rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
A little engine that could: domestic
            private companies and Vietnams pressing need for wage
            employment : A little engine that could: domestic private
            companies and Vietnam�s pressing need for wage employment
## WPS2873

# **A little Engine that Could ...: Domestic Private Companies and Vietnam’s Pressing Need for Wage Employment**

**Liesbet Steer Markus Taussig**

**The World Bank, Vietnam**

World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2873, August 2002 _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._
Federal politics and budget
            deficits: evidence from the states of India
This paper tests two predictions implied
            by models of the common-pool game in federations where
            subnational governments are more likely to have higher
            deficits because they do not internalize the macroeconomic
            effects of fiscal profligacy. The first is that subnational
            governments that belong to the same political party as the
            central government have lower spending and deficits because
            they are more likely to be influenced to internalize the
            macroeconomic effects of additional local spending; and the
            second is that subnational governments that are more
            dependent on intergovernmental transfers have higher
            spending and deficits. We find that in 15 major states of
            India over the period 1972-1995, states in fact have
            substantially higher spending and deficits (higher by about
            10 percent of the sample average) when their government
            belongs to the same party as that governing at the center;
            and that intergovernmental grants tend to have a
            counter-intuitive negative effect on spending and deficits.
            The additional deficit of affiliated states is financed
            almost entirely by additional loans from the central
            government (as opposed to the market) leading to our
            interpretation that similar political considerations
            influence the distribution of deficits across states as they
            do other intergovernmental grants. We argue that the
            evidence from India, contrasted with broader international
            evidence, indicates that the effect of fiscal institutions
            in a federation is sensitive to underlying political
            incentives. This underscores the overall importance of
            political institutions in determining the consolidated
            government deficit, relative to specific rules of
            intergovernmental transfers.
Federal politics and budget
            deficits: evidence from the states of India
WPS2915

# **Federal Politics and Budget Deficits: Evidence from the States of India**

## Stuti Khemani

Development Research Group World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20433 skhemani@worldbank.org World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2915, October 2002 _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._ Support from the World Bank’s Research Committee is gratefully acknowledged. I also thank Gunnar Eskeland, Stephen Howes, Shahrokh Fardoust, Edgardo Favaro, Manuela Ferro, Jonathan Rodden, and participants of the World Bank Economists Forum, April 30, 2002, for helpful comments.
Do market pressures induce economic
            efficiency The case of Slovenian manufacturing, 1994-2001
The Slovenian transition represents a
            slow, but steady liberalization of constraints on
            competition. Using a unique longitudinal data set on all
            manufacturing firms in Slovenia over the period 1994-2001,
            the authors analyze how firm efficiency changed, in response
            to changing competitive pressures, holding constant firm
            attributes. Results show that the period was one of
            atypically rapid growth of total factor productivity (TFP),
            relative to levels in OECD countries, and that the rise in
            firm efficiency occurs across almost all industries and firm
            types - large or small, state or private, and domestic or
            foreign-owned. Changes in firm ownership type, have no
            impact on firm efficiency. Rather, competitive pressures
            that sort out inefficient firms of all types, and retain the
            most efficient, coupled with the entry of new private firms
            that are at least as efficient as surviving firms, prove to
            be the major source of TFP gains. Market competition from
            new entrants, foreign-owned firms, and international trade,
            also raise firm efficiency in the industry. Results strongly
            confirm that market competition fosters efficiency.
Donor fragmentation and bureaucratic
            quality in aid recipients
This paper analyzes the impact of donor
            fragmentation on the quality of government bureaucracy in
            aid-recipient nations. A formal model of a donor's
            decision to hire government administrators to manage
            donor-funded projects predicts that the number of
            administrators hired declines as the donor's share of
            other projects in the country increases, and as the
            donor's "altruism" (concern for the success
            of other donors' projects) increases. These hypotheses
            are supported by cross-country empirical tests using an
            index of bureaucratic quality available for aid-recipient
            nations over the 1982-2001 period. Declines in bureaucratic
            quality are associated with higher donor fragmentation
            (reflecting the presence of many donors, each with a small
            share of aid), and with smaller shares of aid coming from
            multilateral agencies, a proxy for donor "altruism."
Quantifying the impact of services
            liberalization in a developing country
The authors consider how service
            liberalization differs from goods liberalization in terms of
            welfare, the level and composition of output, and factor
            prices within a developing economy, in this case Tunisia.
            Despite recent movements toward liberalization, Tunisian
            service sectors remain largely closed to foreign
            participation and are provided at high cost relative to many
            developing nations. The authors develop a computable general
            equilibrium (CGE) model of the Tunisian economy with
            multiple products and services and three trading partners.
            They model goods liberalization as the unilateral removal of
            product tariffs. Restraints on services trade involve both
            restrictions on cross-border supply (mode 1 in the GATS) and
            on foreign ownership through foreign direct investment (mode
            3 in the GATS). The former are modeled as tariff-equivalent
            price wedges while the latter are comprised of both
            monopoly-rent distortions (arising from imperfect
            competition among domestic producers) and inefficiency costs
            (arising from a failure of domestic service providers to
            adopt least-cost practices). They find that goods-trade
            liberalization yields a gain in aggregate welfare and
            reorients production toward sectors of benchmark comparative
            advantage. However, a reduction of services barriers in a
            way that permits greater competition through foreign direct
            investment generates larger welfare gains. Service
            liberalization also requires lower adjustment costs,
            measured in terms of sectoral movement of workers, than does
            goods-trade liberalization. And it tends to increase
            economic activity in all sectors and raise the real returns
            to both capital and labor. The overall welfare gains of
            comprehensive service liberalization amount to more than 5
            percent of initial consumption. The bulk of these gains come
            from opening markets for finance, business services, and
            telecommunications. Because these are key inputs into all
            sectors of the economy, their liberalization cuts costs and
            drives larger efficiency gains overall. The results point to
            the potential importance of deregulating services provision
            for economic development.
Greenfield foreign direct investment
            and mergers and acquisitions - feedback and macroeconomic effects
Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to
            developing countries surged in the 1990s to become their
            leading source of external financing. This rise in FDI
            volume was accompanied by a marked change in its
            composition: investment taking the form of acquisition of
            existing assets (mergers and acquisitions) grew much more
            rapidly than investment in new assets
            ("greenfield" FDI), particularly in countries
            undertaking extensive privatization of public enterprises.
            This raises two issues. First, is the mergers and
            acquisitions boom a one-time effect of privatization, or is
            it likely to be followed by a rise in greenfield investment?
            Second, do these two types of FDI have different
            macroeconomic causes and consequences in relation to
            aggregate investment and growth? The authors focus on
            establishing the stylized facts in terms of time precedence
            between both types of FDI, investment, and growth, using
            annual data for the period 1987-2001 and a large sample of
            industrial and developing countries. The authors find that
            in all samples, higher mergers and acquisitions is typically
            followed by higher greenfield investment, while the reverse
            is true only for developing countries. In industrial and
            developing countries alike, both types of FDI lead domestic
            investment, but not the reverse. Finally, neither type of
            FDI appears to precede economic growth in developing or
            industrial countries, but FDI does respond positively to
            increases in the growth rate.
On the measurement of solvency of
            insurance companies : recent developments that will alter
            methods adopted in emerging markets
Solvency-both as an economic requirement
            in the market and as a regulatory and supervisory tool-is
            critical to all insurance markets. Current market
            conditions, coupled with expected institutional changes,
            will place particular burdens on emerging and developing
            markets. Institutional solvency, effective risk management
            within companies, effective supervisory oversight, and the
            development of market disciplines are all linked. The author
            proposes that the effective implementation of the emerging
            regime needs a careful and diligent phased process of
            capacity-building. The first priorities are identified as a
            strong supervisor, a basic solvency margin requirement, and
            the initiation of efforts to gather appropriate data sets.
            This can be followed by advancing development of more
            sophisticated solvency regulation, increased use of
            technical expertise, and increased use of market disciplines
            as the community and financial markets become more able to
            exercise such discipline.
Groundnut policies, global trade
            dynamics, and the impact of trade liberalization
Groundnut products are of central
            economic importance to millions of smallholders in Africa,
            India, and Southern China. The products generate 60 percent
            of rural cash income and account for about 70 percent of the
            rural labor force in Senegal and The Gambia. Groundnut trade
            is heavily distorted, and this has affected the competitive
            position of various players in world markets. Using a
            partial-equilibrium, multi-market, international model, the
            authors analyze the trade and welfare effects of several
            groundnut trade liberalization scenarios compared with the
            recent historical baseline. They evaluate net welfare as the
            sum of consumers' equivalent variation, quasi-profits
            in farming, quasi-profits in crushing, and taxpayers'
            revenues and outlays implied by distortions. The authors
            find that trade liberalization in groundnut markets has a
            strong South-South dimension with policies in India, and to
            a lesser extent China, heavily depressing the world prices
            of groundnut products at the expense of smaller developing
            countries mainly located in Africa. Under free trade,
            African exporters would gain because they are net sellers of
            groundnut products. In India, consumers would be better off
            with lower consumer prices resulting from the removal of
            prohibitive tariffs and large imports of groundnut products.
            The cost of adjustment would fall on Indian farmers and
            crushers. In China, crush margins would improve because of
            the large terms of trade effects in the groundnut oil market
            relative to the seed market. China's groundnut product
            exports would expand dramatically. Net buyers of groundnut
            products in OECD countries would be worse off. The authors
            draw implications for the Doha negotiations.
Groundnut policies, global trade
            dynamics, and the impact of trade liberalization
WPS3226

# **Groundnut Policies, Global Trade Dynamics and the Impact of Trade Liberalization**

Ndiame Diop, John Beghin, and Mirvat Sewadeh* World Bank

## World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3226, March 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._

*N. Diop is an economist with the Trade Department, J. Beghin is a professor of economics at Iowa State University, and M. Sewadeh is a consultant with the Trade Department. The authors thank Ataman Aksoy, John Baffes, Harry de Gorter, Eric Dohlman, Fred Gale, Cheng Fang, Ashok Gulati, Dinghuan Hu, Steve Jaffee, Holger Matthey, Don Mitchell, Gary Pursell, and Funing Zhong for comments and information.

1
Housekeeping and plumbing - the
            investability of emerging markets
The authors look at the investment
            allocation process employed by portfolio investors in
            emerging markets. In particular, they examine the first of a
            two-stage decision process: first, investors create a subset
            of countries with investments potential, to be analyzed
            later in further detail; second, they weigh expected returns
            versus risk and subsequently allocate their funds. The
            authors hypothesize that the determination of whether a
            country has potential investment opportunities, or not is
            influenced by a number of factors, especially related to
            size, quality of "housekeeping," (macroeconomic
            policies, political economy, local financial markets,
            corporate governance, and so on), and efficiency of
            "plumbing" (legal and regulatory framework,
            custody, clearing and settlement, taxes, and so on). By
            interviewing many types of these investors in both the
            United States and the United Kingdom, the authors delve into
            their decision-making processes, as well as attempt to
            uncover the factors they indicate, matter most in defining
            the "investment opportunities" universe. They
            determine the relative importance of such housekeeping, and
            plumbing factors while highlighting the role of external
            issues, such as index benchmarking and U.S. foreign policy.
            The authors recognize from the outset that the most profound
            effects on investment flows, or the required minimum
            expected returns, arise from improvements or deteriorations
            in macroeconomic policies. However, at the margin,
            improvements can be made in country policies that will, for
            a given macroeconomic situation, improve the ability of a
            country to attract international investment flows.
Inefficient lobbying, populism and oligarchy
The authors investigate the theoretical
            effects of lobbying and pressure group activities on both
            economic efficiency and on equity. Looking at lobbying as a
            political activity that takes place alongside production,
            they find that lobbies may generate economic inefficiency as
            part of the process of shifting the allocation of government
            expenditures in their favor. Outcomes of this non-electoral
            political process will always be biased toward the group
            with a comparative advantage in politics, rather than in
            production. In a context where the main political conflict
            is one between "the rich" and "the
            poor," political equilibria may be either populist
            (inefficiently pro-poor) or oligarchic (inefficiently
            pro-rich), depending on each group's lobbying effectiveness.
Banking in developing countries in
            the 1990s
During the 1990s commercial bank
            deposits and capital rose relative to GDP in the major
            developing countries. This rise largely reflected the
            dramatic fall in inflation of the 1990s and financial
            liberalization. But much of this growth in banks'
            loanable funds was absorbed by increased net holdings of
            central bank debt and of government debt. Much of the rise
            in government debt reflected post-crisis restructurings,
            notably in Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico, but rising
            deficits also played a role. Bank intermediation between
            depositors and private sector borrowers remained limited in
            many countries despite financial liberalization. The
            post-crisis restructurings raise two important issues: the
            poor performance of loans that was revealed by the crises
            and the future crowding-out that will result from the
            spreading-out of the cost of the crisis over time and the
            inability to retire the restructuring-related debt. The
            absorption of deposits in nonprivate sector credit, the
            growth of offshore finance of the private sector, and the
            poor performance of loans suggest a weakening of the link
            between the traditional measure of financial depth, M2/GDP,
            and economic growth and development. The changes in the
            1990s also raise issues such as the potential for future
            deposit growth, the riskiness of bank portfolios,
            banks' increased dependence on government solvency, the
            access to credit for firms unable to access global markets,
            the foreign exchange exposure of countries, and the
            implications of the ongoing changes in regulation and supervision.
Financial development, growth, and
            poverty: how close are the links
The causal link between finance and
            growth is one of the most striking empirical macroeconomic
            relationships uncovered in the past decade. As this branch
            of the literature matures, the focus shifts from growth to
            other aspects of economic prosperity, and from financial
            depth to multidimensional measures of financial development.
            The author reviews the evolution of the literature and
            contributes by: Showing that financial depth is negatively
            associated with headcount poverty, even after taking account
            of mean income and inequality. Illustrating the pitfalls in
            equating financial development with financial depth.
            Proposing alternative measures of financial development
            that, though summary, capture its multidimensional nature.
Environmental determinants of child
            mortality in rural china : A competing risks approach :
            Environmental determinants of child mortality in rural
            china: A competing risks approach
We use a competing risk model to analyze
            environmental determinants of child mortality using the 1992
            China National Health Survey, which collects information on
            cause of death. Our primary question is whether taking into
            account of cause of death using a competing risk model,
            compared with a simple model of all-cause mortality, affects
            conclusions about the effectiveness of policy interventions.
            There are two potential analytical advantages in using cause
            of death information: (1) obtaining more accurate estimates
            and (2) validating causal relationships. Although, we do not
            find significant differences between estimates obtained from
            the competing risk model and those from simpler hazard
            models, we do find evidence supporting the causal
            interpretations of the effect of access to safe water on
            child mortality. Our analysis also suggests that a
            respondent-based health survey can be used to collect
            relatively reliable information on cause of death. Modifying
            future demographic and health survey (DHS) instruments to
            collect cause of death information inexpensively may be
            worthwhile for enhancing the analytical strength of the DHS.