rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
result also applied in Malawi, without expecting to then have sufficient power to test the impact of tax registration on subsequent firm performance. In contrast, since the main benefits of formalization appear in theory to occur through the business registration, we wanted a sufficient sample to have power to measure the impacts of this type of formalization on firm performance. Secondly, the partner private bank requested a larger sample size to offer its services to, which is why the last treatment group is larger.

# **3.4 The costless business registration intervention**

All three treatment groups share the main intervention of making _business registration costless_ . To do this, we<sup>18</sup> visited business owners in the treatment groups and offered assistance in registering their businesses, while conveying to them a single-page information flyer with the potential benefits offered by registration. For those that were interested, we assisted them in filling out the Business Registration form, took the required photo, and delivered their entire application to the DRG, including paying the Business Registration fee on their behalf. Once ready – on average certificates take two weeks to be prepared - we delivered the Business Registration Certificates (BRC) back to these firms. Thus, the only cost to these firms was the time it took to fill out the registration form (where they were assisted by our team).

Across the three treatment groups, we invited 2,245 firms from our sample of informal MSMEs to register at the DRG through this costless process. This took place between June and September 2012. There are two competing aspects that make our cost structure different from the normal registration process of individual entrepreneurs. On one hand, the NGO working on this with us has to deploy enumerators to offer hand-holding to firms in the registration process. This is costly. On the other, the NGO is able to save by bringing to the Registrar’s General office a large set of applications, minimizing the transport costs. The all-in costs<sup>19</sup> of conducting the business registration intervention was $22 per registration offered and approximately $27 per registration offer accepted.

> 18 Although this intervention was led by Innovations for Poverty Action (similarly to the baseline survey), the team presented itself as a separate NGO with a different name (BRC) to reduce the risk of linking the survey to the intervention. Additionally, individual enumerators were not deployed in the same city to conduct both the survey and the intervention to again minimize the risks of survey effects on take-up.

> 19 Project Management, Training of team, Registration Fees, Printing of documents, Travel, Communications, Overheads.

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autonomy and reports to the President on a regular basis, who plays a very active role with the committee (Journal Officiel de la Republique Togolaise, 2017). The President not only houses the committee but also sets the priorities, appoints the head/chair of the committee, and finances the unit (even doing so during the COVID-19 pandemic). The Business Climate Unit has maintained its reform agenda through increased communication between the bodies involved, which uses the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s indicators along with the CPIA indicators (Country Policy and Institutional Assessment) to track progress (Reform Committee Questionnaire).

_Figure 3: Organization of business reform committees_ <!-- Start of picture text --> Share of economies (%)<br>50<br>45<br>40<br>35<br>30<br>25<br>20<br>15<br>10<br>5<br>0<br>Ministry Prime Minister’s Investment Promotion President/ Head of Independent steering<br>Office Authority State board<br>Where is the committee housed?<br>Who sets the priorities?<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source: Reform Committee data_ _Note: Figure based on 107 economies with a functioning business reform committee. An economy may have more than one institution or leader who sets the priorities._ Across Latin America & the Caribbean, Reform Committees in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador and Panama are housed within their respective office of the President, who also sets its priorities. The general coordination and technical secretariat of the National Competitiveness and Innovation Commission in Colombia is the responsibility of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of the Republic.

While it helps to have the highest-level representation from the government in reform committees to achieve credibility, including the private sector in management vests a shared ownership in the decision-making process. As these reform committees have diverse organizational structures and reporting lines, the chair of the Committee differs across economies as well. In over 40 percent of economies globally – such as Bangladesh, Brazil, the Philippines – the committee is chaired by a minister, while in close to 17 percent of the economies, the Prime Minister chairs the committee (Figure 4). This is the case for Jordan, Morocco, and Nepal, among others; in other instances, a public sector official chairs the committee, including in Israel and India; in yet other economies, the Vice President chairs the Committee. On the other hand, some committees include the private sector in their management, with leadership being co-chaired by a member of the government and a member of the private sector. For example, the Malaysian Special Task Force to facilitate business (PEMUDAH) is co-chaired by the Chief Secretary to the government and the VicePresident of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers.

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# Figure 13: MNA: Investment growth and correlates

A. Investment growth <!-- Start of picture text --> Percent<br>15 2000-21 average<br>10<br>5<br>0<br>-5<br>-10<br>MNA EMDEs<br>C. Investment<br>Index, 2019 = 100<br>130 Current<br>125 Pre-pandemic<br>120<br>115<br>110<br>105<br>100<br>95<br>90<br>2019 2020 2021 2022 2023<br>E. Terms of trade<br>Index, 2010 = 100<br>130 Oil importers Oil exporters<br>120<br>110<br>100<br>90<br>80<br>70<br>60<br>Sources: Haver Analytics;PRS Group; World Bank.<br>2010 2012 2014 2016 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022.<br>2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2017 2018 2019 2020<br>2018 2020 2022<br>2016<br><!-- End of picture text --> <!-- Start of picture text --> B. Economies with below average or<br>negative<br>investment growth<br>Percent of countries<br>Below long-term average Contracting<br>100<br>90<br>80<br>70<br>60<br>50<br>40<br>30<br>20<br>10<br>0<br>2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021<br>D. Composition of investment growth<br>Percent<br>Private Public<br>10<br>5<br>0<br>-5<br>-10<br>-15<br>2017 2018 2019 2020<br>F. Political stability<br>Index, 0-12, 12 = best<br>11 EMDEs<br>11 Oil importers<br>10 Oil exporters<br>10<br>9<br>9<br>8<br>8<br>7<br>7<br>6<br>2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022<br><!-- End of picture text --> Note: EMDEs = emerging market and developing economies; MNA = Middle East and North Africa. A. Averages weighted by investment levels. Sample includes 98 EMDEs and 11 from MNA. B. Economy coverage is the same as for panel A. Share of countries in MNA region with investment growth below the long-term (2000-21) average or negative investment growth (“contracting”). C. Investment level based on data and projections in the January 2020 and January 2023 Global Economic Prospects reports. 2023 indicates forecast. D. Based on data from Bahrain, the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Saudi Arabia. In Egypt, nominal investment is deflated using the gross capital formation deflator.

E. Net barter terms of trade indexes. Investment-weighted averages. Oil exporters include Algeria, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Oil importers include Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia.
# 6. References

Arthi, V., Beegle, K., De Weerdt, J., & Palacios‐López, A. (2016). Not your average job: measuring farm labor in Tanzania. _Working Paper, World Bank._ Baah‐Boateng, W. (2015). Unemployment in Africa: how appropriate is the global definition and measurement for policy purpose. _International Journal of Manpower, 36_ (5), 650‐667.

Bardasi, E., Beegle, K., Dillon, A., & Serneels, P. (2011). Do labor statistics depend on how and to whom the questions are asked? Results from a survey experiment in Tanzania. _The World Bank Economic Review, 25_ (3), 418‐447.

Barrientos, S., Kabeer, N., & Hossain, N. (2004). The gender dimensions of globalization of production. _ILO Working Paper._ Bassi, F., Padoan, A., & Trivellato, U. (2008). Inconsistencies in reported employment characteristics among employed stayers. _IZA Discussion Paper._ Beegle, K., Carletto, C., & Himelein, K. (2012). Reliability of recall in agricultural data. _Journal of Development Economics, 98_ (1), 34‐41.

Benes, E., & Walsh, K. (2018a). ILO LFS Pilot Studies experimental field tests: methodology, process and outcomes. ILO.

Benes, E., & Walsh, K. (2018b). ILO LFS Pilot studies in follow up to the 19th ICLS: background, objectives and methodology. ILO.

Benes, E., & Walsh, K. (2018c). Measuring main activity in labour force surveys. Main findings from the ILO LFS pilot studies. ILO.

Benes, E., & Walsh, K. (2018d). Measuring employment in Labour Force Surveys: main findings from the ILO LFS pilot studies. ILO.

Bick, A., Fuchs‐Schündeln, N., & Lagakos, D. (2018). How do hours worked vary with income? Cross‐country evidence and implications. _American Economic Review, 108_ (1), 170‐199.

Blair, J., Menon, G., & Bickart, B. (2004). Measurement effects in self vs. proxy response to survey questions: an information‐processing perspective. _Measurement errors in surveys_ , 145‐ 166.

Bonke, J. (2005). Paid work and unpaid work: diary information versus questionnaire information. _Social Indicators Research, 70_ (3), 349‐368.

Budlender, D. (2008 _). The statistical evidence on care and non‐care work across six countries._ United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Geneva.

Comblon, V., & Robilliard, A.‐S. (2015). Are female employment statistics more sensitive than male ones to questionnaire design? Evidence from Cameroon, Mali and Senegal.

Dillon, A., Bardasi, E., Beegle, K., & Serneels, P. (2012). Explaining variation in child labor statistics. _Journal of Development Economics, 98_ (1), 136‐147.

Ellis, F. (1998). Household strategies and rural livelihood diversification. _The Journal of Development Studies, 35_ (1), 1‐38.

Fox, L., & Pimhidzai, O. (2013). Different Dreams, Same Bed: Collecting, Using, and Interpreting Employment Statistics in Sub‐Saharan Africa‐The Case of Uganda. _Working Paper, World Bank_ .

Freedman, D., Mueller, E., Barnes, R., & Clark, C. (1977). A multi‐purpose household questionnaire: basic economic and demographic modules.

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of the household welfare results for households within each decile provides the results at the decile level labeled ―unreconciled sequential approach‖ in table 4.2. We find that the richer households are estimated to gain significantly more in the unreconciled sequential approach, since the return to capital increases more in the unreconciled approach (this is not a general result). On the other hand, we find that the bias from ignoring the quantity feedback effects on prices is very small if the data are reconciled first between the household and representative consumer models. See Rutherford, Tarr and Shepotylo (2005) for further details.<sup>**53**</sup> Based on these results, we believe that a sequential approach to assess household impacts of trade policy changes is likely to be a good approximation to the results of a more difficult to implement integrated approach, provided three conditions are satisfied: (1) the household data are reconciled with national accounts data; (2) the factor and consumption shares of the representative agent in the sequential approach are equal to factor and consumption shares that are the sum over all households; and (3) the representative agent and the households exhibit the same optimizing behavior. The latter implies that the first order effects are the same.

# **Alternate Reconciliation of the National Account and Household Budget Survey Data**

As opposed to our central model, in this ―national accounts‖ based model we allow the household factor shares to adjust while keeping the factor shares from the national accounts fixed. Taking a weighted average of the 55,098 household welfare gains, we get an estimated 7.2 percent of consumption; this is only trivially different than the 7.3 percent gain in our central model (and coincides with our representative agent model which is based on the national income accounts data).

> 53 We have also shown that if we are only interested in results at the decile level (as opposed to household results), running a model with thousands of households and then aggregating results to deciles (as we have done in table 4.2) does not appear to make much difference compared with aggregating the households to ten households first and then running the model with ten households. See Rutherford, Tarr and Sheopotylo (2005) for details regarding this section.

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have argued that globalization and advances in technology and computerization have increased the comparative advantage of individuals who perform non-routine tasks requiring problem solving, intuition, persuasion, and creativity.

To obtain measures of human capital, we use O*NET, a database maintained by the U.S. Department of Labor that provides data on occupation-specific descriptors that define the key features of an occupation such as worker abilities, technical skills, job output, work activities, etc. We focus on the following three measures of human capital: _CPS_ (Complex Problem Solving) which is identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions; _NRCOG_ (Non-routine Cognitive Analytical skills) from Keller and Utar [2016] which is the sum of Mathematical Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning, Developing Objectives and Strategies, and Making Decisions and Solving Problems; and _RMAN_ (Routine Manual) from Keller and Utar [2016] which is the sum of Spend time making repetitive motions, Pace Determined by Speed of Equipment, Manual Dexterity, and Finger Dexterity. We merge the occupation level scores to the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), a US establishment level dataset where workers are classified into occupations on the basis of the work they perform and skills required in each occupation. We compute a weighted average across occupations in each firm weighting by the number of employees in each occupation to obtain a score for each establishment. We then take weighted averages across all establishments in an industry to compute an industry-level skill score. We currently use these scores for manufacturing industries.

We separate the manufacturing sample into high and low skill industries based on the _CPS_ , _NRCOG_ , and _RMAN_ scores where high skill is defined as greater than or equal to the median value for each of the skill measures and low skill is defined as less than the median value for each of the skill measures. In Figure 2, we identify star firms in each of these sub-samples as firms in the top 10% of ROIC in that sample in a particular year. We again focus on large firms to be consistent with the sample in Figure 1. Figure 2 shows that the ROIC and the run-up for star firms is higher in industries with high skill as measured by low RMAN, high CPS, and high NRCOG. If this finding is correct, it would imply that firms employing a high skill labor force are also more likely to earn higher returns and that there is a growing divergence between the most profitable of those firms and the other high-skill firms. We also see a large divergence between the ROIC 9
reason was the desire to impose mandatory retirement on all older workers whio, on average, no longer provided services that justified their salaries. In other words it was thought that most workers older than seventy were earning a wage that exceeded their marginal product, a situation called "wage tilt."<sup>8</sup> But the firm wanted to reward its faithful employees in their retirement.9 As labor turnover in those days was quite high, the company concluded from studying their payroll records that these benefits would not be very expensive. Pensions were paid from current expenses and amounted to less than I percent of the wage bill.'<sup>0</sup> This new pension plan was a major departure from the idea of providing a pension only to workers wlio were members of a contributory, voluntary relief department, where the pension received wvas based on length of membership. l Since not all older workers had also been long-standing members of the Voluntary Relief Department, mandatory retirement would have meant that many would receive little or nothing. Whether motivated by benevolence, public relations, or a desire to maintain labor peace, the railroad felt that it could not retire some of its older workers without providing some income, particularly because up to this point workers may have felt they had an implicit contract to work for the line for life. They had not planied on mandatory retirement.

' "Wage tilt" refers to a pay schedule in which workers are paid less than their marginal product early in their career and more thani their marginal product toward the end of their career. Theoretically, this wage package is thoughit to be more efficient, however, it requires mandatory retirement. See Laezer (1979).

9. Workers received I percent of their average wage over their last ten years times the number of years worked. Voluntary retirement was possible at age sixty-five for those with thirty years of service.

**10** 0 Gratton ( 1990) presents an excellent description of the creation of the plan and the problems that came up later because the railroad did not anticipate the fall in turnover that took place.

. Data that I have collected from a division of the Pennsylvania Railroad shows that the average annual turilover of niembershiip **in** the Voluntary Relief Department was 42 percent between 1889 to 1910. Membershiip averaged 64 percent of the employees and could not be mandatory because unions had successfully lobbied several states to pass laws forbidding it.

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Paying the Price for Unreliable Power Supplies: In-House Generation of Electricity by Firms in Africa Vivien Foster and Jevgenijs Steinbuks

# **Acknowledgments**

This study is part of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), a project designed to expand the world’s knowledge of physical infrastructure in Africa. Financing for AICD is provided by a multi-donor trust fund to which the main contributors are the Department for International Development (United Kingdom), the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility, Agence Française de Développement, and the European Commission. Inquiries concerning the availability of datasets should be directed to vfoster@worldbank.org.
> <sup>14</sup>

(whether governments are constrained by formal institutions, or whether elections have led to the replacement of an incumbent by a challenger).

The highest score on each of these two indices (seven) is assigned to countries in which multiple parties compete in legislative and executive elections and no party receives more than 75 percent of the vote. In all of the discussion here, the continuous years of competitive elections are measured as the number of consecutive years in which a country has the highest score on both indices. From 1975 – 2000, the period under study here, the median number of years of continuous elections is eleven and the mean 27 among countries that have ever held competitive elections.<sup>8</sup>

# **_Other control variables_**

Other geographic and demographic features of countries are likely to have a direct effect on the kinds of policies that citizens demand or that have the highest payoff for citizens. Country land area and population capture the demand for public infrastructure, since the demand for roads or the costs of providing education or ensuring the rule of law are surely different in large, sparsely populated than in small, densely populated countries. Countries with a larger fraction of young people should exhibit a greater demand for education. More young people may also increase the pressure on politicians to provide jobs and raise the costs of maintaining the rule of law, in view of the well-known association between youth and crime. There may be economies (or diseconomies) in the application of policies across a larger population; hence, total population is taken into account.

> 8 _DPI_ begins in 1975.  To establish the number of continuous years of democracy in 1974, the “age of democracy” variable from Clague, et al. (1996) is employed.  Their methodology truncates the age of the oldest democracies, so the maximum continuous years of elections in the year 2000 in the analysis below is therefore 70, attained by 19 countries.
from allowing patients to sue doctors for malpractice in the consumer forums, rather than the backlogged courts, was very large (it was the litigation stream with the second highest impact, in terms of numbers affected); most of the benefits went to those who utilized formal sector private medicine. And only 13% of patients utilizing formal private sector medicine came from the lowest two income quintiles. This is consistent with our expectation that Obligation cases tend to benefit those who already have access to services. But the other two other litigation streams with very large levels of impact in terms of numbers of people affected were pro-poor (in the sense that the lowest two income quintiles received more than 40% of the direct benefits of the cases). One set of cases focused on air quality in Delhi and other urban centers, and the other on the right to food, and particularly the provision of midday meals to students in government schools.

The Delhi clean air cases culminated in a 2001 order in which the Indian Supreme Court prompted the Delhi government to take a number of steps to require commercial vehicles in the city to use cleaner fuels. This resulted in sharply lower rates of respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) in the air around Delhi. A World Bank study for the number of lives saved and illness episodes averted in Delhi as a function of RSPM decline suggests that the litigation and the policies saved an estimated 14,323 lives in Delhi from 2002-2006 and significantly morbidity among about 523,000 people. The Supreme Court also directed sixteen additional Indian cities to adopt similar policies for air quality,<sup>8</sup> but the overall level of implementation in Agra, Ahmedabad, Faridibad, and other cities covered by the order is only 1% of that in Delhi, so no more than 27,949 people in other cities have been significantly affected..

For the estimate of disadvantaged beneficiaries, we assume the distribution of these illness episodes follows the distribution of asthma in the general population. WHO data show

> 8 - - <u>http://cpcb.nic.in/upload/NewItems/NewItem_104_airquality17cities package .pdf</u>

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