rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Urbanization and (in)formalization
Two of the great stylized predictions of
            development theory, and two of the great expectations of
            policy makers as indicators of progress in development, are
            inexorable urbanization and inexorable formalization.
            Urbanization is indeed happening, beyond the "tipping
            point" where half the world's population is now
            urban. However, formalization has slowed down significantly
            in the past quarter century. Indeed, informality has been
            increasing. This disconnect raises a number of questions for
            development analysis and development policy. Is the link
            between urbanization and formalization more complex than
            what had been thought? What does this mean for policy? The
            first core section of this paper asks what exactly is meant
            by formality and informality. The second core section turns
            to processes of urbanization and asks how these processes
            intersect with and interact with the incentives to
            formalize. The paper examines why cities attract the
            informal sector and the role that urbanization plays in
            growth and job creation through both the formal and informal
            sectors.  Cities generate agglomeration benefits in the
            informal sector, perhaps more so than for the formal sector.
            The third core section is devoted to policy. At the current
            conjuncture, agglomeration benefits make a strong case for
            urbanization as an integral part of development strategy,
            but concerns about jobless growth and about urban poverty
            require a focus on the informal sector.
Demand growth versus market share
            gains : decomposing world manufacturing import growth
This paper decomposes manufacturing
            import growth rates in a selected set of large industrial
            and developing countries (five industrial and eight
            developing) and measures the relative contributions of
            domestic demand and market share changes for two separate
            periods 1991/92 - 2001/02 and 2001/02 - 2007/08. It also
            shows the shares of imports both from the rest of the world
            and from developing countries for aggregate and three-digit
            manufacturing sectors. Import growth is much higher during
            the 2000s driven by higher demand growth rates. While market
            share changes explain most of the growth during the 1990s,
            its contribution is relatively smaller during the 2000s.
            Imports from developing countries have grown much faster
            both in industrial and developing country markets driven
            primarily by market share changes. However, more than half
            of market share gains by developing countries are caused by
            the exports of China, which accounts for more than 70
            percent of market share gains of developing countries in the
            sample countries during the 2000s. Despite rapid growth,
            developing countries' share in the gross absorption of
            the sample countries is still low and can expand
            substantially even if demand growth is much lower in the
            near future.
Explaining Africa's (Dis)advantage
Africa's economic performance has
            been widely viewed with pessimism. In this paper, firm-level
            data for around 80 countries are used to examine formal firm
            performance. Without controls, manufacturing African firms
            perform significantly worse than firms in other regions.
            They have lower productivity levels and growth rates, export
            less, and have lower investment rates. Once geography,
            political competition and the business environment are
            controlled for, formal African firms lead in productivity
            levels and growth. Africa's conditional advantage is
            higher in low-tech than in high-tech manufacturing, and
            exists in manufacturing but not in services. The key factors
            explaining Africa's disadvantage at the firm level are
            lack of infrastructure, access to finance, and political competition.
American politics, the presidency of
            the World Bank, and development policy
The World Bank's president has been
            an American by tradition. Yet little work has explored the
            consequences for this connection in influencing visions of
            development in the organization across time. This paper uses
            evidence from archives, congressional hearing records, and
            memoirs and histories of World Bank presidents to
            investigate United States-World Bank relations and
            development policy during four presidencies--Eugene Meyer,
            Eugene Black, Robert McNamara, and James Wolfensohn. The
            author argues that at times the political arrangements had
            the effect of pushing the Bank toward greater institutional
            independence from the United States, particularly when
            partisanship in American politics rose and new United States
            presidential administrations came into office with the World
            Bank president's term holding over from before. At
            other times, United States-World Bank connections pulled the
            Bank into foreign policy issues in the United States that
            the Bank might not otherwise have addressed when advocates
            pressed their case on Capitol Hill.
How different are safeguards from
            antidumping evidence from us trade policies toward steel
Use of temporary trade barriers has
            proliferated across countries, industries, and even policy
            instruments. This paper constructs a panel of bilateral,
            product-level United States steel imports that are matched
            to a unique data set on trade policy exclusions that are
            associated with the 2002 United States steel safeguard in
            order to compare the trade impacts that result from
            application of various temporary trade barrier policies over
            1989-2003. The analysis finds that the trade effects of an
            applied safeguard -- which is statutorily expected to follow
            the principle of nondiscriminatory treatment -- can
            nevertheless compare closely with the application of the
            explicitly discriminatory antidumping policy. The results on
            trade policy substitutability complement other recent
            research on these increasingly important forms of import protection.
Credit rating agencies in emerging
            democracies : Guardians of fiscal discipline
Credit rating agencies have drawn
            criticism for failing to anticipate and deter root causes of
            the 2008-2009 financial crisis in the United States.
            However, this paper presents evidence that credit rating
            agencies regularly anticipate and deter governments in
            emerging democracies from opportunistic borrowing and
            potential financial crises related to elections and the
            political budget cycle behavior they encourage. The paper
            considers a sample of 18 such countries holding 32
            presidential elections from 1989 to 2004. The analysis shows
            that credit rating agencies induced greater fiscal
            discipline during election periods when governments had
            incentives to borrow opportunistically for short-term
            electoral gain. Countries with higher credit rating agency
            sovereign ratings borrowed less than lower-rated countries
            in election periods, but borrowed more in non-election
            periods. Credit rating agencies promoted fiscal discipline
            during increasingly frequent election periods in emerging democracies.
Caught in a productivity trap: a
            distributional perspective on gender differences in Malawian agriculture
In targeting poverty gains, sub-Saharan
            African governments have emphasized the alleviation of
            gender differences in agricultural productivity. The
            empirical studies on the gender gap, however, have
            frequently used data that were limited regarding geographic
            and topical coverage, and/or details on intra-household
            dynamics. The study provides a nationally-representative
            analysis of the gender gap in Malawi, and decomposes it, for
            the first time, at the mean and at selected points of the
            agricultural productivity distribution into (i) a portion
            driven by gender differences in levels of observable
            attributes (the endowment effect), and (ii) a portion driven
            by gender differences in returns to the same set of
            observables (the structure effect). Sequentially, the
            authors unpack the relative contributions of different
            factors towards the gender gap, and suggest future research
            priorities to inform policy interventions. The authors find
            that while female-managed plots are, on average, 25 percent
            less productive, 82 percent of this differential is
            explained by differences in endowments, mainly due to
            high-value crop cultivation and levels of household adult
            male labor inputs. The factors driving the structure effect
            include child dependency ratio and effectiveness of
            household adult male labor and inorganic fertilizer. The
            gender gap increases across the productivity distribution,
            ranging from 22 percent at the 10th percentile to 37 percent
            at the 90th percentile. While it is explained predominantly
            by the endowment effect in the first half of the
            distribution, the contribution of the structure effect
            towards the gender gap increases steadily above the median,
            standing at 34 percent at the 90th percentile.
Capacity constraints and public
            financial management in small Pacific Island countries
Drawing on Public Expenditure and
            Financial Accountability assessment scores from 118
            countries, this paper provides the first comparative
            analysis of public financial management performance in small
            Pacific Island Countries (PICs). It applies a Tobit
            regression model across the full cross-country sample of
            Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability scores and
            country variables to identify potential causes for the
            observed underperformance of Pacific Island countries
            relative to other countries of similar income. First, the
            analysis finds small population size to be negatively
            correlated with Public Expenditure and Financial
            Accountability scores, with the "population
            penalty" faced by small Pacific Island countries
            sufficient to explain observed underperformance. Second,
            through application of a new capacity index of Public
            Expenditure and Financial Accountability dimensions, it
            finds strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that
            small population size impacts scores through the imposition
            of capacity constraints: with a limited pool of human
            capital, small countries face severe and permanent
            challenges in accessing an adequate range and depth of
            technical skills to fulfill all functions assessed through
            the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability
            framework. These findings suggest that approaches to
            strengthening public financial management in small Pacific
            Island countries should involve: i) careful prioritization
            of public financial management capacity toward areas that
            represent binding constraints to development; ii) adoption
            of public financial management systems that can function
            within inherent and binding capacity constraints, rather
            than wholesale adoption of "best practice"
            imported systems; and iii) consideration of options for
            accessing external capacity to support public financial
            management systems on a long-term basis, from regional
            agencies, the private sector, or donors.
Impact evaluation of free-of-charge
            CFL bulb distribution in Ethiopia
Electricity infrastructure is one of the
            most important development challenges in Africa. While more
            resources are clearly needed to invest in new capacities, it
            is also important to promote energy efficiency and manage
            the increasing demand for power. This paper evaluates one of
            the recent energy-efficiency programs in Ethiopia, which
            distributed 350,000 compact fluorescent lamp bulbs free of
            charge. The impact related to this first phase is estimated
            at about 45 to 50 kilowatt hours per customer per month, or
            about 13.3 megawatts of energy savings in total. The overall
            impact of the compact fluorescent lamp bulb programs, thanks
            to which more than 5 million bulbs were distributed, could
            be significantly larger. The paper also finds that the
            majority of the program beneficiaries were low-volume
            customers -- mostly from among the poor -- although the
            program was not targeted. In addition, the analysis
            determines the distributional effect of the program: the
            energy savings relative to the underlying energy consumption
            were larger for the poor. The evidence also supports a
            rebound effect. About 20 percent of the initial energy
            savings disappeared within 18 months of the program's completion.
The energy transition of the
            transition economies : an empirical analysis
The aggregate manufacturing energy
            intensity of 28 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
            had declined by 35 percent during 1998-2008. This study
            reveals strong evidence of convergence: less efficient
            countries improved more rapidly and the cross-country
            variance in energy productivity narrowed over time. An index
            decomposition analysis indicates that energy intensities
            declined largely because of more efficient energy use rather
            than shifts from energy intensive to less intensive
            manufacturing activities. Income growth and energy price
            increases were the main drivers of the convergence. They
            dominated the impact of trade, which led to specialization
            in energy intensive industries.
European bank deleveraging and
            global credit conditions : implications of a multi-year
            process on long-term finance and beyond
This paper assesses European bank
            deleveraging and its impact on global credit conditions.
            Before the onset of the global financial crisis, European
            banks had rapidly expanded their foreign lending activities.
            However, European banks have since been tightening credit
            conditions in Europe more for longer-term lending, a trend
            that banks expect to continue. European financial stress has
            been transmitted to emerging markets that have experienced a
            sustained deterioration of credit standards and funding
            conditions. As a result, European lending in emerging
            markets has been lagging behind lending of other
            international banks although European banks remain a
            dominant source of funding. "Good" bank
            deleveraging is still necessary from a prudential
            perspective. Although acute "bad" deleveraging
            pressures due to financial stress, which can trigger a
            credit crunch, have subsided recently on account of decisive
            policy measures, tail risks remain. Curtailing lending will
            probably be a core component of this multi-year deleveraging
            process. Taken together, European bank deleveraging warrants
            close attention.
European bank deleveraging and
            global credit conditions : implications of a multi-year
            process on long-term finance and beyond
WPS6388 Policy Research Working Paper 6388 European Bank Deleveraging and Global Credit Conditions Implications of a Multi-Year Process on Long-Term Finance and Beyond _Erik Feyen Inés González del Mazo_ The World Bank Financial and Private Sector Development Network Financial Architecture and Banking Systems Unit March 2013
Human capital, tangible wealth, and
            the intangible capital residual
Since income is the return on wealth,
            the total wealth of any given country should be on the order
            of 20 times its gross domestic product. Instead the average
            observed ratio from the balance sheet accounts of the System
            of National Accounts is a factor of 2.6 to 6.6, depending on
            whether natural resource stocks are included in the balance
            sheet. The clear implication is that the System of National
            Accounts wealth accounts are incomplete, with the most
            obvious omission being human capital. Estimating the value
            of human capital using the lifetime income approach for a
            sample of 13 (mostly high-income) countries yields a mean
            share of human capital in total wealth of 62 percent -- four
            times the value of produced capital and 15 times the value
            of natural capital. But for selected high-income countries
            in the sample there is still an average of 25 percent of
            total wealth that is unaccounted -- it is neither produced,
            nor natural, nor human capital. This residual intangible
            wealth is arguably the "stock equivalent"  of
            total factor productivity -- the value of assets such as
            institutional quality and social capital that augment the
            capacity of produced, natural and human capital to support a
            stream of consumption into the future.
Political economy aspects of fuel
            subsidies : a conceptual framework
While notoriously inefficient, fuel
            subsidies are widespread, and in many cases politically
            stable. This paper discusses and models various political
            economy aspects of fuel subsidies, focusing on gasoline and
            kerosene. Both economic and political are considered to
            explain differences in subsidies, with particular focus on
            democratic and autocratic governments. A political process
            is modeled whereby a promise of low fuel prices is used in
            democracies to attract voters, and in autocracies to
            mobilize support among key groups. Subsidies to fuels are
            viewed as either easier to observe, easier to commit to,
            easier to deliver, or better targeted at core groups, than
            other public goods or favors offered by rulers. Easier
            commitment and delivery than for regular public goods can
            explain the high prevalence of such policies in autocracies,
            and also in young democracies where the capacity to commit
            to or deliver complex public goods is not yet fully
            developed. The analysis provides a framework for empirical
            testing and verification.
Food price volatility and domestic
            stabilization policies in developing countries
When food prices spike in countries with
            large numbers of poor people, public intervention is
            essential to alleviate hunger and malnutrition. For
            governments, this is also a case of political survival.
            Government actions often take the form of direct
            interventions in the market to stabilize food prices, which
            goes against most international advice to rely on safety
            nets and world trade. Despite the limitations of food price
            stabilization policies, they are widespread in developing
            countries. This paper attempts to untangle the elements of
            this policy conundrum. Price stabilization policies arise as
            a result of international and domestic coordination
            problems. At the individual country level, it is in the
            national interest of many countries to adjust trade policies
            to take ad-vantage of the world market in order to achieve
            domestic price stability. When countercyclical trade
            policies become widespread, the result is a thinner and less
            reliable world market, which further decreases the appeal of
            laissez-faire. A similar vicious circle operates in the
            domestic market: without effective policies to protect the
            poor, such as safety nets, food market liberalization lacks
            credibility and makes private actors reluctant to intervene,
            which in turn forces government to step in. The current
            policy challenge lies in designing policies that will build
            trust in world markets and increase trust between pub-lic
            and private agents.
Rain, agriculture, and tariffs
This paper examines whether and how
            rainfall shocks affect tariff setting in the agricultural
            sector. In a model of strategic trade policy, the authors
            show that the impact of a negative rainfall shock on optimal
            import tariffs is generally ambiguous, depending on the
            weight placed by the domestic policy maker on tariff
            revenue, profits and the consumer surplus. The more weight
            placed on domestic profits, the more likely it is that the
            policy maker will respond to a rainfall shortage by reducing
            import tariffs. These findings are robust to alternative
            assumptions about market structure and the timing of the
            game. Using detailed panel data on applied tariffs and
            rainfall for 70 nations, the authors find robust evidence
            that rainfall shortages generally induce policy makers to
            set lower tariffs on agricultural imports.
Monsoon babies : rainfall shocks and
            child nutrition in Nepal
Do household consumption-smoothing
            strategies in poor countries entail significant long-run
            costs in terms of reduced human capital? This paper exploits
            the timing of monsoon rainfall shocks and the seasonal
            nature of agriculture to isolate income effects on early
            childhood anthropometric outcomes in rural Nepal and to
            provide evidence on the persistence of these effects into
            later childhood. Findings suggest that a 10 percent increase
            in rainfall from historic norms during the most recently
            completed monsoon leads to a 0.15 standard deviation
            increase in weight-for-age for children ages 0-36 months.
            This total impact consists of a negative "disease
            environment effect" of no more than 0.02 standard
            deviations and a positive "income effect" as high
            as 0.17 standard deviations. Consistent with this
            interpretation, excess monsoon rainfall also enhances child
            stature, but only if the monsoon rainfall shock is
            experienced in the second year of life. Moreover, this
            effect on child height is transitory, dissipating completely
            by age five.