rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Liberia's infrastructure: a
            continental perspective
Liberia's power generating capacity
            and national grid were completely demolished during 14 years
            of civil war. Piped water access fell from 15 percent of the
            population in 1986 to less than 3 percent in 2008. War also
            left the national road network in a state of severe
            disrepair. Since the return of peace, the port of Monrovia
            has resumed normal operations under private management, and
            progress has been made in securing donor finance for road
            reconstruction. Liberia has also successfully liberalized
            its mobile telephone markets, with low-priced access surging
            to 40 percent in 2009. Liberia's starkest challenge
            lies in funding a more cost-effective power sector. The
            country's generation capacity is barely one-tenth of
            the benchmark level of Africa's other low-income
            countries. The cost of generating power is exorbitant, and
            the power tariff is three times the regional average.
            Addressing Liberia's public infrastructure needs will
            require sustained expenditures of between $350 million and
            $600 million annually, mostly to fund power and transport.
            In the mid-2000s, with all sources of spending taken into
            account, Liberia spent around $90 million a year on
            infrastructure. An additional $17 million was lost to
            inefficiencies, such as underpricing of power. Because
            Liberia suffers an annual funding gap of between $250
            million and $500 million per year, it will need a
            combination of increased finance, improved efficiency, and
            cost-reducing innovations to reach its infrastructure
            targets in a reasonable time. Without these, Liberians may
            have to wait for up to 40 years to achieve the targets.
Ethiopia's infrastructure: a
            continental perspective
Infrastructure contributed 0.6
            percentage points to Ethiopia's annual per capita GDP
            growth over the last decade. Raising the country's
            infrastructure endowment to that of the region's
            middle-income countries could add an additional 3 percentage
            points to infrastructure's contribution to growth.
            Ethiopia's infrastructure successes include developing
            Ethiopia Airlines, a leading regional carrier; upgrading its
            network of trunk roads; and rapidly expanding access to
            water and sanitation.The country's greatest
            infrastructure challenge lies in the power sector, where a
            further 8,700 megawatts of generating plant are needed over
            the next decade, implying a doubling of current capacity.
            The transport sector faces the challenges of low levels of
            rural accessibility and inadequate road maintenance.
            Ethiopias ICT sector currently suffers from a poor
            institutional and regulatory framework. Addressing
            Ethiopia's infrastructure deficit will require a
            sustained annual expenditure of $5.1 billion over the next
            decade. The power sector alone requires $3.3 billion
            annually, with $1 billion needed to facilitate regional
            power trading. That level of spending represents 40 percent
            of the country's GDP and a tripling of the $1.3 billion
            spent annually in the mid-2000s. As of 2006, there was an
            annual funding gap of $3.5 billion. Improving road
            maintenance, removing inefficiencies in power (notably
            underpricing), and privatizing ICT services could shrink the
            gap. But Ethiopia needs a significant increase in its
            already proportionally high infrastructure funding and
            careful handling of public and private investments if it is
            to reach its infrastructure targets within a reasonable time.
Zambia's infrastructure : a
            continental perspective
Infrastructure improvements contributed
            0.6 percentage points to Zambia's annual per capital
            GDP growth over the past decade, mostly because of
            exponential growth in information and communication
            services. The power sector, by contrast, pulled the growth
            rate down by more than 0.1 percentage points. Improving
            Zambia's infrastructure endowment could boost growth by
            up to 2 percentage points per year. Zambia's relatively
            high generation capacity and power consumption are
            accompanied by fewer power outages than elsewhere in the
            region. But Zambia's power sector emphasizes the mining
            industry, while household electrification is about half that
            in other resource-rich countries. Zambia's power
            tariffs, among the lowest in Africa, are less than half the
            level needed to accelerate electrification and keep pace
            with mining sector demands. In power as in just about every
            other aspect of infrastructure, rural Zambians lag well
            behind their African peers. In a country where 70 percent of
            the population depends on agriculture for its livelihood,
            this represents a huge drag on the economy. Zambia would
            need to spend an average of $1.6 billion a year over the
            decade 2006-15 to develop the infrastructure found in the
            rest of the developing world. This is equivalent to 20
            percent of Zambia's GDP and about double the
            country's rate of investment in recent years. Closing
            the country's annual infrastructure funding gap of $500
            million requires raising more funds, looking for more
            cost-effective ways to meet infrastructure targets, and
            eliminating the inefficiencies that cause the loss of $300
            million annually.
Ghana's infrastructure : a
            continental perspective
Infrastructure contributed just over one
            percentage point to Ghana's annual per capital GDP
            growth during the 2000s. Raising the countrys
            infrastructure endowment to that of the region's
            middle-income countries could boost the annual growth rate
            by more than 2.7 percentage points. Ghana has an advanced
            infrastructure platform when compared with other low-income
            countries in Africa. The countrys coverage levels for rural
            water, electricity, and GSM signals are impressive. A large
            share of the road network is in good or fair condition.
            Institutional reforms have been adopted in the ICT, ports,
            roads, and water supply sectors. Ghanas most pressing
            challenges lie in the power sector, where outmoded
            transmission and distribution assets, rapid demand growth,
            and periodic hydrological shocks leave the country reliant
            on high-cost oil-based generation. Exceptionally high losses
            in water distribution leave little to reach end customers,
            who are thus exposed to intermittent supplies. Addressing
            Ghana's infrastructure challenges will require raising
            annual expenditures to $2.3 billion. The country already
            spends about $1.2 billion per year on infrastructure,
            equivalent to about 7.5 percent of GDP. A further $1.1
            billion is lost each year to inefficiencies, notably
            underpricing of power.Ghana's annual infrastructure
            funding gap is about $0.4 billion per year, chiefly related
            to power and water. Following its recent oil discoveries,
            Ghana can raise additional public funding from increased tax
            receipts. The country has several strong areas on which to
            build and a solid economic base from which to fund
            incremental efforts.
Congo, Democratic Republic of - The
            Democratic Republic of Congo's infrastructure : a
            continental perspective
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
            faces possibly the most daunting infrastructure challenge on
            the African continent. Conflict has seriously damaged most
            infrastructure networks. Vast geography, low population
            density, extensive forestlands, and criss-crossing rivers
            complicate the development of new networks. Progress has
            been made since the return of peace in 2003. A privately
            funded GSM network now provides mobile telephone signals to
            two-thirds of the population. External funding has been
            secured to rebuild the country's road network, and
            domestic air traffic has grown. Modest investments could
            harness inland waterways for low-cost transport. Much more
            substantial investments in hydropower would enable the DRC
            to meet its own energy demands cheaply while exporting vast
            quantities of power. One of the country's most
            immediate infrastructure challenges is to reform the
            national power utility and increase power generation and
            delivery. Capacity must increase by 35 percent over the
            period 2006-15 to meet domestic demand. The dilapidated
            condition of both road and rail infrastructure presents
            another challenge. To meet the target defined in the report,
            investment in the country's infrastructure must
            increase from $700 million to $5.3 billion per year over the
            next decade, a staggering 75 percent of 2006 GDP. New
            infrastructure technologies, the elimination of
            inefficiencies, and cross-border finance (for hydropower
            development) could cut the annual funding gap in half.
            Recently, the country secured $4 billion in external finance
            commitments for infrastructure, enabling increases in budget
            allocations for public investment.
A practical comparison of the
            bivariate probit and linear IV estimators
This paper presents asymptotic theory
            and Monte-Carlo simulations comparing maximum-likelihood
            bivariate probit and linear instrumental variables
            estimators of treatment effects in models with a binary
            endogenous treatment and binary outcome. The three main
            contributions of the paper are (a) clarifying the
            relationship between the Average Treatment Effect obtained
            in the bivariate probit model and the Local Average
            Treatment Effect estimated through linear IV; (b) comparing
            the mean-square error and the actual size and power of tests
            based on these estimators across a wide range of parameter
            values relative to the existing literature; and (c)
            assessing the performance of misspecification tests for
            bivariate probit models. The authors recommend two changes
            to common practices: bootstrapped confidence intervals for
            both estimators, and a score test to check goodness of fit
            for the bivariate probit model.
Food insecurity and public
            agricultural spending in Bolivia : putting money where your
            mouth is
This paper explores the reduction of
            food insecurity in Bolivia, adopting a supply side approach
            that analyzes the role of agricultural spending on
            vulnerability. Vulnerability to food insecurity is captured
            by a municipal level composite -- developed locally within
            the framework of World Food Program food security analysis
            -- that combines welfare outcomes, weather conditions and
            agricultural potential for all 327 municipalities in 2003,
            2006 and 2007. Our econometric results indicate that levels
            of public agricultural spending are positively associated
            with high or very high vulnerability. The authors interpret
            this to indicate that agricultural spending allocation
            decisions are driven by high or very high vulnerability
            levels. In other words, more agricultural spending appears
            to be destined to where it is more needed in line with
            previous findings in other sectors in Bolivia. This is
            confirmed through a number of specifications, including
            contemporaneous and lagged relationships between spending
            and vulnerability. They also find evidence of public
            spending on infrastructure and research and extension
            services having a significant (but very small) effect
            towards reducing high vulnerability. This indicates the
            importance of the composition of public agricultural
            spending in shaping its relationship with vulnerability to
            food insecurity.
Service export sophistication and
            economic growth
Can increasing sophistication in service
            exports lead to economic growth? Although services were
            historically produced primarily for domestic consumption,
            they are gradually becoming more productive, tradable and
            unbundled. The authors construct an index of "service
            exports sophistication" to document this phenomenon.
            Panel data estimations indicate a positive association
            between growth in per capita income and higher
            sophistication of service exports. The results also suggest
            that this phenomenon is growing in importance over time.
            Considering the limits of traditional industrialization in
            igniting global growth, the results provide an alternative channel.
The status of bank lending to SMES
            in the Middle East and North Africa region : the results of
            a joint survey of the Union of Arab Bank and the World Bank
Among the principal constraints for SME
            lending is the lack of SME transparency, poor credit
            information from credit registries and bureaus, and weak
            creditor rights. If constraints can be addressed, lending
            can potentially reach bank targets of 21 percent. State
            banks still play an important role in financing SMEs in the
            MENA region, but they use less sophisticated risk management
            systems than private banks. On another hand, credit
            guarantee schemes are a popular form of support to SME
            finance in the region, and are associated with higher levels
            of SME lending. The paper concludes that MENA policy makers
            should prioritize improvements in financial infrastructure,
            including greater coverage and depth of credit bureaus,
            improvements in the collateral regime (especially for
            movable assets), and increased competition between banks and
            also non-banks. Weaknesses in insolvency regimes and credit
            reporting systems should also be alleviated. Direct policy
            interventions through public banks, guarantee schemes, lower
            reserve requirements and subsidized lending and other
            measures have played a role in compensating for MENA's
            weak financial infrastructure, but more sustainable
            structural solutions are needed.
The insurance sector in the Middle
            East and North Africa : challenges and development agenda
This paper studies the causes of the low
            development of the insurance sector in the Middle East and
            North African (MENA) region, particularly for long term
            insurance. The paper shows that life and non-life premiums,
            as well as assets, are very low relative to expected levels
            given per capita income and demographic characteristics, and
            examines the causes of such poor performance. There is a
            wide range of factors constraining the development of the
            industry, including the absence of mandatory insurance in
            key areas, the predominant presence of the state in some
            countries, gaps in regulation and supervision, unsupportive
            tax regimes, fragmented market structures, a chronic lack of
            suitably skilled people, as well as the absence of products
            that conform with cultural/religious preferences, especially
            in the case of life insurance. The lack of development of
            the insurance sector is a matter of concern, as research
            shows that the sector can contribute to both financial and
            economic development. Key recommendations to accelerate the
            development of the sector include wider introduction of
            mandatory insurance lines that have clear positive
            externalities, continuing the privatization process for
            government owned insurers, employing non capital techniques
            to force rationalization of insurance sectors with too many
            small and inefficient players, removing tax distortions,
            taking steps to stabilize motor third party liability
            markets (typically the largest line of business),
            strengthening reporting and disclosure, regulating
            banc-assurance, improving consumer protection, further
            developing Takaful long term insurance ('Family
            Insurance'), and establishing regional centers of
            excellence for skills development.
Increasing access to credit through
            reforming secured transactions in the MENA Region
This paper provides a comparative
            summary of secured transactions systems related to the use
            of movable property as collateral in the MENA region vis a
            vis international practices in countries with modern secured
            transactions systems. The paper sets out the importance of
            introducing reforms in the area of secured transactions with
            the objective of increasing access to credit for businesses,
            particularly SMEs. The MENA region clearly lags behind all
            other regions in the introduction of secured transactions
            reforms. The paper summarizes many of the weaknesses common
            across the region. The two main critical areas that need
            urgent reforms are the creation of modern secured
            transactions laws and electronic movable collateral
            registries, and the need to improve enforcement mechanisms
            for security interests in movable property.
Finding a balance between growth and
            vulnerability trade-offs : lessons from emerging Europe and
            the CIS
This paper examines the growth patterns
            of emerging Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent
            States (CIS) countries prior to the global financial crisis.
            The aim is to draw lessons on what policies can best
            position these countries going forward to enjoy growth
            without a buildup in macro and financial vulnerability.
            Cluster analysis is used to classify these countries across
            the growth and vulnerability dimensions; namely, a
            classification into low or high growth outcomes, each of
            which may occur with low or high vulnerability features. The
            vulnerability indicators used are multifaceted, covering
            both the domestic and the external dimensions that have been
            identified in previous studies as being good indicators of
            likelihood of crisis -- itself understood as
            multidimensional. Based on multinomial logit regressions,
            the initial conditions and the economic policies that might
            affect the probabilities of being in each of the four
            possible cluster combinations are examined. Many (if not
            most) of the countries in the sample experienced very large
            capital inflows relative to their gross domestic product
            prior to the crisis, which can complicate macroeconomic
            management and lead to a buildup of vulnerability. These
            large inflows were partly due to the high liquidity in
            global markets and, at least for some countries in the
            country sample, the particular attractiveness of "new
            Europe and emerging countries in the region" in the
            eyes of foreign investors. Nonetheless, the analysis finds
            strong evidence that the macroeconomic and structural
            policies that over time influence the structure of the
            economy, can play a significant role in explaining (and,
            going forward, in influencing) the different growth and
            vulnerability patterns experienced by the countries covered
            in this paper.
Electoral accountability, fiscal
            decentralization and service delivery in Indonesia
This paper takes advantage of the
            exogenous phasing of direct elections in districts and
            applies the double difference estimator to: (i) measure
            impacts on the pattern of public spending and revenue
            generation at the district level; and (ii) investigate the
            heterogeneity of the impacts on public spending. The authors
            confirm that the electoral reforms had positive effects on
            district expenditures and these effects were mainly due to
            the increases in expenditures in the districts outside Java
            and Bali and the changes in expenditures brought about by
            non-incumbents elected in the districts. Electoral reforms
            also led to higher revenue generation from own sources and
            to higher budget surplus. Finally, the analysis finds that
            in anticipation of the forthcoming direct elections,
            district governments tend to have higher current
            expenditures on public works.
Too little too late : welfare
            impacts of rainfall shocks in rural Indonesia
The authors use regression analysis to
            assess the potential welfare impact of rainfall shocks in
            rural Indonesia. In particular, they consider two shocks:
            (i) a delay in the onset of monsoon and (ii) a significant
            shortfall in the amount of rain in the 90 day post-onset
            period. Focusing on households with family farm businesses,
            the analysis finds that a delay in the monsoon onset does
            not have a significant impact on the welfare of rice
            farmers. However, rice farm households located in areas
            exposed to low rainfall following the monsoon are negatively
            affected. Rice farm households appear to be able to protect
            their food expenditure in the face of weather shocks at the
            expense of lower nonfood expenditures per capita. The
            authors use propensity score matching to identify community
            programs that might moderate the welfare impact of this type
            of shock. Access to credit and public works projects in
            communities were among the programs with the strongest
            moderating effects. This is an important consideration for
            the design and implementation of adaptation strategies.