rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Risk, taxpayers, and the role of
            government in project finance
The author concludes that government,
            through the tax system, cannot really do better than private
            financial markets at funding infrastructure projects. All
            the financial advantages of sovereign finance are due purely
            to its coercive powers and are of no social value. Under
            government finance the taxpayers would bear a contingent
            liability that, if properly remunerated, would wipe out any
            cost advantage of sovereign borrowing. Governments should
            then refrain from investing in projects or firms, whether
            with equity or with debt. They should not cover commercial
            risks. Overall, the government cannot be expected to improve
            on the outcome of free financial markets, but this does not
            mean that it has no role: Private markets may not always
            find the best solutions although they solve whatever
            trade-off there is. More importantly, governments can
            significantly reduce the cost of risk-bearing by following
            prudent macroeconomics policies, supporting secure property
            rights, and deregulating and liberalizing financial markets
            so that private players can take the best advantage of
            low-cost funding opportunities. But government's
            offsetting the risks created through bad policy by
            taxpayer-supported funding, amounts to stealing from
            investors and compensating them by taking from the
            taxpayers. Multilateral finance institutions can support the
            development of better government policies by granting
            guarantees against policy failures where new policy regimes
            are not credible instead of simply investing in projects and
            guaranteeing the full credit risk of loans.
Regulating market risk in banks : a
            comparison of alternative regulatory regimes
The author evaluates three approaches to
            regulating market risk in banks on the basis of efficiency,
            competitive neutrality, and effectiveness in regulation.
            Each approach is judged on how well it fulfills the aims of
            regulation without overburdening the financial system with
            the cost of regulation. The three approaches are the
            building bloc approach where separate capital requirements
            are determined for each of four major market risk categories
            and then aggregated; the internal models approach where loss
            to the bank's portfolio is calculated with a specified
            probability over a specified holding period of time; and the
            pre-commitment approach where each bank pre-commits a
            capital amount to cover what is believed to be its maximum
            trading loss exposure over a given regulatory period. The
            author concludes -given the current inability to develop
            measures that capture an institution's overall
            portfolio risks- that piecemeal regulatory capital
            requirements (such as the one for market risk) are
            necessary. Of the approaches he analyzes, the author
            considers the internal models approach to be, for the time
            being, the most reliable, market-friendly, and effective
            method for banks.
Reforming pensions in Zambia : an
            analysis of existing schemes and options for reform
All of Zambia's pension schemes are
            deficient in design, financing, and administration. This
            report urges that Zambia restructure its social protection
            system to complement its new economic strategy. That
            restructuring must address such basic problems as
            macroeconomic fluctuations and an unstable financial sector;
            high inflation rates and politically-motivated low-yield
            investments and loans; income ceilings irregularly adjusted
            for inflation; overgenerous public sector pension benefits;
            and inadequate management of pension fund operations. In the
            short and medium term, the objectives should be to settle
            outstanding pension claims, revise early retirement
            provisions and investment policies, and improve capabilities
            for administering statutory pension funds. In the long term
            the objectives should be to convert the Zambia National
            Provident Fund (ZNPF) into a modest basic pension scheme for
            private sector employees, and subsequently integrate civil
            servants and public sector employees into that scheme;
            establish regulatory provisions to develop and supervise
            private pension funds; and establish an administrative
            mechanism to review social protection policy and to
            supervise and coordinate its application by all agencies.
Heterogeneity among Mexico's
            micro-enterprises - an application of factor and cluster analysis
A long tradition sees the small firm
            sector as a holding pattern for workers queuing for jobs in
            the formal sector of a segmented labor market. An
            alternative "entrepreneurial" view suggests that
            many workers prefer self-employment to salaried jobs. These
            competing views can be resolved if the sector is
            heterogeneous. Using factor and cluster analysis, the
            authors generate a typology of the sector by taking
            advantage of a Mexican data set on micro-firms that offers
            information on a broad range of small firm characteristics.
            The methodology permits divisions to emerge from the data
            without the a priori imposition of a theoretical structure.
            The data break into several distinct groups, broadly
            characterized as highly profitable and dynamic young firms,
            older firms that have stabilized at a small size, and young
            firms that act as an employer of last resort. Those in the
            last group, comprised of older entrepreneurs with low levels
            of education, are the most likely to cite that they started
            their firms because they were unable to find a salaried job.
            In general most of the firm owners in all groups stated that
            they chose self-employment over formal sector employment in
            order to be independent, collect higher earnings, or follow
            family tradition. These survey responses are supported by
            the finding that income distribution adjusted for human
            capital is composed of two sub-distributions, with the
            "underperforming" distribution comprising only 14
            percent of the sample. The factor analysis also implies that
            firm owner characteristics and firm size or profitability
            may not be correlated. For example, young workers who we
            might think are forced into the small firm sector due to
            inability to enter the formal job market do not necessarily
            earn less or have less capital than older entrepreneurs.
            Furthermore, a distribution of the earnings residual factor
            shows that very few firms, regardless of the firm
            owner's age, are earning below their expected profits.
            The data suggest that the small size of informal firms may
            not necessarily result from limited access to financial
            institutions or a desire to evade labor or tax laws.
            Instead, the firms simply may be in the beginning stages of
            a growth process or owners may prefer to remain small.
Beyond unequal development : an overview
In the 1980s and 1990s, economic growth
            (material progress) became the main development goal under
            the policies known as the "Washington Consensus".
            Earlier concerns about inequalities of income and wealth
            were replaced by policies emphasizing macroeconomic
            stabilization (reducing inflation and cutting fiscal
            deficits) and structural reform (trade liberalization,
            financial deregulation, privatization, and a shift to a
            smaller state). But fiscal adjustment and market
            liberalization alone have not brought stable, equitable
            development. Inequality of income and wealth, far from
            declining, seems to have increased in Latin America. The
            "Washington Consensus" has supported social
            policies that rely on targeting, growth-led poverty
            reduction, and delivery of social services partly through
            the private sector. Loose ends to this strategy include: 1)
            Growth patterns that favor skilled labor and nonlabor
            factors of production. 2) The exclusion of vulnerable groups
            for whom the market produces little income. 3) Overreliance
            on commodity-based growth for human development. 4)
            Political manipulation of beneficiaries and weak
            institutional ability to reach targeted groups. 5) Higher
            equality services provided by the private sector to
            high-income and upper-middle-class groups and lower quality
            services provided by the state to lower-income groups.
            Social policies in developing countries in the past decade
            have been defined largely in terms of poverty reduction. The
            author argues that income distribution and the reduction of
            social inequality are valid policy targets on their own.
            Empirical evidence and theories of endogenous growth
            emphasize complementarities between social equity and
            growth. To the extent that social inequality engenders
            social conflict, invites taxation of physical investments,
            and induces economic populism, it hampers economic growth.
            Social policies to promote equitable development should
            include: a) Good, broad-based education and health services.
            b) Greater access to credit by low-income households and
            small-scale producers. c) More equal access to land and
            ownership of capital stock (say, after privatization).
            Social safety nets are needed when unemployment, wage cuts,
            and declining income threaten the poor. Austerity policies
            without such safety nets as emergency employment programs,
            food distribution to children, and minimum income support
            schemes unduly hurt the poor, the vulnerable, and the
            politically weak, making fiscal retrenchment difficult and
            socially regressive.
Corporate diversification in East
            Asia : the role of ultimate ownership and group affiliation
Using data for more than 2,000 companies
            from nine East Asian economies, the authors examine the
            interactions between ultimate ownership, group affiliation,
            and corporate diversification. They find evidence that
            allocation resources within business groups is associated
            with higher market valuation when external markets are less
            developed. They also find that group affiliation and
            firm-level diversification are used complementarily to
            exploit the relative cost-effectiveness of internal markets.
            They reject the hypothesis that diversification patterns can
            be explained by large blockholders' incentive to reduce
            risk. But they find support for the hypothesis that
            controlling owners use diversification to expropriate other
            shareholders. Group affiliation is widespread among publicly
            traded corporations in East Asia. Group-affiliated firms are
            on average associated with diversification discounts.
            Further analysis reveals that the discounts are attributable
            to diversified firms in the more developed East Asian
            economies. By contrast, group affiliation positively
            contributes to diversification performance in less developed
            economies. The authors find that group-affiliated firms are
            more likely to diversify in developing economies but are
            equally likely to diversify in developed economies. When
            diversifying in more developed economies, group-affiliated
            firms destroy more value than do independent firms. In
            developing economies, group-affiliated firms are more likely
            than independent firms to benefit from diversification in
            developing economies.
Decentralization in regional fiscal
            systems in Russia - trends and links to economic performance
To shed light on decentralization in
            Russia, the authors examine intergovernmental fiscal
            relations within regions. To analyze trends, they review
            channels of fiscal allocation within regions - tax sharing
            and local transfer schemes. To evaluate the potential impact
            of various fiscal decentralization patterns on regional
            economic performance (including growth and the budget
            deficit), the authors study data on the structure of 89
            Russian consolidated regional budgets for 1992-96. They find
            that local governments' relative share of Russia's
            consolidated budget, although substantive (roughly a quarter
            of the total budget), did not expand after 1994. The federal
            government's relative role in financing public goods
            and services declined as the relative role of local
            governments increased substantially. Local governments
            collected more revenues in 1996 (6.4 percent of GDP) and
            spent more than regional governments. They also
            substantially increased social financing (including health,
            education, and social protection). Russia made no progress
            toward a more transparent system for tax assignments. The
            average level of expenditure decentralization is similar for
            ethnically Russian regions and national republics and
            "okrugs" but revenue arrangements differ greatly.
            "True" decentralization has taken place in
            "oblasts" and "krais" where local
            authorities are provided with a bigger share of sub-national
            tax revenues. A redistribution model applies in republics
            and autonomous okrugs, where greater local outlays have been
            financed through larger transfers from regional governments.
            Regions near each other tend to have similar budget
            arrangements - the result of intensive interactions between
            neighbors and probably supported by the activities of
            regional associations. The size of a region's territory
            does not influence decentralization outcomes. Fiscal
            decentralization seems positively related to the share of
            education spending in regional budgets. And regions with
            more decentralized finances tend to experience less economic
            decline. But budget control is weaker in more decentralized
            regions. Instability and lack of transparency in
            intergovernmental fiscal relations provide sub-national
            governments little incentive for responsible fiscal policy.
            Further decentralization without greater transparency could
            bring greater debt and deficits.
Reconsidering the evidence on
            returns to T&V extension in Kenya
The authors revisit the widely
            disseminated results of a study (Bindlish and Evenson 1993,
            1997) of the impact of the training and visit (T&V)
            system of management for public extension services in Kenya.
            T&V was introduced in Kenya by the World Bank and has
            since been supported through two successive projects. The
            impact of the projects continues to be the subject of much
            debate. The authors' paper suggests the need for
            greater vigilance in empirical analysis, especially about
            the quality of data used to support Bank policy and the need
            to validate potentially influential findings. Using
            household data from 1990, Bindlish and Evenson found the
            returns from extension to be very high. But the authors find
            that the returns estimated by Binslish and Evenson suffer
            from data errors, and limitations imposed by cross-sectional
            data. After correcting for several data processing and
            measurement errors, the authors show the results to be less
            robust than reported by Bindlish and Evenson and highly
            sensitive to regional effects. When region-specific effects
            are included, a positive return to extension cannot be
            established, using Bindlish and Evenson's data set and
            cross-sectional model specifications. After testing the
            robustness of results using a number of tests, the authors
            could not definitively establish the factors underlying
            strong regional effects, largely because of the limitations
            imposed by the cross-sectional framework. Household panel
            data methods would have allowed greater control for regional
            effects and would have yielded better insight into the
            impact of extension. The impact on agricultural productivity
            in Kenya expected from T&V extension services is not
            discernible from the available data, and the impact may vary
            across districts. The hypothesis that T&V had no impact
            in Kenya between 1982 and 1990 cannot be rejected. The
            sample data fail to support a positive rate of return on the
            investment in T&V.
Reforming the urban transport sector
            in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan region - a case study in concessions
The author describes a bold effort by
            the state government to increase private sector
            participation in Rio de Janeiro's urban transport
            sector, reduce heavy operating subsidies, and establish a
            foundation for making the sector sustainable. This effort
            was undertaken with the help of three World Bank-financed
            loans: * The Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Transport Loan,
            which provided assistance for the transfer of federally
            owned suburban railways to the state government. * The Rio
            de Janeiro State Reform and Privatization Loan, which helped
            the state privatize and grant concessions for a number of
            its enterprises. * The Rio de Janeiro Mass Transit Loan,
            which supported the reorganization of the sector and the
            concession of the Rio suburban railways (Flumitrens). Most
            of the reforms in the urban transport sector have been
            implemented. The lessons learned from implementation and the
            results obtained so far suggest that political decisiveness,
            transparency, and ingenuity in developing incentives are
            crucial to privatizing urban rail transport systems. But the
            state also learned that not having a credible staff
            redundancy program might seriously reduce the benefits
            expected from concessions.
Free entry in infrastructure
With a policy of free entry,
            individuals, firms, or community groups who wish to supply
            power, water, and sanitation services can do so with minimal
            legal restrictions. Free entry is the opposite of
            "exclusivity" or "legal monopoly". Free
            entry is allowed in most industries, but governments usually
            allow only one provider of power, water, and sanitation in
            any given area. This is supposed to prevent wasteful
            duplication and ensure a supply of essential services to
            poor and marginal areas. But monopoly water and power
            utilities often operate at high cost, lack funds to invest,
            and provide low-quality, unreliable service. Worse, poor and
            marginal areas are often unserved. When the monopoly model
            doesn't work, it is time to look at alternatives. The
            authors provide examples of alternative solutions in
            developing countries: *In Karachi, Pakistan, the Orangi
            Pilot Project provides sanitation in an unplanned
            settlement. Roughly 800,000 working class people lived in an
            area where sanitary conditions were medieval and a
            long-hoped-for sewerage system never came. Starting in 1980,
            a charitable group developed a low-cost approach to piped
            sanitation, explained the technology to the community, and
            catalyzed community action. Householders and neighborhoods
            funded the construction of household pourflush latrines and
            sewerage lines. * In Paraguay, 300 to 400 private
            individuals and aguateros supply good quality piped water to
            areas unserved by the public water company. Unlike the
            public company, the aguateros allow payment of connection
            fees on installment, making it easier for low-income
            consumers to connect. * In Yemen, small-scale electricity
            providers innovatively meet the rural and village demand for
            electricity that the public utility does not meet. These
            entrants seldom duplicate investments, although some
            government intervention to ensure interconnection could
            improve efficiency. Limitations on entry may sometimes be
            justified for environmental reasons or to promote private
            sector investment, but those cases are rare. Legalizing
            alternative providers will allow them to expand and meet new
            needs. Limits on their entry may be needed sometimes, but
            limits should be the exception, not the rule, the authors
            argue. Generally, free entry should be allowed in power,
            water, and sanitation.
Deregulating technology transfer in
            agriculture : reform's impact on turkey in the 1980s
Turkey is one of a handful of developing
            countries that have liberalized regulation of agricultural
            inputs and welcome private firms delivering technology and
            inputs. The authors show that Turkish regulatory reform
            affecting seeds and other inputs in the 1980s: 1) Greatly
            increased private technology transfer into Turkey. 2)
            Encouraged market entry for more foreign and domestic
            companies involved in production and trade in Turkey. 3)
            Allowed private firms to increase their share of input
            markets. 4) Where inputs brought new technology, allowed
            farmers to significantly increase yields and production. The
            authors recommend that the World Bank and other donors
            involved with agriculture pay more attention to the
            regulation of inputs in developing countries. They also
            recommend that developing country governments revise
            regulations to leave choices about technology performance to
            farmers and markets - and to focus instead on externalities,
            removing unnecessary obstacles to provide technology
            transfer through the production and trade of inputs. Other
            countries that have similarly reformed the regulation of
            agricultural inputs include Chile (in the 1970s), Bangladesh
            and India (at the end of the 1980s), Malawi (in 1995-96),
            and Romania (in 1997).