rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Can student loans improve
            accessibility to higher education and student performance An
            impact study of the case of SOFES, Mexico
WPS3425

# **Can Student Loans Improve Accessibility to Higher Education and Student Performance?**

**An Impact Study of the Case of SOFES, Mexico**

Erik Canton<sup>a,b</sup> and Andreas Blom<sup>b</sup> a CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis b World Bank JEL: I2; J24

## **Abstract**

_Financial aid to students in tertiary education can contribute to human capital accumulation through two channels: increased enrollment and improved student performance. We analyze the quantitative importance of both channels in the context of a student loan program (SOFES) implemented at private universities in Mexico. With regard to the first channel, enrollment, results from the Mexican household survey indicate that financial support has a strong positive effect on university enrollment. Given completion of upper secondary education, the probability of entering higher education rises 24 percent. Two data sources are used to investigate the second channel, student performance. Administrative data provided by SOFES are analyzed using a regression-discontinuity design, and survey data enable us to perform a similar analysis using a different control group. Empirical results suggest that SOFES recipients show better academic performance than students without a credit from SOFES. However, the results cannot be interpreted as a purely causal impact of the student loan program, since the impacts also could reflect (self-) selection of students._

## World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3425, October 2004

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Policy Research Working Papers are available online at http://econ.worldbank.org._
Growth, inequality, and simulated
            poverty paths for Tanzania, 1992-2002
Although Tanzania experienced relatively
            rapid growth in per capita GDP in the 19952001 period,
            household budget survey (HBS) data show only a modest and
            statistically insignificant decline in poverty between 1992
            and 2001. To assess the likely trajectory of poverty rates
            over the course of the period, changes in poverty are
            simulated using unit-record HBS data and national accounts
            growth rates under varying assumptions for growth rates and
            inequality changes. To this end the projection approach of
            Datt and Walker (2002) is used along with an extension that
            is better suited to taking into account distributional
            changes observed between the two household surveys. The
            simulations suggest that following increases in poverty
            during the economic slowdown of the early 1990s, recent
            growth in Tanzania has brought a decline in poverty,
            particularly in urban areas. Unless recent growth is
            sustained, the country will not meet its 2015 Millennium
            Development Goal (MDG). Poverty reduction is on track in
            urban areas, but reaching the MDG target for bringing down
            poverty in rural areas, where most Tanzanians live, requires
            sustaining high growth in rural output per capita.
Bank capital and loan loss reserves
            under Basel II - implications for emerging countries
The authors propose an integrated
            approach to minimum bank capital, and loan loss reserves
            regulation. They break new ground in two main areas. First,
            the authors provide an explicit measurement of the credit
            loss distribution for a sample of emerging countries,
            providing a benchmark for discussing the appropriate
            calibration of new regulatory capital, and loan loss
            provision requirements for non-G10 countries. Second, on
            normative grounds, they propose a simplified version of the
            "internal rating based" (IRB) approach as a
            transition tool that, while retaining a risk-based
            definition of solvency ratios, implies reduced supervisory
            monitoring costs, and could therefore be of interest to
            emerging countries, where supervisory resources are
            particularly scarce.
Market discipline under systemic
            risk - evidence from bank runs in emerging economies
The authors show that systemic risk
            exerts a significant impact on the behavior of depositors,
            sometimes overshadowing their responses to standard bank
            fundamentals. Systemic risk can affect market discipline
            both regardless of and through bank fundamentals. First,
            worsening systemic conditions can directly threaten the
            value of deposits by way of dual agency problems. Second, to
            the extent that banks are exposed to systemic risk, systemic
            shocks lead to a future deterioration of fundamentals not
            captured by their current values. Using data from the recent
            banking crises in Argentina and Uruguay, the authors show
            that market discipline is indeed quite robust once systemic
            risk is factored in. As systemic risk increases, the
            informational content of past fundamentals declines. These
            episodes also show how few systemic shocks can trigger a run
            irrespective of ex-ante fundamentals. Overall, the evidence
            suggests that in emerging economies, the notion of market
            discipline needs to account for systemic risk.
Emerging infrastructure policy
            issues in developing countries - a survey of the recent
            economic literature
The author reviews the recent economic
            research on emerging issues for infrastructure policies
            affecting poor people in developing countries. His main
            purpose is to identify some of the challenges the
            international community, and donors in particular, are
            likely to have to address over the next few years. He
            addresses six main issues: (1) the necessity of
            infrastructure in achieving the Millennium Development
            Goals; (2) the various dimensions of financing challenges
            for infrastructure; (3) the debate on the relative
            importance of urban and rural infrastructure needs; (4) the
            debate on the effectiveness of infrastructure
            decentralization; (5) what works and what does not when
            trying to target the needs of the poor, with an emphasis on
            affordability and regulation challenges; and (6) the
            importance of governance and corruption in the sector. The
            author concludes by showing how the challenges identified
            define a relatively well integrated agenda for both
            researchers and the international infrastructure community.
Schooling and labor market impacts
            of a natural policy experiment
The authors use a nationally
            representative household survey to estimate returns to
            schooling in Venezuela from instrumental variables based on
            a supply-side intervention in the education market. These
            estimates apply to a subgroup of liquidity-constrained
            individuals, in the spirit of the Local Average Treatment
            Effect (LATE) literature. Returns to schooling estimates
            which apply to a subgroup of individuals affected by the
            policy intervention may be more interesting from a policy
            perspective than the return to the "average"
            individual. The authors use an instrument based on the 1980
            education reform (the Organic Law of Education) which
            provided for nine years of compulsory basic education. They
            also obtain alternative estimates using father's
            education as an instrument, in an attempt to derive high and
            low estimates of returns to schooling in Venezuela. The
            estimates are consistent with recent findings suggesting
            that the effect of education, at least for certain subgroups
            affected by a policy intervention, is as large, or larger
            than what is suggested by OLS estimates.
What are the right institutions in a
            globalizing world and... can we keep them if we have found them
Greater trade integration has often been
            viewed as requiring greater standardization in institutions,
            without which the benefits of trade do not materialize.
            There are many current debates concerning the degree and
            area of standardization needed and these debates are likely
            to continue for the foreseeable future. This paper, drawing
            on both the fiscal federalism and the trade literature,
            argues that increasing trade integration is consistent with
            a wide array of institutional choices. The final outcome, in
            terms of which institutions have prevailed, has depended
            substantially on political pressures for standardization and
            not necessarily on a clear assessment of economic gains.
Discovery and development : an
            empricial exploration of "new" products
The authors use disaggregated export
            data to explore the relationship between economic discovery
            and economic development. They find that discoveries, or
            episodes, when countries begin exporting a new product are
            not limited to so-called "dynamic" industries.
            Rather, they also occur in traditional sectors such as
            agriculture. In addition, the data suggest discovery is a
            component of the stages of productive diversification that
            occur with development, following a consistent
            pattern-discovery activity peaks at the lower-middle income
            level and then declines. Based on this pattern, the authors
            show that discovery in the 1990s occurred with a higher than
            expected frequency in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and
            lower than expected frequency in Sub-Saharan Africa.
            Discovery is not found to be a product of structural
            transformation based on changing factor endowments across
            income levels. Beyond export growth, population, and
            development, there are no significant and positive
            relationships between the expected drivers of
            entrepreneurship and the frequency of discovery. Combined
            with the finding that higher absorptive capacity and lower
            barriers to entry are associated with a reduction in
            discovery, this suggests that market failures arising from
            imitation and free-riding may be inhibiting the emergence of
            new export products in developing countries.
Import demand elasticities and trade distortions
To study the effects of tariffs on gross
            domestic product (GDP), one needs import demand elasticities
            at the tariff line level that are consistent with GDP
            maximization. These do not exist. The authors modify
            Kohli's (1991) GDP function approach to estimate demand
            elasticities for 4,625 imported goods in 117 countries.
            Following Anderson and Neary (1992, 1994) and Feenstra
            (1995), they use these estimates to construct theoretically
            sound trade restrictiveness indices, and GDP losses
            associated with existing tariff structures. Countries are
            revealed to be 30 percent more restrictive than their simple
            or import-weighted average tariffs would suggest. Thus,
            distortion is nontrivial. GDP losses are largest in China,
            Germany, India, Mexico, and the United States.
Regionalism in standards - good or
            bad for trade
Regional agreements on standards have
            been largely ignored by economists and unconditionally
            blessed by multilateral trade rules. The authors find,
            theoretically and empirically, that such agreements increase
            trade between participating countries but not necessarily
            with the rest of the world. Adopting a common standard in a
            region-that is, harmonization-boosts exports of excluded
            industrial countries to the region. But it reduces exports
            of excluded developing countries, possibly because
            developing country firms are hurt more by an increase in the
            stringency of standards and benefit less from economies of
            scale in integrated markets. Mutual recognition agreements
            are more uniformly trade promoting unless they contain
            restrictive rules of origin, in which case intra-regional
            trade increases at the expense of trade with other,
            especially developing, countries. The authors propose a
            modification of international trade rules to strike a better
            balance between the interests of integrating and excluded countries.
Creating a 21st Century national
            innovation system for a 21st Century Latvian economy
The Latvian economy made great strides
            in recovering from the economic shock of the early
            transition and the adverse aftereffects of the 1998 Russian
            financial crisis. Nevertheless, Latvia faces serious
            challenges to its future growth and prosperity despite these
            impressive achievements and the outward appearance of
            macroeconomic stability and economic progress. A wide
            variety of recent studies suggest that the Latvian economy
            is not particularly competitive and, even more worrisome,
            they indicate that Latvia is not well positioned to gain
            ground in the race for global competitiveness, prosperity,
            and rising standards of living. Most of Latvia's growth
            to date has come from one-off gains generated by structural
            reforms, privatization, and reallocating resources, not
            inexhaustible reservoirs of growth. Latvian enterprises will
            be able to sustain economic growth and create high wage jobs
            only by becoming internationally competitive, innovating,
            accumulating new knowledge and technology, and finding a
            high value added niche in the European and global division
            of labor. This paper is designed to help Latvian leaders
            develop a clear diagnosis of the innovation and
            competitiveness challenges facing Latvia as it prepares to
            enter the EU and, more important, design and implement
            policies and programs to ensure that Latvia reaps the
            maximum possible benefits from EU structural funds. Section
            II analyzes the current structure of Latvia's
            production, imports, and exports. Section III uses data from
            a number of competitiveness reports to benchmark
            Latvia's current progress against a number of
            comparator countries and to pinpoint Latvia's strengths
            and weaknesses as an innovative economy. Section IV offers a
            detailed list of potential policies and programs that could
            improve the competitiveness of Latvian enterprises and the
            efficiency of the Latvian National Innovation System. The
            recommendations include specific policies and programs to
            improve (1) the production of knowledge in Latvia, (2) the
            commercialization of technology produced by Latvian
            scientists, small companies, and research institutes, and
            (3) local firms' capacity to absorb, adapt, and adopt
            existing knowledge produced outside Latvia for use inside Latvia.
Creating a 21st Century national
            innovation system for a 21st Century Latvian economy
WPS3457

# **Creating a 21**<sup>**st**</sup> **Century National Innovation System for a 21**<sup>**st**</sup> **Century Latvian Economy**

**by**

**Alfred Watkins and  Natalia Agapitova**

Alfred Watkins Lead Private Sector Development Specialist Europe and Central Asia Region World Bank <u>awatkins@worldbank.org</u> 202-473-7277 Natalia Agapitova Consultant Europe and Central Asia Region World Bank <u>nagapitova@worldbank.org</u> World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3457, November 2004 _The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Policy Research Working Papers are available online at http://econ.worldbank.org._ We would like to thank William Maloney, Shahid Yusuf, and Yevgeny Kuznetsov from the World Bank, Tatyana Soubottina (tsoubbotina@hotmail.com), formerly of the World Bank Institute, and Tom Ruddy of Trykor Technology Corporation (www.trykor.com) for their time and extraordinarily helpful comments and suggestions.
The long-term legacy of the Khmer
            Rouge period in Cambodia
The author studies the long-term impact
            of genocide during the period of the Khmer Rouge (1975-79)
            in Cambodia and contributes to the literature on the
            economic analysis of conflict. Using mortality data for
            siblings from the Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey in
            2000, he shows that excess mortality was extremely high and
            heavily concentrated during 1974-80. Adult males had been
            the most likely to die, indicating that violent death played
            a major role. Individuals with an urban or educated
            background were more likely to die. Infant mortality was
            also at very high levels during the period, and disability
            rates from landmines or other weapons were high for males
            who, given their birth cohort, were exposed to this risk.
            The very high and selective mortality had a major impact on
            the population structure of Cambodia. Fertility and marriage
            rates were very low under the Khmer Rouge but rebounded
            immediately after the regime's collapse. Because of the
            shortage of eligible males, the age and education
            differences between partners tended to decline. The period
            had a lasting impact on the educational attainment of the
            population. The education system collapsed during the
            period, so individuals-especially males-who were of
            schooling age during this interval had a lower educational
            attainment than the preceding and subsequent birth cohorts.
The long-term legacy of the Khmer
            Rouge period in Cambodia
WPS3446

# **The Long-Term Legacy of the Khmer Rouge Period in Cambodia**

## **Damien de Walque**

ddewalque@worldbank.org

### **Development Research Group**

### **The World Bank**

### World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3446, November 2004

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Policy Research Working Papers are available online at http://econ.worldbank.org._

### **_______________**

I thank Tim Conway, Monica Das Gupta, Deon Filmer, John Gibson, Patrick Heuveline, Jennifer Hunt, Biju Rao, Ritva Reinikka, Norbert Schady, Filip Verwimp, seminar participants at the World Bank and conference participants at the NEUDC 2004 in Montreal for useful comments and discussions.
Economic volatility and returns to
            education in Venezuela : 1992-2002
Preliminary evidence suggests that the
            rates of return to education in Venezuela have been
            declining since the 1970s. The authors rigorously estimate
            the returns to education in Venezuela for the period
            1992-2002, and link them to earlier available estimates from
            the 1980s. They use consistent cross-sections from the
            "Encuesta de Hogares por Muestreo" (Household
            Survey) to document falling returns to schooling, and
            educational levels until the mid-1990s, followed by
            increased returns thereafter. The authors use quantile
            regression analysis to provide further insight into and
            within skill group changes in returns over time.
Labor market distortions,
            rural-urban inequality, and the opening of China's economy
The authors evaluate the impact of two
            key factor market distortions in China on rural-urban
            inequality and income distribution. They find that creation
            of a fully functioning land market has a significant impact
            on rural-urban inequality. This reform permits agricultural
            households to focus solely on the differential between farm
            and non-farm returns to labor in determining whether to work
            on or off-farm. This gives rise to an additional 10 million
            people moving out of agriculture by 2007 and lends a
            significant boost to the incomes of those remaining in
            agriculture. This off-farm migration also contributes to a
            significant rise in rural-urban migration, thereby lowering
            urban wages, particularly for unskilled workers. As a
            consequence, rural-urban inequality declines significantly.
            The authors find that reform of the Hukou system has the
            most significant impact on aggregate economic activity, as
            well as income distribution. Whereas the land market reform
            primarily benefits the agricultural households, this
            reform's primary beneficiaries are the rural households
            currently sending temporary migrants to the city. By
            reducing the implicit tax on temporary migrants, Hukou
            reform boosts their welfare and contributes to increased
            rural-urban migration. The combined effect of both factor
            market reforms is to reduce the urban-rural income ratio
            dramatically, from 2.59 in 2007 under the authors'
            baseline scenario to 2.27. When viewed as a combined policy
            package, along with WTO accession, rather than increasing
            inequality in China, the combined impact of product and
            factor market reforms significantly reduces rural-urban
            income inequality. This is an important outcome in an
            economy currently experiencing historic levels of
            rural-urban inequality.