rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
In the financial constraints analysis, Y is a dummy variable that takes the value 1 if the firm owner reported that access to finance was _not_ an obstacle to its operations. Because the dependent variables are dummy variables, the base regressions are estimated as standard Probit models.

X is a matrix containing information on firm characteristics. These include dummy variables indicating the size of the firm in terms of number of employees, the age of the firm, exports as a percent of sales, the shares of foreign and private ownership, and a dummy variable indicating whether the firm was privatized (i.e., as opposed to being established as a private).

In the financial constraints regressions, we interact the dummies indicating firm size with dummies indicating the year of the survey. This is to test whether firms of different sizes were affected differently by the crisis. For the reasons described above, we expect larger firms to have better access to external finance both in non-crisis and crisis periods and therefore to report being less constrained in all BEEPS rounds. However, because the crisis affected the availability of external finance that large firms relied on to a greater extent than small firms, we expect the _change_ in the reported severity of their financial constraints from 2005 to 2008-9 to be greater for large firms. We therefore expect a negative coefficient for the coefficient for the large*2008/9 variable.

The X matrix also includes measures of firm performance. These include a dummy variable indicating that the firm has ISO certification, return on sales, employment growth, and a dummy variable indicating whether the firm made investments in the prior year. Unfortunately, only the employment growth variable is available in a consistent format across the three rounds of BEEPS. It is therefore the only firm performance variable that enters the financial constraints regressions that use data from all three years. Following Brown et al. (2011), we also include a proxy for the availability of internal finance (a dummy variable indicating that the firm did not apply for a loan within the past year because it had no need for external finance).<sup>19</sup> We expect

> 19 We use a different variable than in Brown et al (2011), who use the percent of working capital financed with internal funds.  We cannot use the same variable as in Brown et al (2011) because this question was not included in the 2008 BEEPS survey.  A separate variable was included in all three rounds asking about the percent of  fixed investment financed with internal funds.  This second question, however, was only asked of firms that did invest. Therefore  a large number of firms (about one-third) are excluded.  Moreover, this exclusion is not random.  That is,

15
**Figure 7 -** **<u>Apparel Exports of 22 Countries Benefiting from AGOA SR by 2004</u>**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 1'400'000<br>US Im ports<br>1'200'000 from 2 2<br>cou ntries*<br>1'000'000<br>US Im ports<br>from 7 top<br>800'000 exporters**<br>600'000 EU Im ports<br>from 2 2<br>cou ntries*<br>400'000<br>EU Im ports<br>200'000 from 7 top<br>exporters**<br>-<br>1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note_ : The 22 Sub-Saharan African countries benefiting from AGOA-SR by 2004 as well as ACP are: Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

**The top 7 exporters are: Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Namibia, Nigeria, and Swaziland. _Source_ : Portugal-Perez (2008)

Strict rules of origin have been justified as a means to support more processing in developing countries by encouraging integrated production within a country, or within groups of countries through cumulation schemes. However, rules of origin can have a negative effect as they discourage developing country exports at the intensive margin, as well as at the extensive margin through product diversification. In sum, developmentfriendly policies would benefit from relaxing the stringency of rules of origin requirements.

Recent research provides evidence that the current system of trade preferences granted by developed countries to African countries is undermined by the current rules of origin. (See Cadot and de Melo, 2007, for an extensive review.) Rules of origin have a legitimate justification in preventing trade deflection. Evidence indicates, however, that they have largely been captured by protectionist interest groups and hinder the integration of preference-receiving developing countries in the world economy. A first step in any reform agenda should focus on simplification of rules to reduce compliance costs. For example, the different combinations of rules of origin that exist for a single good in preferential agreements could be abandoned for single value content. The World Trade Organization could play a role in facilitating the harmonization of rules of origin across preferential trade agreements.

22
Policy Research Working Paper 4996

# **Abstract**

The authors explore the impact of access to information on poor farmers’ consumption. The analysis combines spatially coded data on mobile phone coverage with household panel data on farmers from some of the poorest areas of the Philippines. Both the ordinary least squares and instrumental variable estimates indicate that purchasing a mobile phone has a large, positive impact on the household-level growth rate of per capita consumption. Estimates range from 11 to 17 percent, depending on the sample and the specification chosen. The authors perform a range of reliability tests, the results of which all suggest that the instruments are valid. They also present evidence consistent with the argument that easier access to information allows farmers to strike better price deals within their existing trading relationships and to make better choices in terms of where they choose to sell their goods.

This paper—a product of the Social Development Department, Sustainable Development Network—is part of a larger effort in the department to analyze how increased information flow affect household welfare. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The authors may be contacted at jlabonne@worldbank. org and rchase@worldbank.org.

_The Impact Evaluation Series has been established in recognition of the importance of impact evaluation studies for World Bank operations and for development in general. The series serves as a vehicle for the dissemination of findings of those studies. Papers in this series are part of the Bank’s Policy Research Working Paper Series. 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 views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
The share of gross loan disbursements and official transfers in total financing -- including debt service reduction - - is assumed to rise from 65 to 87 percent by the end of the decade. The share of direct foreign investment is assumed to double during the decade, although because the base is very small its contribution to total requirements remains low (6 percent ' , 2000). Debt relief, which is assumed at the most favorable terms currently allowed under the Paris Club, would gradually dwindle and become negative by 1998 as repayment of previous debt consolidations fall due. Two other reasons account for the relatively small contribution of debt relief to total financing resources: about a fourth of Africa's debt is multilateral and currently not eligible for debt relief; and all new borrowing is assumed ineligible for rescheduling, which is in line with the current policy on cut-off dates.

Table **7 Prospective sources of** financing **for Sub-Saharan** Africa, 1991-2000 **(annual averages** in **billions of dollars)**

|||of w|hich|
|---|---|---|---|
||1991-2000|1991-95|1996-2000|
|Gross loan disbursements|12.1|10.8|13.3|
|of which concessional|7.2|6.1|8.3|
|Official transfers|10.0|8.4|11.6|
|Direct foreign investment|_1.5_|1.1|1.9|
|Debt relief a/|1.7|3.9|-0.4|
|Residual gap|2.9|3.3|2.5|
|Total financing|28.2|27.5|28.9|

Source: World Bank projections a/ Net of moratorium debt service on rescheduled debt.

Under this scenario, only about 90 percent of the requirements would be met, indicating the need for stronger reforms, export promotion, more efficient use of imports, and additional resources - - namely more favorable debt relief and larger caphial inflows, especially from the private sector.

47
based on consumption per person, while about half of them are not found in the poorest 40%. For children, we find that about three-quarters of stunted children are not found in the poorest 20%, and similarly for wasted children. More than half of wasted and stunted children are not found in the poorest 40%.

On combining Tables 2 and 8, we can use equation (2) to infer the joint probabilities of being both undernourished and wealth-poor, Pr( _n_  ,1 _w_  )1 . The empirical values for the DHS data are given in Table 10. For underweight women and the poorest 20%, the joint probability is under 0.04 for 22 countries. The mean joint probability of a woman being underweight and living in the poorest 20% of households is only 0.03, rising to 0.06 for the poorest 40%. For child wasting the probabilities are even lower than for underweight women, at under 0.02 for two-thirds of all countries. The joint probabilities are higher for stunting, with a mean of 0.08 and 0.16 for the poorest 20% and 40%, respectively. While for child stunting the probabilities span a wider range, it remains that all but two are under 0.1 for the poorest 20%.

As expected, the joint probabilities tend to be positively correlated with the marginals; the bottom row of Table 10 gives the correlation coefficients. The table also gives the OLS elasticities across countries (regression coefficients of the log joint probability on the log marginal probabilities). The elasticities are all less than unity. So a higher rate of undernutrition should reduce the conditional probability. On balance, we find that countries with a higher overall incidence of women’s undernutrition or a higher incidence of child undernutrition (whether stunting or wasting) tend to have a higher share of these disadvantageous outcomes among the “non-poor” based on wealth. Table 11 shows the correlations between the conditional probabilities. For women’s undernutrition, the correlation coefficient between the share of undernourished women in the poorest 20% of households and the overall incidence of underweight women is -0.31, while for the poorest 40% it is -0.22. For child stunting the corresponding correlations are -0.47 and -0.56, while for wasting they are -0.24 and -0.26. However, not all of these correlations can be considered statistically significant at a reasonable level. The correlations are only significant at the 5% level for the share of underweight women in the poorest 20% and for stunting. Figures 5, 6 and 7 plot the values from Tables 2 and 8 for the incidence of underweight women, stunting and wasting respectively, highlighting the negative relationship between the joint and marginal probabilities.

These results suggest that when relatively few women or children are undernourished in a country one tends to find them more concentrated in relatively poorer households. Conversely, when 18
- 38 -

institutions, Soviet scholars and development experts, and perhaps a few independent Western scholars, could have immediate and long- term benefits.

101 As noted earlier, in U.S.-Soviet relations there has been a long history of unofficial high-level policy relevant dialogues. These exchanges have served two purposes: to reduce miscalculation by seeking to shed light on the key forces that shape the changing political and economic environments in which each government must choose its foreign policy priorities and actions; and, to explore joint or parallel steps that could build mutual confidence and open the way to greater bilateral cooperation. Under Gorbachev, those exchanges have become far more frank, searching and constructive.

102. Recently, one of the oldest of these exchanges, involving the United Nations Association of the U.S.A. has shifted the focus of its parallel studies program with the Soviets away from bilateral arms control and economic issues to the role of multilateral institutions.<sup>5 4</sup> Other examples of the widening vommunication with the Soviets about issues of particular interest to the Bretton Woods institutions were the meetings in December 1987 and November 1988 of Africanists from U.C.L.A. and the Sovie. Academy's Africa Institute on "U.S.-Soviet Cooperation for Africa," and the previously noted projects currently underway with mixes of Soviet and U.S. international economists under the auspices of the Overseas Development Council in Washington, and the Institute for East-West Security Studies in New York.<sup>5 5</sup> Perhaps similar scholarly exchanges could be undertaken by the international financial institutions along with an expansion of contacts with knowledgeable Soviets to improve the analysis of developing and Eastern European country economies where they have major stakes.

103. Of a more practical nature, the IMF and the World Bank could benefit from Soviet data as they prepare to -e-enter Angola. In designing an effective adjustment program it would seem prudent to elicit the views of Soviet experts on the state of the Angola's economy, the nature and plans for Soviet lending and aid to that country, which already owes Moscow some $3 billion. The Soviets could also help in nearby Mozambique the chronic security threats have 5/ Bissolino, Lang, McCarthy and Zuiwowska, op. cit.

- 14/ Summary records of the UNA-USQ-UNA-USSR meetings about the role of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions can be obtained from Edward C. Luck, UNAUSA '85 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017.
monitoring (Table 1). The fraction of teachers with a college degree increased by over 40 percent (from 41 to 58 percent), the fraction reporting getting paid regularly rose by around 60 percent (from 49 to 78 percent), and the fraction reporting the existence of teacher recognition schemes rose by over 60 percent (50 to 81 percent). While the fraction of teachers who report a formal teaching credential fell by 12 percent (77 to 68 percent), the main contributor to this decline was the large increase in the hiring of contract teachers in several large states, which led to an increase in the fraction of contract teachers from 6 to 30 percent. The student-teacher ratio also fell by around 16 percent (from 47.2 to 39.8).

School facilities and infrastructure improved on almost every measure. The fraction of schools with toilets and electricity more than doubled (from 40 percent to 84 percent for toilets and 22 percent to 45 percent for electricity); the fraction of schools with functioning midday meal programs nearly quadrupled (from 22 percent to 79 percent); the fraction of schools with a library increased by over 35 percent (from 51 percent to 69 percent), and almost all schools now have access to drinking water (96 percent). Initiatives outside the education ministry to increase road construction have also led to increased proximity of schools to paved roads increasing the accessibility of schools for teachers who choose to live farther away. Relative to the distribution observed in 2003, a summary index of school infrastructure improved by 0.9 standard deviations.

Table 1 also documents improvements in both ‘top-down’ administrative and ‘bottom-up’ community monitoring of schools over this period. The fraction of schools inspected in the three months prior to a survey visit increased by over 40 percent (from 38 percent to 56 percent). This increase in inspection probability is even more pronounced over shorter time windows, increasing by over 60 percent for the previous two months and over 70 percent for the previous month. Finally, the extent of community oversight of schools, measured by the frequency of PTA meetings also increased: The probability that a PTA meeting took place during the three months prior to a survey visit increased by 50 percent (from 30 percent to 45 percent). Overall, Table 1 confirms that the Government of India’s increased focus on primary education in the past decade did lead to significant improvements in input-based measures of school quality.

# **3.2 Changes in Teacher Absence**

We now turn to changes in teacher absence. Table 2 (Column 2) shows teacher absence rates by state as well as the weighted average national absence rate for rural India. It also shows the corresponding figures for 2003 to facilitate comparison (Column 1). The populationweighted national average teacher absence rate for rural India fell from 26.3 percent to 23.6 percent, a reduction of 10 percent or 2.64 percentage points.

8
33 framework, economists turned to various other areas of enquiry linking growth, income and microeconomic policies. One of these areas has been the analysis of the effect of trade and other microdistortions when imperfect competition prevails in domestic markets. A second area has been the relationships between the trade regime and total factor productivity. A few recent cross-country studies have considered the effects of trade openness on the level of investment.' In general, these new brand of studies for LDCs has provided mixed evidence with the total factor productivity/trade policy linkage, appearing quite robust while the investment level and domestic competition linkages appearing very weak. This paper has shifted the emphasis into a new line of inquiry, namely the measurement of the social income losses induced by the reduction of the investment efficiency caused by trade distortions. The empirical findings suggest a strong negative effect of trade distortions on the social efficiency of investment. Even what is considered a moderate (uniform) tariff at 50% could cause a reduction in the efficiency of investments of up to 23% compared with a 0% tariff scenario. The social income losses over time caused by the reduced investment efficiency are considerable. Countries that have a moderate investment ratios of the order of 20% of GDP can experience social income losses in excess of 18% in 30 years if tariffs are about 50%. Only after a few years of capital accumulation these dynamic losses become substantially larger than the conventional static loss,. -. tariff distortions. In contrast with the static losses, the reduction of investment efficiency has cumulative effects through time which after just a few years can be several times larger than the estimated static losses.

The existence of labor market distortions causing unemployment may increase the social value of capital. This is due to the fact that capital accumulation allows the economy to become closer to the production possibility frontier by increasing employment. Since this occurs mostly because capital accumulation decreases the size of the effective wage distortion, the increased social efficiency of capital

- 17/ Lopez (1990) is one of the few cross-country studies that analyzes the role of trade policies on capital accumulation.
Figure 21: Percent of households consuming electricity by decile <!-- Start of picture text --> 100%<br>80%<br>60%<br>40%<br>20%<br>0%<br>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10<br>Per capita market income decile<br>0–100 kWh 101–200 kWh 201+ kWh Not connected to grid/not consuming<br>Source: Authors’ calculations based on CSES 2019/20 and fiscal data.<br>Note: A kilowatt hour (kWh) is a measure of how much energy is used per hour.<br><!-- End of picture text -->

# **Limitations and interpretations**

The CEQ analysis provides useful insights about the effects of Cambodia’s tax and benefits system, but we must acknowledge some limitations of the CEQ methodology and data, and their implications on interpreting the CEQ results. First, the CEQ looks at only part of the fiscal system and does not fully capture some taxes paid by households or benefits received from public goods. For instance, public infrastructure could be progressive through its impacts on employment and economic activity. Second, while the data are nationally representative, they are not designed to fully represent high-income households, a phenomenon standard with household surveys in all countries. While missing top incomes does not affect our ability to measure poverty, it has important consequences for inequality measures. If many richer households are not captured in the survey, “true” inequality will be higher. This might attenuate distributional implications and redistributive effects of various instruments since the higher burden of taxes on non-represented rich households is not included. This is not a flaw in the survey data, which are not designed to accurately measure the very top of the income distribution, but it does have implications for fiscal incidence analysis. Another limitation is the challenge of assigning direct taxes to individuals when the data does not explicitly distinguish between those in formal employment from those in informal employment. As such, we needed to impute formal employment based on proxy characteristics from the data to model the incidence of direct taxes, as these are not paid by individuals working in the informal economy.

As suggested by the macro-validation of the CEQ exercise for Cambodia, discrepancies exist between official statistics and modelled aggregate values of several elements of the tax and benefit system.<sup>20</sup> These

> 20 <mark>Several elements of the tax system are simulated relatively well when compared to administrative statistics. For example, the exercise captures about 96 percent of employment injury insurance, 99.2 percent of property tax, 99.2 percent of education expenditure, and 93.1 percent of health care costs. Simulations of other fiscal elements are less precise. This applies to instruments such as the salary tax (23.1 percent of the administrative aggregate) or means of transportation tax (35.3 percent). The limited precision in modeling social security contributions, health</mark>

28