rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Reform of the international monetary
            system : a jagged history and uncertain prospects
This paper analyzes the historical
            evolution of the international monetary system in the
            context of the rising role of developing countries in the
            world economy and the emerging multi-polar growth setting.
            It evaluates the stability of the current
            "non-system" and how the global economic context
            is likely to affect that stability in the coming years with
            potential adverse effects on both advanced and developing
            economies. Given the likely trend toward a multi-polar
            reserve currency system, the paper evaluates the stability
            of the emerging system, as well as the current proposals for
            reform of the international monetary system. The paper
            concludes that more ambitious reforms of the system may be
            needed to meaningfully reduce future global economic and
            financial instability.
On the international transmission of
            shocks : micro-evidence from mutual fund portfolios
Using micro-level data on mutual funds
            from different financial centers investing in equity and
            bonds, this paper analyzes how investors and managers behave
            and transmit shocks across countries. The paper shows that
            the volatility of mutual fund investments is quantitatively
            driven by investors through injections of capital into, or
            redemptions out of, each fund, and by managers changing the
            country weights and cash in their portfolios. Both investors
            and managers respond to returns and crises, and
            substantially adjust their investments accordingly. These
            mechanisms generated large capital reallocations during the
            global financial crisis. Their behavior tends to be
            pro-cyclical, reducing their exposure to countries
            experiencing crises and increasing it when conditions
            improve. Managers actively change country weights over time,
            although there is significant short-run
            "pass-through," meaning that price changes affect
            country weights. Consequently, capital flows from mutual
            funds do not seem to stabilize markets and instead expose
            countries to foreign shocks.
The impact of financial literacy
            training for migrants
Remittances are a major source of
            external finance for many developing countries but the cost
            of sending remittances remains high for many migration
            corridors. International efforts to lower costs by
            facilitating the entry of new financial products and new
            cost comparison information sources rely heavily on the
            financial literacy of migrants. This paper presents the
            results of a randomized experiment designed to measure the
            impact of providing financial literacy training to migrants.
            Training appears to increase financial knowledge and
            information seeking behavior and reduce the risk of
            switching to costlier remittance products. But it does not
            change either the frequency or level of remittances.
Is the baby to blame an inquiry into
            the consequences of early childbearing
Teenage pregnancy has been a cause of
            concern for policy makers because it is associated with a
            complex and often adverse social context for women. It is
            seen as the cause of lower social and economic achievement
            for mothers and their children, and as the potential
            determinant of inter-generational poverty traps. However,
            the question of whether pregnancy -- and the subsequent
            rearing of a child -- is actually the trigger of poverty,
            higher dependence on social welfare and/ or other
            undesirable social and economic consequences has not been
            studied in developing countries with enough rigor to
            establish a causal relation. This paper follows a
            methodology previously applied in the United States, using
            Mexican data from the National Survey of Demographic
            Dynamics, to exploit information about miscarriages as an
            instrument to identify the long-term consequences of early
            child bearing. Thus, the paper takes the advantage of a
            natural experiment: it compares the outcomes of women who
            became pregnant in adolescence, and gave birth, to outcomes
            of women who became pregnant in adolescence and miscarried.
            This approach only allows for estimating the costs of
            adolescent childbearing for teenagers in a risk group, that
            is, teenagers who are likely to experience a pregnancy. The
            results are consistent with findings in the United States,
            suggesting that, contrary to popular thinking, adolescent
            childbearing does not hamper significantly the lifelong
            opportunities of the young mothers.  Actually, women who
            gave birth during their adolescence have on average 0.34
            more years of education, and are 21 percentage points more
            likely to be employed, compared with their counterparts who
            miscarried. The results also suggest, however, greater
            dependence on social welfare among women who gave birth
            during adolescence: their social assistance income is 36
            percent higher, and they are more likely to participate in
            social programs, especially the conditional cash transfer
            program Oportunidades.
Patterns and correlates of
            intergenerational non-time transfers : evidence from CHARLS
Using the China Health and Retirement
            Longitudinal Study 2008 pilot, this paper analyzes the
            patterns and correlates of intergenerational transfers
            between elderly parents and adult children in Zhejiang and
            Gansu Provinces. The pilot is a unique data source from
            China that provides information on the direction as well as
            amount of transfers between parents and each of their
            children, and clearly distinguishes transfers between
            parents and children from those among other relatives or
            friends. The paper shows that transfers flow predominantly
            from children to elderly parents, with transfers from
            children playing an important role in elderly support.
            Taking advantage of the rich information available in this
            survey, the authors find strong evidence that transfers are
            significantly affected by the financial capabilities of
            individual children. Educated and married children have a
            higher tendency to provide transfers to their parents; and
            oldest sons are less likely to provide transfers than their
            younger brothers. With future continued rapid economic
            growth in China, the income disadvantage of the elderly will
            persist and upward generational transfers will likely remain
            the most common form of private transfers. In the absence of
            some other source of elderly support (such as a public
            pension or own savings), the dwindling number of children
            implies that the financial burden associated with supporting
            the elderly is likely to increase.
Estimating the causal effects of
            conflict on education in Côte d'Ivoire
This paper estimates the causal effects
            of civil war on years of education in the context of a
            school-going age cohort that is exposed to armed conflict in
            Cote d'Ivoire. Using year and department of birth to
            identify an individual's exposure to war, the
            difference-in-difference outcomes indicate that the average
            years of education for a school-going age cohort is .94
            years fewer compared with an older cohort in war-affected
            regions. To minimize the potential bias in the estimated
            outcome, the authors use a set of victimization indicators
            to identify the true effect of war. The propensity score
            matching estimates do not alter the main findings. In
            addition, the outcomes of double-robust models minimize the
            specification errors in the model. Moreover, the paper finds
            the outcomes are robust across alternative matching methods,
            estimation by using subsamples, and other education outcome
            variables. Overall, the findings across different models
            suggest a drop in average years of education by a range of
            .2 to .9 fewer years.
Impacts of large-scale expansion of
            biofuels on global poverty and income distribution
This paper analyzes the impact of
            large-scale expansion of biofuels on the global income
            distribution and poverty. A global computable general
            equilibrium model is used to simulate the effects of the
            expansion of biofuels on resource allocation, commodity
            prices, factor prices and household income. A second model
            based on world-wide household surveys uses these results to
            calculate the impacts on poverty and global income
            inequality. The study finds that the large-scale expansion
            of biofuels leads to an increase in production and prices of
            agricultural commodities. The increased prices would cause
            higher food prices, especially in developing countries.
            Moreover, wages of unskilled rural labor would also
            increase, which slows down the rural to urban migration in
            many developing countries. The study also shows that the
            effects on poverty vary across regions; it increases in
            South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, whereas it decreases in
            Latin America. At the global level, the expansion of
            biofuels increases poverty slightly.
Aligning climate change mitigation
            and agricultural policies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
Greenhouse gas emissions are largely
            determined by how energy is created and used, and policies
            designed to encourage mitigation efforts reflect this
            reality. However, an unintended consequence of an
            energy-focused strategy is that the set of policy
            instruments needed to tap mitigation opportunities in
            agriculture is incomplete. In particular, market-linked
            incentives to achieve mitigation targets are disconnected
            from efforts to better manage carbon sequestered in
            agricultural land. This is especially important for many
            countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia where
            once-productive land has been degraded through poor
            agricultural practices. Often good agricultural policies and
            prudent natural resource management can compensate for
            missing links to mitigation incentives, but only partially.
            At the same time, two international project-based programs,
            Joint Implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism,
            have been used to finance other types of agricultural
            mitigation efforts worldwide. Even so, a review of projects
            suggests that few countries in Eastern Europe and Central
            Asia take full advantage of these financing paths. This
            paper discusses mitigation opportunities in the region, the
            reach of current mitigation incentives, and missed
            mitigation opportunities in agriculture. The paper concludes
            with a discussion of alternative policies designed to
            jointly promote mitigation and co-benefits for agriculture
            and the environment.
Liberia : strategic policy options
            for medium term growth and development
The objective of this paper is to inform
            Liberia's medium-term growth and development strategy
            for 2012-17 and its National Vision: Liberia Rising 2030,
            both of which are under preparation. The analysis is based
            on MAMS (Maquette for MDG [Millennium Development Goal])
            Simulations, a computable general equilibrium model. A base
            scenario (designed to represent a central case for the
            evolution of Liberia's economy up to 2030) is compared
            to a set of non-base scenarios that introduce alternative
            assumptions for the mining sector, government spending on
            infrastructure and human development, as well as foreign
            borrowing. The simulations, which cover the period
            2012-2030, indicate that rapid expansion of mining output,
            front-loaded investment in infrastructure, and improved
            government efficiency may bring about rapid growth. The
            findings underscore the importance of allocative and
            operational efficiency of public spending. It is also
            important that the government balance spending on
            infrastructure and human development as they complement each
            other and face different constraints. Spending on
            infrastructure tends to have relatively strong and immediate
            growth and poverty reduction effects, whereas spending on
            human development has a stronger positive impact on
            non-poverty MDG indicators at the cost of lowered economic
            growth in the short to medium terms. It is important to
            consider that growth driven by rapid mining expansion
            entails drawbacks and risks, including the persistence of an
            enclave economy that will not benefit the majority of the
            population, and increased vulnerability to fluctuations in
            iron ore world prices.
Does it pay to be a Cadre estimating
            the returns to being a local official in rural China
Recruiting and retaining leaders and
            public servants at the grass-roots level in developing
            countries creates a potential tension between providing
            sufficient returns to attract talent and limiting the scope
            for excessive rent-seeking behavior. In China, researchers
            have frequently argued that village cadres, who are the
            lowest level of administrators in rural areas, exploit
            personal political status for economic gain. Much existing
            research, however, compares the earnings of cadre and
            non-cadre households in rural China without controlling for
            unobserved dimensions of ability that are also correlated
            with success as entrepreneurs or in non-agricultural
            activities. The findings of this paper suggest a measurable
            return to cadre status, but the magnitudes are not large and
            provide only a modest incentive to participate in
            village-level government. The paper does not find evidence
            that households of village cadres earn significant rents
            from having a family member who is a cadre. Given the
            increasing returns to non-agricultural employment since
            China's economic reforms began, it is not surprising
            that the returns to working as a village cadre have also
            increased over time. Returns to cadre-status are derived
            both from direct compensation and subsidies for cadres and
            indirectly through returns earned in off-farm employment
            from businesses and economic activities managed by villages.
Does Africa need a rotten Kin
            Theorem experimental evidence from village economies
This paper measures the economic impact
            of social pressure to share income with kin and neighbors in
            rural Kenyan villages. The authors conduct a lab experiment
            in which they randomly vary the observability of investment
            returns. The goal is to test whether subjects reduce their
            income in order to keep it hidden. The analysis finds that
            women adopt an investment strategy that conceals the size of
            their initial endowment in the experiment, although that
            strategy reduces their expected earnings. This effect is
            largest among women with relatives attending the experiment.
            Parameter estimates suggest that women behave as though they
            expect to be pressured to share four percent of their
            observable income with others, and substantially more when
            close kin can observe income directly. Although this paper
            provides experimental evidence from a single African
            country, observational studies suggest that similar pressure
            from kin may be prevalent in many rural areas throughout
            Sub-Saharan Africa.
Demand side instruments to reduce
            road transportation externalities in the greater Cairo
            metropolitan area
Economically efficient prices for the
            passenger transportation system in the Greater Cairo
            Metropolitan Area would account for broader societal costs
            of traffic congestion and accidents, and local and global
            pollution. A $2.20 per gallon gasoline tax (2006 US$) would
            be economically efficient, compared with the current subsidy
            of $1.20 per gallon. Removal of the existing subsidy alone
            would achieve about three-quarters of the net benefits from
            subsidy elimination and the tax. Per-mile tolls could target
            congestion and accident externalities more efficiently than
            fuel taxes, although they are not practical at present.  A
            combination of $0.80 per gallon gasoline tax to address
            pollution (versus $2.20 without tolls), and $0.12 and $0.19
            tolls per vehicle mile on automobiles and microbuses,
            respectively, to address traffic congestion and accident
            externalities (versus $0.22 without fuel taxes) would be
            most efficient. Current public bus and rail subsidies are
            relatively close to efficient levels in the absence of such
            policies; however, if automobile and microbus externalities
            were fully addressed through more efficient pricing, optimal
            subsides to public transit would be smaller than current levels.
Bank deleveraging : causes,
            channels, and consequences for emerging market and
            developing countries
Just before the 2008-09 global financial
            crisis, policymakers were concerned about the rapid growth
            of bank credit, particularly in Europe; now worry centers on
            a potential global credit crunch led by European banking
            institutions. Overall, credit conditions across Europe
            deteriorated markedly in late 2011. Spillover effects are
            being felt around the globe and imply significant channels
            through which deleveraging could have disruptive
            consequences for credit conditions in emerging markets,
            particularly in emerging Europe. Significant liquidity
            support provided by the European Central Bank was a
            "game changer," at least in the short term, as it
            helped revive markets and limited the risk of disorderly
            deleveraging. However, the extent, speed, and impact of
            European bank deleveraging remain highly dependent on the
            evolution of economic growth and market conditions, which in
            turn are guided by the ultimate impact of European Central
            Bank liquidity support, resolution of the sovereign debt
            crisis within the Euro Area, and the ability of the European
            rescue fund to provide an effective firewall against contagion.
A multiple correspondence analysis
            approach to the measurement of multidimensional poverty in
            Morocco, 2001-2007
The measurement of multidimensional
            poverty has been advocated by most welfare scholars and is
            experiencing a growth in interest, partly explained by
            controversial debates that have emerged across academics and
            practitioners. This paper follows one of the least explored
            approaches -- Multiple Correspondence Analysis -- to assess
            multidimensional poverty in Morocco between 2001 and 2007.
            Multiple Correspondence Analysis provides two major
            advantages for the measurement of multidimensional poverty:
            it generates a matrix of "weights" based on the
            variance-covariance matrix of all welfare dimensions
            selected and provides a natural approach for constructing a
            composite welfare indicator that satisfies essential poverty
            ordering axioms. The application shows that poverty in
            Morocco has declined according to both monetary and
            multidimensional indicators and that these findings are
            robust to stochastic dominance tests. The paper concludes
            that the sustained positive growth that Morocco experienced
            during the last decade has translated in improvements in
            living conditions well beyond monetary returns.
Turkish treasury simulation model
            for debt strategy analysis
Governments raise funds to meet their
            financing needs using a range of fixed income securities and
            loans with different maturities, interest rates, and
            exchange rate structures. Public debt managers need to
            consider various policy objectives when deciding on the
            structure of the public liability portfolio. This paper
            describes a simulation model developed at the Turkish
            Treasury to assist the decision-making process in debt
            strategy formulation. The model is used to analyze the
            medium and long-term consequences of alternative debt
            management strategies in terms of cost and risk
            characteristics, and provides key inputs to decision making.
Investing mineral wealth in
            development assets : Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone
Promoting sustainable development calls
            for investing rents from exhaustible mineral resources into
            human, physical and social capital, so as to protect the
            wealth of countries and the economic opportunities of their
            citizens. This has been difficult in well-governed Ghana in
            the last decade; and might prove to be extremely challenging
            in post-conflict countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone,
            where preference for the present is high and institutions to
            collect rents and convert them into effective investments
            weak. The paper reviews the countries' degrees of
            preparedness to confront the various challenges associated
            with ongoing mineral booms, and tries to identify
            country-specific policy areas of particular relevance and
            potential impact for sustainable development.