rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Improving Russia's policy on
            foreign direct investment
Foreign direct investment brings host
            countries capital, productive facilities, and technology
            transfers as well as employment, new job skills, and
            management expertise. It is important to the Russian
            Federation, where incentives for competition are limited and
            incentives to becoming efficient are blunted by
            interregional barriers to trade, weak creditor rights, and
            administrative barriers to new entrants. The authors ague
            that the old policy paradigm of foreign direct investment
            (established before World War II and prevalent in the 1950s
            and 1960s) still governs Russia. In this paradigm there are
            only two reasons for foreign direct investment: access to
            inputs for production and access to markets for outputs.
            Such kinds of foreign direct investment, although
            beneficial, are often based on generating exports that
            exploit cheap labor or natural resources, or are aimed at
            penetrating protected local markets, not necessarily at
            world standards for price and quality. They contend that
            Russia should phase out high tariffs and non-tariff
            protection for the domestic market, most tax preferences for
            foreign investors (which don't increase foreign direct
            investment but do reduce fiscal revenues), and many
            restrictions on foreign investment. They recommend that
            Russia switch to a modern approach to foreign direct
            investment by: 1) Amending the newly enacted foreign direct
            investment law so that it will grant non-discriminatory
            "national treatment" to foreign investors for both
            right of establishment, and post-establishment operations,
            abolish conditions (such as local content restrictions)
            inconsistent with the World Trade Organization agreement on
            trade-related investment measures (TRIMs), and make
            investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms more efficient
            (giving foreign investors the chance to seek neutral binding
            international arbitration, for example). 2) Strengthening
            enforcement of property rights. 3) Simplifying registration
            procedures for foreign investors, to make them transparent
            and rules-based. 4) Extending guarantee schemes covering
            basic non-commercial risks.
Globalization and firms'
            financing choices - evidence from emerging economies
The authors investigate whether
            integration with global markets affects the financing
            choices of firms from East Asia and Latin America. Using
            firm-level data for the 1980s and 1990s, they study how
            leverage ratios, the structure of debt maturity, and sources
            of financing change when economies are liberalized and when
            firms gain access to international equity and bond markets.
            The evidence shows that integration with world financial
            markets has uneven effects. On the one hand, debt maturity
            for the average firm shortens when countries undertake
            financial liberalization. On the other hand, domestic firms
            that actually participate in international markets, get
            better financing opportunities, and extend their debt
            maturity. Moreover, firms in economies with deeper domestic
            financial systems are affected less by financial
            liberalization. Finally, they show that leverage ratios
            increase during times of crisis. In an appendix, they
            analyze the previously unstudied case of Argentina, which
            experienced sharp financial liberalization, and was hit hard
            by all recent global crises.
Competition, Corporate Governance,
            and regulation in Central Asia - Uzbekistan's
            structural reform challenges
In Uzbekistan state enterprises are
            being changed into shareholding companies, and private
            enterprises account for 45 percent of all registered firms.
            But business decisions to set prices, output, and investment
            are often not market-based, nor wholly within the purview of
            businesses, especially those in commercial manufacturing and
            services. Lines of authority for corporate governance - from
            state enterprises to private enterprises - are ill-defined,
            so there is little discipline on corporate performance and
            little separation between government and business. Nascent
            frameworks have been created for competition policy (for
            firms in the commercial sector) and regulatory policy
            (governing utilities in the infrastructure monopoly sector).
            Bur implementation and enforcement have been hampered by
            old-style instruments (such as price controls0 rooted in
            central planning, by lack of a strong independent regulatory
            rule-making authority, by the limited understanding, of the
            basic concepts of competition and regulatory reform, and by
            weak institutional capabilities for analyzing market
            structure and business performance. Based on fieldwork in
            Uzbekistan, the author recommends: 1) Deepening senior
            policy officials' understanding of, and appreciation of
            the benefits from, enterprise competition and how it affects
            economic growth. 2) Reforming competition policy
            institutions and legal frameworks in line with the
            country's goal of strengthening structural reforms and
            improving macroeconomic policy. 3) Improving the ability of
            government and associated institutions to assess
            Uzbekistan's industrial market structure and the
            determinants of enterprise conduct and performance. 4)
            Making the authority responsible for competition and
            regulatory policymaking into an independent agency - a
            "champion" of competition - answerable directly to
            the prime minister. 5) Strengthening incentives and
            institutions for corporate governance and bringing them in
            line with international practice. 6) Subjecting
            infrastructure monopolies to systemic competitive
            restructuring and unbundling, where appropriate. For other
            utilities, de-politicize tariff setting and implementation
            of regulations; ensure that price, pro-competitive (creating
            a level playing field among users); and increase
            transparency and accountability to the public.
Distributional outcomes of a
            decentralized welfare program
It is common for central governments, to
            delegate authority over the targeting of welfare programs to
            local community organizations - which may be better informed
            about who is poor, though possibly less accountable for
            getting the money to the local poor - while the center
            retains control over how much goes to each local region. The
            authors outline a theoretical model of the interconnected
            behavior of the various actors in such a setting. The
            model's information structure provides scope for
            econometric identification. Applying data for a specific
            program in Bangladesh, they find that overall targeting was
            mildly pro-poor, mostly because of successful targeting
            within villages. But this varied across villages. Although
            some village characteristics promoted better targeting,
            these were generally not the same characteristics that
            attracted resources from the center. The authors observe
            that the center's desire for broad geographic coverage,
            appears to have severely constrained the scope for pro-poor
            village targeting. However, poor villages tended not to be
            better at reaching their poor. They find some evidence that
            local institutions matter. The presence of cooperatives for
            farmers and the landless, appears to be associated with more
            pro-poor program targeting. The presence of recreational
            clubs has the opposite effect. Sometimes the benefits of
            decentralized social programs are captured by local elites,
            depending on the type of spending being decentralized. When
            public spending us on private (excludable) good, and there
            is no self-targeting mechanism to ensure that only the poor
            participate, there is ample scope for local mis-targeting.
Investment in natural gas pipelines
            in the Southern Cone of Latin America
Increasing demand for clean energy
            sources is expanding investment in natural gas
            infrastructure around the world. Many international projects
            involve pipelines connecting energy markets in two or more
            countries. A key feature of investment taking place in Latin
            America is the convergence of gas and electricity markets.
            Many projects are being developed to supply gas to new power
            generation plants needed to meet electricity demand.
            Construction of a pipeline over the Andes mountains to
            supply gas from Argentina to energy markets in central Chile
            was an idea long unfulfilled for political, economic, and
            technical reasons. Great changes have now taken place in a
            very short time. The author discusses both the achievements
            and the challenges to be faced by pipeline developers and
            Chile's energy sector. He details the benefits of the
            cooperative effort to consumers in terms of lower energy
            prices, higher environmental standards, and a more reliable
            energy system. The experience in Latin America's
            southern cone shows how technological innovation, economic
            deregulation, and regional integration make it possible to
            build major international gas pipeline projects within a
            competitive framework, and without direct state involvement.
How interest rates changed under
            financial liberalization - a cross-country review
Financial liberalization was expected to
            make interest rates, and asset prices more volatile, with
            distributional consequences, such as reduced, or relocated
            rents, and increased competition in financial services. The
            author examines available data on money market, and bank
            interest rates for evidence of whether these things
            happened. He shows that as more and more countries
            liberalized, the level and dynamic behavior of
            developing-country interest rates converged to
            industrial-country norms. In the short term, volatility
            increased in both real, and nominal money market interest
            rates. Treasury bill rates, and bank spreads, evidently the
            most repressed, showed the greatest increase as
            liberalization progressed - shifting substantial rents from
            the public sector, and from favored borrowers. Whereas
            quoted bank spreads in industrial countries contracted
            somewhat in the late 1990s, spreads in developing countries
            remained much higher, presumably reflecting both market
            power, and the higher risks of lending in the developing
            world. There was no clear-cut change in mean rates of
            inflation, monetary depth, or GDP growth. If anything, there
            was a small average improvement in inflation, but a decline
            in monetary depth, and economic growth, relative to trends
            in industrial countries.
Household savings in transition economies
During the transition from central
            planning to market economies now under way in Eastern
            Europe, output levels first collapsed by 40 to 50 percent in
            most countries, then staged a modest recovery in the last
            two years. Longer-term revival of growth requires a
            resumption of investment and thus, realistically, of
            domestic savings. To explore the determinants of household
            savings rates in transition economies, the authors studies
            matching household surveys for three Central European
            economies: Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland. They find that
            savings rates strongly increase with relative income,
            suggesting that increasing income inequality may play a role
            in determining savings rates. Savings rates are
            significantly higher for households that do not own their
            homes or that own few of the standard consumer
            durables-possibly because, with no retail credit or mortgage
            markets, households must save to purchase houses and
            durables. The influence of demographic factors broadly
            matches earlier findings for developing countries. Perhaps
            surprisingly, variables associated with the household's
            position in the transition process-including either sector
            of employment (public or private) or form of employment-do
            not play a significant role in determining savings rates.
International contagion -
            implications for policy
The authors try to identify and evaluate
            the public policy implications of financial crises. In this
            model, financial contagion can be driven by a combination of
            fundamentals and by self-fulfilling market expectations. The
            model allows the authors to identify different notions of
            contagion, especially the distinction between
            "monsoonal effects", "spillovers", and
            "switchers between equilibria". They discuss both
            domestic and international policy options. Domestic
            policies, they say, should be aimed at reducing financial
            fragility - that is, reducing unnecessary short-term debt
            commitments. With explicit commitments, the maturity of
            external debts should be lengthened. With implicit
            commitments, such as private liability guarantees, they
            emphasize limiting or eliminating such guarantees, to
            improve an economy's international liquidity and reduce
            its exposure to contagion. Internationally, they stress the
            need for improving financial standards, which makes it
            easier to assess when a country is subject to different
            kinds of contagion. The effectiveness of international
            rescue packages depends on the kind of contagion to which a
            country is exposed. Implications: the international
            community should help those countries that are already
            helping themselves.
What drives private saving around
            the world
The authors investigate the policy and
            non-policy factors behind saving disparities, using a large
            panel data set and an encompassing approach including
            several relevant determinants of private saving. They extend
            the literature in several dimensions, by: 1) Using the
            largest data set on aggregate saving assembled to date. 2)
            Using panel instrumental variable techniques to correct for
            endogeneity and heterogeneity. 3) Performing robustness
            checks on changes in estimation procedures, data samples,
            and model specification. Their main empirical findings: a)
            Private saving rates show considerable inertia (are highly
            serially correlated even after controlling for other
            relevant factors). b) Private sector rates rise with the
            level and growth rate of real per capita income. So policies
            that spur development are in indirect but effective way to
            raise private saving rates. c) Predictions of the life-cycle
            hypothesis are supported in that dependency ratios generally
            have a negative effect on private saving rates. d) The
            precautionary motive for saving is supported by the finding
            that inflation - conventionally taken as a summary measure
            of macroeconomic volatility - has a positive impact on
            private saving, holding other facts constant. e) Fiscal
            policy is a moderately effective tool for raising national
            saving. F) the direct effect of financial liberalization are
            largely detrimental to private saving rates. Greater
            availability of credit reduces the private saving rate;
            financial depth and higher real interest rates do not
            increase saving.
Why liberalization alone has not
            improved agricultural productivity in Zambia : the role of
            asset ownership and working capital constraints
The authors use a large panel data set
            from Zambia to examine factors that could explain the
            relatively lackluster performance of the country's
            agricultural sector after liberalization. Zambia's
            liberalization significantly opened the economy but failed
            to alter the structure of production or help realize
            efficiency gains. They reach two main conclusions. First,
            not owning productive assets (in Zambia, draft animals and
            implements) limits improvements in agricultural productivity
            and household welfare. Owning oxen increases income
            directly, allows farmers to till their fields efficiently
            when rain is delayed, increases the area cultivated, and
            improves access to credit and fertilizer markets. Second,
            the authors reject the hypothesis that the application of
            fertilizer is unprofitable because of high input prices.
            Rather, fertilizer use appears to have declined because of
            constraints on supplies, which government intervention
            exacerbated instead of alleviating. (Extending the use of
            fertilizer to the many producers not currently using it
            would be profitable, but increasing the amount applied by
            the few producers who now have access to it would not be.)
            Policies to foster accumulation of the assets needed for
            agricultural production (including draft animals and
            implements) and to provide complementary public goods
            (education, credit, and good agricultural extension
            services) could greatly help reduce poverty and improve productivity.
Resolving bank failures in Argentina
            - recent developments and issues
Policies and procedures to resolve bank
            failures have evolved significantly in Argentina since the
            introduction of currency convertibility in 1991, and
            particularly in reaction to the 1995 "tequila"
            crisis, which exposed the inadequacy of the bank exit
            framework in place then. The author reviews the
            institutional changes introduced in Argentina in 1995 to
            handle bank failures more effectively, particularly the
            creation of the deposit guarantee scheme and the procedural
            framework for resolving bank failures, embedded in Article
            35 of the Financial Institutions Law. This framework enables
            the Central Bank to carve out the assets and
            "privileged" liabilities of the failing bank and
            transfer them to sound banks, thereby sending only a
            "residual" balance sheet to judicial liquidation.
            Subsequent refinements in the application of Article 35
            procedures eventually led to current Argentine practice. The
            author examines this practice in detail by considering the
            handling of the recent failure of Banco Almafuerte. The
            author assesses a number of issues that arise from the
            Argentine model of bank failure resolution, taking into
            account both country-specific circumstances and more general
            concepts and concerns. He emphasizes the potential tradeoffs
            between reducing contagion risk, limiting moral hazard, and
            avoiding unnecessary destruction of asset value; the
            implications of priority-of-claims rules, and least-cost
            criteria; the pros and cons of alternative organizational
            and institutional arrangements; and the need for legal
            security. Finally, he outlines two prototypical approaches
            to striking a balance between rules and discretion, an issue
            underlying much of the ongoing policy discussion on
            alternative bank exit frameworks.
The macro wage curve and labor
            market flexibility in Zimbabwe
There is little available information
            about what determines money wages in Sub-Saharan Africa--or
            indeed about whether there is a stable relationship between
            wages, productivity, GDP (gross domestic product),
            inflation, activity in the informal sector, policy changes,
            and unemployment. In studying how wages in Zimbabwe are
            affected by short- and long-run changes in variables, the
            author asks: Are wages affected by prices, unemployment,
            increased productivity, economic activity, or policy
            changes? Does a macro wage curve exist? Did structural
            adjustment cause a structural change in labor markets? She
            finds that a macro wage curve does exist, so wages are
            flexible both generally and in the manufacturing sector. So,
            the labor market is able to adjust to both positive and
            negative shocks. The main cause of falling real wages in
            Zimbabwe is reduced economic activity. In the short term,
            wages are affected by changes in the unemployment rate. They
            are also affected positively by increases in productivity,
            prices, and economic activity. The forecasting performance
            of the wage determination models shows that they are valid
            after the implementation of structural adjustment in 1991.