rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Gender dimensions of child labor and
            street children in Brazil
The authors review child labor and the
            situation of street children in Brazil from a gender
            perspective. Relying primarily on Brazil's national
            household survey for 1996, the authors examine various
            dimensions of child labor by gender, including
            participation, intensity, and type of activities; the
            relationship between child labor, education, and future
            earnings; and the risks of child labor to health and
            well-being. They also summarize approaches to prevent and
            eliminate child labor and street children in Brazil. The
            authors find that more boys than girls work in Brazil
            especially in rural areas where boys are concentrated in the
            agricultural sector, that many children both work and attend
            school, and that girls attain higher levels of education
            than boys on average, even when considering number of hours
            worked. The exception is the 11-14 category. They also find
            that an individual's earnings are correlated with age
            of entry into the labor market. The earlier a child begins
            to work, the lower his or her earnings. And girls are more
            adversely affected by early labor force entry than boys,
            with the gender differential increasing the earlier a child
            begins to work. Taking poverty as the primary contributor to
            child labor, government programs to combat child labor are
            well designed in that they compensate families for a
            child's foregone earnings and address family factors
            that lead to poverty. However, programs could be improved by
            explicitly considering the gender dimensions of child labor.
            The authors point to the need for analysis of the impact of
            child labor on health, and specifically to the gender and
            sex-differentiated impacts. They suggest the need to address
            gender in intervention strategies for street children, as
            well as research on child labor in domestic service where
            girls are overrepresented.
Decentralized credtor-led corporate
            restructuring - cross-country experience
Countries that have experienced banking
            crises have adopted one of two distinct approaches toward
            the resolution of non-performing assets-a centralized or a
            decentralized solution. A centralized approach entails
            setting up a government agency-an asset management
            company-with the full responsibility for acquiring,
            restructuring, and selling of the assets. A decentralized
            approach relies on banks and other creditors to manage and
            resolve non-performing assets. The authors study banking
            crises where governments adopted a decentralized,
            creditor-led workout strategy following systemic crises.
            They use a case study approach and analyze seven banking
            crises in which governments mainly relied on banks to
            resolve non-performing assets. The study suggests that out
            of the seven cases, only Chile, Norway, and Poland
            successfully restructured their corporate sectors with
            companies attaining viable financial structures. The
            analysis underscores that as in the case of a centralized
            strategy the prerequisites for a successful decentralized
            restructuring strategy are manifold. The successful
            countries significantly improved the banking system's
            capital position, enabling banks to write down loan losses;
            banks as well as corporations had adequate incentives to
            engage in corporate restructuring; and ownership links
            between banks and corporations were limited or severed
            during crises.
The Africa Growth and Opportunity
            Act and its rules of origin : generosity undermined
The African Growth and Opportunity Act
            (AGOA), signed into American law on May 18, 2000, is a major
            plank of U.S. initiatives toward the African continent. The
            Act aims broadly at improving economic policymaking in
            Africa, enabling countries to embrace globalization, and
            securing durable political and economic stability. As an
            incentive for Africa to adopt the necessary policy reform,
            AGOA offers increased preferential access for African
            exports to the United States. This paper describes the
            provisions of AGOA and assesses its quantitative impact on
            African exports, particularly in the apparel sector. Its
            main conclusions are: 1) AGOA will provide real
            opportunities to Africa. Even on conservative estimates
            about Africa's supply response, Africa's non-oil
            exports could be increased by about 8-11 percent. 2)
            However, the medium-term gains could have been much greater
            if AGOA had not imposed certain conditions and not excluded
            certain items from its coverage. The most important
            condition is the stringent rule-of-origin, that is, the
            requirement that exporters source certain inputs from within
            Africa or the United States. Estimates suggest that the
            absence of these conditions would have magnified the impact
            nearly five-fold, resulting in an overall increase in
            non-oil exports of US$0.54 billion compared with the
            US$100-US$140 million increase that is expected in the
            presence of these restrictions. These restrictions,
            particularly on apparel, will come at a particularly
            inopportune time, as Africa will be exposed to competition
            from other developing countries when the quotas maintained
            on the latters' exports under the Multi-Fiber
            Arrangement (MFA) are eliminated. Africa's apparel
            exports will be lower by over 30 percent with the
            dismantling of the MFA. If, on the other hand, AGOA had
            provided unrestricted access, the negative impact of the
            dismantling could be nearly fully offset.
Does globalization hurt the poor
Ag�or attempts to examine analytically
            and empirically the extent to which globalization affects
            the poor in low- and middle-income countries. He begins with
            a description of various channels through which trade
            openness and financial integration may have an adverse
            effect on poverty. However, the author also stresses the
            possible nonlinearities involved-possibilities that have
            seldom been recognized in the ongoing debate. Ag�or then
            presents cross-country regressions that relate measures of
            real and financial integration to poverty. The regressions
            control for changes in income per capita and output growth
            rates, as well as various other macroeconomic and structural
            variables, such as the inflation tax, changes in the real
            exchange rate and the terms of trade, health and schooling
            indicators, and macroeconomic volatility. The author uses
            not only individual indicators of trade and financial
            openness but also a "globalization index" based on
            principal components analysis, and tests for both linear and
            nonlinear effects. The results suggest the existence of a
            nonmonotonic, Laffer-type relationship between globalization
            and poverty. At low levels, globalization appears to hurt
            the poor; but beyond a certain threshold, it seems to reduce
            poverty-possibly because it brings with it renewed impetus
            for reform. So, globalization may hurt the poor not because
            it went too far, but rather because it did not go far enough.
Distinguishing between
            observationally equivalent theories of crises
The objective of this paper is to
            empirically test across alternative, apparently
            observationally equivalent theories of currency crises.
            Theories of crises are often difficult to distinguish from
            each other based on the behavior of commonly used
            predictors. Using a comprehensive data set on gross external
            assets and liabilities for 167 countries created by the
            World Bank's Latin America and the Caribbean Region and
            the Development Research Group, this study is able to make a
            significant move toward redressing this shortcoming. It
            focuses on identifying potential crisis predictors, as well
            as testing the validity of the distinct transmission
            mechanisms implied by various theories of currency crisis.
            Evidence is presented in support of insurance-based models,
            suggesting that proxies for contingent liability
            accumulation are effective crisis predictors.
Recurrent expenditure requirements
            of capital projects - estimation for budget purposes
This paper examines the issue of
            estimating recurrent costs associated with capital projects
            in the investment budget. It is intended to help overcome
            budget planning problems which give rise to the chronic
            under-funding of maintenance and operating costs typical in
            some developing economies. The objective is to provide
            guidance in the preparation of budget submissions so that
            information on the future recurrent cost implications of
            today's capital spending is quantified in a way that
            supports the authorities in making project selection and
            budget decisions. The paper is in three parts. The first
            part outlines some concepts and definitions involved in
            measuring recurrent costs. The second part provides stylized
            examples of individual projects. And the third part presents
            some rough empirical guidance drawn from a sample of actual
            investment projects.
Health facility surveys : an introduction
Health facility surveys come in various
            guises. One dimension in which they vary is their
            motivation. Some seek to understand better links between
            households and providers. Others seek to understand better
            provider behavior and performance. Still others seek to
            understand the interrelationships between providers, while
            yet others seek to shed light on the linkages between
            government and providers. Health facility surveys differ too
            in the data they collect, in part due to the different
            motivations. Surveys also vary in the way they collect data,
            some relying on direct observation, some on record review,
            and some on interview. Some quality data are collected
            through clinical vignettes. Facility data have been put to a
            variety of uses, including planning and budgeting;
            monitoring, evaluation, and promoting accountability; and
            research. Lindel and Wagstaff review some of the literature
            under each heading and offer some conclusions regarding the
            current state of health facility surveys.
The perversity of preferences : GSP
            and developing country trade policies, 1976 - 2000
Industrial countries maintain special
            tariff preferences, namely the Generalized System of
            Preferences (GSP), for imports from developing countries.
            Critics have highlighted the underachieving nature of such
            preferences, but developing countries continue to place the
            GSP at the heart of their agenda in multilateral
            negotiations. What effect do such preferences have on a
            recipient's own trade policies? The authors develop and
            test a simple theoretical model of a small country's
            trade policy choice, using a dataset of 154 developing
            countries from 1976 through 2000. They find that countries
            removed from the GSP adopt more liberal trade policies than
            those remaining eligible. The results, corrected for
            endogeneity and robust to numerous alternative measures of
            trade policy, suggest that developing countries may be best
            served by full integration into the reciprocity-based world
            trade regime rather than continued GSP-style special preferences.
Globalization and workers in
            developing countries
Stories on the positive and negative
            effects of globalization on workers in developing countries
            abound. But a comprehensive picture is missing and many of
            the stories are ideologically charged. This paper reviews
            the academic literature on the subject, including several
            studies currently under way, and derives the implications
            for public policy. First, it deals with the effects of
            openness to trade, foreign direct investment, and financial
            crises on average wages. Second, it discusses the impact of
            exposure to world markets on the dispersion of wages by
            occupation, skill, and gender. Third, it describes the
            pattern of job destruction and job creation associated with
            globalization. Because these two processes are not
            synchronized, the fourth issue addressed is the impact on
            unemployment rates. Fifth, the paper reviews the labor
            market policies that can be used to offset the adverse
            effects of globalization on employment and labor earnings.
            Finally, it discusses how the international community could
            encourage developing countries to adopt sound labor market
            policies in the context of globalization.
High consumption volatility : the
            impact of natural disasters
A history of repeated external and
            domestic shocks has made economic insecurity a major concern
            across the Caribbean region. Of particular concern to all
            households, especially the poorest segments of the
            population, is the exposure to shocks that are generated by
            catastrophic events or natural disasters. The author shows
            that despite high consumption growth, the Caribbean region
            suffers from a high volatility of consumption that decreases
            household welfare. After presenting some empirical evidence
            that consumption volatility is higher in the Caribbean
            region than in the rest of the world, he makes some
            empirically testable inferences that help explain
            consumption volatility. The author develops a conceptual
            framework for analyzing the effects of catastrophic events
            on household and aggregate welfare. According to this
            framework, the volatility of consumption comes from
            production shocks that are transformed into consumption
            shocks mostly because of underdeveloped or ineffective
            risk-management mechanisms. Auffret conducts an empirical
            analysis of the impact of catastrophic events on 16
            countries (6 from the Caribbean region and 10 from Latin
            America) from 1970-99 and shows that catastrophic events
            lead to: 1) A substantial decline in the growth of output.
            2) A substantial decline in the growth of investment. 3) A
            more moderate decline in consumption growth (most of the
            decline is in private consumption, while public consumption
            declines moderately. 4) A worsening of the current account
            of the balance of payments.
Fostering community-driven
            development - What role for the State
States can do much to tap
            community-level energies, and resources for development, if
            they seek to interact more synergistically with local
            communities. The broader spin-off is creating a
            developmental society, and polity. Using case studies from
            Asia and Latin America, the authors show how: 1) State
            efforts to bring about land reform, tenancy reform, and
            expanding non-crop sources of income, can broaden the
            distribution of power in rural communities, laying the basis
            for more effective community-driven collective action; and
            2) Higher levels of government can form alliances with
            communities, putting pressure on local authorities from
            above, and below to improve development outcomes at the
            local level. These alliances can also be very effective in
            catalyzing collective action at community level, and
            reducing :local capture" by vested interests. There are
            several encouraging points that emerge from these case
            studies. First, these powerful institutional changes do not
            necessarily take long to generate. Second, they can be
            achieved in a diversity of settings: tightly knit or
            loose-knit communities; war-ravaged, or relatively stable;
            democratic, or authoritarian; with land reform, or (if
            carefully managed) even without. Third, there are strong
            political payoffs in terms of legitimacy, and popular
            support for those who support such developmental action.
Refining policy with the poor: local
            consultations on the draft comprehensive poverty reduction
            and growth strategy in Vietnam
In March 2001, the Government of Vietnam
            produced an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
            (I-PRSP), and announced its intention to develop a
            Comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (CPRGS) by
            the end of April 2002. In the I-PRSP, the Government
            outlined its commitment to involve a broad range of
            stakeholders - including poor communities, local government
            authorities, and the enterprise sector - in drafting the
            CPRGS. The Ministry of Planning and Investment, who was
            assigned by the Government of Vietnam to lead the CPRGS
            drafting process, asked the World Bank, and a group of
            international nongovernmental organizations to support them
            in carrying out the local consultations. The consultations
            took place in six rural, and urban locations across Vietnam,
            selected to represent a range of poverty situations. About
            1,800 people participated in the research. This report,
            which is the first of three volumes documenting the local
            consultations, provides an account and reflection on the
            approach, and methodology used in the consultations. It is
            intended this may give useful practical experience for
            future monitoring of the CPRGS, as well as for people who
            are planning to carry out similar exercises in other
            countries. The report outlines the process that was followed
            from the point of developing a research outline from the
            I-PRSP, through the fieldwork exercises, data compilation,
            and analysis, leading on to identification of the main
            policy messages made by the participants. It also describes
            how the findings were used to influence the final version of
            the CPRGS.
Strategic planning for poverty
            reduction in Vietnam : progress and challenges for meeting
            the localized Millennium Development Goals
This paper discusses the progress that
            Vietnam has made toward meeting a core set of development
            goals that the government recently adopted as part of its
            Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS).
            These goals are strongly related to the Millennium
            Development Goals (MDGs), but are adapted and expanded to
            reflect Vietnam's national challenges and the
            government's ambitious development plans. For each
            Vietnam Development Goal, the authors describe recent trends
            in relation to the trajectories implied by the MDGs, outline
            the intermediate targets identified by the government, and
            discuss the challenges involved in meeting these. Relative
            to other countries of similar per capita expenditures,
            Vietnam has made rapid progress in a number of key areas.
            Poverty has halved over the 1990s, enrollment rates in
            primary education have risen to 91 percent (although there
            is a quality problem), indicators of gender equity have been
            strengthened, child mortality has been reduced, maternal
            health has improved, and real progress has been made in
            combating malaria and other communicable diseases. In
            contrast, Vietnam scores worse than other comparable
            countries in the areas of child malnutrition, access to
            clean water, and combating HIV/AIDS. A number of important
            crosscutting issues emerge from this analysis that need to
            be addressed. One such challenge is improving equity, both
            in terms of ensuring that the benefits of growth are
            distributed evenly across the population and in terms of
            access to public services. This will involve addressing the
            affordability of education and curative health care for poor
            households. Improvements in public expenditure planning are
            needed to align resources better to stated desired outcomes
            and to link nationally-defined targets to subnational
            planning and budgeting processes. There is also a need to
            address capacity and data gaps which will be crucial for
            effective monitoring.