rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Development strategies : integrating
            governance and growth
A frontier challenge for development
            strategy is to move beyond prescribing optimal economic
            policies, and instead -- taking a broad view of the
            interactions between economic, political and social
            constraints and dynamics -- to identify entry points capable
            of breaking a low-growth logjam, and initiating a virtuous
            spiral of cumulative change. The paper lays out four
            distinctive sequences via which the different dimensions
            might interact and evolve over time, and provides
            country-specific illustrations of each. Each sequence is
            defined by the principal focus of its initial step: 1) State
            capacity building provides a platform for accelerated growth
            via improved public sector performance and enhanced
            credibility for investors; strengthened political
            institutions and civil society come onto the agenda only
            over the longer term; 2) Transformational governance has as
            its entry point the reshaping of a country's political
            institutions. Accelerated growth could follow, insofar as
            institutional changes enhance accountability, and reduce the
            potential for arbitrary discretionary action -- and thereby
            shift expectations in a positive direction; 3) For
            'just enough governance', the initial focus is on
            growth itself, with the aim of addressing specific capacity
            and institutional constraints as and when they become
            binding -- not seeking to anticipate and address in advance
            all possible institutional constraints; 4) Bottom-up
            development engages civil society as an entry point for
            seeking stronger state capacity, lower corruption, better
            public services, improvements in political institutions more
            broadly -- and a subsequent unlocking of constraints on
            growth. The sequences should not be viewed as a technocratic
            toolkit from which a putative reformer is free to choose.
            Recognizing that choice is constrained by history, the paper
            concludes by suggesting an approach for exploring what might
            the scope for identifying practical ways forward in specific
            country settings.
Safe and sound banking : a role for
            countercyclical regulatory requirements
Most explanations of the crisis of
            2007-2009 emphasize the role of the preceding boom in real
            estate and asset markets in a variety of advanced countries.
            As a result, an idea that is gaining support among various
            groups is how to make Basel II or any regulatory regime less
            pro-cyclical. This paper addresses the rationale for and
            likely contribution of such policies. Making provisioning
            (or capital) requirements countercyclical is one way
            potentially to address pro-cyclicality, and accordingly it
            looks at the efforts of the authorities in Spain and
            Colombia, two countries in which countercyclical
            provisioning has been tried, to see what the track record
            has been. As explained there, these experiments have been at
            best too recent and limited to put much weight on them, but
            they are much less favorable for supporting this practice
            than is commonly admitted. The paper then addresses concerns
            and implementation issues with countercyclical capital or
            provisioning requirements, including why their impact might
            be expected to be limited, and concludes with
            recommendations for developing country officials who want to
            learn how to make their financial systems less exposed to crises.
Dysfunctional finance : positive
            shocks and negative outcomes
This paper shows how badly a market
            economy may respond to a positive productivity shock in an
            environment with asymmetric information about project
            quality: some, all, or even more than all the benefits from
            the increase in productivity may be dissipated. In the
            model, based on Bernanke and Gertler (1990), entrepreneurs
            with a low default probability are charged the same interest
            rate as entrepreneurs with a high default probability. The
            implicit subsidy from good types to bad means that the
            marginal entrant will have a negative-value project. An
            example is presented in which, after a positive productivity
            shock, the presence of enough bad type's forces the
            interest rate so high that it drives all entrepreneurs out
            of the market. This happens in an industry in which there
            are good projects that are productive. The problem is that
            they are contaminated in the capital market by bad projects
            because of the banks inability to distinguish good projects
            from bad. One possible explanation for the lack of
            development in some countries is that screening institutions
            are sufficiently weak that impersonal financial markets
            cannot function. If industrialization entails learning
            spillovers concentrated within national boundaries, and if
            initially informational asymmetries are sufficiently great
            that the capital market does not emerge, then neither
            industrialization nor the learning that it would foster will occur.
Mortgage finance in central and
            eastern Europe -- opportunity or burden
Household credit, especially for
            mortgages, has doubled over the past years in the new
            European Union member countries, raising concerns about the
            economic and social consequences of household indebtedness
            in the event of a macroeconomic crisis. Using household
            survey data for 2005, 2006, and 2007 for both old and new
            European Union members, this paper assesses the determinants
            of access to mortgage finance. It also examines whether
            mortgage holders were more likely to suffer financial
            distress compared with non-mortgage holders in the period
            before the global financial crisis. The analysis does not
            find any systematic evidence that mortgage holders are
            financially more vulnerable than renters or outright owners;
            in fact, the incidence of financial vulnerability generally
            fell between 2005 and 2007, possibly reflecting the strong
            income growth experienced by these countries over this
            period. In addition, although tenure status is more
            difficult to explain in the new European Union member
            countries, the analysis finds that many of the same drivers
            of tenure status in the older member countries generally
            drive tenure status in the newer member countries as well.
            Finally, there is no evidence that access to mortgage credit
            is based on expected income in the old or in the new
            European Union member countries.
When the rivers run dry : liquidity
            and the use of wholesale funds in the transmission of the
            U.S. subprime crisis
This paper provides systematic evidence
            of the role of banks' reliance on wholesale funding in
            the international transmission of the ongoing financial
            crisis. It conducts an event study to estimate the impact of
            the liquidity crunch of September 15, 2008, on the stock
            price returns of 662 individual banks across 44 countries,
            and tests whether differences in the abnormal returns
            observed around those events relate to these banks'
            ex-ante reliance on wholesale funding. Globally and within
            countries, banks that relied more heavily in non-deposit
            sources of funds experienced a significantly larger decline
            in stock returns even after controlling for other
            mechanisms. Within a country, the abnormal returns of banks
            with high wholesale dependence fell about 2 percent more
            than those of banks with low dependence during the three
            days following Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy. This large
            differential return suggests that liquidity played an
            important role in the transmission of the crisis.
Measuring inequality of opportunity
            with imperfect data : the case of Turkey
The measurement of inequality of
            opportunity has hitherto not been attempted in a number of
            countries because of data limitations. This paper proposes
            two alternative approaches to circumventing the missing data
            problems in countries where a demographic and health survey
            and an ancillary household expenditure survey are available.
            One method relies only on the demographic and health survey,
            and constructs a wealth index as a measure of economic
            advantage. The alternative method imputes consumption from
            the ancillary survey into the demographic and health survey.
            In both cases, the between-type share of overall inequality
            is computed as a lower bound estimator of inequality of
            opportunity. Parametric and non-parametric estimates are
            calculated for both methods, and the parametric approach is
            shown to yield preferable lower-bound measures. In an
            application to the sample of ever-married women aged 30-49
            in Turkey, inequality of opportunity accounts for at least
            26 percent (31 percent) of overall inequality in imputed
            consumption (the wealth index).
Measuring inequality of opportunity
            with imperfect data : the case of Turkey
WPS5204 Policy Research Working Paper 5204 Measuring Inequality of Opportunity with Imperfect Data The Case of Turkey _Francisco H. G. Ferreira Jérémie Gignoux Meltem Aran_ The World Bank Latin America and the Caribbean Region Office of the Chief Economist & Development Research Group Poverty and Inequality Team February 2010
A new approach to producing
            geographic profiles of HIV prevalence : an application to Malawi
Sub-national estimates of HIV prevalence
            can inform the design of policy responses to the HIV
            epidemic. Such responses also benefit from a better
            understanding of the correlates of HIV status, including the
            association between HIV and geographical characteristics of
            localities. In recent years, several countries in Africa
            have implemented household surveys (such as Demographic and
            Health Surveys) that include HIV testing of the adult
            population, providing estimates of HIV prevalence rates at
            the sub-national level. These surveys are known to suffer
            from non-response bias, but are nonetheless thought to
            represent a marked improvement over alternatives such as
            sentinel surveys. At present, however, most countries are
            not in a position to regularly field such household surveys.
            This paper proposes a new approach to the estimation of HIV
            prevalence for relatively small geographic areas in settings
            where national population-based surveys of prevalence are
            not available. The proposed approach aims to overcome some
            of the difficulties with prevailing methods of deriving HIV
            prevalence estimates (at both national and sub-national
            levels) directly from sentinel surveys. The paper also
            outlines some of the limitations of the proposed approach.
Climate cost uncertainty, retrofit
            cost uncertainty, and infrastructure closedown : a framework
            for analysis
Large and energy-intensive
            infrastructure investments with long life times have
            substantial implications for climate policy. This study
            focuses on options to scale down energy consumption and
            carbon emissions now and in the future, and on the costs of
            doing so. Two ways carbon emissions can be reduced
            post-investment include retrofitting the infrastructure, or
            closing it down. Generally, the presence of bulky
            infrastructure investments makes it more costly to reduce
            emissions later. Moreover, when expected energy and
            environmental costs are continually rising, inherent biases
            in the selection processes for infrastructure investments
            lead to excessive energy intensity in such investments. Thus
            great care must be taken when choosing the energy intensity
            of the infrastructure at the time of investment. Simulations
            indicate that optimally exercising the retrofit option, when
            it is available, reduces ex ante expected energy consumption
            relative to the no-option case. Total energy plus retrofit
            costs can also be substantially reduced, the more so the
            larger is ex ante cost uncertainty. However, the
            availability of the retrofit option also leads to a more
            energy intensive initial infrastructure choice; this offsets
            some, but usually not all, of the gains from options for
            subsequent retrofitting.
The impact of roads on poverty
            reduction : a case study of Cameroon
Many investments in infrastructure are
            built on the belief that they will ineluctably lead to
            poverty reduction and income generation. This has entailed
            massive aid-financed projects in roads in developing
            countries. However, the lack of robust evaluations and a
            comprehensive theoretical framework could raise questions
            about current strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the
            second Cameroonian national household survey (Enquete
            Camerounaise Aupres des Menages II, 2001) and the Cameroon
            case study, this paper demonstrates that investing uniformly
            in tarred roads in Africa is likely to have a much lower
            impact on poverty than expected.  Isolation from a tarred
            road is found to have no direct impact on consumption
            expenditures in Cameroon. The only impact is an indirect one
            in the access to labor activities. This paper reasserts the
            fact that access to roads is only one factor contributing to
            poverty reduction (and not necessarily the most important in
            many cases). Considering that increase in non-farming
            activities is the main driver for poverty reduction in rural
            Africa, the results contribute to the idea that emphasis on
            road investments should be given to locations where
            non-farming activities could be developed, which does mean
            that the last mile in rural areas probably should not be a road.
The short-term impact of higher food
            prices on poverty in Uganda
World prices for staple foods increased
            between 2006 and 2008, and accelerated sharply in 2008.
            Initial analysis indicated that the adverse effects of
            higher food prices in Uganda were likely to be small because
            of the diversity of its staple foods, high level of food
            self-sufficiency, and weak links with world markets. This
            paper extends the previous analyses, disaggregating by
            regions and individual food items, using more recent price
            data, and estimating the impact on consumption poverty. The
            analysis finds that poor households in Uganda tend to be net
            buyers of food staples, and therefore suffer welfare losses
            when food prices increase. This is most pronounced in urban
            areas, but holds true for most rural households as well. The
            diversity of staple foods has not been an effective buffer
            because of price increases across a range of staple foods.
            The paper estimates that both the incidence and depth of
            poverty have increased -- at least in the short run -- as a
            result of higher food prices in 2008, increasing by 2.6 and
            2.2 percentage points, respectively. The increase in poverty
            is highest in the Northern region, which is already the
            poorest in Uganda. The need for mitigating social protection
            measures appears to be greater than previously recognized.
            Not only are the negative impacts larger, but they are also
            much more widespread geographically. This suggests the need
            for continued close monitoring of the situation, including
            monitoring the adequacy of existing safety nets and feeding programs.
Building countercyclical fiscal
            policies in Latin America : the international experience
This paper reviews the international
            experience of developed and underdeveloped economies in
            reducing the pro-cyclicality and deficit bias of fiscal
            policies and promoting the adoption of effective
            countercyclical fiscal policy actions. The paper draws
            lessons and best international practices for building fiscal
            policy frameworks and adopting feasible countercyclical
            fiscal policies in Latin America. The authors review the
            main arguments regarding the proper role and limitations of
            countercyclical fiscal policies, and offer an evaluation of
            the international evidence demonstrating the typical
            pro-cyclicality and deficit bias of fiscal policy. The paper
            analyzes the international experience with fiscal
            frameworks, budgetary rules, and other mechanisms for
            implementing countercyclical fiscal policies, and describes
            the necessary preconditions for building a stable and
            effective countercyclical fiscal policy framework in Latin
            America. The authors review the international best practices
            for establishing a reliable and effective countercyclical
            fiscal policy in the region.
Distance and regionalization of
            trade for low-income countries
The "distance effect"
            measuring the elasticity of trade flows to distance has been
            rising since the early 1970s in a host of studies based on
            the gravity model, leading observers to call it the
            "distance puzzle". This paper reviews the evidence
            and explanations. Using an extensive data set of 124
            countries over the period 1970-2005, the authors confirm the
            existence of this puzzle and identify that it only applies
            to poor countries (the bottom third in per capita income
            terms in the sample -- i.e., the low-income countries
            according to the World Bank classification, 2006). The
            analysis shows that this group has intensified trade with
            closer partners and has chosen new partners that are closer
            than existing partners, leading to a regionalization of
            their trade at both extensive and intensive margins
            (regionalization of trade is absent for the other
            countries). Combining several methods on cross-section and
            panel estimates of the gravity equation, the authors
            estimate that low-income countries exhibit a significant
            rising distance effect on their trade, around 18 percent
            between 1970 and 2006. There is no more distance
            "puzzle" for trade within richer countries (the
            top third in per capita income terms in the sample). The
            paper disposes of several previous explanations of the
            puzzle, and notes that this regionalization could well be a
            reflection of increased integration of this group of
            countries in the world economy or greater marginalization.
Learning from the Chinese miracle :
            development lessons for Sub-Saharan Africa
A notable contrast in modern economic
            history has been the rapid economic growth of China and the
            slower and volatile economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.
            As the engagement between the two continues to grows, there
            will be a greater cross-fertilization of experiences. Total
            factor productivity comparisons suggest that capital
            accumulation in China coupled with more efficient factor
            usage explains the differential with Africa. Although the
            two have similar populations and patterns of inequality,
            their growth trajectories have been divergent. What can
            Africa learn from China? Although the lessons vary depending
            on country location and resource endowment, seven basic
            lessons are visible. First, the political economy of Chinese
            reforms and the shared gains between political elites and
            the private sector can be partially transplanted to the
            African context. Second, the Chinese used diaspora capital
            and knowledge in the early reform years. Third, rural
            reforms in China helped accelerate economic takeoff through
            a restructuring of property rights and a boost to both
            savings rates and output. Fourth, Chinese growth has taken
            place in the context of a competitive exchange rate. Five,
            port governance in China has been exemplary, and African
            landlocked economies can benefit significantly from port
            reform in the coastal countries. Six, China has experimented
            with a degree of decentralization that could yield benefits
            for many Sub-Saharan African countries. Seventh, Africa can
            learn from Chinas policies toward autonomous areas and
            ethnic minorities to stave off conflict. Africa can learn
            from Chinas experiences and conduct developmental
            experiments for poverty alleviation goals.
Intellectual property rights, human
            capital and the incidence of R&D expenditures
Numerous studies predict that developing
            countries with low human capital may not benefit from the
            strengthening of intellectual property rights. The authors
            extend an influential theoretical framework to highlight the
            role of intellectual property rights in the process of
            innovation and structural change. The resulting theory is
            consistent with a stylized fact that appears in the data,
            namely that countries with poor intellectual-property
            protection may accumulate human capital without a
            corresponding increase in research and development
            investment as a share of national income. The model predicts
            that without minimum intellectual-property protection,
            additional education may result in more imitation rather
            than innovation. The preponderance of the econometric
            evidence presented in this paper suggests that interactions
            between human capital and intellectual property rights
            determine global patterns of research and development
            effort, and intellectual property rights tend to raise the
            effect of education on the incidence of research and development.