rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Psychology and behavioral economics
            lessons for the design of a green growth strategy
A green growth agenda requires policy
            makers, from local to supranational levels, to examine and
            influence behavior that impacts economic, social, and
            environmental outcomes on multiple scales. Behavioral and
            social change, in addition or conjunction with technological
            change, is thus a crucial component of any green growth
            strategy. A better understanding of how and why people
            consume, preserve, or exploit resources or otherwise make
            choices that collectively impact the environment has
            important and far-reaching consequences for the predictive
            accuracy of more sophisticated models, both of future states
            of the world and of the likely impact of different growth
            strategies and potential risk management strategies. The
            prevailing characterization of human decision making in
            policy circles is a rational economic one. Reliance on the
            assumptions of rational choice excludes from consideration a
            wide range of factors that affect how people make decisions
            and therefore need to be considered in predictions of human
            reactions to environmental conditions or proposed policy
            initiatives. In addition, a more complete and more fully
            descriptive understanding of decision processes provide
            powerful tools for policy design that complement legal or
            economic instruments or may lead to more effective
            implementation of such policy instruments.
Impact of behavioral issues on green
            growth policies and weather-related disaster reduction in
            developing countries
This paper focuses on how developing
            countries can change the way they prepare for disasters so
            they are better equipped to sustain economic growth. It
            discusses the importance of considering the goals of key
            decision makers and the need to understand the perceptions,
            systematics biases, and heuristics used by the relevant
            interested parties (the affected public, private and public
            sector organizations, and nongovernmental organizations) in
            choosing between alternatives. The paper highlights the
            importance of undertaking benefit-cost analysis to evaluate
            disaster risk reduction measures, recognizing that decision
            makers might not make meaningful use of this policy tool
            given their behavioral biases and simplified heuristics. To
            address these issues, the authors propose green growth
            strategies that involve multi-year contracts coupled with
            short-term incentives that have a chance of being
            implemented. The strategies focus on the role of multi-year
            micro-insurance, long-term loans, and multi-year catastrophe
            bonds that reflect the institutional arrangements in the
            developing country. The paper illustrates this proposal in
            the case of farmers' agricultural practices and
            investment decisions that reduce losses to property from
            catastrophic disasters such as drought.
Heterogeneity in subjective
            wellbeing : an application to occupational allocation in Africa
Using an extraordinarily rich panel
            dataset from Ghana, this paper explores the nature of
            self-employment and informality in developing countries
            through the analysis of self-reported happiness with work
            and life. Subjective job satisfaction measures allow
            assessment of the relative desirability of different jobs in
            ways that, conditional wage comparisons cannot. By
            exploiting recent advances in mixed (random parameter)
            ordered probit models, the distribution of subjective
            well-being across sectors of employment is quantified. There
            is little evidence for the overall inferiority of the small
            firm informal sector: there is not a robust average
            satisfaction premium for formal work vs. self-employment or
            informal salaried work, and owners of informal firms that
            employ others are on average significantly happier than
            workers in the formal private sector. Moreover, the
            estimated distribution of parameters predicting satisfaction
            reveal substantial heterogeneity in subjective well-being
            within sectors that conventional fixed parameter models,
            such as standard ordered probit models, cannot detect:
            Whatever the average satisfaction premium in a sector, all
            job categories contain both relatively happy and disgruntled
            workers. Specifically, roughly 67, 50, 40 and 59 percent
            prefer being a small-firm employer, sole proprietor,
            informal salaried, civic worker respectively, than formal
            work. Hence, there is a high degree of overlap in the
            distribution of satisfaction across sectors. The results are
            robust to the inclusion of fixed effects and alternate
            measures of satisfaction. Job characteristics,
            self-perceived autonomy and experimentally elicited measures
            of attitudes toward risk do not appear to explain these
            distributional patterns.
Development of biofuels in China :
            technologies, economics and policies
China promulgated the Medium and
            Long-Term Development Plan for Renewable Energy in 2007,
            which included targets of 2010 and 2020 for various
            renewable energy technologies including biofuels. The 2010
            biofuel targets were met and even surpassed except for
            non-grain fuel ethanol; however, there is debate on whether
            and how the country will be able to meet the 2020 biofuels
            target. This paper provides a resource and technological
            assessment of biofuel feedstocks, compares biofuel
            production costs from various feddstocks and technologies,
            and evaluates policies introduced in the country for the
            development of biofuels. The paper also presents the
            projections on the production of biofuels under various
            policy scenarios. The study shows that China can potentially
            satisfy its non-grain fuel ethanol target by 2020 from the
            technology perspective. But it will probably fall far short
            of this target without additional fiscal incentives as
            production costs of non-grain feedstock based biofuels are
            expected to remain relatively high. By contrast, the 2020
            target of biodiesel production has a high probability of
            being achieved because the target itself is relatively
            small. With additional support policies, it could develop
            even further.
Impacts of an early stage education
            intervention on students' learning achievement :
            evidence from the Philippines
This paper examines the impact of a
            large supply-side education intervention in the Philippines,
            the Third Elementary Education Project, on students'
            national achievement test scores. It finds that the program
            significantly increased student test scores at grades 4 to
            6. The estimation indicates that two-year exposure to the
            program increases test scores by about 4.5 to 5 score
            points. Interestingly, the mathematics score is more
            responsive to the education reform than are other subjects.
            The analysis also finds that textbooks, instructional
            training of teachers, and new classroom construction
            particularly contributed to these outcomes. The empirical
            results imply that early-stage investment improves student
            performance at later stages in the elementary school cycle,
            which suggests that social returns to such an investment are
            greater than what the current study demonstrates.
The cost of adjustment to green
            growth policies : lessons from trade adjustment costs
Green growth policies confront firms and
            workers with adjustments that may create welfare costs for
            different segments of the population and cause reductions in
            near-term actual versus potential gross domestic product.
            There is little evidence on the cost of adjustment to
            climate change measures, and only limited evidence for more
            general environmental policies, especially in developing
            countries. Therefore, this paper canvasses the research on
            adjustment costs to trade policies to draw analogies and
            highlight differences compared with the potential impacts of
            green growth policies. Trade policies affect prices and work
            directly on technology choice. In the presence of adjustment
            costs, firms may experience impacts on wages, employment,
            and incentives to adopt alternative technologies. Both types
            of trade policy impacts may be amplified by technology
            availability and credit constraints. Many green growth
            policies are likely to work via the same mechanisms, that
            is, taxes on emissions or changes in technology
            requirements. However, trade liberalization is typically
            seen as offering higher total incomes, albeit with winners
            and losers. Green growth policies are thought of as
            welfare-enhancing at the collective level but may not be
            income-enhancing at the individual level. This implies much
            more difficulty in measuring the potential gains associated
            with green growth policies.
Declining inequality in Latin
            America in the 2000s : the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico
Between 2000 and 2010, the Gini
            coefficient declined in 13 of 17 Latin American countries.
            The decline was statistically significant and robust to
            changes in the time interval, inequality measures, and data
            sources.  In-depth country studies for Argentina, Brazil,
            and Mexico suggest two main phenomena underlie this trend: a
            fall in the premium to skilled labor and more progressive
            government transfers. The fall in the premium to skills
            resulted from a combination of supply, demand, and
            institutional factors.  Their relative importance depends on
            the country.
Self-employment in the developing world
This paper analyzes heterogeneity among
            the self-employed in 74 developing countries, representing
            two-thirds of the population of the developing world. After
            profiling how worker characteristics vary by employment
            status, it classifies self-employed workers outside
            agriculture as "successful" or
            "unsuccessful" entrepreneurs, based on two
            measures of success: whether the worker is an employer, and
            whether the worker resides in a non-poor household. Four
            main findings emerge. First, jobs exhibit a clear pecking
            order, with household welfare and worker education highest
            for employers, followed by wage and salaried employees,
            non-agricultural own-account workers, non-agricultural
            unpaid family workers, and finally agricultural workers.
            Second, a substantial minority of own-account workers reside
            in non-poor households, suggesting that their profits are
            often a secondary source of household income. Third, as per
            capita income increases, the structure of employment shifts
            rapidly, first out of agriculture into unsuccessful
            non-agricultural self-employment, and then mainly into
            non-agricultural wage employment. Finally, roughly one-third
            of the unsuccessful entrepreneurs share similar
            characteristics with their successful counterparts,
            suggesting they have the potential to be successful but face
            constraints to growth. The authors conclude that although
            interventions such as access to credit can benefit a
            substantial portion of the self-employed, effectively
            targeting the minority of self-employed with higher growth
            potential is important, particularly in low-income contexts.
            The results also highlight the potential benefits of
            policies that facilitate shifts in the nature of work, first
            from agricultural labor into non-agricultural
            self-employment, and then into wage and salaried jobs.
The patterns and determinants of
            household welfare growth in Jordan : 2002-2010
Jordan's economic growth in the
            past decade has translated into a significant rise in
            household consumption and a decline in poverty and
            inequality indicators. Yet, the sentiment of the overall
            population seems to point to worsening disparities. Using
            official household expenditure surveys for 2002, 2008, and
            2010, this paper analyzes the patterns and determinants of
            household welfare growth and examines the extent to which
            economic growth has been inclusive of the more vulnerable
            groups. Using counterfactual decompositions, the paper
            dwells first on the dynamics observed behind the drop in
            poverty and inequality. It then carries out regression
            analysis using re-centered influence functions to examine
            the economic determinants of household welfare growth
            throughout the decade. The paper finds that welfare growth
            as opposed to welfare distribution was the main driver
            behind poverty reduction, and that the drop in inequality
            was primarily driven by a regional catching-up effect. In
            addition, the analysis identifies rent, access to human
            capital services, and more importantly employment in the
            services sector and the public sector as the major
            determinants of welfare growth in Jordan. Public hiring in
            particular was used extensively as a tool for poverty
            alleviation, especially for residents outside the capital.
Long-term impacts of global food
            crisis on production decisions : evidence from farm
            investments in Indonesia
Did the rise in food prices have a
            long-term impact on agricultural production? Using
            household-level panel data from seven provinces of
            Indonesia, this paper finds that the price shock created a
            forward-looking incentive to invest, which can dynamically
            enhance productivity in agriculture. It also finds that the
            impact of the price shock on investment behavior differs by
            initial wealth. In response to price increases, wealthy
            farmers invested more in productive assets, while poor
            farmers increased their financial savings as well as
            consumption. Price spikes relax liquidity constraints, which
            increases investments among the richer while do so savings
            and consumptions among the poor, possibly leading to
            diverging income inequality in the long run.
Is better information always good
            news international corporate strategy and regulation
This paper develops a simple model to
            analyze the interaction between strategic corporate public
            good provision, international firm location and national
            regulation. An information-based strategic corporate public
            good provision mechanism is proposed to shed light on recent
            firm behavior within different regulatory environments. The
            main insight derived is that in the presence of firms with
            geographic flexibility (multinational enterprises) and
            market provision of an international public credence good,
            unilateral (non-cooperative) regulatory scope depends on (1)
            the absolute probabilities to verify firms' corporate
            public good provision levels within different geographic and
            institutional environments, and (2) the differential between
            these probabilities across countries. The relative
            information asymmetry determines not only the market levels
            of the public good produced under autarky, but also the
            relocation incentives of multinational enterprises. A firm
            trades off lower production costs, which increase its
            competitiveness in pricing, with higher expected
            informational price premiums, which decrease its
            competitiveness. A government's ability to regulate
            above market (corporate public good provision) levels
            decreases with the absolute level of foreign transparency,
            while it increases in the relative (positive) difference
            between the same transparency at home and abroad. This may
            not only explain mixed empirical evidence of theoretic
            propositions such as the Pollution Haven Hypothesis and
            Regulatory Race to the Bottom dynamics, but also open up
            interesting policy implications as the international
            information playing field becomes leveled through
            development, while existing regulations are rather rigid,
            and policy coordination remains limited.
Tax capacity and tax effort :
            extended cross-country analysis from 1994 to 2009
One of the important factors for
            economic development is the existence of an effective tax
            system. This paper deals with the concept and empirical
            estimation of countries' taxable capacity and tax
            effort. It employs a cross-country study from a sample of
            110 developing and developed countries during 1994-2009.
            Taxable capacity refers to the predicted tax-to-gross
            domestic product ratio that can be estimated empirically,
            taking into account a country's specific macroeconomic,
            demographic, and institutional features, which all change
            through time. Tax effort is defined as an index of the ratio
            between the share of the actual tax collection in gross
            domestic product and taxable capacity. The use of tax effort
            and actual tax collection benchmarks allows the ranking of
            countries into four different groups: low tax collection,
            low tax effort; high tax collection, high tax effort; low
            tax collection, high tax effort; and high tax collection,
            low tax effort. The analysis provides broad guidance for tax
            reforms in countries with various levels of taxable capacity
            and revenue intake.
Benchmarking global poverty reduction
Against what standards should we judge
            the developing world's overall performance against
            poverty going forward? The paper proposes two measures, each
            with both "optimistic" and "ambitious"
            targets for 2022, 10 years from the time of writing. The
            first measure is absolute consumption poverty, as judged by
            what "poverty" means in the poorest countries. The
            second is a new measure of global poverty combining absolute
            poverty with country-specific social inclusion needs,
            consistently with national poverty lines. The optimistic
            benchmark would entail an absolute poverty rate of 9 percent
            in 2022, and a combined poverty rate of 40 percent,
            including the allowance for social inclusion. The more
            ambitious targets would bring the absolute rate down to 3
            percent and the combined rate to 33 percent. The optimistic
            target would maintain the (impressive) progress against
            poverty of the last 20 years, without global crises to stall
            that progress. The ambitious target would require about a 1
            percentage point higher growth rate for the gross domestic
            product of the developing world, as long as this did not
            come with a reduction in the household sector's share
            or any further increase in overall inequality beyond its
            level in 2008. Alternatively, the 3 percent target could be
            reached at currently expected growth rates but at the lower
            level of inequality found in 1999.
There goes gravity : how eBay
            reduces trade costs
This paper compares the impact of
            distance, a standard proxy for trade costs, on eBay and
            offline international trade flows. It considers the same set
            of 62 countries and the same basket of goods for both types
            of transactions, and finds the effect of distance to be on
            average 65 percent smaller on the eBay online platform than
            offline. Using interaction variables, this difference is
            explained by a reduction of information and trust frictions
            enabled through online technology. The analysis estimates
            the welfare gains from a reduction in offline frictions to
            the level prevailing online at 29 percent on average. Remote
            countries that are little known, with weak institutions,
            high levels of income inequality, inefficient ports, and
            little internet penetration benefit the most, as online
            markets help overcome government and offline market failures.
Income risk, income mobility and welfare
This paper develops a framework for the
            quantitative analysis of individual income dynamics,
            mobility and welfare. Individual income is assumed to follow
            a stochastic process with two (unobserved) components,
            component representing measurement error or transitory
            income shocks and an Autoregressive (AR(1)) component
            representing persistent changes in income. The analysis uses
            a tractable consumption-saving model with labor income risk
            and incomplete markets to relate income dynamics to
            consumption and welfare, and derive analytical expressions
            for income mobility and welfare as a function of the various
            parameters of the underlying income process.  The empirical
            application of the framework using data on individual
            incomes from Mexico provides striking results. Much of
            measured income mobility is driven by measurement error or
            transitory income shocks and therefore (almost)
            welfare-neutral. A smaller part of measured income mobility
            is due to either welfare-reducing income risk or
            welfare-enhancing catching-up of low-income individuals with
            high-income individuals, both of which have economically
            significant effects on social welfare. Decomposing mobility
            into its fundamental components is thus seen to be crucial
            from the standpoint of welfare evaluation.