rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
chosen by their employer, but they can opt out within 60 days of the notice of membership. Although employers do not make contributions, employees will contribute with increasing rates, as shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Quebec: Calendar of increases in contribution rates

|Contribution rate<br>(% gross salary)|Period|
|---|---|
|2%|July 2014-December 2017|
|3%|January 2018-December 2018|
|4%|After January 2019|

Source: Reitraite Quebec Employees have access to liquidity of their contributions to the pension fund. Any employer contributions to a VRSP will be locked in but employee contributions will not be locked-in. Employees may not withdraw employer contributions except in certain situations which include shortened life expectancy, mental or physical disability, or non-residency. Upon termination, employees are entitled to the full value of their contributions, the employer's contributions and all investment earnings. The locked-in portion of the member's account may be transferred to a pension plan determined by regulation and chosen by them.

In principle, lump sums are not allowed in the payout phase. In terms of the payout phase, at age 55 contributors have the option to transfer their locked-in VRSP account to a pension plan determined by regulation and chosen by the member. Retirement income must begin no later than the end of the year in which the member turns 71.

Pension fund providers are required to offer a default investment option, which is based on a lifecycle approach. The providers are also required to offer from three to five additional investment options. Providers can charge fees up to 1.25 percent and 1.50 of the AUM for the management of the default portfolio and the rest of the portfolios, respectively.

While participation in the VRSP has been low, the government argues that employees may have opted for alternative retirement savings vehicles available in Quebec. As of September 2017, approximately 70,000 employees (8,000 companies) registered in the VRSP pension system. While this number seems to be rather low, the authorities have explained that the introduction of VRSP has given the opportunity to companies to offer other types of pension plans available in the Quebec Province, including _REER collectif, RRS,_ and _CELI collectif_ . The overall evaluation of the impact of VRSP needs to look at the impact on other pension plans.

# _Preliminary lessons_

The VRSP has several important features, including the need to offer lifecycle investment portfolios as a default option. The role of the employer in selecting the pension fund managers follows the occupational fund tradition of the Quebec Province and is aligned with the rest of the pension plans available. The VRSP also offers gradual increases in contribution rates that create incentives for staying in the system.

While the payout phase seems to be well placed, it might be insufficient given the possibility of withdrawing the contributions of the employee during the accumulation phase. While the system offers the possibility of annuities in the payout phase, it is not a good practice to give individuals the 16
<!-- Start of picture text --> Attractiveness as an Offshore Business Location:<br>Composite Scores by Country*<br>Cost Environment People<br>7.3<br>6.2 6.2<br>2.3 6.1 5.8 5.8<br>5.7 5.7 5.7 5.6<br>1.2 1.3 5.2<br>2.1 1.1 1.1 1.5 1.4 1.0 1.1<br>1.0<br>1.6<br>1.8 1.9 1.7 1.6 1.6 1.4 1.1<br>2.5 2.3<br>2.6<br>3.4<br>3.1 3.0 2.9 3.1 3.1 3.1 3.1<br>1.8 2.0<br>1.5<br>India Brazil Philippines Ireland Czech China<br>Republic<br>* Source: A.T. Kearney, http://www.atkearney.com/shared_res/pdf/Where_to_Locate_S.pdf<br><!-- End of picture text --> In fact, legislative action has already been initiated to create a trade barrier for BPO services. New Jersey State Senator Turner tabled a bill in September 2002 aimed at preventing the outsourcing of public work to Mumbai.<sup>21</sup> Other US states like Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, Wisconsin and latest Michigan are reportedly exploring similar legislation<sup>22</sup> . Recently, Indiana reportedly withdrew from a $15 million contract with the US subsidiary of a leading Indian IT outsourcing firm.<sup>23</sup> These restrictions on outsourcing only apply to government procurement and even though the size of government procurement markets of the U.S. and other industrialized countries is not small, such measures will not affect the bulk of BPO services that are conducted between businesses. But more importantly this move creates a dangerous precedent. It is possible that similar legislation, or even more likely, less transparent regulatory barriers, related to qualifications, labor standards, etc. may affect non-

> 21 Senate Bill No. 1349, originally introduced on March 21st, 2002. See “U.S. States May Ban Contract Outsourcing”, in: _Financial Times_ , February 21, 2003. Since March 6<sup>th</sup> 2003, the Bill has been held in the Senate State Government Committee. See Senator Turner press statement of March 6<sup>th</sup> 2003, available at http://www.njsendems.com/Releases/03/March/Assembly%20State%20Govt%20Comm%20Holds%20Turn er%20Bill%20to%20Keep%20Jobs%20on%20US%20Soil,%203-6-03.htm, accessed November 9<sup>th</sup> 2003.

> 22 See Eweek, March 10th 2003, Inside U.S. Trade June 20th 2003, p. 7, and Detroit News, _Bill Bans State From Overseas Contracts_ , August 10<sup>th</sup> 2003.

> 23 Governor Joe Kernan was quoted as saying that the contract did not fit with Indiana’s vision of providing better opportunities to local companies and workers.  See “Relocating the Back Office”, in: _Economist_ , December 13-19, 2003.

9
**_<u>________________________________________________________</u>_**

# _<u>Customs Rulings Online Search System</u>_

Database of US Customs rulings.

# _<u>Schedule B Export Coder</u>_

US Customs codes. Based on Harmonized code system. Download or view the complete list.

# _<u>Tariff and Import Fee Information</u>_

Links to many resources about tariffs. Includes a tutorial to get started, a glossary of trade terms, an online tariff database, tariff and tax information for 97 countries, helpful tips for importing products into the U.S., and more.

# _<u>Online Tariff Database</u>_

Provided by TARIFFIC International. Up-to-the-minute customs tariffs and import taxes, charges and fees levied at time of import for 192 countries round the world, representing over 97% of world trade.

# **2.4 Transport Infrastructure Indicators**

High transport costs in domestic transport are determined to a large extent by the transport infrastructure network. High transport times can affect the competitive position of a country in the world market.

# _<u>World Bank: Transport Results Initiative</u>_

The central Transport Unit of the World Bank is taking stock of the measures and indicators which are applied for the key transport sector. Initial assessments of data available at the international level, such as through the International Road Federation, confirms significant gaps in relation to both the priority needs of World Bank client countries and the expectations of development agencies.

The revival of interest in indicators for the transport sector is broadly pitched at three interrelated but very different levels. At a global level, the transport sector headlines are proposed to be identified universally and updated regularly. The rural access indicator, one of the five proposed headlines, is a good example in this regard. The indicator has been developed for inclusion in the set of indicators for International Development Association (IDA-14) results measurement system. The transport sector headlines are derived from the set of transport Recent Economic Developments in Infrastructure indicators.

At the national and sub-national level, the transport sector Recent Economic Developments in Infrastructure indicators are included in the more comprehensive Recent Economic Developments in Infrastructure "Snapshot" and "Diagnostic" indicator sets, as proposed by the Infrastructure Action Plan. They are derived from the sets of core measures which have been established for each of the transport sub-sectors.

23 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Over-reliance on the public sector for regulating _Shariah_ matters may also present other difficulties, such as the reluctance of authorities in a large number of jurisdictions, to be involved in what they would consider private religious matters. In such situations, the private sector could fill the gap and play a more decisive role in the _Shariah_ compliance process. The focus would be on consolidating the _Shariah_ related information infrastructure by creating new processes or strengthening the exiting infrastructure. Next to external _Shariah_ audit firms, representational agents that normally channel financial information to the public may acquire new skills and assess IIFS’s compliance with Islamic finance rules.

In the future, key players in this field may be the private rating agencies. One may anticipate that they would gradually develop skills to evaluate _Shariah_ compliance and make this information readily available to investors using their existing dissemination infrastructure. Their coverage may also include companies in which IIFS have a stake. This would create a positive climate for _Shariah_ compliant investments, particularly for partnership and venture capital transactions. It is noteworthy that some leading rating companies have included “religious supervision” as an item in their reports on IIFS.<sup>45</sup> However, this is often limited to a summary statement on the existence of a SSB and the conclusions of the SSB annual reports. Eventually, one may envisage a more articulate contribution through the adoption of _Shariah_ compliance indicators that would quantify _Shariah_ disclosure, profit-sharing and Z _akat._<sup>_46_</sup> In addition, Islamic market indices may prove important. One may expect that current criticisms about their use will diminish with the development of the industry. With the progressive increase of _halal_ products, filters may be tightened to meet with greater scholarly approval.

> 45 This is notably the case of Capital Intelligence bank reports.

> 46 Shahul et al. (2004) propose the creation of two (disclosure and performance) “Islamicity Indices”. They quantify, among other things, _Shariah_ compliance, corporate governance practices, social and environmental impact, profit-sharing performance and _zakat_ performance.
distributed across recipients. Key for our result to hold is that ML searches some middle ground among disagreeing donors. The fact that ML represents the _average_ donor is precisely what makes aid delegation to it beneficial for bilateral donors. Aid selectivity - in terms of both policy and poverty - emerges endogenously and is credible, as it is the solution to ML’s optimization problem. Moreover, the model shows that if one sufficiently large donor is policy selective in its aid allocations, there is no need for other donors to be policy selective.

The paper also contributes to the literature on Tullock contests. Under certain assumptions, the aid allocation rule used by donors is equivalent to a Tullock contest allocation rule. In our model, the Tullock contest function emerges endogenously, rather than merely being assumed, as in most of the literature on contests.

Note that the model does not apply to all conceivable donors. A key assumption of the model is that donors care about recipient’s policy either directly or indirectly. Aid is ineffective if it is not policy selective: any impact of aid on the public good will be fully crowded out by a reduction in the recipient’s optimal policy, and aid merely increases the recipient government’s private good. The model therefore would not predict contributions to ML from a donor that is an impure rather than a pure altruist, i.e. if it derives utility from the act of giving resources to the poorest countries instead of from producing the public good. We believe that donors that do not care about recipient policies are the exception rather than the rule, however.

We present empirical evidence consistent with the assumptions and predictions of the model, supporting our interpretation of IDA as a multilateral relied on by donors because of its comparative advantage in implementing policy and poverty selective aid. Specifically, we establish that (1) IDA plausibly represents a middle ground among its donors’ preferences, (2) it is sufficiently large to implement aid “contests,” and (3) donors perceive it as a public good. Moreover, the model’s assumptions are consistent with the fact that IDA was attached to a Bretton Woods institutions rather than to the UN, with its very different voting rules.

Data on aid disbursements for the 1977-2012 period confirm that IDA is much more policy and poverty selective than bilateral aid. Furthermore, we show that donor contributions to IDA are larger during periods when bilateral aid is less selective, i.e. when according to our model IDA’s comparative advantage is enhanced.

This evidence supports the model’s emphasis on selectivity as a major motivation for donors’ contributions to IDA: donors are better off delegating to ML in the model even where it has no technological advantage in aid implementation, and where aid implemented by bilateral donors is not politicized. We acknowledge that contributions to IDA (and some other MLs) may also be motivated in part 29
We also explore the effect of the treatment on respondents’ beliefs about respectful and fair treatment under actual/hypothetical presence of the tax officials (Table 8). This variable asks every respondent -treated, neighbor and control -about actual or hypothetical attitudes towards the presence of the tax officials during surveys (our actual treatment). Our goal is to exploit the fact that respondents who went through the experience may have experienced it very differently from those who simply imagined the situation. Our treatment variable is 1 for directly treated individuals and 0 for everyone else, including the neighbors.

Table 8: The Effect of TRA Agent Presence on Perceptions of Fairness and Deception

||Fair Treatment|Sight of TRA Sights|Feel Deceived|
|---|---|---|---|
|Direct Treatment|_−_0_._167<sup>_∗∗∗_</sup>|0_._039|0_._199<sup>_∗∗∗_</sup>|
||(0_._059)|(0_._092)|(0_._065)|
|Number of Observations|1771|1621|1661|
|Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|0_._004|_−_0_._001|0_._005|
|Control Group Mean|1.72|3.29|3.29|

Notes:<sup>_∗∗∗_</sup> _p <_ 0 _._ 01;<sup>_∗∗_</sup> _p <_ 0 _._ 05;<sup>_∗_</sup> _p <_ 0 _._ 1. The dependent variables are based on actual or hypothetical scenarios and they are (i) a 3-scale variable based on the question ’Did you feel treated respectfully and fairly?’ during the treatment (the presence of the TRA during the survey), (ii) a 5-scale variable based on the question ’How did you feel at the sights of the TRA vehicles moving around in your area’ and (iii) a 4-scale variable based on the question ’Did you feel deceived?’ with the presence of the TRA during the survey. The independent variable is one for any respondent who were treated themselves in the first survey wave in December 2022, and 0 for everyone else. We cluster standard errors at the ward level.

Table 9: The Effect of TRA Agent Presence on beliefs about risk of evasion, and tax beliefs and public services

||(1)|(2)|(3)|
|---|---|---|---|
|Direct Treatment|_−_0_._023|_−_0_._010|_−_0_._013|
||(0_._076)|(0_._080)|(0_._087)|
|Number of Observations|1983|1985|1930|
|Adjusted R<sup>2</sup>|_−_0_._000|_−_0_._000|_−_0_._001|
|Control Group Mean|4.09|3.95|3.75|

Notes:<sup>_∗∗∗_</sup> _p <_ 0 _._ 01;<sup>_∗∗_</sup> _p <_ 0 _._ 05;<sup>_∗_</sup> _p <_ 0 _._ 1. The dependent variables are based on surveys, are all Likert scale variables based on the following statements: (i) ’The risk of legal action for firms evading or underpaying taxes in Tanzania is high’, (ii) ’The public services provided by the government justify the taxes imposed on firms’, and (iii) ’Additional services benefiting firms would justify higher taxes’. The independent variable is one for any respondent who were treated themselves in the first survey wave in December 2022, and 0 for everyone else. We cluster standard errors at the ward level.

24
capital. Similarly, a fraction (0.3) of past selling, general, and administrative ( _SGA_ ) spending is used as an investment in organization capital, which includes human capital, brand, customer relationships, and distribution systems.<sup>11</sup> Correspondingly, we also adjust the profits in the numerator to account for the use of intangible capital in computing invested capital. Thus, the new ROIC is given by: where _ADJPRit_ = _EBITit_ + _AMit_ + _XRDit_ + 0 _._ 3 _× SGAit_ _− δRD × K_ _~~i~~ nt_ _~~k~~ nowit − δSGA × K_ _~~i~~ nt_ _~~o~~ rgit_ (5) where _δRD_ is the depreciation rate associated with knowledge capital and is set to 15% following Peters and Taylor [2017] and _δSGA_ is the depreciation rate associated with organization capital and is set to 20% following Falato et al. [2013].

Note that using an adjustment for intangible capital affects ROIC in two ways. First, it increases the denominator by the amount of the adjustment for intangible capital. Second, R&D and a portion of SGA expenditure, which would previously have been expensed is now treated as additions to capital stock. Thus, it is not subtracted from the firm’s conventionally calculated earnings (EBIT) to obtain the adjusted earnings. However, since the stock of intangible capital is now treated as an asset, an additional depreciation expense is now deducted from EBIT. This second adjustment either increases or decreases the numerator of ROIC, depending on the level of current R&D and SG&A expenditures compared to the stock of intangible capital.

After dropping firms with negative invested capital, missing or negative book value of assets or sales, and firms with less than $5 million in physical capital (Compustat variable _PPEGT_ )<sup>12</sup>

> 11Since Compustat item _XSGA_ is the sum of SG&A and R&D, we follow the procedure in Peters and Taylor [2017] to isolate SGA as XSGA-XRD-RDIP where RDIP is In-Process R&D. We replace missing values of XSGA, XRD, and RDIP with 0.

> 12We apply the PPEGT filter since Peters and Taylor [2017] recommend that the intangible capital adjustment is not appropriate for firms with less than $5 million in physical capital.

11
# **5 REDUCING EAST ASIA’S VULNERABILITY TO EXTERNAL SHOCKS**

The significant drop in growth experienced by most East Asian countries in the face of the financial crisis, joint with a more volatile external environment, are bound to increase output growth volatility in the medium term.<sup>12</sup> Based on cross-country regression estimates this section looks at which factors have contributed to lower output growth volatility in East Asia, and draws lessons about factors that could help mitigating the impact of the crisis by lowering volatility further.

# **Which Factors Contributed to the Long-term Decline in Volatility?**

The previous section reviewed individually channels that have been proven to affect output growth volatility, but failed to analyze the importance of each factor in East Asia’s long-term decline in volatility. In this section we address this issue by means of cross-country regression estimates. Our estimations are based on cross-country dynamic panel General Method of Moments (GMM) regressions, as well as Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) as a robustness check. Results reported in this section are from Column 2 of Table A1 in the Appendix. Although not a perfect fit, our estimations do a fair job in forecasting the decrease in output growth volatility. The biggest gap between our model and the data is China: between the 1980s and 2000-05, China experienced a decrease in output growth volatility of more than 60 percent, whereas our model predicts a decrease of slightly more that 40 percent.

In accordance with the reviewed literature, our regressions show that an increasingly stable international economic outlook contributed significantly to the overall decline in volatility. We estimate that higher stability in trading partners’ rate of growth and lower volatility of terms of trade shocks are responsible for more than fifteen percent of the decrease in output growth volatility (Figure 20): the long-term decline in output growth volatility of trading partners countries (weighted by trade volumes) helps explaining more than 7 percent of the decrease in volatility in East Asia between the 1980s and 2005, and the overall decrease in volatility of terms of trade reduced further output growth volatility by 3.9 percent (in non-OECD East Asian countries, terms of trade growth volatility has decreased from 6.8 percent in the 1970s to 3.3 in the 2000s, and before the crisis was lower than average volatility in OECD countries: see Figure 14).

Domestic factors that lowered volatility include improved institutional quality, more stable monetary policies, and better fiscal management. Efforts made to enhance institutional quality paid off by increasing overall stability of GDP growth (Figure 18). Large reductions have also been achieved thanks to more stable monetary policies and better fiscal

> 12 As computing volatility requires observations over several years, the impact of the current financial crisis will be precisely known in a few years from now only.

22
Estrades, Maliszewska, Osorio-Rodarte, and Seara E Pereira. (2021) administration increase exports, linked to the fall in non-tariff measures. Imports of all commodities show a big boost, largely explained by the fall in non-tariff measures (Figure 9 RHS). However, these results should be taken with caution, as they are sensitive to the assumptions on the fall in non-tariff measures expected from the agreement.

Figure 9. Total RCEP exports and imports in volume, percentage change of productivity kick scenario relative to businessas-usual scenario, 2035 <!-- Start of picture text --> Exports Imports<br>Meat products Public administration...<br>Tourist services Tourist services<br>Trade Trade<br>Food and beverages Communications<br>Public administration and... Wearing apparel and...<br>Textiles Textiles<br>Chemical, rubber, plastics Construction<br>Wearing apparel and... Food and beverages<br>Wood and paper products Meat products<br>Air transport Non metallic minerals<br>Communications Air transport<br>Electrical equipment and... Financial services and...<br>Motor vehicles and parts Business services<br>Metals Road transport<br>Crops Wood and paper products<br>Other transport equipment Chemical, rubber, plastics<br>Basic pharmaceuticals Electrical equipment...<br>Non metallic minerals Other manufactures<br>Road transport Metals<br>Petroleum, coal products Motor vehicles and parts<br>Other manufactures Utilities<br>Water transport Basic pharmaceuticals<br>Business services Water transport<br>Fossil fuels Petroleum, coal products<br>Animal products Crops<br>Other extraction Other transport...<br>Construction Animal products<br>Financial services and... Fossil fuels<br>Utilities Other extraction<br>-2.0 3.0 8.0 13.0 18.0 0.0 10.0 20.0<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: World Bank staff calculations using ENVISAGE model.

In value terms, the sectors that expand the most are mainly manufacturing products: Trade in Electrical equipment and machinery; Chemicals, rubber and plastics; Motor vehicles and parts; Metals; and wearing apparel expands significantly among RCEP member countries (see Figure 10). Trade creation in the region largely exceeds trade diversion away from the rest of the world, which takes place in the manufacturing sectors.

15