rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Inflation, monetary balances and the
            aggregate production function : the case of Colombia
The role of monetary balances in
            economic growth has long been a topic of macroeconomic
            research. This paper examines the role of real money
            balances in an aggregate production function of a developing
            economy, Colombia. Colombia is an interesting case to
            analyze for several reasons. First, although it has
            experienced high and variable rates of inflation, it has
            also introduced a competitive system of quasi-monetary
            balances that have been indexed for inflation. Second, data
            is readily available, since Colombia has been studied
            extensively. Therefore, Colombia is one of the few
            developing countries for which an empirical study can be
            made of the effects of financial policy on economic growth.
            Finally, the role that monetary balances may have played in
            economic growth is of interest because indexed mortgages
            played a major role in this change in financial policy.
            These indexed mortgages were similar to introducing a
            competitive "Trojan Horse" into the Colombian
            financial system. Other depository institutions were forced
            to compete with indexed mortgage lenders for deposits.
            Growth was stimulated by inducing the financial system to
            minimize the effects of high and variable inflation rates on
            the cost of monetary balances.
Irreversibility, uncertainty, and investment
Despite its importance to economic
            growth and the evolution of market structure, the investment
            behavior of firms, industries, and countries remains poorly
            understood. This paper has several objectives. First, it
            reviews some basic models of irreversible investment to
            illustrate the option-like characteristics of investment
            opportunities, and to show how optimal investment rules can
            be obtained from methods of option pricing, or alternatively
            from dynamic programming. Second, it discusses the
            implication of irreversibility for the empirical analysis of
            investment behavior. Finally, it discusses briefly some of
            the implications that the irreversibility of investment may
            have for policy. For example, policies that stabilize prices
            or exchange rates may be effective ways of stimulating investment.
Inflation and the company tax base :
            methods to minimize inflation - induced distortions
Inflation causes conventionally reported
            income to differ from real economic income because standard
            accounting procedures are based on the assumption of price
            stability. Because of this mismeasurement of economic
            income, a tax on reported income may distort economic
            decisions and generate undesirable distributional effects.
            Marginal effective tax rates, for example may differ across
            sectors, industries and even firms - making resource
            allocation less efficient. This paper discusses three
            alternatives for avoiding these effects: (1) indexing items
            in the income statement; (2) indexing the balance sheet and
            deriving the income as a residual; and (3) redefining the
            tax base in terms of cash flow rather than income. This
            paper shows that the most accurate method to correct for
            inflation-induced mismeasurement of income is to use
            alternative 2 - to index the balance sheet. However, because
            this method of inflation adjustment is fairly demanding in
            terms of the general level of bookkeeping and accounting
            skills in the economy, its use or recommendation for any
            country should be guided by a realistic appraisal of those skills.
What determines the rate of growth
            and technological change
There is substantial research about
            cross section and time series correlations between economic
            growth and various economic, social, demographic and
            political variables. After analyzing these correlations, the
            paper makes the following conclusions. Exogenous increases
            do not seem to cause increases in the rate of technological
            change, but instead seem to be associated with lower rates
            of return to capital. Increased openness to international
            trade speeds up growth and technological change as do an
            increase in scientists and engineers. Countries more open to
            trade have a higher level of investment and capital growth -
            which is not associated with a fall in the marginal product
            of capital. Countries that become more integrated with world
            markets seem to have a higher marginal product of capital.
            Increases in capital investment associated with a higher per
            capita GDP are associated with a fall in the marginal
            product of capital. Increases in capital investment
            associated with increases in trade are not. This suggests
            that policies to encourage more open trading may be as
            important to growth as additional foreign lending -
            especially in their cumulative effects - and at the same
            time enhance the efficient use of foreign loans.
Understanding voluntary
            organizations : guidelines for donors
Voluntary development organizations have
            demonstrated substantial comparatiave advantage in
            developing countries - especially in their ability to
            innovate, adapt to local conditions, and reach and work with
            poor and difficult to reach populations. These capabilities
            are a function of their values, special skills, small size,
            limited resources, flexibility, and freedom from political
            constraints. Their weaknesses are a function of many of the
            same characteristics - particularly their value commitments,
            small size, independence, and lack of administrative
            rigidity. The authors explain that the strongest Voluntary
            Organizations (VOs) and People's Organizations (POs)
            respond to more than financial incentives. Their strength
            lies in the fact that they are not the same as government
            organizations or businesses. At the same time, they are not
            immune to financial incentives, which if wrongly applied can
            destroy the voluntarism of all but the most strongly aware
            of VOs and POs.
Fuelwood stumpage : financing
            renewable energy for the world's other half
In many developing countries, households
            rely heavily on woodfuels (firewood and charcoal) as their
            main source of energy for cooking and heating. The internal
            trade in woodfuels is often sizable. African governments now
            collect stumpage fees of $30 million a year for fuelwood and
            charcoalwood, or only about 2  of the selling price of the
            finished products. By charging an adequate fee for these
            wood resources, the authors argue woodfuels production and
            consumption can be made more efficient. In addition,
            governments would be better able to finance the investments
            in their forest sector that are needed to maintain a regular
            fuelwood supply and to prevent long term environmental
            damage. The authors outline the methods energy planners can
            use to estimate fuelwood values and discuss several problems
            that arise in assessing and collecting fuelwood stumpage fees.
Shortcomings in the market for
            developing country debt
The author recommends ways of improving
            incentives for developing countries to repay future loans :
            1) by finding ways to increase the penalties for default, or
            making the penalties more certain. This would increase the
            debtor countries' willingness to pay, which would
            benefit all parties, 2) by studying how to use existing
            multinational and international organizations to increase
            the flow of relevant information to potential creditors, 3)
            by increasing precommitment of funds through increased
            penalties for default and other approaches. IMF contingency
            programs are already used extensively to establish some form
            of precommitment. Further use of international organizations
            along these lines may be possible. Mutually beneficial
            contracts are not currently possible because precommitment
            is not enforceable.
Poverty and undernutrition in
            Indonesia during the 1980s
Indonesia adjusted rapidly to sharply
            falling external terms of trade during the 1980's -
            using a classic package of currency devaluation, budgetary
            and monetary restraint, and regulatory relaxation. This
            paper discusses how the country fared in its efforts to
            alleviate poverty and undernutrition during that period. The
            paper studies a wide range of possible poverty lines and
            poverty measures - and the sensitivity of key results to
            many of the underlying assumptions about poverty. Although
            caloric intake data are not ideal, the authors found
            evidence that the extent of undernutrition also fell
            significantly. For a caloric intake level which 37 percent
            of the population failed to attain in 1984, only 27 percent
            of the population failed to attain it in 1987. Why was this
            so? Gains to the rural sector contributed greatly to the
            alleviation of poverty. Gains to the urban sector and
            population shifts were quantitively less important than
            direct gains to the rural poor. Increases in average real
            consumption and an improvement in overall equity both helped
            to reduce poverty. In addition, Indonesia's recent
            economic history had created conditions favorable to
            alleviating poverty so long as modest growth in private
            consumption per capita could be maintained during the
            adjustment period.
Population, health and nutrition :
            FY88 annual sector review
This paper review PHN lending for FY88.
            PHN lending rebounded in FY88 to $ 304.9 million for eight
            projects, a 50 percent increase in volume over the previous
            five year average. Lending for health predominated, while
            population lending accounted for 27 percent of the total.
            Interest in nutrition increased, but nutrition lending
            received little emphasis (except in connection with
            structural adjustment). Important trends included increased
            attention to project software, continued support for
            decentralization of health systems, more efforts to involve
            the private sector in delivering PHN services, more emphasis
            on health costs and financing, development of new ways to
            reach clients at periphery, and more emphasis on focused
            projects. If lending to PHN sectors is to increase from its
            current low level of 2 to 3 percent of Bank lending to 5
            percent or more, current staff resources are inadequate.
            There is a shortfall in PHN staff resources of about 20
            staff years to meet the targeted level of 12 to 14 projects
            and $ 500 million a year in PHN lending.
On participating in the
            international capital market
The international capital market as it
            has been evolving provides an opportunity for developing
            countries like India to attract the required capital inflow
            for accelerating their pace of development, manage their
            foreign exchange assets and liabilities to their advantage
            and develop export capabilities in the field of financial
            services. Active participation in this market would not only
            improve their access to the market but also indicate the
            institutional and policy framework essential for developing
            effective and efficient domestic financial markets. The
            possibilities of such participation would be enhanced if the
            developing countries like India take a constructive stand
            with regard to the multilateral negotiations in respect of
            trade in services under the Uruguay Round.
Financial innovation and credit
            market development
This paper studies the significance of
            social innovations - in particular, financial and fiscal
            innovations. Financial innovations tend to reduce
            transaction costs and risk, and as a result bring about
            widening, deepening and integration of capital markets. Such
            financial development accelerates the pace of economic
            development through its favorable impact on saving,
            investment, and output. The relationship between finance and
            development and the precise role of financial innovations
            are discussed in Section I, while Section II deals with the
            nature and characteristics of financial innovations. Section
            III examines the role of policy intervention in quickening
            the pace of financial development in the developing
            countries. The nature and characteristics of financial
            innovations essential for financial small farm and nonfarm
            enterprises and for mobilizing resources from middle and low
            income groups in the developing countries, are illustrated
            by a case study of an innovative bank in Section IV. Some
            concluding observations are made in the final section.
Dealing with debt : the 1930's
            and the 1980's
The debt crisis of the 1930's
            illustrated the difficulty of global plans for resolving the
            debt crisis and underscored the importance of market-based
            debt-reduction schemes. The crisis of the 1980's
            differed in fundamental ways from that of the 1930's,
            but the earlier crisis illuminated the current crisis in
            several ways. The authors conclude that: (a) economic
            variables alone do not explain the incidence and extent of
            default; (b) implications of different debt-management
            strategies for macroeconomic performance remain difficult to
            isolate; (c) there is little evidence that countries that
            defaulted in the 1930's suffered reduced access to
            capital markets after World War II; and (d) the readjustment
            of defaulted debts entailed a protracted negotiation
            process. They further conclude that: (e) Government
            intervention in the 1930's and 1980's differs less
            in extent than direction in terms of pressure placed on
            debtors and creditors to maintain service on their debt; (f)
            global schemes to short-circuit the protracted process of
            bilateral negotiations proved unavailing; and (g) unlike
            global plans, market based debt reduction helped to resolve
            the debt crisis of the 1930's by reducing the overhang
            and eliminating marginal creditors.
Public debt, North and South
The recent rise in domestic public
            nonmonetary debt and in domestic bond yields is imposing a
            heavier burden on governments in countries like Brazil and
            Mexico than foreign debt does. This is a relatively new
            experience for developing countries but not for OECD
            countries. Reisen's discussion of rising government
            indebtedness, therefore, includes the experiences of four
            developing (Brazil, Mexico, Korea, and Indonesia) and three
            highly indebted OECD countries (Belgium, Ireland, and
            Italy). The major determinants for government debt rising
            are: 1) external transfers, which imply an internal transfer
            of resources from the private to the public sector, 2)
            fiscal rigidities, because of failure to broaden tax bases
            and cut government consumption, 3) high interest rates
            coupled with low growth of GDP, and 4) massive devaluation
            of the real exchange rate and big swings in value among key currencies.
Do the secondary markets believe in
            life after debt
Using panel data econometric techniques
            to examine the case for external debt relief, this report
            explores the relations between measures of creditworthiness
            and debt discounts on the secondary markets. It finds,
            however, that secondary market values tend to reflect past
            difficulties, not anticipate future ones - so they
            can't be used to build a case for debt relief. The
            secondary markets, still in an early evolutionary stage, are
            quite "thin" and thus unable to exploit
            efficiently and quickly all available information on creditworthiness.
The Baker Plan : progress,
            shortcomings, and future
The Baker Plan essentially made existing
            strategy on the debt problem more concrete. Like existing
            policy, it rejected a bankruptcy approach to the problem. It
            assumed that the principal debtor countries could grow their
            way out of the debt problem and could expand their exports
            enough over time to reduce their debt burden to normal
            levels. It called for structural reform, and it continued
            the adjustment efforts in the debtor country in return for
            financial support from foreign official and bank creditors.
            The plan did shift emphasis, however: from short-term
            balance of payments stabilization to longer-term development
            objectives, and thus from the IMF to the World Bank as the
            lead institution in debt management. The basic international
            debt strategy remains valid, but intensified policy efforts
            are necessary. Banks should provide multiyear new money
            packages, exit bonds should be guaranteed to allow voluntary
            debt reduction by banks, and net capital flows to the highly
            indebted countries should be raised 15 billion dollars a
            year. Successful emergence from the debt crisis, however,
            will depend primarily on sound economic policies in the
            debtor countries themselves.
Issues in income tax reform in
            developing countries
Of all taxes, income taxes are the most
            difficult to implement. Developing countries are usually
            able to generate large amounts of income tax revenue only
            from large corporations or foreign investments. They are
            rarely effective in taxing wealthy individuals or small or
            medium-size businesses. Using recent tax reforms in Jamaica,
            Indonesia, and elsewhere as examples, the paper discusses
            the pros and cons of specific tax reform elements. It
            summarizes the major issues typically faced in reforming
            income taxes in developing countries. More revenue,
            increased efficiency, and a better distribution of the tax
            burden are usually the underlying goals. Improving
            enforcement and compliance by simplifying the tax structure
            and increasing the legitimacy of the tax process is usually
            the major challenge.
How has instability in world markets
            affected agricultural export producers in developing countries
World prices have traditionally been
            unstable, however, the authors' find thehe much
            publicized turbulence in world markets in the
            mid-1970's and early 1980's to have been more a
            statistical fluke - an unlucky chance sample - than the
            beginning of any longer term increase in market instability.
            Variability in world prices has been almost entirely
            transmitted to developing countries in the dollar value of
            their export unit values. However, it has not been fully
            transmitted to average producer prices. Producer prices have
            been buffered by real exchange rates, domestic marketing
            arrangements, and government intervention, but still the
            level of instability remains sizable - and is the dominant
            source of instability in crop revenues for most producers.
            Unless farmers are able to diffuse the risky returns from
            export crops, price variability may seriously impede the
            expansion of agricultural exports in many developing countries.
Inflation, external debt, and
            financial sector reform : a quantitative approach to
            consistent fiscal policy
The paper presents and applies an
            integrated framework to assess the consistency between
            fiscal deficits and other macroeconomic targets, in
            particular output growth and the rate of inflation. The
            model centers around the government budget constraint and
            can be used to either derive the financeable deficit given
            inflation targets, or to derive an equilibrium inflation
            rate for which no fiscal ajdustment would be necessary. The
            model is used to analyze the relationship between inflation,
            external debt and financial sector reform in Turkey. The
            model can also be used to see what happens if the required
            fiscal adjustment is postponed. The authors explore two
            scenarios : one in which fiscal adjustment takes place
            eventually, and one in which the inflation tax is used
            eventually to close any financing gap.
Growth, debt, and sovereign risk in
            a small, open economy
The continuing debt crisis that many
            developing countries have faced in the current decade has
            underscored the need to understand the relationships between
            debt accumulation and growth, as well as the need to develop
            policy approaches that foster adjustment in the external
            account while maintaining the growth of output. The purpose
            of this paper is to develop a macroeconomic model for a
            small open developing economy that borrows abroad. This
            model will assist in studying the dynamic interaction
            between debt and growth, as well as the impact of various
            policies and exogenous shocks on the rate of capital
            accumulation, the current account and debt. From this
            analysis, the authors make the following conclusions. An
            upward shift in the supply of debt leads to a long run
            decline in external debt, a higher domestic interest rate,
            less capital stock, and a reduced trade surplus. An increase
            in the marginal cost of debt may or may not lower long run
            external debt as well. An increase in productivity raises
            the long run stock of capital but leaves the level of
            external debt and the interest rate unchanged in the long
            run. Finally, fiscal expansion has almost no effect in
            either the short run or the long run.