rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
# **_e. Oversight of Local Governments: Freedom and Responsibility within Boundaries_**

Monitoring and oversight of local governments is an area of concern in both federal and unitary countries alike. For example, the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act 1996 (Section 139(1) (b)) provides for a disbandment of local government in the event of failure to (i) “maintain national standards or meet minimum standards of service”; (ii) “prevent actions prejudicial to the interests of another municipality or the nation as a whole”; and (iii) “maintain economic unity.” It further provides for withholding of tax shares and transfers for non-compliance with tax effort (Section 227(2)). The constitutional obligations regarding these provisions require a significant and superior evaluation capacity at provincial and national levels. Evaluative measures that can assist in this oversight include fiscal rules for expenditure and debt creation and management, requirement of annual commercial corporate audit of local governments; fiscal capacity measurement using a common yardstick i.e. equalization of municipal assessments; greater emphasis on formula grants over project grants in provincial-local transfers; greater emphasis on public-private-civil society partnership in public provision; opinion polls on service standards and citizen satisfaction; and performance ratings of local governments based upon outputs, outcomes and citizen satisfaction.

Oversight of local governments is typically exercised through process and input controls in DTEs. Such controls compromise local autonomy without advancing national objectives. In 1999, central governments exercised some control over 25% of subnational expenditures in transition economies and over nearly half of the same in developing countries (see Figure 8). Local autonomy accompanied by accountability to citizens for service delivery offers a better alternative in local government oversight. Thus local governments should have the freedom to raise money from local residents and spend as they wish and also to hire and fire personnel as they please. In a study of 29 public organizations in six developing countries, Grindle (1999) found that where decentralization was matched by such local autonomy and oversight, governments were “good performers” (achieving high levels of capacity, completed tasks, responsiveness and effectiveness).

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on goods and non-factor services to finance development interventions. This paper therefore seeks to demonstrate how to conduct a poverty-focused evaluation of public policy on the basis of the value judgments underlying members of the additively separable class of poverty measures.

In the particular case of commodity taxation, the evaluation criterion hinges on both the price elasticity of the poverty measure used and the consumption pattern for each commodity. To assess whether a price change for a given commodity induced by an indirect tax reform is favorable to the poor, the observed pattern of consumption of that commodity is compared to a benchmark case of equal budget shares across individuals (or households). Additive comparison leads to an indicator that is a weighted sum of the deviation of budget shares for commodity **k** from the aggregate share, up to the poverty line. The weights depend of the chosen poverty measure.

The methodology developed in the paper confirms the basic intuition that a progressive commodity tax has a higher rate on goods that constitute a higher proportion of the budgets of high-income individuals. An application of this methodology to survey data for Guinea shows that it is mostly components of food expenditure (particularly _cereals_ , _grains_ and _roots_ ) that deserve exemption from VAT. Our analysis also shows that health and education expenditures (like other non-food items) represent a higher proportion of the budget of high-income households. Given the importance of these services for the accumulation of human capital, it is desirable to implement a program of targeted subsidies in a broader context of cost recovery. The feasibility of these policy options deserves further investigation.

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the largest gender gap being in Armenia and Ukraine (37-40 percent).<sup>65</sup> As with the all-countries regressions, the gender coefficient for Bolivia, Colombia, Georgia, and Vietnam loses a few percentage points when measures of skills are taken into account, suggesting that it takes higher cognitive and noncognitive skills for women in those countries to narrow the gender wage gap.

**Table 10. Female disadvantage in log earnings regressions, constrained and** **<u>unconstrained models</u>**

||**Constr**<br>|**ained**<br>|**Unconst**<br>|**rained**<br>|
|---|---|---|---|---|
||**[1]**|**[2]**|**[3]**|**[4]**|
|Armenia|-0.360***|-0.368***|-0.089|-0.104|
||(0.060)|(0.065)|(0.162)|(0.163)|
|Bolivia|-0.312***|-0.296***|-0.452***|-0.441***|
||(0.063)|(0.068)|(0.164)|(0.167)|
|Colombia|-0.437***|-0.418***|-0.488***|-0.527***|
||(0.060)|(0.063)|(0.132)|(0.136)|
|Georgia|-0.674**|-0.647***|-0.961***|-1.008***|
||(0.304)|(0.217)|(0.356)|(0.358)|
|Ghana|-0.337***|-0.337***|-0.255|-0.265|
||(0.081)|(0.083)|(0.211)|(0.212)|
|Kenya|-0.088|-0.041|-0.175|-0.176|
||(0.123)|(0.052)|(0.154)|(0.154)|
|Serbia|0.068|0.070|0.120|0.172|
||(0.100)|(0.104)|(0.275)|(0.282)|
|Ukraine|-0.394***|-0.417***|-0.341***|-0.352***|
||(0.044)|(0.046)|(0.081)|(0.085)|
|Vietnam|-0.258***|-0.215***|-0.291***|-0.295***|
||(0.038)|(0.039)|-0.098|-0.097|

Notes: The full results are contained in Appendix Table 4. Specification [1] is the basic model, with no controls for cognitive or noncognitive skills variables. Specification [2] is the full model, with controls for age, age-square, schooling, cognitive skills (measured as plausible values of literacy assessments), and noncognitive skills. Specifications [3] and [4] present the mean "coefficients" gender earnings gap from Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of regressions where the controls in [3] are the same as in [1] and the controls in [4] are the same as in [2].All estimates are corrected for selection bias, with marital status, number of children and other adults in the household as instruments for selection into the paid work. Statistical significance is denoted as * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. Data sources: STEP data for 9 countries, 2012-13

> 65 The coefficients do not change significantly between the comparable simple OLS estimates and the selectivitycorrected specifications.

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Over time, the scope of the training and technical assistance program has expanded dramatically – in 2001, CIMO or PAC supported around 94,000 firms, or around 3 percent of all Mexican firms, benefiting a total of 333,500 workers (Flores Lima and Solana, 2003 and World Bank, 2004).

# **III. The 1995 and 1997 CIMO Evaluation Studies**

To assess the economic impact and cost effectiveness of the CIMO program, the STPS conducted two impact evaluation studies – one in 1995 and another in 1997. To summarize, the studies found that program participation had statistically significant, positive impacts on beneficiaries as compared to the control group in some outcomes but not in others. Compared to their pre-participation status, there were improvements in intermediate outcomes – worker training, use of quality systems, workforce organization, job retention, and labor turnover – as compared to the control group. However, the impacts of CIMO on final outcomes like productivity and wage gains were more difficult to measure. In both studies, post-program participation comparisons revealed that the CIMO group tended to have lower average productivity than the control group, which did not logically follow from the evidence on positive impacts of participation on intermediate outcomes.

Both 1995 and 1997 studies adopted a quasi-experimental approach in which two groups of enterprises were followed over time: a “treatment” group that participated in the CIMO program and a matched “control” group that did not, but which was otherwise observationally comparable in terms of employment size, sector, and geographic location. A common survey instrument, appropriately adapted for program participation status and sector, was applied to both groups of enterprises. CIMO promoters surveyed the treatment sample and INEGI, the national statistical office, surveyed the control sample. Both sets of survey enumerators underwent the same training to ensure the uniformity of elicited information. For the CIMO treatment group, information was elicited regarding enterprise conditions, both pre- and post-program participation, so as to allow for before-and-after comparisons of outcomes.

Figure 1 shows the structure of the panel data used in the two CIMO evaluation studies. The first CIMO evaluation study (August 1995) covered the period between 1991 and 1993, and was enumerated in 1993 (for pre-participation data in 1991 and 1992) and again in 1994 (for post-participation data on 1993). The original sample sizes were 442 firms for the treatment 4
a sense of obligation to use those funds to purchase insurance, even though there was no requirement or pressure that they do so. While we cannot rule this possibility out entirely, we find evidence, as noted above, that the sensitivity of insurance demand to liquidity shocks is largest amongst poor households. This matches with the liquidity constraints explanation, since these households are more likely to face financial constraints and limited access to financial services. In contrast, we believe that the reciprocity explanation would be more likely to hold amongst wealthy households, for whom the cash gift is less valuable.

# _C. Trust_

Our Andhra Pradesh results suggest that the farmer’s level of trust in the ICRISAT insurance educator significantly influences insurance demand. An endorsement of this educator by a local BASIX LSA significantly increases insurance demand. Importantly, this only holds amongst households familiar with BASIX and thus for whom the word of the LSA is credible. For this subgroup, LSA endorsement increases the probability of insurance purchase by 10.1 percentage points, equivalent to 36% of the sample average purchase rate. In contrast, amongst households unfamiliar with BASIX, LSA endorsement has no effect on demand (the point estimate is actually negative, although not statistically significant).

Evidence from the Gujarat flyer experiments may also be interpreted in terms of a trust effect. These results show that for a subset of flyer treatments, insurance demand is significantly lower when the flyer emphasizes religious cues of a religion different to the treated household.

While trust has long been posited as an important determinant of demand for financial products (Neil Doherty and Harris Schlesinger, 1990, and Guiso et al., 2008), these results provide the first experimental evidence that trust matters. Trust is likely to be particularly important for financial services demand in environments like the one we study where formal legal protections are relatively weak, and household financial literacy and education is low. _D. Financial literacy and education_ The education and financial literacy statistics in Table 3 document that a significant fraction of households in our study areas are unable to answer simple mathematics or financial questions, and a smaller fraction do not understand very basic features of the rainfall insurance contracts. This provides prima facie evidence that households have only a limited understanding of the product and may make systematic mistakes about insurance purchase decisions.

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proportions were equal to that of the population. The population weights for a tender in a particular stratum equals the ratio of the population of that stratum over the number of tenders collected from that stratum.

66. The standard errors of coefficients are calculated using bootstrapping (500 samples with replacement). The matching strategy and frequency weights have been incorporated into the bootstrapping design through the selection of the bootstrapped samples, where the probability of selection into the bootstrap sample is equal to the product of the matching and the frequency weights.28 Bootstrapping is preferable to traditional standard error calculations given the complex nature of our sample with e-GP data representing the full population and our sample of manual samples oversampling smaller PEs. (For a methodological description of bootstrapping methods, see for example Good, 2006 or Carpentel & Bithell, 2000.) 67. Data collection also included contract implementation information, however following a somewhat different procedure. While for all manual tenders sampled, we also collected contract implementation information, electronic tenders had to be sampled for additional data collection because electronic records did not contain information on contract implementation. A sample of about 1,500 tenders was selected from a population of about 6,500 electronically administered tenders from FY13-14 for data related to contract management indicators. A similar approach was followed for weighting the electronic tenders for which contract management information was collected as described above, that is the weighted tenders were representative of the population.

# 6. RESULTS

# 6.1 MAIN EFFECTS

68. First, we examine hypothesis one (H1) which posits that e-procurement improves access to public tenders (Table 3). Across the different models, we find consistent support for H1, using three different proxies for open access. The models have generally high albeit varying explanatory power (R2 falls between 15 percent and 38 percent, with logit models having generally lower explanatory power). In Models 1a (within PE matching) and 1b (within year matching), we find that there is a statistically significant, large impact of e-procurement on the number of bidders.29 On average, 1.6-2.2 more firms bid for e-procurement tenders than for manual ones (5.0 vs 2.8 bidders in model 1a and 6.3 vs 4.6 in model 1b). In Models 2a and 2b, we test the impact of e-procurement on the probability that a tender receives a single bid. The predicted

> 28 The standard errors of the coefficients were also estimated using the traditional method and the results have been included in Appendix 9.2.

> 29 Note that the natural logarithm of bidder numbers was used as the dependent variable to correct for the highly skewed distribution of bidder numbers.

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18 to be efficient, but do government road departments? To the extent that governments invest in roads based on economic approaches (such as cost-benefit analysis) or in response to economic pressures, road provision may be reasonably efficient in economic terms. As shown earlier, road provision has strong relations with economic variables.

A direct measure of the ratio of inputs for a production function approach would be actual traffic volumes (vehicle kilometers traveled) per kilometer of road network. There is surprisingly little information on aggregate traffic volumes at the national or urban level, however, and such data are often based on intermediate variables such as fuel consumption. Most traffic volume data are measured on specific streets or roads because the information is needed to analyze network use. Motor vehicles per kilometer of road has been used as an indirect measure of the ratio of inputs in the work reported here and is a proxy for the more desirable volume measure.

How good a proxy is the indirect measure (motor vehicles per kilometer of road) for the desired traffic volume measure? There is a strong relation between speed (or congestion) and traffic volume that is typically summarized in a speed-volume diagram that shows that speed falls (and congestion rises) as traffic volumes increase. At the urban level, the ratio of vehicles per kilometer of road has a relation with average speed similar to that speed-volume curves for segments of streets or roads (figure 4).

Figure 4. Vehicle-Road Ratio and Average Road Speeds in Urban Areas <!-- Start of picture text --> 60<br>Houston Actual<br>50 MeIbourne Brisbane SF . 6RuationI<br>i Pboenrx * Detroit<br>40 Amsterdam<br>Copenbagen* Munich<br>@ ~~~ *S ~~NY inaR<br>o 30 * London * Frankfurt<br>2 ~~~~~~Chicago ZuriheBelin<br>20<br>10<br>2 To kyo HK<br>0<br>0 I I I<br>0.0 50.0 100.0 150.0 200.0 250.0 300.0<br>Number of vehicles per km of road<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source:_ Generated from data provided in Newman and Kenworthy, _Cities and Automobile Dependence_ The cost of roads varies systematically across countries, reflecting variation in the price of land and of the (mostly) nontraded inputs (for example, labor and most construction materials) used in road construction. The price of motor vehicles
xv inventory and a reliable air quality monitoring program, it would prove very difficult to monitor the progress of a vehicle emissions control program irrespective of the merit of the control strategy and the technology adopted.

# **Implementing Vehicle Emission Control Programs**

The introduction of vehicle emission controls imposes significant economic and social costs while the benefits are amorphous and often unproven, and the beneficiaries difficult to identify. The motor vehicle and oil industries may be required to develop or change their products while striving to maintain their competitiveness. In addition monitoring compliance with standards may add an extra administrative and financial burden on government resources. In many developing countries, the burden of adjustment for domestic oil refineries or smallscale motor vehicle manufacturing and assembly units may be so large that without Government support they might not be able to absorb the additional costs or compete with cheaper imports. In any event vehicles and fuels become more expensive and maintenance costs may also increase if inspection tests are to be passed.

To justify the added personal, business, and national costs, the environmental benefits from vehicle emission controls must be tangible and supported by incontrovertible evidence. Standards prescribed and regulated by the Government should therefore be equitable in terms of the impact on industry and consumers and should be introduced with sufficient lead time for enterprises and consumers to adjust to the new requirements. Where control measures are applied too quickly, they may have an initial shock effect but the control measures do not take root and result in widespread evasion. Measures that are not excessively costly and are preventive in nature are likely to gain the greatest public acceptance.

Devising an effective motor vehicle emission control program in developing countries is also hindered by institutional and technological constraints. Thus responses to the problem have followed a piece meal approach using mostly technological solutions borrowed from industrialized countries with little local experimentation and adaptation. Seldom have such responses been formulated in the context of a comprehensive policy framework to address overall air quality issues. In many instances, regulatory measures such as vehicle inspection and maintenance programs have been introduced, often with the support and assistance of external funding agencies, without an assessment of their expected impact in reducing emissions. Selection of appropriate response measures has been further complicated by the lack of reliable information on their cost-effectiveness in the developing country context. As a minimum, the implementation of a comprehensive vehicle emissions control program should be based on:
|

3 '

# The importance of members’ intraregional trade and trade with the USSR in 1989 is highlighted in Table 2.

Table 2. Shares of the CMEA in Exports of Member Countries; Shares of the USSR in Exports of Member Countries (1989 - percentage of total exports)

||CMEA/|TOTAL|USSR/|CMEA|USSR/|TOTAL|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Bulgaria|83|73|79|74|66|54|
|CSSR|54|55|S7|4|31|30|
|GDR|42|38|57|58|24|2|
|Hungary|39|39|62|56|4|2|
|Poland|35|32|60|56|21|18|
|Romania|40|55|58|59|23|«32|
|| USSR|46|50||a|||

Source: Van Brabant (1990).

CMEA trade relations were thus predominantly bilateral relations between each of the Six and the USSR.

CMEA trade exhibited a distinct pattern of commodity specialization. The USSR primarily supplied raw materials, including a high share of primary energy, mainly in exchange for manufactures. Hungarian data, which are representative for the Six, illustrate the commodity pattern reflected in Table 3, consisting of USSR exports of primarily “hard goods" in worldwide demand in exchange for "soft goods" with only a limited, if any, market outside the CMEA.

Table 3. Hungary: Commodity Composition, Ruble and Non-Ruble (1987 - in percentage)”

|_<br>—__—_—|Exp<br>—_—__—séRRuble|orts<br>_Non-Ruble<br>_|Imp<br>Ruble|orts<br>Non-Ruble_||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Energy|0.8|8.1|31.6|11.3|
|OtherRaw Materials|1.9|8.6|12.7|13.3|
|Semifinished Goods|10.5|25.9|12.9|30.7|
|Machinery including Spares|56.5|15.7|29.6|23.4|
||OtherManufactures|17.2|13.2|10.5|10.3|

Source: Central Statistical Office.
that the revenue losses are concentrated at the lowest levels of the administrative hierarchy means that central monies have to travel a long way to reach the intended recipients. Under the current intergovernmental fiscal system, this path is not assured.

**Table 27.  Share of Agricultural Taxes in Total Revenues by Administrative Level, 2003**

||All agricultural taxes|Agricultural taxes to be abolished*|
|---|---|---|
|Subnational Total|8.7|4.3|
|Province|1.6|0.0|
|Prefecture|6.3|0.2|
|County|8.1|2.6|
|Township|31.1|27.3|

Note: * The agricultural tax, animal husbandry tax, slaughter tax, and agricultural special products tax. The farmland occupation tax and the title tax remain. Source: Based on Compendium of Local Fiscal Statistics, 2003.

# **5.5.  Other Reforms Affecting Rural Governments**

Aside from the RTFR, two other reforms implemented in recent years have had a significant impact on rural finances. These are the measure to “complete” the TSS reform introduced in 2002, and the “three rewards and one subsidy” introduced in spring 2005. Both are policy responses to the increasingly evident fiscal problems of rural governments that were manifested by the wave of wage arrears for teachers and civil servants and public protests by farmers starting in the late 1990s. In his report to the National People’s Congress in March 2002, noting that many governments at the county and township levels were unable to meet their payrolls in full for civil servants, Minister of Finance Xiang Huaicheng called for government to “gradually establish a mechanism to ensure normal payment of wages, accelerate changes in the functions of counties and townships, and create conditions for fundamentally overcoming financial difficulties in counties and townships.”<sup>58</sup>

# _Completing the TSS reform at the sub-provincial levels_

“Completing the TSS reform at the sub-provincial levels” is a major reform to correct many of the problems of the Tax Sharing System. At the first cut, it calls for “completing” the TSS reform by eliminating the fiscal contracts that have remained in use at the sub-provincial levels,

> 58 Reports indicate cumulative arrears of RMB 6.5 billion at year-end 2001 (Xiang 2002).

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