rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Before main banks : a selective
            historical overview of Japan's prewar financialsystem
The postwar experience of the Japanese
            banking system has received considerable attention recently
            partly because conditions in defeated Japan in 1945
            (including high inflation and the need to switch from a
            military to a civilian economy) are similar to those in
            transition economies today. Policymakers in transition
            economies can learn a good deal from the experiences of
            Japan's postwar financial system but should remember
            that Japan also experienced extraordinary industrial growth
            and financial institution building in the late nineteenth
            and early twentieth centuries. Lessons to be learned from
            that experience include the following: Business
            conglomerates that did not continue to depend on government
            patronage were more successful than others in making the
            transition to a modern industrial economy. Banks that made a
            conscious effort to reduce their dependence on central bank
            credit were more successful than those that did not. The
            establishment of procedures for punishing defaulting
            borrowers helped the development of the payments system.
            Limits on the amount of lending to related parties appear to
            have contributed to financial stability (and could have
            contributed more if the newer "zaibatsu" had been
            as prudent as the older ones). Bank bailouts without
            accompanying reform (such as those the Bank of Japan
            undertook in 1920 and 1922) probably increased the
            likelihood of a more serious crisis, such as that of 1927.
            Capital standards - the minimum capital requirements
            established in the 1927 law - were a viable means of
            encouraging bank consolidation and more prudent lending. The
            public financial system served as a buffer when the banking
            sector was downsized.
Governance and returns on investment
            : an empirical investigation
Using data from the World Bank's
            Operations Evaluation Department, the authors examine the
            link between the performance of Bank-financed projects and
            various indicators of country governance. They find that:
            there is a strong statistical, and possibly casual, link
            between civil liberties and project performance. After
            controlling for a variety of determinants of project
            performance, they find that in countries with the best civil
            liberties records projects have an economic rate of return
            between 8 and 22 percentage points higher than the rate of
            return in countries with the worst civil liberties. (The
            average rate of return in the sample is 6 percent). The
            typical political regime (whether authoritarian or
            democratic) and the status of more purely political
            liberties do not appear to significantly affect project performance.
The development of industrial
            pensions in the United States in the twentieth century
Pensions are retirement income. They
            offer protection in case you live long enough to quit
            collecting a paycheck and can stop working. In the United
            States, pensions are provided by both public and private
            sectors. Private sector pension funds are the largest formal
            financial institution for life-cycle saving, with assets of
            trillions of dollars. Pensions developed when more
            traditional forms of life-cycle saving became more difficult
            to carry out, job tenure increased, and there was a movement
            away from the spot labor market. Employers wanted to create
            a stable, experienced work force that was reluctant to leave
            - that is, a stock of firm-specific human capital. Thus they
            had an incentive to create a deferred wage.  And workers
            wanted retirement insurance that was secure. As developing
            countries begin to employ an older work force with longer
            job tenure, the demand for defined benefit pensions will
            rise. Which institution can best provide pensions: the
            employer, a financial intermediary, or the state? If markets
            fluctuate because of financial instability, workers will
            prefer defined benefit plans, and they will want them to be
            provided by the institution in which they have the most
            faith. Funding is important in the long run. Sound
            accounting practices would dictate that the cumulative
            reserves match pension liabilities as they accumulate. The
            regular contribution to these funds would be the deferred
            wage. But historically, in the   United States, pensions
            were funded only when profits were high or tax incentives or
            regulation dictated. Developing countries will need a sound
            corporate tax structure and must be willing to forgo some
            immediate tax revenue, to create a large pension savings fund.
Regulating telecommunications in
            developing countries : outcomes, incentives, and commitment
In response to the recent wave of
            privatizing and regulating monopolies in developing
            countries, the authors evaluate the impact of different
            regulatory schemes on private sector behavior in the
            telecommunications sector in seven countries.  They find
            that regulation is most effective - meaning, it results in
            substantial investment by the private sector, reasonable
            returns on this investment, and greater productivity - where
            the government/regulators reduce the firm's information
            advantage, induce the firm (through pricing) to operate
            efficiently, and institute safeguarding mechanisms to
            protect the firm against expropriation of assets or
            quasi-rents.  Conversely, where the government/regulators
            fail to resolve information, incentive, and commitment
            problems, private sector returns are relatively high, and
            investment and productivity are relatively low.
Raising household energy prices in
            Poland : who gains who loses
The authors examine the welfare effects
            of increasing household energy prices in Poland.  Their main
            finding is that the policy of subsidizing household energy
            prices, common in the transition economies of Eastern Europe
            and the former Soviet Union, is regressive.  Such programs
            do help the poor by providing them with lower-cost energy,
            but they are more useful to the rich, who consume more
            energy.  What is surprising is the extent to which
            Poland's nonpoor have benefited from lower energy
            prices.  Non only do the wealthy consume more energy in
            absolute terms than the poor, but they also spend a larger
            portion of their income on energy.  Their analysis allowed
            the authors to rule out the oft-used social welfare argument
            for delaying increases in household energy prices, but they
            do not try to recommend a dynamically efficient pricing
            path.  The first-best response would be to raise energy
            prices while targeting cash relief to the poor through a
            social assistance program.  This is far more efficient than
            the present go-slow price adjustment policies, which imply
            energy subsidies that provide across-the-board relief to all
            consumers.  But if governments want to provide some relief
            for consumers to ease the adjustment, several options are
            available: in-kind transfers to the poor, vouchers, cash
            transfers, and lifeline pricing for a small block of
            electricity combined with significant price increases.
            Simulations show that if raising prices to efficient levels
            for all consumers  is not now politically feasible, it may
            be socially better to use lifeline pricing and a large price
            increase rather than an overall (but smaller) price
            increase.  Lifeline pricing for electricity in combination
            with an 80 percent price increase has better distributional
            effects than a 50 percent across-the-board price increase.
            Ideally, the public utility would be compensated from the
            budgtet for any reduced-price sales, rather than having to
            finance them through internal cross-subsidies.  In-kind
            transfers to poor households are also effective in terms of
            efficiency, but may be harder to administer in some
            countries than lifeline pricing.
Estimating the world at work
Addressing the question, "What is
            the work status of the world's working-age population
            and subgroups thereof?" The author gathers data for
            many countries and infers data where it is missing (which
            requires making "heroic assumptions"). The results
            are of course only as good as the data are representative
            and accurate. Data are least reliable for sub-Saharan
            Africa. The high-income group is dominated (in population)
            by the United States, Germany, and Japan, which account for
            58 percent of that group's working-age population. The
            middle-income group is dominated by Indonesia, the Russian
            Federation, and Brazil, which account for 40 percent of that
            group's working-age population. The low-income group is
            dominated by China and India, which account for 70 percent
            of that group's working-age population. Among other
            things, the author's charts and tables show the
            breakdown on working-age employment - in services, industry,
            agriculture - and unemployment in various parts of the world.
A measure of stock market
            integration for developed and emerging markets
If equity markets are financially
            integrated, the price of risk should be the same across
            markets.  If the markets are not financially integrated -
            possibly because of barriers to capital flows across markets
            - the price of risk may differ across markets.  The author
            investigates one measure of financial integration between
            equity markets.  He uses a multifactor equilibrium Arbitrage
            Pricing Theory to define risk and to measure deviations from
            the "law of one price."  He applies the
            integration measure to equities traded in 24 countries (four
            developed, and 20 emerging).  The measure of market
            segmentation tends to be much larger for emerging markets
            than for developed markets, which is consistent with larger
            barriers to capital flows into or out of the emerging
            markets.  The measure tends to decrease over time, which is
            consistent with growing levels of integration.  Large values
            of adjusted mispricing occur around periods of economic
            turbulence and periods in which capital controls change
            significantly.  So, the adjusted mispricing estimates
            measure not only the level of deviation from the law of one
            price, but also the revaluations inherent in moving from one
            regime to another.
Are stable agreements for sharing
            international river waters now possible
International river and lake basins
            constitute about 47 percent of the world's continental
            land area, a proportion that increases to about 60 percent
            in Africa, Asia, and South America.  Because water is a
            scarce and increasingly valuable resource, disputes about
            water allocation within these basins often contribute to
            regional tensions and conflicts.  May principles of
            international law have been developed to allocate water
            within a water basin and to prevent or resolve international
            water disputes.  Unfortunately, they rarely are easy to
            apply and often are contradictory.  Sharing river water is
            particularly difficult because the effects are one-way, with
            upstream-downstream supply disputes have been among the most
            common.  Agreements about the allocation of river water
            often last only until the first drought, when reduced flow
            denies some their full shares.  The authors develop a simple
            formal model of water allocation among states within a river
            basin.  They analyze the model in the context of variable
            flow rates, to project the behavior of riparian states
            during periods of above-normal and below-normal flow.  Their
            objective: to understand when, where, and how much the
            economic interests of the states conflict, to develop
            principles guaranteeing efficient allocations of scarce
            water supplies, and to identify when stable (self-enforcing)
            allocation agreements are possible.  They also consider the
            possibility of using alternative sources of supply and of
            accommodating growth in demand.  Satellite technology will
            soon dramatically improve the ability of riparian states to
            predict annual flow volumes.  In addition, water basin
            authorities will have real-time data on riparians'
            water use. These developments will have important
            implications for the enforceability and the flexibility of
            river water allocation systems.  This model shows how
            flexibility can be used to construct more durable systems
            for sharing water among riparian states.  The new allocation
            methods proposed here should contribute to the better
            management of scarce water supplies, a crucial issue in an
            increasingly thirsty world.
Social safety net and the poor
            during the transition : the case of Bulgaria
Using data from the 1992 Bulgarian
            household budget survey, the authors analyze the structure
            of income in Bulgaria, identifying who the poor are and how
            they are reached by the social safety net.  Their main
            findings about household incomes: (a) Social transfers
            provide an extremely large component - 24 percent - of
            household income per capita.  That is roughly on a par with
            the share in other Eastern European countries but more than
            40 percent higher than the share of the Organization for
            Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.  (b)
            Wage earnings have declined as a source of income,
            reflecting the counteraction of the state sector.  Wage
            income in Bulgaria has declined to only half the OECD level.
            (c) Income from self-employment has increased, reflecting
            the surge in small-scale retail establishments.  Income is
            considerably less concentrated in Bulgaria than in other
            lower-middle-income countries.   The author's main
            findings about the poor (the bottom 20 percent in terms of
            household income): The head of household in a poor home
            tends to be older, a woman, poorly educated, and unemployed.
            Poor households are not necessarily larger households in
            Bulgaria, unlike in other developing countries.  The sources
            of income in poor Bulgarian households reflect other
            findings: (a) The poor depend for more than half their
            income on social benefits (especially pensions), indicating
            the importance of the social safety net.  (b) The social
            safety net is not well targeted.  Most social benefits are
            pro-poor, in the sense that they improve income
            distribution, but many benefits accrue to better-off
            households.  There is substantial scope for better
            distribution of income.  The authors conclude that
            comprehensive reform of social benefits is needed, focusing
            on pensions, unemployment benefits, child allowances, and
            social assistance.
Environmental regulation and
            development : a cross-country empirical analysis
The authors develop comparative indices
            of environmental policy and performance for 31 countries
            using a quantified analysis of reports prepared for the
            United Nations Conference on Environmental and Development.
            In cross-country regressions, they find a very strong,
            continuous association between their indicators and national
            income per capita, particularly when adjusted for purchasing
            power parity.  Their results suggest a characteristic
            progression in development.  Poor agrarian economies focus
            first on natural resource protection.  With increased
            urbanization and industrialization, countries move from
            initial regulation of water pollution to air pollution
            control.  The authors highlight the importance of
            institutional development.  Environmental regulation is more
            advanced in developing countries with relatively secure
            property rights, effective legal and judicial systems, and
            efficient public administration.
Distribution of income and the
            income tax burden in Bulgaria
Using the 1992 Bulgarian household
            budget survey, the authors analyze the distribution of
            income and of the income tax burden by income and
            expenditure class and by rural-urban sector. They find: 1)
            Low income inequality (although that is changing rapidly).
            2) A progressive income tax system. The poor (the lowest
            two-income decile) pay only 1.4 percent of their per capita
            income in income tax; the rich (the top decile) pay nearly 6
            percent. In-kind income and expenditures are excluded from
            taxation. 3) The urban sector pays proportionately more in
            taxes than the rural sector. For example, urban households
            pay 5.3 percent of their per capita income in income tax,
            whereas the rural sector pays 2.4 percent. 3) Income tax
            contributes significantly to reducing income inequality at
            both the national and sectoral (rural-urban) level, as the
            poor pay a smaller share of taxes than their share of
            national income. These results hold whether income or
            expenditure is used as an indicator of economic well-being.
            The authors caution that as in-kind income becomes monetized
            and the economy becomes more market-oriented, the system
            will become less progressive and urban-rural differences
            will diminish. They contend that the bias toward higher
            urban taxes is justified to some extent by the fact that
            urban households benefit more from government services than
            rural households do.
Structural breaks and long-run
            trends in commodity prices
The oil shocks of the 1970s, which
            quadrupled the price of petroleum, marked the end of an
            abnormal period of price stability and renewed interest in
            predicting the evolution of commodity prices.  But most
            subsequent studies have focused on the short-run effects of
            price fluctuations, mainly because they greatly affect the
            foreign trade of developing countries.  Sophisticated
            compensation mechanisms, such as commodity funds, have been
            introduced to counterbalance the transitory effects of price
            shocks.  But the long-term evolution of prices also affects
            policy design and development strategies and may have a more
            important role in fostering long-run growth.  The evidence
            presented by Prebisch (1950) and Singer (1950) of a secular
            negative trend in the price of commodities in 1870-1945
            implies an increasingly weak position for developing
            countries relative to industrial economies.  This hypothesis
            by Prebisch and Singer has been strongly debated, both
            theoretically and empirically, during the past four decades.
            Using recent advances in econometric theory, the authors
            analyze the long-run dynamics of the price of the 24
            most-traded commodities in 1900-92.  The method they use
            tests for nonstationarity (unit roots) in the series with a
            technique that allows structural breaks to be endogenously
            determined.  The results show that 15 of the 24 commodity
            prices present negative trends, six are trendless, and three
            exhibit positive trends.  Thus, the Prebisch-Singer
            hypothesis though not universal, holds for most commodities.
            This evidence rejects, to some extent, previous evidence by
            Cuddington (1992) and others.  The authors extend the
            econometric analysis to determine the persistence of shocks
            to commodity prices.  Knowledge of the persistence of shocks
            is important when designing counterbalancing policies such
            as commodity funds.  The authors use a nonparametric
            estimator of persistence (the multiple variance ratio) and
            find that 19 of the 24 commodity prices present persistence
            levels substantially lower than previous estimates.  This
            evidence suggests that there may be substantial room for
            stabilization and price support mechanisms for most commodities.