rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Hospital cost functions for
            developing countries
There is extensive literature on
            hospital cost functions for industrial countries, but very
            little literature for developing countries. Yet the issues
            facing policy-makers in all countries are much the same: are
            hospitals overcapitalized, as is often claimed of U.S.
            hospitals? Are hospitals inefficient in other respects? Do
            hospitals vary in efficiency? Are private hospitals more
            efficient than their public counterparts? Should hospitals
            specialize or provide a broad range of services? Should
            costs be reduced by concentrating cases in fewer hospitals?
            The authors critically survey the techniques available for
            analyzing hospital costs and review the few hospital
            cost-function studies undertaken for developing countries.
            Although the paper is intended primarily for those working
            in developing countries, the discussion for cost function
            methodology has broad implications for interpreting
            econometric cost functions and for examining economies of
            scale and scope in both developing and industrial countries.
            The authors survey of econometric techniques is not
            uncritical. They question, for example, the validity of
            recent tests of over-capitalization undertaken on American
            hospitals. They also make general observations about the
            methods used to investigate economies of scope and economies
            of scale.
Excise taxes
The author contrasts excise taxes with
            sales taxes, consumption taxes, licenses, stamp, duties, and
            other indirect taxes. He describes different types of
            excises, their relative tax burdens, and how progressive and
            economically efficient they may be. The main argument for
            traditional excise taxes, he says, is that they yield
            substantial revenue with relatively little complaint. A
            second justification is that the cost of the excessive use
            of commodities is borne by the purchasers, not by society at
            large. A third argument is to penalize people for a
            commodity's use (especially popular with commodities
            such as alcohol). Arguments against traditional excises:
            they tend to be regressive, because of the low income
            elasticity of demand, and they place an unequal burden on
            families at given income levels. They deprive families of
            the funds for milk and other essential items, without
            reducing consumption of taxed goods. High rates tend to
            increase smuggling and illicit production, often of
            inferior, even dangerous, substitutes. And the case for them
            is not strong, resting as it often does on moral grounds.
            But excise taxes are sure to continue as they yield revenues
            and are generally more acceptable than other sources of
            revenue, such as income taxes. Taxes on motor fuel and
            related motor vehicle levies are among the three most
            productive excises. They are justified as a charge for the
            use of roads, in lieu of tolls. In Western Europe, they are
            seen as progressive, as reaching the people most able to pay
            -- and incidentally as reducing road congestion. Criticism
            of such taxes centers on how best to attain desired goals --
            for example, sorting out the relative burdens on light and
            heavy vehicles. Luxury excises tend to be applied to
            commodities and services with a high income-elasticity of
            demand, the assumption being that they will reach the people
            best able to pay them -- achieving equity without relying on
            increased income taxes, which are difficult to enforce in
            developing countries and hurt incentives. A luxury excise
            tax, limited to certain items, is viewed as being
            progressive, which a sales tax rarely is. But if various
            rates apply, compliance and administration become complex,
            and consumers may discriminate among closely related
            commodities. Moreover, the goods taxed are often widely used
            by lower income groups (sugar and kerosene are prime
            examples). For these reasons, many countries are introducing
            sales taxes, with few rates or a single rate (with
            exemptions), with simplified processing, and with less
            ambiguity about what is or is not taxed.
Labor regulations and industrial
            relations in Indonesia
Since the mid -1980s, Indonesia has
            rapidly deregulated.  Employment opportunities, income
            generation capacity, and the opportunity to negotiate better
            working conditions have expanded.  Many Indonesians are
            concerned that workers have not shared in economic
            development benefits and think that a minimum wage increase
            would bring bottom wages up and reduce wage differentials.
            Additionally, international agencies have criticized
            Indonesia for labor standard violations.  In response, the
            Indonesian government has increased workers' statuary
            rights and removed collective bargaining obstacles.  Real
            minimum wages doubled between 1988 and 1995.  Regulation
            enforcement toughened.  Manufacturing employment expansion
            has broaden statutory rights coverage, requiring
            enforcement.  The government should close the gap between
            statutory rights and voluntary agreed-on working conditions.
            It must correct legal standards and reduce labor dispute
            intervention.  Current labor regulations inhibit
            constructive discourse between workers and employers on:
            dismissal, dispute resolution mechanisms, and social
            security contributions.  Appropriate legislative action in
            job safety and child labor is needed.  Inviting public
            intervention rather than allowing strikes and lockouts to
            operate isolates negotiation from market conditions.  While
            labor regulation should facilitate voluntary employer and
            worker agreements, it often discourages job creation.
            Keeping Indonesia's economy competitive requires an
            industrial relations system relying on voluntary wage and
            working condition negotiations.  The tasks workers perform
            and the employers for whom they perform them must be subject
            to change.  This process is a normal feature of healthy
            labor markets.
Transient poverty in rural China
The authors study transient poverty in a
            six-year panel dataset for a sample of 5,000 households in
            post-reform rural China.  Half of the mean squared poverty
            gap is transient, in that it is directly attributable to
            fluctuations in consumption over time.  There is enough
            transient poverty to treble the cost of eliminating chronic
            poverty when targeting solely according to current
            consumption - and to title the balance in favor of
            untargeted transfers.  Transient poverty is low among the
            chronically poorest, and tends to be high among those near
            the poverty line.  Using censored quantile regression
            techniques, the authors find that systemic factors determine
            transient poverty, although they are generally congruent
            with the determinants of chronic poverty.  There is little
            to suggest that the two types of poverty are created by
            fundamentally different processes.  It appears that the same
            things that would help reduce chronic poverty - higher and
            more secure farm yield and higher levels of physical and
            human capital - would also help reduce transient poverty.
Why manufacturing firms produce some
            electricity internally
Many manufacturers in developing
            countries produce their own electricity because the public
            supply is unavailable or unreliable.  The authors develop a
            model of the firm in which electricity is produced
            internally, with scale economies.  The model explains the
            observed behavior (prevalent in Nigeria, common in
            Indonesia, and rare in Thailand) that firms supplement their
            purchases of publicly produced electricity with electricity
            produced internally.  To prepare an econometric estimate,
            they specify a translog model.  In Nigeria, where firms
            exhibit excess capacity, generators are treated as a fixed
            input, whereas in Indonesia, where firms are expanding, they
            are variable.  They confirm strong scale economies in
            internal power production in both Nigeria and Indonesia.
            Shadow price analysis for both countries shows that smaller
            firms would pay much more for public power than larger firms
            would.  Instead of giving quantity discounts, public
            monopolies should charge the larger firms more and the
            smaller firms less than they presently charge.  In Nigeria,
            the large firms would make intensive use of their idle
            generating capacity, while in Indonesia their would expand
            their facilities.  In both countries, small users would
            realize savings by having to rely less on expensive
            endogenous power.
Logistical constraints on
            international trade in the Maghreb
Without a competitive transport
            industry, the Maghreb countries will not truly benefit from
            reform aimed at increasing the region's share of
            international trade. A study of barriers to the
            region's trade, especially with countries of the
            European Union, identified more than 30 barriers, in four
            categories: barriers to imports, to exports, of
            infrastructure and equipment, and of intra-Maghreb trade.
            These include: 1) direct barriers including: (a) from
            traditional distortions (price, discriminatory access to
            markets); (b) nontariff barriers (administrative, regulatory
            and tax-related restrictions); (c) traffic agreements
            (protecting national flags); and (d) lack of infrastructure
            and equipment; and 2) indirect barriers deriving from: (a)
            trade harmonization (simplified customs procedures and
            tariffs structures, elimination of quotas, reduction of
            customs tariffs on transport equipment); and (b) technology
            lags (telecommunications and handling). The authors quantify
            barriers in terms of "tariff equivalents,"
            expressed as a nominal rate of protection based on the free
            on board value of the merchandise. But the nominal rate of
            protection measures only the direct costs of distortions.
            The effective rate of protection measures both direct and
            indirect effects, and effective rates are generally twice as
            high as nominal rates. To reconcile macroeconomic and
            microeconomic approaches to measuring effective rates, the
            authors use a partial equilibrium model (SMART model) to
            estimate the impact on the balance of payments of
            eliminating excess costs. Most of the corrective policies
            they recommend concern multimodal transport in the trade
            between Europe and the Arab Maghreb Union. The challenges
            are considerable: not only does such a system pave the way
            for cost and time savings ("just-in-time"
            transport), but it also adopts the logistics management that
            the most advanced European enterprises use to orchestrate
            their raw material purchasing, production and marketing
            functions. A multimodal transport system allow them to
            reduce inventories significantly and to respond better to
            volatile demand. Essential for just-in-time multimodal
            transport and logistics management include efficient modern
            transport techniques, efficient communications systems,
            efficient modern merchandise handling, and appropriate
            regulations. These conditions are still not fully in place
            in the Maghreb countries, except partially in some parts of
            the clothing and textile industry.
Competition in network industries
A wave of privatization is sweeping the
            globe, affecting about 100 countries and adding up to an
            average of more than $60 billion a year in business in the
            past decade. The challenge is to ensure that privatization
            yields clear benefits. Empirical studies suggest that
            ownership change by itself will often yield results,
            especially when it reduces government interference. But the
            regulation required in areas of natural monopoly can become
            overly intrusive and undermine progress. Real competition is
            required to generate sizable and lasting welfare
            improvements. But in infrastructure sectors, the
            introduction of competition is complicated by the existence
            of complex transport and communications networks. Debate
            about whether and how to introduce competition in network
            industries is sometimes heated. Certain questions recur:
            Will continuing regulation be needed? Whether and at what
            terms will private finance be forthcoming? The author argues
            that policymakers need to understand how competitive forces
            can be brought to bear in network industries. He explains
            the following: 1) common principles that are often lost in
            "technical" debates about specific sectors; 2)
            various methods for introducing competition in network
            industries; 3) competition for the market, and bidding for
            franchises; 4) options for competition for existing
            networks; 5) options for expanding competitive systems by
            decentralizing investment in new network capacity; 6) the
            option of allowing competition among multiple networks; and
            7) the implications of these options for the sectors and for
            financing industry expansion. In case of doubt, he contends,
            policymakers should not restrict the entry of competitive
            firms in such networks. If they do, entry restrictions
            should be subject to an automatic test after a set period,
            and reviewed for costs and benefits.
Price support at any price Costs and
            benefits of alternative agricultural policies for Poland
The author argues that Poland must
            choose an agricultural policy that promotes efficiency,
            structural change, and adjustment to the new market
            environment and eventual membership in the European Union.
            That policy must take into account both the needs of, and
            the financial constraints on, Polish agriculture.  Results
            of simulation experiments performed with the use of the
            computable general equilibrium model of the Polish economy
            suggest that Common Agricultural Policy-type price supports
            are not the most efficient agricultural policy for Poland.
            The author discusses alternative policies and scenarios.
            Rather than discuss whether the relationship between
            farmers' incomes and average Polish wages is fair, the
            author analyzes whether medium- and long-term development
            trends in the Polish economy may cause this relationship to
            deteriorate, and what policies will counteract those trends.
            Rapid growth in the nonagricultural sectors combined with
            real appreciation of domestic currency (caused either
            through good current account performance or significant
            capital inflows) may jeopardize farmers' relative
            income position.  And such developments are probable if
            positive projections for economic development and membership
            in the European Union are realized.  The agricultural sector
            can defend its relative income only by becoming more
            efficient.  Price supports improve farmers' relative
            income but at a high cost to taxpayers and consumers and to
            macroeconomic efficiency.  To meet these costs, Poland must
            put in place firm quantity controls.  But the author thinks
            that the best strategy would be to avoid price supports
            until the moment of joining the European Union's Common
            Agricultural Policy.  In the interim, policies aimed at
            reducing farm employment seem most appropriate.  The author
            discusses two such policies: encouraging older farmers to
            retire and promoting jobs in rural areas.  He also proposes
            two feasible scenarios for integrating Polish agriculture
            with that of the European Union by 2005-10.
Different strategies of transition
            to a market economy : how do they work in practice
In 1989, the former communist countries
            embarked on a transition from centrally planned command
            economies to market economies (and from repressive
            dictatorships to Western-style democracies). In addressing
            the question, "What is the optimal strategy for this
            transformation?", the author revisits the controversy
            about how quickly and radically the new market rules and
            their components should be adopted in the former communist
            countries and discusses the economic and political problems
            associated with different strategies. Among his conclusions:
            1) generally, the faster and more comprehensive the economic
            reform, the more chance there is to minimize its economic,
            social, and political costs, and to avoid chronic
            macroeconomic mismanagement. A more radical and disciplined
            path of transition is all the more important when initial
            conditions are less favorable and negative external shocks
            are greater. Only countries such as Hungary - which had made
            some progress in market-oriented reform before
            communism's collapse and which experienced less
            macroeconomic disequilibrium - could go more slowly; 2)
            political liberalization and democratization helps the
            economic transition succeed mainly because it helps weaken
            the political positions of the traditional communist
            oligraphy, which is interested mainly in rent-seeking; 3)
            unless stabilization and liberalization are achieved
            quickly, microeconomic restructuring cannot be expected to
            progress quickly, even if privatization does (as it has in
            Russia). Other aspects of the transition may take more time.
            For privatization to succeed, for example, a legal base and
            organizational infrastructure must be created. But even with
            privatization, a rapid transition is less risky for
            restructuring and for complex institutional reform than a
            slow transition; 4) there is no way to avoid a relatively
            large decline in output, especially of industrial production
            in the state sector; 5) granting concessions to, and
            bargaining with, various pressure groups does not produce
            the expected political results or increase social acceptance
            of reform; and 6) governments should not be afraid of
            "aiming too high" in embarking on a stabilization
            program or any other component of transformation. Most
            post-communist governments do the opposite: dilute the
            program so much it becomes ineffective.
Liquidity, banks, and markets :
            effects of financial development on banks and the maturity
            of financial claims
Financial markets and financial
            institutions compete to provide investors with liquidity.
            The author examines the roles of banks and markets when both
            are active, characterizing how development of the financial
            markets affects the structure and market share of banks.
            Banks create liquidity by offering claims with a higher
            short-term return than exist without a banking system. The
            amount of liquidity that banks offer depends on the degree
            of direct participation in financial markets - that is, on
            the liquidity of financial markets. Conversely, banks
            influence the amount of liquidity offered by financial
            markets. As more investors participate in financial markets,
            allowing markets to provide liquidity, banks shrink and make
            fewer long-term loans. Moreover, the banking sector's
            ability to subsidize those with immediate liquidity needs is
            reduced. More liquid markets also lead to physical
            investment with longer maturity, a smaller gap between the
            maturity of financial assets and that of phycial
            investments. Financial assets have a shorter maturity than
            physical investments, but this gap approaches zero as the
            market approaches full liquidity. The author provides an
            analytical basis for developing short-term markets as a way
            to stimulate the supply of long-term finance, and he
            supports the practitioner's view that short-term
            financial markets are a prerequisite for the development of
            viable long-term finance.