rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
The evolving legal framework for
            private sector activity in Slovenia
The government of Slovenia is moving
            rapidly to promote the growth of an efficient market economy
            and the private sector.  One of the major tasks it faces is
            the development of a legal framework that can act as a
            decentralized "invisible hand" to replace previous
            administrative controls and steer the private market in an
            efficient direction.  This paper describes the current legal
            framework in Slovenia in several areas -- including
            constitutional, real property, intellectual property,
            company, foreign investment, bankruptcy, contract, and
            antimonopoly law.  These areas of law serve to define:  (a)
            property rights; (b) the means to exchange them; and (c) the
            rules for competitive market behavior.  In essence they form
            the bedrock of a legal system for a market economy.
Mortality reductions from measles
            and tetanus immunization : a review of the evidence
In recent years, tetanus and measles are
            estimated to account for more than 2.5 million childhood
            deaths annually; measles alone may account for more than 2
            million such deaths. The author reviews empirical evidence
            on the most effective and feasible strategies for measles
            and tetanus vaccination programs. He found that tetanus and
            measles immunization programs could significantly reduce
            deaths among children up to the age of 4 in many developing
            countries. Vaccinations had a pronounced effect in reducing
            childhood deaths from measles - with benefits sustained over
            time, and with the greatest benefits accruing to the most
            disadvantaged children. He found little support for the
            existence of a replacement mortality effect. Studies on
            maternal immunization against tetanus showed a great
            reduction in the number of neonatal deaths, but considerable
            uncertainty about the number of doses needed and how long
            the immunity lasted. Recent evidence suggests that giving
            the mother two doses of tetanus toxoid may confer
            significant levels of protection against neonatal death from
            tetanus for 15 years or more. Evidence on the impact of a
            single dose is less conclusive.
Comprehensive water resources
            management : a concept paper
The world is entering a period of
            intense competition for limited supplies of water for
            alternative uses - in agriculture, in urban and industrial
            supplies, for recreation, by wildlife, for human
            consumption, and to maintain environmental quality.
            Manifestations of this competition and our current ability
            to deal with it can be observed in many parts of the world.
            A large irrigation project in India does not operate because
            water has been diverted to the rapidly growing city of Pune.
            In China, industries are reducing their production because
            of water shortages.  In California, selenium salts leached
            by irrigation are killing wildlife.  Bank irrigation
            projects in Algeria are now competing with Bank urban water
            supply projects for the same water.  Many proposed
            irrigation projects and most hydro project proposals are on
            hold because of environmental concerns.  Until recently, the
            approaches taken in water planning management by planners in
            the developing countries and by analysts at the funding
            agencies were, by and large, appropriate and adequate to the
            task at hand.  The increased competition for water, however,
            makes most of the project-by-project planning methods
            inadequate.  The author discusses new approaches that are
            needed to integrate water resource use among different users
            and across different economic sectors.
The distribution of the benefits
            from social services in Indonesia, 1978-87
Indonesia has made great progress in the
            past fifteen years in giving the poor more access to
            privately provided goods such as food, clothing, and
            housing.  The author analyzes how much progress has been
            made in improving their access to two publicly provided
            social services, education and health care.  She finds that
            given existing patterns of use, education spending is more
            efficient at directly reaching the poor than is health
            spending.  In the education sector, subsidies to primary
            education are most likely to reach poorer households and
            raise their living standards.  In the late 1980s,
            enrollments remained higher for urban than for rural areas,
            for male than for female children, and for the Outer Islands
            than for Java.  But rates of improvement in enrollments
            during the last decade have been higher for rural, female,
            and poorer children than for the urban, male, and richer
            counterparts. The results indicate that rising living
            standards played a part in raising enrollment.  But other
            factors were substantially more important - public policy
            aimed at increasing the number of primary schools and
            teachers and at lowering the costs of attending school.  In
            the health sector, subsidies to basic primary health care
            provide the best avenue for reaching the poor, but they are
            far from ideal as an instrument for doing so.
Measure and interpretation of
            effective protection in the presence of high capital costs :
            evidence from India
This paper is derived from a previous
            working paper prepared within a comprehensive review of
            India's trade regime and protection policies. One
            striking feature of India's protection structure has
            been the very high tariffs and protection on capital goods,
            thereby harming industrial competitiveness (and export
            potential) and distorting industrial incentives as they are
            indicated by Effective Protection Rates (EPRs). This paper
            presents three main themes. First, it provides a brief
            refresher on the definition of EPR and its limited
            interpretation as a measure of the scope for inefficiency or
            extra-profit resulting from protection, with a simple
            geometrical representation. In the second part, the paper
            introduces the notions and formulae of Corrected Effective
            Protection Rates (CEPR) and Net Effective Protection (NEPR),
            also with a geometrical representation. Finally, the paper
            tests the relevance of these notions, and assesses their
            magnitude -- in the case of India on the basis of a sample
            of some 60 industrial projects. A brief conclusion
            summarizes the major findings and draws some tentative conclusions.
Rural finance in developing countries
The establishment of formal agricultural
            credit systems in most developing countries in recent
            decades has been motivated by the belief that widespread
            shortages of short- and long-term finance have arrested
            agricultural growth and development.  The lack of affordable
            formal credit has been blamed for delaying, if not
            preventing, the timely adoption of new production technology
            and intensive nonlabor inputs.  Commercial lending
            institutions generally focus on large-scale farmers and
            ignore small-scale farmers because of the significant cost
            of processing and servicing unsecured small loans and the
            prevalent belief that small entrepreneurs represent a
            greater risk than large ones.  The shortage of strong formal
            credit markets has caused informal credit institutions to
            flourish in many developing countries.  These informal
            institutions disburse funds rapidly, and the transaction
            costs for borrowers are low.  Many specialized agricultural
            credit institutions have suffered from design deficiencies.
            They often were not expected to function as true financial
            intermediaries that mobilize deposits to make loans.
            Arrangements such as lending groups and credit cooperatives
            could reduce both transaction costs and the risks involved
            in lending to small farmers.  For a rural financial
            institution to become viable, state or donor support should
            focus on institution-building and development.
How health insurance affects the
            delivery of health care in developing countries
Financial crisis is a common state of
            affairs in the government health sector of many developing
            countries, and an increasing number are considering
            implementing user charges and insurance programs to shift
            some of the financial burden for health services away from
            direct budget allocations by a health ministry. Although
            they are often implemented as ways of mobilizing additional
            resources, prices and insurance also affect the allocation
            of health resources by changing the signals sent to
            producers and consumers of health services. Changes in
            incentives engendered by these alternative financing
            programs, therefore, have implications for the efficiency
            and equity of health services delivery, in addition to their
            more obvious impact on revenues. This paper examines
            institutional aspects of insurance programs in four
            developing countries - Brazil, China, Korea, and Zaire - and
            assesses the impact of each on the efficiency and equity of
            the health sector. Much attention is given to insurance
            reimbursement of hospitals because these represent the
            largest component of national health expenditures and are
            the focal point for much of the activity in the sector. The
            case study countries were selected because their hospitals
            are financed largely, and in descriptions of their health
            financing systems exit. Understanding how alternative
            financing programs have distorted the allocation of health
            resources and how these distortions might be mitigated is
            important for these countries and others considering changes
            to their present system of health care financing.
Fiscal adjustment and the real
            exchange rate : the case of Bangladesh
The author examines the effect of fiscal
            adjustment on the real exchange rate. The argument is made
            that the direction and extent of that effect depends on the
            way fiscal adjustment is carried out. If a fiscal deficit is
            reduced mainly by reducing total government spending, the
            effect on the real exchange rate depends on whether the
            adjustment is achieved through proportionate cuts in both
            capital and current spending or through disproportionately
            greater cuts in capital spending. A disproportionately high
            cut in capital spending affects the composition of
            government spending between tradables and nontradables.
            Econometric estimates of the model for Bangladesh show that
            the propensity to spend on nontradables is greater for
            government spending than for private, and greater for the
            government's current spending than for its capital
            spending. The author emphasizes two important implications
            of fiscal adjustment for developing countries like
            Bangladesh : a) when fiscal adjustment involves
            unsustainably heavy cuts in capital spending, appreciation
            of the real exchange rate misaligns that rate, causing
            misallocation of resources and b) when disproportionate cuts
            in capital spending occur at the same time as trade
            liberalization, appreciation of the real exchange rate
            undermines the effectiveness of trade.
The rationale and performance of
            personal pension plans in Chile
Many developing countries, especially in
            Latin America and Eastern Europe, have unfunded
            pay-as-you-go public pension systems that face growing
            financial pressures.  These emanate from a weak link between
            contributions and benefits, from widespread evasion, and
            from an aging population.  Chile successfully reformed its
            public pension system in 1981 when it introduced a
            government mandated and regulated, but privately managed
            system.  Based on individual capitalization accounts
            operated by specialized financial institutions, known as,
            Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones (AFPs), the system
            has provided a considerable scope for competition and
            efficiency within a well-regulated environment.  The authors
            analyze the rationale of the Chilean pension system and
            examine in detail the rules and provisions regarding
            coverage, contribution rates, pension benefits, and
            investment regulations.  They also provide a detailed
            assessment of the structure and performance of the system,
            its impact on financial sector development, and the role of
            regulation and supervision.  The Chilean experience shows
            that there is a positive dynamic interaction between pension
            funds and securities markets so long as a strong regulatory
            and supervisory mechanism is in place.  It has also shown
            that it is feasible to finance the costs of transition from
            an unfunded to a funded system.
Regulatory and institutional impacts
            of securities market computerization
Advances in information technology have
            brought new ways of structuring, operating, and supervising
            securities markets.  The Bank's policy advice in
            institutional reform of securities markets should reflect
            awareness of the opportunities and problems this presents.
            As a guide to best practice, the author provides basic
            operational and policy tools that take account of the
            importance of information technology in two securities
            market functions - trading, and clearance and settlement.
            He suggests that information technology systems pose new
            technical problems for market supervisors and can affect the
            rights and obligations of market participants.  He provides
            policy principles that take these factors into account, to
            guide the planning, evaluation, and supervision of trading
            and clearance and settlement systems that include an
            information technology component.  He explains how the
            processes and functions of a securities market can be
            performed in a variety of ways, using both manual and
            information technology approaches.   Highly sophisticated
            information technology systems are not always necessary or
            desirable, but the well-planned use of information
            technology can improve a security market's efficiency,
            fairness, and stability.  Clarity of objectives, good
            planning, and a clear grasp of operational implications are
            important in effectively evaluating proposals for developing
            securities markets with an information technology component.
Private saving in Mexico, 1980-90
Between 1987 and 1990, Mexico's
            current account and trade balance deteriorated by more than
            US$10 billion. Higher investment accounts only partly for
            this deterioration; nor can it be attributed to the public
            sector. By conventional (unadjusted) measures of private
            saving - the total investment not financed by public or
            foreign savings - private saving did decline sharply between
            1987 and 1990.  But that diagnosis does not hold true when
            private, public, and foreign savings are corrected (as they
            are here) to account for shifts in portfolio composition
            from foreign to domestic assets, for the effects of
            inflation on foreign and domestic interest income (the
            inflation tax), for fluctuations in the real exchange rate,
            and for other factors. Arrau and Oks provide information
            about the components of private saving by asking questions
            such as these: Is consumption more important than disposable
            income in explaining changes in private saving?  What
            components of consumption and disposable income matter most?
            The following are among the conclusions:  When conventional
            measures of private saving are corrected, the recent decline
            in private saving appears less important than it did before.
            Most variations in private saving between 1980 and 1990 are
            ascribable to fluctuations in disposable income.  The sharp
            drop in private saving in 1990 was prompted primarily by a
            decline in disposable income and, less so, by fast-growing consumption.
Food security and health security :
            explaining the levels of nutrition in Pakistan
Most influential studies of malnutrition
            and public policy have focused on energy availability and
            consumption, tending to equate hunger with malnutrition. But
            recent studies have explored how other factors - notably
            infection and levels of maternal education - affect
            nutrition. Alderman and Garcia's study of nutrition
            levels in Pakistan shows that raising household food
            consumption, for example, has less impact on nutritional
            levels than raising a mother's education does. They
            found that educating mothers to at least the primary level
            tends to reduce the level of child stunting 16.5 percent, or
            roughly 10 times the impact achieved by increasing per
            capita income 10 percent. (The impact of education is not
            immediately realized; the diffusion of knowledge about good
            hygiene and child care associated with learning has a
            cumulative effect.) Alderman and Garcia found that in
            Pakistan, food security alone is not enough to improve
            children's nutritional status. There may be welfare
            justifications for various food policies, but in rural
            Pakistan, especially, it is equally important to improve
            health and reduce infection.
Latin American women's earnings
            and participation in the labor force
Using historical census data and the
            latest household surveys, the authors investigate changes in
            female employment in Latin America, the factors that
            determine women's participation in the labor force, and
            the reasons for the gap between men's and women's
            earnings.  The authors find, to their surprise, that despite
            worsened economic conditions since the 1970s, women's
            participation in the labor force has increased significantly
            since the 1950s. One explanation may be that women
            benefitted disproportionately from expansion of the public
            sector.  The factors that have most affected women's
            decisions to join the work force have been education and
            family conditions.  Creating opportunities for women's
            education and employment when such factors are absent will
            improve efficiency and reduce poverty.  Other policy based
            factors that can affect women's participation in the
            work force include the availability of family planning
            services and child-care facilities.  Women's
            participation in the labor force can also be affected by
            improving family law and tax regulations that create
            hardships for women, especially in the Caribbean.  In all of
            the countries studied, women are rewarded less than men and
            gender differences in human capital endowments account for
            an average of about a third of the observed difference in
            earnings - prima facie evidence of discrimination.  On the
            other hand, women appear to be rewarded more proportionate
            to their human capital endowments than men are.
The restrictiveness of the
            multi-fibre arrangement on Eastern European trade
Historically, Eastern Europe has not
            been favorably treated in terms of quota growth in the
            European Community and U.S. markets - often quite the
            contrary. But the EC and U.S. treatment of these countries
            has already changed since their reform and can be expected
            to become even more favorable. Eastern Europe's exports
            of textiles and clothing have tended to be more
            capital-intensive and less specialized than those of other
            major suppliers, including Asia's newly industrialized
            economies. Erzan and Holmes argue that Eastern Europe's
            expansion of relatively labor-intensive products has
            probably been inhibited by quotas and by the weak adjustment
            mechanisms inherent in a centrally planned economic system.
            If so, given market reforms in Eastern Europe, exports of
            labor-intensive textiles and clothing should expand more
            than proportionately and the degree of specialization should
            increase if the Multi-Fibre Arrangement is abolished or its
            grip on Eastern Europe's exports is relaxed in the EC.
            Putting aside questions of the composition of exports,
            textile and clothing exports are to expand considerably
            because they make up a large part of labor-intensive
            manufacturers, where Eastern Europe's comparative
            advantage lies in the near future.
How financial markets affect long
            run growth : a cross country study
Empirical studies on new growth theory
            have tended to ignore financial policy's role in
            development.  The author provides evidence that the initial
            level of financial development is positively associated with
            a country's later GDP growth rate, after controlling
            for the effect of the starting value of human capital and
            the investment rate.  A country that starts with a more
            developed financial system tends to grow faster because it
            can make more efficient use of resources.  It can do so
            through several channels, including better evaluation and
            monitoring of firms, lower transaction costs for financial
            intermediation, and externalities generated from information
            collected and processed in financial markets.  Policy reform
            that fosters financial development also has a significant
            positive effect on the growth rate of real GDP.  The
            empirical evidence presented for 50 developing countries
            tends to reinforce a classical theme of development
            economics: the importance of human capital and financial markets.