rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
The composition of public
            expenditure and growth : a small-scale intertemporal model
            for low-income countries
This paper presents a small-scale
            intertemporal model of endogenous growth that accounts for
            the composition of public expenditure and externalities
            associated with public capital. Government spending is
            disaggregated into various components, including
            maintenance, security, and investment in education, health,
            and core infrastructure. After studying its long-run
            properties, the model is calibrated for Haiti, using
            country-specific information as well as parameter estimates
            from the literature.  A variety of policy experiments are
            then reported, including a reallocation of spending aimed at
            creating fiscal space to promote public investment; an
            improvement in fiscal management that leads to a reduction
            in tax collection costs; higher spending on security; and a
            composite fiscal package.
The composition of public
            expenditure and growth : a small-scale intertemporal model
            for low-income countries
WPS4430 Policy ReseaRch WoRking PaPeR 4430 The Composition of Public Expenditure and Growth: A Small-Scale Intertemporal Model for Low-Income Countries _Nihal Bayraktar Emmanuel Pinto Moreira_ The World Bank Latin America and the Caribbean Region Economic Policy Unit December 2007
Does employment generation really
            matter for poverty reduction
This paper analyzes how the
            employment/productivity profile of growth and its sectoral
            pattern are correlated with poverty reduction. The authors
            use a sample of 104 short-run growth spells in developing
            countries, between 1980 and 2001. They also identify some
            conditions of the labor market and the economic environment
            that are associated with employment-intensive growth or
            specific sectoral growth. The results show that, in the
            short run, although the aggregate employment-rate intensity
            of growth does not matter for poverty reduction any more
            than the aggregate productivity intensity of growth, the
            sectoral pattern of employment growth and productivity
            growth is important. Employment-intensive growth in the
            secondary sector is associated with decreases in poverty,
            while employment-intensive growth in agriculture is
            correlated with poverty increases. Similarly,
            productivity-intensive growth in agriculture is associated
            with decreases in poverty. Although the study does not
            address causality, coincidence of these phenomena in this
            large sample of heterogeneous countries and periods suggests
            that, in the short run, the sectoral productivity and
            employment pattern of growth may have important implications
            for poverty alleviation. Therefore, policies for reducing
            poverty should not overlook the sectoral productivity and
            employment implications of different growth policies.
Improving nutritional status through
            behavioral change : lessons from Madagascar
This paper provides evidence of the
            effects of a large-scale intervention that focuses on the
            quality of nutritional and child care inputs during the
            early stages of life. The empirical strategy uses a
            combination of double-difference and weighting estimators in
            a longitudinal survey to address the purposive placement of
            participating communities and estimate the effect of the
            availability of the program at the community level on
            nutritional outcomes. The authors find that the program
            helped 0-5 year old children in the participating
            communities to bridge the gap in weight for age z-scores and
            the incidence of underweight. The program also had
            significant effects in protecting long-term nutritional
            outcomes (height for age z-scores and incidence of stunting)
            against an underlying negative trend in the absence of the
            program. Importantly, the effect of the program exhibits
            substantial heterogeneity: gains in nutritional outcomes are
            larger for more educated mothers and for villages with
            better infrastructure. The program enables the analysis to
            isolate responsiveness to information provision and
            disentangle the effect of knowledge in the education effect
            on nutritional outcomes. The results are suggestive of
            important complementarities among child care, maternal
            education, and community infrastructure.
Annuities in Switzerland
Switzerland's pension system has
            attracted considerable attention, mainly due to its reliance
            on a three-pillar structure. A relatively small
            pay-as-you-go system (first pillar) is complemented by a
            mandatory, employer-based, fully funded occupational pension
            scheme (second pillar). The main goal of this paper is to
            provide a detailed description and analysis of the Swiss
            pension system. Particular emphasis is placed on the second
            pillar and its role in the provision of old age benefits
            within the Swiss social security system. The paper shows,
            for example, that a typical individual with an uninterrupted
            career can expect a net (after-tax) replacement rate of at
            least 70 percent. Occupational pension plans are highly
            regulated. Minimum interest rate requirements and minimum
            conversion rates (at which the accumulated retirement
            balances are transformed into annuity streams) introduce
            many elements of defined benefit plans into notionally
            defined contribution schemes. The resulting money's
            worth ratios are very high (with the exception of single
            males). Switzerland also has a high annuitization rate by
            international standards (approximately 80 percent). However,
            due to high fragmentation of the scheme and non-uniform
            accounting practices, some aspects of the system are not
            very transparent. The paper sheds light on the financial
            health of the pension system and the evolution of the
            regulatory framework in the past two decades.
Does corruption impact on
            firms' ability to conduct business in Mauritania
            evidence from investment climate survey data
This paper seeks to understand whether
            Mauritanian firms deem corruption as an obstacle to operate
            and grow, to identify the profile of firms that are more
            likely to make informal payments, and to quantify the size
            of these payments. The results of the analysis show that
            perceptions of corruption can be potentially misleading.
            Corruption is not considered to be one of the most taxing
            factors impeding the growth of firms in Mauritania. Yet, its
            cost to firms is significant and greater than in the
            comparator group countries. This means that corruption is
            internalized by firms and considered an accepted practice.
            Alternatively, firms may fear reporting corruption practices
            for fear of retaliation. Econometric evidence on the
            propensity and intensity of bribes suggests that medium-size
            firms suffer the most from corruption in Mauritania. Larger
            firms are more established and connected, do not fear
            exiting the market, and are less likely to be harassed.
            Smaller firms are less visible and may be able to escape the
            control of public officials by operating largely in the
            informal sector.  Medium-size firms are the most likely to
            pay bribes and to pay the highest amounts as a percentage of
            their total annual sales, which places a heavy burden on
            their ability to grow.
Affordability and subsidies in
            public urban transport : what do we mean, what can be done
Subsidy policies on public urban
            transport have been adopted ubiquitously. In both developed
            and developing countries, subsidies are implemented to make
            transport more affordable. Despite their widespread
            implementation, there are virtually no quantitative
            assessments of their distributional incidence, making it
            impossible to determine if these instruments are pro-poor.
            This paper reviews the arguments used to justify subsidy
            policies in public urban transport. Using different tools to
            quantitatively evaluate the incidence and distributive
            impacts of subsidy policy options, the paper analyzes the
            findings of a series of research papers that study urban
            public transport subsidy policies in developed and
            developing countries. The available evidence indicates that
            current public urban transport subsidy policies do not make
            the poorest better off. Supply-side subsidies are, for the
            most part, neutral or regressive; while demand-side
            subsidies perform better-although many of them do not
            improve income distribution. Considering that the policy
            objective is to improve the welfare of the poorest, it is
            imperative to move away from supply-side subsidies towards
            demand-side subsidies and to integrate transport social
            concerns into wider poverty alleviation efforts, which
            include the possibility of channeling subsidies through
            monetary transfer systems or through other transfer
            instruments (food subsidies, health services and education
            for the poor). The general conclusion of the paper is that
            more effort should be devoted to improve the targeting
            properties of public urban transport subsidies using
            means-testing procedures to ensure a more pro-poor incidence
            of subsidies.
Assessing the functioning of land
            rental markets in Ethiopia
Although a large theoretical literature
            discusses the possible inefficiency of sharecropping
            contracts, the empirical evidence on this phenomenon has
            been ambiguous at best. Household-level fixed-effect
            estimates from about 8,500 plots operated by households that
            own and sharecrop land in the Ethiopian highlands provide
            support for the hypothesis of Marshallian inefficiency. At
            the same time, a factor adjustment model suggests that the
            extent to which rental markets allow households to attain
            their desired operational holding size is extremely limited.
            Our analysis points towards factor market imperfections (no
            rental for oxen), lack of alternative employment
            opportunities, and tenure insecurity as possible reasons
            underlying such behavior, suggesting that, rather than
            worrying almost exclusively about Marshallian inefficiency,
            it is equally warranted to give due attention to the policy
            framework within which land rental markets operate.
The impoverishing effect of adverse
            health events : evidence from the western Balkans
This paper investigates the extent to
            which the health systems of the Western Balkans (Albania,
            Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Kosovo) have
            succeeded in providing financial protection against adverse
            health events. The authors examine disparities in health
            status, healthcare utilization, and out-of-pocket payments
            for healthcare (including informal payments), and explore
            the impact of healthcare expenditures on household economic
            status and poverty. Methodologies include (i) generating a
            descriptive assessment of health and healthcare disparities
            across socioeconomic groups, (ii) measuring the incidence
            and intensity of catastrophic healthcare payments, (iii)
            examining the effect of out-of-pocket payments on poverty
            headcount and poverty gap measures, and (iv) running sets of
            country-specific probit regressions to model the
            relationship between health status, healthcare utilization,
            and poverty. On balance, the findings show that the impact
            of health expenditures on household economic wellbeing and
            poverty is most severe in Albania and Kosovo, while
            Montenegro is striking for the financial protection that the
            health system seems to provide. Data are drawn from Living
            Standards and Measurement Surveys.
Emerging market liquidity and crises
Whereas conventional wisdom argues that
            markets shut down during crises, with sellers struggling to
            find buyers, we find that markets continue to operate during
            financial turmoil, even in narrow and volatile emerging
            economies. Simple event studies indicate that both trading
            volume and trading costs increase in crisis times. Prices
            change more with each dollar transacted (pushing the Amihud
            illiquidity measure up) and bid-ask spreads widen. More
            generally, econometric estimates show that large price
            downturns, typical of crises, are associated with higher
            trading activity and increased trading costs, with trading
            activity declining only later as crises progress. Thus,
            while trading activity tends to be negatively related to
            trading costs during tranquil times (and across securities),
            this relation appears to break down during crises. These
            results are consistent with the analytical literature on
            portfolio rebalancing by heterogeneous agents in times of crises.
Securing property rights in
            transition: lessons from implementation of China's
            rural land contracting law
This paper is motivated by the emphasis
            on secure property rights as a determinant of economic
            development in recent literature. The authors use village
            and household level information from about 800 villages
            throughout China to explore whether legal reform increased
            protection of land rights against unauthorized reallocation
            or expropriation with below-average compensation by the
            state. The analysis provides nation-wide evidence on a
            sensitive topic. The authors find positive impacts,
            equivalent to increasing land values by 30 percent, of
            reform even in the short term. Reform originated in villages
            where democratic election of leaders ensured a minimum level
            of accountability, pointing toward complementarity between
            good governance and legal reform. The paper explores the
            implications for situations where individuals and groups
            hold overlapping rights to land.
Regulatory cooperation, aid for
            trade and the general agreement on trade in services
This paper discusses what could be done
            to expand services trade and investment through a
            multilateral agreement in the World Trade Organization. A
            distinction is made between market access liberalization and
            the regulatory preconditions for benefiting from market
            opening. The authors argue that prospects for multilateral
            services liberalization would be enhanced by making national
            treatment the objective of World Trade Organization services
            negotiations, thereby clarifying the scope of World Trade
            Organization commitments for regulators. Moreover,
            liberalization by smaller and poorer members of the World
            Trade Organization would be facilitated by complementary
            actions to strengthen regulatory capacity. If pursued as
            part of the operationalization of the World Trade
            Organization's 2006 Aid for Trade taskforce report, the
            World Trade Organization could become more relevant in
            promoting not just services liberalization but, more
            importantly, domestic reforms of services policies.
Land rental markets in the process
            of rural structural transformation : productivity and equity
            impacts in China
The importance of land rental for
            overall economic development has long been recognized in
            theory, yet empirical evidence on the productivity and
            equity impacts of such markets and the extent to which they
            realize their potential has been scant. Representative data
            from China's nine most important agricultural provinces
            illustrate the impact of rental markets on households'
            economic strategies and welfare, and the productivity of
            land use at the plot level. Although there are positive
            impacts in each of these dimensions, transaction costs
            constrain participation by many producers, thus preventing
            rental markets from attaining their full potential. The
            paper identifies factors that increase transaction costs and
            provides a rough estimate of the productivity and equity
            impacts of removing them.
Where to sell market facilities and
            agricultural marketing
This paper analyzes the effect of
            facilities and infrastructure available at the market place
            on a farmer's decision to sell at the market using a
            comprehensive survey of farmers, markets and villages
            conducted in Tamil Nadu, India in 2005. The econometric
            estimation shows that the likelihood of sales at the market
            increases significantly with an improvement in market
            facilities and a decrease in travel time from the village to
            the market. The results suggest that wealth reduces a
            farmer's cost of accessing market facilities more than
            it increases her/his opportunity cost of leisure. The
            wealthy farmers are able to capture a disproportionate share
            of the benefits of facilities available at congested
            markets. The policy simulation, however, shows that the
            marginal benefits from an improvement in market facilities
            will favor poorer farmers in the context of India.
Who are the net food importing countries
The purpose of this paper is to update
            the information on net food importing countries, using
            different definitions of food, separating countries by their
            level of income, whether they are in conflict and whether
            they are significant oil exporters. The study also estimates
            the changes in net food importing status of these countries
            over the last two and a half decades, and, most important,
            the study measures the relative importance of these net food
            imports in the import basket of the countries. Our results
            show that while many low-income countries are net food
            importers, the importance and potential impact of the net
            food importing status has been highly exaggerated. Many
            low-income countries that have larger food deficits are
            either oil exporters or countries in conflict. Food deficits
            of most low-income countries are not that significant as a
            percentage of their imports. Our results also show that only
            6 low-income countries have food deficits that are more than
            10 percent of their imports. Last two decades have seen a
            significant improvement in the food trade balances of
            low-income developing countries. SSA low-income countries
            are an exception to this trend. On the other hand, there are
            a group of countries which are experiencing civil conflicts
            which are large importers of food, and these countries can
            not meet their basic needs. They also need special
            assistance in the distribution of food within their
            boundaries. Therefore, one should modify the WTO Ministerial
            Declaration, and focus on these conflict countries rather
            than the broad net food importers.
An alternative framework for foreign
            exchange risk management of sovereign debt
This paper proposes a measure of
            synchronization in the movements of relevant domestic and
            foreign fundamentals for choosing suitable currency for
            denomination of foreign debt. The selection of explanatory
            variables for exchange rate volatility is motivated using a
            New Keynesian Policy model. The model predicts that not only
            traditional optimal currency area variables, but also
            variables considered by the literature on currency
            preferences, such as money velocity, should be relevant for
            explaining exchange rate volatility. The findings show that
            measures of inflation synchronization, money velocity
            synchronization, and interest rate synchronization can be
            useful indicators for decisions on the currency denomination
            of foreign debt.
Infrastructure and growth in
            developing countries : recent advances and research challenges
This paper presents a survey of recent
            research on the economics of infrastructure in developing
            countries. Energy, transport, telecommunications, water and
            sanitation are considered. The survey covers two main set of
            issues: the linkages between infrastructure and economic
            growth (at the economy-wide, regional and sectoral level)
            and the composition, sequencing and efficiency of
            alternative infrastructure investments, including the
            arbitrage between new investments and maintenance
            expenditures; OPEX and CAPEX, and public versus private
            investment. Following the introduction, section 2 discusses
            the theoretical foundations (growth theory and new economic
            geography). Section 3 assesses the analysis of 140
            specifications from 64 recent empirical papers-examining
            type of data used, level of aggregation, econometric
            techniques and nature of the sample-and discusses both the
            macro-econometric and micro-econometric contributions of
            these papers. Finally section 4 discusses directions for
            future research and suggests priorities in data development.