rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
On the sustainable development goals
            and the role of Islamic finance
The Sustainable Development Goals, the
            global development agenda for 2015 through 2030, will
            require unprecedented mobilization of resources to support
            their implementation. Their predecessor, the Millennium
            Development Goals, focused on a limited number of concrete,
            global human development targets that can be monitored by
            statistically robust indicators. The Millennium Development
            Goals set the stage for global support of ambitious
            development goals behind which the world must rally. The
            Sustainable Development Goals bring forward the unfinished
            business of the Millennium Development Goals and go even
            further. Because of the transformative and sustainable
            nature of the new development agenda, all possible resources
            must be mobilized if the world is to succeed in meeting its
            targets. Thus, the potential for Islamic finance to play a
            role in supporting the Sustainable Development Goals is
            explored in this paper. Given the principles of Islamic
            finance that support socially inclusive and development
            promoting activities, the Islamic financial sector has the
            potential to contribute to the achievement of the
            Sustainable Development Goals. The paper examines the role
            of Islamic financial institutions, capital markets, and the
            social sector in promoting strong growth, enhanced financial
            inclusion, and intermediation, reducing risks and
            vulnerability of the poor and more broadly contributing to
            financial stability and development.
Infrastructure in conflict-prone and
            fragile environments : evidence from the Democratic Republic
            of Congo
In conflict-prone situations, access to
            markets is necessary to restore economic growth and generate
            the preconditions for peace and reconstruction. Hence, the
            rehabilitation of damaged transport infrastructure has
            emerged as an overarching investment priority among donors
            and governments. This paper brings together two distinct
            strands of literature on the effects of conflict on welfare
            and on the economic impact of transport infrastructure. The
            theoretical model explores how transport infrastructure
            affects conflict incidence and welfare when selection into
            rebel groups is endogenous. The implications of the model
            are tested with data from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
            The analysis addresses the problems of the endogeneity of
            transport costs and conflict using a novel set of
            instrumental variables. For transport costs, a new
            instrument is developed, the "natural-historical
            path," which measures the most efficient travel route
            to a market, taking into account topography, land cover, and
            historical caravan routes. Recognizing the imprecision in
            measuring the geographic impacts of conflict, the analysis
            develops a spatial kernel density function to proxy for the
            incidence of conflict. To account for its endogeneity, it is
            instrumented with ethnic fractionalization and distance to
            the eastern border.  A variety of indicators of well-being
            are used: a wealth index, a poverty index, and local gross
            domestic product.  The results suggest that, in most
            situations, reducing transport costs has the expected
            beneficial impacts on all the measures of welfare. However,
            when there is intense conflict, improvements in
            infrastructure may not have the anticipated benefits. The
            results suggest the need for more nuanced strategies that
            take into account varying circumstances and consider actions
            that jointly target governance with construction activities.
Doing the survey two-step : the
            effects of reticence on estimates of corruption in two-stage
            survey questions
This paper develops a structural
            approach for modeling how respondents answer survey
            questions and uses it to estimate the proportion of
            respondents who are reticent in answering corruption
            questions, as well as the extent to which reticent behavior
            biases down conventional estimates of corruption. The
            context is a common two-step survey question, first
            inquiring whether a government official visited a business,
            and then asking about bribery if a visit was acknowledged.
            Reticence is a concern for both steps, since denying a visit
            sidesteps the bribe question. This paper considers two
            alternative models of how reticence affects responses to
            two-step questions, with differing assumptions on how
            reticence affects the first question about visits.
            Maximum-likelihood estimates are obtained for seven
            countries using data on interactions with tax officials.
            Different models work best in different countries, but
            cross-country comparisons are still valid because both
            models use the same structural parameters. On average, 40
            percent of corruption questions are answered reticently,
            with much variation across countries. A statistic reflecting
            how much standard measures underestimate the proportion of
            all respondents who had a bribe interaction is developed.
            The downward bias in standard measures is highly
            statistically significant in all countries, varying from 12
            percent in Nigeria to 90 percent in Turkey. The source of
            bias varies widely across countries, between denying a visit
            and denying a bribe after admitting a visit.
Smallholders’ land ownership and
            access in Sub-Saharan Africa: a new landscape
While scholars agree on the importance
            of land rental markets for structural transformation in
            rural areas, evidence on the extent and nature of their
            operation, including potential obstacles to their improved
            functioning, remains limited. This study uses
            household-level data from six countries to start filling
            this gap and derive substantive as well as methodological
            lessons. The paper finds that rental markets transfer land
            to land-poor, labor-rich, and more productive producers
            throughout. But vast cross-country variation in transfers
            and the fact that female managers could possibly improve
            their income by leasing out land point towards barriers to
            participation that policy might address. Methodological and
            substantive conclusions are derived.
Business regulations and growth
Over the past decade, there has been
            increased interest in improving business regulations, in
            part because of the increased availability of data that can
            inform and monitor those improvements. This paper analyzes
            whether these regulatory changes are linked to economic
            outcomes. With panel data for 10 years across more than 180
            countries, the paper establishes the link between business
            regulations, firm creation, and growth. It is found that an
            improvement of 10 points in the overall measure of business
            regulations is linked to an increase of around 0.5 new
            businesses per 1,000 adults. Moreover, the results show that
            although small changes in the overall level of business
            regulations may have a negligible link to growth, moving
            from the lowest quartile of improvement in business
            regulations to the highest quartile is associated with a
            significant increase in annual per capita growth of around
            0.8 percentage points. In addition, the results highlight
            the importance of sound entry and exit regulations and sound
            credit market regulations and court enforcement for growth.
Market imperfections exacerbate the
            gender gap: the case of Malawi
This paper hypothesizes that labor and
            credit market imperfections—by discouraging off-farm
            income-generating activities and restricting access to
            inputs, respectively—affect female farm productivity more
            deeply than male productivity. The paper develops a
            theoretical model that decomposes the contribution of
            various market imperfections to the gender productivity gap.
            The paper shows empirically that agricultural labor
            productivity is on average 44 percent lower on plots managed
            by female heads of household than on those managed by male
            heads. Thirty-four percent of this gap is explained by
            differences in labor market access and 29 percent by
            differences in credit access.
Formulas for failure were the Doha
            tariff formulas too ambitious for success
This paper views tariff-cutting formulas
            as a potential solution to the free-rider problem that
            arises when market opening is negotiated bilaterally and
            extended on a most-favored-nation basis. The negotiators in
            the Doha Agenda chose formulas that are ideal from an
            economic efficiency viewpoint in that they most sharply
            reduce the highest and most economically-costly tariffs.
            When the political support that gave rise to the original
            tariffs is considered, however, this approach appears to
            generate very high political costs per unit of gain in
            economic efficiency. The political costs associated with the
            formulas appear to have led to strong pressure for many,
            complex exceptions, which both lowered and increased
            uncertainty about members’ market access gains. Where tariff
            cuts focus on applied rates, it seems likely that a
            proportional cut rule would reduce the political costs of
            securing agreements. However, detailed examination of the
            Doha proposals with their product exceptions suggests that
            negotiators are likely to find cuts with exceptions
            politically attractive but economically costly when cuts are
            based on bound tariffs with different degrees of binding overhang.
Extending the school day in Latin
            America and the Caribbean
Countries throughout Latin America and
            the Caribbean are reforming their education systems to add
            more hours to the school day. This paper examines the
            evidence on the relationship between instructional time and
            student learning, reviewing 19 studies that measure the
            effects of longer school days in the region. It
            characterizes the differences in the implementation of
            extended school day programs and provides one detailed case
            study and cost-effectiveness exercise, from Uruguay. While
            the evidence suggests some positive impacts across a range
            of outcome variables, including learning outcomes, adult
            labor force participation, and crime and teenage pregnancy
            reduction, there is considerable heterogeneity across
            studies. Even using the most optimistic impact estimates, a
            cost-effectiveness exercise suggests that there are likely
            many more cost-effective reforms to achieve similar learning
            effects. The paper concludes with a discussion of the
            implications for policymakers and practitioners considering
            an extension of the school day.
The socioeconomic impacts of energy
            reform in Tunisia : a simulation approach
Tunisian social development policy
            making has always counted on energy subsidies to play a
            pivotal role. Due to the increasingly unsustainable budget
            implications, a new strategy has begun to reform the subsidy
            system in the energy sector while striking a balance between
            improving fiscal and equity considerations without
            increasing social tensions. This paper presents an analysis
            of the fiscal and distributive consequences of the changes
            to the subsidy setup announced by the government at the end
            of 2014. The results show that raising electricity prices
            for consumers and removing subsidies for other energy
            sources would lead to a short-term increase in the poverty
            rate of 2.5 percentage points. In addition, compensation
            mechanisms that could be readily implemented (such as
            universal coverage or building on the existing health cards
            system) will not bring substantive counterweight to the
            increased poverty, even if all savings of reforms could be
            perfectly channeled as cash transfers. The analysis suggests
            that bold reforms of energy subsidies need to be accompanied
            by equally bold improvements to the targeting schemes of
            public spending if poverty and disparities are to be
            substantively reduced.
Energy subsidies reform in Jordan :
            welfare implications of different scenarios
Facing a fiscal crisis, Jordan initiated
            substantial petroleum subsidy reforms in 2012. The
            government has also long contemplated how to cut electricity
            subsidies, which surpass the fiscal burdens imposed by the
            petroleum subsidies. This paper estimates the impacts of the
            2012 petroleum subsidies reform on household welfare and
            government revenues. It also simulates the distributional
            and fiscal impacts from ending subsidies in the electricity
            sector, where the pricing structure is more complex than
            petroleum prices. The paper looks at the direct and indirect
            impacts of reform. Moreover, the paper discusses the
            political economy considerations of reform. While the full
            removal of petroleum subsidies would have increased poverty,
            the compensatory cash transfer program the government
            instituted is estimated to have fully offset the negative
            impact for the poorer population. The impact of reforms in
            the electricity sector will depend significantly on the
            implementation method chosen. A flat increase of tariffs
            toward cost recovery will put a huge burden on the poorest
            households. However, a progressive increase in tariffs will
            generate substantial savings for the government, even with
            compensatory mechanisms to mitigate the strong negative
            impact on the vulnerable population. The immediate
            compensation of the losers from reform appears to be a
            crucial factor in the successful implementation of reforms
            in Jordan.
Seeking shared prosperity through trade
Increasing the trade integration of
            developing countries can make a vital contribution to
            boosting shared prosperity, but it also exposes producers
            and consumers to exogenous shocks that alter relative
            prices, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. This
            paper discusses the short-run effects of trade-related
            shocks on households to capture the potential welfare impact
            on the poor. The discussion explores the channels through
            which trade shocks are transmitted to households in the
            bottom of the income distribution, namely through
            consumption, household production, and market-based labor
            activities. The degree to which price shocks are passed
            through from borders to point of sale is a key determinant
            of the gains from trade and the ultimate welfare impact.
            Trade changes in agriculture directly affect households
            through their consumption basket. Lower agricultural prices
            reduce the cost of consumables, but these welfare gains may
            be offset by lower earnings for households that produce
            these same goods. Poorer households tend to be net consumers
            of agricultural products, suggesting a net welfare gain, but
            agricultural wage workers could suffer from wage cuts.
            Because poorer households tend to consume relatively fewer
            nonagricultural products, that is nonessentials, any
            trade-related shocks to prices of nonagricultural product
            are likely to be transmitted via labor channels. Despite
            significant evidence that nonagricultural trade reform
            ultimately leads to job creation and enhanced productivity,
            the short-run effects can be mixed. The costs incurred by
            workers to transition to new jobs slow the adjustment of the
            economy to a new steady state. Labor mobility costs, which
            tend to be higher in developing countries and for unskilled
            workers, reduce the potential gains to trade by diverting
            labor market adjustment from its most efficient path.
The next wave of deaths from Ebola
            the impact of health care worker mortality
The ongoing Ebola outbreak in West
            Africa has put a huge strain on already weak health systems.
            Ebola deaths have been disproportionately concentrated among
            health care workers, exacerbating existing skill shortages
            in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in a way that will
            negatively affect the health of the populations even after
            Ebola has been eliminated. This paper combines data on
            cumulative health care worker deaths from Ebola, the stock
            of health care workers and mortality rates pre-Ebola, and
            coefficients that summarize the relationship between health
            care workers in a given country and rates of maternal,
            infant, and under-five mortality. The paper estimates how
            the loss of health care workers to Ebola will likely affect
            non-Ebola mortality even after the disease is eliminated. It
            then estimates the size of the resource gap that needs to be
            filled to avoid these deaths, and to reach the minimum
            thresholds of health coverage described in the Millennium
            Development Goals. Maternal mortality could increase by 38
            percent in Guinea, 74 percent in Sierra Leone, and 111
            percent in Liberia due to the reduction in health personnel
            caused by the epidemic. This translates to an additional
            4,022 women dying per year across the three most affected
            countries. To avoid these deaths, 240 doctors, nurses, and
            midwives would need to be immediately hired across the three
            countries. This is a small fraction of the 43,565 doctors,
            nurses, and midwives that would need to be hired to achieve
            the adequate health coverage implied by the Millennium
            Development Goals. Substantial investment in health systems
            is urgently required not only to improve future epidemic
            preparedness, but also to limit the secondary health effects
            of the current epidemic owing to the depletion of the health workforce.
Hayek, local information, and the
            decentralization of state-owned enterprises in China
Hayek argues that local knowledge is a
            key for understanding whether production should be
            decentralized. This paper tests Hayek’s predictions by
            examining the causes of the Chinese government’s decision to
            decentralize state-owned enterprises. Since the government
            located closer to a state-owned enterprise has more
            information over that enterprise, a greater distance between
            the government and the enterprise should lead to a higher
            likelihood of decentralization. Moreover, where
            communication costs and the government’s uncertainty over an
            enterprise’s performance are greater, the government is more
            likely to decentralize enterprises so that it can better
            utilize local information. This paper finds empirical
            support for these implications.
What drives local food prices
            evidence from the Tanzanian maize market
This study quantifies the relationship
            between Tanzanian and external maize markets while also
            accounting for domestic influences. It concludes that
            external influences on domestic prices originate from
            regional, rather than global, markets. It also shows that,
            compared to external factors, domestic factors exert a
            greater influence on Tanzanian maize markets. Further, the
            mechanisms through which trade policies influence maize
            markets involve interactions with both external market
            shocks and domestic weather shocks. Overall, it provides
            evidence that the intermittent imposition of export bans in
            Tanzania has had adverse impacts on its maize markets, and
            consequently, on the development of its agrarian economy.
Rate of return regulation and
            emission permits trading under uncertainty
This paper analyzes the dynamic effects
            of rate-of-return regulation on firms’ emissions compliance
            behavior when the price of emissions permits is uncertain.
            The paper shows that uncertainty regarding the price of
            permits would motivate a regulated firm to adopt a more
            self-sufficient strategy and would reduce the
            cost-effectiveness of emission allowance trading. When
            allowance transactions are treated as capital investments,
            uncertainty could reverse the classic Averch-Johnson effect,
            so that a regulated firm would purchase fewer permits in the
            ex ante period than its unregulated counterpart. These
            results are driven by the asymmetric impact of a price
            change on the expected marginal value of allowances under
            rate-of-return regulation. A wider variation in the permit
            price and a decline in the regulated rate of return would
            amplify the asymmetry. These results have implications for
            the efficiency of the proposed global carbon trading system.