rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
What is a civil war a critical
            review of its definition and (econometric) consequences
The authors argue that the academic
            literature, both qualitative and quantitative, has
            mislabeled most episodes of large-scale violence in Africa
            as civil war; these episodes better fit their concept of
            regional war complexes. The paper seeks to highlight the
            fundamental flaws in the conception of civil war in the
            econometric literature and their implications for
            econometric specification and estimation, problems that this
            literature is inherently incapable of rectifying. The
            authors advocate the comparative study of regional war
            complexes in Africa based on historical narratives.
Measuring the effect of a
            community-level program on women's empowerment outcomes
            : evidence from India
This paper uses primary data from rural
            north India to show that participation in a community-level
            female empowerment program significantly increases access to
            employment, physical mobility, and political participation.
            The program provides support groups, literacy camps, adult
            education classes, and vocational training for rural women
            in several states of India; the data are from Uttarakhand.
            The paper uses instrumental variables and
            truncation-corrected matching on primary data to disentangle
            the program's mechanisms, separately considering its
            effect on women who work, and those who do not work but
            whose reservation wage is increased by participation. The
            analysis also finds significant spillover effects on
            non-participants relative to women in untreated districts.
            It finds consistent estimates for average treatment and
            intent to treat effects
Chinese firms' entry to export
            markets : the role of foreign export spillovers
In this paper, the effect of proximity
            to multinational exporters on the creation of new export
            linkages (the extensive margin of trade) is debated. Using
            panel data from Chinese customs for 1997-2007, the capacity
            for Chinese domestic firms to begin exporting new varieties
            to new markets is shown to respond positively to the export
            activity of neighboring foreign firms. These spillovers are
            shown to be product and country specific. This conclusion is
            robust to fixed effects and instrumental variable
            specifications that control for both supply and demand
            shocks that could bias the estimations. The impact is
            sizable. The marginal impact of product-country-specific
            foreign export spillovers is five times as large as the
            effect of a 10 percent increase in the demand for the
            product in the destination country. Foreign export
            spillovers are also shown to be primarily limited to
            ordinary trade activities. Overall, our findings suggest
            that even for a country with an important cost-advantage
            such as China, there is room for initiatives from
            policy-makers that will diffuse best practices regarding
            export experience among exporters.
The foundations of financial
            inclusion : understanding ownership and use of formal accounts
Financial inclusion -- defined here as
            the use of formal accounts -- can bring many welfare
            benefits to individuals. Yet the authors know very little
            about the factors underpinning financial inclusion across
            individuals and countries. Using data for 123 countries and
            over 124,000 individuals, this paper tries to understand the
            individual and country characteristics associated with the
            use of formal accounts and what policies are effective among
            those most likely to be excluded: the poor and rural
            residents. The authors find that greater ownership and use
            of accounts is associated with a better enabling environment
            for accessing financial services, such as lower account
            costs and greater proximity to financial intermediaries.
            Policies targeted to promote inclusion -- such as requiring
            banks to offer basic or low-fee accounts, exempting some
            depositors from onerous documentation requirements, allowing
            correspondent banking, and using bank accounts to make
            government payments -- may be especially effective among
            those most likely to be excluded. Finally, the study the
            factors associated with perceived barriers to account
            ownership among those who are financially excluded and find
            that these individuals report lower barriers in countries
            with lower costs of accounts and greater penetration of
            financial service providers. Overall, the results suggest
            that policies to reduce barriers to financial inclusion may
            expand the pool of eligible account users and encourage
            existing account holders to use their accounts with greater
            frequency and for the purpose of saving.
Diasporas and outsourcing : evidence
            from oDesk and India
This paper examines the role of the
            Indian diaspora in the outsourcing of work to India. The
            data are taken from oDesk, the world's largest online
            platform for outsourced contracts. Despite oDesk minimizing
            many of the frictions that diaspora connections have
            traditionally overcome, diaspora connections still matter on
            oDesk, with ethnic Indians substantially more likely to
            choose a worker in India. This higher placement is the
            result of a greater likelihood of choosing India for the
            initial contract, due in large part to taste-based
            preferences, and substantial path dependence in location
            choices. The paper further examines wage and performance
            outcomes of outsourcing as a function of ethnic connections.
Are microcredit participants in
            Bangladesh trapped in poverty and debt
This paper addresses whether microcredit
            participants in Bangladesh are trapped in poverty and debt,
            as many critics have argued in recent years. Analysis of
            data from a long panel survey over a 20-year period confirms
            this is not the case, although numerous participants have
            been with microcredit programs for many years. The results
            of the analysis suggest that participants derive a variety
            of benefits from microcredit: It helps them to earn income
            and consume more, accumulate assets, invest in
            children's schooling, and be lifted out of poverty.
            This is not to say that non-participants have failed to
            progress over the same period. Both participants and
            non-participants have gained as the economy has grown;
            however, the rates of poverty reduction have been higher for
            participants. Testing the net effect of microcredit programs
            requires applying an econometric method that controls for
            why some households participated and others did not,
            conditional on their initial characteristics. In addition,
            the method must control for time-varying, unobserved
            heterogeneity that affects everyone over time, albeit in
            possibly different ways. The paper's econometric
            estimates show significant welfare gains resulting from
            microcredit participation, especially for women. They also
            show that the accrued benefits of borrowing outweigh
            accumulated debt. As a result, households' net worth
            has increased, and both poverty and the debt-asset ratio
            have declined.
Joining, upgrading and being
            competitive in global value chains : a strategic framework
In recent years, global value chains
            have played an increasing role in business strategies,
            profoundly affecting international trade and development
            paradigms. Global value chains now represent a major source
            of socio-upgrading opportunities and a new path for
            development. Trade, competitiveness and development policies
            should be reshaped accordingly to seize these opportunities
            and avoid the risks associated with greater participation in
            global value chains. This paper provides a framework and
            analytical tools for measuring and improving a
            country's performance with respect to participation in
            global value chains. With a clear operational focus, it
            provides guidance for countries willing to join, maintain
            participation, and/or move up global value chains. With the
            ultimate objective to increase the value (the development
            content) for trade, it also offers strategies to maximize
            the benefits and minimize the risks of developing
            countries' participation in global value chains.
Harnessing emotional connections to
            improve financial decisions : evaluating the impact of
            financial education in mainstream media
This paper exploits the emotional
            connections and viewer attentiveness of mainstream media to
            evaluate the economic impact of financial education messages
            on debt management delivered through a popular television
            soap opera in South Africa. The study uses a symmetric
            encouragement design to compare outcomes of individuals who
            were randomly assigned to watch a soap opera with financial
            messages, "Scandal!" to those of individuals who
            were invited to watch a similar soap opera without financial
            messages, "Muvhango." Both shows overlapped in
            evening primetime and had similar past viewership profiles.
            The financial storyline spanned two months and featured one
            of the leading characters of the show borrowing excessively
            and irresponsibly through hire-purchase, gambling, and
            ending up in financial distress; and eventually seeking help
            to find her way out. Two intermediate and one final
            follow-up surveys were conducted as part of the study. The
            analysis finds individuals assigned to watch Scandal had
            significantly higher financial knowledge of the issues
            highlighted in the soap opera storyline, in particular
            messages delivered by the leading character. On behavior,
            Scandal viewers were almost twice more likely to borrow from
            formal sources, less likely to engage in gambling, and less
            prone to enter hire purchase agreements. Messages promoting
            a national debt mediation helpline delivered by an external
            character did not sustain traction beyond immediate
            interest. Three qualitative focus groups highlight the
            importance of emotional connections with the leading
            character in motivating behavior change.
Subnational fiscal policy in large
            developing countries : some lessons from the 2008-09 crisis
            for Brazil, China and India
In response to the Great Recession of
            2008, many national governments implemented fiscal stimuli
            packages in 2009 and 2010 to prevent further declines in
            aggregate demand and to jump start their economic recovery.
            Where subnational governments responded with fiscal
            contraction, as in the United States, the impact was muted;
            where states/provinces also expanded expenditures, as in
            China and India, the impact was magnified. Increases in
            recurrent expenditure, which were made in Brazil and India,
            acted as short-term stimulants; additional public
            investment, as in China, appears to have had a more lasting
            impact on growth. Large developing countries typically
            exhibit high interregional inequality in levels of
            development and global integration, resulting in
            differential magnitude and timing of the crisis impact. For
            example, coastal states in India were affected more severely
            and quickly than landlocked states; revenue moved in
            opposite directions in the two types of state in 2009. Where
            fiscal stress varies widely across subnational entities,
            central transfers alone cannot prevent pro-cyclicality of
            subnational fiscal response to a recession. There is need
            for flexibility in subnational borrowing within a
            sustainable fiscal framework. Many Indian states were able
            to maintain or accelerate their spending thanks to the
            additional borrowing permitted in 2009 and 2010. In
            comparison, limited borrowing capacity and lack of
            flexibility in federal grants restricted the contribution of
            Brazilian states to fiscal stimulus. Legal prohibition of
            subnational borrowing induced China's provinces to
            finance additional investments through extra-budgetary
            borrowing by nongovernment entities, with significant fiscal
            risks on account of contingent liabilities.
Bank bailouts, competition, and the
            disparate effects for borrower and depositor welfare
This paper investigates how government
            interventions into banking systems such as blanket
            guarantees, liquidity support, recapitalizations, and
            nationalizations affect banking competition. This debate is
            important because the pricing of banking products has
            implications for borrower and depositor welfare. Exploiting
            data for 124 countries that witnessed different policy
            responses to 41 banking crises, and using
            difference-in-difference estimations, the paper presents the
            following key results: (i) Government interventions reduce
            Lerner indices and net interest margins. This effect is
            robust to a battery of falsification and placebo tests, and
            the competitive response also cannot be explained by
            alternative forces. The competition-increasing effect on
            Lerner indices and net interest margins is also confirmed
            once the non-random assignment of interventions is accounted
            for using instrumental variable techniques that exploit
            exogenous variation in the electoral cycle and in the design
            of the regulatory architecture across countries. (ii)
            Consistent with theoretical predictions, the
            competition-increasing effect of government interventions is
            greater in more concentrated and less contestable banking
            sectors, but the effects are mitigated in more transparent
            banking systems. (iii) The competitive effects are
            economically substantial, remain in place for at least 5
            years, and the interventions also coincide with an increase
            in zombie banks. The results therefore offer direct evidence
            of the mechanism by which government interventions
            contribute to banks' risk-shifting behavior as reported
            in recent studies on bank level runs via competition. (iv)
            Government interventions disparately affect bank
            customers' welfare. While liquidity support,
            recapitalizations, and nationalizations improve borrower
            welfare by reducing loan rates, deposit rates decline. The
            empirical setup allows quantifying these disparate effects.
Estimating the half-life of
            theoretically founded real exchange rate misalignments
This paper models empirically the short
            and long-term behavior of the real exchange rate
            misalignment -- a key variable in academic and policy
            circles. The equilibrium real exchange rate is derived from
            a theoretical model with intertemporal external equilibrium
            and internal equilibrium (in traded and non-traded markets)
            based on the current account dynamics and
            Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson productivity, respectively. This
            provides a bridge between theory and empirics that links the
            real exchange rate and its fundamentals (terms of trade, the
            ratio of net foreign assets to gross domestic product, and
            productivity differentials). The paper contributes to the
            literature by: (a) estimating an unrestricted vector error
            correction model that examines the short-term dynamics of
            real exchange rate misalignments and links these deviations
            with shocks to fundamentals from 1970 to 2010, and (b)
            computing the speed of reversion of real exchange rate
            misalignments with respect to a fundamentals-based
            equilibrium level. The paper reconciles two strands of the
            empirical literature that estimate the half-life of
            purchasing power parity deviations: one, the linear
            adjustment model that renders the consensus half-life
            estimates of purchasing power parity deviations, and
            another, the non-linear adjustment model of purchasing power
            parity deviations. The model estimates the half-life of real
            exchange rate deviations from their fundamental equilibrium
            at approximately 2.8 years. Consequently, about 25 percent
            of the real exchange rate deviation from its equilibrium
            level is corrected in the next year. Approximately 43
            percent of the countries in the sample have a half-life of
            real exchange rate deviations from equilibrium less than 2.5
            years -- which is consistent with predictions from
            non-linear mean reversion models.
Food prices, wages, and welfare in
            rural India
This paper considers the welfare and
            distributional consequences of higher relative food prices
            in rural India through the lens of a specific-factors,
            general equilibrium, trade model applied at the district
            level. The evidence shows that nominal wages for manual
            labor both within and outside agriculture respond
            elastically to increases in producer prices; that is, wages
            rose faster in rural districts growing more of those crops
            with large price run-ups over 2004-09. Accounting for such
            wage gains, the analysis finds that rural households across
            the income spectrum benefit from higher agricultural
            commodity prices. Indeed, rural wage adjustment appears to
            play a much greater role in protecting the welfare of the
            poor than the Public Distribution System, India's giant
            food-rationing scheme. Moreover, policies, like agricultural
            export bans, which insulate producers (as well as consumers)
            from international price increases, are particularly harmful
            to the poor of rural India. Conventional welfare analyses
            that assume fixed wages and focus on households' net
            sales position lead to radically different conclusions.
Export entrepreneurship and trade
            structure in Latin America during good and bad times
The authors use a new dataset on export
            transactions for a large set of Latin American and Caribbean
            and comparator countries to assess the extent of
            "export entrepreneurship" during periods of fast
            export growth (2005-2007) and depressed external demand
            (2008-2009). Export entrepreneurship is equated with the
            extensive margin of exports, namely the advent of new
            exporting firms, new export products, and new export market
            destinations. The main findings are: (1) annual exporter
            entry, exit, and survival rates in Latin America and the
            Caribbean are quite similar to what is observed in other
            countries, and entry rates across sectors are quite similar
            but survival rates appear to be highest in agriculture; (2)
            the relative size of entrants into export markets (relative
            to incumbents) tended to be lower for natural
            resource-abundant countries during 2005-2007, but less so
            during the crisis years of 2008-2009; (3) entry rates tend
            to be lower in sectors in which a country has revealed
            comparative advantage, however, exit rates and survival
            rates of new exporters are higher in those sectors; and (4)
            the low growth of exports during the global recession of
            2008-2009 in Latin America and the Caribbean was due to
            lower growth in exports of incumbent firms'
            pre-existing products and destinations, while new products
            and destinations tended to attenuate the recession's
            effects. Overall, the data suggest that the Latin American
            and Caribbean region appears to be no less entrepreneurial
            in terms of the extensive margins of exports than comparator countries.
Is labor income responsible for
            poverty reduction a decomposition approach
Demographics, labor income, public
            transfers, or remittances: Which factor contributes the most
            to observed reductions in poverty? Using counterfactual
            simulations, this paper accounts for the contribution labor
            income has made to the observed changes in poverty over the
            past decade for a set of 16 countries that have experienced
            substantial declines in poverty. In contrast to methods that
            focus on aggregate summary statistics, the analysis
            generates entire counterfactual distributions that allow
            assessing the contributions of different factors to observed
            distributional changes. Decompositions across all possible
            paths are calculated so the estimates are not subject to
            path-dependence. The analysis shows that for most countries
            in the sample, labor income is the most important
            contributor to changes in poverty. In ten of the countries,
            labor income explains more than half of the change in
            moderate poverty; in another four, it accounts for more than
            40 percent of the reduction in poverty. Although public and
            private transfers were relatively more important in
            explaining the reduction in extreme poverty, more and
            better-paying jobs were the key factors behind poverty
            reduction over the past decade.
Is labor income responsible for
            poverty reduction a decomposition approach
WPS6414 Policy Research Working Paper 6414 Is Labor Income Responsible for Poverty Reduction?

A Decomposition Approach _Joao Pedro Azevedo Gabriela Inchauste Sergio Olivieri Jaime Saavedra Hernan Winkler_ The World Bank Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network Poverty Reduction and Equity Department April 2013