rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Urbanization and property rights
Since the industrial revolution, the
            economic development of Western Europe and North America was
            characterized by continuous urbanization accompanied by a
            gradual phasing-in of urban land property rights over time.
            Today, however, the evidence in many fast urbanizing
            low-income countries points towards a different trend of
            “urbanization without formalization”, with potentially
            adverse effects on long-term economic growth. This paper
            aims to understand the causes and the consequences of this
            phenomenon, and whether informal city growth could be a
            transitory or a persistent feature of developing economies.
            A dynamic stochastic equilibrium model of a representative
            city is developed, which explicitly accounts for the joint
            dynamics of land property rights and urbanization. The
            calibrated baseline model describes a city that first grows
            informally, with the growth of individual incomes leading to
            a phased-in purchase of property rights in subsequent
            periods. The model demonstrates that land tenure informality
            does not necessarily vanish in the long term, and the social
            optimum does not necessarily imply a fully formal city,
            neither in the transition, nor in the long run. The welfare
            effects of policies, such as reducing the cost of land
            tenure formalization, or protecting informal dwellers
            against evictions are subsequently investigated, throughout
            the short-term transition and in the long-term stationary state.
On the welfare implications of automation
This paper establishes that the rise in
            the income share of information and communication technology
            accounts for half of the decline in labor income share in
            the United States. This decline can be decomposed into a
            sharp decline in the income share of “routine” labor—which
            is relatively more prone to automation—and a milder rise in
            the non-routine share. Quantitatively, this decomposition
            suggests large effects of information and communication
            technology on the income distribution within labor, but only
            moderate effects on the distribution of income between
            capital and labor. A production structure calibrated to
            match these trends suggests modest aggregate welfare gains
            from automation.
Unhappy development :
            dissatisfaction with life on the eve of the Arab spring
Despite progress in economic and social
            development in the 2000s, there was an increasing
            dissatisfaction with life among the population of many
            developing Arab countries. At the end of the decade, these
            countries ranked among the least happy economies in the
            world—a situation that fits the so-called “unhappy
            development” paradox. The paradox is defined as declining
            levels of happiness at a time of moderate-to-rapid economic
            development. This paper empirically tests the strength of
            association of a range of objective and subjective factors
            with life evaluation in the Middle East and North Africa
            region in the years immediately preceding the Arab Spring
            uprisings (2009–10). The findings suggest a significant,
            negative association between life satisfaction levels in the
            region during this period and each of the main perceived
            reasons for the 2011 uprisings—dissatisfaction with the
            standard of living, poor labor market conditions, and corruption.
Appraising cross-national income
            inequality databases : an introduction
In response to a growing interest in
            comparing inequality levels and trends across countries,
            several cross-national inequality databases are now
            available. These databases differ considerably in purpose,
            coverage, data sources, inclusion and exclusion criteria,
            and quality of documentation. A special issue of the Journal
            of Economic Inequality, which this paper introduces, is
            devoted to an assessment of the merits and shortcomings of
            eight such databases. Five of these sets are
            microdata-based: CEPALSTAT, Income Distribution Database,
            Luxembourg Income Study, PovcalNet, and Socio-Economic
            Database for Latin America and the Caribbean. Two are based
            on secondary sources: All the Ginis and the World Income
            Inequality Database; and one is generated entirely through
            multiple-imputation methods: the Standardized World Income
            Inequality Database. Although there is much agreement across
            these databases, there is also a nontrivial share of
            country/year cells for which substantial discrepancies
            exist. In some cases, different databases would lead users
            to radically different conclusions about inequality dynamics
            in certain countries and periods. The methodological
            differences that lead to these discrepancies often appear to
            be driven by a fundamental trade-off between a wish for
            broader coverage on the one hand, and for greater
            comparability on the other hand. These differences across
            databases place considerable responsibility on both
            producers and users: on the former, to better document and
            explain their assumptions and procedures, and on the latter,
            to understand the data they are using, rather than merely
            taking them as true because available.
Domestic value added in exports:
            theory and firm evidence from China
China has defied the declining trend in
            domestic content in exports in many countries. This paper
            studies China’s rising domestic content in exports using
            firm- and customs transaction-level data. The approach
            embraces firm heterogeneity and hence reduces aggregation
            bias. The study finds that the substitution of domestic for
            imported materials by individual processing exporters caused
            China’s domestic content in exports to increase from 65 to
            70 percent in 2000–2007. Such substitution was induced by
            the country’s trade and investment liberalization, which
            deepened its engagement in global value chains and led to a
            greater variety of domestic materials becoming available at
            lower prices.
The role of imports for exporter
            performance in Peru
Using highly disaggregated firm-level
            customs transaction data for imports and exports in Peru
            over the 2000–2012 period, this paper explores the
            relationship between imports of intermediate inputs and firm
            export performance. The paper shows that greater use,
            variety, and quality of imported intermediate inputs is
            significantly correlated with higher exports, faster export
            growth, greater diversification of export markets, and
            higher quality exports (as measured by relative unit prices)
            at the firm level. This relationship is robust and
            persistent to controls for unobserved firm heterogeneity and
            year fixed effects. The use of imported inputs is also
            associated with higher productivity at the firm level.
            Considering the relationship between specific trade policy
            measures and the import performance of those exporters that
            are direct importers, the analysis shows that those exposed
            to higher tariffs and nontariff measures import less in
            total and exhibit lower import variety. The use of the
            advanced clearance procedure as the modality to clear
            customs for imports is favorable to the import performance
            of exporter-importers, in that the users of the modality
            import more and import a more diversified bundle of inputs
            than those that do not use it, even after controlling for
            firm size.
Weak instruments in growth
            regressions : implications for recent cross-country evidence
            on inequality and growth
This paper revisits four recent
            cross-country empirical studies on the effects of inequality
            on growth. All four studies report strongly significant
            negative effects, using the popular system generalized
            method of moments estimator that is frequently used in
            cross-country growth empirics. This paper shows that the
            internal instruments relied on by this estimator in these
            inequality-and-growth regressions are weak, and that weak
            instrument-consistent confidence sets for the effect of
            inequality on growth include a wide range of positive and
            negative values. This suggests that strong conclusions about
            the effect of inequality on growth— in either
            direction—cannot be drawn from these studies. This paper
            also systematically explores a wide range of alternative
            sets of internal instruments, and finds that problems of
            weak instruments are pervasive across these alternatives.
            More generally, the paper illustrates the importance of
            documenting instrument strength, basing inferences on
            procedures that are robust to weak instruments, and
            considering alternative instrument sets when using the
            system generalized method of moments estimator for
            cross-country growth empirics.
Discrimination as a coordination
            device : markets and the emergence of identity
The paper develops a new theory of group
            discrimination in which the discrimination in favor or
            against certain groups is simply a coordination device. It
            is built on the axiom that a person who gets to perform many
            tasks is more effective in carrying out each task, which
            implies increasing returns to productivity in doing the same
            task or strategic complementarity between doing different
            tasks. The theory helps us understand discrimination in free
            markets and the .finding of some empirical studies that show
            that people discriminate in job markets against certain
            groups even when all other traits are held constant. The
            model gives insight into the relation between group size,
            discrimination, and productivity.
The long-term impacts of
            international migration : evidence from a lottery
This study examines the long-term
            impacts of international migration by comparing immigrants
            who had successful ballot entries in a migration lottery
            program, and first moved almost a decade ago, with people
            who had unsuccessful entries into those same ballots. The
            long-term gain in income is found to be similar in magnitude
            to the gain in the first year, despite migrants upgrading
            their education and changing their locations and
            occupations. This results in large, sustained benefits to
            the migrants’ immediate family, who have substantially
            higher consumption, durable asset ownership, savings, and
            dietary diversity. In contrast, the study finds no
            measureable impact on extended family.
Regionalism in services : a study of ASEAN
Can regionalism do what multilateralism
            has so far failed to do—promote greater openness of services
            markets? Although previous research has pointed to the wider
            and deeper legal commitments under regional agreements as
            proof that it can, no previous study has assessed the impact
            of such agreements on applied policies. This paper focuses
            on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where
            regional integration of services markets has been linked to
            thriving regional supply chains. Drawing on surveys
            conducted in 2008 and 2012 of applied policies in the key
            services sectors of ASEAN countries, the paper assesses the
            impact of the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS)
            and the ambitious ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint, which
            envisaged integrated services markets by 2015. The analysis
            finds that over this period, ASEAN did not integrate faster
            internally than vis-à-vis the rest of the world: policies
            applied to trade with other ASEAN countries were virtually
            the same as those applied to trade with rest of the world.
            Moreover, the recent commitments scheduled under AFAS did
            not produce significant liberalization and, in a few
            instances, services trade policy actually became more
            restrictive. The two exceptions are in areas that are not on
            the multilateral negotiating agenda: steps have been taken
            toward creating regional open skies in air transport, and a
            few mutual recognition agreements have been negotiated in
            professional services. These findings suggest that regional
            negotiations add the most value when they are focused on
            areas that are not being addressed multilaterally.
Regional productivity convergence in Peru
This paper examines whether labor
            productivity converged across Peru’s regions (“departments”)
            during 2002-12. Given the large differences in labor
            productivity across the regions of Peru, such convergence
            has the potential to raise aggregate productivity and
            incomes, and also reduce regional inequalities. The paper
            finds that labor productivity in the secondary sector
            (especially manufacturing) and the mining sector has
            converged across Peruvian departments. The paper does not
            find robust evidence for labor productivity convergence in
            agriculture and services. These patterns are consistent with
            recent cross-country evidence and with the hypothesis that
            productivity convergence is more likely in sectors with
            greater scope for market integration, because of the effects
            of competition and knowledge flows. The convergence in labor
            productivity within manufacturing and mining has been
            sufficient to lead to convergence in aggregate labor
            productivity across departments. But because services and
            agriculture continue to employ the majority of workers in
            Peru, aggregate convergence is slower than that within
            manufacturing. The paper also finds that poverty rates are
            not converging across departments. The limited impact of
            labor productivity convergence on poverty could be tied to
            the facts that not all sectors are experiencing productivity
            convergence, poorer people are employed in sectors where
            convergence has been slower (such as agriculture), and there
            is very little labor reallocation toward converging sectors
            (such as manufacturing).
Tobacco and alcohol excise taxes for
            improving public health and revenue outcomes : marrying sin
            and virtue
Excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco have
            long been a dependable and significant revenue source in
            many countries. More recently, considerable attention has
            been paid to the way in which such taxes may also be used to
            attain public health objectives by reducing the consumption
            of products with adverse health and social impacts. Some
            have gone further and argued that explicitly earmarking
            excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco to finance public health
            expenditures—marrying sin and virtue as it were—will make
            increasing such taxes more politically acceptable and
            provide the funding needed to increase such expenditures,
            especially for the poor. The basic idea—tax “bads” and do
            “good” with the proceeds—is simple and appealing. But
            designing and implementing good “sin” taxes is a
            surprisingly complex task. Earmarking revenues from such
            taxes for health expenditures may also sound good and be a
            useful selling point for new taxes. However, such earmarking
            raises difficult issues with respect to budgetary rigidity
            and political accountability. This note explores these and
            other issues that lurk beneath the surface of the attractive
            concept of using increased sin excises on alcohol and
            tobacco to finance “virtuous” social spending on public health.
From demographic dividend to
            demographic burden regional trends of population aging in Russia
Do regions with higher working age
            populations grow faster? This paper examines this question
            using data from Russian regions and finds evidence that
            demographic trends influence regional growth convergence. In
            other words, keeping other factors constant, poorer regions
            grow faster than richer regions, and some of the growth
            convergence is explained by demographic changes: faster
            growth in poor regions in the past was related in part to
            more favorable demographic trends. This finding has
            important consequences for Russia. If the demographic trends
            in poorer regions worsen in the future, this could dampen
            economic convergence. Unless there are significant increases
            in labor productivity or additions to the labor force
            through migration, growth in Russian regions will moderate
            as the Russian population shrinks and ages in the coming decades.
Breaking the metal ceiling : female
            entrepreneurs who succeed in male-dominated sectors
A range of reasons is cited to explain
            gender differences in business performance in Africa. Within
            those, the sector of operations is consistently identified
            as a major issue. This paper uses a mixed methods approach
            to assess how women entrepreneurs in Uganda start (and
            strive) operating firms in male-dominated sectors, and what
            hinders other women from doing so. The study finds that
            women who cross over into male-dominated sectors make as
            much as men, and three times more than women who stay in
            female-dominated sectors. The paper examines a set of
            factors to explain the differences in sector choices, and
            finds that there is a problem of information about
            opportunities in male-dominated industries. The analysis
            also concludes that psychosocial factors, particularly the
            influence of male role models and exposure to the sector
            from family and friends, are critical in helping women
            circumvent or overcome the norms that undergird occupational segregation.
Direct and indirect effects of
            Malawi’s public works program on food security
Labor-intensive public works programs
            are important social protection tools in low-income
            settings, intended to supplement income of poor households
            and improve public infrastructure. In this evaluation of the
            Malawi Social Action Fund, an at-scale, government-operated
            program, across- and within-village randomization is used to
            estimate effects on food security and use of fertilizer.
            There is no evidence that the program improves food
            security, and some negative spillovers to untreated
            households. These disappointing results hold even under
            modifications to the design of the program to offer work
            during the lean rather than harvest season or increase the
            frequency of payments.
The effects of volatility, fiscal
            policy cyclicality and financial development on growth :
            evidence for the Eastern Caribbean
This paper presents estimates of the
            effects that terms of trade volatility has on growth of real
            gross domestic product per capita. Based on five-year
            non-overlapping panel data comprising 175 countries during
            1980–2010, the paper finds that: (i) in model specifications
            that do not include country fixed effects, terms of trade
            volatility has a significant negative average effect on
            economic growth; (ii) once country fixed effects are
            included in the model, the average effect of terms of trade
            volatility on economic growth is not significantly different
            from zero; (iii) robust to the inclusion of country fixed
            effects, terms of trade volatility has significantly adverse
            effects on economic growth in countries with pro-cyclical
            fiscal policy; and (iv) in model specifications that do not
            include country fixed effects, financial development is a
            significant mediating factor with regard to the effect that
            terms of trade volatility has on economic growth, however,
            the significance of this effect vanishes once country fixed
            effects are included in the model. The paper also explores
            these relationships for the Organization of Eastern
            Caribbean States region. A key conclusion from the research
            is that countercyclical fiscal policy and deeper financial
            markets will have particularly high payoffs in reducing the
            adverse growth effects of terms of trade volatility in the
            Organization of Eastern Caribbean States region.
Maternal and child health
            inequalities in Ethiopia
Recent surveys show considerable
            progress in maternal and child health in Ethiopia. The
            improvement has been in health outcomes and health services
            coverage. The study examines how different groups have fared
            in this progress. It tracked 11 health outcome indicators
            and health interventions related to Millennium Development
            Goals 1, 4, and 5. These are stunting, underweight, wasting,
            neonatal mortality, infant mortality, under-five mortality,
            measles vaccination, full immunization, modern contraceptive
            use by currently married women, antenatal care visits, and
            skilled birth attendance. The study explores trends in
            inequalities by household wealth status, mothers’ education,
            and place of residence. It is based on four Demographic and
            Health Surveys implemented in 2000, 2005, 2011, and 2014.
            Trends in rate differences and rate ratios are analyzed. The
            study also investigates the dynamics of inequalities, using
            concentration curves for different years. In addition, a
            decomposition analysis is conducted to identify the role of
            proximate determinants. The study finds substantial
            improvements in health outcomes and health services.
            Although there still exists a considerable gap between the
            rich and the poor, the study finds some reductions in
            inequalities of health services. However, some of the
            improvements in selected health outcomes appear to be pro-rich.