rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Debt concentration and secondary
            market prices
Using a model that distinguishes between
            large money center banks and smaller regional banks, this
            paper shows that the percentage of a country's debt
            held by the large banks affects the secondary market price
            of that country's debt: the higher the concentration of
            the debt, the higher the secondary market price. It also
            shows that if debt is freely traded in the secondary market,
            the entire stock of debt will not eventually end up being
            owned by the large banks. The authors' empirical
            analysis incorporates several potential determinants of
            secondary market prices: variables associated with a
            country's economic performance, variables that can be
            associated with the creditor country's regulatory
            structure, and the concentration of debt in the hands of the
            largest U.S. banks.
Venture capital operations and their
            potential role in LDC markets
The venture capital industry started and
            developed as an institutional response to rapid changes in
            the industrial sector and, in particular, to the emergence
            of small and medium-sized companies.  Venture capital
            targets mainly small and also younger companies, primarily
            during their early stage, when they are developing new
            products and/or services.  The main objective of the present
            paper is to provide Bank staff and policymakers in
            developing countries with complementary evidence on key
            issues in this subject.  It focuses on the investment
            activity of the venture capital firms and the relationship
            between the venture capital firm and the investee firms.
            The paper reviews the role of government vis-a-vis the
            industry and concludes with some thoughts on the potential
            role for venture capital operations in LDC financial markets.
World Bank lending for education
            research, 1982-89
As a follow up to the earlier review of
            research in education projects, this study inventories
            research in education projects, 1982 to 1989, and traces the
            completion status of studies that were incomplete before
            1982. Data were collected on research volume, cost and the
            conditions under which research components yield accessible
            and useful information.  This paper describes the strategy
            employed to identify the research components and studies.
            It presents findings with respect to: (i) the volume of
            studies and compares these results with the earlier study;
            (ii) the type of studies reported; and (iii) the budgeted
            cost of the studies.  It also examines preconditions of
            study completion, using data from Staff Appraisal Reports
            (SARs) and interviews with selected Project Officers.  The
            final section discusses the findings and draws conclusions.
Credit's effect on productivity
            in Chinese agriculture : a microeconomic model of disequilibrium
Many government programs want to provide
            more credit to the farm sector to increase agricultural
            productivity.  If the marginal effect on productivity is
            small, those resources might be put to better use elsewhere.
            The authors conducted an econometric analysis of the effect
            of credit on output supply which recognizies that credit
            markets are not necessarily at equilibrium - so that credit
            rationing and nonborrowing are both possible.  Only about 37
            percent of the farmers in the study area were constrained by
            inadequate formal credit.  Informal credit sources provided
            funds for specific non-agricultural activities that were not
            fungible.  The results indicate that one additional yuan of
            liquidity yielded 0.235 yuan of additional gross value of
            output. These results suggest that for the area of China
            covered in the study, a good part of the short-term credit
            may actually be used for consumption and investment.  Two
            conclusions are suggested for evaluating the probable effect
            of expanding agricultural credit.  First, not all farmers,
            and sometimes only a minority, are constrained in their
            farming operations by inadequate credit. And second, greater
            supplies of formal credit will be diverted in part to
            consumption, so the likely effect on output will be smaller
            than what one might expect if all funds are assumed to be
            used productively.
Higher wages for relief work can
            make many of the poor worse off : recent evidence from
            Maharashtra's "Employment Guarantee Scheme"
Among developing countries, the
            "Employment Guarantee Scheme" (EGS) in the state
            of Maharashtra in India is probably the most famous and most
            successful direct governmental effort at reducing absolute
            poverty in rural areas.  Since the mid-1970s, EGS has aimed
            to offer unskilled rural employment on demand.  The work
            creates or maintains rural infrastructure, through small
            scale irrigation and soil conservation projects,
            re-forestation, and rural road building.  EGS projects are
            designed to be highly intensive in their use of unskilled
            labor, which typically accounts for over two-thirds of
            variable costs.  Wages are set in the form of piece rates,
            stipulating rates of pay for a large number of specific
            tasks, such as digging, breaking rocks, shifting earth, and
            transplanting.  This paper investigates the effects on the
            scheme of the dramatic change in the EGS wage schedule in
            mid-1988.  Three issues are addressed:  (a) EGS employment,
            wage rates, and the cost of the scheme to the government
            after the increase in the statutory minimum wage rate; (b)
            the determinants of EGS employment and changes incurred by
            the wage increase; and (c) the availability of local
            employment at the going EGS wages.
How successful is World Bank lending
            for structural adjustment
To measure the effectiveness of the
            World Bank's structural adjustment programs, the author
            examines the data on actual economic performance for 75
            countries for the period 1976-86. He finds a clear
            association between participation in a World Bank adjustment
            lending program and cross-country differences in economic
            performance and policy. Countries that participated in
            adjustment lending programs tended to have the following
            characteristics, compared with countries that did not
            participate in such programs: (a) more rapid economic
            growth; (b) more rapid inflation; (c) a less negative
            current account balance as a percentage of GNP; (d) deeper
            financial sectors; (e) a lower ratio of current government
            spending to GNP; and (f) depreciation of the real exchange
            rate. The first three indicators reflect differing
            performance; the second three, different policy mixes. In
            other words, the countries have not benefited merely by
            increased financing at the margin but have also undertaken
            significantly different economic policies.
Australia's antidumping experience
One side of the debate about
            anti-dumping argues that dumping is not a problem in
            international trade - that it is a normal business practice
            which benefits the importing country's consumers and
            user industries - and that anti-dumping is inherently
            protectionist. The other side argues that an anti-dumping
            system has a legitimate role to play in maintaining a
            liberal trading order, but that the process is being abused
            for protectionist ends. Three sets of conclusions about
            reforms to anti-dumping have emerged from this dual debate:
            (a) tighten anti-dumping procedures to reduce scope for
            abuse; (b) broaden their focus, to take into account wider
            economic interests; and (c) abandon anti-dumping altogether.
            The purpose of this paper is to use the Australian
            experience over the past decade to shine some light on the
            issues raised internationally. The paper begins by briefly
            outlining the varied history of Australia's
            anti-dumping arrangements and activity since the late 1970s.
            It then looks at the Australian experience from the
            perspectives of the debate just referred to and ends with
            some conclusions relevant to that debate.
Money, inflation, and deficit in Egypt
Egypt has been able to escape high
            inflation by depleting its stocks of creditworthiness, money
            illusion, and enforceable foreign-exchange controls. These
            nonrecoverable assets are quickly becoming extinct and the
            economy is on an unsustainable path. The authors present a
            short- and medium-term dynamic model of the Egyptian economy
            and use it to simulate the effects on output and inflation
            of a stabilization-cum-adjustment program. Their conclusion
            is to make the public sector live within its means, and to
            do so at once. This is a demanding prescription; political
            and social pressure can become intolerable under adjustment.
            The authors show that both a slowdown in output and the
            initial rise in inflation associated with a tough reform
            program will be short-lived. And a do-nothing strategy will
            soon push the country into a serious crisis, the correction
            of which will certainly be more painful.
Firms' responses to relative
            price changes in Cote d'Ivoire : the implications for
            export subsidies and devaluations
Since the early 1980s, export subsidies
            have been proposed as a way to counteract the adverse
            effects of an exchange rate overvaluation among member
            countries of the West African Monetary Union. It was felt
            that one way to alter the relative price of traded to
            nontraded goods was to attempt to mimic devaluation by
            raising import tariffs and export subsidies by the same
            proportion. This paper models the short-run response of
            firms to exogenous changes in export and import prices,
            taking into account the possibility that firms may sell to
            both domestic and foreign markets. The results suggest that
            firms in Cote d'Ivoire do sell more to the foreign
            market when it is more profitable to do so. Exports respond
            positively to increases in export prices and negatively to
            increases in import prices. But the fact that exports would
            be lower if an export subsidy were combined with an import
            tariff is not an argument for introducing an export subsidy
            alone because it would be insufficient to increase output in
            the tradable goods sector. The combination of an export
            subsidy with an import tariff, which comes closer to
            mimicking the effects of devaluation, would serve to
            counteract some of the adverse effects on output of an
            overvalued exchange rate.
Alternative instruments for
            smoothing the consumption of primary commodity exporters
Countries that depend on a single
            primary export for their foreign earnings are likely to
            experience sharp fluctuations in export earnings and their
            underlying wealth, because of the instability of all primary
            commodity markets. As part of structural adjustment, several
            countries have liberalized their trade regimes, so domestic
            producers are no longer insulated from international price
            fluctuations. This paper concentrates on the management of
            country-level consumption risk, and considers actions which
            the government might undertake to reduce the cost of that
            risk. The paper reviews the costs of export price
            instability, with some reference to the empirical
            magnitudes. It considers the role of conventional
            instruments, including loans, price stabilization measures,
            and futures contracts. Particular attention is paid to the
            potential use of futures rollovers for longer-term price
            protection, and the effect of production response on that
            protection. The paper also discusses "commodity
            bonds" and dynamic consumption smoothing paths and
            offers conclusions.
Health and development : what can
            research contribute
This survey of the state of research on
            relations between health and economic development discusses
            first research on how development affects health and then
            research on how health affects development. Central
            assumptions include: (A) Health is produced by households,
            along with a number of other valued goods, as a function of
            the resources the household has and the constraints and
            opportunities it faces; the process of development affects
            health in part by changing those resources, constraints and
            opportunities. (B) Development depends in part on investment
            in human capital; improvement in health of individuals is
            thus likely to influence the amount and process of
            development. (C) Both health and other aspects of
            development are affected by public policies. Public policies
            are affected by many political, economic and social
            interests; policies are also and can also be affected by
            better information and thus by better research.
Privatization in Turkey
State capitalism has been a basic tenet
            of the developing strategy for Turkey for half a century,
            with import-substituting industrialization through state
            economic enterprises (SEEs) as a guiding principle. By 1980
            a serious economic and political crisis called for a
            reassessment of economic policies. Policy reorientation was
            radical : from import substitution to export promotion, from
            interventionism to market forces, and from promotion of SEEs
            to promotion of the private sector. The state's role in
            the economy was reduced and emphasis has instead been put on
            broadly defined privatization, with the additional
            objectives of developing the domestic capital markets and
            generating revenue for the treasury. Initial operations were
            in the form of sales of revenue-sharing bonds and minority
            share sales. The first attempt at stock sales flopped. The
            approach was then quietly switched to block sales without
            thorough preparation of the legal ground.d. Since the
            government had not prepared the legal and political base for
            privatization, it had no clear strategy or concrete program.
            The assumption that privatization could be treated as an
            administrative matter was proven wrong. The cancelation of
            block sales coincided with a boom on the stock market with
            the strategy switched back to stock market sales of minority
            shares. For the moment, privatization has thus shrunk to a
            budget-deficit financing technique, with the targets of
            enhanced efficiency pushed into the background.
Shared investment in general
            training : the role of information
The major premise of this paper is that
            potential recruiters do not possess much information on the
            extent and type of workers' on-the-job-training.
            Workers taken for trained might turn out to possess no, or
            very little, general training.  Also, a worker recruited for
            a given job may possess the wrong type of general training.
            All this imposes substantial information-based costs on
            firms that recruit rather than train.  These costs include
            opportunity costs, actual expenses and increased exposure to
            risk.  As a result, a recruiting firm will offer lower wages
            and place a lower value on a recruited worker with general
            training than the firm that trained him.
Commodity exports and real income in Africa
It has been argued that if several
            developing countries expand exports, they are likely to
            experience a decline in their terms of trade, export
            revenues, and real incomes. The general case for this export
            pessimism has lost much of its force, but remains very much
            alive for some specific countries and commodities -
            particularly the export of cocoa, coffee, and tea, which
            exhibit low price elasticity. The authors of this paper
            systematically analyze this issue for cocoa, a commodity for
            which many African countries have a large share in world
            exports. Their concern is chiefly with the problems that
            arise from low price elasticity of demand in the world
            market and their implications for trade policy. They find
            that increasing productivity in one African country through
            new investments would benefit that country - but the other
            African countries would lose. On the whole, the African
            countries would gain, however, so the gains to the country
            with expanded output would dominate the losses for the other
            countries. The return on the new investments for Africa as a
            whole would be positive - although significantly lower than
            returns for the country in which the new investments were
            made. This paper examines how real incomes and tax and
            export revenues compare under existing taxes. It analyzes
            the impact of export expansion on real income, export and
            tax revenues, and compares the effects of export expansion
            by African countries with that by non-African countries.
The link between poverty and
            malnutrition : a household theoretic approach
Past studies have identified nutrition
            exclusively with nutrient intake. A better definition of
            nutrition would critically affect the link between poverty
            and malnutrition and would affect the implications for
            policies designed to improve the nutritional status of the
            poor. This paper focuses on the relationship between
            household income and their nutritional and health status. It
            presents new evidence on these interactions and suggests a
            framework for the analysis of the interactions between
            income transfers, the publicly provided inputs, and the
            household's response, as reflected in the effect on
            nutrition and health. Such framework can be applied in the
            evaluation of public policies designed to reduce
            malnutrition and improve the health status among the poor in
            urban and rural areas.
Agricultural reform in developing
            countries : reflections for Eastern Europe
The reform of formerly centrally planned
            economies involves freeing the price system, developing a
            competitive environment, and privatizing many of the
            state-owned or controlled assets and services, while
            simultaneously generating the social, economic and legal
            infrastructure that undergrids a market economy.  This paper
            takes an important look at what the reforming countries of
            Eastern Europe can and cannot learn from the developing
            countries, including discussions on: (a) reforming prices;
            (b) credit, financial institutions and marketing boards; (c)
            property rights, land tenure and privatization; (d)
            research, extension and technology; and (e) efforts to
            remediate environmental degradation.  A central dilemma in
            the reform of the Eastern European economies is the tension
            between commitment and flexibility. Western technical
            assistance and international financial help can be effective
            only if professionals of the East and West work together, as
            this is a process of joint learning, not a pure transfer of knowledge.
Maternal health in Jamaica : health
            needs, services, and utilization
The main health issues for Jamaican
            women are nutrition, fertility, infection, chronic diseases,
            and stress and social problems. The two leading causes of
            adult health for women are cerebro-vascular accidents and
            coronary heart disease - of which high blood pressure is a
            major component among black women. The main factors causing
            stress for Jamaican women include unemployment, economic
            inadequacy, separation of partners, male promiscuity,
            limited availability of schooling for children, and
            violence. The Jamaican health care system needs more family
            planning services for those who want them; good
            community-based prenatal education and screening and
            hospital delivery for high-risk pregnancies, better
            community education and better transportation so that women
            and midwifes can visit more often. There is also a great
            need for health education to overcome broad misperceptions,
            which may block demand for family planning services.