rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Working long hours and having no
            choice : time poverty in Guinea
This paper provides a new definition of
            'time poverty' as working long hours and having no
            choice to do otherwise. An individual is time poor if he/she
            is working long hours and is also monetary poor, or would
            fall into monetary poverty if he/she were to reduce his/her
            working hours below a given time poverty line. Thus being
            time poor results from the combination of two conditions.
            First, the individual does not have enough time for rest and
            leisure once all working hours (whether spent in the labor
            market or doing household chores such as cooking, and
            fetching water and wood) are accounted for. Second, the
            individual cannot reduce his/her working time without either
            increasing the level of poverty of his/her household (if the
            household is already poor) or leading his/her household to
            fall into monetary poverty due to the loss in income or
            consumption associated with the reduction in working time
            (if the household is not originally poor). The paper applies
            the concepts of the traditional poverty literature to the
            analysis of time poverty and presents a case study using
            data for Guinea in 2002-03. Both univariate and multivariate
            results suggest that women are significantly more likely to
            be time poor than men.
Impact estimation of disasters : a
            global aggregate for 1960 to 2007
This paper aims to estimate the global
            aggregate of disaster impacts during 1960 to 2007 using
            Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) methodology. The authors
            selected 184 major disasters in terms of the size of
            economic damages, based on the data available from the
            International Emergency Disasters and MunichRe (NatCat)
            databases for natural catastrophes. They estimate the losses
            and total impacts including the higher-order effects of
            these disasters using social accounting matrices constructed
            for this study. Although the aggregate damages based on the
            data amount to US$742 billion, the aggregate losses and
            total impacts are estimated at US$360 billion and US$678
            billion, respectively. The results show a growing trend of
            economic impacts over time in absolute value. However, once
            the data and estimates are normalized using global gross
            domestic product, the historical trend of total impacts
            becomes statistically insignificant. The visual observation
            confirms the inverted U curve distribution between total
            impact and income level, while statistical analyses indicate
            negative linear relationships between them for
            climatological, geophysical, and especially hydrological events.
The microeconomic determinants of
            emigration and return migration of the best and brightest :
            evidence from the Pacific
A unique survey which tracks worldwide
            the best and brightest academic performers from three
            Pacific countries is used to assess the extent of emigration
            and return migration among the very highly skilled, and to
            analyze, at the microeconomic level, the determinants of
            these migration choices. Although the estimates indicate
            that the income gains from migration are very large, not
            everyone migrates and many return. Within this group of
            highly skilled individuals, the emigration decision is found
            to be most strongly associated with preference variables
            such as risk aversion, patience, and choice of subjects in
            secondary school, and not strongly linked to either
            liquidity constraints or the gain in income to be had from
            migrating. Likewise, the decision to return is strongly
            linked to family and lifestyle reasons, rather than to the
            income opportunities in different countries. Overall the
            data show a relatively limited role for income maximization
            in distinguishing migration propensities among the very
            highly skilled, and point to the need to pay more attention
            to other components of the utility maximization decision.
Identifying spatial
            efficiency-equity tradeoffs in territorial development
            policies : evidence from Uganda
In many countries, place specific
            investments in infrastructure are viewed as integral
            components of territorial development policies.  But are
            these policies fighting market forces of concentration? Or
            are they adding net value to the national economy by tapping
            underexploited resources? This paper contributes to the
            debate on the spatial allocation of infrastructure
            investments by examining where these investments will
            generate the highest economic returns "spatial
            efficiency", and identifying whether there re tradeoffs
            when infrastructure coverage is made more equitable across
            regions  "spatial equity". The empirical analysis
            focuses on Uganda and is based on estimating models of firm
            location choice, drawing on insights from the new economic
            geography literature. The main findings show that
            establishments in the manufacturing industry gain from being
            in areas that offer a diverse mix of economic activities. In
            addition, availability of power supply, transport links
            connecting districts to markets, and the supply of skilled
            workers attract manufacturing activities. Combining all
            these factors gives a distinct advantage to existing
            agglomerations along leading areas around Kampala and Jinja.
            Infrastructure investments in these areas are likely to
            produce the highest returns compared with investments
            elsewhere. Public infrastructure investments in other
            locations are likely to attract fewer private investors, and
            will pose a spatial efficiencyequity tradeoff. To better
            integrate lagging regions with the national economy, lessons
            from the WDR2009 "Reshaping Economic Geography"
            calling for investments in health and education in lagging
            areas are likely to be more beneficial.
Finance and inequality : theory and evidence
This paper critically reviews the
            literature on finance and inequality, highlighting
            substantive gaps in the literature. Finance plays a crucial
            role in most theories of persistent inequality.
            Unsurprisingly, therefore, economic theory provides a rich
            set of predictions concerning both the impact of finance on
            inequality and about the relevant mechanisms. Although
            subject to ample qualifications, the bulk of empirical
            research suggests that improvements in financial contracts,
            markets, and intermediaries expand economic opportunities
            and reduce inequality. Yet, there is a shortage of
            theoretical and empirical research on the potentially
            enormous impact of formal financial sector policies, such as
            bank regulations and securities law, on persistent
            inequality. Furthermore, there is no conceptual framework
            for considering the joint and endogenous evolution of
            finance, inequality, and economic growth.
Assessing the macroeconomic impacts
            of natural disasters : are there any
There is an ongoing debate on whether
            disasters cause significant macroeconomic impacts and are
            truly a potential impediment to economic development. This
            paper aims to assess whether and by what mechanisms
            disasters have the potential to cause significant GDP
            impacts. The analysis first studies the counterfactual
            versus the observed gross domestic product. Second, the
            analysis assesses disaster impacts as a function of hazard,
            exposure of assets, and, importantly, vulnerability. In a
            medium-term analysis (up to 5 years after the disaster
            event), comparing counterfactual with observed gross
            domestic product, the authors find that natural disasters on
            average can lead to negative consequences. Although the
            negative effects may be small, they can become more
            pronounced depending mainly on the size of the shock.
            Furthermore, the authors test a large number of
            vulnerability predictors and find that greater aid and
            inflows of remittances  reduce adverse macroeconomic
            consequences, and that direct losses appear most critical.
How should fiscal policy respond to
            the economic crisis in the low income commonwealth of
            independent states some pointers from Tajikistan
The paper analyses how the global
            economic crisis will affect the economies of the low income
            Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and discusses the
            fiscal measures which can be taken to help mitigate the
            adverse impact of the crisis. It focuses on Tajikistan, the
            poorest member of the CIS but also highlights similarities
            with the economies of Armenia, the Kyrgyz Republic and
            Moldova. The main channels through which the global economic
            crisis will affect the low income CIS economies is through a
            sharp reduction in remittances from migrant workers in
            Russia and lower export earnings. The adjustment to this
            external shock will involve a reduction in imports, private
            consumption, domestic output and government revenue. Fiscal
            policy, constrained by very limited macroeconomic and fiscal
            space, faces acute challenges. Maintaining budget targets
            for fiscal deficits and domestic borrowing in the face of
            revenue shortfalls will lead to a tightening of the fiscal
            stance, exacerbating recessionary pressures and making it
            very difficult to protect priority social expenditures from
            cuts. To avoid these outcomes, external support from donors,
            preferably in the form of quick disbursing budget support,
            is required. If additional external budget support can be
            mobilized, the priorities for fiscal policy should be to
            protect spending on budgeted social sector programs and, if
            sufficient budget resources are available, to implement a
            program of labor intensive repair and maintenance of public
            infrastructure to provide employment for returning migrant
            workers. Tax cuts are unlikely to be an effective use of
            scarce budget resources, either to stimulate the economy or
            protect the incomes of the poor. Up scaling existing social
            assistance programs may be a feasible way to protect the
            poor in some low income CIS countries provided they are not
            as poorly targeted as in Tajikistan.
How should fiscal policy respond to
            the economic crisis in the low income commonwealth of
            independent states some pointers from Tajikistan
WPS4970 Policy Research Working Paper 4970 How Should Fiscal Policy Respond to the Economic Crisis in the Low Income Commonwealth of Independent States? Some pointers from Tajikistan _Martin Brownbridge Sudharshan Canagarajah_ The World Bank Europe and Central Asia Region Poverty Reduction & Economic Management Sector Unit & Central Asia Regional Unit June 2009
Can Malaysia escape the
            middle-income Trap a strategy for Penang
How can Penang upgrade and diversify its
            economy? This paper addresses this question using a number
            of methodologies that have been developed for assessing
            competitiveness and identifying the direction of future
            industrial evolution. The results show that although Penang
            was successful in attracting foreign direct investment to
            the electronics industry, this has not translated into a
            deepening of industrial capabilities or the nurturing of
            innovation capacity in Penang. No large Malaysian firms in
            Penang have taken the lead in innovation and there is little
            new entry by local firms, despite incentives provided by
            local and national governments are generous. Universiti
            Sains Malaysia, the principal university in Penang, is
            contributing through provision of skills, and it is
            beginning to multiply university industry linkages. However,
            the universitys research activities are too limited and too
            diffuse to significantly initiate innovation by local
            industry. Under the current circumstances, and given its
            relatively small size, Penang will have to try much harder
            to strengthen its competitive advantage in its most
            important industry -electronics- through actions that build
            research capital. It will also have to increase its efforts
            to develop the potential of other value-adding activities,
            such as medical services and tourism. A strategy focused on
            localization economies is likely to be the most feasible option.
Does financial openness lead to
            deeper domestic financial markets
Advanced and emerging market economies
            have rapidly integrated into international capital markets
            and this growing globalization of financial markets has led
            to some important changes in the patterns of saving and
            investment across the world. The main goal of this paper is
            to test whether the cross-border asset trade has led to
            improvements in the intermediation of these savings -- that
            is, foster development of domestic financial markets. The
            authors have collected annual information on financial
            market development, financial openness, and other control
            variables for a sample of 145 countries for the period
            1974-2007. Controlling for the likely endogeneity of
            financial openness, the analysis finds that rising financial
            openness expands private credit, bank assets, and stock
            market and private bond market development, and generates
            efficiency gains in the banking system.  However, the impact
            of financial openness on domestic financial development may
            depend on the level of institutional quality, the extent of
            investor protection, and the degree of trade openness. In
            general, rising financial openness will enlarge the size and
            activity of financial intermediaries, improve efficiency in
            the banking system, and contribute to deepen private bond
            markets in countries with moderate to high levels of
            institutional quality and investor protection as well as in
            countries with high trade openness.
The economics of teacher supply in Indonesia
This paper examines the phenomenon of
            the over-supply of teachers but shortage of qualified
            teachers in Indonesia. Using a theoretical framework of
            government-dominated market with government-set wage rate
            and demand for teachers, the analysis explores how teacher
            supply, particularly the composition of the teaching force
            with low or high qualification, would be determined by
            current and future public policies. Using 2001 to 2008
            Indonesian Labor Force Survey data, the paper further
            estimates the potential effect of the most recent teacher
            law, which could give college educated teachers a
            significant pay increase, on the composition of the
            Indonesian teaching force with differentiated education
            backgrounds. Using a sample of workers with college
            education, the author finds that the relative wage rate of
            teachers and that of alternative occupations significantly
            influence the decision of college educated workers to become
            teachers. It is also found that the wage rate set by the
            most recent teacher law would increase the share of teachers
            approximately from 16 to 30 percent of the college-educated
            labor force. This increase that is due to the new
            government-set wage rate, would result in a pupil-teacher
            ratio of 24 to 25 pupils per teacher with college education,
            but will require a more than 31 percent increase in the wage
            bill for teacher salaries. The empirical approach of this
            paper is derived from a structural model that takes into
            account the endogeneity of the wage rate and corrects for
            sample-selection bias due to occupational choice.
The health impact of extreme weather
            events in Sub-Saharan Africa
Extreme weather events are known to have
            serious consequences for human health and are predicted to
            increase in frequency as a result of climate change. Africa
            is one of the regions that risks being most seriously
            affected. This paper quantifies the impact of extreme
            rainfall and temperature events on the incidence of
            diarrhea, malnutrition and mortality in young children in
            Sub-Saharan Africa. The panel data set is constructed from
            Demographic and Health Surveys for 108 regions from 19
            Sub-Saharan African countries between 1992 and 2001 and
            climate data from the Africa Rainfall and Temperature
            Evaluation System from 1980 to 2001. The results show that
            both excess rainfall and extreme temperatures significantly
            raise the incidence of diarrhea and weight-for-height
            malnutrition among children under the age of three, but have
            little impact on the long-term health indicators, including
            height-for-age malnutrition and the under-five mortality
            rate. The authors use the results to simulate the additional
            health cost as a proportion of gross domestic product caused
            by increased climate variability. The projected health cost
            of increased diarrhea attributable to climate change in 2020
            is in the range of 0.2 to 0.5 percent of gross domestic
            product in Africa.
Natural disasters and growth - going
            beyond the averages
There has been a steady increase in the
            occurrence of natural disasters. Yet their effect on
            economic growth remains unclear, with some studies reporting
            negative, and others indicating no, or even positive
            effects. These seemingly contradictory findings can be
            reconciled by exploring the effects of natural disasters on
            growth separately by disaster and economic sector. This is
            consistent with the insights from traditional models of
            economic growth, where production depends on total factor
            productivity, the provision of intermediate outputs, and the
            capital-labor ratio, as well as the existence of important
            intersector linkages. Applying a dynamic Generalized Method
            of Moments panel estimator to a 1961-2005 cross-country
            panel, three major insights emerge. First, disasters affect
            economic growth - but not always negatively, and differently
            across disasters and economic sectors. Second, although
            moderate disasters can have a positive growth effect in some
            sectors, severe disasters do not. Third, growth in
            developing countries is more sensitive to natural disasters
            - more sectors are affected and the magnitudes are non-trivial.
More on the energy / non-energy
            commodity price link
This paper examines the
            energy/non-energy commodity price link, based on a reduced
            form econometric model and using annual data from 1960 to
            2008. The transmission elasticity from energy to the
            non-energy index is estimated at 0.28. At a more
            disaggregated level, the fertilizer index exhibited the
            largest elasticity (0.55), followed by precious metals
            (0.46), food (0.27), metals and minerals (0.25), and raw
            materials (0.11). By contrast, only a few price indices
            responded strongly to inflation, although the trend
            parameter estimate (often viewed as a proxy for
            technological progress) is negative for agriculture and
            positive for metals. A key implication of the pass-through
            results is that for as long as energy prices remain
            elevated, most non-energy commodity prices are expected to
            be high.
Remittances and banking sector
            breadth and depth : evidence from Mexico
Despite the rising volume of remittances
            flowing to developing countries, their impact on banking
            sector breadth and depth in recipient countries has been
            largely unexplored. The authors examine this topic using
            municipio-level data on the fraction of households that
            receive remittances and on measures of banking breadth and
            depth for Mexico. They find that remittances are strongly
            associated with greater banking breadth and depth,
            increasing the number of branches and accounts per capita
            and the ratio of deposits to gross domestic product. These
            effects are significant both statistically and economically,
            even after conducting robustness tests and addressing the
            potential endogeneity of remittances.
Put your money where your butt is :
            a commitment contract for smoking cessation
The authors designed and tested a
            voluntary commitment product to help smokers quit smoking.
            The product (CARES) offered smokers a savings account in
            which they deposit funds for six months, after which they
            take a urine test for nicotine and cotinine. If they pass,
            their money is returned; otherwise, their money is forfeited
            to charity. Eleven percent of smokers offered CARES tookup,
            and smokers randomly offered CARES were 3 percentage points
            more likely to pass the 6-month test than the control group.
            More importantly, this effect persisted in surprise tests at
            12 months, indicating that CARES produced lasting smoking cessation.