rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Business cycles accounting for Paraguay
This study investigates the role of
            domestic and external shocks in business cycle fluctuations
            in Paraguay during 1991–2012. Time-series methods and a
            structural model-based approach are used to conduct an
            integrated analysis of business cycles. First, structural
            vector autoregression is used to assess the role played by
            external factors and domestic shocks in driving fluctuations
            in gross domestic product through impulse response functions
            and variance decompositions. The analysis finds that
            external shocks such as terms of trade, world interest rate
            and foreign demand account for over 50 percent of real gross
            domestic product fluctuations. Given Paraguay’s strong
            dependence on agriculture, an analysis is also done for the
            agricultural and non-agricultural sectors separately. The
            analysis finds that non-agricultural gross domestic product
            is to a large extent driven by external shocks, which
            account for over 50 percent of its volatility. In contrast,
            the volatility in agricultural gross domestic product is
            primarily due to shocks to domestic variables, mainly shocks
            to agricultural output. A further difference between the
            sectors is that shocks to government consumption are more
            important for agricultural gross domestic product, while
            shocks to the domestic real interest rate play a larger role
            in the volatility of non-agricultural gross domestic
            product. Second, the paper investigates the sources of
            business cycle fluctuations through the lens of a
            neoclassical growth model with an agricultural and
            non-agricultural sector. The analysis finds some signs of
            improvements, as labor market distortions have declined,
            firms’ access to credit improved, and agricultural
            efficiency rose over time. Nevertheless, challenges remain,
            as gaps in labor and capital returns between agriculture and
            non-agriculture remain large, efficiency in the
            non-agricultural sector shows no signs of improvement, and
            households’ access to finance has deteriorated.
Policies, prices, and poverty : the
            sugar, vegetable oil, and flour industries in Senegal
Like many countries in Sub-Saharan
            Africa, Senegal has struggled to develop its industrial
            sector in the face of import competition. For basic food
            products, there is an implicit trade-off between the
            objectives of maintaining employment and lowering the cost
            of living, both of which figure prominently in current
            government policy. Conflicting pressures have led to a
            rather inconsistent policy mix of high levels of protection
            with price ceilings. The products of the three industries
            examined here—sugar, vegetable oil, and flour—account for
            roughly 14 percent of the consumption basket of the poor, so
            distortions in their prices can have a significant effect on
            poverty reduction. This paper compares domestic prices in
            Senegal with world prices since 2000, and then explains the
            difference by examining the protection enjoyed by these
            industries, along with their market structure. The analysis
            finds that high protection and market power have resulted in
            domestic prices which were often two or three times the
            equivalent world price. Tightening of price ceilings and
            some liberalization have taken place recently, but consumers
            have continued to pay above world prices for sugar and
            edible oil in 2014. The paper estimates that if this
            differential were eliminated, the purchasing power of
            households around the poverty line would increase by 3
            percent, 227,000 people would move above the poverty line,
            and the national poverty rate would drop by 1.9 percentage
            points. The cost to consumers far exceeds the total wage
            bill paid by these industries. Further liberalization of
            these industries is recommended, along with phasing out
            price controls and shifting government policy from
            protecting traditional enterprises to the promotion of new
            export-oriented ones.
Unbundling institutions for external
            finance : worldwide firm-level evidence
The empirical literature on institutions
            and development has been challenged on grounds of reverse
            causality, measurement error in institutional indicators,
            and heterogeneity. This paper uses firm-level data across
            countries to confront these challenges. Instead of analyzing
            ultimate outcomes, such as income levels where institutional
            quality is likely endogenous, the focus is on firm-level
            external finance. Moreover, institutions are “unbundled” to
            explore how various types of institutions affect external
            finance differently. The paper documents that micro firms
            have significantly less access to external finance than
            small and medium firms. General financial development and
            contracting institutions that facilitate transactions
            between private parties exert little effect, on average, on
            firms’ access to external finance. In contrast, property
            rights institutions that constrain political and economic
            elites exhibit stronger positive association with access to
            external finance. The analysis finds evidence of attenuation
            bias associated with error in measuring institutions. For
            leveling the playing field  between elite and non-elite
            firms (as proxied by firm size) in their access to external
            finance, property rights institutions also figure more
            prominently—with an important exception for the information
            environment, a component of contracting institutions. The
            results indicate that a specific channel through which
            development is affected more by property rights institutions
            rather than contracting institutions is external financing
            for firms.
Financial inclusion, productivity
            shocks, and consumption volatility in emerging economies
How does access to finance impact
            consumption volatility? Theory and evidence from advanced
            economies suggests that greater household access to finance
            smooths consumption. Evidence from emerging markets, where
            consumption is usually more volatile than income, indicates
            that financial reform further increases the volatility of
            consumption relative to output. This puzzle is addressed in
            the framework of an emerging economy model in which
            households face shocks to trend growth rate, and a fraction
            of them are financially constrained, with no access to
            financial services. Unconstrained households can respond to
            shocks to trend growth by raising current consumption more
            than the rise in current income. Financial reform increases
            the share of such households, leading to greater relative
            consumption volatility. Calibration of the model for pre-
            and post-financial reform in India provides support for the
            model’s key predictions.
How unfair is the inequality of wage
            earnings in Russia estimates from panel data
This paper attempts to determine the
            extent to which inequality in wage earnings in the Russian
            Federation is unfair. Unlike other similar attempts that
            can, at best, produce a lower bound on the estimate of the
            share of inequality that is unfair, this paper exploits the
            longitudinal nature of the data to come up with a lower
            bound as well as an upper bound. The upper bound is further
            refined to take into account the indirect effect of
            circumstances at birth (gender, parental wealth, etc.) on
            effort. Results show that the upper bound on the inequality
            of opportunity may be three to four times the measured lower
            bound and significantly higher for females than males in the
            sample. Finally, comparison with the United States and
            Germany show that although total inequality is lower in
            Russia, the share of unfair inequality is distinctly larger.
            The markedly large explanatory role of extraneous factors,
            such as gender and parental characteristics, in wage
            inequality calls for a close examination of governments’
            efforts to address inequities in the labor market.
Costs and benefits of land
            fragmentation : evidence from Rwanda
This paper disentangles different
            aspects of land fragmentation and its impact on the
            efficiency of resource use. The paper uses information on
            the incidence of crop shocks to assess whether fragmentation
            provides benefits in reducing risk and parcel coordinates
            and terrain-adjusted travel times between parcels to more
            precisely account for the associated costs in 2010/11 data
            from Rwanda. While fragmentation increases the time required
            to move between a household’s parcels, this does not appear
            to affect overall technical efficiency on the farm.
            Fragmentation rather reduces the incidence of crop shocks
            and increases yields and productive efficiency. In Rwanda’s
            setting, interventions to reduce fragmentation may,
            therefore, be ineffective or counterproductive.
Toward a new definition of shared
            prosperity: a dynamic perspective from three countries
This paper proposes a new measure of
            growth in shared prosperity, based on shifts in population
            shares of different income groups over time. This measure
            complements the definition of shared prosperity recently
            proposed by the World Bank in which income growth of the
            bottom 40 percent is examined. The new measure’s strengths
            arise from its close ties to countries’ national poverty
            lines and poverty measures, its focus on inclusion of the
            vulnerable population, and its identification of a
            population segment that is neither poor nor at significant
            risk of falling into poverty. The paper also offers a
            typology of scenarios for tracking shared prosperity under
            this measure. It provides illustrative examples using survey
            data from India, the United States, and Vietnam for the
            mid-to-late 2000s. Estimation results comparing the two
            approaches with measuring the evolution of shared prosperity
            are qualitatively consistent, and suggest that during this
            period, Vietnam enjoyed the greatest expansion in shared
            prosperity, followed by India and then the United States.
Preferences for REDD+ contract
            attributes in low-income countries : a choice experiment in Ethiopia
This paper informs the national and
            international policy discussions related to the adoption of
            the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
            Forest Degradation Programme. Effective program instruments
            must carefully consider incentives, opportunity costs, and
            community interactions. A choice experiment survey was
            applied to rural Ethiopian communities to understand
            respondents’ preferences toward the institutional structure
            of the program contracts. The results show that respondents
            have particular preferences about how Reducing Emissions
            from Deforestation and Forest Degradation programs are
            structured with regard to the manner in which the payments
            are divided between the households and the communities, the
            restrictions on using grazing land, and the level of
            payments received for the program. Surprisingly,
            restrictions on firewood collection do not significantly
            impact contract choice. The paper further analyzes the
            structure of the preferences by using attribute interaction
            terms and socio-demographic interaction terms. The analysis
            finds significant regional variation in preferences,
            indicating that Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and
            Forest Degradation should be tailored to specific regions.
            Finally, the marginal willingness to pay for attributes is
            calculated using the traditional preference space approach,
            as well as the more recent willingness-to-pay approach.
Stagnant stunting rate despite rapid
            economic growth in Papua New Guinea—factors correlated with
            malnutrition among children under five
Maternal and child undernutrition is a
            pervasive and detrimental condition in Papua New Guinea.
            Despite rapid economic growth during the past decade, the
            stunting rate for children under 5, one of the primary
            indicators for child undernutrition, was estimated at 46
            percent in Papua New Guinea in 2010, stagnant from 44
            percent in 2005. This paper analyzes the association between
            the demographic, socioeconomic, environmental, and
            health-related factors on nutritional status for children
            under age 5 years, using the 2009–10 Papua New Guinea
            Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Stunting and
            underweight rates sharply rise in the first 24 months. Even
            in the better-off quintiles, children suffer from suboptimal
            breastfeeding and complementary food in the first 24 months.
            In general, the regression results showed that household
            wealth and geographic location are crucial factors that
            contribute to children’s malnutrition. More importantly,
            food quality, measured by protein intake, has significant
            predicting power on child malnutrition. Broadly increasing
            socioeconomic status and improving the quantity and quality
            of caloric intake are general steps to improving health
            outcomes in Papua New Guinea.  In addition, three key areas
            were identified as critical to alleviating the persistent
            and detrimental stunting rate in the country: (1) exclusive
            breastfeeding and complementary food; (2) interventions by
            health workers; and (3) nutrition education.
Is the WTO passe
The WTO has delivered policy outcomes
            that are very different from those likely to emerge out of
            the recent wave of preferential trade agreements (PTAs).
            Should economists see this as an efficient institutional
            hand-off, where the WTO has carried trade liberalization as
            far as it can manage, and is now passing the baton to PTAs
            to finish the job? This paper surveys a growing economics
            literature on international trade agreements and argues on
            this basis that the WTO is not passé. Rather, and subject to
            some caveats, this survey of research to date suggests that
            the WTO warrants strong support while a more cautious view
            of PTAs seems appropriate.
Firms’ locational choice and
            infrastructure development in Tanzania : instrumental
            variable spatial autoregressive model
Agglomeration economies are among the
            most important factors in increasing firm productivity.
            However, there is little evidence supportive of this in
            Africa. Using the firm registry database in Tanzania, this
            paper examines a new application of the logit approach with
            two empirical issues taken into account: spatial
            autocorrelation and endogeneity of infrastructure placement.
            The paper finds significant agglomeration economies. It is
            also found that firms are more likely to be located where
            local connectivity and access to markets are good. The paper
            finds that dealing with infrastructure endogeneity and
            spatial autocorrelation in the empirical model is important.
            According to the exogeneity test, infrastructure variables
            are likely endogenous. The spatial autoregressive term is
            significant. As expected, therefore, there are positive
            externalities of firm location choice around the neighboring areas.
Crop choice and infrastructure
            accessibility in Tanzania : subsistence crops or export crops
Africa has great potential for
            agriculture. Although international commodity prices have
            been buoyant, Africa’s supply response seems to be weak. A
            variety of constraints may exist. Using the case of
            Tanzania, the paper examines the impact of market
            connectivity, domestic and international, on farmers’ crop
            choices. It is shown that the international market
            connectivity, measured by transport costs to the maritime
            port, is important for farmers to choose export crops, such
            as cotton and tobacco. Internal connectivity to the domestic
            market is also found to be important for growing food crops,
            such as maize and rice. Among other inputs, access to
            irrigation and improved seed availability are also important
            factors in the crop choices of farmers. The size of land
            area is one constraint to promote the crop shift. The paper
            also reports the finding that farmers are not using market
            prices effectively in their choice of crop, even after the
            endogeneity of local prices is taken into account.
Fertility transition in Turkey—who
            is most at risk of deciding against child arrival
In Turkey, female employment and
            education are still relatively low, while fertility levels
            are high compared with other European countries. However,
            Turkey stands just at the edge of an important social
            transition. Increasing female education and employment come
            along with important decreases in fertility. By mobilizing
            census and survey data, this paper finds that fertility
            decreases are mainly caused by fewer transitions to a third
            birth. Graduate women participating in the formal labor
            market are most at risk of deciding against child arrival in
            comparison with inactive or unemployed women. The third rank
            is particularly concerned, as women’s income contribution
            seems to be crucial for many families that already have two
            children, and the arrival of a third child risks reducing or
            stopping women’s working activities in the absence of
            institutional childcare support. Policies enabling women to
            combine work and family life, which have been proven
            effective in other European countries, emerge as useful to
            avoid a further fertility decline below replacement level in Turkey.
Understanding the operations of
            freight forwarders : evidence from Serbia
Freight forwarders play a key role in
            moving goods across international borders. They arrange
            transport, oversee customs clearance on behalf of their
            clients, and more generally troubleshoot issues that arise
            while goods are in transit. This paper reports the results
            from a survey of 153 freight forwarding firms in Serbia.
            Respondents report on firm characteristics, operational
            choices, and conditions at the border posts and terminals
            where imported goods are cleared for release. One key
            purpose of the study is to investigate operational
            trade-offs between time and cost that arise when import
            shipments are in transit. In three of four hypotheticals,
            respondents suggest that money savings dominate time
            savings. Responses regarding real operational decisions such
            as route choices reinforce this finding. Respondents also
            reported penalty rates for late delivery of import shipments
            as well as the value of a typical import shipment. From
            these responses, it is estimated that the contracted value
            of one additional (unexpected) day of delivery time in
            Serbia appears to be approximately 1 percent of the value of
            the underlying shipment.
Product standards and firms’ export decisions
The paper estimates the effect of
            product standards on firms’ export decisions using two novel
            datasets. The first covers all exporting firms in 42
            developing countries. The second covers pesticide standards
            for 243 agricultural and food products in 63 importing
            countries over 2006–12. The analysis shows that product
            standards significantly affect foreign market access. More
            restrictive standards in the importing country, relative to
            the exporting country, lower firms’ probability of exporting
            as well as their export values and quantities. The relative
            restrictiveness of standards also deters exporting firms
            from entering new markets and leads to higher exit rates
            from those markets. Moreover, firm characteristics mediate
            the effect of product standards on firms’ export decisions.
            Smaller exporters are more negatively affected in their
            market entry and exit decisions by the relative stringency
            of standards than larger exporters. Positive network effects
            of exporters from the same country may help reduce the
            burden of importing countries’ standards on firms’ decisions
            to enter new markets.
Magical transition intergenerational
            educational and occupational mobility in rural China : 1988–2002
This paper presents evidence on
            intergenerational educational and occupational mobility in
            rural China over a period of 14 years (1988–2002). To
            understand whether the estimated inter-generational
            persistence can be driven solely by unobserved
            heterogeneity, biprobit sensitivity analysis and
            heteroskedasticity-based identification are implemented. The
            empirical results show that there have been dramatic
            improvements in occupational mobility from agriculture to
            nonfarm occupations; a farmer’s children are not any more
            likely to become farmers in 2002, although there was
            significant persistence in occupation choices in 1988. In
            contrast, the intergenerational mobility in educational
            attainment has remained largely unchanged for daughters, and
            it has deteriorated significantly for sons. There is strong
            evidence of a causal effect of parental education on a son’s
            schooling in 2002. The paper provides some possible
            explanations for the dramatic divergence between
            occupational and educational mobility in rural China from
            1988 to 2002.