rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Population size, concentration, and
            civil war : a geographically disaggregated analysis
Why do larger countries have more armed
            conflict? This paper surveys three sets of hypotheses
            forwarded in the conflict literature regarding the
            relationship between the size and location of population
            groups: Hypotheses based on pure population mass, on
            distances, on population concentrations, and some residual
            state-level characteristics. The hypotheses are tested on a
            new dataset-ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events
            Dataset)-which disaggregates internal conflicts into
            individual events. The analysis covers 14 countries in
            Central Africa. The conflict event data are juxtaposed with
            geographically disaggregated data on populations, distance
            to capitals, borders, and road networks. The paper develops
            a statistical method to analyze this type of data. The
            analysis confirms several of the hypotheses.
The size and effectiveness of
            automatic fiscal stabilizers in Latin America
This paper measures the size of
            automatic fiscal revenue stabilizers and evaluates their
            role in Latin America. It introduces a relatively rich tax
            structure into a dynamic, stochastic, multi-sector small
            open economy inhabited by rule-of-thumb consumers (who
            consume their wages and do not save or borrow) and Ricardian
            households to study the stabilizing properties of different
            parameters of the tax code. The economy faces multiple
            sources of business cycle fluctuations: (1) world capital
            market shocks; (2) world business cycle shocks; (3) terms of
            trade shocks; (4) government spending shocks; and (5)
            nontradable and (6) tradable sector technology innovations.
            Calibrating the model economy to a typical Latin American
            economy allows the evaluation of its ability to mimic the
            region's observed business cycle frequency properties
            and the assessment of the quantitative relationship between
            tax code parameters, business cycle forcing variables, and
            business cycle behavior. The model captures many of the
            salient features of Latin America's business cycle
            facts and finds that the degree of smoothing provided by the
            automatic revenue stabilizers-described by various
            properties of the tax system-is negligible. Simulation
            results seem to suggest an invariance property for
            middle-income countries: the amplitude of the business cycle
            is independent of the tax structure. And government
            size-measured by the GDP ratio of government spending-plays
            the role of an automatic stabilizer, but its smoothing
            effect is very weak.
A poverty-focused evaluation of
            commodity tax options
The difficulties faced by many
            developing countries in raising revenue from direct taxes
            have forced them to rely heavily on indirect taxes to
            finance development interventions. The purpose of this paper
            is to show how to identify socially desirable options for
            commodity taxation in the context of a poverty reduction
            strategy. Within the logic of social evaluation the author
            assesses tax options on the basis of value judgments
            underlying members of the additively separable class of
            poverty measures. The criterion hinges on both the pattern
            of consumption of each commodity and the price elasticity of
            the poverty measure used. An application of this methodology
            to data for Guinea shows that many components of food
            expenditure (particularly cereals, grains, and roots) would
            be good candidates for exemption from value-added tax. Even
            though expenditure on health and education is distributed in
            favor of the non-poor, their importance for human capital
            development argues for a program of targeted subsidies in a
            broader context of cost recovery.
The impact of remittances on poverty
            and human capital : evidence from Latin American household surveys
This paper explores the impact of
            remittances on poverty, education, and health in 11 Latin
            American countries using nationally representative household
            surveys and making an explicit attempt to account for one of
            the inherent costs associated with migration-the potential
            income that the migrant may have made at home. The main
            findings of the study are the following: (1) regardless of
            the counterfactual used remittances appear to lower poverty
            levels in most recipient countries; (2) yet despite this
            general tendency, the estimated impacts tend to be modest;
            and (3) there is significant country heterogeneity in the
            poverty reduction impact of remittances' flows. Among
            the aspects that have been identified in the paper that may
            lead to varying outcomes across countries are the percentage
            of households reporting remittances income, the share of
            remittances of recipient households belonging to the lowest
            quintiles of the income distribution, and the relative
            importance of remittances flows with respect to GDP. While
            remittances tend to have positive effects on education and
            health, this impact is often restricted to specific groups
            of the population.
Monetary policy, structural break,
            and the monetary transmission mechanism in Thailand
The paper studies monetary policy and
            the monetary transmission mechanism in Thailand in light of
            the Asian crisis in 1997. Existing studies that adopt
            structural vector auto-regression (VAR) approaches do not
            give a clear and agreed-upon view how monetary shocks are
            transmitted to the Thai economy that is subject to
            structural breaks. This study explicitly models a pre-crisis
            and post-crisis cointegrated VAR model. This analysis
            supports arguments that the trinity of open capital markets,
            pegged exchange rate regime, and monetary policy autonomy is
            inconsistent in the pre-crisis period. In contrast, the
            model points to an effective monetary policy in the
            post-crisis period. Further, the author analyzes the common
            driving trends of the model.
Credit information quality and
            corporate debt maturity : theory and evidence
This paper provides new theoretical and
            empirical evidence suggesting that the quality of credit
            information may be a key element in explaining the maturity
            structure of corporate debt around the world. In markets
            with poor credit information and hence a high degree of
            uncertainty about borrower quality, the authors find
            suboptimal equilibria in which short-term contracts are
            preferred either as a hedge against uncertainty to limit
            losses in bad states (in the symmetric information case) or
            as a screening device to learn about borrower credit quality
            in the course of a repeated lending relationship (in the
            asymmetric information case). The results of the model are
            supported by the econometric analysis of panel data from
            both industrial and developing economies. The authors find
            that countries with better quality of credit information
            (for example, as a result of improvements in credit
            reporting systems or accounting standards) are characterized
            by a higher share of long-term debt as a proportion of total
            corporate debt ceteris paribus. The findings suggest that
            promoting institutions and policies to improve the quality
            of credit information is an important prerequisite for
            increasing access of firms to long-term finance.
Credit information quality and
            corporate debt maturity : theory and evidence
**Credit Information Quality and Corporate Debt Maturity:**

**Theory and Evidence** *

Marco Sorge _The World Bank_ and Chendi Zhang _University of Sheffield_

> * The authors thank Stijn Claessens, Hans Degryse, Mark Flannery, Steven Ongena, Maria Fabiana Penas, Luc Renneboog and Peer Stein for valuable comments and suggestions. We are grateful to the FSDI team of the World Bank, in particular Stijn Claessens and Konstantinos Tzioumis, for kindly providing us with data. This research was partially funded by the Research Grants program of the Finance, Private Sector and Infrastructure Department, Latin America and the Caribbean Region, World Bank. Corresponding author: Marco Sorge, International Finance Corporation, 2121 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA. Phone: +1 202 458 9064. Fax: +1 202 974 4310. Email: msorge@ifc.org
What is the impact of international
            remittances on poverty and inequality in Latin America
Workers' remittances have become a
            major source of income for developing countries. However,
            little is still known about their impact on poverty and
            inequality. Using a large cross-country panel dataset, the
            authors find that remittances in Latin American and
            Caribbean (LAC) countries have increased growth and reduced
            inequality and poverty. These results are robust to the use
            of different instruments that attempt to correct for the
            potential endogeneity of remittances. Household survey-based
            estimates for 10 LAC countries confirm that remittances have
            negative albeit relatively small inequality and
            poverty-reducing effects, even after imputations for the
            potential home earnings of migrants.
Economic information and finance :
            more information means more credit, fewer bad loans, and
            less corruption
This paper builds on recent work that
            shows how financial sector outcomes are affected by the
            provision of information by financial and other entities. In
            particular, it shows that an indicator of economic
            transparency is positively related to higher levels of
            private credit and a lower share of nonperforming loans even
            after accounting for factors commonly believed to influence
            financial sector development in cross-country empirical
            estimation. Timely access to economic data allows investors
            to make better decisions on investments and to better
            monitor banks' financial health. Greater economic
            transparency raises accountability and lowers corruption in
            bank lending.
The living conditions of children
This paper summarizes the socioeconomic
            conditions of children around the world. It explores
            solutions to the main problems, along with a summary of the
            costs and benefits of some of the solutions. Emphasis is on
            the results from rigorous studies, impact evaluations, and
            randomized experiments. Although the cost-evidence
            literature is scarce, a good case for early interventions
            and key quality-enhancing education interventions exists.
The living conditions of children
WPS4251

# **The Living Conditions of Children**

## **Harry Anthony Patrinos**<sup>∗</sup>

_Abstract_ : This paper summarizes the socioeconomic conditions of children around the world. It explores solutions to the main problems, along with a summary of the costs and benefits of some of the solutions. Emphasis is on the results from rigorous studies, impact evaluations and randomized experiments. Although the cost-evidence literature is scarce, a good case for early interventions and key quality-enhancing education interventions exists.

JEL Codes: J13; I21 Keywords: children, early childhood interventions, education

## World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4251, June 2007

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Policy Research Working Papers are available online at http://econ.worldbank.org._

> ∗ <u>hpatrinos@worldbank.org.  Paper commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus.  The assistance received from</u> Husein Abdul-Hamid and Vicente Garcia-Moreno is gratefully appreciated.
On the effect of prior assumptions
            in Bayesian model averaging with applications to growth regression
This paper examines the problem of
            variable selection in linear regression models. Bayesian
            model averaging has become an important tool in empirical
            settings with large numbers of potential regressors and
            relatively limited numbers of observations. The paper
            analyzes the effect of a variety of prior assumptions on the
            inference concerning model size, posterior inclusion
            probabilities of regressors, and predictive performance. The
            analysis illustrates these issues in the context of
            cross-country growth regressions using three datasets with
            41 to 67 potential drivers of growth and 72 to 93
            observations. The results favor particular prior structures
            for use in this and related contexts.
Poverty, inequality, and social
            disparities during China's economic reform
China has been the most rapidly growing
            economy in the world over the past 25 years. This growth has
            fueled a remarkable increase in per capita income and a
            decline in the poverty rate from 64 percent at the beginning
            of reform to 10 percent in 2004. At the same time, however,
            different kinds of disparities have increased. Income
            inequality has risen, propelled by the rural-urban income
            gap and by the growing disparity between highly educated
            urban professionals and the urban working class. There have
            also been increases in inequality of health and education
            outcomes. Some rise in inequality was inevitable as China
            introduced a market system, but inequality may have been
            exacerbated rather than mitigated by a number of policy
            features. Restrictions on rural-urban migration have limited
            opportunities for the relatively poor rural population. The
            inability to sell or mortgage rural land has further reduced
            opportunities. China has a uniquely decentralized fiscal
            system that has relied on local government to fund basic
            health and education. The result has been that poor villages
            could not afford to provide good services, and poor
            households could not afford the high private costs of basic
            public services. Ironically, the large trade surplus that
            China has built up in recent years is a further problem, in
            that it stimulates an urban industrial sector that no longer
            creates many jobs while restricting the government's
            ability to increase spending to improve services and address
            disparities. The government's recent policy shift to
            encourage migration, fund education and health for poor
            areas and poor households, and rebalance the economy away
            from investment and exports toward domestic consumption and
            public services should help reduce social disparities.
Public finance, governance, and
            growth in transition economies : empirical evidence from 1992-2004
This paper revisits the early empirical
            literature on economic growth in transition economies, with
            particular focus on fiscal policy variables-fiscal balance
            and the size of government. The baseline model uses a
            parsimonious specification, drawn from Fischer and Sahay
            (2000), of economic growth as a function of initial
            conditions, stabilization, liberalization, and structural
            reform. The paper expands the data used in previous analyses
            by up to 10 years and finds unambiguous evidence that fiscal
            balance matters for growth, while confirming other previous
            findings on the correlates of economic growth in transition
            economies. In addition, the paper extends the baseline model
            and explores potential sources of nonlinearities in the
            relationship between growth and public finance. A key
            finding is that determinants of growth may vary in relative
            importance, depending on the underlying institutional
            quality. The evidence indicates that there could be higher
            growth payoffs from macroeconomic stability and public
            expenditure in countries characterized by relatively better
            public sector governance as measured by relevant indicators.
            In addition, the size of government matters for growth in a
            nonlinear manner: Beyond indicative thresholds of
            expenditure levels, public spending has a negative impact,
            while at levels below the threshold, there is no measurable
            impact on economic growth.
Nigeria's growth record : Dutch
            disease or debt overhang
Nigeria's oil boom has not brought
            an end to perennial stagnation in the non-oil economy. Is
            this the unavoidable consequence of the resource boom or
            have misguided policies contributed? This paper indicates
            that the extreme volatility of expenditure rather than Dutch
            Disease effects are behind the disappointing non-oil growth
            record. Fiscal policies failed to smooth highly volatile oil
            income; on the contrary government expenditure was more
            volatile than oil income. The authors provide econometric
            evidence showing that volatility of expenditure was
            increased by debt overhang problems. Moreover, they also
            find evidence of voracity effects that exacerbated
            expenditure volatility prior to 1984.
The cost of being landlocked :
            logistics costs and supply chain reliability
A large proportion of the least
            developed countries are landlocked and their access to world
            markets depends on the availability of a trade corridor and
            transit systems. Based on empirical evidence from World Bank
            projects and assessments in Africa, Central Asia, and
            elsewhere, this paper proposes a microeconomic quantitative
            description of logistics costs. The paper theoretically and
            empirically highlights that landlocked economies are
            primarily affected not only by a high cost of freight
            services but also by the high degree of unpredictability in
            transportation time. The main sources of costs are not only
            physical constraints but widespread rent activities and
            severe flaws in the implementation of the transit systems,
            which prevent the emergence of reliable logistics services.
            The business and donor community should push toward
            implementation of comprehensive facilitation strategies,
            primarily at the national level, and the design of robust
            and resilient transport and transit regimes. A better
            understanding of the political economy of transit and a
            review of the implementation successes and failures in this
            area are needed.
Civil war risk in democratic and
            non-democratic neighborhoods
This study questions the extent to which
            domestic conflict is influenced by national, regional, and
            international relationships. It is designed to answer
            specific questions relating to the effects of neighboring
            characteristics on a state's risk of conflict and
            instability: What is the interaction between neighboring
            conflict and political disorder? Do democratic neighborhoods
            have different conflict trajectories than non-democratic
            neighborhoods and if so, where and why? Given that most poor
            countries are located in poor and conflictual neighborhoods,
            to what extent is there a relationship between poverty and
            political disorder in different regime neighborhoods? Using
            spatial lag terms to specify neighboring regime
            characteristics and multilevel models to differentiate
            between explanatory levels, this study reiterates the
            importance of domestic and neighboring factors in promoting
            or diminishing the risk of instability and conflict.
            However, the pronounced negative effects of autocratic and
            anocratic neighborhoods are mitigated by a growing domestic
            GDP. This study also finds that democratic neighborhoods are
            more stable, regardless of income level. Research presented
            here is unique in its contribution on how regime type is a
            significant development indicator, which in turn is salient
            in determining the risks of civil war across states.
Climate change impacts on animal
            husbandry in Africa : a Ricardian analysis
This paper analyzes the impact of
            climate change on animal husbandry in Africa. It regresses
            the net revenue from raising animals in small and large
            farms across Africa on climate, soil, and other control
            variables to test the climate sensitivity of livestock. The
            study is based on a survey of over 9,000 farmers across 11
            countries conducted by the World Bank and the Global
            Environment Facility. From this dataset, 5,400 farms were
            found to rely on livestock. The paper develops models to
            test whether the climate coefficients of small and large
            farms are similar. It turns out that small farms tend to be
            more labor intensive, rely on native stocks, and have few
            animals. Large farms tend to be more commercial operations,
            with much larger stocks and more modern approaches. The
            analysis finds that warming is good for small farms because
            they can substitute animals that are heat tolerant. Large
            farms, by contrast, are more dependent on cattle, which are
            not heat tolerant. The wetter scenarios are likely to be
            harmful to grazing animals because greater rainfall implies
            a shift from grasslands to forests, an increase in harmful
            disease vectors, and a shift from livestock to crops.
            Overall, because large farms dominate the sector, African
            livestock net revenues are expected to fall. However, if
            future climates turn out to be dry, livestock net revenue
            will increase. At least against the risk of dryness,
            livestock offer a good substitute for crops.