rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Mozambique's infrastructure : a
            continental perspective
In the last 10 years, Mozambique's
            economy has grown steadily at an impressive rate of 7.7
            percent per year, driven by the service sector, light
            industry, and agriculture. This pace is expected to continue
            or even increase with the massive influx of already-planned
            investment on the order of $15-20 billion. Mozambique's
            infrastructure is well developed in some sectors, including
            its east-west transport infrastructure, power grid, and
            water and sanitation networks. But the nation still faces
            critical challenges in these and other areas, including
            developing north-south transport connections, properly
            managing the water system, and expanding hydroelectric
            generation to meet potential. Mozambique spent about $664
            million per year on infrastructure during the late 2000s,
            with as much as $204 million lost annually to
            inefficiencies. Comparing spending needs with existing
            spending and potential efficiency gains leaves an annual
            funding gap of $822 million per year. Mozambique could
            reduce inefficiency losses by positioning itself as a key
            power exporter. The country could reach infrastructure
            targets in 20 years through a combination of increased
            finance, improved efficiency, and cost-reducing innovations.
A trio of perspectives on corruption
            : bias, speed money and "grand theft infrastructure"
A number of recent survey articles
            express hope that new data from enterprise surveys would
            shed new light on corruption complementing the corruption
            perception index by Transparency International.  The paper
            explores this using the World Bank's Enterprise Survey
            data globally and not just the data on Eastern Europe and
            Central Asia that have been used before. The authors find
            that in general the Enterprise Survey data provide aggregate
            views on corruption that are similar to the corruption
            perception index. However, massive differences exist for key
            countries, such as China and India. This suggests that
            idiosyncratic, country-specific biases are at work in one or
            both data sources. The authors use the Enterprise Survey
            data and relate them to measures of bureaucratic complexity
            from the World Bank's Doing Business data, finding that
            more red tape is associated with higher corruption. The data
            are also consistent with the view that bribe payments reduce
            the burden of red tape. Finally, the paper looks at
            corruption in infrastructure. It has been suggested that the
            natural monopoly characteristics of infrastructure provide
            the lever to extract bribes. However, based on data on
            price-cost gaps, the authors find that infrastructure
            ventures in power and water typically charge prices below
            cost in developing economies, not anywhere near monopoly
            prices. Furthermore, the Enterprise Surveys do not suggest
            that infrastructure-related bribe payments are more
            significant than those, for example, related to tax payments
            or various forms of licensing. Existing sources on bribery
            surrounding specific projects suggest that the value of
            bribe payments may not be the biggest problem but the choice
            of uneconomic and inefficient projects. If infrastructure
            ventures were entirely dependent on revenue from user fees,
            they could not afford to pursue inefficient projects, thus
            reducing the cost of corrupt activity to society. Monopoly
            pricing would be better than the typical current pricing policy.
Cotton, biotechnology, and economic development
During the past decade, cotton prices
            remained considerably below other agricultural prices
            (although they recovered toward the end of 2010). Yet,
            between 2000-04 and 2005-09 world cotton production
            increased 13 percent. This paper conjectures that
            biotechnology-induced productivity improvements increased
            supplies by China and India, which, in addition to keeping
            cotton prices low, aided these countries to cap-ture market
            share from (and cause losses to) non-users of biotechnology.
            By contrast, with a single exception, Africa has not adopted
            biotechnology and, not coincidentally, its cotton output
            declined by more than 20 percent between the first and
            second half of the past decade. The paper concludes that the
            development implications of biotechnology go beyond cotton
            and Africa. High energy prices have been an important driver
            of the recent commodity price boom. Therefore, investment
            and policy strategy responses to a cost-driven boom should
            be consistent with cost-saving alternatives. Biotechnology
            clearly meets this challenge.
Cluster-based industrial parks : a
            practical framework for action
They are being hailed as the new Holy
            Grail of economic development. The success of special
            economic zones (SEZ) in general and specialized ones in
            particular (industrial and technology parks) in countries as
            diverse as Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland,
            Ireland, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and
            more recently, China; Korea; Taiwan, China; or Mauritius,
            has led several African leaders to launch new similar
            initiatives. This paper establishes a common point of
            reference for those who believe in the virtues of SEZs,
            explains why the many existing ones have not delivered the
            expected outcomes, and summarizes the key issues on the
            agenda. It then suggests cluster-based industrial parks as
            the most effective tool for developing competitive
            industries and generating employment, and provides some
            practical guidance to development practitioners and
            policymakers on the road ahead.
A vulnerability approach to the
            definition of the middle class
Measurement of the middle class has
            recently come to the center of policy debate in
            middle-income countries as they search for the potential
            engines of growth and good governance. This debate assumes,
            first, that there is a meaningful definition of class, and
            second, that thresholds that define relatively homogeneous
            groups in terms of pre-determined sociological
            characteristics can be found empirically. This paper aims at
            proposing a view of the middle class based on vulnerability
            to poverty. Following this approach the paper exploits panel
            data to determine the amount of comparable income --
            associated with a low probability of falling into poverty --
            which could define the lower bound of the middle class. The
            paper looks at absolute thresholds, challenging the view
            that people above the poverty line are actually part of the
            middle class. The estimated lower threshold is used in
            cross-section surveys to quantify the size and the evolution
            of middle classes in Chile, Mexico, and Peru over the past
            two decades. The first relevant feature relates to the fact
            that the proposed thresholds lie around the 60th percentile
            of the distribution. The evidence also shows that the middle
            class has increased significantly in all three countries,
            suggesting that a higher number of households face lower
            probabilities of falling into poverty than they did in the
            1990s. There is an important group of people, however, which
            cannot be defined as middle class from this perspective, but
            are not eligible for poverty programs according to
            traditional definitions of poverty.
Tax morale and compliance : review
            of evidence and case studies for Europe
This paper provides an overview of the
            literature on tax morale and tax compliance. Most of the
            material here is based on research that I have conducted
            together with my co-authors over the last 10 years. Europe
            has a dominant place in this paper. Sometimes results
            derived from other countries are discussed that could be
            relevant for Europe. The overall findings show the
            importance of accountability, democratic governance,
            efficient, and transparent legal structures and therefore
            trust within the society to enforce tax compliance and tax morale.
Post-HIPC growth dynamics in
            Sub-Saharan Africa
Access to debt relief under the Highly
            Indebted Poor Country Initiative enhanced the growth
            performance across Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the
            subset of debt-ridden low-income countries. Over the past
            few years, these Completion Point countries have enjoyed
            significantly higher investments and growth rates, primarily
            fueled by the expanding fiscal space of the post-Highly
            Indebted Poor Country Initiative era. They are also
            weathering the adverse effects of the global crisis much
            better than their non-Highly Indebted Poor Country
            Initiative counterparts. Despite these growth rebounds, the
            region is not likely to meet the Millennium Development
            Goals, however. Long-term growth projections from a simple
            macroeconomic model, which is applied to Ethiopia, suggest
            that prospects for reversing the widening income gaps with
            other regions of the developing world are limited. Under the
            baseline scenario, assuming current growth trends, the
            estimates show that it could take more than five decades for
            per capita real income to double in Ethiopia. However, even
            these gloomy prospects are likely to be undermined by the
            looming risk of another sovereign debt crisis. In effect,
            the experiments show that lowering interest rates on
            external debt would not bridge the widening income gap with
            other regions of the world, unless it is accompanied by a
            rapid expansion of capital accumulation financed by
            sustained inflows of foreign aid.
Income shocks reduce human capital
            investments : evidence from five east European countries
This paper empirically investigates
            whether households affected by income shocks cope by
            reducing human capital investments. The analysis uses Crisis
            Response Surveys conducted in Armenia, Bulgaria, Montenegro,
            Romania, and Turkey during 2009 and 2010. A propensity score
            matching technique is adopted to compare health and
            education investment decisions among households that were
            affected by income shocks to the matched comparison group.
            The authors find that households affected by income shocks
            reduced some human capital investments. Interestingly,
            households in these five countries were more likely to adopt
            health-related coping strategies as opposed to
            education-related coping strategies. The results from
            Armenia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Turkey show that
            households affected by income shocks reduced their visits to
            doctors and reduced their spending on medicine and medical
            care significantly more than the matched comparison group.
            Households affected by income shocks reduced their education
            investments, but did not adopt harmful education-related
            coping strategies, such as withdrawing children from schools
            or moving children from costly private to cheaper public
            schools. These findings reveal that long-term and possibly
            intergenerational household welfare could be affected by
            short-run income shocks and hence underscore the need for
            governments to employ mitigation measures.
Services reform and manufacturing
            performance : evidence from India
The growth of India's manufacturing
            sector since 1991 has been attributed mostly to trade
            liberalization and more permissive industrial licensing.
            This paper demonstrates the significant impact of a
            neglected factor: India's policy reforms in services.
            The authors examine the link between those reforms and the
            productivity of manufacturing firms using panel data for
            about 4,000 Indian firms fro
The better you are the stronger it
            makes you : evidence on the asymmetric impact of liberalization
This paper studies how liberalization
            affects productivity growth using micro-level plant data.
            While previous studies have already shown the existence of a
            positive relationship between competition and economic
            performance, the novelty of this paper is that it analyzes
            not only the average impact of liberalization, but also goes
            "beyond the average" and shows how the
            liberalization can affect dissimilar plants in a different
            way. The author first develops a model which predicts that,
            while the impact of liberalization on productivity growth is
            positive "on average", more advanced firms tend to
            benefit more. In fact, liberalization generates two
            competing effects: on one side it spurs more innovative
            efforts because of the increased entry threat by foreign
            competitors, on the other side, enhanced competition
            curtails expected profits and reduces the funds available to
            finance innovative activities. The pro-competitive effect is
            weaker for less advanced firms as for them it is harder to
            catch-up with the "technology frontier". These
            predictions are then tested focusing on Mexican plants
            during the NAFTA liberalization. The results show that a 1
            percent reduction in tariffs spurred productivity growth
            between 4 and 8 percent on average. However, for backward
            firms this effect is much weaker if not close to zero,
            otherwise for more advanced ones this effect is stronger
            with productivity growing between 11 and 13 percent.
            Consistent with the theoretical model the results are
            stronger in those sectors where the scope for innovative
            activities is more pronounced. These results are
            particularly important for policy makers because they
            suggest that while increasing competition may be good in
            spurring average productivity, it is also true that this
            effect does not hold for all type of firms, in particular
            more backward firms may need some complementary support
            policy to upgrade their capacities and keep up with the more
            competitive environment.
The Mauritanian labor market through
            the lens of the 2004 national household survey
This paper provides a snapshot of
            Mauritanias labor market using data from the 2004 national
            household survey. The results show that the labor market is
            characterized by lower participation rates, lower
            employment-to-population rates, and relatively higher
            unemployment rates than in neighboring countries. The non
            poor fare better in the labor market than the poor. Although
            the labor force participation of the poor is higher than
            that of the non poor, the poor display a higher unemployment
            rate and a lower employment rate than the non poor. The data
            also suggest a negative correlation between wage employment
            and poverty. Substantial differences in labor market
            indicators emerge when disaggregating the analysis by gender
            and age-group. Female non-participation is extremely high.
            Women systematically earn less than men independently of
            their sector and type of employment and controlling for
            other factors, such as education. Young adults face
            considerable difficulties in entering the labor market: more
            than half of the population aged 15-24 is neither studying
            nor participating in the labor force. As gender disparities
            remain important for similar levels of education, more work
            is needed to understand whether cultural factors may prevent
            women from entering the labor market. Concerning young
            adults, future poverty reduction strategies need to pay more
            explicit attention to the promotion of employment through
            informed labor market policies.
Do international treaties promote
            development the convention on the rights of the child and
            basic immunization
Little evidence is available on whether
            changing global rules so as to promote human rights can
            enhance development outcomes. The Convention on the Rights
            of the Child was almost universally ratified by the
            mid-1990s, but it is unclear whether treaty ratification was
            associated with better or wider protection of childrens
            rights. This paper uses an instrumental variable approach to
            investigate whether treaty ratification was associated with
            stronger effort at the country level on child survival, and
            particularly with higher rates of immunization coverage. The
            paper finds that ratification of the Convention on the
            Rights of the Child was correlated with a subsequent
            increase in immunization rates, but only in upper middle and
            high-income countries. Treaties can promote development
            outcomes, but require institutional support to do so.
Lessons from European Union policies
            for regional development
Regional disparities present an ever
            present development challenge in most countries, especially
            those with large geographic areas under their jurisdiction.
            A neglect of these inequities may create the potential for
            disunity and, in extreme cases, for disintegration. In view
            of this, most countries actively pursue policies with a view
            to helping lagging regions catch up with faster growing
            regions. These policies have at best a mixed record of
            success. It is therefore useful to discern what type of
            policies work and why? In this context learning from the
            experience of the European Union (EU) may be particularly
            instructive as, over the years, it has provided significant
            support to assist poorer regions achieve convergence with
            the richer regions. This paper reviews the impact of EU
            policies for regional development to draw lessons of
            interest to other countries pursuing similar goals. The
            paper concludes that policies that serve to create an
            internal common market by creating a level playing field
            that enables poorer regions to integrate with the broader
            national and global economies have the best potential to
            advance regional income convergence. In this context,
            removal of barriers to trade and factor mobility and
            providing enhanced access to information and technology to
            the lagging regions should be main policy priorities for
            regional development.
Post-macroeconomics -- reflections
            on the crisis and strategic directions ahead
For decades, many researchers argued
            that economics had nothing to fear from enriching itself
            with lessons and advances from other disciplines.
            Unfortunately, these suggestions were either neglected or
            dismissed upfront in what was then arbitrarily considered
            mainstream economics. The global crisis has led even Nobel
            Prize winners to acknowledge that the problem facing
            economists and policy makers today is mostly intellectual -
            it is the need to confront the systematic failure of
            thinking, especially on the part of macroeconomists. Despite
            its unprecedented magnitude and heavy financial, human, and
            intellectual cost, the crisis certainly does not invalidate
            everything that has been learned about macroeconomics.
            However, the costs highlight some of mistakes of the
            dominant intellectual macroeconomic framework.
            Post-macroeconomics should not be understood as another
            metanarrative of the end of metanarratives. The use of the
            prefix post here suggests and emphasizes much more than
            temporal posterity. Post-macroeconomics should follow from
            macroeconomics more than it follows after macroeconomics.
            The theorizing of post-macroeconomics is therefore neither
            systematically oppositional nor hegemonic. It does not
            advocate a - dialectic opposition - between macroeconomics
            and post-macroeconomics. Rather, it suggests that the latter
            builds on the former and goes beyond it.
Managing East Asia's
            macroeconomic volatility
East Asia has experienced a dramatic
            decrease in output growth volatility over the past 20 years.
            This is good news, as output growth volatility affects poor
            households because of coping strategies that have long-term,
            harmful consequences, and the overall economy through its
            negative impact on economic growth. This paper investigates
            the factors behind this long decline in volatility, and
            derives lessons about ways to mitigate renewed upward
            pressure in face of the financial crisis. The authors show
            that if, on the one hand, high trade openness has sustained
            economic growth in the past several decades, on the other
            hand, it has made countries more vulnerable to external
            fluctuations. Although less frequent terms of trade shocks
            and more stable growth rates of trading partners have helped
            to reduce volatility in the past, the same external factors
            are now putting renewed pressure on volatility. The way
            forward seems therefore to be to counterbalance the external
            upward pressure on volatility by improving domestic factors.
            Elements under domestic control that can help countries deal
            with high volatility include more accountable institutions,
            better regulated financial markets, and more stable fiscal
            and monetary policies.