rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Commodity Price Shocks : Order
            within Chaos
The prices of 27 internationally traded
            commodities are decomposed into transitory and permanent
            shocks by applying an ideal band-pass filter to monthly data
            from 1970–2020. The two types of shocks contributed roughly
            equally to price variations, but with wide heterogeneity.
            Permanent shocks ac-counted for two-thirds of the
            variability in agricultural prices but less than 30 percent
            in energy prices. The transitory shock component revealed
            three medium-term cycles. The first (from the early 1970s to
            the mid-1980s) and third (from the early 2000s to 2020
            onward) exhibit similar duration and involve almost all
            commodities, while the second (spanning the 1990s) is mostly
            applicable to metals, with the notable absence of energy.
            The permanent shock components differ across commodities,
            with an up-ward trend for most industrial commodities and
            downward trend for agriculture. Moreover, the permanent
            component of commodity prices where investment is
            irreversible, including energy, metals, and tree crops,
            exhibits a high degree of nonlinearities, which also
            coincide with the two post–World War II supercycles. By
            contrast, the permanent component of annual agricultural
            prices is linear, reflecting greater flexibility in
            investment allocation and input use of these commodities.
            Prices of commodities subjected to widespread policy
            interventions, such as international commodity agreements,
            exhibit persistent deviations from linear trends.
Decrypting New Age International
            Capital Flows
This paper employs high frequency
            transactions data on the world’s oldest and most extensive
            centralized peer-to-peer Bitcoin market, which enables trade
            in the currencies of more than 135 countries. It presents an
            algorithm that allows, with high probability, the detection
            of “crypto vehicle transactions” in which crypto currency is
            used to move capital across borders or facilitate domestic
            transactions. In contrast to previous work which has used
            “on-chain” data, this paper’s approach enables one to
            investigate parts of the vastly larger pool of “off-chain”
            transactions. Finding that, as a conservative lower bound,
            over 7 percent of the 45 million trades on the exchange we
            explore represent crypto vehicle transactions in which
            Bitcoin is used to make payments in fiat currency. Roughly
            20 percent of these represent international capital
            flight/flows/remittances.  Although this work cannot be used
            to put a price on cryptocurrencies, it provides the first
            systematic quantitative evidence that the transactional use
            of cryptocurrencies constitutes a fundamental component of
            their value, at least under the current regulatory regime.
What Have We Learned about the
            Effectiveness of Infrastructure Investment as a Fiscal
            Stimulus ? A Literature Review
Since the Great Depression of the 1930s,
            and through the more recent Asian Crisis of 1997 and Great
            Recession of 2008/09, governments have experimented with
            Keynesian style fiscal stimulus to support employment and
            accelerate economic recovery. The effectiveness of these
            policies depends on the size of fiscal multipliers. A large
            body of economic literature has estimated such multipliers,
            with gradually increasing precision, due to econometric
            improvements and better ways to identify fiscal impulses.
            Overall, the largest multipliers are found to be associated
            with public investment, as opposed to other types of
            spending. Such public investment multipliers are typically
            below one in the short run, but studies with multi-year
            horizons suggest that values higher than unity can be
            attained over time. The size of multipliers is sensitive to
            economic conditions. During recessions, and periods of high
            unemployment, transfer payments appear sometimes to offer
            higher multipliers than public investment. An important
            exception is when fiscal and monetary policies are closely
            coordinated and interest rates approach zero, conditions
            that provide the strongest evidence for the efficacy of
            public investment multipliers. Other institutional factors
            also play a crucial role in determining the size of the
            public investment multiplier, in particular the
            country&#x2019;s absorptive capacity, and the selection
            of high-quality shovel ready projects. However, there is
            limited empirical evidence available on the magnitude of
            fiscal multipliers in developing country settings, or for
            infrastructure sectors or subsectors specifically. The few
            studies available suggest that certain types of green
            infrastructure (energy efficiency, solar energy, and so
            forth) may bring employment benefits in the short run, while
            innovative digital infrastructure may yield longer-run
            benefits for economic growth. The relevance of these
            findings to the current COVID-19 crisis is explored.
Governance Drivers of Rural Water
            Sustainability : Collaboration in Frontline Service Delivery
This paper contributes to a
            long-standing debate in development practice: Under what
            conditions can externally established participatory groups
            engage in the collective management of services beyond the
            life of a project? Using 10 years of panel data on water
            point functionality from Indonesia&#x2019;s rural water
            program, the Program for Community-Based Water Supply and
            Sanitation, the paper explores the determinants of
            subnational variation in infrastructure sustainability. It
            then investigates positive and negative deviance cases to
            answer why some communities have successfully engaged in
            system management despite being located in difficult
            conditions as per quantitative findings and vice versa. The
            findings show that differences in the implementation of
            community participation, driven by local social relations
            between frontline service providers, that is, village
            authorities and water user groups, explain sustainable
            management. This initial condition of state-society
            relations influences how the project is initiated, kicking
            off negative or positive reinforcing pathways, leading to
            community collective action or exit. The paper concludes
            that the relationships between frontline government
            representatives and community actors are an important and
            underexamined aspect of the ability of external projects to
            generate successful community-led management of public goods.
A Mountain of Debt : Navigating the
            Legacy of the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a
            massive increase in global debt levels and exacerbated the
            trade-offs between the benefits and costs of accumulating
            government debt. This paper examines these trade-offs by
            putting the recent debt boom into a historical context. It
            reports three major findings. First, during the 2020 global
            recession, both global government and private debt levels
            rose to record highs, and at their fastest single-year pace,
            in five decades. Second, the debt-financed, massive fiscal
            support programs implemented during the pandemic supported
            activity and illustrated the benefits of accumulating debt.
            However, as the recovery gains traction, the balance of
            benefits and costs of debt accumulation could increasingly
            tilt toward costs. Third, more than two-thirds of emerging
            market and developing economies are currently in government
            debt booms. On average, the current booms have already
            lasted three years longer, and are accompanied by a
            considerably larger fiscal deterioration, than earlier
            booms. About half of the earlier debt booms were associated
            with financial crises in emerging market and developing economies.
Corruption in Customs
This paper presents a new methodology to
            detect corruption in customs and applies it to
            Madagascar&#x2019;s main port. Manipulation of
            assignment of import declarations to inspectors is
            identified by measuring deviations from random assignment
            prescribed by official rules. Deviant declarations are more
            at risk of tax evasion, yet less likely to be deemed
            fraudulent by inspectors, who also clear them faster. An
            intervention in which inspector assignment was delegated to
            a third party validates the approach, but also triggered a
            novel manifestation of manipulation that rejuvenated
            systemic corruption. Tax revenue losses associated with the
            corruption scheme are approximately 3 percent of total taxes
            collected and highly concentrated among a select few
            inspectors and brokers.
Demand Analysis of Multiple Goods
            and Services in Vietnam
In 1986 the &#x110;ổi M&#x1edb;i
            reform changed the economic and social policies in Vietnam,
            triggering steep economic growth and the shift from a low-
            to a middle-income economy. In parallel to the economic
            growth, Vietnam also experienced rapid social and
            demographic change, which resulted in modified consumption
            behavior. This paper estimates a Quadratic Almost Ideal
            Demand System, obtaining income and own- and cross-price
            elasticities for 10 groups of goods and services that can
            contribute to the further economic development of Vietnam.
            To control for potential bias generated by unobserved
            quality substitution and endogenous unit values, the
            analysis adopts an instrumental variable method. The results
            show that household equipment, clothing and accessories,
            telecommunication, transport, and medical and health
            services are responsive to income changes, while food,
            foodstuffs, beverages and tobacco, education, and
            electricity are income inelastic. Moreover, the analysis
            detects complementarity between education and the rest of
            the goods and services, and substitution between health care
            and household equipment, clothing, and telecommunication
            services. These results help in understanding recent
            socioeconomic development patterns in Vietnam and provide
            updated evidence to support business decisions and economic
            policy planning.
Fair Inheritance Taxation
This paper studies the optimal taxation
            of bequests in a model in which individuals have
            heterogeneous preferences over their consumption and the
            net-of-tax bequest received by their heir. The bequest left
            by an individual depends on both her degree of altruism and
            the bequest received from her parents. First, the paper
            studies two principles that are at the heart of the debates
            on taxing inheritances: (1) children should not be penalized
            by the lack of altruism of their parents, and (2) parents
            should be free to choose their bequests. Only one social
            welfare function satisfies these two principles, together
            with Pareto efficiency and a separability principle. Second,
            the paper studies the shape of the inheritance tax scheme
            that maximizes this social welfare function. It shows that
            in the aggregate, the inheritance tax must collect money
            (redistributed through a non-negative demogrant). Moreover,
            small bequests cannot be taxed (they can potentially be
            subsidized), while bequests that are larger than those of
            the most altruistic individuals who did not receive bequests
            from their parents should be taxed as much as efficiency permits.
A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall? :
            New Insights on Water Security and Fragility in the Sahel
Do Sahelian countries face specific
            risks of water-related conflict? Sahelian countries face
            growing fragility and climate
            challenges&#x2014;especially those belonging to the
            Group of Five Sahel States (known as the G5
            Sahel)&#x2014;Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and
            Niger. This study examines how their relation to water
            availability and irrigation infrastructure factors in. It
            documents that the G5 Sahel countries, given their high
            baseline water scarcity and state fragility, face a higher
            risk of conflict over water resources compared to the rest
            of Africa. This is demonstrated through empirical analyses
            using geospatial data and exploiting (i) climate-induced
            variation in water availability, and (ii) an event study
            analysis of conflict trends, which sharply increased
            post-2010 in the region following the Arab Spring and the
            rise of the Boko Haram. Irrigated areas are found to be
            important for buffering against weather shocks but are also
            more prone to targeting during conflict events compared to
            non-irrigated regions. The evidence suggests that this
            reflects increased competition for scarce (fertile)
            resources between state and rebel groups on this climate
            frontier with a well-documented history of agropastoral
            conflict. Other regions of Africa are not found to
            experience similar conflict related to water resources.
            These findings are especially pertinent for informing
            projects and policy interventions in fragile countries as
            post-COVID-19 recovery and climate action plans are rolled out.
Measuring the Economic Impact of
            COVID-19 with Real-Time Electricity Indicators
The COVID-19 pandemic is posing
            unprecedented challenges, making it difficult for policy
            makers to design appropriate policies.  In this context,
            real-time information can play a most valuable role for
            policy makers in developing countries, particularly since
            official economic indicators, such as the evolution of GDP
            and unemployment, not only are released with considerable
            delays, but also are not always fully reliable. This paper
            follows the literature by using the dependent variable
            electricity consumption per capita as a proxy measure of
            economic activity in the short run. Based on this method, it
            examines the short-run economic impact of the pandemic
            itself, as well as the public health restrictions that were
            adopted to control the outbreak and the macro-economic
            measures applied to revive the economy. The analysis
            confirms the significant cost of lockdown measures in terms
            of reduction in economic activity but finds that the spread
            of the disease itself had an economic impact distinct from
            that of the lockdown measures. The analysis shows that the
            use of expansionary fiscal and monetary policies also played
            a key role in mitigating such an impact, driving some
            initial recovery. Finally, the evidence points to a complete
            structural break in economic activity at the onset of the
            lockdown period.
COVID-19 Age-Mortality Curves for
            2020 Are Flatter in Developing Countries Using Both Official
            Death Counts and Excess Deaths
Using official COVID-19 death counts for
            64 countries and excess death estimates for 41 countries,
            this paper finds a higher share of pandemic-related deaths
            in 2020 were at younger ages in middle-income countries
            compared to high-income countries. People under age 65
            constituted on average (1) 11 percent of both official
            deaths and excess deaths in high-income countries, (2) 40
            percent of official deaths and 37 percent of excess deaths
            in upper-middle-income countries, and (3) 54 percent of
            official deaths in lower-middle-income countries. These
            contrasting profiles are due only in part to differences in
            population age structure. Both COVID-19 and excess death
            age-mortality curves are flatter in countries with lower
            incomes. This is a result of some combination of variation
            in age patterns of infection rates and infection fatality
            rates. In countries with very low death rates, excess
            mortality is substantially negative at older ages,
            suggesting that pandemic-related precautions have lowered
            non-COVID-19 deaths. Additionally, the United States has a
            younger distribution of deaths than countries with similar
            levels of income.
Understanding Drivers of Decoupling
            of Global Transport CO2 Emissions from Economic Growth :
            Evidence from 145 Countries
This paper examines the extent to which
            countries have succeeded in decoupling transport emissions
            from economic growth, and how changes in emissions
            intensity, economic growth, and population growth have
            contributed to changes in transportation-related emissions.
            The paper employs a modified version of the Tapio decoupling
            model, and demonstrates that over the 1990&#x2013;2018
            study period only 12 of 145 countries achieved
            &#x201c;absolute decoupling,&#x201d; defined as
            reducing emissions while growing gross domestic product. The
            majority of the top emitters remain in a
            &#x201c;relative decoupling&#x201d; state, with
            emissions growing more slowly than gross domestic product.
            Many of the middle- and low-income countries have not
            achieved decoupling; their emissions are growing as fast as
            or faster than gross domestic product. To understand the
            driving factors of transport-related carbon emissions, the
            paper conducts index-decomposition and an econometric
            analysis. The results reveal that while transportation
            emission intensity has declined in most countries, economic
            growth and population growth have offset these declines. If
            these patterns continue, achieving the goals of the Paris
            Agreement with improvements in efficiency alone seems
            unrealistic. The paper also shows evidence that higher
            energy prices are associated with strong emissions reduction.
Firm Recovery during COVID-19 : Six
            Stylized Facts
Building on prior work that documented
            the impact of COVID-19 on firms in developing countries
            using the first wave of Business Pulse Surveys, this paper
            presents a new set of stylized facts on firm recovery,
            covering 65,000 observations in 38 countries. This paper
            suggests that: One, since the outset of the pandemic, some
            aspects of business performance such as sales show signs of
            partial recovery. Two, other aspects remain challenging,
            including persistently high uncertainty and financial
            fragility. Three, recovery is heterogeneous across firms and
            more sensitive to firm-level attributes such as size,
            sector, and initial productivity than to country-level
            differences in the severity of the initial shock. In
            particular, larger and more productive firms are recovering
            faster, with implications for competition policy and
            allocative efficiency. Four, the decline in jobs has been
            steeper during the initial shock than the expansion in
            employment during recovery, raising the risk of a
            "jobless" recovery pattern. Five, the diffusion of
            digital technology and product innovation accelerated during
            the pandemic but did so unevenly, further widening gaps
            between small and large firms. Six, businesses now have more
            access to policy support, but poorer countries continue to
            lag behind and appropriate targeting of firms remains a challenge.
Under What Conditions Are Data
            Valuable for Development
Data produced by the public sector can
            have transformational impacts on development outcomes
            through better targeting of resources, improved service
            delivery, cost savings in policy implementation, increased
            accountability, and more. Around the world, the amount of
            data produced by the public sector is increasing at a rapid
            pace, yet their transformational impacts have not been
            realized fully. Why has the full value of these data not
            been realized yet? This paper outlines 12 conditions needed
            for the production and use of public sector data to generate
            value for development and presents case studies
            substantiating these conditions. The conditions are that
            data need to have adequate spatial and temporal coverage
            (are complete, frequent, and timely), are of high quality
            (are accurate, comparable, and granular), are easy to use
            (are accessible, understandable, and interoperable), and are
            safe to use (are impartial, confidential, and appropriate).
Integration in Global Value Chains —
            The Role of Service Inputs : Evidence from India
This paper investigates the relationship
            between the use of service inputs and integration in global
            value chains. Using macro and detailed firm-level data (for
            1990&#x2013;2017), the study documents the extent of
            India&#x2019;s integration into global value chains.
            Older, larger, and more productive firms and firms with a
            higher leverage ratio are more likely to be deeply
            integrated into global value chains. Firms in the
            information technology services and electronics industry are
            more deeply integrated into global value chains, compared
            with textiles. Services are the engine for many global value
            chain industries as they help coordinate the different
            stages of production across geographical locations. The
            findings suggest that both the intensity of service usage as
            well as the composition or type of service used are
            important. Firms using service inputs, particularly complex
            services and information technology and information
            technology&#x2013;enabling services intensively are
            typically more deeply integrated into global value chains.