rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
A practical guide to managing
            systemic financial crises : a review of approaches taken in
            Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, and Thailand
The author examines experiences in
            Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, and Thailand in
            confronting systemic financial crises during the 1990s. He
            draws on the knowledge and experience of World Bank staff
            who managed the Bank's financial and technical
            assistance to those countries. In reviewing the principal
            actions taken by the governments to resolve the crises, the
            author describes key challenges that governments face in
            tackling crises, defines basic guidelines and principles for
            responding to those challenges, and proposes steps to
            improve the ability of governments to deal with crises when
            they do occur, as well as to mitigate the risk of crises in
            the first place. The author addresses matters such as the
            provision of liquidity, institutional arrangements for
            crisis resolution, use of public funds, diagnosis of
            problems, resolution, recapitalization, restructuring of
            banks, privatization of banks, restructuring of troubled
            debt, and use of asset management companies. He goes on to
            develop the conceptual underpinnings for two fundamental
            improvements in crisis management practices, one to develop
            an explicit, comprehensive crisis resolution strategy, and
            the second to link the provision of support to banks
            explicitly to the actual outcomes of troubled debt
            restructuring. A common theme in both is to maximize the
            impact of public funds used in crisis resolution. Finally
            the author identifies steps that governments can take to
            mitigate the risk of crisis and be better prepared to deal
            with shocks should they occur, including the use of
            contingency planning in the context of liquidity management
            and intervention in weak banks.
The spatial division of labor in Nepal
the authors examine how economic
            activity and market participation are distributed across
            space. Applying a nonparametric von Thunen model to Nepalese
            data, the authors uncover a strong spatial division of
            labor. Nonfarm employment is concentrated in and around
            cities, while agricultural wage employment dominates
            villages located further away. Vegetables are produced near
            urban centers. Paddy and commercial crops are more important
            at intermediate distances. Isolated villages revert to
            self-subsistence. The findings of the study are consistent
            with the von Thunen model of concentric specialization,
            corrected to account for city size. Spatial division of
            labor is closely related to factor endowments and household
            characteristics, especially at the local level.
Pooling, savings, and prevention -
            mitigating the risk of old age poverty in Chile
Using data collected in a survey on
            risk, and social insurance in Chile, the author funds that
            workers who entered the labor market after the pension
            reform of 1981, have a greater "contribution
            density" than those who contributed to the previous
            social security system. Further, the expectation of care
            from children, and the amount spent on their education,
            significantly lowers the likelihood of contribution to the
            pension system. Workers who have met the contributory
            requirements to qualify for the minimum pension guaranteed
            by the government, are significantly less likely to continue
            making contributions. The likelihood of contributions beyond
            the eligibility threshold being lowered further, the greater
            the market rental value of respondents' homes.
            Furthermore, individuals with a greater tolerance for risk
            contribute, suggesting that there are retirement security
            investments in Chile, that are perceived as relatively less
            risky than saving in the reformed pension system. The
            results indicate that housing could be one such investment.
Banking policy and macroeconomic
            stability - an exploration
Whether and when does banking serve to
            stabilize the economy? The authors view the banking system
            as a filter through which foreign and domestic shocks feed
            through to the domestic economy. The filter can dampen or
            amplify the shocks through various credit market channels,
            including credit growth, import of foreign capital, and
            possibly interest rates. The question is whether the
            prudential quality of banking, as proxied by measures of
            regulatory quality and openness to foreign banking, amplify
            or dampen these shocks. The authors find that many of the
            regulatory characteristics that have been found to deepen a
            financial system and make it more robust to crises-notably
            those which empower the private sector-also appear to reduce
            the sector's ability to provide short-term insulation
            to the macro-economy. It is as if prudent bankers are
            reluctant to absorb short-term risks that, if neglected,
            might cause solvency and growth problems in the longer run.
            Forbearance might dampen short-term volatility, but at the
            expense of the longer run health of the banking sector and
            the economy. One way to avoid this apparent tradeoff is
            evident: banking systems which have a higher share of
            foreign-owned banks, a feature already associated with
            financial deepening and lowered risk of crisis, also seem to
            score well in terms of short-term macroeconomic insulation.
Privatization in competitive sectors
            : the record to date
The paper reviews recent evidence on the
            impact of privatization. It focuses on traditional
            privatization efforts involving firms in competitive
            markets. It shows that privatization improves firms'
            financial and operating performance, yields positive fiscal
            and macroeconomic benefits (proceeds are saved rather than
            spent, transfers decline, and governments start collecting
            taxes from privatized firms), and improves overall welfare.
            The popular view that privatization always leads to layoffs
            is unfounded. While highly protected firms have seen
            significant declines in net employment, competitive firms
            generally experienced slight declines if any.
            Privatization's effects on wealth and income
            distribution have only recently been receiving the attention
            of analysts, and research is just getting underway. The
            paper highlights the conditions for successful
            privatization: strong political commitment combined with
            wider public understanding of and support for the process;
            creation of competitive markets through removal of entry and
            exit barriers, financial sector reforms that create
            commercially oriented banking systems, effective regulatory
            frameworks that reinforce the benefits of private ownership;
            transparency in the privatization process; and measures to
            mitigate adverse social and environmental effects.
Bankruptcy around the world -
            explanations of its relative use
The recent literature on law and finance
            has drawn attention to the importance of creditor rights in
            influencing the development of financial systems and in
            affecting firm corporate governance and financing patterns.
            Recent financial crises have also highlighted the importance
            of insolvency systems to resolve corporate sector financial
            distress. The literature and crises have emphasized the
            complex role of creditor rights, affecting not only the
            efficiency of ex-post resolution of distressed corporations,
            but also influencing ex-ante risk-taking incentives and an
            economy's degree of entrepreneurship more generally.
            The authors document how often bankruptcy is actually being
            used for a panel of 35 countries. Next they investigate the
            effects of specific design features of insolvency regimes in
            relation to the quality of the countries' overall
            judicial systems on the use of bankruptcy. The authors find,
            correcting for overall financial development and
            macroeconomic shocks, that bankruptcies are higher in
            Anglo-Saxon countries and in market-oriented financial
            systems characterized by weaker and multiple banking
            relationships. They also find that greater judicial
            efficiency is associated with more use of bankruptcy, but
            that the combination of stronger creditor rights with
            greater judicial efficiency leads to less use. The authors
            find that the presence of a "stay on assets" leads
            to fewer bankruptcies independent of the efficiency of the
            judicial system. These findings suggest that there are
            important incentive effects of insolvency systems
            encouraging less risky behavior and more out-of-court settlements.
Transforming the old into a
            foundation for the new - lessons of the Moldova ARIA Project
This paper is a case study of what is
            recognized as one of the more successful projects in any
            country in the Europe and Central Asia region, not to
            mention in the poorest country of the region-Moldova. The
            ARIA project shows new ways to attack some of the most
            intractable problems of private sector development in Europe
            and Central Asia: how to facilitate reorganization and
            liquidation bankruptcies; how to promote small and medium
            enterprise spin-offs and new start-ups; and how to promote
            new learning at the enterprise level, both in the form of
            "Marshall Plan" programs with more advanced
            post-socialist countries, as well as continuous improvement
            programs (such as those adapted from Japanese programs). The
            prime mover for these programs is the quasi-public
            restructuring agency, ARIA, which was established as part of
            the Moldova Private Sector Development I loan. ARIA was
            structured to try to combine private sector entrepreneurship
            with a public function in the process of restructuring and
            bankruptcy. The study tries to account for the strategies
            and innovations that lead to results. And it tries to
            connect the ARIA strategy to past development literature by
            viewing the study through Albert Hirschman's work on
            social learning and change.
Risks and macroeconomic impacts of
            HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa : why waiting
            to intervene can be costly
The authors develop a model of optimal
            growth to assess the risks of an HIV/AIDS epidemic and the
            expected economic impact in nine countries in the Middle
            East and North Africa region-Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran,
            Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen. The model
            incorporates an HIV/AIDS diffusion component based on two
            transmission factors-sexual intercourse and exchange of
            infected needles among intravenous drug users. Given high
            levels of uncertainty on the model parameters that determine
            the dynamics of the epidemic and its economic impact, the
            authors explore large regions of the parameter space. The
            prevalence rates in year 2015 would be below 1 percent in 16
            percent of the cases, while they would be above 3 percent in
            50 percent of the cases. On average, GDP losses across
            countries for 2000-2025 could approximate 35 percent of
            today's GDP. In all countries it is possible to observe
            scenarios where losses surpass today's GDP. The authors
            quantify the impact of expanding condom use and access to
            clean needles for intravenous drug users. They show that
            these interventions act as an insurance policy that
            increases social welfare. They also show that delaying
            action for five years can cost, on average, the equivalent
            of six percentage points of today's GDP.
The hidden costs of ethnic conflict
            - decomposing trends in educational outcomes of young Kosovars
The authors examine the impact of ethnic
            segmentation in education on educational outcomes. Between
            1991 and the late 1990s, the Albanian Kosovar population
            received education services in an informal system parallel
            to the official one. Using the 2000 Kosovo LSMS Survey data,
            the authors exploit cohort differences in exposure to the
            parallel system to estimate its effects among Albanian
            youth. The first (untreated) cohort includes individuals who
            entered secondary education before 1991 when the
            "parallel" education system was initiated. The
            second (treated) cohort includes individuals who entered
            secondary school in the last ten years under the ethnically
            segmented education system. To disentangle the effects of
            the changing system and economic environment, and the
            changes in the characteristics of the population, a
            Oaxaca-type decomposition is used. The results suggest that
            the past decade of ethnic tension has claimed a substantial
            toll on the educational outcomes of young male Albanian
            Kosovars. In addition to declines in enrollment rates in
            secondary education, those who are enrolled are expected to
            complete one less year of education. However, secondary
            school enrollment for girls increased during the parallel
            system, but with a sharp decline in the expected number of
            years completed.
Does Liberte = Egalite A survey of
            the empirical links between democracy and inequality with
            some evidence on the transition economies
The effect of the distribution of
            political rights on income inequality has been studied both
            theoretically and empirically. The authors review the
            existing literature and, in particular, the available
            empirical evidence. The literature suggests that formal
            exclusion from the political process through restrictions on
            the voting franchise appears to have caused a high degree of
            economic inequality. And democratization in the form of
            franchise expansion has typically led to an expansion in
            redistribution, at least in the small sample of episodes
            studied. In a less pronounced way, albeit more emphatically
            compared with the ambiguous results of earlier research,
            recent evidence indicates an inverse relationship between
            other measures of democracy, based on civil liberties and
            political rights, and inequality. The transition experience
            of Eastern European countries, however, seems to some extent
            go against these conclusions. This opens possible new vistas
            for research, namely the need to incorporate the length of
            democratic experience and the role played by ideology and
            social values
On the governance of public pension
            fund management
The author surveys the empirical
            literature on the relationship between governance of public
            pension fund management and investment performance. He makes
            a preliminary attempt to identify good governance practices
            and distill governance guidelines aimed at reducing the
            political risk that is associated with central, public
            pension fund management. The author highlights the need for
            further work to support the development of a satisfactory
            set of governance guidelines.
Returns to investment in education :
            a further update
Returns to investment in education based
            on human capital theory have been estimated since the late
            1950s. In the 40-plus year history of estimates of returns
            to investment in education, there have been several reviews
            of the empirical results in attempts to establish patterns.
            Many more estimates from a wide variety of countries,
            including over time evidence, and estimates based on new
            econometric techniques, reaffirm the importance of human
            capital theory. The suthors review and present the latest
            estimates and patterns as found in the literature at the
            turn of the century. However, because the availability of
            rate of return estimates has grown exponentially, the
            authors include a new section on the need for selectivity in
            comparing returns to investment in education and
            establishing related patterns.
Examining the feasibility of
            livestock insurance in Mongolia
Herders in Mongolia have suffered
            tremendous losses in recent dzud (winter disasters), with
            livestock mortality rates of over 50 percent in some
            locales. This study examines the feasibility of offering
            insurance to compensate for animal deaths. Such an
            undertaking is challenging in any country. Mongolia offers
            even more challenges given the vast territory in which
            herders tend over 30 million animals. Traditional approaches
            that insure individual animals are simply not workable. The
            opportunities for fraud and abuse are significant.
            Monitoring costs required to mitigate this behavior would be
            very high. This study focuses on the potential for using the
            livestock mortality rate at a local level (for example, the
            sum or rural district) as the basis for indemnifying
            herders. Applications of index insurance are growing around
            the world, although no country has so far implemented such
            insurance for livestock deaths. But few countries have such
            frequent and high rates of localized animal deaths as does
            Mongolia, and it is one of the few countries that perform an
            animal census every year. This concept may therefore be
            precisely what is needed to start a social livestock
            insurance program. Just as important, the insurance that is
            used in Mongolia should not interfere with the exceptional
            efforts that experienced herders take to save animals during
            severe weather. Using an individual insurance may, in fact,
            diminish these efforts. Herders may ask, "Why should I
            work so hard to save my animals if I will simply be
            compensated for those that are lost?" Since the index
            insurance would pay all herders in the same region the same
            rate, the incentives for management to mitigate livestock
            losses remain strong. No one would reduce their effort to
            collect on insurance. Those who increase their efforts
            during a major event (dzud) would likely be compensated for
            this effort even though they do not lose livestock. In some
            cases, they could reasonably expect to receive payments that
            would compensate for the added effort or the added cost of
            trying to save their livestock.
Privatization and labor force
            restructuring around the world
Some critics of privatization argue that
            poor labor force restructuring is a key concern and that
            governments should establish better retrenchment programs.
            Using new data from a sample of 400 companies in the world,
            Chong and Lopez-de-Silanes test competing theories about the
            wisdom of retrenchment programs and their effect on prices
            paid by buyers, and rehiring policies by private owners
            after privatization. The results show that adverse selection
            plagues retrenchment programs carried out by governments
            before privatization. Controlling for endogeneity, several
            labor retrenchment policies yield a negative impact on net
            privatization prices. In confirmation of the adverse
            selection argument, various types of voluntary downsizing
            lead to a higher frequency of rehiring of the same workers
            by the new private owners. Compulsory skill-based programs
            are the only type of program that is marginally associated
            with higher prices and lower rehiring rates after
            privatization, but the political and economic costs of this
            policy may make it somewhat impractical. While a qualified
            non-intervention policy appears to be the safest bet in
            labor retrenchment before privatization, another one might
            be to set up a social safety net or labor reallocation
            program before privatization, and then let the new private
            owners decide who is redundant and who is not. Setting up
            the program before privatization may help with the political
            viability of the process and letting the new owners manage
            the retrenchment may help avoid adverse selection.
Trends in the education sector from
            1993 - 98
Vietnam has achieved remarkably high
            rates of school enrollment and has maintained good social
            indicators (infant and under-five mortality rates, life
            expectancy, fertility rate, child nutrition, and access to
            basic services) compared to other countries with similar low
            income per capita. The author documents and analyzes changes
            in enrollment and education finance in Vietnam from 1993-98.
            Enrollment rates increased substantially, but the increases
            were not equally spread across different income groups,
            regions, gender, and ethnic groups. The higher the level of
            education, the larger the gap in school enrollment among
            different socioeconomic groups. Although school fees were no
            longer compulsory at the primary level, households paid for
            many other school-related items, such as books, uniforms,
            private tutors, lunch, and transportation. These costs are a
            significant financial burden on the poor. On the other hand,
            there is considerable variation in public spending per
            student across regions that, when coupled with variation in
            enrollment rates across regions, resulted in a not pro-poor
            public spending pattern, although public spending on primary
            education was neutral in 1998. Finally, the author
            investigates whether rates of return to education in the
            private wage sector changed in the 1990s. She concludes that
            returns to schooling increased substantially between 1992-93
            and 1997-98, especially at the upper secondary education and
            university levels.