rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Effects of multilateral support on
            infrastructure PPP contract cancellation
This paper examines the relationship
            between multilateral support and contract cancellation in
            long-term infrastructure public-private partnerships. The
            analysis draws on a large data set and employs a multi-level
            econometric model to define propensity scores and matching
            estimators to compare rates of cancellation between projects
            with multilateral support and a comparison group of
            public-private partnership projects without multilateral
            support. The results suggest that multilateral support has a
            positive effect on the survival of long-term public-private
            partnership infrastructure contracts. Whereas observed the
            data suggest that multilateral support has no effect on
            cancellation rates, a quasi-experimental approach shows that
            the cancellation rate for projects with multilateral (6
            percent) would have been about 48 percent higher without
            support from multilateral development organizations.
A randomized control trial of a peer
            adherence and nutritional support program for public sector
            antiretroviral patients
Access to antiretroviral treatment has
            expanded rapidly in South Africa, making it the country in
            the world with the largest treatment program. As
            antiretroviral treatment coverage continues to rise in
            resource-constrained settings, effective community-based
            adherence support interventions are of central importance in
            ensuring the long-term sustainability of treatment. This
            paper reports the findings from a randomized control trial
            of a peer adherence and nutritional support program
            implemented in a public health care setting in South
            Africa's antiretroviral treatment program. The analysis
            assesses the impact of these peer adherence and nutritional
            support interventions on self-reported adherence, timeliness
            of clinic and hospital visits, and immunologic response to
            antiretroviral treatment. Peer adherence and nutritional
            support improved the timeliness of adults´ clinic and
            hospital visits for routine follow-up while on
            antiretroviral treatment. Peer adherence support impacted
            positively on immunologic response to antiretroviral
            treatment. Scale-up of effective and sustainable
            community-based, peer-driven adherence and nutritional
            support interventions should form part of the United Nations
            AIDS Treatment 2.0 strategy's community mobilization
            and health system strengthening pillar.
Modeling the impacts of climate
            change on future Vietnamese households : a micro-simulation approach
The impacts of climate change on poverty
            depend on the magnitude of climate change, but also on
            demographic and socioeconomic trends. An analysis of
            hundreds of baseline scenarios for future economic
            development in the absence of climate change in Vietnam
            shows that the main determinant of the eradication of
            extreme poverty by 2030 is the income of unskilled
            agriculture workers, followed by redistribution policies.
            Results from sector analyses of climate change impacts—in
            agriculture, health, and natural disasters—are introduced in
            each of the hundreds scenarios. By 2030 climate change is
            found to have a significant impact on poverty in Vietnam in
            about a quarter of the scenarios, with 400,000 to more than
            a million people living in extreme poverty just because of
            climate change impacts. Those scenarios in which climate
            change pushes the most people into poverty are scenarios
            with slow structural change away from agriculture, low
            productivity growth in agriculture, high population growth,
            and low redistribution levels. Conversely, in scenarios with
            rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development, climate
            change has no impact on extreme poverty, although it still
            has an impact on the income of the bottom 40 percent.
The microfinance business model :
            enduring subsidy and modest profit
Recent evidence suggests only modest
            social and economic impacts of microfinance. Favorable
            cost-benefit ratios then depend on low costs. This paper
            uses proprietary data on 1,335 microfinance institutions
            between 2005 and 2009, jointly serving 80.1 million
            borrowers, to calculate the costs of microfinance and other
            elements of the microfinance business model. It calculates
            that on average, subsidies amounted to $132 per borrower,
            but the distribution is highly skewed. The median
            microfinance institution used subsidies at a rate of just
            $26 per borrower, and no subsidy was used by the institution
            at the 25th percentile. These data suggest that, for some
            institutions, even modest benefits could yield impressive
            cost-benefit ratios. At the same time, the data show that
            the subsidy is large for some institutions. Counter to
            expectations, the most heavily-subsidized group of borrowers
            is customers of the most commercialized institutions, with
            an average of $275 per borrower and a median of $93.
            Customers of nongovernmental organizations, which focus on
            the poorest customers and women, receive a far smaller
            subsidy: the median microfinance nongovernmental
            organization used subsidy at a rate of $23 per borrower, and
            subsidy for the nongovernmental organization at the 25th
            percentile was just $3 per borrower.
Will market competition trump gender
            discrimination in India
Empowering women to engage in productive
            employment is not only critical to achieving gender equality
            but also critical for economic growth and poverty reduction.
            This paper studies the pattern of female activity and gender
            segmentation in the Indian manufacturing and services
            sectors. Although the share of women entrepreneurs and
            employees is larger in manufacturing than in services,
            segmentation based on gender is pervasive in both sectors.
            Theory, dating back to Gary Becker, suggests that
            competitive reforms should reduce the extent of this
            segregation. In spite of competition-inducing reforms such
            as investment in Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highways, trade
            liberalization and domestic reforms that India undertook
            since the turn of the century, this pattern of gender based
            segmentation has not subsided over the years. Specifically,
            investments in GQ upgrades are found to have 0 effects on
            female activity and gender segmentation. Although there is
            some evidence of a negative correlation between segmentation
            among male employees and industry level trade liberalization
            reforms, overall it had a very limited impact on female
            participation in labor force and in reducing segmentation
            among female employees. Finally, domestic reforms that
            dismantled product reservations for small-scale industries
            induced greater participation among women in economic
            activity and are correlated with a modest decline in
            segmentation among male employees. Segregation among female
            employees is positively associated with these reforms.
Economic integration across Latin
            America : evidence from labor markets, 1990-2013
Combining macroeconomic and
            microeconomic data and three indicators of international
            market integration, this paper assesses the degree to which
            Latin American labor markets are integrated. The results
            suggest that relative to East Asia, Latin American labor
            markets are somewhat more integrated, but considerable
            differences across countries persist. In addition, the
            evidence indicates that the degree of labor market
            integration across Latin American borders is significantly
            less than that of labor markets within Mexico and within the
            United States in two of the three indicators. These
            differences may suggest opportunities for efficiency gains
            from further labor market integration.
Impact of public-private
            partnerships on private school performance : evidence from a
            randomized controlled trial in Uganda
This paper estimates the short-term,
            partial-equilibrium impacts of a public-private partnership
            program for low-cost private secondary schools in Uganda.
            The public-private partnership program is part of a broader
            strategy to absorb large increases in secondary enrollment
            following the introduction of universal secondary education.
            Under the program, the government offers a per-student
            subsidy to participating private schools. Program
            implementation allowed for a randomized phase-in study
            design to estimate the causal impacts of the program on
            private school performance. The study finds that the
            public-private partnership program helped absorb large
            numbers of eligible students in secondary schools. Student
            performance in participating private schools was
            significantly better than in nonparticipating private
            schools. The study finds that improved student performance
            is potentially linked to increased input availability, as
            well as positive selection of government aided students in
            private schools. Suggestive evidence indicates that this
            selection most likely occurs on the part of households
            rather than schools.
Does mass deworming affect child
            nutrition meta-analysis, cost-effectiveness, and statistical power
The WHO has recently debated whether to
            reaffirm its long-standing recommendation of mass drug
            administration (MDA) in areas with more than 20 percent
            prevalence of soil-transmitted helminths (hookworm,
            whipworm, and roundworm). There is consensus that the
            relevant deworming drugs are safe and effective, so the key
            question facing policymakers is whether the expected
            benefits of MDA exceed the roughly $0.30 per treatment cost.
            The literature on long run educational and economic impacts
            of deworming suggests that this is the case. However, a
            recent meta-analysis by Taylor-Robinson et al. (2015),
            (hereafter TMSDG), disputes these findings. The authors
            conclude that while treatment of children known to be
            infected increases weight by 0.75 kg (95 percent CI: 0.24,
            1.26; p=0.0038), there is substantial evidence that MDA has
            no impact on weight or other child outcomes. This paper
            updates the TMSDG analysis by including studies omitted from
            that analysis and extracting additional data from included
            studies, and finds that the TMSDG analysis is underpowered:
            Power is inadequate to rule out weight gain effects that
            would make MDA cost effective relative to comparable
            interventions in similar populations, and underpowered to
            reject the hypothesis that the effect of MDA is different
            from the effect that might expected, given deworming's
            effects on those known to be infected. The hypothesis of a
            common zero effect of multiple-dose MDA deworming on child
            weight at longest follow-up is rejected at the 10 percent
            level using the TMSDG dataset, and with a p value < 0.001
            using the updated sample. In the full sample, including
            studies in settings where prevalence is low enough that the
            WHO does not recommend deworming, the average effect on
            child weight is 0.134 kg (95 percent CI: 0.031, 0.236,
            random effects). In environments with greater than 20
            percent prevalence, where the WHO recommends mass treatment,
            the average effect on child weight is 0.148 kg (95 percent
            CI: 0.039, 0.258). The implied average effect of MDA on
            infected children in the full sample is 0.301 kg. At 0.22 kg
            per U.S. dollar, the estimated average weight gain per
            dollar is more than 35 times that from school feeding
            programs as estimated in RCTs. Under-powered meta-analyses
            are common in health research, and this methodological issue
            will be increasingly important as growing numbers of
            economists and other social scientists conduct meta-analysis.
Job quality and poverty in Latin America
Labor market dynamics have played a
            significant role in the remarkable social gains experienced
            across Latin America over the recent past. Assessing the
            quality of employment, beyond the perspective of income, to
            include other fundamental aspects of jobs --such as whether
            jobs are secure, provide benefits, or allow human capital
            accumulation -- can shed light on the sustainability of
            these achievements. This is particularly pertinent given the
            region's current economic slowdown. Using harmonized
            data for 17 countries in Latin America, this paper connects
            the role of job quality with the recent process of inclusive
            growth across the region, and particularly with how
            individuals worked their way out of poverty. The paper first
            proposes a multi-dimensional measure for job quality, and
            then uses this measure to compare job quality across
            countries and over time. The paper also studies some of the
            correlates of job quality and the relationship between job
            quality and poverty. The main finding is that job quality
            across the region began to increase since 2004, coupled with
            the favorable terms of trade brought to the region by the
            commodities super cycle of the 2000s. The best predictors of
            job quality are age, gender, education, formal employment,
            and union membership. Both health and retirement benefits
            are the dimensions of job quality that are best correlated
            with not living in poverty.
Caste system
In standard economics, individuals are
            rational actors and economic forces undermine institutions
            that impose large inefficiencies. The persistence of the
            caste system is evidence of the need for psychologically
            more realistic models of decision-making in economics. The
            caste system divides South Asian society into hereditary
            groups whose lowest ranks are represented as innately
            polluted. After the historical encounter between colonial
            powers and South Asia, caste became capable of expressing
            and systematizing what had been diverse forms of social
            identity, community, and organization. This paper reviews
            work that estimates the economic costs of the caste system
            in particular environments: (1) In North India,
            discrimination between higher-caste landowners and
            lower-caste tenants in markets for groundwater for
            irrigation reduces the tenants' agricultural yields by
            45 percent. (2) Making caste identity public in North Indian
            classrooms reduces the cognitive performance of low-caste
            boys by 23 percent. (3) Because of lower-caste men's
            control of working-class occupations, the proportion of
            lower-caste children enrolled in English-language schools in
            Mumbai after India opened itself up to the world market grew
            only one-fourth as quickly for boys as for girls,
            restricting boys' occupational mobility. Given the
            benefit of access to caste-based networks, most Indians
            practice caste endogamy. The caste system is a dramatic
            example of an institution to which it may pay each
            individual to conform because others conform. The caste
            system also illustrates the two-way influence between people
            and institutions emphasized in psychology: people construct
            institutions, and institutions shape understandings.
            Abolition by law of an institution may change neither
            understandings nor behavior.
Globalization and the gender
            earnings gap : evidence from Sri Lanka and Cambodia
Disasters in Bangladesh and protests
            elsewhere have created an intense debate about the value,
            particularly to women, of apparel employment in developing
            countries. This paper focuses on how the forces of
            globalization, specifically the Multi-Fibre Arrangement
            (MFA), have affected women's wages in the apparel
            sector in developing countries. The paper uses household and
            labor force surveys from Cambodia and Sri Lanka to estimate
            both apparel wage premiums relative to other industries and
            the male-female wage gap before and after the end of the
            MFA. The approach builds on new models that apply
            traditional trade theory (e.g., the Heckscher-Ohlin and
            Stolper-Samuelson theorems) to analyze the effect of
            globalization on gender-based earnings. The authors find
            large positive wage premiums and a closing of the
            male-female wage gap during the MFA period, but smaller
            premiums and a widening wage gap after the end of the MFA.
            The results suggest that the benefits of apparel exports for
            women in developing countries remain significant post-MFA.
            They also model an approach for studying the effects of
            globalization that differentiates males and females as
            separate factors. This may be a fruitful alternative to
            discrimination models or those that analyze the effects of
            globalization on women in terms of skill. Further research
            is necessary to identify the potential development effects
            of post-MFA apparel employment and to thoroughly compare the
            benefits documented in this paper with the costs that may
            come with apparel jobs.
Exchange rate flexibility and the
            effect of remittances on economic growth
This paper studies the question of
            whether exchange rate policy affects the impact of
            remittances on economic growth in recipient countries. The
            paper utilizes a comprehensive data set that comprises
            annual observations for 135 developing and transition
            countries, spanning 1970-2007. The data for exchange rate
            regimes is based on the Reinhart and Rogoff exchange rate
            regime classification, whereas the data for remittances and
            all other variables are from the World Bank's World
            Development Indicators database. The findings indicate that
            more flexible exchange rate regimes are associated with a
            greater increase in economic growth following an increase in
            remittances, but also that the impact of remittances on
            growth is positive under a fixed exchange rate regime. The
            estimates suggest that a 1 percent increase in remittances
            increases per capita growth by about 0.79 percent under a
            fixed exchange rate regime, and that this effect increases
            by about 0.13 percent for a 1 point increase in the exchange
            rate flexibility index. The results further suggest that the
            effect of remittances under a fixed exchange rate regime is
            positive in less financially developed countries as well,
            but do not provide conclusive evidence that this effect
            varies inversely with exchange rate flexibility in such
            economies as theorized.
The impact of fiscal policy on
            inequality and poverty in Chile
This paper applies a comprehensive
            tax-benefit incidence analysis to estimate the
            distributional effects of fiscal policy in Chile in 2013.
            Four results are indicative of an overall positive net
            effect of fiscal interventions on poverty and inequality.
            First, subsidies exert a positive, yet modest effect on
            poverty and inequality, whereas direct transfers are
            progressive, equalizing, and reduce the poverty headcount by
            4 to 5 percentage points, depending on the poverty line
            used. Second, although social contributions are unequalizing
            and poverty-increasing, direct taxes on personal income are
            equalizing and poverty-neutral, whereas indirect taxes are
            poverty-increasing but exert a counterintuitive, yet
            feasible equalizing effect known as Lambert's
            conundrum. Third, social spending on tertiary education is
            slightly equalizing but it is not pro-poor, contrary to the
            effects of social spending on basic and secondary education
            and health, which are not only equalizing but also pro-poor.
            Finally, the net effect of Chile's tax/transfer system
            leaves fewer individuals impoverished relative to the number
            of fiscal gainers, and the magnitude of monetary fiscal
            gains is significantly higher than that of fiscal impoverishment.