rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
The Belt and Road Initiative :
            Reshaping Economic Geography in Central Asia
This paper develops a computable spatial
            equilibrium model of Central Asia and uses it to analyze the
            possible effects of the Belt Road Initiative on the economy
            of the region.  The model captures international and
            subnational economic units and their connectivity to each
            other and the rest of the world. Aggregate real income gains
            from the Belt Road Initiative range from less than 2 percent
            of regional income if adjustment mechanisms take the form of
            conventional Armington and monopolistic competition, to
            around 3 percent if there are localization economies of
            scale and labor mobility. In the latter case, there are
            sizeable geographical variations in impact, with some areas
            developing clusters of economic activity with income
            increases of as much as 12 percent and a doubling of local
            populations, while other areas stagnate or even decline.
Out-of-Pocket Expenditures on Health
            : A Global Stocktake
This paper provides an overview of
            research on out-of-pocket health expenditures, reviewing the
            various summary measures and the results of multi-country
            studies using these measures. The paper presents estimates
            for 146 countries from all World Bank income groups for all
            summary measures, along with correlations between the
            summary measures and macroeconomic and health system
            indicators. Large differences emerge across countries in per
            capita out-of-pocket expenditures in 2011 international
            dollars, driven in large part by differences in per capita
            income and the share of gross domestic product spent on
            health. The two measures of dispersion or risk -- the
            coefficient of variation and Q90/Q50 -- are only weakly
            correlated across countries and not explained by the
            macroeconomic and health system indicators. Considerable
            variation emerges in the out-of-pocket health expenditure
            budget share, which is highly correlated with the incidence
            of "catastrophic" expenditures. Out-of-pocket
            expenditures tend to be regressive and catastrophic
            expenditures tend to be concentrated among the poor when
            expenditures are assessed relative to income, while
            expenditures tend to be progressive and catastrophic
            expenditures tend to be concentrated among the rich when
            expenditures are assessed relative to consumption. At the
            extreme poverty line of $1.90-a-day, most impoverishment due
            to out-of-pocket expenditures occurs among low-income countries.
From Currency Depreciation to Trade
            Reform : How to Take Egyptian Exports to New Levels
The Arab Republic of Egypt is yet to
            meet its exports potential, which has been historically
            hampered by several domestic market distortions and multiple
            barriers, resulting in weak export performance and modest
            regional and global integration. Although the liberalization
            of the exchange rate in November 2016 was a necessary step
            to correct the exchange rate misalignment and ease the
            ensuing shortages in foreign currency, it has not been
            sufficient to guarantee a notable improvement in export
            performance. This paper analyzes Egypt's exports along
            three dimensions that are key for export performance and
            future growth: (i) composition and relatedness of exported
            products; (ii) geographic and product concentration; and
            (iii) relatedness to globally traded products. The analysis
            suggests that Egypt continues to specialize in traditional
            areas of comparative advantage and limited value-added or is
            expanding toward products for which global demand is
            declining. The paper uses a gravity model to predict
            bilateral trade flows based on the economic size, geographic
            distance, and other relevant characteristics that should
            typically contribute to facilitated trade and identify
            specific sectors and markets for which Egypt seems to have
            an untapped potential. To understand this underperformance,
            the paper investigates the key impediments to meeting the
            export potential. It explores some of the important supply
            and demand side factors and assesses the role of trade
            policy measures (tariffs and non-tariffs barriers) in
            impeding export growth. The analysis reveals that despite
            significant liberalization efforts, Egypt remains among the
            group of developing countries that have the highest
            frequency index and coverage ratio of non-tariff measures.
            Policy recommendations include a call to improve external
            competitiveness by fostering and diversifying domestic
            production and complement these efforts by engaging in trade
            facilitation reforms to remove the non-tariffs barriers to
            trade, notably, the administrative, technical, and sanitary
            barriers to trade. These are all necessary for the country
            to capitalize on its competitive gains from the currency
            depreciation and to improve the degree of Egypt's
            integration into global markets.
E-Commerce Participation and
            Household Income Growth in Taobao Villages
E-commerce has developed rapidly in
            China, and Taobao Villages, which are villages significantly
            engaged in e-commerce, are prospering in rural areas.
            E-commerce is fostering entrepreneurship and creating
            flexible and inclusive employment opportunities, including
            for women and youth. This paper examines the role of
            e-commerce participation in household income growth, drawing
            from a survey of representative Taobao Villages in 2017. The
            paper presents three main findings. First, e-commerce
            participation is not random: participation is higher among
            the households with younger household heads, with secondary
            education, particularly those with technical and vocational
            education, urban work experience, and knowledge of
            e-commerce. Second, e-commerce participation is associated
            with higher household income, with some indications that
            participation has a strong positive effect on household
            incomes. Third, e-commerce appears to yield benefits that
            are broadly shared among participants in an equitable way in
            Taobao Villages.
Evolution of Poor Food Access over
            the Course of the Conflict in the Republic of Yemen
The Republic of Yemen has undergone a
            profound transformation following the escalation of conflict
            in March 2015. There has been an increase in violence, a
            disruption in supply chains due to a tightening of the
            ports, and a decline in the general economic climate that
            has left a large share of the population without the income
            to support their basic needs. These transformations have
            resulted in widespread food insecurity, where nearly half
            the population is under the threat of a potential famine.
            Although the violence has undeniably had a significant
            impact on the population and local outcomes, the temporal
            and regional distribution of poor food access suggest that
            food insecurity of the mobile phone–using population has
            been primarily driven by factors aside from the localized
            effects of violence alone. The lack of a strong relationship
            between violence and poor welfare outcomes contrasts with
            evidence from other conflict settings, and further contrasts
            with the rationale underpinning much of the humanitarian and
            development assistance currently being delivered in the country.
Assessing the Value of Market Access
            from Belt and Road Projects
The present value of market access from
            the Belt and Road Initiative in Eurasia does not exceed its
            costs. Many transportation projects are of little value
            because they fail to create new least-cost paths between
            large population centers, or because they create redundancy
            with paths already on the network. If built in isolation,
            only about one-third of projects provide market access
            gains. However, considering the proposed new transport
            infrastructure as a system, the share of projects that
            provide gains increases to almost two-thirds. International
            coordination and rigorous project selection allow mutual
            benefit from the investment program.
Education Spillovers in Farm
            Productivity : Revisiting the Evidence
This paper exploits the social
            organization of India to revisit the question of education
            spillovers in farm productivity. The fact that social
            interactions mainly occur within castes in rural India
            provides tools to show that the observed correlation between
            farm productivity and neighbors' education is likely to
            be a spillover effect. In particular, there are no
            cross-caste and no cross-occupation effects, which
            underlines that, under specific assumptions, which are
            stated and explored in the paper, the education of neighbors
            does not capture the effect of group unobservables. This
            evidence is complemented by separate estimations by crops,
            which show results that are consistent with education
            spillovers. The strategy used in this paper helps understand
            and interpret previous findings from the literature.
How Mass Immigration Affects
            Countries with Weak Economic Institutions : A Natural
            Experiment in Jordan
To what extent does immigration affect
            the economic institutions in destination countries? While
            there is much evidence that economic institutions in
            developed nations are either unaffected or improved after
            immigration, there is little evidence of how immigration
            affects the economic institutions of developing countries
            that typically have weaker institutions. Using the Synthetic
            Control Method, this study estimates a significant and
            long-lasting positive effect on Jordanian economic
            institutions from the surge of refugees from the First Gulf
            War. The surge of refugees to Jordan in 1990–1991 was
            massive and equal to 10 percent of Jordan's population
            in 1990. Importantly, these refugees were able to have a
            large and direct impact on Jordanian economic institutions
            because they could work, live, and vote immediately upon
            entry due to a quirk in Jordanian law. The refugee surge was
            the main mechanism by which Jordan's economic
            institutions improved in the decades that followed.
Inequality in the Quality of Health
            Services : Wealth, Content of Care, and Price of Antenatal
            Consultations in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Using unique direct observations of
            patient-provider interactions linked to patient exit
            interviews and detailed household surveys, this paper
            assesses the relationship between patient wealth and the
            quality and price of antenatal care in the Democratic
            Republic of Congo. Overall, the analysis finds a significant
            wealth-quality gradient, with a standard deviation increase
            in wealth being associated with an increase of 4 percentage
            points in protocol compliance. This increase in compliance
            represents 8 percent of the average quality of care received
            by women in the lowest wealth quintile. Over half of the
            wealth-quality gradient is driven by lower facility quality
            in poorer areas. However, the analysis also finds
            statistically significant within-village and even
            within-facility wealth-quality relationships. Within
            villages, wealth-quality gradients are primarily driven by
            wealthier women seeking care at higher-quality even if more
            distant facilities. Within the same facilities, poorer women
            tend to receive worse care, but on average they also pay
            less for the same quality of care compared with wealthier
            women. The price gap increases in the local ratio of wealthy
            to poor households, suggesting that providers do not charge
            different prices only for redistributive reasons.
Learning from Power Sector Reform :
            The Case of Kenya
Two successive waves of reform have
            fundamentally altered the structure and organization of
            Kenya's vibrant power sector, which boasts a tradition
            of strong technical and commercial performance. In the first
            wave -- beginning in 1996 and largely donor-driven -- policy
            and regulatory functions were separated from commercial
            activities; generation was unbundled from transmission and
            distribution; cost-reflective tariffs were introduced; and
            generation was liberalized. In the second wave -- beginning
            in 2002 and led by domestic reform champions -- the thrust
            of first-wave reforms was continued, with the strengthening
            of independent regulation, partial privatization of the
            generation company (KenGen), and establishment of
            complementary entities. Although the government retains
            majority ownership of the largest power utilities in the
            country (Kenya Power, ~51 percent; KenGen, ~70 percent),
            Kenya has been able to position itself as one of the
            foremost destinations in the region for private energy
            investment. The reforms have improved the operational
            efficiency of the sector, increased cost recovery, and
            captured a significant amount of private sector investment.
            At the same time, the state has remained an important
            investor, playing a pivotal role in expanding generation
            capacity, scaling up electrification at an exceptionally
            rapid pace, and leading diversification toward geothermal
            energy. Political influence in sector decisions remains
            significant, in planning and tariff reviews.
Does School Safety and Classroom
            Disciplinary Climate Hinder Learning Evidence from the MENA Region
School safety and classroom disciplinary
            climate have a direct impact on teachers' ability to
            teach and students' ability to learn. School safety and
            classroom disciplinary climates have been declining in the
            Middle East and North Africa region, as is demonstrated in
            this paper using data from the Trends in Mathematics and
            Science Study and the Progress in International Reading
            Literacy Study. The paper then moves on to untangle how
            disruptive learning environments can have negative impacts
            on student learning outcomes. Thus, the objective of the
            paper is to analyze the determinants associated with
            disrupted learning environments, at the school and classroom
            levels, in the Middle East and North Africa region and to
            uncover the impacts these environments have on student
            learning outcomes. This information will provide policy
            makers with evidence on disrupted learning environments
            while offering some recommendations on how these conditions
            can be improved.
Trading off the Income Gains and the
            Inequality Costs of Trade Policy
This paper characterizes the trade-off
            between the income gains and the inequality costs of trade
            using survey data for 54 developing countries. Tariff data
            on agricultural and manufacturing goods are combined with
            household survey data on detailed income and expenditure
            patterns to estimate the first-order effects of the
            elimination of import tariffs on household welfare. The
            paper assesses how these welfare effects vary across the
            distribution by estimating impacts on the consumption of
            traded goods, wage income, farm and non-farm family
            enterprise income, and government transfers. For each
            country, the income gains and the inequality costs of trade
            liberalization are quantified and the trade-offs between
            them are assessed using an Atkinson social welfare index.
            The analysis finds average income gains from import tariff
            liberalization in 45 countries and average income losses in
            nine countries. Across countries in the sample, the gains
            from trade are 1.9 percent of real household expenditure on
            average. We find overwhelming evidence of a trade-off
            between the income gains (losses) and the inequality costs
            (gains), which arise because trade tends to exacerbate
            income inequality: 45 countries face a trade-off, while only
            nine do not. The income gains typically more than offset the
            increase in inequality. In the majority of developing
            countries, the prevailing tariff structure thus induces
            sizable welfare losses.
Can Scholarships Increase High
            School Graduation Rates Evidence from A Randomized Control
            Trial in Mexico
This paper studies the impact of
            PROBEMS, a scholarship program in Mexico aimed at improving
            graduation rates and test scores among upper secondary
            school students from poor backgrounds. The identification
            strategy is the random allocation into the program, which
            took place in 2009. The strategy allows measurement of the
            effects of PROBEMS on test scores and graduation rates three
            years later in 2012. The paper finds that, on average, the
            program has no discernible impact on graduation rates or
            math or Spanish test scores. The size of the sample allows
            investigation of the reasons for this disappointing result.
            The paper finds that the program is substantially
            mis-targeted, with the majority of the recipients not coming
            from the most disadvantaged families. However, the most
            plausible explanation for the absence of positive impacts is
            that many eligible students do not seem to have the minimum
            learning level to face successfully the academic
            requirements of upper secondary school. An important policy
            implication is that a well-targeted scholarship program
            should be complemented with a remedial education intervention.
Labor Market Impacts and Responses :
            The Economic Consequences of a Marine Environmental Disaster
This paper examines the labor market
            impacts of a large-scale marine environmental crisis caused
            by toxic chemical contamination in Vietnam's central
            coast in 2016. Combining labor force surveys with satellite
            data on fishing-boat detection, the analysis finds negative
            and heterogeneous impacts on fishery incomes and employment
            and uncovers interesting coping patterns. Satellite data
            suggest that upstream fishers traveled to safe fishing
            grounds, and thus bore lower income damage. Downstream
            fishers, instead, endured severe impact and were more likely
            to substitute fishery hours for working secondary jobs. The
            paper also finds evidence on an impact recovery to fishing
            intensity and fishery income, and a positive labor market
            spillover to freshwater fishery.
Auction Length and Prices : Evidence
            from Random Auction Closing in Brazil
Electronic reverse auctions are the most
            used competitive method for procurement of goods and
            non-consulting services by the Federal Government of Brazil.
            These auctions are closed randomly, which perfectly
            satisfies fairness considerations but may be suboptimal from
            an efficiency perspective. There are concerns that tenders
            are closed too early and randomness favors bidders with
            algorithmic bidding software, leading to high prices. Hence,
            this paper investigates what would happen if the random
            closing rule was replaced by another rule. The paper uses
            the complete data set of completed electronic actions in
            2015–17 comprising 112 million bids for 0.9 million items
            purchased. Exploiting the random closing rule, simple OLS
            models are run with a wide set of fixed effects as well as
            covariates capturing competition. The findings point at
            alternative strategies to optimize auction design: simple
            actions such as increasing the average and minimum length of
            the random phase can result in 2.8 and 0.6 percent price
            savings, respectively, or R$540 million and R$116 million
            per year; or more complex designs such as setting the length
            to the maximum for the random phase if there are 15 bidders
            or more can yield 2.6 percent or R$ 500 million a year in
            price savings, or doing the same if a large discount is
            placed within three minutes to closing can yield 1.1 percent
            lower prices or R$ 210 million a year in savings.
Trade Wars : What Do They Mean Why
            Are They Happening Now What Are the Costs
How should economists interpret current
            trade wars and the recent U.S. trade actions that have
            initiated them? This paper offers an interpretation of
            current U.S. trade actions that is at once more charitable
            and less forgiving than that typically offered by economic
            commentators. More charitable, because under this
            interpretation it is possible to see a logic to these
            actions: the United States is initiating a change from
            "rules-based" to "power-based" tariff
            bargaining and is selecting countries with which it runs
            bilateral trade deficits as the most suitable targets of its
            bargaining tariffs. Less forgiving, because the main costs
            of these trade tactics cannot be avoided even if they happen
            to "work" and deliver lower tariffs. Rather, the
            paper shows that the main costs will arise from the use of
            the tactics themselves, and from the damage done by those
            tactics to the rules-based multilateral trading system and
            the longer-term interests of the United States and the rest
            of the world.