rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
COVID-19 and Economic Inequality :
            Short-Term Impacts with Long-Term Consequences
This paper examines the short-term
            implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for inequality in
            developing countries. The analysis takes advantage of
            high-frequency phone survey data collected by the World Bank
            to assess the distributional impacts of the pandemic through
            the channels of job and income losses, food insecurity, and
            children&#x2019;s education in the early days of the
            pandemic and subsequent period of economic recovery leading
            up to early 2021. It also introduces a methodology for
            estimating changes in income inequality due to the pandemic
            by combining data from phone surveys, pre-pandemic household
            surveys, and macroeconomic projections of sectoral growth
            rates. The paper finds that the pandemic had dis-equalizing
            impacts both across and within countries. Even under the
            assumption of distribution-neutral impacts within countries,
            the projected income losses are estimated to be higher in
            the bottom half of the global income distribution. Within
            countries, disadvantaged groups were more likely to have
            experienced work and income losses initially and are
            recovering more slowly. Inequality simulations suggest an
            increase in the Gini index for 29 of 34 countries in the
            sample, with an average increase of about 1 percent.
            Although these short-term impacts on inequality appear to be
            small, they suggest that projections of global poverty and
            inequality impacts of COVID-19 under the assumption of
            distribution-neutral changes within countries are likely to
            underestimate actual impacts. Finally, the paper argues that
            the overall inequality impacts of COVID-19 could be larger
            over the medium-to-long term on account of a slow and uneven
            recovery in many developing countries, and disparities in
            learning losses during pandemic-related school closures,
            which will likely have long-lasting effects on inequality of
            opportunity and social mobility.
COVID-19 and Economic Inequality :
            Short-Term Impacts with Long-Term Consequences
Policy Research Working Paper 9902 COVID-19 and Economic Inequality Short-Term Impacts with Long-Term Consequences _Ambar Narayan Alexandru Cojocaru Sarthak Agrawal Tom Bundervoet Maria Davalos Natalia Garcia Christoph Lakner Daniel Gerszon Mahler Veronica Montalva Talledo Andrey Ten Nishant Yonzan_ Poverty and Equity Global Practice & Development Data Group January 2022
FDI and Trade Outcomes at the
            Industry Level—A Data-Driven Approach
This paper proposes a novel empirical
            methodology to reveal factors associated with foreign direct
            investment decisions and export success at the industry
            level. Faced with large amounts of policy and economic
            indicators, as well as significant product and sectoral
            diversity, the motivation of this research is twofold.
            First, it selects among the vast number of indicators and
            potential factors relevant to investment and trade outcomes
            a manageable subset of variables that can usefully guide the
            understanding of investment and trade outcomes. Second, it
            provides robust estimates of how these variables affect the
            probability at the margin of investment and trade outcomes
            at the sector level. Finally, the paper uses these estimates
            to produce new metrics (&#x201c;scores&#x201d;) of
            trade and investment climate performance at the country and
            sectoral levels.
Understanding Public Spending Trends
            for Infrastructure in Developing Countries
Evidence of public expenditure on
            infrastructure is extremely sparse. Little is known about
            the trends and patterns of infrastructure expenditure, and
            there is no real basis for assessing the adequacy and
            efficiency of infrastructure spending. Drawing on the World
            Bank&#x2019;s novel BOOST database, this paper provides
            a first relatively disaggregated picture of infrastructure
            spending trends and patterns for a large sample of more than
            70 developing countries covering 2010&#x2013;18,
            drilling down into expenditure by sector for roads as well
            as electricity, and distinguishing operating from capital
            expenditure. Complementary sources of data are tapped to
            allow comparison between expenditure patterns on and off
            budget. The study finds that on-budget expenditure on
            infrastructure has been low both in absolute terms (1
            percent of gross domestic product) and relative terms (5
            percent of total public spending), as well as declining over
            time. Overall, infrastructure spending declined by about
            one-third over 2010&#x2013;18 (with the road sector
            bearing the brunt of the decrease), and now lies well below
            estimates of the required levels, except in a handful of
            cases. There is evidence that low-income countries, despite
            lower spending envelopes, attach greater priority to public
            investment and infrastructure spending than their
            middle-income counterparts. Econometric analysis suggests
            that infrastructure spending in low- and middle-income
            countries has been historically procyclical, although to a
            lesser degree than total expenditure. In the transport
            sector, road funds are shown to play a substantial role in
            funding road maintenance, appearing to improve the adequacy
            of funding, while attenuating pronounced capital biases in
            road sector spending, but there is little evidence of
            efficiency improvements over time.
The Effects of Subsidizing Social
            Security Contributions : Job creation or Informality Reduction
This paper evaluates the impact of an
            employment subsidy scheme covering employers’ social
            contribution costs on registered employment in small firms
            in Turkey. It utilizes a rich, firm-level administrative
            data set with monthly frequency, which allows for closely
            following the dynamics of registered employment in firms
            before and after the implementation of the subsidy. The
            empirical approach utilizes the geographically targeted
            implementation of the subsidy to estimate its effects using
            a difference-in-difference specification. The paper finds
            that the subsidy scheme had a sizable and positive impact on
            registered employment in small firms. The results are robust
            across specifications and to the choice of the control
            group. Positive effects on formal employment are also fairly
            constant and sustained over time. Corroborative evidence
            suggests that the positive effects on registered employment
            are mainly driven by the formalization of existing workers
            as opposed to new job creation. Therefore, the results
            indicate that social security contribution subsidies in
            small firms can be effective in reducing informality in
            contexts where informal employment remains common.
The Effects of Subsidizing Social
            Security Contributions : Job creation or Informality Reduction
Policy Research Working Paper 9904 The Effects of Subsidizing Social Security Contributions Job creation or Informality Reduction?

_Güneş Aşık Laurent Bossavie Jochen Kluve Efşan Nas Özen Metin Nebiler Ana Maria Oviedo_ Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice & Poverty and Equity Global Practice January 2022
Surveying Informal Businesses :
            Methodology and Applications
Informal business activity is ubiquitous
            around the world, but it is nearly always uncaptured by
            administrative data, registries, or commercial sources. For
            this reason, there are rarely adequate sampling frames
            available for survey implementers wishing to measure the
            activity and characteristics of the sector. This paper
            presents a methodology to generate a representative sample
            of informal businesses using an adaptive, geographically
            based method called Adaptive Cluster Sampling. Developed for
            populations that are clustered and/or rare, this method
            helps with efficiently sampling Primary Sampling
            Units&#x2014;blocks&#x2014;that are fully
            enumerated, and from which Secondary Sampling
            Units&#x2014;businesses&#x2014;can be randomly
            sampled to conduct interviews. The paper shows how this
            methodology can be applied to surveying informal businesses,
            often reducing both the average variance of population
            estimates and fieldwork effort. Practical considerations and
            guidance for implementation and analysis are also provided.
Illicit Schemes : Fossil Fuel
            Subsidy Reforms and the Role of Tax Evasion and Smuggling
This study develops a computable general
            equilibrium model for Nigeria, which accounts for
            informality, tax evasion, and fuel smuggling. By studying
            the impact of fuel subsidy reform on consumption, tax
            incidence, and fiscal efficiency, it shows that the presence
            of illicit activities substantially strengthens the argument
            in favour of subsidy reform: First, fuel subsidy reform can
            shift the tax base to energy goods, which are less prone to
            tax evasion losses than for instance labour. Second, by
            reducing price differentials with neighbouring countries,
            subsidy reform reduces incentives for fuel smuggling.
            Overall, the results show that considering illicit
            activities reduces the welfare losses of fuel subsidy reform
            by at least 40 percent. In addition, fuel subsidy reductions
            (and by extension energy tax increases) have a strong
            progressive distributional impact. The findings hold under
            different revenue redistribution mechanisms, in particular
            uniform cash transfers and the reduction of pre-existing
            labour taxes.
Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo
This paper studies external sovereign
            bonds as an asset class. It compiles a new database of
            266,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds
            traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of
            Waterloo) and 2016, covering up to 91 countries. The main
            insight is that, as in equity markets, the returns on
            external sovereign bonds have been sufficiently high to
            compensate for risk. Real ex-post returns average more than
            6 percent annually across two centuries, including default
            episodes, major wars, and global crises. This represents an
            excess return of 3&#x2013;4 percent above US or UK
            government bonds, which is comparable to stocks and
            outperforms corporate bonds. Central to this finding are the
            high average coupons offered on external sovereign bonds.
            The observed returns are hard to reconcile with canonical
            theoretical models and the degree of credit risk in this
            market, as measured by historical default and recovery
            rates. Based on an archive of more than 300 sovereign debt
            restructurings since 1815, the authors show that full
            repudiation is rare; the median creditor loss (haircut) is
            below 50 percent.
Nonclassical Measurement Error and
            Farmers’ Response to Information Reveal Behavioral Anomalies
This paper reports on a randomized
            experiment conducted among Malawian agricultural households
            to study nonclassical measurement error in self-reported
            plot area and farmers&#x2019; responses to new
            information (the objective plot area measure) that was
            provided to correct nonclassical measurement error.
            Farmers' pre-treatment self-reported plot areas exhibit
            considerable nonclassical measurement error, most of which
            follows a regression-to-mean pattern with respect to plot
            area, and another 18 percent of which arises from asymmetric
            rounding to half-acre increments. Randomized provision of
            GPS-based measures of true plot area generates four
            important findings. First, farmers incompletely update
            mistaken self-reports; most nonclassical measurement error
            persists even after the provision of true plot area
            measures. Second, farmers update asymmetrically in response
            to information, with upward corrections being far more
            common than downward ones even though most plot sizes were
            initially overestimated. Third, the magnitude of updating
            varies by true plot area and the magnitude and direction of
            initial nonclassical measurement error. Fourth, the
            information treatment affects self-reported information
            about non-land inputs, such as fertilizer and labor,
            indicating that the effects of measurement error and
            updating spill over across variables. Nonclassical
            measurement error reflects behavioral anomalies and carries
            implications for both survey data collection methods and the
            design of information-based interventions.
Heat, Crime, and Punishment
Using administrative criminal records
            from Texas, this paper shows how heat affects criminal
            defendants, police officers, prosecutors, and judges. It
            finds that arrests increase by up to 15 percent on hot days,
            driven by increases in violent crime. There is no evidence
            that charging-day heat impacts prosecutorial decisions.
            However, working alone, judges dismiss fewer cases, issue
            longer prison sentences, and levy higher fines when ruling
            on hot days. Higher incomes, newer housing, more teamwork,
            and less accessible weapons may decrease these adverse
            effects of heat. Even with adaptation, the paper forecasts
            that climate change will increase crime and have substantial
            distributional consequences.
Exploring the Urban Model :
            Employment, Housing, and Infrastructure
The paper explores the properties of a
            modern urban model in which households&#x2019; and
            firms&#x2019; locations in the city are endogenously
            determined as functions of technology, preferences, and
            geography. This class of model provides insights into the
            factors that determine the shape and growth of cities. The
            paper increases understanding by studying the comparative
            static properties of the model, the effects of various
            policy interventions, and the circumstances under which
            different possible city types (mono- versus poly-centric)
            arise. It is a step to tailoring model structure to
            adequately describe real world cities of different sizes and types.
The Impacts of Lockdown Policies on
            International Trade in the Philippines
The Philippines was among the most
            infected countries in East Asia at the onset of the COVID-19
            outbreak. This study analyzes how international trade on
            various margins was affected by the country’s own lockdown
            policies and those of trading partners. Using a monthly
            series of product-by-country data for the period from
            January 2019 to December 2020 and an event study design, the
            paper shows that domestic lockdown measures did not affect
            international trade but external lockdowns affected both ex-
            ports and imports. The introduction of lockdown measures by
            trading partners affected imports more than exports, leading
            to 7 and 56 percent monthly average drops in export and
            import values, respectively. Restrictions on internal
            movements and international travel controls in partner
            countries were responsible for the drop in exports. The
            slump in imports was because of workplace closure,
            stay-at-home requirements, restrictions on internal
            movement, and international travel controls by trading
            partners of the Philip- pines. Intermediate goods were the
            key driver of the drop in imports following foreign
            lockdowns, reflecting supply disruptions in backward global
            value chain participation. At the same time, exports of
            intermediate goods were more resilient to the lockdown
            policies. Finally, both exports and imports were more
            affected at the extensive margin than the intensive margin,
            as lockdown measures hindered interactions among people, in
            turn reducing the potential of businesses to create new
            relationships and launch new products in foreign markets.
            Overall, diversified and geographically dispersed suppliers
            can help countries adjust better to future disruptions.
Long-Term Effects of the 1923 Mass
            Refugee Inflow on Social Cohesion in Greece
After the 1919–1922 Greco-Turkish
            conflict, 1.2 million Greek Orthodox were forcibly displaced
            from Turkey to Greece, increasing the host population by 20
            percent within a few months. Refugees were pro-vided with
            farmland, new houses and schools, and were granted the Greek
            citizenship. This paper analyses the long-term social
            integration of refugees and the effect of their resettlement
            on social cohesion. Combining historical and modern
            population censuses and surveys, this paper finds that, by
            the 2000s, refugees display a high rate of intermarriage
            with Greek natives, report levels of trust in others and in
            institutions similar to natives, and exhibit higher
            political and civic participation. At the community level,
            places with a higher share of refugees in 1928 are more
            likely to have at least one sport association 80 years
            later. There is no impact on political fragmentation nor on
            crime. The historical refugees’ integration starkly
            contrasts with the social marginalization of recent Albanian
            immigrants who, unlike the former, neither spoke Greek nor
            had the same religion as locals upon arrival. These results
            suggest that early investments in inclusion policies can be
            effective at fostering refugees’ assimilation, at least when
            newcomers and locals have similar cultural profiles.
Forced Migration, Social Cohesion
            and Conflict : The 2015 Refugee Inflow in Germany
In 2015, Germany welcomed close to one
            million asylum seekers and refugees from Syria, Afghanistan,
            the Western Balkans and elsewhere. Although the country was
            often praised for its welcome culture, the inflow has
            spurred a debate about identity, social cohesion and the
            limits of multiculturalism. This paper analyzes the effect
            of this inflow on various dimensions of social cohesion. To
            separate causation from correlation, it exploits the fact
            that asylum seekers in Germany are allocated to local areas
            based on an area’s tax revenues and population several years
            prior. Therefore, the allocation is unrelated to current
            economic, political or social conditions. Based on survey
            data as well as data scraped from newspapers, the paper
            documents two sets of results. First, it finds no effect on
            self-reported indicators of trust and perceived fairness,
            and a small negative effect on and attitudes towards
            immigrants. In contrast, it finds that the refugee inflow
            led to an increased incidence of anti-immigrant violence
            that lasted for about two years. This increase is larger in
            areas with higher unemployment and greater support for
            right-wing parties.
Labor Market Integration, Local
            Conditions and Inequalities : Evidence from Refugees in Switzerland
The paper examines the patterns of
            economic integration of refugees in Switzerland, a country
            with a long tradition of hosting refugees, a top-receiving
            host in Europe, and a prominent example of a multicultural
            society. It relies on a unique longitudinal dataset
            consisting of administrative records and social security
            data for the universe of refugees in Switzerland over
            1998–2018. This data is used to reconstruct the
            individual-level trajectories of refugees and to follow them
            since arrival over the life-cycle. The study documents the
            patterns of labor-market integration, and highlights the
            heterogeneity by gender and age at arrival. Refugees’
            labor-market performance is compared to natives’ and other
            groups of migrants’ labor-market performance. The empirical
            analysis exploits the government dispersal policy in place
            since 1998, which consists of the random allocation of
            refugees across cantons, to identify the causal effects of
            the local initial conditions. The study finds that higher
            unemployment rates at arrival slow down the integration
            process, whereas the existence of a co-ethnic network does
            not consistently lead to a faster integration. It is shown
            that in locations where refugees face relatively more
            hostile attitudes by natives upon arrival, they integrate at
            a faster pace, probably due to a greater effort undertaken
            in environments that are more hostile. Together these
            results, highlight the importance of an early entry in the
            labor market of the host country, and the need to take a
            longer run perspective when examining the effectiveness of
            policies, as the effects may vary over time and different
            complementary interventions may be needed in the short vs. long-run.