rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
From guesstimates to GPStimates :
            land area measurement and implications for agricultural analysis
Land area measurement is a fundamental
            component of agricultural statistics and analysis. Yet,
            commonly employed self-reported land area measures used in
            most analysis are not only potentially measured with error,
            but these errors may be correlated with agricultural
            outcomes. Measures employing Global Positioning Systems, on
            the other hand, while not perfect especially on smaller
            plots, are likely to provide more precise measures and
            errors less correlated with agricultural outcomes. This
            paper uses data from four African countries to compare the
            use of self-reported and Global Positioning Systems land
            measures to (1) examine the differences between the
            measures, (2) identify the sources of the differences, and
            (3) assess the implications of the different measures on
            agricultural analysis focusing on the inverse productivity
            relationship. The results indicate that self-reported land
            areas systematically differ from Global Positioning Systems
            land measures and that this difference leads to potentially
            biased estimates of the relationship between land and productivity.
Factors influencing energy intensity
            in four Chinese industries
Energy intensity has declined
            significantly in four Chinese industries -- pulp and paper;
            cement; iron and steel; and aluminum. While previous studies
            have identified technological change within an industry to
            be an important influence on energy intensity, few have
            examined how industry-specific policies and market factors
            also affect industry-level intensity.  This paper employs
            unique firm-level data from China's most
            energy-intensive large and medium-size industrial
            enterprises in each of these four industries over a six-year
            period from 1999 to 2004. It empirically examines how
            China's energy-saving programs, liberalization of
            domestic markets, openness to the world economy, and other
            policies, contribute to the decline in energy intensity in
            these industries. The results suggest that rising energy
            costs are a significant contributor to the decline in energy
            intensity in all four industries. China's industrial
            policies targeting scale economies -- for example,
            "grasping the large, letting go off the small" --
            also seem to have contributed to reductions in energy
            intensity in these four industries. However, the results
            also suggest that trade openness and technology development
            led to declines in energy intensity in only one or two of
            these industries. Finally, the analysis finds that energy
            intensities vary among firms with different ownership types
            and regional locations.
Deconstructing the decline in
            inequality in Latin America
Inequality in Latin America
            unambiguously declined in the 2000s. The Gini coefficient
            fell in 16 of the 17 countries where there are comparable
            data, and the change was statistically significant for all
            of them. Existing studies point to two main explanations for
            the decline in inequality: a reduction in hourly labor
            income inequality, and more robust and progressive
            government transfers. Available evidence suggests that it is
            the skill premium -- or, more precisely, the returns to
            primary, secondary, and tertiary education vs. no schooling
            or incomplete primary schooling -- that drives the decline
            in hourly labor income inequality. The causes behind the
            decline in returns to schooling, however, have not been
            unambiguously established. Some studies find that returns
            fell because of an increase in the supply of workers with
            more educational attainment; others, because of a shift in
            demand away from skilled labor.
Infrastructure for growth and human
            development in Pakistan : a simulation analysis of fiscal
            policy options
This paper explores the use of fiscal
            policy to accelerate development in Pakistan during the
            period 2013-2022, with a focus on the creation of fiscal
            space for increased investment in infrastructure, as well as
            on indicators related to macro and sectoral developments,
            Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and education. In terms
            of method, the analysis relies on simulations with a
            Pakistani version of MAMS (Maquette for MDG Simulations), a
            Computable General Equilibrium model developed at the World
            Bank for country strategy analysis. The different policy
            scenarios point to the importance of selecting
            infrastructure projects with high productivity effects and
            the crucial role of financing in determining the net effects
            of expanded government infrastructure spending. Transfer
            programs can generate immediate welfare gains but are less
            effective over time unless they are designed to raise
            productivity, perhaps via improvements in health, nutrition,
            and education outcomes.  A final high-growth scenario
            explores requirements and consequences for Pakistan's
            economy if, during the period 2013-2022, it managed to raise
            its rate of annual GDP growth from the 4-5 percent range to
            7 percent. The results for the final scenario indicate that
            rapid growth acceleration may be achieved via a combination
            of strong increases in savings, investment and total factor
            productivity. By 2022, 10 years of growth at a rate of 7
            percent would spread across the macro demand indicators as
            well as the major production sectors. Its effects would
            include significant, broader gains in terms of poverty
            reduction and better outcomes for indicators.
A mapping of labor mobility costs in
            developing countries
Estimates of labor mobility costs are
            needed to assess the responses of employment and wages to
            trade shocks when factor adjustment is costly. Available
            methods to estimate those costs rely on panel data, which
            are seldom available in developing countries. The authors
            propose a method to estimate mobility costs using readily
            obtainable data worldwide. The estimator matches the changes
            in observed sectoral employment allocations with the
            predicted allocations from a model of costly labor
            adjustment. This paper estimates a world map of labor
            mobility costs and uses those estimates to explore the
            response of labor markets to trade policy.
From occupations to embedded skills
            : a cross-country comparison
This paper derives the skill content of
            30 countries, ranging from low-income to high-income ones,
            from the occupational structure of their economies. Five
            different skills are defined.. Cross-country measures of
            skill content show that the intensity of national production
            of manual skills declines with per capita income in a
            monotonic way, while it increases for non-routine cognitive
            and interpersonal skills. For some countries, the analysis
            is able to trace the development of skill intensities of
            aggregate production over time. The paper finds that
            although the increasing intensity of non-routine skills is
            uniform across countries, patterns of skill intensities with
            respect to different forms of routine skills differ markedly.
Poverty, malnutrition and
            vulnerability in Mali
This paper provides new insight into the
            poverty, malnutrition and vulnerability issues in Mali,
            using existing household survey data. First, it presents a
            profile of households that are poor, "food poor,"
            or have malnourished children. Second, it explores the
            impact of recent weather and price shocks on household
            welfare and identifies those affected most by the shocks.
            Finally, it estimates vulnerability to poverty by modeling
            both households' expected consumption and their
            consumption volatility, and by distinguishing between
            idiosyncratic and covariate risks. The basic results of the
            analysis match conventional knowledge about poverty, food
            poverty, and malnutrition. The prevalence of chronic
            malnutrition is high in Mali, with 44 percent of Malian
            households and 66 percent of food poor Malian households
            having at least one stunted child. A 25 percent increase in
            cereal prices and a 25 percent decrease in cereal production
            are estimated to increase the number of food poor by 610,000
            people. An estimated US$ 5.4 million of extra aid per year
            will be needed to lift the newly food poor above the food
            poverty line. About US$ 182 million is needed to do this for
            all existing and new food poor. Vulnerability incidence is
            in general two to three times higher among the poor than the
            non-poor, except in urban areas and in the region of Sikasso
            where the vulnerability incidence is five to six times
            higher among the poor. Overall, vulnerability is mostly
            driven by poverty induced vulnerability, except in the
            capital, Bamako, where vulnerability is more driven by risk
            induced vulnerability.
Bank financing of SMEs in five
            Sub-Saharan African countries : the role of competition,
            innovation, and the government
This paper provides an overview of the
            state of access to bank financing for SMEs in five
            Sub-Saharan African countries and analyzes the drivers
            behind banks' involvement with SMEs. The paper builds
            on data collected through five in-depth studies in Kenya,
            Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania between 2010 and
            2012. The paper shows that the share of SME lending in the
            overall loan portfolios of banks varies between 5 and 20
            percent. Reasons for this finding vary, but key contributing
            factors are the structure and size of the economy and the
            extent of Government borrowing, the degree of innovation
            mainly as introduced by foreign entrants to financial
            sectors, and the state of the financial sector
            infrastructure and enabling environment.
Effects of Colombia's social
            protection system on workers' choice between formal and
            informal employment
This paper examines whether the
            Colombian government's expansion of social programs in
            the early 1990s, particularly the publicly provided health
            insurance, discouraged formal employment. Using household
            survey data and variation across municipalities in the onset
            of interviews for the SISBEN, the instrument used to
            identify beneficiaries for public health insurance, it shows
            robust and consistent estimates of an increase in informal
            employment of approximately 4 percentage points. Similar
            results are obtained using an alternative dataset,
            consisting of a panel of individuals interviewed for the
            first and second SISBEN. The findings suggest that marginal
            individuals optimized when deciding whether to participate
            in the formal sector.
The heterogeneous effects of a food
            price crisis on child school enrollment and labor : evidence
            from Pakistan
Using a panel survey, this paper
            investigates how the increase in food prices in Pakistan in
            2008-2010 affected children's school enrollment and
            labor. The causal identification relies on geographical
            variations in the price of food (wheat). The results show
            that the negative impacts of food price increase on school
            enrollment differ by gender, economic status, and the
            presence of siblings. The negative effects on school do not
            directly correspond to the increase in child labor because
            the transition from being idle to labor activity or from
            school to being idle are significant, particularly among the
            poor girls. The results also show that children in
            households with access to agricultural land are not affected
            by higher food prices. The analyses reveal a more dynamic
            picture of the impact of food price increase on child status
            and contribute to broader policy discussion to mitigate the
            impact of crises on children's education.
Transaction costs of low-carbon
            technologies and policies : the diverging literature
Transaction costs are major challenge to
            moving forward toward low-carbon economic growth, as new
            technologies or policies tend to have higher transaction
            costs compared with those in the business as usual
            situation. However, neither a well-developed theoretical
            foundation nor a consensus interpretation is available for
            those transaction costs in the existing literature. The
            definitions and therefore the estimations of transaction
            costs vary across existing studies. The wide variations in
            the estimates could be attributed to several factors such as
            the very definitions and scope of transaction costs
            considered in the studies, the methodology for quantifying
            these costs, the type and size of low-carbon technologies,
            and complexities involved in the transactions. Nevertheless,
            the existing literature converges on addressing market
            failures, such as lack of information, in developing
            regulatory and institutional capacity to enhance private
            sector confidence in energy efficiency business as a key
            means to help reduce the transaction costs of low-carbon technologies.
Household enterprises in Mozambique
            : key to poverty reduction but not on the development agenda
Household enterprises -- usually
            one-person-operated tiny informal enterprises -- are a
            rapidly growing source of employment in Sub-Saharan Africa,
            especially in lower-income countries. Household enterprises
            tend to operate with limited interest or support from
            governments.  This is the case in Mozambique, where neither
            the poverty reduction strategy nor small and medium
            enterprise development policies include household
            enterprises. Using multiple household surveys, including a
            recent panel data set, this paper identifies the
            characteristics of the sector and its development during the
            period in which Mozambique experienced rapid economic
            growth. The analysis finds that household enterprises in
            Mozambique are associated with higher household consumption,
            lower rural poverty, as well as upward mobility,
            particularly for rural and poorly educated households. But
            if the Mozambican government wants to tap this potential, it
            will need a different strategy than one designed to support
            small and medium enterprises, because creation and survival
            in this sector seems to depend on a set of factors related
            to the human capital in the household and development in the
            location, not the soft business environment constraints,
            such as licensing and permitting and corruption, which are
            cited by larger business.
What are the causes of the growing
            trend of excess savings of the corporate sector in developed
            countries an empirical analysis of three hypotheses
This paper analyzes annual accounting
            data for a sample of 5,000 publicly traded manufacturing
            firms from Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and the United
            Kingdom. The analysis uses data from 1997 to 2011 and finds
            an increasing trend of excess savings (defined as the
            difference between gross saving and capital formation) and a
            gradual decline of gross capital formation. This trend is
            accompanied by a steady deleveraging process and a decrease
            in the share of operating assets in total assets. This
            process is more acute among the more credit constrained, the
            more volatile, and the less dynamic firms.
What are the causes of the growing
            trend of excess savings of the corporate sector in developed
            countries an empirical analysis of three hypotheses
WPS6571 Policy Research Working Paper 6571 What Are the Causes of the Growing Trend of Excess Savings of the Corporate Sector in Developed Countries? An Empirical Analysis of Three Hypotheses _Leandro Brufman Lisana Martinez Rodrigo Pérez Artica_ The World Bank Treasury Financial Advisory and Banking Department August 2013
Benefit incidence with incentive
            effects, measurement errors and latent heterogeneity
Empirical studies of tax and benefit
            incidence routinely ignore behavioral responses and
            measurement errors. This paper offers an econometric method
            of estimating the mean benefit withdrawal rate (marginal tax
            rate) allowing for incentive effects, measurement errors,
            and correlated latent heterogeneity in incidence. Under the
            method's identifying assumptions, a feasible
            instrumental variables estimator corrects for incentive
            effects and measurement errors, and provides a bound for the
            true value when there is correlated incidence heterogeneity.
            A case study for a large cash transfer program in China
            indicates that past methods of assessing benefit incidence
            using either nominal official rates or raw tabulations from
            survey data are deceptive. The program entails a nominal 100
            percent benefit withdrawal rate -- a poverty trap. However,
            the paper finds that the actual rate is much lower, and
            clearly too low in the light of the literature on optimal
            income taxation. The paper discusses likely reasons based on
            the qualitative observations.
Are microcredit borrowers in
            Bangladesh over-indebted
Microcredit programs in Bangladesh have
            experienced spectacular growth in recent years, with a
            growing number of borrowers availing credit from multiple
            microcredit agencies. There is a growing concern that if
            there are not sufficient returns to borrowing from
            microfinance institutions (MFIS), some borrowers might be
            taking loans that they will not be able to repay.  A
            household may be considered over-indebted, for example, if
            its debt liability exceeds 40 percent of its income or
            assets. Using a long panel of household survey data from
            Bangladesh, the paper finds that some 26 percent of
            microcredit borrowers are over-indebted on this measure
            versus 22 percent of non-microcredit borrowers.  Econometric
            analysis suggests that both MFI competition and multiple
            borrowing raise indebtedness. However, repeated borrowing,
            while it affects short-term liability adversely, does affect
            the long-term debt-asset ratio favorably.  That is, repeated
            borrowing helps increase assets more than debt over time.
            Microcredit borrowers in Bangladesh are thus not necessarily
            over-indebted. But when borrowing is seen as protection
            against shocks such as floods even at the cost of being
            indebted, MFIs may offer micro-insurance schemes to
            safeguard borrowers against economic shocks.
The foundations of macroprudential
            regulation : a conceptual roadmap
This paper examines the conceptual
            foundations of macroprudential policy by reviewing the
            literature on financial frictions from a policy perspective
            that systematically links state interventions to market
            failures. The method consists in gradually incorporating
            into the Arrow-Debreu world a variety of frictions and
            sources of aggregate volatility and combining them along
            three basic dimensions: purely idiosyncratic vs. aggregate
            volatility, full vs. bounded rationality, and internalized
            vs. uninternalized externalities. The analysis thereby
            obtains eight "domains," four of which include
            aggregate volatility, hence call for macroprudential policy
            variants grounded on largely orthogonal rationales. Two of
            them emerge even assuming that externalities are
            internalized: one aims at offsetting the public moral hazard
            implications of (efficient but time inconsistent)
            post-crisis policy interventions, the other at maintaining
            principal-agent incentives continuously aligned along the
            cycle. Allowing for uninternalized externalities justifies
            two additional types of macroprudential policy, one aimed at
            aligning private and social interests, the other at
            tempering mood swings. Choosing a proper regulatory path is
            complicated by the fact that the relevance of frictions is
            likely to be state-dependent and that different frictions
            motivate different (and often conflicting) policies.
The conceptual foundations of
            macroprudential policy : a roadmap
This paper explores post-Lehman
            macroprudential regulation by interacting two types of
            market failures (principal-agent and collective action) with
            two cognition modes (unconstrained and constrained) in the
            context of aggregate risk. Four paradigms with orthogonal
            policy justifications are identified. In the first time
            consistency paradigm, regulation offsets the moral hazard
            implications of efficient but time inconsistent post-crisis
            bailouts. In the second dynamic alignment paradigm, it
            protects unsophisticated market participants by maintaining
            principal-agent incentives continuously aligned in the face
            of aggregate shocks. In the third collective action
            paradigm, regulation arises in response to the socially
            inefficient yet rational financial instability resulting
            from uninternalized externalities. The fourth collective
            cognition paradigm is grounded on the need to temper the
            mood swings that arise from bounded rationality or severe
            cognitive frictions in a rapidly changing, complex and
            uncertain world. These four rationales give rise to
            important tensions and trade-offs in the design of
            macroprudential policy.