rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
A race to the top A case study of
            food safety standards and African exports
Growing concern over health risks
            associated with food products is at the forefront of trade
            policy debate. At the heart of this debate is the
            "precautionary principle," which holds that
            precautions should be taken against health, safety, and
            environmental risks even when science has not established
            direct cause-and-effect relationships--as with, for example,
            the EUropean ban on hormone-treated beef. The authors
            quantify the impact on food exports from African countries
            of new EUropean Union standards for aflatoxins, structurally
            related toxic compounds that contaminate certain foods and
            lead to the production of acute liver carcinogens in the
            human body. The authors estimate the impact of changes in
            differing levels of such protection based on the EU
            standards (and suggested by international standards) for 15
            EUropean countries and 9 African countries between 1989 and
            1998. The results suggest that implementation of the
            EU's new aflatoxin standards will significantly hurt
            African exports to EUrope of nuts, cereals, and dried
            fruits, which are highly sensitive to the aflatoxin
            standards. The EU standards would reduce health risks by
            only about 1.4 deaths per billion a year but would cut
            African exports by 64 percent, or $670 million, compared
            with their level under international standards.
The macroeconomic impact of bank
            capital requirements in emerging economies - past evidence
            to assess the future
The authors test for emerging economies,
            the hypothesis - previously verified only for the Group of
            10 (G-10) countries - that enforcing bank capital asset
            requirements, exerts a negative effect on the supply of
            credit. Their econometric analysis of data on individual
            banks, suggests three main results: 1) Enforcement of
            capital asset requirements - according to the 1998 Basel
            standard - significantly curtailed credit supply,
            particularly at less-well-capitalized banks. 2) This
            negative effect is not limited to countries enforcing
            capital asset requirements in the aftermath of a currency,
            or financial crises. 3) The adverse impact of capital
            requirements on the credit supply was somewhat smaller for
            foreign-owned banks, suggesting that opening up to foreign
            investors, may be an effective way to partly shield the
            domestic banking sector from negative shocks. Overall, by
            inducing banks to reduce their lending, enforcement of
            capital asset requirements may well have induced an
            aggregate slowdown, or contraction in credit in the emerging
            economies examined. The results have relevance for the
            ongoing debate on the impact of the revision of bank capital
            asset requirements, contemplated by the 1999 Basel proposal.
            They suggest that in several emerging economies, the phasing
            in of higher capital requirements needs to be carefully
            managed, to avoid a credit supply retrenchment, which should
            not be underestimated.
How does foreign entry affect the
            domestic banking market
Banking markets are becoming
            increasingly international through financial liberalization
            and general economic integration. Using bank-level data for
            80 countries for 1988-95, the authors examine the extent of
            foreign ownership in national banking markets. They compare
            net interest margins, overhead, taxes paid, and
            profitability of foreign and domestic banks. The comparative
            functions of foreign banks and domestic banks is very
            different in developing and industrial countries, possibly
            because of a different customer base, different bank
            procedures, and different regulatory and tax regimes. In
            developing countries foreign banks tend to have greater
            profits, higher interest margins, and higher tax payments
            than do domestic banks. In industrial countries it is the
            domestic banks that have greater profits, higher interest
            margins, and higher tax payments. It is common to read, in
            the literature on foreign banking, that the entry of foreign
            banks can make national banking markets more competitive,
            thereby forcing domestic banks to operate more efficiently.
            The authors show that increasing the foreign share of bank
            ownership does indeed reduce profitability and overhead
            expenses in domestically owned banks - so the general effect
            of foreign bank entry may be positive. Interestingly, the
            number of foreign entrants matters more than their market
            share, suggesting that they affect local bank competition
            more on entry rather than after gaining a substantial market
            share. These effects hold even when controlling for the fact
            that foreign banks may be attracted to markets with certain
            characteristics, such as low banking costs.
The intriguing relation between
            adult minimum wage and child labor
Because most parents send their children
            to work when compelled by poverty, one would expect a rise
            in adult wage to lower child labor. However, if the rise in
            wage is achieved by a minimum wage law, its impact can be
            intriguing. It can, for instance, cause some adults to be
            unemployed, and send their children to work, which in turn
            displaces more adult labor, and sends more children to work.
            The paper solves this process, and predicts the incidence of
            child labor. It shows that, for appropriate parametric
            configurations, child labor may fall, or rise as the adult
            minimum wage is raised.
Verifying exchange rate regimes
Credibility and transparency are at the
            core of the current debate about exchange rate regimes. The
            steady growth in the magnitude and variability of
            international capital flows has complicated the question of
            whether to use floating, fixed, or intermediate exchange
            rate regimes. Emerging market economies are abandoning
            basket pegs, crawling pegs, bands, adjustable pegs, and
            various combinations of these. One of several reasons
            intermediate regimes have fallen out of favor is that they
            are not transparent; it is very difficult to verify them.
            Verifiability is a concrete example of the principle of
            "transparency" so often invoked in discussions of
            the new international financial architecture but so seldom
            made precise. A simple peg or a simple float may be easier
            for market participants to verify than a more complicated
            intermediate regime. The authors investigate how difficult
            it is for investors to verify from observable data whether
            the authorities are in fact following the exchange rate
            regime they claim to be following. Of the various
            intermediate regimes, they focus on basket pegs with bands.
            Statistically, it can take a surprisingly long span of data
            for an econometrician or investor to verify whether such a
            regime is actually in operation. The authors find that
            verification becomes more difficult as the regime's
            bands widen or more currencies enter the basket peg. At the
            other extreme, they also analyze regimes described as the
            regime's bands widen or more currencies enter the
            basket peg. At the other extreme, they also analyze regimes
            described as free floating and find that in some cases the
            observed exchange rate data do validate the announced regime.
Financial openness, democracy, and
            redistributive policy
The debate about the relationship
            between democratic forms of government and the free movement
            of capital across borders dates to the 18th century. It has
            regained prominence as capital on a massive scale has become
            increasingly mobile and as free economies experience
            continuous pressure from rapidly changing technology, market
            integration, changing consumer preferences, and intensified
            competition. These changes imply greater uncertainty about
            citizens' future income positions, which could prompt
            them to seek insurance through the marketplace or through
            constitutionally arranged income redistribution. As more
            countries move toward democracy, the availability of such
            insurance mechanisms to citizens is key if political
            pressure for capital controls is to be averted and if public
            support for an open, liberal international financial order
            is to be maintained. The author briefly reviews how
            today's international financial system evolved from one
            of mostly closed capital accounts immediately after World
            War II to today's enormous, largely free-flowing
            market. Drawing on insights from the literature on public
            choice and constitutional political economy, the author
            develops an analytical framework for a welfare cost-benefit
            analysis of financial openness to international capital
            flows. The main welfare benefits of financial openness
            derive from greater economic efficiency and increased
            opportunities for risk diversification. The welfare costs
            relate to the cost of insurance used as a mechanism for
            coping with the risks of financial volatility. These
            insurance costs are the economic losses associated with
            redistribution, including moral hazard, rent-seeking, and
            rent-avoidance. A cross-sectional analysis of a large sample
            of developed and developing countries shows the positive
            correlation between democracy (as defined by political and
            civil liberty) and financial openness. More rigorous
            econometric investigation using logit analysis and
            controlling for level of income also shows that
            redistributive social policies are key in determining the
            likelihood that countries can successfully combine an
            openness to international capital mobility with democratic
            forms of government.
Should credit be given for
            autonomous liberalization in multilateral trade negotiations
As each new round of multilateral trade
            negotiations approaches, there is a demand for a negotiating
            rule that would give credit for autonomous (unilateral)
            liberalization. The authors show that the feasibility, and
            desirability of such a rule depend on when it is instituted.
            A credit rule established at the beginning of a round of
            negotiations has a primarily distributional effect, favoring
            those who have already undertaken liberalization.
            Implementing such a rule would depend on the generosity of
            those who have not liberalized. The authors propose instead
            establishing a credit rule at the end of a round of
            negotiations, which creates an ex-ante assurance that any
            unilateral liberalization will receive credit in the next
            round. Such a rule would help induce, or enhance
            liberalization in some countries between negotiating rounds,
            by reducing the gains from retaining protection as
            negotiating currency. More strikingly, it could also lead to
            deeper levels of multilateral liberalization, and induce
            other countries to go further than they would in the absence
            of a rule. Most important, such an ex-ante rule would not
            rely on altruism to be generally acceptable.
Shock persistence and the choice of
            foreign exchange regime - an empirical note from Mexico
The academic and policy debate about
            optimal foreign exchange rate regimes for emerging
            economies, has focused more on the theoretical costs and
            benefits of possible regimes, than on their actual
            performance. The authors report on what can be called
            exchange-rate-regime-dependent differential shock
            persistence - that is, the time output takes to return to
            its trend after a negative shock - in a sample of countries
            representing various points on the spectrum of nominal
            foreign exchange flexibility. They find strong evidence that
            Mexico's stimulated output recovery after a negative
            external shock was faster (a third as long) when the
            country's policymakers let the nominal foreign exchange
            rate float, than when they fixed it, and much faster than in
            other developing countries that kept nominal foreign
            exchange rates constant, especially those that resorted to
            currency board arrangements to support that constancy. These
            results are insufficient to guide the choice of regime (they
            lack general equilibrium value, and are based on a limited
            sample of countries), but they highlight an important
            practical consideration in making that choice: How long it
            takes for output to adjust after negative shocks, is
            sensitive to the level of rigidity of the foreign exchange
            regime. This factor may be critical when the social costs of
            those adjustments are not negligible.
Are cost models useful for telecoms
            regulators in developing countries
Worldwide privatization of the
            telecommunications industry, and the introduction of
            competition in the sector, together with the ever-increasing
            rate of technological advance in telecommunications, raise
            new and critical challenges for regulation. Fo matters of
            pricing, universal service obligations, and the like, one
            question to be answered is this: What is the efficient cost
            of providing the service to a certain area or type of
            customer? As developing countries build up their capacity to
            regulate their privatized infrastructure monopolies, cost
            models are likely to prove increasingly important in
            answering this question. Cost models deliver a number of
            benefits to a regulator willing to apply them, but they also
            ask for something in advance: information. Without
            information, the question cannot be answered. The authors
            introduce cost models and establish their applicability when
            different degrees of information are available to the
            regulator. They do no by running a cost model with different
            sets of actual data form Argentina's second largest
            city, and comparing results. Reliable, detailed information
            is generally scarce in developing countries. The authors
            establish the minimum information requirements for a
            regulator implementing a cost proxy model approach, showing
            that this data constraint need not be that binding.
India and the multilateral trading
            system after Seattle - toward a proactive role
The authors argue that India should
            engage more actively in the multilateral trading system for
            four reasons: First, such engagement could facilitate
            domestic reform, and improve access to export markets. If
            the government could show that domestic reform would pay off
            with increased access to markets abroad, those who gain from
            such access - whether they export textiles, software,
            professional services, or other products - could represent a
            countervailing voice to reform's opponents. In turn,
            the need for this external payoff to secure domestic reform
            makes India a credible bargainer, which could induce trading
            partners, to open their markets to India. Second, external
            commitments can foster good domestic policies, by providing
            guarantees against the reversal of current policies, or
            lending credibility to promises of future reform. Such
            pre-commitments could help strike a balance between the
            reluctance to unleash competition immediately, and the
            desire not to be held perpetual hostage to vested interests,
            or weak domestic industries. Third, engagement can help
            enforce India's market access rights. If other
            countries do not eliminate quotas on textiles, and clothing
            as scheduled, India can credibly threaten to withdraw its
            obligations under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of
            Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). Fourth, multilateral
            tariff reduction could reduce the disadvantage (to India) of
            not being part of regional agreements. The value of
            multilateral engagement might be limited, if the prospects
            for securing increased market access are dim, as the failed
            Seattle negotiations might appear to suggest. India must
            credibly test negotiating pessimism by showing its
            willingness to open its markets in return for improved
            access to foreign markets. Success is not certain, but
            India's chances are improved if aligns itself with
            countries pressing for sound policies of open trade.
New firm formation and industry
            growth - does having a market- or bank-based system matter
The authors find no evidence for the
            superiority of either market-based or bank-based financial
            systems for industries dependent on external financing. But
            they find overwhelming evidence that industries heavily
            dependent on external finance grow faster in economies with
            higher levels of financial development, and with better
            legal protection for outside investors - including strong
            creditor and shareholder rights and strong contract
            enforcement mechanisms. Financial development also
            stimulates the establishment of new firms, which is
            consistent with the Schumpeterian view of creative
            destruction. Financial development matters. That the
            financial system is bank-based on market-based offers little
            additional information.
Trade polices for electronic commerce
Some countries in the World Trade
            Organization initially opposed WTO's decision to exempt
            electronic delivery of products from customs duties, out of
            concern for the revenue consequences. Others supported the
            decision as a means of securing open trading conditions. The
            authors argue that neither the inhibitions nor the
            enthusiasm is fully justified. First, even if all delivery
            of digitizable media products moved on-line--an unlikely
            prospect--the revenue loss for most countries would be
            small. More important, however, the prohibition of customs
            duties does not ensure continued open access for
            electronically delivered products and may even prompt
            recourse to inferior instruments of protection. Barrier-free
            electronic commerce would be more effectively secured by
            deepening and widening the limited cross-border trade
            commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services
            (GATS), and by clarifying and strengthening certain GATS disciplines.
Disintegration and trade flows :
            evidence from the Former Soviet Union
The authors study the effects of trade
            barriers and the persistence of past linkages on trade flows
            in the former Soviet Union. Estimating a gravity equation on
            trade among and between nine Russian regions and 14 former
            Soviet republics, they find that Russian regions traded 60
            percent more with each other than with republics in the
            reform period (1994-96). By contrast, the Russian regions
            did not trade significantly more with each other than with
            republics in the pre-reform period (1987-90). The results
            suggest that the bias toward domestic trade in the reform
            period is primarily the result of tariffs. In addition, past
            linkages-such as infrastructure, business networks, and
            production and consumption chains-have limited the
            reorientation of trade.
Savings and the terms of trade under
            borrowing constraints
The authors examine the extent to which
            permanent terms-of-trade shocks have an asymmetric effect on
            private savings. Using a simple three-period model, they
            show that if households expect to face binding constraints
            on borrowing in bad states of nature (when the economy is in
            a long trough rather than a sharp peak). Savings rates will
            respond asymmetrically to favorable movements in the
            permanent component of the terms of trade - in contrast with
            the predictions of conventional consumption-smoothing
            models. They test the asymmetric effects of terms-of-trade
            disturbances using an econometric model that controls for
            various standard determinants of private savings. The
            results - based on panel data for non-oil commodity
            exporters of Sub-Saharan Africa for 1980-96 (a group of
            countries for which movements in the terms of trade have
            traditionally represented a key source of macroeconomic
            shocks) - indicate that increases in the permanent component
            of the terms of trade (measured using three alternative
            filtering techniques) indeed tend to be associated with
            higher rates of private savings.
Reciprocity across modes of supply
            in the World Trade Organization : a negotiating formula
Negotiations on trade in services at the
            World Trade Organization (WTO) have so far produced little
            liberalization beyond levels countries have undertaken
            unilaterally. One reason: limited application of the
            traditional negotiating principle of reciprocity. In
            particular, participants have failed to exploit the scope of
            the services agreement (General Agreement on Trade in
            Services -GATS) for the exchange of market-access
            "concessions" across different modes of supply -
            cross-border delivery and the movement of capital and
            workers. Using the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek framework, the
            authors propose a negotiating formula that generalizes the
            fundamental WTO principle of reciprocity to include
            alternative modes of delivery. Adoption of this formula as a
            basis for negotiations could bring greater commitments to
            liberalization on all modes of delivery, producing
            substantial gains in global welfare and more balanced outcomes.