rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Conclude Doha : it matters !
The Doha Round must be concluded not
            because it will produce dramatic liberalization but because
            it will create greater security of market access. Its
            conclusion would strengthen, symbolically and substantively,
            the WTOs valuable role in restraining protectionism in the
            current downturn. What is on the table would constrain the
            scope for tariff protection in all goods, ban agricultural
            export subsidies in the industrial countries and sharply
            reduce the scope for distorting domestic support - by 70 per
            cent in the EU and 60 per cent in the US. Average farm
            tariffs that exporters face would fall to 12 per cent (from
            14.5 per cent) and the tariffs on exports of manufactures to
            less than 2.5 per cent (from about 3 per cent). There are
            also environmental benefits to be captured, in particular
            disciplining the use of subsidies that encourage
            over-fishing and lowering tariffs on technologies that can
            help mitigate global warming. An agreement to facilitate
            trade by cutting red tape will further expand trade
            opportunities. Greater market access for the least-developed
            countries will result from the "duty free and quota
            free" proposal and their ability to take advantage of
            new opportunities will be enhanced by the Doha-related
            "aid for trade" initiative. Finally, concluding
            Doha would create space for multilateral cooperation on
            critical policy matters that lie outside the Doha Agenda,
            most urgently the trade policy implications of climate
            change mitigation.
Trade finance in a liquidity crisis
The paper discusses the reasons for
            supporting international trade finance during a liquidity
            crisis. Targeted interventions are justified when prices are
            rigid and sellers insist on immediate payment due to fears
            of strategic default. In this case, buyers who reject the
            seller's offer fail to internalize the seller's
            benefit from additional liquidity. A general infusion of
            credit will not facilitate the beneficial transaction, but
            an infusion targeted at the buyer's bank's trade
            finance supply will do so. Since there is a need for
            interventions in one country to benefit actors in another,
            international coordination is called for.
Trade and trade finance developments
            in 14 developing countries post September 2008 - a World
            Bank survey
In the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers
            collapse in September 2008, drop in the supply of trade
            finance, a critical engine for trade transactions, has
            become an acute concern for the development community. Banks
            were increasing pricing on trade finance transactions to
            cover increased funding costs and higher credit risks, and
            trade was dropping drastically in most countries, with
            global trade projected to decline in 2009 for the first time
            in decades. Yet, little was known about the real impact of
            the crisis on developing countrys capacity to export. The
            World Bank has commissioned a firm and bank survey on trade
            and trade finance developments in developing countries
            during the first quarter of 2009 to collect field
            information.  In total, 425 firms and 78 banks were surveyed
            in 14 developing countries across five regions. This paper
            summarizes the findings of the survey as well as discusses
            the type of policies governments and international
            organizations put in place to mitigate the impact of the
            crisis. In sum, the survey findings confirmed that the
            global financial crisis has constrained trade finance for
            exporters and importers in developing countries. But the
            impact varied by the firm size, sectoral activity, and
            countries integration into the global economy. In
            particular, SMEs were particularly affected, and export
            diversification was made more difficult, especially in low
            income countries. Nevertheless, drop in demand has emerged
            as the top concern of firms at the time when the survey was
            conducted in March-April 2009.
Changing households'
            investments and aspirations through social interactions :
            evidence from a randomized transfer program
Low aspirations can limit households
            investments and contribute to sustained poverty. Vice versa,
            increased aspirations can lead to investment and upward
            mobility. Yet how aspirations are formed is not always well
            understood. This paper analyzes the role of social
            interactions in determining aspirations in the context of a
            program aimed at increasing households' investments.
            The causal effect of social interactions is identified
            through the randomized assignment of leaders and other
            beneficiaries to three different interventions within each
            treatment community. Social interactions are found to affect
            households attitudes toward the future and to amplify
            program impacts on investments in human capital and
            productive activities. The empirical evidence indicates that
            communication with motivated and successful nearby leaders
            can lead to higher aspirations and corresponding investment behavior.
The heavenly liquidity twin : the
            increasing importance of liquidity risk
Liquidity and solvency have been called
            the "heavenly twins" of banking (Goodhart,
            Charles, 'Liquidity Risk Management', Financial
            Stability Review -- Special Issue on Liquidity, Banque de
            France, No. 11, February, 2008). Since these
            "twins" interact in complex ways, it is difficult
            -- particularly at times of crisis--to distinguish between
            them, especially in the presence of information asymmetries
            (Information asymmetry occurs when one party has more or
            better information than the other, creating an imbalance of
            power, giving rise to adverse selection and moral hazard ).
            An insolvent bank can be liquid or illiquid, and a solvent
            bank may be at times illiquid. In the latter case,
            insolvency is not far away, since banking is grounded in
            information and confidence, and it is confidence which in
            the end determines liquidity. In other words, liquidity is
            very much endogenous, determined by the general condition of
            a bank, as well as the perception of it by the public and
            market participants. Dealing with liquidity risk is more
            challenging than dealing with other risks, since liquidity
            is the result of all the operations of a bank and it is
            fundamentally a relative concept which compares segments of
            the balance sheet on the asset and liability sides. It does
            not deal with absolutes, like arguably the concept of
            capital and it explains why there is not an internationally
            recognized "Liquidity Accord". This Working Paper
            addresses key concepts like market and funding liquidity and
            basic tools to address liquidity issues like cash flows,
            liquidity gaps and some selected financial ratios.  It aims
            at providing an introductory guide to risk assessment and
            management, and provides useful and practical guidelines to
            undertake liquidity assessments which could prove useful in
            preparing Financial Assessment Programs (FSAPS) in member
            countries of the Bretton Woods institutions.
How might India's public health
            systems be strengthened
The central governments policies,
            though well-intentioned, have inadvertently de-emphasized
            environmental health and other preventive public health
            services in India since the 1950s, when it was decided to
            amalgamate the medical and public health services and to
            focus public health services largely on single-issue
            programs. This paper discusses how successive policy
            decisions have diminished the Health Ministrys capacity for
            stewardship of the nations public health. These decisions
            have introduced policies and fiscal incentives that have
            inadvertently enabled states to prioritize medical services
            and single-issue programs over broader public health
            services, and diminished the capacity of the public health
            workforce to deliver public health services. Diseases
            resulting from poor environmental health conditions continue
            to impose high costs even among the more affluent, and
            hinder development. There are many approaches to
            strengthening the public health system, and the authors
            suggest one that may require relatively little modification
            of existing structures and systems. They suggest
            establishing a focal point in the Health Ministry for public
            health stewardship, and re-vitalizing the states public
            health managerial cadres as well as the grassroots public
            health workers. The central government could consider
            linking its fiscal support to states with phased progress in
            four areas: (1) the enactment of state Public Health Acts;
            (2) the establishment by states of separate public health
            directorates; (3) the re-vitalization of grassroots public
            health workers; and (4) health department engagement in
            ensuring municipal public health. The central focal point
            could provide the needed support, oversight, incentives, and
            sanctions to ensure that states build robust public health
            systems. These measures can do much to help governments use
            public funds more effectively for protecting peoples health.
State financial institutions :
            mandates, governance, and beyond
There is no doubt that on average the
            performance of state financial institutions around the world
            has been below the lowest expectations. Lack of governance,
            management skills, regulation, and transparency, and
            misguided incentives have contributed to discredit these
            institutions for supporting the development of local
            financial markets. However, the pro-active role that some
            state financial institutions have played in the recent
            crisis in allocating credit to sectors cyclically not
            attractive for commercial banks has brought back the
            question of whether some state ownership in the banking
            system would be preferable. This paper analyzes the
            experience of four state financial institutions that have
            performed relatively well in the past: Canada's
            Business Development Bank, Chile's BancoEstado, South
            Africa's Development Bank of Southern Africa, and
            Finland's Finnvera plc. The author finds that these
            institutions have different checks and balances to mitigate
            eventual mismanagement of resources. The author also finds
            that little progress has been made in measuring the policy
            performance of these institutions.
Non-traditional crops, traditional
            constraints : long-term welfare impacts of export crop
            adoption among guatemalan smallholders
This study documents the long-term
            welfare effects of household non-traditional agricultural
            export (NTX) adoption. The analysis uses a unique panel
            dataset, which spans the period 1985-2005, and employs
            difference-in-differences estimation to investigate the
            long-term impact of non-traditional agricultural export
            adoption on changes in household consumption status and
            asset position in the Central Highlands of Guatemala. Given
            the heterogeneity in adoption patterns, the analysis
            differentiates the impact estimates based on a
            classification of households that takes into account the
            timing and duration of non-traditional agricultural export
            adoption. The results show that while, on average, welfare
            levels have improved for all households irrespective of
            adoption status and duration, the extent of improvement has
            varied across groups. Long-term adopters exhibit the
            smallest increase in the lapse of two decades, in spite of
            some early gains. Conversely, early adopters who withdrew
            from non-traditional agricultural export production after
            reaping the benefits of the boom period of the 1980s are
            found to have fared better and shown greater improvements in
            durable asset position and housing conditions than any other category.
What did you do all day maternal
            education and child outcomes
Female education levels are very low in
            many developing countries. Does maternal education have a
            causal impact on children's educational outcomes even
            at these very low levels of education? By combining a
            nationwide census of schools in Pakistan with household
            data, the authors use the availability of girls'
            schools in the mother's birth village as an instrument
            for maternal schooling to address this issue. Since public
            schools in Pakistan are segregated by gender, the instrument
            affects only maternal education rather than the education
            levels of both mothers and fathers. The analysis finds that
            children of mothers with some education spend 75 minutes
            more on educational activities at home compared with
            children whose mothers report no education at all. Mothers
            with some education also spend more time helping their
            children with school work; the effect is stronger (an extra
            40 minutes per day) in families where the mother is likely
            the primary care-giver. Finally, test scores for children
            whose mothers have some education are higher in English,
            Urdu (the vernacular), and mathematics by 0.24-0.35 standard
            deviations. There is no relationship between maternal
            education and mothers time spent on paid work or housework
            - a posited channel through which education affects
            bargaining power within the household. And there is no
            relationship between maternal education and the
            mother's role in educational decisions or in the
            provision of other child-specific goods, such as
            expenditures on pocket money, uniforms, and tuition. The
            data therefore suggest that at these very low levels of
            education, maternal education does not substantially affect
            a mother's bargaining power within the household.
            Instead, maternal education could directly increase the
            mother's productivity or affect her preferences toward
            childrens education in a context where her bargaining power
            is low.
Medium-term business cycles in
            developing countries
Empirical evidence - including the
            current global crisis - suggests that shocks from advanced
            countries often have a disproportionate effect on developing
            economies. Can this account for the fact that aggregate
            fluctuations are larger and more persistent in the latter
            than in the former economies? And what are the mechanisms at
            play? This paper addresses these questions using a model of
            an industrial and a developing economy trading goods and
            assets, with (i) a product cycle shaping the range of
            intermediate goods used to produce new capital in each
            country, and (ii) investment adjustment costs in the
            developing economy. Innovation by the advanced economy
            results in new intermediate goods, at first produced at
            home, and eventually transferred to the developing economy
            through direct investment. The pace of innovation and
            technology transfer is driven by profitability. This process
            of technology diffusion creates a medium-term connection
            between both economies, over and above the short-term link
            through trade. Calibration of the model to match
            Mexico-United States trade and foreign direct investment
            flows shows that this mechanism can explain why shocks to
            the United States economy have a larger effect on Mexico
            than on the United States itself, and hence why Mexico shows
            higher volatility than the United States; why business
            cycles in the United States lead to medium-term fluctuations
            in Mexico; and why consumption is not less volatile than
            output in Mexico.
The new multi-polar international
            monetary system
Backed by rapid economic growth, growing
            financial clout, and a newfound sense of assertiveness in
            recent years, the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India,
            and China - are a driving force behind an incipient
            transformation of the world economy away from a US-dominated
            system toward a multipolar one in which developing countries
            will have a major say. It is, however,  in the international
            monetary arena that the notion of multipolarity - more than
            two dominant poles - commands renewed attention and vigorous
            debate. For much of its history, the quintessential
            structural feature of the international monetary system has
            been unipolarity - as American hegemony of initiatives and
            power as well as its capacity to promote a market-based,
            liberal order came to define and shape international
            monetary relations. As other currencies become potential
            substitutes for the US dollar in international reserves and
            in cross-border claims, exchange rate volatility may become
            more severe. There are also risks that the rivalry among the
            three economic blocs may spill over into something more if
            not kept in check by a strong global governance structure.
            While the transition will be difficult and drawn out,
            governments should take immediate steps to prevent financial
            volatility by enhancing cooperation on monetary policies,
            currency market intervention and financial regulation.
Family systems, political systems,
            and Asia's 'missing girls' : the construction
            of son preference and its unraveling
Son preference is known to be found in
            certain types of cultures, that is patrilineal cultures. But
            what explains the fact that China, South Korea, and
            Northwest India manifest such extreme child sex ratios
            compared with other patrilineal societies? This paper argues
            that what makes these societies unique is that their
            pre-modern political and administrative systems used
            patrilineages to organize and administer their citizens. The
            interplay of culture, state, and political processes
            generated uniquely rigid patriliny and son preference. The
            paper also argues that the advent of the modern state in
            these settings has unraveled the underpinnings of the rigid
            patrilineal rules, and unleashed a variety of forces that
            reduce son preference. Firstly, the modern state has
            powerful tools for incorporating and managing its citizenry,
            rendering patrilineages a threat rather than an asset for
            the state. Secondly, the modern state has brought in
            political, social, and legal reforms aimed to challenge
            traditional social hierarchies, including the age and gender
            hierarchies of the kinship system. Thirdly,
            industrialization and urbanization have ushered in new modes
            of social organization, which reduce the hold of clans and
            lineages. Studies of the impact of the media suggest that
            states can accelerate the resultant decline in son
            preference, through media efforts to help parents perceive
            that daughters can now be as valuable as sons.
Thresholds in the process of
            international financial integration
The financial crisis has re-ignited the
            fierce debate about the merits of financial globalization
            and its implications for growth, especially for developing
            countries. The empirical literature has not been able to
            conclusively establish the presumed growth benefits of
            financial integration. Indeed, a new literature proposes
            that the indirect benefits of financial integration may be
            more important than the traditional financing channel
            emphasized in previous analyses. A major complication,
            however, is that there seem to be certain
            "threshold" levels of financial and institutional
            development that an economy needs to attain before it can
            derive the indirect benefits and reduce the risks of
            financial openness. This paper develops a unified empirical
            framework for characterizing such threshold conditions. The
            analysis finds that there are clearly identifiable
            thresholds in variables such as financial depth and
            institutional quality -- the cost-benefit trade-off from
            financial openness improves significantly once these
            threshold conditions are satisfied. The findings also show
            that the thresholds are lower for foreign direct investment
            and portfolio equity liabilities compared with those for
            debt liabilities.