rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Mortgage lending in Korea : an
            example of a countercyclical macroprudential approach
Regulatory regimes are actively
            discussing macroprudential policy. Korea pursued a
            countercyclical macroprudential approach to prevent the
            overheating of mortgage lending and to minimize the risk of
            loan default. The Korean financial supervisory authority
            made adjustments in response to both the condition of the
            housing market and trends in mortgage loans. The lessons
            learned from the Korean experience are applicable to other
            situations. First, regulations regarding loan-to-value and
            debt-to-income ratios and other restrictions on mortgage
            lending can be employed as an important part of a
            countercyclical framework. Next, measures need to be applied
            in a timely manner and according to the specific conditions
            of each country. Finally, authorities should preemptively
            prepare macroprudential instruments before banks enter a
            period of rapid mortgage lending to avoid reckless mortgage
            lending operations and weaken any speculative motive in the
            housing market.
Understanding the benefits of
            regional integration to trade : the application of a gravity
            model to the case of Central America
The paper identifies the impact of
            physical barriers to trade within Central America through
            the use of an augmented and partially constrained Gravity
            Model of Trade. Adjusting the Euclidian distance factor for
            Central America by real average transport times, the model
            quantifies the impact of poor connectivity and border
            frictions on the region's internal trade as well as its
            trade with external partners, such as the United States and
            Europe. In addition, the authors benchmark Central
            America's trade coefficients against those of a
            physically integrated region by running a parallel Gravity
            Model for the 15 core countries of the European Union. This
            allows for the estimation of potential intra-regional and
            external trade levels if Central America were to reduce
            border frictions and time of travel between countries and
            thus benefit from both the adjacency of each country's
            neighbors and the gravitational pull of the region's
            economies. The analysis is conducted for all of Central
            America's trade and is also disaggregated for three
            groups of products -- processed fruits and vegetables; steel
            and steel products; and grains -- by both volume and value.
            This differentiation tests the consistency of the results
            while providing insight into the differentiation in trading
            patterns and potential for these containerized, break-bulk,
            and bulk products. The results of the model include a
            potential doubling in intraregional exports if Central
            America could achieve the adjacency and time-distance
            factors of a truly integrated region. In addition, the
            region's combined exports to the European Union and the
            United States are projected to increase by more than a third
            compared with the current level, assuming European
            Union-level adjacency performance. Even more external trade
            benefits would accrue by reducing the economic penalty
            imposed by overland transport and border crossing inefficiencies.
The economics of natural disasters :
            concepts and methods
Large-scale disasters regularly affect
            societies over the globe, causing large destruction and
            damage. After each of these events, media, insurance
            companies, and international institu-tions publish numerous
            assessments of the "cost of the disaster." However
            these assessments are based on different methodologies and
            approaches, and they often reach different results. Besides
            methodological differences, these discrepancies are due to
            the multi-dimensionality in disaster impacts and their large
            redistributive effects, which make it unclear what is
            included in the estimates. But most importantly, the purpose
            of these assessments is rarely specified, although different
            purposes correspond to different perimeters of analysis and
            different definitions of what a cost is. To clarify this
            situation, this paper proposes a definition of the cost of a
            disaster, and emphasizes the most important mechanisms that
            explain and determine this cost. It does so by first
            explaining why the direct economic cost, that is, the value
            of what has been damaged or destroyed by the disaster, is
            not a sufficient indicator of disaster seriousness and why
            estimating indirect losses is crucial to assess the
            consequences on welfare. The paper describes the main
            indirect consequences of a disaster and the following
            reconstruction phase, and discusses the economic mechanisms
            at play. It proposes a review of available methodologies to
            assess indirect economic consequences, illustrated with
            examples from the literature. Finally, it highlights the
            need for a better understanding of the economics of natural
            disasters and suggests a few promising areas for research on
            this topic.
Is there a metropolitan bias the
            inverse relationship between poverty and city size in
            selected developing countries
This paper provides evidence from eight
            developing countries of an inverse relationship between
            poverty and city size. Poverty is both more widespread and
            deeper in very small and small towns than in large or very
            large cities. This basic pattern is generally robust to
            choice of poverty line. The paper shows, further, that for
            all eight countries, a majority of the urban poor live in
            medium, small, or very small towns. Moreover, it is shown
            that the greater incidence and severity of consumption
            poverty in smaller towns is generally compounded by
            similarly greater deprivation in terms of access to basic
            infrastructure services, such as electricity, heating gas,
            sewerage, and solid waste disposal. The authors illustrate
            for one country -- Morocco -- that inequality within large
            cities is not driven by a severe dichotomy between slum
            dwellers and others. The notion of a single cleavage between
            slum residents and well-to-do burghers as the driver of
            urban inequality in the developing world thus appears to be
            unsubstantiated -- at least in this case. Robustness checks
            are performed to assess whether the findings in the paper
            are driven by price variation across city-size categories,
            by the reliance on an income-based concept of well-being,
            and by the application of small-area estimation techniques
            for estimating poverty rates at the town and city level.
Trade barrier volatility and
            domestic price stabilization : evidence from agriculture
National barriers to trade are often
            varied to insulate domestic markets from international price
            variability, especially following a sudden spike. This paper
            explores the extent of that behavior by governments in the
            case of agricultural products, particularly food staples
            whose prices have spiked three times over the past four
            decades. It does so using new annual estimates since 1955 of
            agricultural price distortions in 75 countries, updated to
            2008. Responses by food importers to upward price spikes are
            shown to be as substantial as those by food exporters,
            thereby weakening the domestic price-stabilizing effect of
            intervention by exporters. They also add to the transfer of
            welfare to food-surplus from food-deficit countries -- the
            opposite of what is usually thought of when considering
            inter-sector trade retaliation. Phasing down World Trade
            Organization-bound import tariffs toward their applied rates
            would help reduce the legal opportunities for food-deficit
            countries to raise their import restrictions when
            international prices slump. To date there is no parallel
            discipline in the World Trade Organization that limits
            increases in export restrictions when prices spike upward,
            however. Bringing such discipline through new World Trade
            Organization rules could help alleviate the extent to which
            government responses to exogenous price spikes exacerbate
            those spikes.
Challenges of the mandatory funded
            pension system in the Russian Federation
The overwhelming number of contributors
            that have been allocated into the default option is one of
            the main characteristics of the Russian second pillar. This
            finding confirms that the level of financial literacy for
            most of the participants is not sufficient to make informed
            portfolio selections. The authors argue that the current
            system is perfectly consistent with a solid second pillar,
            but the authorities should focus their attention in the
            strategic asset allocation of pension funds. Since in the
            short and medium term it is unlikely to see improvements in
            financial literacy of individuals that may overcome the
            complexity of these decisions, the authorities can play an
            important role in designing default investment portfolios
            that can be aligned with expected replacement rates for the
            contributors. The current investment regulation of the
            default option induces investment in inefficient portfolios
            that are unlikely to bring returns above inflation, and
            probably will result in very low replacement rates for
            contributors. Further liberalization of the investments of
            the pension portfolio; improvements in the governance and
            supervision of the pension system; and greater certainty
            about the ownership of the funds are necessary steps to
            complete the pension reform launched in 2002.
Do private inspection programs
            affect trade facilitation
Private inspection of international
            shipments has been used over the last half-century for a
            variety of purposes. These include prevention of capital
            flight and improvement of import duty collection, among
            others. The existing literature has failed to find much
            impact of these inspection programs on collected tariff
            revenue or corruption at the border. This paper explores the
            "facilitation" effect of private inspection
            programs on trade. The results indicate that private
            inspection has a positive and significant trade-facilitation
            effect. These programs raise import volumes for countries
            using them by approximately 2 to 10 percent. The findings
            here also suggest that the benefit of private inspection of
            imports may be associated with reforms and best practices
            applied by private inspection firms. Private firms'
            inspection of cargo may promote faster clearance times and
            process reliability, rather than improved tax collection.
Infrastructure investments under
            uncertainty with the possibility of retrofit : theory and simulations
Investments in large, long-lived,
            energy-intensive infrastructure investments using fossil
            fuels increase longer-term energy use and greenhouse gas
            emissions, unless the plant is shut down early or undergoes
            costly retrofit later. These investments will depend on
            expectations of retrofit costs and future energy costs,
            including energy cost increases from tighter controls on
            carbon emissions. Simulation analysis shows that the
            retrofit option can significantly reduce anticipated future
            energy consumption as of the time of initial investment, and
            total future energy plus retrofit costs. The more uncertain
            are the costs, the greater the value of this option.
            However, the future retrofit option also induces more
            energy-intensive infrastructure choices, partly offsetting
            the direct effect of having the option on anticipated energy
            use. Efficient, forward-looking infrastructure investments
            have high potential for reducing long-term energy
            consumption. Particularly if energy prices are expected to
            rise, however, the potential for reduced energy consumption
            will be eroded if expectations of energy prices do not
            include environmental costs or future retrofit possibilities
            and technologies are not adequately developed.
Services trade liberalization and
            regulatory reform : re-invigorating international cooperation
Trade and investment in services are
            inhibited by a range of policy restrictions, but the best
            offers so far in the Doha negotiations are on average twice
            as restrictive as actual policy. They will generate no
            additional market opening. Regulatory concerns help explain
            the limited progress. This paper develops two proposals to
            enhance the prospects for both liberalization of services
            trade and regulatory reform. The first is for governments to
            create mechanisms ("services knowledge platforms")
            to bring together regulators, trade officials, and
            stakeholders to discuss services regulatory reform. Such
            mechanisms could identify reform priorities and
            opportunities for utilization of "aid for trade"
            resources, thereby putting in place the preconditions for
            future market opening. The second proposal is for a new
            approach to negotiations in the World Trade Organization,
            with a critical mass of countries that account for the bulk
            of services production agreeing to lock-in applied levels of
            protection and pre-committing to reform of policies
            affecting foreign direct investment and international
            movement for individual service providers -- two areas where
            current policy is most restrictive and potential benefits
            from liberalization are greatest. If these proposals cannot
            be fully implemented in the Doha time frame, then any Doha
            agreement could at least lay the basis for a forward-looking
            program of international cooperation along the proposed lines.
Impact evaluation of school feeding
            programs in Lao PDR
Despite the popularity and widespread
            implementation of school feeding programs, evidence on the
            impact of school feeding on school participation and
            nutritional status is mixed. This study evaluates school
            feeding programs in three northern districts of the Lao
            People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Feeding
            modalities included on-site feeding, take-home rations, and
            a combination. District-level implementation of the
            intervention sites and selective take-up present
            considerable evaluation challenges. To address these
            limitations, the authors use difference-in-difference
            estimators with propensity-score weighting to construct two
            plausible counterfactuals. They find minimal evidence that
            the school feeding schemes increased enrollment or improved
            childrens nutritional status. Several robustness checks and
            possible explanations for 0 findings are presented.
Macroeconomic and policy
            implications of population aging in Brazil
This paper analyzes the macroeconomic
            implications of population aging in Brazil. Three
            alternative yet complementary methodologies are adopted, and
            depending on policy responses to the fiscal implications of
            aging, there are two main findings: First, saving rates
            could increase and not necessarily fall as a consequence of
            aging in Brazil -- thus contradicting conventional views.
            Second, lifetime wealth across generations could increase --
            as capital deepening generates a second demographic
            dividend. Two policy responses to aging are emphasized:
            First, a structural policy response of linking mandatory
            retirement (or entitlement) ages to increasing life
            expectancy would boost labor supply and reduce the fiscal
            costs of aging. Second, in terms of preferable parametric
            policy responses, the second demographic dividend will be
            promoted to the highest extent by keeping taxes and debt
            unchanged while allowing public pensions to adjust downward.
            Such a policy response would keep pensions from further
            crowding out private saving -- thus balancing capital
            accumulation with intergenerational income distribution. In
            conclusion, Brazil will not necessarily experience a fall in
            saving and growth, but if government policies are
            appropriately, adequately, and timely formulated, population
            aging is likely to lead to substantial capital deepening and
            increases in lifetime income, wealth, and welfare.
The impacts of metering and climate
            conditions on residential electricity demand : the case of Albania
Albania is among the most vulnerable
            countries to external energy shocks and climatic conditions,
            because of its high dependency on hydropower for
            electricity. Given highly volatile international energy
            prices and expected global warming, it is becoming
            increasingly important to manage the demand for electricity.
            However, the country has long been faced with a significant
            problem of electricity metering. About one-third of total
            energy is lost for technical and nontechnical reasons. This
            paper estimates the residential demand function by applying
            a two-stage system equation method for an endogenous
            censored variable, because the lack of metering makes the
            electricity consumption partially observable for the
            econometrician. It is found that metering is important to
            curb non-essential electricity use by households. The
            electricity demand could also be reduced by raising the
            first block rate and lowering the second block rate and the
            threshold between the two blocks. In addition, weather
            conditions and home appliance ownership would affect the
            demand for electricity. But the latter looks more
            influential than the former.
Youth employment transitions in
            Latin America
Using panel data from labor force
            surveys in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, the paper maps out
            young people's paths from the classroom to the work
            place during the 1980s through the early 2000s. By
            decomposing transition matrices into propensity to move and
            rate of separation and estimating duration matrices, the
            authors follow young people's movements between school
            and work and between employment sectors to better understand
            the dynamics of youth employment, including where youth go
            upon leaving school, how long they spend in each state, and
            where they go upon leaving various employment states. The
            main conclusion of the study is that young people across all
            three countries follow a similar trend over their life
            cycle: they leave school to spend a short time in the
            informal sector, move to a formal position for longer
            spells, and finally become self-employed. The authors find
            evidence of decreasing segmentation between formal and
            informal sectors as workers age, a lower propensity for
            formal sector employees to return to school than workers in
            the same age cohort who are not in the formal sector, and
            that entry to self-employment is not subject to income constraints.
Food crisis, household welfare and
            HIV/AIDS treatment : evidence from Mozambique
Using panel data from Mozambique
            collected in 2007 and 2008, the authors explore the impact
            of the food crisis on the welfare of households living with
            HIV/AIDS. The analysis finds that there has been a real
            deterioration of welfare in terms of income, food
            consumption, and nutritional status in Mozambique between
            2007 and 2008, among both HIV and comparison households.
            However, HIV households have not suffered more from the
            crisis than others. Results on the evolution of labor force
            participation suggest that initiation of treatment and
            better services in health facilities have counter-balanced
            the effect of the crisis by improving the health of patients
            and their labor force participation. In addition, the
            authors look at the effect of the change in welfare on the
            frequency of visits to a health facility of patients and on
            their treatment outcomes. Both variables can proxy for
            adherence to treatment. This is a particularly crucial issue
            as it affects both the health of the patient and public
            health, because sub-optimal adherence leads to the
            development of resistant forms of the virus. The paper finds
            no effect of the change in welfare on the frequency of
            visits, but does find that people who experienced a negative
            income shock also experienced a reduction or a slower
            progression in treatment outcomes.