rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
- 8 -

highly correlated with MAI even in a simple correlation diagram ( **Figure 8** ). Of course, there is considerable variation, which needs to be controlled by other factors.

**Figure 8. Correlation between rice production and MAI**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 0 .2 .4 .6 .8<br>Market Access Index<br>40000<br>30000<br>20000<br>10000<br>Rice production (ton/100km2)<br>0<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: World Bank estimate.

The AGAI is defined in the same way, with the market capacity replaced with the number of agrobusinesses, _s_ , that exist in each location (commune). _d_ is measured by estimating transportation costs from pixel _i_ and location _h_ .

According to the official firm registry database, as of 2017, there existed 1,309 agrobusinesses in the country. Output-related agrobusinesses, including large plantations, collectors, processing companies, and exporters, are dominant, which amount to 902 companies in the database. On the other hand, 399 input-related agrobusinesses, also exist, such as fertilizer and other input dealers and equipment suppliers.<sup>5</sup> The spatial distribution of agrobusinesses is highly skewed ( **Figure 9** ). 569 firms or nearly half of the total agrobusinesses are located in three districts: Antananarivo, Fianarantsoa and Ambatondrazaka. While the first two are the largest two urban areas in the middle of the

> 5 This classification may be ambiguous. In the database, each agrobusiness is categorized as either an input- or output-related firm based on the description of its primary business activity. In practice, however, some of them are likely to engage in both activities.
# Rekences

1. Roads to Serve the Nation-The Story of Road Development in the United States. U.S. Federal Highway Administration, Publication No. FHWA-PL-89024, Washington, D.C., 1989.

2. Wilfred Owen. Transportation and World Development. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1987.

3. Riverson, J. D. N., and S. Carapetis. The Potential of Intermediate Means of Transport in Improving Rural Travel and Transport in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Program, World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1991.

4. World Highways. International Road Federation, Vol. XLI, No. 8, Washington, D.C., November/December 1990.

_5._ Sub-Saharan Africa - From Crisis to Sustainable Grownth. A Long-Term Perspective Study, World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1990.

6. World Development Report 1990, World Bank, Washington, D.C., June 1990.

7. Road Deterioration in Developing Countries: Causes and Remedies, The World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1988.

8. UNTACDA U, Roads Sub-sector Working Group, "Strategy Paper", Africa Technical Department, infrastructure Division, The World Bank, Washington, D.C., Dec. 1990.

9. World Road Statistics 1985-1989, International Road Federation, Washington, D.C., 1990.

10. Highway Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C. (Different Issues).

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12. Annual Bulletin of Transport Statistics for Europe, United Nations, New York, 1990.

13. World Transport Data, International Road Transport Union, Geneva, 1990.

12
# **6.  Conclusions**

This paper examines the evolution of fiscal space in Sub-Saharan African countries using a novel and comprehensive database developed by Kose and co-authors (2017). Fiscal space is a multidimensional concept that is proxied by a wide array of indicators capturing aspects such as: (i) fiscal sustainability, (ii) balance sheet vulnerability, (iii) external and private debt position, and (iv) market perception.

The insufficient availability of data at the cross-sectional and time-series dimensions for SubSaharan African countries restricts our analysis to eight indicators that proxy areas (i), (ii) and (iii). Unfortunately, important risks currently affecting debt profiles in the region (e.g. currency and maturity) are not evaluated due to the lack of data availability. From our analysis, several stylized facts emerge: First, Sub-Saharan African countries, breaking with history, were able to conduct countercyclical fiscal policy measures thanks to previously built fiscal space in the run-up to the 2008-09 global financial crisis. Healthy primary balances, reduced public debt burdens, and access to global capital markets allowed countries in the region to have ample margin to conduct policies to support aggregate demand amid the global financial crisis. The primary balance sustainability gap in SSA shifted from an average of 6.5 percent of GDP in 2003–08 to -5.3 percent in 2009. Countries in the region spend resources without following strict rules and medium-term plans. This is in line with evidence that ambitious plans tend to exhibit larger implementation gaps —and, hence, fiscal plans are not entirely realistic when designed (Lledó and Poplawski-Ribeiro 2013).<sup>16</sup> Second, fiscal adjustment efforts in SSA—as captured by a positive but small primary balance sustainability gap in 2010-13—reversed amid a plunge in commodity prices in 2014-16. There are large differences in the fiscal dynamics by resource abundance, however. Primary balance sustainability gaps deteriorated sharply among oil and metals and minerals exporting countries in the region in 2014-16, reflecting a reversal of primary surplus or widened primary deficits, increased debt ratios, rising borrowing costs and more modest growth prospects. For example, in oil exporters, the sustainability gap shifted from debt-reducing primary surpluses of 1.2 percent of GDP in 2010-13 to debt-increasing primary deficits of 1.5 percent of GDP in 2014-16. Minerals and metals exporters continued to post negative primary balance sustainability gaps amid a recovery in commodity prices in 2010-13, and this group saw a worsening of the sustainability gap to -5.9 percent of GDP in 2014-16, a nearly 2 percentage point deterioration. By contrast, nonresource rich countries saw a slight narrowing of their negative primary balance sustainability gap, from 1.9 percent of GDP in 2010-13 to 1.2 percent of GDP in 2014-16.

> 16 Strong institutions combined with sound budget implementation procedures are associated with smaller implementation gaps in revenue collection and overall balance among SSA countries.

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approach is the Firm-level Adoption of Technology (FAT) survey that we have designed and administered to a representative sample of firms in Senegal, Vietnam, and in the Brazilian state of Cear ́a. With the assistance of a large number of sector and technology experts, we have identified the key business functions and the technologies that companies can use to conduct the main tasks in each of the selected business functions, and have ranked the technologies according to their sophistication. The FAT survey covers seven general business functions (GBF) that are common to all companies regardless of the sector where they operate. In addition, for ten large sectors, we have identified their key sector-specific business functions (SSBF) and the main technologies that can be used. In total, the FAT survey covers 59 business functions and 287 technologies associated with them.<sup>3</sup> The FAT survey asks firms to list first all the technologies that are used in each business function, and then which one is the most widely used. With this information, we construct business function-level measures of the sophistication of the most widely used technology and of the full array of technologies used in the business function. We use these measures to explore three broad issues: The variation in technology across firms, the patterns of technology use within firms, and the relationship between the sophistication of technology and productivity.

Our analysis reveals large variation in the sophistication of technologies used in production at all levels of aggregation. We document a pattern by which, the variance in sophistication is larger the more disaggregated is the unit of analysis. Specifically, we find greater variance in technology sophistication across the business functions of a firm (i.e., within-firm) than across firms, and greater variance across firms than across countries/regions. Both at the national and regional levels, we document a positive relationship between cross-firm variance in technology sophistication and development. Furthermore, the distribution of average technology sophistication for Brazil shows restricted first-order stochastic dominance (Atkinson, 1987) to the distribution in Vietnam in most of the distribution, which in turn shows restricted stochastic dominance to the distribution in Senegal.

FAT’s comprehensive information about the technologies used at the business function level allows to systematically analyze technology within firms. The large within-firm variance in technological sophistication we find debunks the notion that technology is uniform within firms. Within-firm variance increases with the average level of sophistication in the firm and with firm size. We explore the existence of patterns of technology upgrading within the firm by studying how the sophistication of technology in a business function varies with average firm-level sophistication. For each individual business function, we document stable cross-firm relationship between sophistication at the business function level and average firm

> 3See Table A.1 for a comparison with other firm-level surveys.

2
control for these factors, the survey asked respondents to focus the case study on a manufactured product that is of medium value; is transportable in a dry-cargo, 20-foot FCL container; requires no refrigeration or special environmental conditions; requires no special phytosanitary or environmental standards check; and includes no hazardous material or military equipment.

To produce indicators that are robustly comparable across 140 economies ranging from Australia, Norway, and the United States to Burundi, Malawi, and Nepal, three SITC (Standard International Trade Classification) codes were chosen to specify the type of product being traded:

- SITC 65: Textile yarn, fabrics, made-up articles.

- SITC 84: Articles of apparel and clothing accessories.

- SITC 07: Coffee, tea, cocoa, spices, and manufactures thereof.

An examination of world trade data confirmed that most economies in the sample trade in these products.<sup>7</sup>

# **_Assumptions about procedures_**

A procedure for which the time and cost were measured was defined as any interaction of the firm with external parties (government agencies or officials, inspection agencies or officials, port officials, customs, and the like). Intrafirm interactions among employees were excluded. All procedures that are legally or in practice required for trading or shipping a containerized product were recorded, even if they may be avoided in exceptional cases.

An important issue to control for was simultaneity of procedures. When two or more procedures are simultaneously performed, the time for the entire transaction (import or export) cannot be obtained by summing the time for individual procedures. A separate question in the questionnaire made it possible to identify and correct for simultaneously completed procedures.

# **_Missing or inconsistent responses_**

The questionnaire was carefully designed to provide consistency checks across responses. Where gaps or discrepancies were noted, follow-up telephone calls were made to the source to resolve the discrepancy or fill in the missing data. The cost data presented particular difficulties, requiring substantial efforts to follow up with the original source as well as other sources in most countries to complete or correct the data. If several sources had different estimates of time and cost, the median value was used.

> 7 The world trade data are from the United Nations Statistics Division - UN Commodity Trade Statistics Database

9
Ravallion, M. 2009. “A Comparative Perspective on Poverty Reduction in Brazil, China and India.” _World Bank Development Research Group,_ Policy Research Working Paper 5080.

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Ravallion, M. 2013. “The Idea of Anti‐Poverty Policy.” _National Bureau of Economic Research,_ Working Paper 19210.

Ravallion, M. 2016. _The Economics of Poverty._ New York: Oxford University Press.

Ravallion, M. and Chen, S. 2007. “China’s Uneven Progress against Poverty.” _Journal of Development Economics,_ 82, 1‐42.

Ravi, S. and Engler, M. 2015. “Workfare as an Effective Way to Fight Poverty: The Case of India’s NREGS.” _World Development_ , Vol. 67, issue C, 57‐71.

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Rodrik, D. 2001. “Trading in Illusions.” _Foreign Policy_ , March/April 2001. 54‐62.

Rubio, G. 2011. “The Mexican Government’s M&E System.” _World Bank,_ PREM Notes, No.14. Spence, M. and Lewis, M. 2009. _Health and Growth: Commission on Growth and Development._ Washington, DC: World Bank.

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Stiglitz, J. 1996. “Some Lessons from the East Asian Miracle.” _The World Bank Research Observer,_ Vol. 11, No. 2: 151‐177.

Sumner, A. 2013. “Aid Agencies of the Future: Poverty, Geography, and the Double Dilemma.” _The Economist._ June 3, 2013.

Taylor, A. 2014. “Ten Years Since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.” _The Atlantic._ December 26, 2014.

UNESCO Institute for Statistics and the Education for All Global Monitoring Report. 2015. “A Growing Number of Children and Adolescents are Out of School as Aid Fails to Meet the Mark.” Policy Paper 22 / Fact Sheet 31 UNICEF. 2015. Levels & Trends in Child Mortality. _UN Inter‐Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation._ 2015 Report.

UNICEF and World Health Organization. 2015. Progress on sanitation and drinking water – 2015 update and MDG assessment.

United Nations Development Programme. 2011. “Mexico: Scaling Up Progresa/Oportunidades – Conditional Cash Transfer Programme.” _Special Unit for South‐South Cooperation._ United Nations Development Programme. 2015. “Ghana Millennium Development Goals.” 2015 Report.

Wagstaff, A. 2014. “We Just Learned a Whole Lot More About Achieving Universal Health Coverage.” _World Bank, Let’s Talk Development._ Wang, C. 2012. “History of the Chinese Family Planning program: 1970‐2010.” _Contraception, 85(6): 563‐9._ Walker, S. et al. 2007. “Child development: risk factors for adverse outcomes in developing countries.” _The Lancet_ 369, 145‐157.

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payouts, based on a long span of historical rainfall data, combined with contract specifications from a previous paper by us. We also present information on actual payouts on policies sold in recent years, again based on administrative data generously provided to us by BASIX.

# 6.1 Putative historical distribution

In a previous paper, Giné et al. (2007), we use approximately three decades of daily historical rainfall data to estimate a putative distribution of insurance returns, based on 11 different contracts offered to farmers in Andhra Pradesh in 2006. We estimate payouts for each year of our rainfall data, assuming the 2006 contracts had been available during that year. Each of the 11 contracts we study is linked to rainfall data from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). The history of past rainfall data also comes from the IMD.

The estimated distribution of returns is presented in Figure 6.6, below. The x-axis for the graph is “payout rank,” which ranks payouts in increasing order of size, expressed on a scale from 0 to 1. Figure 6.6 plots payout amount against payout rank. (The minimum payout is zero, the maximum payout is 1,000 rupees.) The calculated distribution presented in the figure suggests that returns on the rainfall insurance are highly skewed. The payout is zero up to a payout rank of 0.89 (i.e. the 89th percentile), indicating that an indemnity is paid in only 11% of phases. The 95th percentile of payouts is around 200 rupees. In about 1% of phases, the insurance pays an indemnity of 1,000 rupees, which is the maximum payout for each of these 11 contracts. Thus, the policies appear primarily to insure against extreme tail events, with around half of the value of indemnities being generated by the highest-paying 2% of phases. [Figure 6.6 here] Giné et al. (2007) also calculate the ratio of expected payouts on rainfall insurance relative to premiums. We estimate that this ratio is around 30% on average across the 11 weather
_9_ _What Schumpeter very imaginatively incorporated in his conception of growth in technology is worth retaining. And Boltho doesn't really raise this in his paper. He cites Schumpeter on the decline of capitalism, not on the importance of entrepreneurs. Schumpeter's idea of the link between the growth and the cycle, for instance, was meant to relate to the consequences of major technological breakthroughs. He suggested that one could make a distinction between fundamental ones, which would pervade the economy completely, by changing the sources of energy and so forth, and less important ones. That seems to me to make a lot of sense._ _And above all, the conclusion that he drew is one that I think is surprisingly neglected, and that was that the introduction of technological breakthroughs in some area or other was bound to be followed by problems of absorption and by a great deal of competition between the old and the new technology and, therefore, a slowdown in growth with rising unemployment._ _What interests me in this approach is the plausibility and realism that I find in such an approach to technology as distincc from the idea of simply putting it into a production function and assuming that it wi.'l have a smooth and even impact on factor productivity._ _So on this score I think Boltho has underestimated the role of technology. While it is difficult to measure the role of technology as Boltho argues, that seems to me to be beside the point. There are lots of things in economics that can't be measured._ _I have been intrigued by the iniportance that Boltho has attached to growth policies or macroeconomic policies in general in determining growth. I think I might buy in the short-run the idea that policies can do a lot to slow down growth and hold investment back._ _But that seems to me to ignore another common sense observation of a historical nature, which Boltho does comment on, namely the role of institutions, the role of microeconomic aspects, which is a very big black box. To that Boltho adds the legal system, government regulation, educational policy, technology policy, and foreign investment policy. I think these deserve considerable attention here, not just in developed countries but quite parcicularly in developing countries._ _In the paper by Reynolds [JEL, June 1987] the conclusion was that over 150 years the only conclusion one could draw of growth that what really mattered most of all was political stability and good public administration. This is of course not much if one wants to say something interesting about growth. But it is a minimalist approach._ WPIPROC/SF:jsq
compared to 73% of firms in Kenya or 50% of firms in neighboring Tanzania and only 20 percent report paying bribes (fourth lowest).

Rwanda prioritized enforceable policies, avoiding the common practice ignoring enforcement capability and promulgating a long list of complex laws that are not reliably enforced opening space for deals and uncertainty. Rwanda’s judicial system reform since 2001 is an example improving institutions while maintaining stability. The country transitioned from its colonialist inherited civil law system to common law, in the process both reducing the length of procedures (from 5 to 10 years down to only 2 to 3)<sup>36</sup> and increase the reliability of the court system. In the 2006 Enterprise Survey data 67% of firms believed their court system is fair, impartial, and uncorrupted (compared to only 16% in Mozambique or 22% in Kenya and 25% on average).

Rwanda did more than improving the overall climate, the government also made specific deals with mostly US-based multi-national companies and were able to rapidly increase its exports significantly (mainly with the US). The increase in trade due to these targeted agreements was bigger than multi-lateral trade agreements, such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The most prominent deal was in Rwanda’s coffee sector. Recognizing the importance of the coffee sector for its economy (especially exports) as well as providing stable income for farmers, Rwanda conducted high-level talks and negotiated special agreements with big importers of coffee from the United States. These specific deals achieved a bigger result than a traditional bilateral countryto-country trade agreement. On one hand, the government addressed the basic needs of the coffee importers, such as security and reliability, and on the other hand, it helped

> 36  Overhauling Contract Enforcement: Lessons form Rwanda BIZCLIR: Business Climate Legal & Institutional Reform, Issue 17, March 2007

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planned recruitment in 2016. Importantly, it is not a foregone conclusion that TTC graduates will apply for these civil service teaching jobs. Data from the 2017 Rwanda Labour Force Survey indicate that only 37 percent of recent TTC graduates were in teaching jobs, with 15 percent in non-teaching, salaried employment. This is not because the teacher labor market is tight; nationwide close to a quarter of vacancies created by a teacher leaving a school remain unfilled in the following school year (Zeitlin, 2020). A more plausible explanation is that the recent graduates in the outside sector earned a premium of close to 30 percent, making occupational choice after TTC a meaningful decision.

# **2.2 Experiment**

**Contract structure** The experiment was built around the comparison of two contracts paying a bonus on top of teacher salaries in each of the 2016 and 2017 school years, and was managed by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) in coordination with REB. The first of these was a P4P contract, which paid RWF 100,000 (approximately 15 percent of annual salary) to the top 20 percent of upper-primary teachers within a district, as measured by a composite performance metric.<sup>8</sup> This metric equally weighted student learning alongside three measures of teachers’ inputs into the classroom (presence, lesson preparation, and observed pedagogy). The measure of learning was based on a pay-for-percentile scheme that makes student performance at all levels relevant to teacher rewards (Barlevy and Neal, 2012).<sup>9</sup> The 2016 performance award was conditional on remaining in post during the entire 2016 school year, and was to be paid early in 2017. Likewise, the 2017 performance award was conditional on remaining in post during the entire 2017 school year, and was to be paid early in 2018. The second was a fixed-wage (FW) contract that paid RWF 20,000 to all upper-primary teachers. This bonus was paid at the same time as the performance award in the P4P contract.

Although P4P contracts based on a composite metric of teacher inputs and student performance have been used in a number of policy settings in the US (Im-

> 8The exchange rate on January 1, 2016 was 734 RWF to 1 USD, so the RWF 100,000 bonus was worth roughly 136 USD.

> 9Student learning contributed to an individual teacher’s score via percentiles within studentbased brackets so that a teacher with a particular mix of low-performing and high-performing students was, in effect, competing with other teachers with similar mixes of students. The data used to construct this measure, and the measures of teachers’ inputs, are described in Sections 3.3 and 3.4 respectively, and we explain the adaptation of the Barlevy-Neal measure of learning outcomes to a repeated cross-section of pupils in Appendix D.

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