rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Drivers and obstacles to banking
            SMEs : the role of competition and the institutional framework
This paper studies the factors banks
            perceive as drivers and obstacles to financing small and
            medium enterprises (SMEs), focusing on the role of
            competition and the institutional framework. Using a survey
            of banks in Argentina and Chile, the paper shows that,
            despite alleged differences in the countries'
            environments regarding rules, regulations, and ease of doing
            business, SMEs have become a strategic segment for most
            banks in both countries. In particular, banks have begun to
            target SMEs due to the significant competition in the
            corporate and retail sectors. They perceive the SMEs market
            as highly profitable, large, and with good prospects.
            Moreover, banks are developing coping mechanisms to overcome
            the particular institutional obstacles present in each
            country and to compete for SMEs. Banks' interest in
            SMEs is not based on government programs, yet policy action
            might help reduce the cost of providing financing,
            especially long-term lending.
Can maquila booms reduce poverty
            evidence from Honduras
This paper identifies and estimates the
            strength of the reduction in poverty linked to improved
            opportunities for women in the expanding maquila sector. A
            simulation exercise shows that, at a given point in time,
            poverty in Honduras would have been 1.5 percentage points
            higher had the maquila sector not existed. Of this increase
            in poverty, 0.35 percentage points is attributable to the
            wage premium paid to maquila workers, 0.1 percentage points
            to the wage premium received by women in the maquila sector,
            and 1 percentage point to employment creation. Given that
            female maquila workers represent only 1.1 percent of the
            active population in Honduras, this contribution to poverty
            reduction is significant.
Expanding trade within Africa : the
            impact of trade facilitation
This paper examines the impact of trade
            facilitation on intra-African trade. The authors examine the
            role of trade facilitation reforms, such as increased port
            efficiency, improved customs, and regulatory environments,
            and upgrading services infrastructure on trade between
            African countries. They also consider how regional trade
            agreements relate to intra-African trade flows. Using trade
            data from 2003 to 2004, they find that improvement in ports
            and services infrastructure promise relatively more
            expansion in intra-African trade than other measures. They
            also show that, almost all regional trade agreements have a
            positive effect on trade flows.
Does inflation targeting matter for
            output growth evidence from industrial and emerging economies
This paper examines the effects of
            inflation targeting on industrial and emerging
            economies' output growth over the "globalization
            years" of 1986-2004. Controlling for trade openness and
            two indicators of financial globalization, the authors find
            systematic positive and significant effects of inflation
            targeting on real output growth. In dynamic models, the
            findings show strong output persistence in industrial
            economies, in which partial and full inflation targeting
            regimes have a positive long-run impact on growth. In
            emerging markets, only full inflation targeting policies
            have any output effect in the long-run. The results suggest
            that strict inflation targeting is needed to make the
            discipline effect of the disinflation process outweigh the
            output costs of promoting high interest rates to attract
            capital flows in a global world. These findings are robust
            to the treatment of endogenous globalization measures.
Explaining enterprise performance in
            developing countries with business climate survey data
This paper surveys the recent literature
            which examines the impact of business climate variables on
            productivity and growth in developing countries using
            enterprise surveys. Comparable enterprise surveys today
            cover some 70,000 firms in over 100 countries around the
            world. The literature that has analyzed this data provides
            evidence that a good business climate drives growth by
            encouraging investment and higher productivity. Various
            infrastructure, finance, security, competition and
            regulation variables have been shown to significantly impact
            firm performance. Section 1 of this paper outlines the
            theoretical framework that underpins the investment climate
            literature. Section 2 describes the available datasets and
            surveys the key findings of the empirical literature, first
            macroeconomic and then microeconomic studies. Particular
            attention is paid to the robustness of the reported results.
            Section 3 highlights important econometric issues common to
            this literature and suggests a research agenda and possible
            improvements in survey design.
The impacts of cash and in-kind
            transfers on consumption and labor supply : experimental
            evidence from rural Mexico
The authors use the unique experimental
            design of the Food Support Program (Programa Apoyo
            Alimentario) to analyze in-kind and cash transfers in the
            poor rural areas of southern states of Mexico. They compare
            the impacts of monthly in-kind and cash transfers of
            equivalent value (mean share 11.5 percent of pre-program
            consumption) on household welfare as measured by food and
            total consumption, adult labor supply, and poverty. The
            results show that approximately two years later the transfer
            has a large and positive impact on total and food
            consumption. There are no differences in the size of the
            effect of transfer in cash versus transfers in-kind on
            consumption. The transfer, irrespective of type, does not
            affect overall participation in labor market activities but
            induces beneficiary households to switch their labor
            allocation from agricultural to nonagricultural activities.
            The analysis finds that the program leads to a significant
            reduction in poverty. Overall, the findings suggest that the
            Food Support Program intervention is able to relax the
            binding liquidity constraints faced by poor agricultural
            households, and thus increases both equity and efficiency.
Almost random : evaluating a
            large-scale randomized nutrition program in the presence of crossover
Large-scale randomized interventions
            have the potential to uncover the causal effect of programs
            applying to a large population, thereby improving on the
            insights gained from currently dominant smaller randomized
            studies. However, the external validity gained through
            larger interventions typically implies less supervision and
            often comes at the cost of some deviation from the
            randomization plan. This paper investigates the impact of
            the Nutrition Enhancement Program, which aims to improve
            child nutrition in Senegal based on a large-scale randomized
            community intervention. The analysis explicitly deals with
            deviation from the planned treatment and suggests approaches
            for combining ex-post adjustments such as propensity score
            matching with the randomized treatment plan. The authors do
            not detect a strong overall program impact on the outcome
            measure of weight-for-age based on planned treatment status,
            but do find an impact on the youngest children. Moreover,
            the project impact is clearer when the analysis considers
            treatment crossover using alternative estimators of
            two-stage least-squares and propensity score matching. The
            findings underscore the importance of addressing the
            shortcomings of large-scale randomization interventions in a
            systematic manner in order to understand the selection
            process that can guide further implementation of such
            projects, as well as to expose the true, causal effect of
            such programs.
Progress in participation in
            tertiary education in India from 1983 to 2004
Using nationally representative
            household surveys, this paper examines the trends in
            attainment, enrollment, and access to tertiary (higher)
            education in India from 1983 to 2005. The findings suggest
            that there has been considerable progress in attainment and
            participation; however, they remain low. Important gaps
            exist in enrollment between rich and poor, rural and urban
            areas, men and women, disadvantaged groups and the general
            population, and states. Analysis of transition rates from
            secondary education to tertiary education and regression
            analysis indicate that inequality in tertiary education
            between disadvantaged groups and the general population is
            explained by low completion rates of secondary education.
            Inequality in tertiary education related to income, gender,
            rural residence, and between states is explained by: (i)
            differences in completion rates of secondary education, and
            (ii) differences in the probability of transitioning from
            secondary education to tertiary education. In particular,
            the importance of household income has grown markedly.
            Equitable expansion of secondary education is therefore
            critical for improving the equity of tertiary education.
            There is also a need to help qualified youth from low-income
            families and rural backgrounds to attend tertiary education,
            in particular the technical and engineering streams, in
            which participation is lower.
Endogenous institution formation
            under a catching-up strategy in developing countries
This paper explores endogenous
            institution formation under a catching-up strategy in
            developing countries. Since the catching-up strategy is
            normally against the compartive advantages of the developing
            countries, it can not be implemented through laissez-faire
            market mechanisms, and a government needs to establish
            nonmarket institutions to implement the strategy. In a
            simple two-sector model, the authors show that an
            institutional complex of price distortion, output control,
            and a directive allocation system is sufficient to implement
            the best allocation for the catching-up strategy.
            Furthermore, removing any of the three components will make
            it no longer implementable. The analysis also compares the
            best allocation and prices under the catching-up strategy
            with their counterparts under no distortions. The results of
            this paper provide important implications for understanding
            the institution formation in the developing countries that
            were pursuing a catching-up strategy after World War II.
Global food price inflation :
            implications for South Asia, policy reactions, and future challenges
The surge in global commodity prices of
            the past few years has presented a tremendous development
            challenge for South Asian countries. The large loss of
            income from the terms of trade shock has worsened
            macroeconomic balances, fueled rapid inflation, and hurt
            growth. Although commodity prices have come down recently,
            the benefits are being clouded by the emergence of a severe
            global financial crisis. The adverse consequences of the
            food price hike for the poor are large; the global financial
            crisis could further worsen the situation due to falling
            economic opportunities and government revenues. South Asian
            countries need to accelerate reforms to avoid facing a
            serious downturn in economic activity, investment, exports,
            and income. Governments in South Asia have responded by
            stabilizing domestic food prices through a number of
            short-term measures, tightened monetary policy to reduce
            inflation, and increased spending on a range of safety net
            programs for the poor. Some of the policies employed, such
            as export bans, are not consistent with the long-term
            welfare of the country or the region. Safety net
            interventions need to be made consistent with a longer-term
            poverty reduction strategy and fiscal sustainability. Most
            importantly, policy attention now needs to shift toward
            efforts to increase farm productivity, improve rural
            infrastructure, and lower the vulnerability of the poor.
The political economy of village
            sanitation in south India : capture or poor information
Despite efforts to mandate and finance
            local governments' provision of environmental
            sanitation services, outcomes remain poor in the villages
            surveyed in the four South Indian states.  The analysis
            indicates some key issues that appear to hinder improvements
            in sanitation. Local politicians tend to capture sanitary
            infrastructure and cleaning services for themselves, while
            also keeping major village roads reasonably well-served.
            Their decisions suggest, however, that they neither
            understand the health benefits of sanitation, nor the
            negative externalities to their own health if surrounding
            areas are poorly served. Our findings suggest that improving
            sanitary outcomes requires disseminating information on the
            public goods nature of their health benefits, as well as on
            the local government's responsibilities. It also
            requires putting public health regulations in place, along
            with measures to enable accountability in service provision.
Sources of welfare disparities
            across and within regions of Brazil : evidence from the
            2002-03 household budget survey
Brazil's inequalities in welfare
            and poverty across and within regions can be accounted for
            by differences in household attributes and returns to those
            attributes. This paper uses Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions at
            the mean as well as at different quantiles of welfare
            distributions on regionally representative household survey
            data (2002-03 Household Budget Survey). The analysis finds
            that household attributes account for most of the welfare
            differences between urban and rural areas within regions.
            However, comparing the lagging Northeast region with the
            leading Southeast region, differences in returns to
            attributes account for a large part of the welfare
            disparities, in particular in metropolitan areas, supporting
            the presence of agglomeration effects in booming areas.
Pursuing efficiency while
            maintaining outreach : bank privatization in Tanzania
Profitability improvements after the
            privatization of a large state-owned bank might come at the
            expense of reduced access to financial services for some
            groups, especially the rural poor. The privatization of
            Tanzania's National Bank of Commerce provides a unique
            episode for studying this issue. The bank was split into the
            "new" National Bank of Commerce, a commercial bank
            that assumed most of the original bank's assets and
            liabilities, and the National Microfinance Bank, which
            assumed most of the branch network and the mandate to foster
            access to financial services. The new National Bank of
            Commerce's profitability and portfolio quality improved
            although credit growth was slow, in line with privatization
            experiences in other developing countries. Finding a buyer
            for the National Microfinance Bank proved very difficult,
            although after years under contract management by private
            banking consultants, Rabobank of the Netherlands emerged as
            a purchaser. Profitability has since improved and lending
            has slowly grown, while the share of non-performing loans
            remains low.
Grand corruption in utilities
This paper discusses mechanisms of grand
            corruption in private sector utility provision in developing
            countries. By the term "grand corruption," the
            authors abstract from the petty corruption that consumers
            experience - for example, when firms and individuals pay
            bribes to get water delivery or an electricity connection.
            The paper focuses on decisions made at the government level
            involving private sector management, ownership, and
            provision of utility services.  Corruption at that level may
            influence the pace and nature of private sector involvement
            and competition in utilities, as well as the level and form
            of investments, subsidies, and prices. On the basis of a
            literature review and interviews with firms and regulating
            authorities in two countries, Tanzania and the Philippines,
            this paper discusses the levels and determinants of grand
            corruption in utilities. The paper concludes by discussing a
            research program to extend this knowledge through a
            cross-country survey instrument.
Public finance, security, and
            development : a framework and an application to Afghanistan
Security is increasingly viewed as a key
            condition for economic growth and development. The authors
            argue that the work and impact of all development partners
            would be enhanced if the multiple linkages between public
            finance, security, and development were explicitly taken
            into account. At the extreme, in some cases better public
            finance management could have more impact on security than
            would more troops. The paper first outlines three core
            linkages between security and development-through the
            investment climate, human and social capital, and
            institutions. The authors then propose three complementary
            tools to analyze the security sector from the point of view
            of public finance management, service delivery, and
            governance. This conceptual framework is applied to the case
            of Afghanistan. The paper closes by drawing some conclusions
            about possible entry points for dialogue in this difficult area.
Are all the sacred cows dead
            implications of the financial crisis for macro and financial policies
The recent global financial crisis has
            shaken the confidence of developed and developing countries
            alike in the very blueprint of financial and macro policies
            that underlie the western capitalist systems. In an effort
            to contain the crisis from spreading, the authorities in the
            US and many European governments have taken unprecedented
            steps of providing extensive liquidity, giving assurances to
            bank depositors and creditors that include blanket
            guarantees, and structuring bail-out programs that include
            taking large ownership stakes in financial institutions, in
            addition to establishing programs for direct provision of
            credit to non-financial institutions. Emphasizing the
            importance of incentives and tensions between short term and
            longer term policy responses to crisis management, this
            paper draws on a large body of research evidence and country
            experiences to discuss the implications of the current
            crisis for financial and macroeconomic policies going forward.
Unemployment and worker-firm
            matching : theory and evidence from east and west Europe
The paper tests three hypotheses about
            the causes of unemployment in the Central-East European
            transition economies and in a benchmark market economy
            (Western part of Germany). The first hypothesis (H1) is that
            unemployment is caused by inefficient matching. Hypothesis 2
            (H2) is that unemployment is caused by low demand.
            Hypothesis 3 (H3) is that restructuring is at work. Our
            estimates suggest that the west and east German parts of
            Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia are consistent with H2
            and H3. Hungary provides limited support to all three
            hypotheses. Poland is consistent with H1.  The economies in
            question hence contain one broad group of countries and one
            or two special cases. The group comprises the Czech
            Republic, Hungary, Slovak Republic and (possibly) East
            Germany.  These countries resemble West Germany in that they
            display increasing returns to scale in matching and
            unemployment appears to be driven by restructuring and low
            demand. The East German case is complex because of its major
            active labor market policies and a negative trend in
            efficiency in matching. In some sense, East Germany
            resembles more Poland, which in addition to restructuring
            and low demand for labor appears to suffer from a structural
            mismatch reflected in relatively low returns to scale in
            matching. Finally, our data provide evidence that goes
            counter to one of the main predictions of the theories of
            transition, namely that the turnover (inflow) rate in the
            transition countries would rise dramatically at the start of
            the transition, be temporarily very high and gradually
            decline and approach the level observed in otherwise similar
            market economies such as West Germany.