rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Eliciting probabilistic expectations
            with visual aids in developing countries : how sensitive are
            answers to variations in elicitation design
Eliciting subjective probability
            distributions in developing countries is often based on
            visual aids such as beans to represent probabilities and
            intervals on a sheet of paper to represent the support. The
            authors conducted an experiment in India that tested the
            sensitivity of elicited expectations to variations in three
            facets of the elicitation methodology: the number of beans,
            the design of the support (pre-determined or self-anchored),
            and the ordering of questions. The results show remarkable
            robustness to variations in elicitation design.
            Nevertheless, the added precision offered by using more
            beans and a larger number of intervals with a predetermined
            support improves accuracy.
General equilibrium effects of land
            market restrictions on labor market : evidence from wages in
            Sri Lanka
Taking advantage of a historical
            quasi-experiment in Sri Lanka, this paper provides evidence
            on the effects of land market restrictions on wages and its
            spatial pattern. The empirical specification is derived from
            a general equilibrium model that predicts that the adverse
            effects of land market restrictions on wages will be less in
            remote locations. For identification, the study exploits the
            effects of historical malaria prevalence on the incidence of
            land restrictions through its effects on "crown
            land". During the 16th to early 20th centuries, areas
            severely affected by malaria were abandoned by households
            and the land was taken over by the government. These lands
            that were later distributed through resettlement programs
            are subject to sales, rental, and mortgage restrictions. The
            variations in the amount of crown land resulting from
            different intensity of historical malaria provide a source
            of exogenous variations in the incidence of land
            restrictions in a sub-district. The results show that land
            restrictions reduce wages substantially, and this effect is
            smaller in remote locations. A 1 percent increase in land
            restrictions reduces wages by about 6.6 percent at the
            median travel time from an urban center, and the effect
            becomes effectively zero after 6 hours of travel time.
Energy poverty in rural and urban
            India : are the energy poor also income poor
Energy poverty is a frequently used term
            among energy specialists, but unfortunately the concept is
            rather loosely defined. Several existing approaches measure
            energy poverty by defining an energy poverty line as the
            minimum quantity of physical energy needed to perform such
            basic tasks as cooking and lighting. This paper proposes an
            alternative measure that is based on energy demand. The
            energy poverty line is defined as the threshold point at
            which energy consumption begins to rise with increases in
            household income. This approach was applied to
            cross-sectional data from a comprehensive 2005 household
            survey representative of both urban and rural India. The
            findings suggest that in rural areas some 57 percent of
            households are energy poor, versus 22 percent that are
            income poor. For urban areas the energy poverty rate is 28
            percent compared with 20 percent that are income poor.
            Policies to reduce energy poverty would include support for
            rural electrification, the promotion of more modern cooking
            fuels, and encouraging greater adoption of improved biomass
            stoves. A combination of these programs would play a
            significant role in reducing energy poverty in rural India.
Short-run learning dynamics under a
            test-based accountability system : evidence from Pakistan
Low student learning is a common finding
            in much of the developing world. This paper uses a
            relatively unique dataset of five semiannual rounds of
            standardized test data to characterize and explain the
            short-term changes in student learning. The data are
            collected as part of the quality assurance system for a
            public-private partnership program that offers public
            subsidies conditional on minimum learning levels to low-cost
            private schools in Pakistan. Apart from a large positive
            distributional shift in learning between the first two test
            rounds, the learning distributions over test rounds show
            little progress. Schools are ejected from the program if
            they fail to achieve a minimum pass rate in the test in two
            consecutive attempts, making the test high stakes. Sharp
            regression discontinuity estimates show that the threat of
            program exit on schools that barely failed the test for the
            first time induces large learning gains. The large change in
            learning between the first two test rounds is likely
            attributable to this accountability pressure given that a
            large share of new program entrants failed in the first test
            round. Schools also qualify for substantial annual teacher
            bonuses if they achieve a minimum score in a composite
            measure of student test participation and mean test score.
            Sharp regression discontinuity estimates do not show that
            the prospect of future teacher bonus rewards induces
            learning gains for schools that barely did not qualify for
            the bonus.
Rising food prices and coping
            strategies : household-level evidence from Afghanistan
This paper investigates the impact of
            rising wheat prices -- during the 2007/08 global food crisis
            -- on food security in Afghanistan. Exploiting the temporal
            stratification of a unique nationally-representative
            household survey, the analysis finds evidence of large
            declines in real per capita food consumption and in food
            security (per capita calorie intake and household dietary
            diversity) corresponding to the price shocks. The data
            reveal smaller price elasticities with respect to calories
            than with respect to food consumption, suggesting that
            households trade off quality for quantity as they move
            toward staple foods and away from nutrient-rich foods such
            as meat and vegetables. In addition, there is increased
            demand in the face of price increases (Giffen good
            properties) for wheat products in urban areas. This study
            improves on country-level simulation studies by providing
            estimates of actual household wellbeing before and during
            the height of the global food crisis in one of the
            world's poorest, most food-insecure countries.
Legislative malapportionment and
            institutional persistence
This paper argues that legislative
            malapportionment, denoting a discrepancy between the share
            of legislative seats and the share of population held by
            electoral districts, serves as a tool for pre-democratic
            elites to preserve their political power and economic
            interests after a transition to democracy. The authors claim
            that legislative malapportionment enhances the
            pre-democratic elites political influence by
            over-representing areas that are more likely to vote for
            parties aligned with the elite. This biased political
            representation survives in equilibrium as long as it helps
            democratic consolidation. Using data from Latin America, the
            authors document empirically that malapportionment increases
            the probability of transitioning to a democracy. Moreover,
            the data show that over-represented electoral districts are
            more likely to vote for parties close to pre-democracy
            ruling groups. The analysis also finds that overrepresented
            areas have lower levels of political competition and receive
            more transfers per capita from the central government, both
            of which favor the persistence of power of pre-democracy elites.
Climate change, agriculture and poverty
Although much has been written about
            climate change and poverty as distinct and complex problems,
            the link between them has received little attention.
            Understanding this link is vital for the formulation of
            effective policy responses to climate change. This paper
            focuses on agriculture as a primary means by which the
            impacts of climate change are transmitted to the poor, and
            as a sector at the forefront of climate change mitigation
            efforts in developing countries. In so doing, the paper
            offers some important insights that may help shape future
            policies as well as ongoing research in this area.
Reform and backlash to reform :
            economic effects of ageing and retirement policy
Using a stochastic general equilibrium
            model with overlapping generations, this paper studies (i)
            the effects on both extensive and intensive labor supply
            responses to changes in fertility rates, and (ii) the
            potential of a retirement reform to mitigate the effects of
            fertility changes on labor supply. In order to neutralize
            the effects on effective labor supply of a fertility
            decline, a retirement reform, designed to increase labor
            supply at the extensive margin, is found to simultaneously
            reduce labor supply at the intensive margin. This backlash
            to retirement reform requires the statutory retirement age
            to increase more than proportionally to fertility changes in
            order to compensate for endogenous responses of the
            intensity of labor supply. The robustness of this result is
            checked against alternative model specifications and
            calibrations relevant to an economic region such as Europe.
Protecting child nutritional status
            in the aftermath of a financial crisis : evidence from Indonesia
In response to concerns over the
            vulnerability of the young in the wake of Indonesia's
            1997-1998 economic crises, the Government of Indonesia
            implemented a supplementary feeding program to support early
            childhood nutritional status. This paper exploits
            heterogeneity in duration of program exposure to evaluate
            the impact of the program on children aged 6 to 60 months.
            By examining differences in nutritional status of treated
            younger children and a placebo group of older children, the
            analysis finds that the program improved the nutritional
            status of treated children, and most significantly, led to 7
            and 15 percent declines in rates of moderate and severe
            stunting, respectively, for children aged 12 to 24 months
            who were exposed to the program for at least 12 months over
            two years.
Bank capital : lessons from the
            financial crisis
Using a multi-country panel of banks,
            the authors study whether better capitalized banks fared
            better in terms of stock returns during the financial
            crisis. They differentiate among various types of capital
            ratios: the Basel risk-adjusted ratio; the leverage ratio;
            the Tier I and Tier II ratios; and the common equity ratio.
            They find several results: (i) before the crisis,
            differences in capital did not affect subsequent stock
            returns; (ii) during the crisis, higher capital resulted in
            better stock performance, most markedly for larger banks and
            less well-capitalized banks; (iii) the relationship between
            stock returns and capital is stronger when capital is
            measured by the leverage ratio rather than the risk-adjusted
            capital ratio; (iv) there is evidence that higher quality
            forms of capital, such as Tier 1 capital, were more
            relevant. They also examine the relationship between bank
            capitalization and credit default swap (CDS) spreads.
Working with the market : a new
            approach to reducing urban slums in India
This paper examines the policy options
            for India as it seeks to improve living conditions of the
            poor on a large scale and reduce the population in slums.
            Addressing the problem requires first a diagnosis of the
            market at the city level and a recognition that government
            interventions, rather than thwarting the operations of the
            market, should seek to make it operate better. This can
            substantially reduce the subsidies required to assist low
            income households to attain decent living standards. The
            authors show that government programs that directly provide
            housing would cost, in conservative estimates, about of 20
            to 30 percent of GDP, and cannot solve a problem on the
            scale of India's. Using two case studies, for Mumbai
            and Ahmedabad, the paper offers a critical examination of
            government policies that shape the real estate market and
            make formal housing unaffordable for a large part of the
            population. It illustrates how simple city level market
            diagnostics can be used to identify policy changes and
            design smaller assistance programs that can reach the poor.
            The linkage between chronic infrastructure backlogs and
            policies makes housing unnecessarily expensive. Increasing
            the carrying capacity of cities is essential for gaining
            acceptance of real estate policies suited to Indian cities.
            The authors propose approaches for funding major investments
            to achieve this.
An agenda for research on
            urbanization in developing countries : a summary of findings
            from a scoping exercise
This paper assesses the state of
            research and examines priorities for future work in the area
            of urbanization and growth. This is done by reviewing and
            summarizing the findings of five scoping papers covering the
            following topics: urban poverty, the political economy of
            urban poverty, urban real estate and housing, urban
            infrastructure finance, and external assistance for urban development.
When does rigorous impact evaluation
            make a difference the case of the millennium villages
When is the rigorous impact evaluation
            of development projects a luxury, and when a necessity? This
            Paper studies one high-profile case: the Millennium Villages
            Project (MVP), an experimental and intensive package
            intervention to spark sustained local economic development
            in rural Africa. it illustrates the benefits of rigorous
            impact evaluation in this setting by showing that estimates
            of the project's effects depend heavily on the
            evaluation method. Comparing trends at the MVP intervention
            sites in Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria to trends in the
            surrounding areas yields much more modest estimates of the
            project's effects than the before-versus-after
            comparisons published thus far by the MVP. Neither approach
            constitutes a rigorous impact evaluation of the MVP, which
            is impossible to perform due to weaknesses in the evaluation
            design of the project's initial phase. These weaknesses
            include the subjective choice of intervention sites, the
            subjective choice of comparison sites, the lack of baseline
            data on comparison sites, the small sample size, and the
            short time horizon. The authors describe how the next wave
            of the intervention could be designed to allow proper
            evaluation of the MVP's impact at little additional cost.
Can Africa replicate Asia's
            green revolution in rice
Asia's green revolution in rice was
            transformational and improved the lives of millions of poor
            households. Rice has become an increasingly important part
            of African diets and imports of rice have grown. Agronomists
            point out that large areas in Africa are well suited for
            rice and are encouraged by the field tests of new rice
            varieties. So is Africa poised for its own green revolution
            in rice? This study reviews the recent literature on rice
            technologies and their impact on productivity, incomes, and
            poverty, and compares current conditions in Africa with the
            conditions that prevailed in Asia as its rice revolution got
            under way. An important conclusion is that, to a degree, a
            rice revolution has already begun in Africa. Moreover, many
            of the same practices that have proved successful in Asia
            and in Africa can be applied where yields are currently low.
            At the same time, for many reasons, Africa's rice
            revolution has been, and will continue to be, characterized
            by a mosaic of successes, situated where the conditions are
            right for new technologies to take hold. This can have
            profound effects in some places. But because diets, markets,
            and geography are heterogeneous in Africa, the successful
            transformation of the Africa's rice sector must be
            matched by productivity gains in other crops to fully launch
            Africa's Green Revolution.
On the road to prosperity The
            economic geography of China's national expressway network
Over the past two decades, China has
            embarked on an ambitious program of expressway network
            expansion. By facilitating market integration, this program
            aims both to promote efficiency at the national level and to
            contribute to the catch-up of lagging inland regions with
            prosperous Eastern ones. This paper evaluates the aggregate
            and spatial economic impacts of China's newly
            constructed National Expressway Network, focussing, in
            particular, on its short-run impacts. To achieve this aim,
            the authors adopt a counterfactual approach based on the
            estimation and simulation of a structural "new economic
            geography" model. Overall, they find that aggregate
            Chinese real income was approximately 6 percent higher than
            it would have been in 2007 had the expressway network not
            been built. Although there is considerable heterogeneity in
            the results, the authors do not find evidence of a
            significant reduction in disparities across prefectural
            level regions or of a reduction in urban-rural disparities.
            If anything, the expressway network appears to have
            reinforced existing patterns of spatial inequality,
            although, over time, these will likely be reduced by
            enhanced migration.
Diamonds are not forever : Botswana
            medium-term fiscal sustainability
This paper analyzes Botswana's
            medium-term fiscal sustainability in view of the expected
            depletion of diamonds in the future. The analysis shows that
            in the absence of policy adjustments, Botswana's
            current fiscal policy strategy is unsustainable over the
            longer term, which could endanger macroeconomic stability
            and Botswana's reputation as Africa's success
            story. Ensuring medium-term sustainability of
            Botswana's public finances requires stronger revenue
            collection, through improved revenue administration, greater
            tax enforcement, and the rationalization of tax exemptions
            in order to realize the full revenue potential.
            Opportunities also exist to generate more revenue from the
            non-mining sector through changes in the tax regime. At the
            same time, the government needs to maximize the
            effectiveness of public expenditure and bring down public
            spending to levels that are more in line with long-term
            revenue prospects. A greater control over the public sector
            wage bill is critically important. In-house capacity for
            macroeconomic monitoring and fiscal analysis also needs to
            be enhanced further. Looking ahead, growth of a dynamic
            non-mining sector is crucial for Botswana not only from the
            fiscal sustainability point of view, but from the point of
            view of achieving balanced development that will create jobs
            and deliver durable reduction in poverty and inequality.
            Fiscal policy will have to play a central role in this process.
Regional trade policy options for
            Tanzania : the importance of services commitments
Despite the growing importance of
            commitments to foreign investors in services in regional
            trade agreements, there are no applied general equilibrium
            models in the literature that assess these regional impacts.
            This paper develops a 52 sector applied general equilibrium
            model of Tanzania with foreign direct investment, and uses
            that model to assess Tanzania's regional and
            multilateral trade options. The model incorporates the
            features of the modern theory of international trade that
            has shown empirically that trade and foreign direct
            investment can increase productivity, and trade and foreign
            direct investment with technologically advanced countries is
            especially valuable for that purpose. To assess the
            sensitivity of the results to parameter values, the model is
            executed 30,000 times, and the results are reported as
            confidence intervals of the sample distributions. The
            analysis finds that a 50 percent preferential reduction in
            the ad valorem equivalents of barriers in all business
            services by Tanzania with respect to its African regional
            partners would be slightly beneficial for Tanzania. But
            wider liberalization, with larger partners or
            multilaterally, it will yield much larger gains due to
            providing access to a much wider set of service providers.
            Finally, the results show that the largest gains in services
            would be derived from reduction of regulatory barriers that
            are geographically non-discriminatory.