rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Sustaining trade reform :
            institutional lessons from Peru and Argentina
This paper examines trade policies in
            Peru and Argentina since the reforms of the 1990s. Peru
            provides a valuable example of sustaining reform. Leaders
            have used negotiations and other international instruments
            to disseminate among Peruvians a positive vision of Peru in
            the international economy and to extend the application of
            World Trade Organization-based governance principles. Peru
            has introduced few new restrictions and all of them have
            been through World Trade Organization-sanctioned policy
            instruments. Argentina, by contrast, has introduced multiple
            restrictions, through procedures that eschew World Trade
            Organization governance principles. Moreover, leaders there
            have returned trade politics to the dependencia philosophy
            that sees the international economy as an exploitive
            environment. The paper brings out the weakness of
            international obligations to limit Argentina's return
            to import substitution and the pains at which Peru has gone
            to maintain the management of its economy within the same
            rules that Argentina has so easily violated.
Female business ownership and
            informal sector persistence
The informal sector in India has been
            exceptionally persistent over the past two decades. Is this
            a bad thing? Not necessarily. This paper shows that a
            substantial share of the persistence in India's
            unorganized manufacturing sector is due to the rapid
            increase in female-owned businesses. Had women's
            participation remained in the proportion to male-owned
            businesses that was evident in 1994, the unorganized
            manufacturing sector would have declined in share rather
            than increased. Most of these new female-owned businesses
            are opened in the household and at a small scale, about a
            third of the size of a typical male-owned business in the
            informal sector. Yet, it appears that these businesses offer
            economic opportunities not otherwise present and a
            transition for some women from unpaid domestic work.
Greening global value chains : some
            implementation challenges
The paper aims to highlight some of the
            most important implementation issues associated with the
            greening of global value chains with special attention given
            to how public policies and business strategies can support
            each other in meeting the challenge, particularly in
            developing countries. This requires a systemic view of
            global value chains that includes downstream supply chains
            and explicitly takes into account the relationships between
            regular members (raw materials providers, component
            manufacturers, and assembly plants, notably) and their
            clean-tech suppliers. It also involves a careful description
            of the business landscapes of global value chains as well as
            reliable environmental metrics and data, carefully examining
            how these can be shared among global value chain members and
            their stakeholders. Certain incentives must be set within
            member firms and throughout the supply chain and this
            involves reviewing managerial practices -- monitoring and
            auditing of environmental performance, compensation and
            rewards, transfer prices, task design and allocation,
            decision making processes, employee selection and training,
            and organizational culture -- and framing outsourcing
            contracts appropriately. To be effective, however, these
            initiatives need to be encouraged by credible national
            policies (which include environmental but also social
            policies targeting informal businesses) and international
            agreements, revealing disclosure programs, and a vigilant
            civil society.  On a global level, the coordination of
            business and public policies is crucial as the greening of a
            global value chain will certainly work best if its members
            and stakeholders move in tandem.
Benchmarking financial systems :
            introducing the financial possibility frontier
Across the world, supply for financial
            services rarely matches the demand, given multiple market
            frictions. This paper discusses the concept of the financial
            possibilities frontier as a constrained optimum to
            categorize different problems of shallow financial markets
            or unsustainable expansion. The paper offers three examples
            of how to use different data sources to apply the frontier
            concept to assess the state of financial systems.
Women's legal rights over 50
            years : progress, stagnation or regression
Using a newly compiled database of
            women's property rights and legal capacity covering 100
            countries over 50 years, this paper analyzes the triggers
            and barriers to reform. The database documents gender gaps
            in the ability to access and own assets, to sign legal
            documents in one's own name, and to have equality or
            non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the
            country's constitution. Progress in reducing these
            constraints has been dramatic -- half of the constraints
            documented in the 1960s had been removed by 2010. However,
            some sticky areas persist where laws have not changed or
            have even regressed. The paper analyzes potential drivers of
            reforms. A significant finding is that the relationship with
            a country's level of development and the extent of its
            reforms is not straightforward. For the first half of the
            sample, there was no systematic connection; only in the last
            25 years have increases in income been associated with
            higher probabilities for reform, but only in lower-income
            countries. With the remaining constraints as prevalent in
            middle- as low-income countries, increased growth is not
            necessarily going to spark additional reforms. Clearer
            patterns emerge from the momentum created by international
            conventions, such as the Committee to Eliminate All Forms of
            Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), women's political
            representation at the national level, mobilization of
            women's networks, and increasing labor force
            participation in sectors that provide a voice for women,
            which are positive forces for change. Conversely, conflict
            and weak rule of law can entrench a discriminatory status
            quo. And much is at stake; strengthening women's legal
            rights is associated with important development outcomes
            that can benefit society as a whole.
Women's legal rights over 50
            years : what is the impact of reform
This study uses a newly compiled
            database of women's property rights and legal capacity
            covering 100 countries over 50 years to test for the impact
            of legal reforms on employment, health, and education
            outcomes for women and girls.  The database demonstrates
            gender gaps in the ability to access and own property, sign
            legal documents in one's own name, and have equality or
            non-discrimination as a guiding principle of the
            country's constitution. In the initial period, 75
            countries had gender gaps in at least one of these areas and
            often multiple ones.  By 2010, 57 countries had made reforms
            that strengthened women's economic rights, including 28
            countries that had eliminated all of the constraints
            monitored here. In the cross-section and within countries
            over time, the removal of gender gaps in rights is
            associated with greater participation of women in the labor
            force, greater movement out of agricultural employment,
            higher rates of women in wage employment, lower adolescent
            fertility, lower maternal and infant mortality, and higher
            female educational enrollment.  This paper provides evidence
            on how the strengthening of women's legal rights is
            associated with important development outcomes.
Converting and transferring currency
            : benchmarking foreign exchange restrictions to foreign
            direct investment across economies
The ease of converting and transferring
            currency is a crucial consideration for firms investing in a
            foreign economy. The Converting and Transferring Currency
            data and indicators measure foreign exchange restrictions
            most relevant for foreign direct investment across economies
            to identify common policies and benchmark the
            restrictiveness of economies' foreign exchange regimes.
            Of 98 economies included in the analysis, 53 economies
            maintain generally unrestricted foreign exchange regimes for
            foreign direct investment. But 24 economies impose moderate
            to heavy restrictions across most transactions covered by
            the Converting and Transferring Currency indicators, with
            another 21 economies imposing administrative or procedural
            requirements. All high-income economies measured by the
            Converting and Transferring Currency data maintain
            unrestricted foreign exchange regimes for foreign direct
            investment, and the two poorest regions of South Asia and
            Sub-Saharan Africa are the most restrictive regions on
            average. Still, there is significant variation in
            restrictiveness across economies at similar income levels:
            38 percent of low-income and lower-middle-income economies
            impose moderate to heavy restrictions on transactions
            covered by the Converting and Transferring Currency data,
            but another 38 percent of such economies maintain fully
            unrestricted regimes. The Converting and Transferring
            Currency indicators are significantly correlated with
            measures of remittances risk, foreign direct investment, and
            exports, and especially with inflows of foreign direct
            investment per capita. The paper concludes by identifying
            common areas for regulatory reform that could be considered
            across economies, depending on country-specific conditions
            and the macroeconomic context of potential foreign exchange reforms.
Microfinance and moneylenders :
            long-run effects of MFIs on informal credit market in Bangladesh
Using two surveys from Bangladesh, this
            paper provides evidence on the effects of microfinance
            competition on village moneylender interest rates and
            households' dependence on informal credit. The views
            among practitioners diverge sharply: proponents claim that
            competition of microfinance institutions reduces both the
            moneylender interest rate and households' reliance on
            informal credit, while the critics argue the opposite.
            Taking advantage of recent econometric approaches that
            address selection on unobservables without imposing standard
            exclusion restrictions, this paper finds that microfinance
            competition does not reduce moneylender interest rates, thus
            partially repudiating the proponents. The effects are
            heterogeneous; there is no perceptible effect at low levels
            of coverage, but when microfinance coverage is high enough,
            the moneylender interest rate increases significantly. In
            contrast, households' dependence on informal credit
            tends to go down after they become a member of a
            microfinance institution, which contradicts part of the
            critic's argument.  The evidence is consistent with a
            model where microfinance institutions draw away better
            borrowers from the moneylender, and fixed costs are
            important in informal lending.
The golden quadrilateral highway
            project and urban/rural manufacturing in India
This study investigates the impact of
            the Golden Quadrilateral highway project on the urban and
            rural growth of Indian manufacturing. The Golden
            Quadrilateral project upgraded the quality and width of
            5,846 km of roads in India. The study uses a
            difference-in-difference estimation strategy to compare
            non-nodal districts based on their distance from the highway
            system. For the organized portion of the manufacturing
            sector, the Golden Quadrilateral project led to improvements
            in both urban and rural areas of non-nodal districts located
            0-10 km from the Golden Quadrilateral. These higher entry
            rates and increases in plant productivity are not present in
            districts 10-50 km away. The entry effects are stronger in
            rural areas of districts, but the differences between urban
            and rural areas are modest relative to the overall effect.
            The productivity consequences are similar in both locations.
            The most important difference appears to be the greater
            activation of urban areas near the nodal cities and rural
            areas in remote locations along the Golden Quadrilateral
            network. For the unorganized sector, no material effects are
            found from the Golden Quadrilateral upgrades in either
            setting. These findings suggest that in the time frames that
            we can consider -- the first five to seven years during and
            after upgrades -- the economic effects of major highway
            projects contribute modestly to the migration of the
            organized sector out of Indian cities, but are unrelated to
            the increased urbanization of the unorganized sector.
Macroeconomic context and fiscal
            policy : Europe and Central Asia during 2000-2012
This paper examines the interaction
            between fiscal policy and the broader macroeconomic context
            in open economies. It asks two questions. First, what was
            the relationship between fiscal policy and current account
            balances in countries in Europe and Central Asia during the
            past dozen years? Second, how might changes in (a) output
            composition and (b) financial sector profitability affect
            revenues and thus, the assessment of the underlying
            structural fiscal balance? The study finds that, for
            flexible exchange rate countries, expansionary fiscal policy
            has been associated with wider current account deficits.
            Moreover, changes in net exports and in financial sector
            profitability may have significant impacts on fiscal
            balances because of changes in revenues from the value-added
            tax and the corporate profits tax as a share of gross
            domestic product. These findings suggest that the countries
            of Europe and Central Asia have reason to be prudent in
            terms of fiscal policy choices, even as gross domestic
            product rises.
Assessing firms' financing
            constraints in Brazil
Firm surveys often indicate that firms
            complain a lot about lack of access to financial services,
            but financing constraints are difficult to identify, given
            demand and supply considerations and with only surveys based
            on firms' perceptions. Specifically, it is difficult to
            separate demand for access to finance of viable firms with
            good growth opportunities from that of firms that are not
            creditworthy and should not deserve financing. In Brazil,
            one of the main constraints to finance is related to the
            high level of interest rates, which affects both bank
            funding costs as well as bank intermediation spreads and, as
            such, the cost of finance and hence the demand and supply of
            bank financing. This paper analyzes a unique loan level data
            set that covers almost a decade of monthly firm bank
            information from credit registry information that is not
            publicly available as well as two cross-sections of
            Brazil's Investment Climate Assessment surveys in 2004
            and 2008 that provide detailed information on firms'
            micro characteristics as well as perceptions of credit. The
            data allow identification of how firms'
            characteristics, banks' characteristics, and macro
            variables affect firms' demand for credit, banks'
            supply of credit, and access to credit. The paper finds
            first that access to finance for firms has improved over the
            decade for small firms, reflecting the deepening of the
            credit markets. However, access to credit depends strongly
            on information availability captured in the positive
            influence of collateral and credit history. Banks perceive
            that it is less risky to lend to firms that the banks know
            or that other banks know. Second, firms' loan demand is
            inelastic to the interest rate at the individual loan
            category level, possibly reflecting some screening and
            pricing; however, when the loans are aggregated, the effect
            of interest rates becomes significant and negative as
            expected. Third, firms loan demand and loan supply are
            affected by the availability of collateral and, in the case
            of loan demand, longer maturity. Policy implications point
            to the importance of reducing asymmetric information between
            lenders and borrowers and on collateral to alleviate
            financing constraints for small firms.
A new index of the business
            environment for microfinance
This paper describes a new index of the
            quality of the business environment for microfinance
            institutions (the Global Microscope on the Microfinance
            Business Environment). Regressions are used to validate the
            index by linking it and its subcomponents to microfinance
            outcomes. The main findings are that the components of the
            index related to the supporting institutional framework are
            strongly linked to measures of microfinance penetration
            (such as microfinance borrowers as a share of total
            population). Components related to the framework for
            regulation and supervision are more strongly linked to
            outcomes at the microfinance institution level, including
            loan portfolio quality, financial self-sufficiency, average
            loan size, and the share of lending to women. Many, but not
            all, of these relationships are robust to using instrumental
            variables estimation in which a country's general
            stringency with respect to financial regulation is used as
            an instrument for the index and its components.
Development at the border : policies
            and national integration in Cote d'Ivoire and its neighbors
Regression discontinuity designs applied
            to a set of household surveys from the 1980-90s allow to
            examine whether Cote d'Ivoire's aggregate wealth
            was translated at the borders of neighboring countries. At
            the border of Ghana and at the end of the 1980s, large
            discontinuities are detected for consumption, child
            stunting, and access to electricity and safe water. Border
            discontinuities in consumption can be explained by
            differences in cash crop policies (cocoa and coffee). When
            these policies converged in the 1990s, the only differences
            that persisted were those in rural facilities. In the North,
            cash crop (cotton) income again made a difference for
            consumption and nutrition (the case of Mali). On the one
            hand, large differences in welfare can hold at the borders
            dividing African countries despite their assumed porosity.
            On the other hand, border discontinuities seem to reflect
            the impact of reversible public policies rather than
            intangible institutional traits.
The rejuvenation of industrial policy
This essay is about an important area in
            which there has been major rethinking -- industrial policy,
            by which the authors mean government policies directed at
            affecting the economic structure of the economy. The
            standard argument was that markets were efficient, so there
            was no need for government to intervene either in the
            allocation of resources across sectors or in the choices of
            technique. And even if markets were not efficient,
            governments were not likely to improve matters. But the
            2008-2009 global financial crisis showed that markets were
            not necessarily efficient and, indeed, there was a broad
            consensus that without strong government intervention --
            which included providing lifelines to certain firms and
            certain industries -- the market economies of the United
            States and Europe may have collapsed. Today, the relevance
            and pertinence of industrial policies are acknowledged by
            mainstream economists and political leaders from all sides
            of the ideological spectrum. But what exactly is industrial
            policy? Why has it raised so much controversy and confusion?
            What is the compelling new rationale that seems to bring
            mainstream economists to acknowledge the crucial importance
            of industrial policy and revisit some of the fundamental
            assumptions of economic theory and economic development? How
            can industrial policy be designed to avoid the pitfalls of
            some of the seeming past failures and to emulate some of the
            past successes? What are the contours of the emerging
            consensus and remaining issues and open questions? The paper
            addresses these questions.