rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Price levels and economic growth :
            making sense of the PPP changes between ICP rounds
To the surprise of many observers, the
            2005 International Comparison Program (ICP) found
            substantially higher purchasing power parity (PPP) rates,
            relative to market exchange rates, in most developing
            countries. For example, Chinas price level index -- the
            ratio of its PPP to its exchange rate -- doubled between the
            1993 and 2005 rounds of the ICP. The paper tries to explain
            the observed changes in PPPs. Consistently with the
            Balassa-Samuelson model, evidence is found of a
            "dynamic Penn effect," whereby more rapidly
            growing economies experience steeper increases in their
            price level index. This effect has been even stronger for
            initially poorer countries. Thus the widely-observed static
            (cross-sectional) Penn effect has been attenuated over time.
            On also taking account of exchange rate changes and prior
            participation in the ICPs price surveys, 99 percent of the
            variance in the observed changes in PPPs is explicable.
            Using a nested test, the World Banks longstanding method of
            extrapolating PPPs between ICP rounds using inflation rates
            alone is out performed by the model proposed in this paper.
Publishing construction contracts
            and outcome details
Construction governance failures can
            lead to the construction of the wrong infrastructure, poor
            quality construction, and excessively high prices for work.
            There is some evidence from both other sectors and the
            construction sector itself that improved transparency,
            especially when combined with oversight, can improve
            development outcomes through its impact on the quality of
            governance.  This paper reviews that evidence, discusses
            costs and benefits of greater transparency in particular
            with regard to the contracting and delivery process in
            construction, and briefly discusses an initiative to improve
            governance in public construction -- the Construction Sector
            Transparency Initiative.
A preliminary analysis of the impact
            of a Ukraine-EU free trade agreement on agriculture
Agriculture including food products is
            of particular interest for Ukraine. However, in free trade
            agreements involving the European Union, agriculture is
            always given special treatment and subject to less and
            slower liberalization than other sectors. This paper employs
            the standard Global Trade Analysis Project model in order to
            assess how World Trade Organization accession affects
            agriculture in Ukraine, and how potential bilateral tariff
            cuts may interact with potential productivity gains within
            Ukrainian agriculture. The results indicate that, due to
            trade liberalization, Ukraine can expect gains from a more
            efficient allocation of its resources in line with
            comparative advantage, leading to an increase of production
            and exports of wheat, other grains, and oilseeds, but also
            of several processed food products that benefit from less
            expensive intermediate inputs. However, Ukraine's
            exports are concentrated on a small number of destinations,
            especially Russia and some other Former Soviet Union
            countries because they fail to meet quality standards
            elsewhere. When Ukrainian production of these products
            increases due to increased allocative efficiency, exports to
            Russia increase further and prices there fall, generating
            negative terms of trade effects that largely offset the
            allocative gains. Ukrainian imports of agricultural products
            increase as well, partly because Ukrainian consumers switch
            to higher quality imported goods even though domestic
            production increases. Regarding free trade agreement
            negotiations with the European Union, these results
            highlight for Ukraine the fact that improved agricultural
            productivity will help to get most out of improved market
            access. However, the results also highlight for Ukraine the
            great importance of adopting internationally accepted
            quality standards in order to diversify its export structure.
Micro efficiency and macro growth
This paper is about micro foundations of
            productivity and growth. There are several studies on
            productivity for advanced economies but relatively few for
            developing countries. Using data from the investment climate
            surveys of the World Bank, estimation results from 45
            developing countries, complemented by extended analysis at
            firm and industry levels for Brazil and India for the period
            2002-05, indicate the following: (i) confirmation of the
            importance of total factor productivity at firm, industry
            and national levels, but total factor productivity
            progressively tapers off at each level of aggregation
            implying that there is a less than one-to-one relationship
            between micro-efficiency, sector growth, and macro growth;
            (ii) capital accumulation is more important at the macro
            level than the micro level; (iii) productivity at the micro
            level is driven by research and development, the capacity
            utilization rate, and adoption of foreign technology (all of
            which involve management decisions), and is negatively
            related to corruption and instability, tax, and financial
            regulations; and (iii) confirmation of the lower
            contribution of total factor productivity to output growth
            in developing countries than in developed economies.
            Management decisions are involved in a lot of day-to-day
            operations at the firm level and therefore management is an
            unmeasured input. In developing countries, at the firm
            level, there is a need to understand the contribution of
            quality of inputs (management quality, education and labor
            quality, training, experience of workers, use of computers
            at work) and also the role of external agglomeration (for
            example, location in a booming city, competitive pressures
            from new firms, trade competition, and regulations).
Internal migration in Ghana :
            determinants and welfare impacts
Using a recently compiled dataset on
            migration and remittances in Ghana, this paper estimates the
            determinants of an individuals likelihood to be an internal
            migrant and the relationship between internal migration and
            welfare. The analysis finds that the likelihood to migrate
            is determined by a combination of individual (pull) and
            community-level (push) characteristics. The probability of
            migration is higher for younger and more educated
            individuals, but communities with higher levels of literacy,
            higher rates of subsidized medical care, and better access
            to water and sanitation are less likely to produce migrants.
            The analysis finds that households with migrants tend to be
            better off than similar households without migrants, even
            after controlling for the fact that households with migrants
            are a non-random sample of Ghanaians. However, the positive
            relationship is only true for households with at least one
            migrant in urban areas; the welfare of households with
            migrants exclusively in rural areas is no different from
            households without any migrants.
Will the crisis affect the economic
            recovery in eastern European countries evidence from firm
            level data
Two sources of growth are firm learning
            and innovation. Using a unique panel data for 1,686 firms in
            six countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
            Romania, and Turkey), this paper applies panel data
            estimators and Juhn-Murphy Pierce decomposition in order to
            identify  the effects of the global economic crisis on sales
            growth of innovative and young enterprises in Eastern
            European countries. The results show that innovative and
            young firms were significantly more affected by the crisis
            than non innovative and older enterprises. The authors
            interpret these results as an indication that the
            achievement of pre-crisis growth rates in those countries
            may be difficult.
Trade and financial sector reforms :
            interactions and spillovers
The allocation of production across
            firms is a potentially important explanation of the
            productivity gap between rich and poor economies. Reforms to
            trade policy and the domestic financial sector are often
            both key elements of policy packages aimed at reducing
            productive distortions. However, the impact of each reform
            in reallocating production within an economy is usually
            analyzed independently. This paper asks how do such general
            equilibrium effects of trade and domestic financial sector
            reforms interact in terms of their effects on productivity,
            wages and utility. Motivated by recent firm-level studies, I
            add two-way linkages between firms production and exporting
            decisions and their financial constraints to a general
            equilibrium heterogeneous firm trade model. The interaction
            effects between reforms appear qualitatively important.
            Trade and domestic financial sector reforms have
            complementary effects on the average productivity and size
            of domestic producers. However, if much reallocative work
            has already been done through a well-functioning financial
            sector, the marginal benefits of trade liberalisation for
            wages and household utility are reduced. Improvements in the
            ability to use exports as pledgeable collateral enhance both
            the wage and productivity effects of trade reforms. The
            model also highlights the potential for financial sector
            reforms in one economy to be exported via the trade channel,
            affecting decisions to produce or export in the foreign
            economy and putting downward pressure on foreign real wages.
The payout phase of pension systems
            : a comparison of five countries
This paper provides a comparative
            summary of the payout phase of pension systems in five
            countries -- Australia, Chile, Denmark, Sweden, and
            Switzerland. All five countries have large pension systems
            with mandatory or quasi-mandatory retirement savings
            schemes. But they exhibit important differences in the
            structure and role of different pillars, regulation of
            payout options, level of annuitization, market structure,
            capital regulations, risk management, and use of risk
            sharing arrangements. The paper summarizes the experience of
            these countries and highlights the lessons they offer to
            other countries.
The Washington consensus : assessing
            a damaged brand
The authors analyze the Washington
            Consensus, which at its original formulation reflected views
            not only from Washington, but also from Latin America.
            Tracing the life of the Consensus from a Latin American
            perspective in terms of evolving economic development
            paradigms, they document the extensive implementation of
            Consensus-style reforms in the region as well as the
            mismatch between reformers expectations and actual
            outcomes, in terms of growth, poverty reduction, and
            inequality. They present an assessment of what went wrong
            with the Washington Consensus-style reform agenda, using a
            taxonomy of views that put the blame, alternatively, on (i)
            shortfalls in the implementation of reforms combined with
            impatience regarding their expected effects; (ii)
            fundamental flawsin either the design, sequencing, or basic
            premises of the reform agenda; and (iii) incompleteness of
            the agenda that left out crucial reform needs, such as
            volatility, technological innovation, institutional change
            and inequality.
MDG achievements, determinants and
            resource needs : what has been learnt
This paper reviews the effectiveness and
            efficiency of key policy instruments for the achievement of
            the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Based on a simple
            cross-country regression analysis, the paper argues that
            average Millennium Development Goal progress is likely to be
            too slow to meet education and health sector targets in a
            number of developing countries. The paper further shows that
            MDG achievement can be described by a transition path with
            declining rates of progress. More detailed analysis reveals
            that the transition toward universal primary school
            enrollment in poor countries with low initial enrollment has
            accelerated considerably in the more recent past. The main
            part of the paper then focuses on the role of demand versus
            supply-side factors in social service utilization in
            education and health. The review arrives at the following
            rules of thumb that reflect some of the key determinants of
            achievement of the Millennium Development Goals: First,
            specific single policy interventions can have a considerable
            impact on social service utilization and specific human
            development outcomes. For example, improving access to basic
            health services, in particular to vaccination, has been a
            key factor in reducing child mortality rates in a number of
            very poor countries. Second, demand-side policies have
            proved extremely effective, for example in raising school
            enrollment and attainment levels. However, there may be more
            scope for targeting the demand-side in the health sector.
            Third, policy effectiveness and efficiency are highly
            dependent on initial conditions and the specificities of the
            respective policy. Fourth, complementarities between MDG
            targets, in particular social service utilization, are
            likely to be very important.
Delivering service indicators in
            education and health in Africa : a proposal
The Delivering Service Indicators seek
            to provide a set of indices for benchmarking service
            delivery performance in education and health in Africa in
            order to track progress in and across countries over time.
            It seeks to enhance effective and active monitoring of
            service delivery systems and to become an instrument of
            public accountability and good governance in Africa. The
            main perspective adopted by the Delivering Service
            Indicators index is one of citizens accessing services and
            facing potential shortcomings in those services available to
            them. The index is thus presented as a Service Delivery
            Report Card on education and health. However, unlike
            traditional citizen report cards, it assembles objective
            information from micro level surveys of service delivery units.
Analyzing trade competitiveness : a
            diagnostics approach
Trade has proven to be a powerful engine
            of growth worldwide. But not all countries have benefited
            equally. Despite much effort to use trade policy to catalyze
            exports, many developing countries have failed to achieve
            successful, sustainable export and economic growth. Even
            with the benefit of preferential market access, many
            developing country exporters face a broad and diverse set of
            constraints that limit their potential to compete in export
            markets. This paper discusses the concept of
            "competitiveness" with respect to trade and the
            various dimensions on which trade competitiveness might be
            assessed. It argues there is a need for a framework by which
            trade competitiveness can be assessed in a systematic way.
            Inspired by the "growth diagnostics" approach, it
            outlines a possible framework for assessing factors that
            facilitate or constrain trade competitiveness.
Measuring the technical efficiency
            of airports in Latin America
This paper studies the technical
            efficiency of airports in Latin America. The evolution of
            productive efficiency in the region has seldom been studied,
            mainly due to lack of publicly available data. Relying on a
            unique dataset that was obtained through questionnaires
            distributed to airport operators, the authors use Data
            Envelopment Analysis methods to compute an efficient
            production frontier and compare the technical efficiency of
            Latin American airports relative to airports around the
            world. In a second stage, they estimate a truncated
            regression to study the drivers of observed differences in
            airport efficiency. According to the results, institutional
            variables (private/public operation), the socioeconomic
            environment (level of gross domestic product), and airport
            characteristics (hub airport, share of commercial revenues)
            matter in explaining airport productive efficiency. Finally,
            the authors compute total factor productivity changes for
            Latin American airports for 1995-2007. The region has
            implemented a wide variety of private sector participation
            schemes for the operation of airports since the mid 1990s.
            The results show that private operators have not had higher
            rates of total factor productivity change.
Are health shocks different evidence
            from a multi-shock survey in Laos
In Laos health shocks are more common
            than most other shocks and more concentrated among the poor.
            They tend to be more idiosyncratic than non-health shocks,
            and are more costly, partly because they lead to high
            medical expenses, but also because they lead to income
            losses that are sizeable compared with the income losses
            associated with non-health shocks. Health shocks also stand
            out from other shocks in the number of coping strategies
            they trigger: they are more likely than non-health shocks to
            trigger assistance from a nongovernmental organization and
            other households, dis-saving, borrowing, asset sales, an
            early harvest, the pawning of possessions, and the delaying
            of plans; by contrast, they are less likely to trigger
            assistance from government. Consumption regressions point to
            only limited evidence of households not being able to smooth
            consumption in the face of any shock. However, these results
            contrast with households' own assessments of the
            welfare impacts of shocks. The majority said they had to cut
            back consumption following a shock and that shocks
            considerably affected their welfare. Only health shocks are
            worse than a drought in terms of the likelihood of a family
            being forced to cut back consumption and in terms of the
            shock affecting a family's well-being "a
            lot." The poor are especially disadvantaged in terms of
            the greater damage that health shocks inflict on household
            well-being. Health shocks stand out too in leading to a loss
            of human capital: household members experiencing a health
            shock did not recover their former subjective health
            following the health shock, losing, on average, 0.6 points
            on a 5-point scale. The wealthier and better educated are
            better able to limit the health impacts of a health shock;
            the data are consistent with this being due to their greater
            proximity to a health facility.
Changing contributions of different
            agricultural policy instruments to global reductions in
            trade and welfare
Trade negotiators and policy advisors
            are keen to know the relative contribution of different farm
            policy instruments to international trade and economic
            welfare. Nominal rates of assistance or producer support
            estimates are incomplete indicators, especially when
            (especially in developing countries) some commodities are
            taxed and others are subsidized, in which case positive
            contributions can offset negative contributions. This paper
            develops and estimates a new set of more-satisfactory
            indicators to examine the relative contribution of different
            farm policy instruments to reductions in agricultural trade
            and welfare, drawing on recent literature on trade
            restrictiveness indexes and a recently compiled database on
            distortions to agricultural prices for 75 developing and
            high-income countries over the period 1960 to 2004. Results
            confirm earlier findings that border taxes are the dominant
            instrument affecting global trade and welfare, but they also
            suggest declines in export taxes contributed nearly as much
            as cuts in import protection to global welfare gains from
            agricultural policy reforms since the 1980s.
China's marriage market and
            upcoming challenges for elderly men
Fertility decline has fueled a sharp
            increase in the proportion of 'missing girls' in
            China, so an increasing share of males will fail to marry,
            and will face old age without the support normally provided
            by wives and children. This paper shows that historically,
            China has had nearly-universal marriage for women and a very
            competitive market for men. Lower-educated men experience
            higher rates of bachelorhood while women favor men with
            better prospects, migrating if needed from poorer to
            wealthier areas. The authors examine the anticipated effects
            of this combination of bride shortage and hypergamy, for
            different regions of China. Their projections indicate that
            unmarried males will likely be concentrated in poorer
            provinces with low fiscal ability to provide social
            protection to their citizens. Such geographic concentration
            of unmarried males could be socially disruptive, and the
            papers findings suggest a need to expand the coverage of
            social protection programs financed substantially by the
            central government.