rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Effects of licensing reform on firm
            innovation : evidence from India
The regulatory environment in a country
            can affect firm performance. This study investigates the
            impact of a particular regulation, namely license
            requirements for certain firm activities, on the innovation
            performance of Indian firms. First it presents a model of
            firm and industry evolution that explains the dynamics of
            multi-product firms. Then, using a firm level panel data
            set, it shows that removal of license requirements led to
            roughly 5 percentage points faster innovation rates where
            innovation is measured as introduction of new product
            varieties that had not existed in the market. The results
            are robust to inclusion of controls for the other policy
            reforms that occurred during the period of licensing reform.
Has the global banking system become
            more fragile over time
This paper examines time-series and
            cross-country variations in default risk co-dependence in
            the global banking system. The authors construct a default
            risk measure for all publicly traded banks using the Merton
            contingent claim model, and examine the evolution of the
            correlation structure of default risk for more than 1,800
            banks in more than 60 countries. They find that there has
            been a significant increase in default risk co-dependence
            over the three-year period leading to the financial crisis.
            They also find that countries that are more integrated, and
            that have liberalized financial systems and weak banking
            supervision, have higher co-dependence in their banking
            sector. The results support an increase in scope for
            international supervisory co-operation, as well as capital
            charges for "too-connected-to-fail" institutions
            that can impose significant externalities.
Impact evaluation of trade
            interventions : paving the way
The focus of trade policy has shifted in
            recent years from economy-wide reductions in tariffs and
            trade restrictions toward targeted interventions to
            facilitate trade and promote exports. Most of these latter
            interventions are based on the new mantra of
            "aid-for-trade" rather than on hard evidence on
            what works and what does not. On the one hand, rigorous
            impact-evaluation is needed to justify these interventions
            and to improve their design. On the other hand, rigorous
            evaluation is feasible because unlike traditional trade
            policy, these interventions tend to be targeted and so it is
            possible to construct treatment and control groups. When
            interventions are not targeted, such as in the case of
            customs reforms, some techniques, such as randomized control
            trials, may not be feasible but meaningful evaluation may
            still be possible. Theis paper discusses examples of impact
            evaluations using a range of methods (experimental and
            non-experimental), highlighting the particular issues and
            caveats arising in a trade context, and the valuable lessons
            that are already being learned. The authors argue that
            systematically building impact evaluation into trade
            projects could lead to better policy design and a more
            credible case for "aid-for-trade."
Average and marginal returns to
            upper secondary schooling in Indonesia
This paper estimates average and
            marginal returns to schooling in Indonesia using a
            non-parametric selection model estimated by local
            instrumental variables, and data from the Indonesia Family
            Life Survey. The analysis finds that the return to upper
            secondary schooling varies widely across individual: it can
            be as high as 50 percent per year of schooling for those
            very likely to enroll in upper secondary schooling, or as
            low as -10 percent for those very unlikely to do so. Returns
            to the marginal student (14 percent) are well below those
            for the average student attending upper secondary schooling
            (27 percent).
Job growth and finance : are some
            financial institutions better suited to early stages of
            development than others
This paper combines firm-level data from
            89 countries with updated country-level data on financial
            structure, and uses two estimation approaches. It finds that
            in low-income countries, labor growth is swifter in
            countries with a higher level of private credit/gross
            domestic product; the positive effect of bank credit is
            especially pronounced in industries that depend heavily on
            external finance; and banking development is positively
            associated with more physical and human capital investment.
            These findings are consistent with predictions from new
            structural economics. In high-income countries, labor growth
            rates are increasing in the level of stock market
            capitalization, which is also consistent with predictions
            from new structural economics, although the analysis is
            unable to provide evidence that the association is causal.
            It finds no evidence that small-scale firms in low-income
            countries benefit most from private credit market
            development. Rather, the labor growth rates of larger,
            capital-intensive firms increase more with the level of
            private credit market development, a finding consistent with
            the history-based political economy view that banking
            systems in low-income countries serve the interests of the
            elite, rather than providing broad-based access to financial services.
The household enterprise sector in
            Tanzania : why it matters and who cares
The household enterprise sector has a
            significant role in the Tanzanian economy. It employs a
            larger share of the urban labor force than wage employment,
            and is increasingly seen as an alternative to agriculture as
            a source of additional income for rural and urban
            households. The sector is uniquely placed within the
            informal sector, where it represents both conditions of
            informal employment and informal enterprise. This paper
            presents a case study on Tanzania using a mixed approach by
            combining both quantitative and qualitative analysis to
            examine the important role of household enterprises in the
            labor force of Tanzania, and to identify key factors that
            influence their productivity. Household enterprise owners
            are similar to typical labor force participants although
            primary education appears to be the minimum qualification
            for household enterprise operators to be successful. Access
            to location matters -- good, secure location in a
            marketplace or industrial cluster raises earnings - and
            access to transport and electricity is found to have a
            significant effect on earnings as well. In large urban
            areas, the biggest constraint faced by household enterprises
            is the lack of access to secure workspace to run the small
            business. Although lack of credit is a problem across all
            enterprises in Tanzania, household enterprises are more
            vulnerable because they are largely left out of the
            financial sector either as savers or borrowers. Although HEs
            are part of the livelihood strategies of over half of
            households in Tanzania, they are ignored in the current
            development policy frameworks, which emphasize
            formalization, not productivity. Tanzania has a large number
            of programs and projects for informal enterprises, but there
            is no set of policies and program interventions targeted at
            the household enterprise sector. This gap exacerbates the
            vulnerability of household enterprises, and reduces their productivity.
Microinsurance : a case study of the
            Indian rainfall index insurance market
Rainfall index insurance provides a
            payout based on measured local rainfall during key phases of
            the agricultural season, and in principle can help rural
            households diversify a key source of idiosyncratic risk.
            This paper describes basic features of rainfall insurance
            contracts offered in India since 2003, and documents
            stylized facts about market demand and the distribution of
            payouts. The authors summarize the results of previous
            research on this market, which provides evidence that price,
            liquidity constraints, and trust all present significant
            barriers to increased take-up. They also discuss potential
            future prospects for rainfall insurance and other index
            insurance products.
The regressive demands of
            demand-driven development
Despite their explicit focus on reaching
            the poor, many community driven development (CDD) projects
            have been found to be only mildly pro-poor in their funding
            allocations. This paper presents evidence of an explanation
            that has been overlooked in the CDD literature to date: the
            requirement that beneficiaries must apply for projects in
            order to receive support. The authors first examine data on
            the universe of project applications and funding under
            Tanzania's flagship CDD program, Tanzania's Social
            Action Fund, and then use a census of 100 program villages
            to examine the determinants of both program awareness and
            program participation at the household level. The data paint
            a consistent picture at both levels: wealth, access to
            information, and political capital are important correlates
            of the ability to navigate the application process
            successfully. The centrally dictated features of this
            decentralized program appear to be the most effective
            mechanisms in directing funds to the poor. The results
            suggest that unless demand-driven projects can develop ways
            of soliciting engagement from a broader cross-section of the
            population, they are unlikely to achieve truly progressive targeting.
Avoiding the fragility trap in Africa
Not only do Africa's fragile states
            grow more slowly than non-fragile states, but they seem to
            be caught in a "fragility trap". For instance, the
            probability that a fragile state in 2001 was still fragile
            in 2009 was 0.95. This paper presents an economic model
            where three features -- political instability and violence,
            insecure property rights and unenforceable contracts, and
            corruption -- conspire to create a
            slow-growth-poor-governance equilibrium trap into which
            these fragile states can fall. The analysis shows that, by
            addressing the three problems, fragile countries can emerge
            from the fragility trap and enjoy a level of sustained
            economic growth. But addressing these issues requires
            resources, which are scarce because external aid is often
            tailored to the country's performance and cut back when
            there is instability, insecurity, and corruption. The
            implication is that, even if aid is seemingly unproductive
            in these weak-governance environments, it could be hugely
            beneficial if it is invested in such a way that it helps
            these countries tackle the root causes of instability,
            insecurity, and corruption. Empirical estimations
            corroborate the postulated relationships of the model,
            supporting the notion that it is possible for African
            fragile countries to avoid the fragility trap.
International trade and inclusive
            growth : a primer for busy policy analysts
This note provides two analytical
            frameworks for understanding the role of trade in promoting
            inclusive growth in developing economies. A working
            definition of inclusive growth focuses on long-term,
            sustained growth associated with productivity growth and
            employment opportunities for broad portions of households
            and firms within countries. International integration can
            promote inclusive growth when workers and firms are able to
            adjust to enter into growing economic activities and adopt
            technologies availed through international trade. The
            frameworks described in this note build on simple household
            and firm choice models, which require only basic knowledge
            of development economics. The discussion highlights how
            these frameworks can help analysts focus on research and
            policy questions related to the impacts of international
            trade across the distribution of households and firms within
            countries. It also discusses publicly available data sets
            that can be used to explore some aspects of inclusive
            growth. In addition, the note highlights important caveats
            that need to be acknowledged by analysts and discusses
            avenues for future research, which needs to be part and
            parcel of the inclusive growth agenda.
Explaining the demand for sovereignty
Why do groups want to secede and where
            are we most likely to see demands for self-determination?
            This paper proposes an economic explanation whereby a
            tradeoff between income and sovereignty implies that, other
            things being equal, richer regions are more likely to want
            more autonomy and conflict arises due to a disparity between
            desired and actual levels of sovereignty. The authors
            provide simple empirical tests using new data collected at
            the level of second-tier administrative subdivisions in 48
            decentralized countries. They find a positive association
            between, on the one hand, relative regional income, regional
            population share, natural resource endowment, and regional
            inter-personal inequality and, on the other hand, observed
            sovereignty levels. Ethnically distinct regions have lower
            sovereignty, but this association is only conditional on
            controlling for the interactive effects between ethnic
            distinctiveness and regional inter-personal inequality.
Assessment testing can be used to
            inform policy decisions : the case of Jordan
Over the past two decades, the Jordanian
            education system has made significant advances. Net
            enrollment in basic education increased from 89 percent in
            2000 to 97 percent in 2006. Transition rates to secondary
            education increased from 63 to 79 percent in the same
            period. At the same time, Jordan made significant gains on
            international surveys of student achievement, with a
            particularly impressive gain of almost 30 points on the
            science portion of the Third International Mathematics and
            Science Study. Changes in test scores over time are
            presented and analyzed using decomposition analysis. The
            trends are related to policy changes over time. It is argued
            that benchmarking education systems and constant feedback
            between researchers and policymakers contributed to this achievement.
Risk absorption by the state: when
            is it good public policy
The global financial crisis brought
            public guarantees to the forefront of the policy debate.
            Based on a review of the theoretical foundations of public
            guarantees, this paper concludes that the commonly used
            justifications for public guarantees based solely on agency
            frictions (such as adverse selection or lack of collateral)
            and/or un-internalized externalities are flawed. When risk
            is idiosyncratic, it is highly unlikely that a case for
            guarantees can be made without risk aversion. When risk
            aversion is explicitly added to the picture, public
            guarantees may be justified by the state's natural
            advantage in dealing with collective action failures
            (providing public goods). The state can spread risk more
            finely across space and time because it can coordinate and
            pool atomistic agents that would otherwise not organize
            themselves to solve monitoring or commitment problems.
            Public guarantees may be transitory, until financial systems
            mature, or permanent, when risk is fat-tailed. In the case
            of aggregate (non-diversifiable) risk, permanent public
            guarantees may also be justified, but in this case the state
            adds value not by spreading risk but by coordinating agents.
            In addition to greater transparency in justifying public
            guarantees, the analysis calls for exploiting the natural
            complementarities between the state and the markets in
            bearing risk.
The time cost of documents to trade
This paper analyzes the relationship
            between the number of documents required to export and
            import and the time it takes to complete all procedures to
            trade. It shows that an increase in the number of documents
            required for export and import tends to increase the time
            cost of shipments. However, this relationship is far from
            simplistic, varying sharply in magnitude across rich versus
            poor countries and small versus large countries.
            Specifically, the increase in the time cost of increased
            documentation is much larger for relatively poor and larger
            countries. One interpretation of this finding is that richer
            countries that have more resources and smaller countries
            that rely more on trade invest more in building efficient
            documentation systems. Hence, in such countries relative to
            others, increased documentation adds less to the time cost
            at the margin. At a broader level, the findings suggest
            caution in interpreting how input-based measures such as the
            number of required documents to trade affect the quality of
            the business environment as far as the associated cost is concerned.
Quality of tax administration : how
            relevant is country size
Repeated attempts at uncovering the
            relevance of country size for various economic factors have
            produced discouraging results. The present paper sheds new
            light on the relevance of country size using micro or
            firm-level data on firms' experience with the quality
            of tax administration, an important but neglected element of
            the business climate. The analysis finds that the quality of
            tax administration is significantly better for small
            compared with large countries. The instrumental variables
            regression method confirms that this finding is robust to
            various endogeneity concerns. The paper also finds some
            evidence that the country size and tax administration
            relationship is non-linear, and much stronger for small than
            large countries. Implications of these findings for the
            broader literature on country size are discussed.
China and the world trading system
The World Trade Organization has been
            until recently an effective framework for cooperation
            because it has continually adapted to changing economic
            realities. The current Doha Agenda is an aberration because
            it does not reflect one of the largest shifts in the
            international economic and trading system: the rise of
            China. Although China will have a stake in maintaining trade
            openness, an initiative that builds on but redefines the
            Doha Agenda would anchor China more fully in the
            multilateral trading system. Such an initiative would have
            two pillars. The first is a new negotiating agenda that
            would include the major issues of interest to China and its
            trading partners, and thus unleash the powerful reciprocal
            liberalization mechanism that has driven the World Trade
            Organization process to previous successes. The second is
            new restraints on bilateralism and regionalism that would
            help preserve incentives for maintaining the current broadly
            non-discriminatory trading order.
The SADC's infrastructure : a
            regional perspective
Infrastructure improvements boosted
            growth in the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
            by 1.2 percentage points per capita per year during
            1995-2005, mainly from access to mobile telephony. Road
            network improvements made small growth contributions, while
            power sector inadequacy had a negative impact.
            Infrastructure improvements that matched those of Mauritius,
            the regional leader, could boost regional growth performance
            by 3 percentage points. SADC's 15 member countries
            include small, isolated economies with island states, a mix
            of low- and middle-income countries, and larger countries
            with potentially large economies. The economic geography
            reinforces the importance of regional infrastructure
            development to create a larger market and greater economic
            opportunities. The region's infrastructure indicators
            are high for Africa. The regional road network is
            well-developed, and surface transport is comparatively
            cheap, but subject to delays and long-haul fees. An
            extensive railway system competes directly with road
            transport. With integration and improvements, SADC's
            ports could form an effective transshipment network. Air
            transport, dominated by South Africa, is the best in Africa.
            Electricity in southern Africa is well developed; the region
            leads Africa in generation capacity and low rates, but
            access is limited. ICT services are the most accessible
            among the regions, though expensive. Landlocked countries
            still need to be connected, and greater competition is
            needed to reduce costs. Completing and maintaining
            SADC's infrastructure will require $2.1 billion
            annually for a decade. For small countries, and large
            countries with small revenues, the burden may be
            insurmountable without external assistance.