rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Individual and country-level factors
            affecting support for foreign aid
In recent years donor countries have
            committed to dramatic increases in the supply of foreign aid
            to developing countries. Meeting and sustaining such
            commitments will require sufficient support among donor
            country voters and taxpayers. The determinants of public
            opinion in donor countries on foreign aid have received
            little attention. This paper examines attitudes to foreign
            aid with a large, multi-level, cross-national study. It
            outlines a theoretical rationale for support for foreign
            aid, discussing the importance of both individual factors
            and economic and social structures. The theory is tested
            with multi-level models, including both individual-level and
            country-level variables to predict positive attitudes. Two
            datasets are used to measure attitudes in donor countries:
            (1) the 1995 World Values Survey has information from
            approximately 6,000 individuals in nine countries and asks a
            rich battery of questions at the individual-level, and (2)
            the 2002 Gallup "Voice of the People" survey asks
            fewer questions of individuals but includes 17 donor
            countries. Using both surveys combines their distinct
            strengths and allows tests of individual and national-level
            theories across disparate samples. The results generally
            support the predictions that attitudes toward aid are
            influenced by religiosity, beliefs about the causes of
            poverty, awareness of international affairs, and trust in
            people and institutions.
Hunting for Leopards : long run
            country income dynamics in Africa
This paper examines the country-level
            dynamics of long-run growth in Africa between 1975 and 2005.
            The authors examine how growth has affected mobility and the
            distribution of income among countries.  They analyze
            changes in cross-country income structure and convergence,
            and look for evidence of the formation of country groups or
            "clubs." Using a novel method of breaking up the
            growth histories of African economies into medium-term
            spells of growth accelerations and declines, the authors
            investigate whether a group of African "leopards"
            - the regional equivalent of Asia's "tigers"
            - is beginning to emerge.
Governance, corruption, and trade in
            the Asia Pacific region
This paper examines the impact of
            reducing corruption and improving transparency to lower
            trade costs in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation region.
            The authors find, based on a computable general equilibrium
            model, significant potential trade and welfare gains for
            Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation members, with increased
            transparency and lower levels of corruption. Results suggest
            that trade in the region would increase by 11 percent and
            global welfare would expand by $406 billion by raising
            transparency to the average in the region. Most of the
            increase in welfare would take place in member economies
            undertaking reform. Among the reformers, the gross domestic
            product of Vietnam, Thailand, Russia, and the Philippines
            would increase approximately 20 percent. The benefits to
            Malaysia and China would also be substantial with increased
            transparency and lower levels of corruption.
How China's farmers adapt to
            climate change
This paper uses a cross sectional method
            to analyze irrigation choice and crop choice across 8,405
            farmers in 28 provinces in China. The findings show that
            Chinese farmers are more likely to irrigate when facing
            lower temperatures and less precipitation.  Farmers in
            warmer places are more likely to choose oil crops, maize,
            and especially cotton and wheat, and are less likely to
            choose vegetables, potatoes, sugar, and especially rice and
            soybeans.  In wetter locations, farmers are more likely to
            choose soybeans, oil crops, sugar, vegetables, cotton, and
            especially rice, and they are less likely to choose
            potatoes, wheat, and especially maize. The analysis of how
            Chinese farmers have adapted to current climate, provides
            insight into how they will likely adapt when climate
            changes. Future climate scenarios will cause farmers in
            China to want to reduce irrigation and shift toward oil
            crops, wheat, and especially cotton. In turn, farmers will
            shift away from potatoes, rice, vegetables, and soybeans.
            However, adaptation will likely vary greatly from region to
            region. Policy makers should anticipate that adaptation is
            important, that the magnitude of changes depends on the
            climate scenario, and that the desired changes depend on the
            location of each farm.
The short and longer term potential
            welfare impact of global commodity inflation in Tanzania
This paper uses a computable general
            equilibrium model to assess the welfare impact of commodity
            price inflation in Tanzania and possible tax policy
            responses in the short, medium, and long term. The results
            suggest that global commodity inflation since 2006 may have
            had a significantly negative impact on all Tanzanian
            households. Most of the negative impact comes from the rise
            in the price of oil. In contrast, food price spikes are
            potentially welfare improving for all Tanzanian households
            in the medium to long run. In comparison with nonpoor
            households, poor households in Tanzania may be relatively
            shielded from global commodity inflation because they derive
            a larger share of their incomes from agricultural activity
            and consume less oil-intensive products. Finally, the
            results suggest that tax policies encouraging greater
            agricultural production and consumption may help to reduce
            poverty. In contrast, policies discouraging agricultural
            production (such as export bans) bear the risk of increasing
            poverty in the long run. However, such policies would only
            effect at the margin (in one direction or the other) the
            likely impact of global commodity inflation on poverty.
Strengthening local government
            budgeting and accountability
In many developing and middle-income
            countries, decentralization reforms are promoting changes in
            governance structures that are reshaping the relationship
            between local governments and citizens.  The success of
            these decentralization reforms depends on the existence of
            sound public financial systems both at the central and local
            levels. This paper focuses on the role of budgeting as a
            critical tool in reform efforts, highlighting problems that
            might impede successful local government budget development
            and implementation. The attainment of effective local
            government accountability and transparency is not an end
            itself, but rather it represents the means to support better
            decision-making on national and local budgeting. Community
            based schemes for enhancing local government accountability
            need to combine legal, political, and administrative
            mechanisms with proactive community involvement. Of
            particular importance are the legal and budgetary
            instruments that require input from local community members
            on certain local government decisions and instruments that
            increase accessibility for the press or the general public
            at large to information on government activities.
Will consolidation improve
            sub-national governments
Local government size varies
            dramatically around the world. In Sudan, Cote d'Ivoire,
            and the United Kingdom, municipalities average more than
            125,000 people. Those in many European countries have less
            than 10,000 people. Countries often consider consolidation
            of local governments as a means to lower service delivery
            costs, improve service quality, enhance accountability,
            improve equity, or expand participation in government. The
            authors review a number of theoretical arguments and
            empirical findings concerning the size of sub-national
            governments. Countries should not presume that amalgamation
            will solve problems because benefits and costs are situation
            specific. Success depends on many factors, including getting
            incentives right for the various players and managing the
            transition properly. The effects on costs must be examined
            in terms of all changes occurring with consolidation,
            including geographic size. Size economies appear service
            specific and are most likely to result for infrastructure
            intensive services such as water and sewerage. Size
            economies are less likely for services such as education
            that are provided in numerous small production units near
            the population. Also, the potential for savings depends on
            other factors, such as willingness to eliminate redundant
            workers. Consolidation reduces the potential for local
            government competition, which appears to enhance service
            quality but not necessarily overall government size. There
            is some evidence that citizens are more willing to be
            involved in larger governments, but trust may fall with
            government size. Larger governments can improve regional
            planning by handling problems with a broader geographic
            perspective and giving the government more influence with
            national policymakers.
Public-private sector wage
            differentials and returns to education in Djibouti
Do public sector workers earn a wage
            premium in Djibouti and are the returns to education
            different across the sectors? The authors estimate private
            and public sector wage earnings using 1996 household survey
            data, while controlling for selectivity using Heckman's
            two stage approach. They find that Djiboutian public sector
            employees earn a wage premium, independent of their personal
            attributes and human capital endowments, and are more likely
            to be males and have parents in the public sector. Workers
            in the public sector earn higher private rates of return to
            education than do private sector workers with post-secondary
            schooling. These results raise concerns about current
            government hiring and wage-setting practices that generate
            distortions in the labor market and are not efficiently
            allocating labor and public resources.
Welfare measurement bias in
            household and on-site surveying of water-based recreation :
            an application to Lake Sevan, Armenia
Studies comparing household surveys with
            on-site interceptor surveys have typically accounted for
            over-sampling avid users in the on-site interceptor surveys
            (that is, endogenous stratification). However, these studies
            have typically not accounted for the possibility that the
            household sample may contain a large presence of zero
            observations. If a large proportion of the population does
            not recreate at the site for any value of the price vector,
            this inflation of zero observations leads to biased welfare
            estimates and an inadequate comparison with the on-site
            survey. In this paper, the authors estimate and compare
            three models which correct for these measurement issues in
            both the household and on-site surveys. Results from an
            application to recreation at Lake Sevan (Armenia) indicate
            that household consumers' surplus is not statistically
            different from that of the on-site survey once the authors
            account for zero-inflation in the household sample and
            endogenous stratification in the on-site sample.
What determines protection of
            property rights An analysis of direct and indirect effects
Using cross-country data, the authors
            evaluate historical determinants of protection of property
            rights. They examine four historical theories that focus on
            conceptually distinct causal variables believed to shape
            institutions: legal origin, endowments, ethnic diversity,
            and religion. There is only one realization of the data with
            relatively few observations, which have by now been well
            explored in the literature. Given the correlations between
            the explanatory variables, it is difficult to fashion
            empirical tests which are consistent in their treatment of
            the competing theories and to know which regressions to take
            seriously, giving rise to competing interpretations in the
            literature. The authors use Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)
            methodology to identify which historical factors are direct
            determinants of property rights protection and which are
            not, and subject the outcomes to a battery of robustness
            tests. The empirical results support ethnic
            fractionalization as a robust determinant of property rights
            protection. Despite the attention it has received in the
            literature, the impact of legal origin on protection of
            property rights appears fragile and dependent on the
            inclusion of transition economies in the sample.
How will China's
            saving-investment balance evolve
This paper investigates how China's
            saving, investment, and saving-investment balance will
            evolve in the decades ahead. Household saving in China is
            relatively high compared with OECD countries. However, much
            of China's high economywide saving, and the difference
            between China and other countries, are due to unusually high
            enterprise and government saving. Moreover, cross-country
            empirical analysis shows that economywide saving and
            investment in China are higher than what would be expected,
            even adjusting for differences in economic structure.
            Combined, these findings suggest that much of China's
            high saving is the result of policies particular to China.
            Looking ahead, the econometric results suggest that purely
            on the basis of projected structural developments-including
            development, changes in economic structure, urbanization,
            and demographics-saving and investment would both decline
            only mildly in the coming two decades, with ambiguous impact
            on the current account surplus. However, the potential
            effect on saving, investment, and the saving-investment
            balance of several policy adjustments could be large.
            Several of these policies are identified and their likely
            impact assessed and quantified. This exercise suggests that
            rebalancing along these lines should reduce both saving and
            the current account surplus over time, although the surplus
            is unlikely to turn into a deficit soon.
Annuity markets in Chile :
            competition, regulation - and myopia
The author studies annuity rates in
            Chile and relates them with industry competition. He finds
            (1) that annuity insurance companies paying higher broker
            commissions paid lower annuity rates; and (2) a structural
            break of the long-run elasticity of annuity rates to the
            risk-free rate in 2001. Moreover, this structural break
            coincided with the submission of a new draft pension law
            proposing greater transparency in annuity markets and a
            generalized drop in broker commissions. The high commissions
            charged in the 1990s were partly returned to annuitants as
            informal (and illegal) cash rebates. Myopic pensioners
            preferred cash rebates over present values. Thus, the legal
            threat caused the drop in broker commissions, reduced the
            illegal practice of cash rebates, increased competition by
            way of annuity rates, and raised the long-run elasticity to one.
Implications of WTO agreements and
            unilateral trade policy reforms for poverty in Bangladesh :
            short versus long-run impacts
The authors examine the effects of WTO
            agreements and domestic trade policy reforms on production,
            welfare, and poverty in Bangladesh. They use a sequential
            dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which
            takes into account accumulation effects, allowing for
            long-run analysis. The study is based on the 2000 Social
            Accounting Matrix (SAM) of Bangladesh including 15
            production sectors, four factors of production (skilled and
            unskilled labor, agricultural and nonagricultural capital),
            and nine household groups (five in rural areas and four in
            urban areas). To examine the link between the macroeconomic
            effects and microeconomic effects in terms of poverty, the
            authors use the representative household approach with
            actual intra-group income distributions. The study presents
            five simulations for which the major findings are: (1) The
            Doha scenario has negative implications for the overall
            macroeconomy, household welfare, and poverty in Bangladesh.
            Terms of trade deteriorate and consumer prices, particularly
            food prices, increase more than nominal incomes, especially
            among poor households. (2) Free world trade has similar, but
            larger, impacts. (3) Domestic trade liberalization induces
            an expansion of agricultural and light manufacturing
            sectors, favorable changes in the domestic terms of trade.
            Although the short-run welfare and poverty impacts are
            negative, these turn positive in the long run when capital
            has adjusted through new investments. Rising unskilled wage
            rates make the poorest households the biggest winners in
            terms of welfare and poverty reduction. (4) Domestic
            liberalization effects far outweigh those of free world
            trade when these scenarios are combined. (5) Remittances
            constitute a powerful poverty-reducing tool given their
            greater importance in the income of the poor.
Openness, inequality, and poverty :
            endowments matter
Using tariffs as a measure of openness,
            the authors find consistent evidence that the conditional
            effects of trade liberalization on inequality are correlated
            with relative factor endowments. Trade liberalization is
            associated with increases in inequality in countries
            well-endowed in highly skilled workers and capital or with
            workers that have very low education levels and in countries
            relatively well-endowed in mining and fuels. Trade
            liberalization is associated with decreases in inequality in
            countries that are well-endowed with primary-educated labor.
            Similar results are also apparent when decile data are used
            instead of the usual Gini coefficient. The results are
            strongly supportive of the factor-proportions theory of
            trade and suggest that trade liberalization in poor
            countries where the share of the labor force with very low
            education levels (likely employed in nontradable activities)
            is high raises inequality. In the sample, countries with low
            education levels also have relatively scarce endowments of
            capital. Quantitatively capital scarcity is the dominating
            effect so that trade liberalization is accompanied by
            reduced income inequality in low-income countries.
            Within-country inequality is also positively correlated with
            measures of macroeconomic instability. Simulation results
            suggest that relatively small changes in inequality as
            measured by aggregate measures of inequality like the Gini
            coefficient are magnified when estimates are carried out
            using decile data.
A firm-level analysis of small and
            medium size enterprise financing in Poland
The authors test competing theories of
            capital structure choices using firm-level data on firm
            borrowings. The majority of firms in the dataset are
            privately owned, young, micro or small and medium enterprise
            (SME) firms concentrated in the service sector. In general,
            the financing pattern of firms is low leverage ratios and,
            in particular, low levels of intermediated financing and
            long-term financing. Average firm growth rates decreased
            during the five years of the sample period. Average
            profitability growth ratios are also negative across age and
            sectors and large firms have the highest negative profit
            growth rates. Statistical tests find a positive firm size
            effect on financial intermediation. Larger firms have higher
            leverage ratios (both short term and long term), including
            higher use of trade credit. There is also a negative
            influence of profitability on leverage ratios (more
            profitable firms use less external financing), which
            supports the "pecking order" theory that in
            environments with greater asymmetric information (such as
            weaker credit information) firms prefer to use internal or
            inter-firm financing. Finally, firms operating in a
            competitive environment have higher leverage ratios. For
            instance, young, small firms are the most active employment
            generators in the Polish economy. In particular, the authors
            find that although SMEs seem to be very active in creating
            jobs in recent years. This suggests that a new type of firm
            is emerging that is more market and profit-oriented. But at
            the same time, these firms appear to have financial
            constraints that impede their growth. Improvements in the
            business environment, such as better credit and registry
            information, could help promote growth in this sector.