rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Addressing the education puzzle :
            the distribution of education and economic reform
No country has achieved sustained
            economic development without substantially investing in
            human capital. Previous studies have shown the handsome
            returns to various forms of basic education, research,
            training, learning-by-doing, and capacity-building. But
            education by itself does not guarantee successful
            development, as history has shown in the former Soviet bloc,
            Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and the Indian states of Kerala
            and West Bengal. The question is, when and how does
            education bring high payoffs? Although theory has suggested
            a strong causal link between education and growth, the
            empirical evidence has not been unanimous and conclusive.
            The authors examine two explanatory factors. First, who gets
            educated matters a good deal, but the distribution of
            education is complex and not much has been written about it.
            They construct an asset allocation model that elucidates the
            importance of the distribution of education to economic
            development. Second, how education affects growth is greatly
            affected by the economic policy environment. Policies
            determine what people can do with their education. Reform of
            trade, investment, and labor policies can increase the
            returns from education. Using panel data from 12 Asian and
            Latin American countries for 1970-94, they investigate the
            relationship between education, policy reform, and economic
            growth. Their empirical results are promising. First, the
            distribution of education matters. Unequal distribution of
            education tends to have a negative impact on per capita
            income in most countries. Moreover, controlling for human
            capital distribution and the use of appropriate functional
            form specifications consistent with the asset allocation
            model makes a difference for the effect of average schooling
            on per capita income. Controlling for education distribution
            leads to positive and significant effects of average
            schooling on per capita income, while failure to do so leads
            to insignificant, even negative effects, of average
            education. Second, the policy environment matters a great
            deal. Our results indicate that economic policies that
            suppress market forces tend to dramatically reduce the
            impact of human capital on economic growth. Investment in
            human capital can have little impact on growth unless people
            can use education in competitive and open markets. The
            larger and more competitive these markets are, the greater
            are the prospects for using education and skills.
Small manufacturing plants,
            pollution, and poverty : new evidence from Brazil and Mexico
The authors use new data from Brazil and
            Mexico to analyze relationships linking economic
            development, the size distribution of manufacturing plants,
            and exposure to industrial pollution. For lack of data,
            prior work in this field has been limited largely to water
            pollution and medium-size plants. This study examines air
            pollution and encompasses small plants (with 1 to 20
            employees) as well as medium-size and large plants. Four
            main questions are addressed (with answers from plant-level
            data): a) Are small plants more pollution-intensive than
            large facilities? Clearly, yes. b) Are there proportionately
            more small plants in low-income regions? The answer is yes,
            in thousands of Brazilian municipalities. Small plants
            dominate poor regions and are a relatively low source of
            employment in high-income areas. c) Is industry more
            pollution-intensive in low-income regions? In Brazil, yes.
            For each municipality, the authors estimate the share of the
            six most pollution-intensive ("dirty") sectors in
            total industrial activity. They find that the dirty-sector
            share declines continuously with increases in municipality
            income per capita. d) Do poor areas suffer more than wealthy
            areas from industrial air pollution? Paradoxically, no. The
            risk of mortality from industrial air pollution is much
            higher in the top two income deciles among Brazil's
            municipalities and the great majority of projected deaths is
            attributable to emissions from large plants.The scale of
            large-plant emissions dominates all other factors.
            Lower-income areas suffer much less from industrial air
            pollution in Brazil, despite the greater emissions-intensity
            of smaller plants and the prevalence of smaller plants in
            lower income areas.
Financial services for the urban
            poor : South Africa's E Plan
Much of the research on financial
            services in low-income countries has focused on micro-credit
            programs. Much less attention has been paid to the design of
            depository services, although many more low-income people
            use depository services than get access to credit. Having
            access to depository services is important for household
            well-being: to safeguard funds, to save for large purchases,
            and as insurance against unexpected expenditures. Economic
            reform programs in recent years have encouraged banks to
            push up nominal interest rates to keep deposit rates
            positive in real terms, and to motivate savings in financial
            assets. But once deposit rates are positive in real terms,
            banks typically increase minimum deposit size or find other
            ways to discourage small depositors because of the high
            costs of maintaining and servicing low-balance accounts.
            Traditional passbook savings accounts, the main product used
            by low-income households, are being phased out because of
            high costs. After South Africa's move to democracy in
            1994, it was politically imperative that the country's
            major financial institutions help redress the historically
            weak system of services for low-income people. The authors
            describe one of the more interesting experiments. In 1993
            Standard Bank of South Africa created an affiliate, called E
            Bank, to deliver basic banking services to the urban poor. E
            Bank provides a package of financial services designed
            specifically for low-income clients, offering greater
            convenience for the user while keeping under control the
            costs to the bank of providing services. E Bank combines the
            innovative technology of modified ATM services with staff
            available to help all clients. By rethinking the needs of
            the basic banking customer, E Bank was able to bundle
            services valued by poorer clients to justify a fee high
            enough to cover costs.
The mechanics of progress in
            education : evidence from cross-country data
The authors explore differences in
            education in rich and poor countries by first systematically
            documenting the relationship between per capita GNP and
            various indicators of educational development. They then
            exploit a simple accounting identity relating the
            availability of resources to their expenditure, to clarify
            the sources of rich countries' advantage in education.
            Data for a sample for 125 countries in 1993 confirm the
            expected favorable relationship between per capita GNP and
            each of the following dimensions of educational development:
            a) The sector context (as reflected by the demographic
            burden on the education system, the government's fiscal
            capacity, and so on). b) The production of education
            services, including such factors as public spending on
            education and the composition of spending. c) Education
            outcomes, in terms of coverage and student learning. d)
            Efficiency of sector operations. e) Equity in access and
            distribution of public spending on education. One appealing
            explanation for why richer countries achieve better results
            is that they have more resources for their education
            systems. But bigger budget allocations to education
            contribute relatively little to differences in resources.
            Lighter demographic burdens in richer countries is also a
            relatively modest factor. By far the most important factor
            is the decline of teacher salaries relative to per capita
            GNP, which accounts for at least half of any educational
            advantage at all stages of economic development. The extra
            resources for education associated with income growth allows
            a country to expand enrollments and improve classroom
            conditions by reducing the pupil-teacher ratio. Early in
            income growth, countries allocate more of the extra
            resources to expand coverage; later they shift toward
            reducing the pupil-teacher ratio. But, contend the authors,
            so long as coverage is not yet universal a more efficient
            strategy for educational development is to emphasize
            continued expansion of coverage rather than a rapid
            reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio. In the long run, lower
            levels of educational attainment among tomorrow's
            adults is likely to diminish learning achievement among
            tomorrow's children.
Land institutions and land markets
In agrarian societies land serves as the
            main means not only for generating a livelihood but often
            also for accumulating wealth and transferring it between
            generations. How land rights are assigned therefore
            determines households' ability to generate subsistence
            and income, their social and economic status (and in many
            cases their collective identity), their incentive to exert
            nonobservable effort and make investments, and often their
            ability to access financial markets or to make arrangements
            for smoothing consumption and income. With imperfections in
            other markets, the institutions governing the allocation of
            land rights and the functioning of land markets will have
            implications for overall efficiency as well as equity. The
            authors examine how property rights in land evolve from a
            situation of land abundance. They discuss factors affecting
            the costs and benefits of individual land rights and
            highlight the implications of tenure security for investment
            incentives. They also review factors affecting participation
            in land sales and rental markets, particularly the
            characteristics of the agricultural production process,
            labor supervision cost, credit access, the risk
            characteristics of an individual's asset portfolio, and
            the transaction costs associated with market participation.
            These factors will affect land sales and rental markets
            differently. Removing obstacles to the smooth functioning of
            land rental markets and taking measures to enhance potential
            tenants' endowments and bargaining power can
            significantly increase both the welfare of the poor and the
            overall efficiency of resource allocation. Drawing on their
            conceptual discussion, the authors draw policy conclusions
            about the transition from communal to individual and more
            formal land rights, steps that might be taken to improve the
            functioning of land sales and rental markets, and the scope
            for redistributive land reform.
Volatility and contagion in a
            financially integrated world : lessons from East Asia's
            recent experience
The buildup of vulnerabilities in East
            Asia is shown here to be mainly the result of weaknesses in
            financial intermediation, poor corporate governance, and
            deficient government policies, including pro-cyclical
            macroeconomic policy responses to large capital inflows.
            Weak due diligence by external creditors, fueled partly by
            ample global liquidity, also played a role but global
            factors were more important in triggering the crises than in
            causing them. The crisis occurred partly because the
            economies lacked the institutional and regulatory structure
            to cope with increasingly integrated capital markets.
            Trouble arose from private sector decisions (by both
            borrowers and lenders) but governments created incentives
            for risky behavior and exerted little regulatory authority.
            Governments failed to encourage the transparency needed for
            the market to recognize and correct such problems as
            unreported mutual guarantees, insider relations, and
            nondisclosure of banks' and companies' true net
            positions. Domestic weaknesses were aggravated by poorly
            disciplined foreign lending. The problem was not so much
            overall indebtedness as the composition of debt; a buildup
            of short-term unhedged debt left the economics vulnerable to
            a sudden loss of confidence. The same factors made the
            crisis's economic and social impact more severe than
            some anticipated. The loss of confidence directly affected
            by private demand - both investment and consumption - which
            could not be offset in the short run by net external demand.
            The effect on corporations and financial institutions has
            been severe because of the high degree of leveraging and the
            unhedged, short-term nature of foreign liabilities, which
            has led to a severe liquidity crunch. Domestic recession,
            financial and corporate distress, liquidity constraints, and
            political uncertainty were self-reinforcing, leading to a
            severe downturn.
Fiscal federalism and macroeconomic
            governance : for better or for worse
In analyzing the institutional
            environment for macroeconomic management, the author
            discusses monetary policy, fiscal policy, and subnational
            borrowing. In analyzing the macroeconomic dimensions of
            securing an economic union, he discusses the regulatory
            environment, tax coordination, transfer payments and social
            insurance, intergovernmental fiscal transfers, and regional
            equity. Finally, he discusses the challenges of
            globalization and draws lessons from experience about fiscal
            reform in developing countries. Among them: 1) Monetary
            policy is best entrusted to an independent central bank with
            a mandate for price stability. 2) Fiscal rules accompanied
            by "gatekeeper" intergovernmental councils or
            committees provide a useful framework for fiscal discipline
            and coordination of fiscal policy. 3) The integrity and
            independence of the financial sector contribute to fiscal
            prudence in the public sector. 4) To ensure fiscal
            discipline, governments at all levels must be made to face
            the financial consequences of their decisions. 5) Societal
            norms and consensus about the roles of various levels of
            government and limits to their authority are vital to the
            success of decentralized decisionmaking. 6) Tax
            decentralization is a prerequisite for subnational access to
            credit markets. 7) Higher-level institutional assistance may
            be needed to finance local capital projects. 8) An internal
            common market is best preserved by constitutional
            guarantees. 9) Intergovernmental transfers in developing
            countries undermine fiscal discipline and accountability
            while building transfer dependencies that cause a slow
            economic stagnation of fiscally disadvantaged regions. 10)
            Periodic review of jurisdictional assignments is essential
            to realign responsibilities with changing economic and
            political realities. 11) Finally, and contrary to a common
            misconception, decentralized fiscal systems offer more
            potential improved macroeconomic governance than do
            centralized fiscal systems.
Applying a simple measure of good
            governance to the debate on fiscal decentralization
Debates about the appropriate role,
            policies, and institutions of the state are often hampered
            by the lack of a definition for good government. To provide
            a quantifiable measure of good government, the authors
            develop an index for the quality of governance for a sample
            of 80 countries. They apply the index to the debate on the
            appropriate level of fiscal decentralization. In measuring
            the quality of governance, the authors develop indices for
            the government's ability to: a) Ensure political
            transparency and a voice for all citizens (the citizen
            participation index measures political freedom and political
            stability). b) Provide effective public services efficiently
            (the government orientation index measures judicial and
            bureaucratic efficiency and the absence of corruption). c)
            Promote the health and well-being of its citizens (the
            social development index measures human development and
            equitable distribution of income). d) Create a favorable
            climate for stable economic growth (the economic management
            index measures outward orientation, independence of the
            central bank, and an inverted debt-to-GDP ratio). In
            relating the index of governance quality to degree of fiscal
            decentralization for the 80 countries, the authors are not
            surprised to find a positive relationship between fiscal
            decentralization and quality of governance. But the strength
            of the correlation is surprising.
Ownership and corporate governance :
            evidence from the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic's
            mass-privatization scheme changed the governance of many
            firms in a short time. The authors show that mass
            privatization was effective in improving firm management
            because of the concentrated ownership structure that
            resulted. For a cross section of 706 firms for the period
            1992-95, they find that the more concentrated the
            firm's ownership, the higher the firm's market
            valuation and profitability. Large ownership through
            bank-sponsored investment funds and strategic investors
            appears to be particularly important in improving corporate
            governance and turning firms around. They find no evidence
            that market valuation or profitability were lower for firms
            in which investment funds sponsored by a firm's main
            bank represented a large ownership stake. It is often argued
            that the firm's main bank having (indirect) ownership
            control could represent a conflict of interest. The
            empirical analysis here shows, quite the contrary, that such
            indirect ownership control has a significant positive
            influence. On balance, banks that had an (indirect) equity
            stake in a firm have a positive influence on the firm's
            corporate governance.
How foreign investment affects host countries
Foreign direct investment may promote
            economic development by helping to improve productivity
            growth and exports in the multinationals' host
            countries, the authors conclude, after reviewing the
            empirical evidence. But the exact relationship between
            foreign multinational corporations and their host economies
            seems to vary between industries and countries.
            Multinational corporations mainly enter industries where
            barriers to entry and concentration are relatively high, and
            at first they increase the number of firms in the host
            country market. In the long run, they may contribute to a
            more concentrated market, although efficiency may improve,
            especially if protection does not guarantee an easy life for
            the multinational affiliate. However, most available
            evidence has to do with multinationals' entry into host
            countries' industries rather than with their presence
            -the dynamic aspects of multinationals' relationship to
            their competition in host country markets. Most evidence on
            multinationals' effects has to do with effects in
            industrial countries, and it is impossible to disregard the
            risk that the multinationals' entry into developing
            countries may replace local production and force local firms
            out of business, rather than force them to become more efficient.