rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
El Nino or El Peso Crisis, poverty,
            and income distribution in the Philippines
Using household survey data for 1998,
            the authors assess the distributional impact of the recent
            economic crisis in the Philippines. The results suggest that
            the impact of the crisis was modest, leading to a five
            percent reduction in average living standards, and a nine
            percent increase in the incidence of poverty - with larger
            increases indicated for the depth, and severity of poverty.
            The greater shock came from El Nino, rather than through the
            labor market. The labor market shock was progressive
            (reducing inequality) while El Nino shock was regressive
            (increasing inequality). Not all households were equally
            vulnerable to the crisis-induced shocks. Household and
            community characteristics affected the impact of the shocks.
            Ownership of land, made households more susceptible to the
            El Nino shocks, higher levels of education made households
            more vulnerable to wage, and employment shocks. The impact
            of the crisis was greater in more commercially developed
            communities. Occupational diversity within a household
            helped mitigate the adverse impact. There is some evidence
            of consumption smoothing by the households affected by the
            crisis, but the poor were less able to protect their
            consumption, which is a matter of policy concern.
Is the "Japan Problem"
            real How problems in Japan's financial sector could
            affect developing regions
The burst of the Japanese financial
            bubble in the early 1990s has increased the bad debts of
            Japan's financial institutions.  Japan accounts for
            about 20 percent of foreign aid to developing countries and
            for 10 percent of their exports, so Japan's economic
            health is important.  The authors analyze the situation,
            assess the bad debt stock, and simulate the likely effects
            of crises in Japan's financial sector.  They conclude
            that: a) a crisis that would shake up the world financial
            market is unlikely but Japanese authorities may have to
            restructure severely affected institutions, which could
            increase fiscal spending or debt stock; b) even with a
            limited bank run, the household sector's lack of
            confidence would send the country into a recessionary
            spiral, requiring the monetary authority to intervene with
            short term liquidity supplies; c) a financial crisis would
            depress world trade, raise interest rates, and turn the
            terms of trade against developing regions that export
            primary commodities; d) many Asian exporters of low-cost
            manufactures to Japan may be relatively unaffected; e) the
            simulation does not detect contagious effects in the US
            financial market; f) damage could be contained once the
            monetary authority steps in to supply short-tern liquidity;
            g) coping with such problems would leave the Japanese
            economy in a less favorable position for confronting their
            aging population problem and fiscal pressures may reduce
            Japanese aid to low income countries.
Internal finance and investment :
            another look
One of the best documented empirical
            facts in economic research has been the positive
            relationship between internal finance and cash flows and
            capital expenditures and investment.  But disputes about the
            analytical basis for the cash flow theory have been largely
            unresolved.  There are two distinct approaches to the cash
            flow theory of investments: the managerial (managers are
            primarily interested in maximizing the firm's growth
            rate) and information theoretic (managers try to maximize
            shareholder value).  Using a panel of US manufacturing firms
            (1972-90), the author tries to distinguish between the
            approaches.  The results suggest that firms rely on internal
            finance for capital expenditures because of managerial
            considerations.  The principal shortcoming of the
            information-theoretic approach is its reliance on dividend
            practices as a decisive criterion for studying firm
            heterogeneity.  Dividend practices are incapable of
            distinguishing between managerial and information-theoretic
            approaches.  But one can distinguish between managerial and
            information-theoretic approaches using such variables as
            size, exchange listings and the ratio of R&D to sales
            and make contrasting predictions about the firm's
            reliance on internal finance for capital expenditures.  The
            evidence shows that the firm's observed reliance of
            capital expenditures on internal finance is driven by
            managerial rather than information-theoretic considerations.
            While no current research directly distinguishes between
            managerial and information theoretic approaches, preliminary
            evidence seems to favor the managerial approach.  And even
            though the stock market may play a limited role as a source
            of finance, policy initiatives to reform the financial
            sector and develop capital markets are likely to enhance the
            overall efficiency of the resources allocation process in
            the economy.
Reforming Indonesia's pension system
Indonesia's nascent capital markets
            stand to benefit significantly from a thriving pension
            industry.  Now is the time to reform the pensions system,
            while it has a vibrant economy, rapidly rising income, and a
            young and growing workforce.  The author suggests three main
            reforms.  First, to reconsider the role of mandatory defined
            contribution (Jamsostek) plan.  Second, to make employer
            sponsored pensions more attractive and affordable by:
            simplifying and expediting registration and approval
            processes, raising the retirement age; not directly taxing
            pensions; limiting political interference; permitting
            pension funds to invest abroad; use term annuities or phased
            withdrawals instead of life annuities; and adopting an
            adequate government vesting policy as a model for the
            private sector. The third suggested reform is to contain the
            fiscal burden of the civil service pension plans.
How can China provide income
            security for its rapidly aging population
The authors discuss key choices policy
            makers face about China's pension system in the face of
            a rapidly aging population.  They describe the problems the
            current pay-as-you-go system faces in the near and long term
            and simulate policy options for solving those problems.
            They find that simple design changes are necessary but not
            sufficient conditions for making the pension system
            sustainable.  Partial funding is necessary to avoid large
            increases in future contribution rates.  They investigate
            the impact of the old-age system and economic growth of a
            multipillar system that includes a modest mandatory
            tax-financed- basic benefit plus a mandatory fully-funded
            defined- contribution scheme.  Implementation of a partially
            funded multipillar pensions system must go hand in hand with
            reform of the financial sector and restructured investment
            procedures that emphasize the "right" mix of
            competition, diversification, and regulation.  Otherwise,
            China's pension reform will ultimately fail.
Indonesian labor legislation in a
            comparative perspective : a study of six APEC countries
The author compares Indonesian labor
            legislations with labor policies in five other APEC
            countries: Chile, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico,
            and the United States.  The report focuses on legislation
            affecting union regulation, minimum wages, nonwage
            compensation, and working conditions.  Current legislation
            in Indonesia is a mixed bag of laws protecting workers'
            welfare but controlling organized labor.  Indonesian laws
            restrict the ability of labor organizations to effectively
            represent workers to management at the plant level.  In
            this, they are similar to Malaysian laws and, to a lesser
            extent, new Korean legislation.  They provide a stark
            contrast to current legislation in Chile and the United
            States.  But Indonesia legislation governing minimum wages,
            mandated nonwage benefits, and other labor standards, appear
            to be at least as generous as legislation in the five other
            countries.  Indonesia is under pressure to ease restrictions
            on unions.  The author suggests that allowing effective
            plant-level bargaining could give workers more of a voice at
            the workplace, but that improving industrial relations will
            require more than legislative changes.  Careful changes in
            legislation and industrial relations could help unions play
            a more positive role, while downplaying labor's more
            negative role.  The author cautions against centrally
            mandating labor standards, instead of letting workers and
            their employers negotiate them at local plants.
Unemployment insurance in Algeria :
            implications for a labor market in transition
To predict how Algeria's
            unemployment crisis will evolve, the author evaluates the
            Algerian unemployment insurance system's ability to
            finance itself, to affect employment decisions, and promote
            enterprise restructuring.  The main conclusion is that
            industrial restructuring has serious and persistent
            implications for the labor market.  In an environment where
            many equilibria are possible, there is a real danger of
            reaching a high unemployment equilibrium.  The big-bang
            experience of structural adjustment in Central and Eastern
            Europe transition economies resulted in large-scale
            unemployment.  Despite considerable restructuring progress,
            structural rigidities still exist in the labor market, and
            long-term unemployment has persisted.  One advantage of the
            big-bang approach is adjustment speed, but the resulting
            unemployment may be too costly for Algeria's economy,
            especially if it persists.  A more modern mixed bang
            approach would incorporate active employment measures to
            mitigate entrenched unemployment.  The policies will
            maintain or enhance human capital through work, so idle
            workers don't lose their skills.  Flex-time
            arrangements would help workers maintain an attachment to
            the labor force.  However minor, such work would help
            workers avoid the traps of long-term unemployment.  Two
            striking conclusions emerge from the Central and Eastern
            European experience: a) unemployment is not essential to
            enterprise restructuring and labor market adjustment; and b)
            growing long-term unemployment is self-fulfilling and
            results in higher and persistence unemployment.  Although
            active employment measures are costly and have relatively
            low rates of return in the short run, they can be marginally
            effective as part of a long-term strategy.
Is there an optimal structure for
            decentralized provision of roads
The authors empirically investigate how
            decentralization affects the efficiency of road provision
            from the viewpoint of the local goods provider and the road
            user.  The theoretical model: a double cost hidden level
            effort.  They include both user and provider concerns in
            determining the optimal decentralization level. They find
            that 100 percent maintenance decentralization produces the
            most efficiency gains, as quality roads are provided at
            lower unit costs.  There is little justification for central
            government to be involved in road maintenance. Uniform
            standards combined with decentralized maintenance remove the
            incentive to reduce costs and erode most local maintenance
            efficiency gains.  Maintenance is a local activity and
            should reflect user preferences.  Central governments should
            regulate safety and other network externalities by having a
            stake in road administration financing, planning, policy
            setting, safety regulation and other network externalities.
            Central governments should finance no more than 10 percent
            of administrative costs.  Construction depends on the
            country.  Ensure that contracting procedures are efficient
            before suggesting decentralization.  It is easier for local
            governments to incorporate user preferences in spending
            decisions.  Similarly, determining where to make
            investments, deciding how to procure works, and monitoring
            the quality of construction and maintenance is often done
            more efficiently locally.  The results point to the benefits
            of decentralized provisions of roads, but many countries
            contract out maintenance and provision.  In that case, it
            may not matter whether local competitive bidding is carried
            out by a central or local agency.
Productivity growth and resource
            degradation in Pakistan's Punjab - a decomposition analysis
The introduction of green revolution
            technologies in wheat, and rice production in Asia, in the
            mid 1960s reversed the food crisis, and stimulated rapid
            agricultural, and economic growth. But the sustainability of
            this intensification strategy is being questioned, in light
            of the heavy use of external inputs, and growing evidence of
            a slowdown in productivity growth, and degradation of the
            resource base. The authors address the critical issue of
            long-term productivity, and the sustainability of
            Pakistan's irrigated agriculture. To estimate changes
            in total factor productivity in four production systems of
            Punjab province, they assemble district-level data on 33
            crops, 8 livestock products, and 17 input categories. They
            find that average annual growth in total factor productivity
            was moderately high (1.26 percent) for both crops, and
            livestock for the period 1966-94, but observe wide variation
            in productivity growth by cropping system. A second,
            disaggregated data set on soil, and water quality reveals
            significant resource degradation. The authors use the two
            data sets to decompose the effects of technical change, and
            resource degradation through application of a cost function.
            They find that continuous, and widespread resource
            degradation (as measured by soil and water quality
            variables) has had a significant negative effect on
            productivity, especially in the wheat-rice system, where
            resource degradation has more than offset the productivity
            effects of technological change. Degradation of the health
            of the agro-ecosystem was related in part, to modern
            technologies, mono-cropping, and mismanagement of water
            resources. The results call for urgent analysis of
            technology, and options to arrest the degradation of resources.
Foreign direct investment in Africa
            : policies also matter
Africa has not succeeded in attracting
            much foreign direct investment in the past few decades. When
            countries did attract multinational companies, it was
            principally because of their (abundant) natural resources
            and the size of their domestic market. Angola, Cote
            d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and South Africa have traditionally
            been the main recipients of foreign direct investment in
            Sub-Saharan Africa. But the author shows that a few
            Sub-Saharan countries have generated interest among
            international investors by improving their business
            environment. In the 1990s, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, and
            Senegal attracted substantial foreign direct
            investment--more so than countries with bigger domestic
            markets (Cameroon, Republic of Congo, and Kenya) and greater
            natural resources (Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe). Mali and
            Mozambique, which improved their business climate
            spectacularly in the 1990s, did so with a few strategic
            actions: liberalizing trade, launching an attractive
            privatization program, modernizing mining and investment
            codes, adopting international agreements on foreign direct
            investment, developing a few priority projects that had
            multiplier effects on other investment projects, and
            mounting an image-building effort in which political figures
            such as the nation's president participated. These
            actions are similar to those associated with the success of
            other small countries with limited natural resources, such
            as Ireland and Singapore about 20 years ago.
Institutions, politics, and
            contracts : the attempt to privatize the water and
            sanitation utility of Lima, Peru
The main reason Lima failed to implement
            a concession was geographical: the scarcity of water sources
            meant high marginal costs, partly for pumping water from
            deep wells and building adequate storage for dry periods.
            High extraction costs were compounded by years of neglect;
            much of the system needed to be replaced. Attracting private
            investors meant setting prices high enough to recover these
            high costs and provide a reasonable return on capital. But
            the government had subsidized costs for years, so a
            concession would have required a sharp and sudden price
            increase to cover marginal costs. Moreover, any
            forward-looking investor would want to slow the pace of
            future investment by curbing demand through more effective
            (meter-based) bill collection. And cross-subsidies, which
            reduce the incentive to conserve water, would also have to
            be reduced. The ultimate cause of the concession's
            failure was geographical but the proximate cause was
            political. Privatizing a utility is politically tricky if it
            involves higher prices and the controversial ceding of
            monopoly powers to private parties, especially foreigners.
            Private participation in water is further hampered by the
            social importance of water and by the lack of international
            experience and the technical difficulties in designing
            privatization reform in the sector. At the same time, water
            offers fewer benefits than other utlities--few revenues to
            reward supporters or compensate losers-- and the price
            increases likely in Peru would especially hurt the urban
            poor, who were important to the president's support
            base. After a favorable start, the political equation
            shifted against privatization. The concession's failure
            was costly, in access goals not fully met, in adverse
            effects on health, and in the failure to curb consumption
            through metering--and hence in continued depletion of the
            aquifer and its increasing contamination by ocean salt.
            Peru's institutional weaknesses, especially its lack of
            an autonomous judiciary, might have limited how much could
            have been achieved. But considering the net gains from
            private operation in the much weaker nstitutional settings
            in Africa, Lima would probably have been better off with a concession.
Industrial growth and the quality of
            institutions : what do (transition) economies have to gain
            from the Rule of Law
The authors empirically test the link
            between industrial growth and indicators of institutional
            quality. They find significant evidence that institutional
            quality affects inindustrial growth in 27 Asian and Latin
            American countries. Their results suggest that the
            development of the legal and regulatory framework works its
            way to industrial growth through both investment and total
            factor productivity. The implications for policymakers in
            transition economies: Institution building should complement
            privatization, public and private investment in education,
            research and development, and measures to promote foreign
            direct investment. Specifically, policymakers should try to
            reduce corruption, eliminate bureacratic barriers, and
            improve the legal environment and contract enforcement.
            Special attention should also be given to measures to deepen
            financial intermediation, improve the financial sector
            infrastructure, and increase the efficiency of financial transactions.