rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Structural adjustment, ownership
            transformation, and size in Polish industry
The authors argue that significant
            adjustment took place in Polish industry after Poland's
            1990 reforms. They analyze data on two- and three-digit
            manufacturing industries, disaggregated by firm ownership
            and size. By applying a statistical model to labor
            productivity growth, they try to disentangle structural
            determinants of the recovery from cyclical determinants.
            They contend that structural determinants outweigh cyclical
            ones. They find that the productive response of state
            enterprises was markedly different from that of private
            firms--private firms outperformed state enterprises (just as
            anecdotal evidence suggested). Size also matters, at least
            among private firms. Generally, there seem to be increasing
            returns to scale for private firms, except for very large
            enterprises (many of which were previously state-owned and
            may need further restructuring). The fact that size does not
            appear to matter among public enterprises suggests that
            several of them have not yet adopted optimal technologies
            and production processes.
Globalization : a new role for
            developing countries in an integrating world
The author reviews trends and
            developments in world trade, investigating the elements
            involved in the accelerated integration of world trade
            rights in the past decade. He explores what conditions and
            policy initiatives make it easier for countries to benefit
            from global trade and capital flows, and concludes: (1)
            World trade relative to world income has grown more in the
            1990s than in the 1970s or 1980s, mainly due to: (a) the
            desynchronization of business cycles in Japan, Europe and
            the United States; (b) the expanded role in world trade of
            developing countries; and (c) the transfer of purchasing
            power that supported heightened import demand among
            developing countries. (2) Measured as the ratio of trade to
            output, the trend toward global integration accelerated
            sharply in the mid-1980s. A wave of liberalization among
            low- and middle-income countries resulted in a shift from an
            inward-oriented development strategy to an outward-oriented
            one. (3) World trade will grow more than 6 percent a year
            (on average) in the coming decade, although prospects for
            trade integration differ by region. (4) Balanced
            integration--with export and import capacities expanding
            sustainably--can be achieved only through policies that
            encourage long-term productive investment in the export sector.
Capital flows to Latin America : Is
            there evidence of contagion effects
Mexico's economic crisis in
            December 1994 gave renewed importance to the issue of
            "spillover" or "contagion" effects in
            other emerging market economies (and their sensitivity to
            events in larger countries in the region.)  They focus on
            how small open economies are affected by their
            neighbors' ecomomic developments and what role
            financial markets play in the transmission of disturbances.
            They find that:  (1) There was evidence of increased
            comovement across weekly equity and Brady bond returns for
            emerging markets in Latin America after the Mexican crisis.
            Such comovement could be seen as evidence of herding
            behavior among investors, or as a result of the effect on
            stock prices in other markets when a few large investors in
            one market sell off equities to raise cash.  (2) Contagion
            may be more regional than global--the degree of comovement
            after the crisis increased in both Asia and Latin America,
            but regional patterns differed. (3) International capital
            movements are all significantly affected by swings in
            interest rates in the United States.  Other things being
            equal, increases in U.S. interest rates are associated with
            capital outflows from Latin America.  Large and small
            countries are equally vulnerable.  (4) Developments in large
            countries influence the capital account balance of all
            countries in the region through a more persistent form of
            contagion than that associated with a crisis.  Other things
            being equal, capital flows in and out of large countries in
            a region tend to encourage flows affecting the smaller
            countries, although capital developments in small countries
            appear to have no systematic impact on larger countries.
            (5)  Smaller Latin American countries appear to be affected
            more by developments in a core set of countries in a region
            than by developments in a single country.
Why is unemployment low in the
            former Soviet Union : enterprises restructuring and the
            structure of compensation
The authors explain why in the Former
            Soviet Union (FSU) - especially Russia - unemployment has
            remained low and employment in state and privatized firms
            has remained high, while at the same time the informal or
            unofficial economy has grown swiftly.  They trace this
            development to a combination of factors, including the
            control regime of state and privatized firms, the nature of
            worker compensation, and privatized firms, and the nature of
            subsidies or financial supports that firms continue to
            receive.  Firms have remained the primary site for social
            protection.  Subsidies for social benefits have effectively
            been a subsidy to employment and have promoted the
            workers' continuing attachment to these firms.  Partly
            because the subsidies still flow and partly because of the
            firms' internal control structure, firms have held back
            on shedding labor.  Firms typically work at low capacity.
            Instead of laying workers off, they significantly cut hours
            and wages, sometimes through wage arrears.  The share of
            worker compensation that is nonmonetary had grown during the
            transition, and is significant.  So workers search for
            additional sources of income, either moonlight or get
            involved in the informal economy.  Why has this happened?
            Privatization has so far failed to keep firms from behaving
            as if they have important social responsibilities.  Managers
            may have more discretion in decisionmaking, but seem to be
            reluctant to fire workers.  This  reluctance reflects
            various pressures, including insider coalitions and pressure
            from local and federal governments to limit the flow to
            unemployment.  One factor may be the need to keep workers
            cooperative and possibly repel outsider interest.  And in
            the FSU, many firms continue to operate under soft budget
            constraints, so they are under less pressure to reduce
            employment levels than firms in Eastern and Central Europe.
            The authors show that under certain conditions if the
            subsidy to insider-dominated firms disappears, those firms
            will scale down employment and the provision of benefits.
            In a firm with two divisions - one that produces and one
            that provides benefits - the dominant (producing ) division
            will tend to close down the benefits-providing division if
            the firm assumes a simple majority decision rule.
The benefits of alternative power
            tariffs for Nigeria and Indonesia
The authors present simulation results
            on the benefits of alternative power tariffs for Nigeria and
            Indonesia, based on several closely related models of the
            firm.  Nigeria is representative of developing countries
            where the public sector is inefficient and manufacturers
            provide their own electricity to compensate for that
            inefficiency.  The use of private generators by Nigerian
            manufacturers is virtually ubiquitous, even though the
            government, to protect its monopoly, did not encourage that
            use in the 1980s.  About 89 percent of a sample of Nigerian
            firms produced some of their power needs internally.  But
            many large firms underused their power plants because of the
            substantial quantity discounts public power offered to large
            manufacturers.  By contrast, in Indonesia, manufacturers
            were offered only slight quantity discounts for public
            power.  Indonesia has encouraged manufacturers to produce
            their own power.  About 61 percent of Indonesian
            manufacturers produced some power internally.  Generally, in
            both countries firms purchase some power from the public
            sector at a quantity discount (slight in Indonesia,
            considerable in Nigeria) and also produce power internally
            at a declining marginal cost.  The reliability of public
            power declines as the total quantity purchased increases,
            because transmission gets congested.  Simulations confirm
            that an increasing block tariff is optimal in each country
            and produces savings in the cost of producing public power
            and in firms'  operating costs (including the
            firm's cost of producing power internally).  Under
            increasing block tariffs, firms that purchase more public
            power would be charged higher marginal prices than firms
            that purchase less.  Large firms respond to the increasing
            block tariff by expanding their generating capacity and
            reducing their reliance on public power, while smaller firms
            contract their capacities and buy more from the public
            sector.  When congestion in transmission persists, cost
            savings are higher as the increasing block tariff reduces
            total use of public power which in turn improves
            reliability.  In Nigeria, where strong quantity discounts
            are offered, total costs savings (for NEPA and
            manufacturers) under 1989 conditions are about 4 percent
            without congestion and increase to 9 percent when there is
            some congestion.  In Indonesia, where quantity discounts are
            mild, increasing the block tariff produces only slight cost savings.
Costs of infrastructure deficiencies
            in manufacturing in Indonesia, Nigeria, and Thailand
Using fresh results from a sample survey
            of manufacturing establishments in Indonesia and Thailand,
            the authors contrast and compare with data from an earlier
            study on Nigeria.  They compare especially: the extent and
            incidence of public infrastructure deficiencies; the extent
            of manufacturers' private provision of infrastructure
            in response to such deficiencies; the capital shares of
            various private infrastructure investments, including
            electric power, water, telecommunications, transport, and
            waste disposal; and the firms' costs for producing
            their own electricity and water.  The extent of public
            infrastructure deficiencies and private provision of
            infrastructure services varies across countries and by firm
            size.  The total share of capital investment in private
            infrastructure was similar among Nigerian and Indonesian
            firms (14 - 16 percent) which is twice that in Thai firms.
            The private costs of infrastructure deficiencies are
            substantial and the burdens are much greater on small firms
            than on large firms.
Infrastructure bottlenecks, private
            provision, and industrial productivity : a study of
            Indonesian and Thai cities
This research project followed an
            earlier similar project on Nigeria, applying the same
            methods. A sample of manufacturers was surveyed to document
            their responses to infrastructure deficiencies in
            electricity, water, transport, telecommunications, and waste
            disposal. They found the manufacturers undertook significant
            expenditures to offset deficiencies in publicly provided
            infrastructure services, and that changing public policy
            toward privately supplied infrastructure and changing the
            pricing of public infrastructure could yield significant
            savings in social costs. Thailand and Indonesia have made
            significant strides in following the policies for private
            sector participation in infrastructure provision. Nigeria,
            where public infrastructure monopolies still dominate, lags
            behind, yet stands to benefit most from such policy reform.
            Government policy toward the industrial organization and
            pricing of infrastructure sectors can significantly help a
            developing economy realize the benefits of private sector
            participation in the provision of infrastructure services.
Economic implications for Turkey of
            a customs union with the European Union
Turkey and the European Union (EU) have
            agreed to implement a customs union. This means Turkey will
            eliminate its tariffs and levies on imports on manufactured
            products from the EU. Turkey will also apply EU's
            "common external tariff" on imports from third
            countries. Turkey will be obligated by 20001 to provide
            preferential access to its markets to all countries to which
            the EU grants such access. Since Turkey is both eliminating
            tariffs on EU imports and reducing tariffs on imports from
            third countries, it will become a rather open economy in
            nonagricultural sectors. And since preferential access
            agreements with third countries will typically be
            reciprocal, Turkish exporters can expect improved access to
            those markets. According to the authors, Turkey's
            biggest gains from the customs union arrangement will come
            from this improved access to third country markets. Using a
            comparative static computable general equilibrium model of
            Turkey, they estimate that Turkey stands to gain between 1
            and 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) annually
            from the customs union arrangement with the EU, depending on
            what complementary policies it adopts. They also estimate
            that lost tariff revenues will amount to 1.4 percent of GDP.
            For Turkey to avoid worsening its fiscal deficit, it must
            find ways to reduce expenditures or increase revenues. Its
            best choice is to reduce expenditures through accelerating
            privatization of state-owned enterprises which will generate
            a number of macroeconomic and efficiency benefits in
            addition to the fiscal benefits. If a value-added tax (VAT)
            is used as a replacement tax, they estimate that VAT rates
            must increase 16.2 percent in each sector to compensate for
            the revenue losses from implementing the full customs union.
            But uniform application of the VAT would allow the VAT rates
            to fall while still compensating for the loss from reduced
            tariffs and would increase the welfare gain from the customs union.
Does public capital crowd out
            private capital : evidence from India
A recent but rapidly growing empirical
            literature focuses on the relationship between public and
            private capital.  But for the most part, it ignores the
            heterogeneity of public investment.  In many countries,
            especially in the developing world, public investment
            includes not only basic infrastructure projects, but also
            commercial and industrial projects similar to those
            undertaken by the private sector.  And those two types of
            public investment are likely to have quite different effects
            on the accumulation of private capital.  Using data from
            India, the author examines this issue empirically by
            implementing a simple analytical model encompassing two
            types of public capital.  The empirical results show that in
            the long run capital for public infrastructure projects
            crowds in private capital - other types of public capital
            have the opposite effect.  But in the short run, both kinds
            of public investment may crowd out private investment.
Growth, globalization, and gains
            from the Uruguay Round
Emphasizing the importance of evaluating
            the Uruguay Round in the context of a changing world
            economy, the authors base their projections on a model that
            incorporates certain economic shifts: 1) that the center of
            economic gravity will shift toward the South and toward Asia
            (a shift that is already under way and shows no signs of
            abating), and 2) that the pattern of comparative advantage
            will continue to change, with the East Asian economies
            gaining comparative advantage in the production of physical
            and human-capital-intensive products. The authors argue that
            these changes in the global economy significantly affect
            their analysis of the Uruguay round reforms, for two
            reasons. First, with the global distribution of trade and
            production shifting toward Asia, the deeper Uruguay Round
            cuts in that region become more important, giving rise to a
            17 percent increase in the proportionate welfare gain after
            implementation of tariff cuts. Second, without the Round,
            almost all of the bilateral quotas associated with the
            Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) would have become more binding
            and the resulting distortion would have been significantly
            greater. In this analysis, the global gain from MFA reform
            is 60 percent greater than it would have been without taking
            into account the effects of growth. Of course, procedures
            for implementation of the MFA reforms are more complex than
            they have conveyed for purposes of analysis. In practice,
            one must also consider the impact of accel quota growth
            under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. But even when
            the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing is implemented over
            the period for which projections were made, quota rents rise
            for many bilateral flows. This is a consequence both of
            shifts in comparative advantage toward the supplying
            countries and of simultaneous cuts in tariffs on textiles
            and clothing. The projections approach used here may be
            viewed as a logical extension of the growing econometric
            literature seeking to explain the determinants of economic
            growth through regression analysis. By offering a bridge
            between econometric evidence and computable general
            equilibrium modeling, the authors hope to combine the two
            approaches to help shed light on the interaction between
            trade reform and economic growth.
Stock market and investment : the
            signaling role of the market
The author examines the role of the
            stock market as a signal to managers in undertaking capital
            expenditures.  He concludes that while both managerial and
            market perceptions are integral, managerial perception is of
            greater importance.  The evidence suggeststhat, as a
            statistic, the Q ratio is not sufficient to explain
            firms' capital expenditure decisions.  Thus, the
            standard Q model of investment should be modified to provide
            a more meaningful description of a firm's capital
            spending decisions.  Overall, the results suggest that stock
            market activity has only limited implications for the
            economy's resource allocation process.  Evidence for
            the Q theory of investment confirms previous findings in the
            literature that the model's poor empirical perfomance
            was partly the result of using aggregate data for the whole
            economy.   Also, since market perception plays only a
            limited role in determining capital expenditures,
            shareholder myopia is unlikely to result in managerial
            myopia.  The implications for developing countries are:
            while the stock market may not be central to a firm's
            capital spending decisions, it is not a sideshow either.
            The market plays an important signaling role for managers.
            This is a powerful rationale for financial reform and
            capital development in developing countries.  The results
            also suggest that complaints that stock market activity
            leads to misallocation of resources may be exaggerated.