rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
The Role of Government in the Market
            for Electric Vehicles : Evidence from China
To promote the development and diffusion
            of electric vehicles, central and local governments in many
            countries have adopted various incentive programs. This
            study examines the policy and market drivers behind the
            rapid development of the electric vehicle market in China,
            by far the largest one in the world. The analysis is based
            on the most comprehensive data on electric vehicle sales,
            local and central government incentive programs, and
            charging stations in 150 cities from 2015 to 2018. The study
            addresses the potential endogeneity of key variables, such
            as local policies and charging infrastructure, using the
            border regression design and instrumental variable method.
            The analysis shows that central and local subsidies
            accounted for over half of the electric vehicles sold during
            the data period. Investment in charging infrastructure is
            much more cost-effective than consumer purchase subsidies.
            In addition, the policy that merely provided electric
            vehicles a distinctively license plate was strikingly
            effective. These findings demonstrate the varying efficacy
            across policy instruments and highlight the critical role of
            government in promoting fuel-saving technologies.
Evaluating the Impact of Export
            Finance Support on Firm-Level Export Performance : Evidence
            from Pakistan
This paper evaluates the impact of two
            export finance support schemes, the Export Finance Scheme
            and the Long-Term Finance Facility for Plant & Machinery
            on firm-level export performance in Pakistan. These policies
            offer loans to exporters at concessionary interest rates to
            finance short-term working capital and long-term investment
            in machinery and equipment, respectively. The paper combines
            customs data with information on firms that participated in
            each scheme and the value of the loans they obtained between
            2015 and 2017. Using matching estimators to control for the
            nonrandom selection of firms into the schemes, the analysis
            finds that the Export Finance Scheme and Long-Term Finance
            Facility for Plant & Machinery increased the growth rate
            of export sales by 7 and 8-11 percentage points, but they do
            not have a significant impact on the number of products that
            a firm exports or the number of foreign countries to which
            it sells to. A cost-benefit analysis shows that although
            both schemes deliver net benefits, they entail a substantial
            financial cost to Pakistan's central bank.
Behavioral Change Promotion, Cash
            Transfers and Early Childhood Development : Experimental
            Evidence from a Government Program in a Low-Income Setting
Signs of development delays and
            malnutrition are widespread among young children in
            low-income settings. Social protection programs such as cash
            transfers are increasingly combined with behavioral change
            promotion or parenting interventions to improve early
            childhood development. This paper disentangles the effects
            of behavioral change promotion from cash transfers to poor
            households through an experiment embedded in a government
            program in Niger. The study is also designed to identify
            within-community spillovers from the behavioral change
            intervention. The findings show that behavioral change
            promotion affects a range of practices related to nutrition,
            health, stimulation, and child protection. Local spillovers
            on parenting practices are also found. Moderate gains in
            children's socio-emotional development are observed,
            but there are no improvements in anthropometrics or
            cognitive development. Cash transfers alone do not alter
            parenting practices or improve early childhood development.
            Cash transfers improve welfare and food security at the
            household level, and the behavioral intervention induces
            intra-household reallocations toward children.
Who Is Employed Evidence from
            Sub-Saharan Africa on Redefining Employment
The 19th International Conference of
            Labour Statisticians (in 2013) redefined labor statistics
            standards. A major change was to narrow the definition of
            employment to work for pay or profit. By the revised
            standards, farming that is only or mainly intended for own
            use is no longer considered employment, and such a farmer is
            no longer considered to be employed or in the labor force.
            This paper analyzes the implications of the revised
            standards on measures of employment in Sub-Saharan Africa
            obtained from multi-topic household surveys. It shows that,
            in some contexts, 70 to 80 percent of farmers produce only
            or mainly for family consumption and are therefore, based on
            this activity, not considered employed by the revised
            standards. However, there is wide variation across countries
            and regions. Moreover, farmers are more likely to report
            intending to produce for sale at the end of the growing
            season of the main local crop than earlier in the season.
            Men are more likely than women to produce for sale. The
            revised standards lead to significantly lower
            employment-to-population ratios in rural Africa and change
            the sectoral composition of the employed population toward
            non-agricultural sectors. The paper concludes with
            recommendations for data producers and users.
Teacher Performance-Based Incentives
            and Learning Inequality
This study evaluates the impacts of
            low-cost, performance-based incentives in Tanzanian
            secondary schools. Results from a two-phase randomized trial
            show that incentives for teachers led to modest average
            improvements in student achievement across different
            subjects. Further, withdrawing incentives did not lead to a
            "discouragement effect" (once incentives were
            withdrawn, student performance did not fall below
            pre-baseline levels). Rather, impacts on learning were
            sustained beyond the intervention period. However, these
            incentives may have exacerbated learning inequality within
            and across schools. Increases in learning were concentrated
            among initially better-performing schools and students. At
            the same time, learning outcomes may have decreased for
            schools and students that were lower performing at baseline.
            Finally, the study finds that incentivizing students without
            simultaneously incentivizing teachers did not produce
            observable learning gains.
Small Area Estimation of
            Non-Monetary Poverty with Geospatial Data
This paper uses data from Sri Lanka and
            Tanzania to evaluate the benefits of combining household
            surveys with geographically comprehensive geospatial
            indicators to generate small area estimates of non-monetary
            poverty. The preferred estimates are generated by utilizing
            subarea-level geospatial indicators in a household-level
            empirical best predictor mixed model with a normalized
            welfare measure. Mean squared errors are estimated using a
            parametric bootstrap procedure. The resulting estimates are
            highly correlated with non-monetary poverty calculated from
            the full census in both countries, and the gain in precision
            is comparable to increasing the size of the sample by a
            factor of three in Sri Lanka and five in Tanzania. The
            empirical best predictor model moderately underestimates
            uncertainty, but coverage rates are similar to standard
            survey-based estimates that assume independent outcomes
            across clusters. A variety of checks, including adding noise
            to the welfare measure and model-based and design-based
            simulations, confirm that the main results are robust. The
            results demonstrate that combining household survey data
            with subarea-level geospatial indicators can greatly
            increase the precision of survey estimates of non-monetary
            poverty at comparatively low cost.
On the Quantity and Quality of Girls
            : Fertility, Parental Investments, and Mortality
The introduction of prenatal
            sex-detection technologies in India has led to a phenomenal
            increase in abortion of female fetuses. This paper examines
            the impacts of this on girl relative to boy mortality rates
            after birth, using data from 1973-2005. The analysis finds a
            narrowing of the gender gap in under-5 mortality rates, in
            line with surviving girls being more wanted. The estimates
            show that for every three aborted girls, one additional girl
            survives to age five. Investigation of the mechanisms finds
            a narrowing of gender gaps in parental investments in
            children, moderation of son-biased fertility stopping, and
            shrinking of the gap between actual and desired fertility.
            Heterogeneity in fertility responses suggests a shift in the
            distribution of girls toward lower socioeconomic status
            families. The findings have implications not only for counts
            of missing girls, but also for the later life outcomes of girls.
The Energy-Management Nexus in Firms
            : Which Practices Matter, How Much and for Whom
Management practices matter for firm
            performance. As energy is one input in firm production,
            management practices may interact with energy use. Using a
            comprehensive firm-level database covering 31 countries,
            this study documents the link between structured management
            practices, energy use, and firm performance. The paper
            reports several findings. First, although management is
            negatively correlated with energy expenditure, it bears a
            positive (or 0) relationship with physical energy use,
            suggesting that management effort is directed toward saving
            costs but not reducing environmental impact. These results
            are primarily driven by the manufacturing sector. Second,
            among the structured management practices examined, those
            relating to target-setting are associated with reduced
            energy expenditure intensity. Third, generic management
            practices are correlated with greater discipline around
            energy management. Finally, while generic practices are
            correlated with stronger firm performance in manufacturing
            and services, energy-centric practices show a positive
            association only in services. Vast heterogeneity in adoption
            and outcomes suggests that targeted approaches to encourage
            energy management practices in firms may be more effective
            than uniform ones.
The Utilization-adjusted Human
            Capital Index (UHCI)
The World Bank Human Capital Index (HCI)
            is based on the productivity gains of future workers from
            human capital accumulation. But in many developing
            countries, a sizeable fraction of people are not employed,
            or are in jobs in which they cannot fully use their skills
            and cognitive abilities to increase their productivity. The
            Utilization-adjusted Human Capital Indices (UHCIs) adjust
            the HCI for labor-market underutilization of human capital,
            based on fraction of the working age population that are
            employed, or are in the types of jobs where they might be
            better able to use their skills and abilities to increase
            their productivity (“better employment”). The UHCIs
            generalize the growth-based interpretation of the HCI: the
            inverse of a country's UHCI score represents long-run
            GDP per capita with complete human capital and complete
            utilization, relative to that under the status quo. The
            UHCIs are designed to complement the HCI, and not to replace
            it: they have different purposes, and the challenges of
            measuring utilization mean that the UHCIs should be
            interpreted with caution for policy analysis. Both
            utilization measures are available for more than 160
            countries, and are roughly U-shaped in per capita income,
            suggesting human capital is particularly underutilized in
            middle-income countries. Human capital is also underutilized
            for women: while the HCI is roughly equal across boys and
            girls, female UHCIs are typically lower than those for
            males, driven by lower employment rates.
Sovereign Credit Ratings, Relative
            Risk Ratings, and Private Capital Flows
This paper examines the influence of
            sovereign credit ratings and relative risk ratings on
            private capital flows to 26 emerging and frontier market
            economies, using quarterly data for 1998-2017. A dynamic
            panel regression model is used to estimate the relationship
            between ratings and capital flows after controlling for
            other factors that can influence capital flows, such as
            growth and interest rate differentials and global risk
            conditions. The analysis finds that while absolute ratings
            were an important determinant of net capital inflows prior
            to the global financial crisis in 2008, the influence of
            relative risk ratings increased in the post-crisis period,
            which was characterized by easy monetary policies and global
            liquidity, on the one hand, and greater caution and
            discretion on the part of investors on the other. The
            post-crisis effect of relative ratings appears to be driven
            mostly by portfolio flows. These findings imply that
            emerging and frontier markets need to pay greater attention
            to their relative economic performance and not just their
            sovereign ratings. Tracking changes in relative ratings
            could help predict macroeconomic disturbances resulting from
            volatile portfolio capital movements.
Designing Oil Revenue Management
            Mechanisms : An Application to Chad
Oil resources usually play a significant
            role in oil-rich countries, in gross domestic product and
            government revenues. High dependence of government revenues
            on oil can contribute to severe recession following an
            adverse commodity price shock, such as in 2014. This paper
            examines the extent to which a fiscal rule or stabilization
            fund could translate into a less pro-cyclical fiscal policy,
            with the government saving part of its oil revenues during
            periods of high prices and drawing down on the savings
            during difficult periods. Using the macro-structural model
            MFMod, the paper presents, evaluates, and discusses the
            strengths and weaknesses of different oil revenue management
            mechanisms applied to the specific case of Chad. The
            scenarios demonstrate that a well-designed management rule
            can successfully insulate the public budget from the oil
            price cycle, resulting in a significant reduction in the
            volatility of the economy.
Inflation Threshold Levels and
            Economic Growth in the Franc Zone Countries
This paper examines the growth-inflation
            nexus in Franc zone currency unions. It aims at estimating
            the inflation threshold above which additional inflationary
            pressures adversely affect economic expansion. It uses
            cointegration methods that are applied to data from 14
            African countries from the Franc zone over 1970-2018. Based
            on country-level data, the results indicate that it is
            possible to increase the threshold levels used by regional
            central banks to 5.4-5.6 percent in the Central African
            Monetary Union and 4.3-4.5 percent in the West African
            Monetary Union. Homogeneous cointegration panel data
            analyses confirm the need to increase the threshold in
            Central African Monetary Union countries but do not in the
            West African Monetary Union countries.
Gender Bias in Agricultural Child
            Labor : Evidence from Survey Design Experiments
Agricultural labor accounts for the
            largest share of child labor worldwide. Yet, measurement of
            farm labor statistics is challenging due to its inherent
            seasonality, variable and irregular work schedules, and the
            varying saliences of individuals' work activities. The
            problem is further complicated by the presence of widespread
            gender stratification of work and social lives. This study
            reports the findings of three randomized survey design
            interventions over the agricultural coffee calendar in rural
            Ethiopia to address whether response by proxy rather than
            self-report has effects on the measurement of child labor
            statistics within and across seasons. While the estimates do
            not report differences for boys across all seasons, the
            analysis shows sizable self/proxy discrepancies in child
            labor statistics for girls. Overall, the results highlight
            concerns on the use of survey proxy respondents in
            agricultural labor, particularly for girls. The main
            findings have important implications for policymakers about
            data collection in rural areas in developing countries.
Implications of Major Adverse Events
            on Productivity
Since 2000, there have been three major
            global slowdowns, with the latest and most pronounced
            episode triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same
            time, many countries have faced major adverse events
            including natural disasters, wars, and financial crises, all
            of which can lead to long-lasting harm to productivity. Wars
            inflict particularly severe damage to productivity, while
            financial crises also lead to substantial losses, especially
            accompanied by a rapid build-up of debt. The greater
            frequency of natural disasters, especially climate
            disasters, means that they have the largest aggregate impact
            on productivity, as natural disasters have occurred most
            often and their frequency has doubled since 2000. Global
            adverse events can have large sustained negative effects on
            productivity through dislocating labor, tightening of
            credit, disrupting value chains, and decreasing innovation.
            Policies to counter the negative consequences of adverse
            shocks include accommodative fiscal policies, such as
            reconstruction spending on resilient infrastructure;
            transparent governance; efficient use of relief funds; as
            well as growth-friendly structural reforms. Appropriate
            policies and regulations concerning finance, construction,
            and environmental protection can help reduce the frequency
            of adverse shocks.
Predicting Food Crises
Globally, more than 130 million people
            are estimated to be in food crisis. These humanitarian
            disasters are associated with severe impacts on livelihoods
            that can reverse years of development gains. The existing
            outlooks of crisis-affected populations rely on expert
            assessment of evidence and are limited in their temporal
            frequency and ability to look beyond several months. This
            paper presents a statistical forecasting approach to predict
            the outbreak of food crises with sufficient lead time for
            preventive action. Different use cases are explored related
            to possible alternative targeting policies and the levels at
            which finance is typically unlocked. The results indicate
            that, particularly at longer forecasting horizons, the
            statistical predictions compare favorably to expert-based
            outlooks. The paper concludes that statistical models
            demonstrate good ability to detect future outbreaks of food
            crises and that using statistical forecasting approaches may
            help increase lead time for action.
Small and Medium Enterprises in the
            Pandemic : Impact, Responses and the Role of Development Finance
This study highlights how COVID-19 has
            affected small and medium enterprises, drawing on newly
            released World Bank Enterprise Surveys in 13 countries. The
            study shows that firms of all sizes are severely affected in
            multiple dimensions; however, firm size matters for the
            intensity of the different channels of transmission and
            firms' responses. Small and medium enterprise sales
            shrink by more and their cash drains faster than large firms
            in the same sector and country. Among them, faster growing
            firms experience the demand shock somewhat less severely,
            but they are more exposed to international trade disruption,
            supply, and finance shocks. Yet, a range of firm responses
            to the downturn seem to be out of reach. Fewer small and
            medium-size enterprises, for example, start remote work,
            leaving their workers exposed to health risks. To make it
            through the pandemic, the majority of smaller firms do not
            turn to banks for loans; they need grants. Although
            development finance is not enough to fill the financing gap,
            development finance institutions are relevant -- in
            investment mobilization, demonstration, and know-how -- as
            economies move toward recovery and rebuilding. Delivering
            these requires rapid efforts to build partnerships and
            gather information in places where development finance has
            been limited in the past.
Secondary Schools and Teenage
            Childbearing : Evidence from the School Expansion in
            Brazilian Municipalities
This article investigates the effect
            increasing secondary education opportunities has on teenage
            fertility in Brazil. Using a novel dataset to exploit
            variation from a 57 increase in secondary schools across
            4,884 Brazilian municipalities between 1997 and 2009, the
            analysis shows an important role of secondary school
            availability on underage fertility. An increase of one
            school per 100 females reduces a cohort's teenage
            birthrate by between 0.250 and 0.563 births per 100, or a
            reduction of one birth for roughly every 50 to 100 students
            who enroll in secondary education. The results highlight the
            important role of access to education leading to spillovers
            beyond improving educational attainment.