rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Vulnerability in consumption,
            education, and health - evidence from Moldova during the
            Russian crisis
The authors analyze the widespread
            effects of the financial crisis in Russia to explore the
            vulnerabilities of households in Moldova. They show that the
            crisis had differential impacts on households, affecting
            most the urban and better-off. Households' decisions
            about education and health resulted in decreased utilization
            and expenditures. The enrollment of young children from
            better-off households did not improve while others did.
            Secondary school enrollment of children from better-off
            households decreased after the crisis, in part because of
            the need to release labor supply. Health utilization
            decreased mainly for primary health care (not for
            hospitals), both for better-off households and in rural
            areas. Some of these changes are due to limited household
            resources (health), decreased public spending (health and
            education) or the need to increase households' labor
            supply (education of teenagers). Social benefits played a
            very limited role in mitigating these effects, solely in
            health care use. Households' assets helped to offset
            some of the negative effects of declining incomes.
Evaluation of financial
            liberalization : a general equilibrium model with
            constrained occupation choice
The objective of this paper is to assess
            both the aggregate growth effects and the distributional
            consequences of financial liberalization as observed in
            Thailand from 1976 to 1996. A general equilibrium
            occupational choice model with two sectors, one without
            intermediation, and the other with borrowing and lending, is
            taken to Thai data. Key parameters of the production
            technology and the distribution of entrepreneurial talent
            are estimated by maximizing the likelihood of transition
            into business given initial wealth as observed in two
            distinct datasets. Other parameters of the model are
            calibrated to try to match the two decades of growth as well
            as observed changes in inequality, labor share, savings, and
            the number of entrepreneurs. Without an expansion in the
            size of the intermediated sector, Thailand would have
            evolved very differently, namely, with a drastically lower
            growth rate, high residual subsistence sector,
            non-increasing wages, but lower inequality. The financial
            liberalization brings welfare gains and losses to different
            subsets of the population. Primary winners are talented
            would-be entrepreneurs who lack credit and cannot otherwise
            go into business (or invest little capital). Mean gains for
            these winners range from 17 to 34 percent of observed
            overall average household income. But liberalization also
            induces greater demand by entrepreneurs for workers
            resulting in increases in the wage and lower profits of
            relatively rich entrepreneurs of the same order of magnitude
            as the observed overall average income of firm owners.
            Foreign capital has no significant impact on growth or the
            distribution of observed income.
Land sales and rental markets in
            transition - evidence from rural Viet Nam
The extent to which households should be
            allowed to transfer their land rights in post-socialist
            transition economies is of considerable policy interest. The
            authors use data from Vietnam, a transition country that
            allows rental and sales of land use rights, to identify
            factors conducive to the development of land markets and to
            assess the extent to which land transfers enhance productive
            efficiency and transfer land to the poor. They find that
            activity in both rental and sales markets has increased
            rapidly, enhanced by the possession of long-term use rights
            and off-farm employment, and contributing to greater equity
            and efficiency of land use. While there is evidence for
            distress sales by households that experience a shock
            (death), the scope for such sales is reduced by
            well-functioning credit markets. Well-defined land rights
            and appropriate safety nets will thus help transition
            economies to realize the benefits from the operation of land markets.
Causes and consequences of civil
            strife - micro-level evidence from Uganda
To bridge the gap between case studies
            and highly aggregate cross-country analyses of civil unrest,
            the author uses data from Uganda to explore determinants of
            civil strife (as contrasted to theft and physical violence)
            at the community level, as well as the potentially
            differential impact of these variables on investment and
            nonagricultural enterprise formation at the household level.
            He finds that distance from infrastructure (a proxy for
            scarcity of economic opportunities and government
            investment), asset inequality (social tension), the presence
            of cash crops (expropriable wealth), and lower levels of
            human capital (ability to take advantage of opportunities in
            the "regular" economy) all increase the propensity
            for civil strife. Furthermore, civil strife, in marked
            contrast to violence and theft, reduces investment and
            nonagricultural enterprise start-ups.
Teaching adults to read better and
            faster : results from an experiment in Burkina Faso
Two cognitively oriented methods were
            tested in Burkina Faso to help illiterates learn to read
            more efficiently. These were (a) speeded reading of
            increasingly larger word units and (b) phonological
            awareness training to help connect letters to speech.
            Learners were given reading tests and a computerized
            reaction time test. Although the literacy courses were
            shortened by the arrival of rains and government delays, the
            piloted methods helped adults read better than those in the
            standard "control" classes. Learners enrolled in
            the experimental classes performed better on the outcome
            tests than did learners enrolled in control classes. Ninety
            percent of the possible comparisons between treatment
            classes and control classes favored classes receiving
            treatments, and 72 percent of the measurements in favor of
            treatments were statistically significant. The evidence
            suggests that phonological awareness training is
            particularly effective in situations where the training
            period was short, and that rapid reading was more
            advantageous in longer training situations. Overall, the
            results are indicative of the potential that scientifically
            backed methods have in making adult literacy instruction
            more effective. However, due to the short duration of the
            classes (3-4 months) learners apparently did not receive
            sufficient practice to consolidate skills. Literacy skills
            may still be prone to being forgotten if readers do not
            learn to read automatically and if opportunities to read are few.
Regional integration in East Asia :
            challenges and opportunities - Part 1: history and institutions
Over the past decade, regional
            integration has become the focus of intense global interest
            and debate, and the regionalization of East Asia has figured
            prominently in that dialogue. East Asia can be described as
            a heterogeneous region that is both global and
            intraregional. The authors examine the motivating factors
            and underlying dynamics of the progression toward closer
            cooperation in the region beginning from a historical
            perspective, which sets the stage for an evaluation of the
            form that regional cooperation might take so as not to
            sacrifice the benefits of the region's already achieved
            openness. This examination includes a review of the
            lingering effects of the 1997-98 Asian crisis, the expanding
            role of China in the region, the prolonged slump in
            Japan's economy, and the evolution of regional
            institutions such as the Asia-Pacific Economic cooperation
            and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, among
            others. The authors focus on trade, direct investment, and
            the financial and monetary aspects of regional cooperation.
            In their analysis, they compare other regions, particularly
            the European Union and the North American Free Trade
            Agreement. Finally, the authors suggest cooperative steps
            the region might take over the next decade to promote the
            growth and stability of its member economies. In this
            regard, they look at the future role of regional
            institutions, the prospects for a regional role in promoting
            trade and foreign direct investment, and the possibilities
            for financial and monetary cooperation.
Migration and human capital in
            Brazil during the 1990s
Nearly 40 percent of all Brazilians have
            migrated at one point and time, and in-migrants represent
            substantial portions of regional populations. Migration in
            Brazil has historically been a mechanism for adjustment to
            disequilibria. Poorer regions and those with fewer economic
            opportunities have traditionally sent migrants to more
            prosperous regions. As such, the southeast region, where
            economic conditions are most favorable, has historically
            received migrants from the northeast region. Migration
            should have benefited both regions. The southeast benefits
            by importing skilled and unskilled labor that makes local
            capital more productive. The northeast can benefit from
            upward pressures on wages and through remittances that
            migrant households return to their region of origin. The
            northeast of Brazil is a net sender of migrants to the
            southeast. In recent years a large number of people moved
            from the southeast to the northeast. Compared with northeast
            to southeast (NE-SE) migrants, southeast to northeast
            (SE-NE) migrants are less homogeneous regarding age, wage,
            and income. SE-NE migrants are on average poorer and less
            educated than the southeast average, while NE-SE migrants
            are financially better off and higher educated than the
            northeast average. The authors find that the predicted
            returns to migration are increasing with education for SE-NE
            migrants and decreasing for NE-SE migrants. They further
            observe that the returns to migration have been decreasing
            for NE-SE migrants and increasing for SE-NE migrants between
            1995 and 1999. This finding helps explain migration dynamics
            in Brazil. While the predicted positive returns to migration
            for NE-SE migrants indicate that NE-SE migration follows in
            general the human capital approach to migration, the
            estimated lower returns to migration for SE-NE may indicate
            that nonmonetary factors also play a role in SE-NE migration.
The impact of China's WTO
            accession on East Asia
China's World Trade Organization
            (WTO) accession will have major implications for China and
            present both opportunities and challenges for East Asia.
            Ianchovichina and Walmsley assess the possible channels
            through which China's accession to the WTO could affect
            East Asia and quantify these effects using a dynamic
            computable general equilibrium model. China will be the
            biggest beneficiary of accession, followed by the industrial
            and newly industrializing economies (NIEs) in East Asia. But
            their benefits are small relative to the size of their
            economies and to the vigorous growth projected to occur in
            the region over the next 10 years. By contrast, developing
            countries in East Asia are expected to incur small declines
            in real GDP and welfare as a result of China's
            accession, mainly because with the elimination of quotas on
            Chinese textile and apparel exports to industrial countries
            China will become a formidable competitor in areas in which
            these countries have comparative advantage. With WTO
            accession China will increase its demand for petrochemicals,
            electronics, machinery, and equipment from Japan and the
            NIEs, and farm, timber, energy products, and other
            manufactures from the developing countries in East Asia. New
            foreign investment is likely to flow into these expanding
            sectors. The overall impact on foreign investment is likely
            to be positive in the NIEs, but negative for the less
            developed East Asian countries as a result of the
            contraction of these economies' textile and apparel
            sector. As China becomes a more efficient supplier of
            services or a more efficient producer of high-end
            manufactures, its comparative advantage will shift into
            higher-end products. This is good news for the poor
            developing economies in East Asia, but it implies that the
            impact of China's WTO accession on the NIEs may change
            to include heightened competition in global markets.
Ownership structure and initial
            public offerings
The authors study the relationship
            between ownership structure, corporate governance, and the
            initial public offering (IPO) process. They examine equity
            ownership by different institutions, such as foreign and
            domestic financial institutions, banks with and without
            lending relationships, venture capitalists, and corporations
            prior to an IPO. The authors also analyze the relationship
            between ownership structure and corporate governance. They
            use a unique dataset of 152 Indian IPOs during the period
            1999-2001 to analyze ownership of shares by main groups of
            shareholders. The authors find a relationship between
            ownership structure and firm-specific factors such as sales,
            leverage, and profitability, and IPO characteristics such as
            percentage of equity locked up, gross proceeds, and exchange
            of listing. There is also a strong relationship between
            ownership by different types of institutions. Ownership is
            also tied to bank lending relationships. Finally, the
            authors find strong relationships between ownership types
            and corporate governance. For example, firms with foreign
            investors are more likely to have an outside chief executive
            officer and offer an employee stock option plan.
Governance of public pension funds :
            lessons from corporate governance and international evidence
An understanding of corporate governance
            theory can promote the adoption of appropriate governance
            tools to limit agency problems in public pension fund
            management. The absence of a market for corporate control
            hinders the translation of lessons from the private sector
            corporate world to public pension governance. The
            establishment of a fit, and proper governing body for public
            pension funds, thus may be even more important than the
            maintenance of a comparable body for private sector
            corporations. In particular, behavioral controls should be
            carefully designed.
Integrating housing wealth into the
            social safety net : the elderly in Moscow
The elderly in Russia have often been
            among those least able to cope with all the changes that
            have taken place during the transition. Unlike the situation
            prior to reform-when pensions were stable-they now face
            considerable uncertainty. If they have not been in poverty,
            many have been close to it. While the elderly have
            experienced difficulties, they have also been the
            beneficiaries of a very large transfer of wealth. In Russia,
            as in most transition economies, housing was privatized,
            under giveaway terms. As a result, although many elderly
            households have low incomes, based on their wealth, their
            deprivation would appear to be less serious. Unfortunately,
            in the absence of a developed financial system, it is
            difficult to use this wealth without selling it. In Russia,
            all households, not just the elderly, have not been able to
            borrow. The existence of such large unencumbered wealth
            holdings by lower income elderly households creates an
            opportunity to provide what might be termed "housing
            safety net insurance" at low public cost. More than
            reducing the incidence of poverty, such schemes could allow
            also many of the elderly to be able to move out of poverty
            and into middle income status. The authors explain why many
            of the elderly in the former Soviet Union (FSU), not just in
            Russia, are likely to have so much housing wealth. Then they
            discuss how financial instruments could access this wealth.
            The authors also discuss the empirical situation of the
            elderly in Moscow, illustrating the potential demand for
            such products. Finally, they suggest that the results for
            Moscow are likely to be similar in many other FSU countries
            because these countries also have elderly populations who
            also own a great deal of unencumbered housing wealth.
Price caps, efficiency payoffs, and
            infrastructure contract renegotiation in Latin America
Twenty years ago, as the United Kingdom
            was getting ready to launch the privatization of its public
            services, Professor Littlechild developed and
            operationalized the concept of price caps as a regulatory
            regime to control for residual monopoly conditions in those
            services. Ten years later, Latin American countries, as they
            embarked into their own infrastructure reforms, also adopted
            the price cap regulatory model. Relying on a large data base
            on the factors driving contract renegotiation in the region
            and a survey of the literature on efficiency gains, the
            authors assess the impact of this regulatory regime in Latin
            America. They show that while the expected efficiency gains
            were amply achieved, these gains were seldom passed on to
            the users. Instead they were shared by the government and
            the firms. Moreover, the adoption of price caps implied
            higher costs of capital and hence, tariffs, and brought down
            levels of investment.
Economic analysis of health care
            utilization and perceived illness ; ethnicity and other factors
Paqueo and Gonzalez look at the
            determinants of health-seeking behavior of the Mexican
            population and within this context focus on the effect of
            ethnicity. They address the following questions: To what
            extent are the indigenous people at a disadvantage health
            care-wise and in what particular health services are they
            disadvantaged? Is the health care gap due to indigenous
            cultures by itself as opposed to the impact of socioeconomic
            differences? What policy instruments can be used to reduce
            the gap? The authors find that contrary to expectations, the
            indigenous people in Mexico tend to have a positive behavior
            toward modern preventive care compared with the
            nonindigenous population, holding socioeconomic factors
            constant. Apparently, there is no cultural barrier in regard
            to these services. But ethnicity remains negatively
            associated with the use of inpatient hospital care and
            medical and dental consultations. Insurance has a
            significant and positive effect on health care use.
            Therefore, it appears to be an effective instrument for
            addressing the health care disadvantages faced by the
            indigenous population in regard to inpatient care and the
            use of outpatient services of doctors, nurses, and dentists.
The role of advocacy in competition
            policy : the case of the Argentine gasoline market
In 2000 the Argentine antitrust
            authorities conducted a study of the state of competition in
            the gasoline market. The study concludes with a set of
            policy recommendations (that is, limits to vertical
            integration and to the duration of contracts between oil
            companies and gasoline stations) which were subsequently
            implemented by the Argentine government. This was one of the
            rare occasions where the Argentine antitrust authorities
            exercised its advocacy role in a country that underwent an
            extensive process of deregulation and privatization.
            Serebrisky assesses the design and impact of the policies
            recommended by the Argentine antitrust authorities. In
            particular, he evaluates under which circumstances the new
            policies can reduce barriers to entry and foster competition
            in the Argentine gasoline market.
Social protection in a crisis -
            Argentina's Plan Jefes y Jefas
The authors assess the impact of
            Argentina's main social policy response to the severe
            economic crisis of 2002. The program aimed to provide direct
            income support for families with dependents, for whom the
            head had become unemployed due to the crisis. Counterfactual
            comparisons are based on a matched subset of applicants not
            yet receiving the program. Panel data spanning the crisis
            are also used. The authors find that the program reduced
            aggregate unemployment, though it attracted as many people
            into the workforce from inactivity, as it did people who
            would have been otherwise unemployed. While there was
            substantial leakage to formally ineligible families, and
            incomplete coverage of those eligible, the program did
            partially compensate many losers from the crisis, and
            reduced extreme poverty.