
            analysis has tended to neglect important distinctions and
            interactions between the geographic scope of pollutants, the
            enforcement authority of various levels of government, and
            the fiscal responsibilities of the levels of government.
            For example, externalities generated in a particular local
            area may be confined to the local area or may spill over to
            other jurisdictions. Also, local governments may be well
            informed about how best to regulate or enforce pollution
            control within their jurisdiction, but they may not consider
            the effects of their actions on other jurisdictions.
            Finally, the existence of locally-generated waste emissions
            affects the appropriate assignment of both expenditure and
            tax responsibilities among levels of government.  The
            standard analysis therefore focuses mainly upon an aggregate
            (or national) perspective, it typically ignores the
            possibility that the externality may be created and
            addressed by local governments, and it does not consider the
            implications of decentralization for the design of economic
            instruments targeted at environmental problems. This paper
            examines the implications of decentralization for the design
            of corrective policies; that is, how does one design
            economic instruments in a decentralized fiscal system in
            which externalities exist at the local level and in which
            subnational governments have the power to provide local
            public services, as well as to choose tax instruments that
            can both finance these expenditures and correct the market
            failures of externalities?
How relevant is targeting to the
            success of an antipoverty program
Policy-oriented discussions often assume
            that "better targeting" implies larger impacts on
            poverty or more cost-effective interventions. The literature
            on the economics of targeting warns against that assumption,
            but evidence has been scarce. The paper begins with a
            critical review of the strengths and weaknesses of the
            targeting measures found in practice. It then exploits an
            unusually large micro data set for China to estimate
            aggregate and local-level poverty impacts of the
            country's main urban antipoverty program. Standard
            measures of targeting are found to be uninformative, or even
            deceptive, about impacts on poverty and cost-effectiveness
            in reducing poverty. In program design and evaluation, it
            would be better to focus directly on the program's
            outcomes for poor people than to rely on prevailing measures
            of targeting.