rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Does management matter evidence from India
A long-standing question in social
            science is to what extent differences in management cause
            differences in firm performance. To investigate this, the
            authors ran a management field experiment on large Indian
            textile firms, providing free consulting on modern
            management practices to a randomly chosen set of treatment
            plants and compared their performance to the control plants.
            They find that adopting these management practices had three
            main effects. First, it raised average productivity by 11
            percent through improved quality and efficiency and reduced
            inventory. Second, it increased decentralization of decision
            making, as better information flow enabled owners to
            delegate more decisions to middle managers. Third, it
            increased the use of computers, necessitated by the data
            collection and analysis involved in modern management. Since
            these practices were profitable this raises the question of
            why firms had not adopted these before. Their results
            suggest that informational barriers were a primary factor in
            explaining this lack of adoption. Modern management is a
            technology that diffuses slowly between firms, with many
            Indian firms initially unaware of its existence or impact.
            Since competition was limited by constraints on firm entry
            and growth, badly managed firms were not rapidly driven from
            the market.
Life satisfaction and income inequality
Do people care about income inequality
            and does income inequality affect subjective well-being?
            Welfare theories can predict either a positive or a negative
            impact of income inequality on subjective well-being and
            empirical research has found evidence on a positive,
            negative or non significant relation. This paper attempts to
            determine some of the possible causes of such empirical
            heterogeneity. Using a very large sample of world citizens,
            the author tests the consistency of income inequality in
            predicting life satisfaction. The analysis finds that income
            inequality has a negative and significant effect on life
            satisfaction. This result is robust to changes in regressors
            and estimation choices and also persists across different
            income groups and across different types of countries.
            However, this relation is easily obscured or reversed by
            multicollinearity generated by the use of country and year
            fixed effects. This is particularly true if the number of
            data points for inequality is small, which is a common
            feature of cross-country or longitudinal studies.
Primary commodity prices :
            co-movements, common factors and fundamentals
The behavior of commodities is critical
            for developing and developed countries alike. This paper
            contributes to the empirical evidence on the co-movement and
            determinants of commodity prices. Using nonstationary panel
            methods, the authors document a statistically significant
            degree of co-movement due to a common factor. Within a
            Factor Augmented VAR approach, real interest rate and
            uncertainty, as postulated by a simple asset pricing model,
            are both found to be negatively related to this common
            factor. This evidence is robust to the inclusion of demand
            and supply shocks, which both positively impact on
            co-movement of commodity prices.
How does public information on
            central bank intervention strategies affect exchange rate
            volatility the case of Peru
Intervention operations in the foreign
            exchange market are used by the Banco Central de Reserva del
            Peru to manage both the level and volatility of their
            exchange rates. The Banco Central de Reserva del Peru
            provides information to the market about the specific hours
            of the day interventions would take place and the total
            amount of intervention. It consistently buys and sells on
            the foreign exchange market to avoid large appreciations and
            depreciations of the Peruvian nuevo sol against the U.S.
            dollar (Sol/USD), respectively. The estimates in this paper
            indicate that past information on interventions has moved
            the sol in the intended direction but only during the time
            the Banco Central de Reserva del Peru has announced it would
            be active in the foreign exchange market. The authors also
            find that the expectation of future interventions by the
            Banco Central de Reserva del Peru decreases the volatility
            of the sol when it intervenes to avoid an appreciation of
            the sol; however, the opposite occurs when the intervention
            takes place to defend the sol from depreciation. Indeed, the
            sol has been less volatile during periods when the Banco
            Central de Reserva del Peru has intervened than otherwise.
Trade integration as a way forward
            for the Arab world : a regional agenda
The current political turmoil for more
            open and participative societies in many Arab countries
            coupled with the emergence of new growth poles around the
            world could create the conditions for a big push toward
            greater regional and global trade integration of the Arab
            world. Further integrating Arab countries among themselves
            and opening up the region to the rest of the world are two
            complementary avenues to improve market access, promote
            behind-the-border regulatory reforms, facilitate cooperation
            on regional public goods, foster the emergence of an
            "Arab factory" through regional supply chains and
            productions networks, and eventually create the conditions
            for more and better paid jobs for the growing Arab
            workforce. A more ambitious trade agenda in the context of
            the Pan-Arab Free Trade Area would be a good place to start.
            Although difficult and challenging, and requiring a good
            dosage of flexibility and variable geometry, such an agenda
            would consist of (1) completing the free movement of goods
            within the Pan-Arab Free Trade Area, notably through the
            elimination of unnecessary non-tariff barriers; (2)
            implementing a regional initiative to liberalize services
            trade, including identifying a number of pilot service
            sectors for early regional liberalization; and (3)
            strengthening the rules and discipline applicable to
            regional trade and other policies of common interest.
Risk-coping through sexual networks
            : evidence from client transfers in Kenya
Why do women engage in transactional
            sex? While much of the explanation is that sex-for-money
            pays more than other jobs, this paper uses a unique panel
            dataset constructed from 192 self-reported diaries of sex
            workers in Western Kenya to show that women who supply
            transactional sex develop relationships with regular
            clients, and that these clients send transfers in response
            to negative income shocks. Regular clients are the primary
            source of inter-person insurance that women receive, and
            women report in a separate survey that client transfers are
            an important reason that they participate in the market.
How do special economic zones and
            industrial clusters drive China's rapid development
In the past 30 years, China has achieved
            phenomenal economic growth, an unprecedented development
            "miracle" in human history. How did China achieve
            this rapid growth? What have been its key drivers? And, most
            important, what can be learned from China's success?
            Policy makers, business people, and scholars all over the
            world continue to debate these topics, but one thing is
            clear: the numerous special economic zones and industrial
            clusters that emerged after the country's reforms are
            without doubt two important engines of China's
            remarkable development. The special economic zones and
            industrial clusters have made crucial contributions to
            China's economic success. Foremost, the special
            economic zones (especially the first several) successfully
            tested the market economy and new institutions and became
            role models for the rest of the country to follow. Together
            with the numerous industrial clusters, the special economic
            zones have contributed significantly to gross domestic
            product, employment, exports, and attraction of foreign
            investment. The special economic zones have also played
            important roles in bringing new technologies to China and in
            adopting modern management practices. This study briefly
            summarizes the development experiences of China's
            special economic zones and industrial clusters (their
            formation, success factors, challenges, and possible areas
            or measures for policy intervention), based on case studies,
            interviews, field visits, and extensive reviews of the
            existing literature in an attempt to benefit other
            developing countries as well as the broader development community.
Using the Oaxaca-Blinder
            decomposition technique to analyze learning outcomes changes
            over time : an application to Indonesia's results in
            PISA mathematics
The Oaxaca-Blinder technique was
            originally used in labor economics to decompose earnings
            gaps and to estimate the level of discrimination. It has
            been applied since in other social issues, including
            education, where it can be used to assess how much of a gap
            is due to differences in characteristics (explained
            variation) and how much is due to policy or system changes
            (unexplained variation). The authors apply the decomposition
            technique in an effort to analyze the increase in
            Indonesia's score in PISA mathematics. Between 2003 and
            2006, Indonesia's score increased by 30 points, or 0.3
            of a standard deviation. The test score increase is assessed
            in relation to family, student, school and institutional
            characteristics. The gap over time is decomposed into its
            constituent components based on the estimation of cognitive
            achievement production functions. The decomposition results
            suggest that almost the entire test score increase is
            explained by the returns to characteristics, mostly related
            to student age. However, the authors find that the adequate
            supply of teachers also plays a role in test score changes.
Laws for fiscal responsibility for
            subnational discipline : international experience
Fiscal responsibility laws are
            institutions with which multiple governments in the same
            economy -- national and subnational --can commit to help
            avoid irresponsible fiscal behavior that could have
            short-term advantages to one of them but that would be
            collectively damaging. Coordination failures with
            subnational governments in the 1990s contributed to
            macroeconomic instability and led several countries to adopt
            fiscal responsibility laws as part of the remedy. The paper
            analyzes the characteristics and effects of fiscal
            responsibility laws in seven countries -- Argentina,
            Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, India, and Peru. Fiscal
            responsibility laws are designed to address the short time
            horizons of policymakers, free riders among government
            units, and principal agent problems between the national and
            subnational governments. The paper describes how the laws
            differ in the specificity of quantitative targets, the
            strength of sanctions, the methods for increasing
            transparency, and the level of government passing the law.
            Evidence shows that fiscal responsibility laws can help
            coordinate and sustain commitments to fiscal prudence, but
            they are not a substitute for commitment and should not be
            viewed as ends in themselves. They can make a positive
            contribution by adding to the collection of other measures
            to shore up a coalition of states with the central
            government in support of fiscal prudence. Policymakers
            contemplating fiscal responsibility laws may benefit from
            the systematic review of international practice. One common
            trait of successful fiscal responsibility laws for
            subnational governments is the commitment of the central
            government to its own fiscal prudence, which is usually
            reinforced by the application of the law at the national as
            well as the subnational level.
The rise of large farms in land
            abundant countries : do they have a future
Increased levels and volatility of food
            prices has led to a surge of interest in large-scale
            agriculture and land acquisition. This creates challenges
            for policy makers aiming to establish a policy environment
            conducive to an agrarian structure to contribute to
            broad-based development in the long term. Based on a
            historical review of episodes of growth of large farms and
            their impact, this paper identifies factors underlying the
            dominance of owner-operated farm structures and ways in
            which these may change with development. The amount of land
            that could potentially be available for expansion and the
            level of productivity in exploiting available land resources
            are used to establish a country-level typology. The authors
            highlight that an assessment of the advantages of large
            operations, together with information on endowments, can
            provide input into strategy formulation at the country
            level. A review of recent cases of land acquisition
            reinforces the importance of the policy framework in
            determining outcomes. It suggests that transparency and
            contract enforcement, recognition of local land rights and
            ways in which they can be exercised, attention to employment
            effects and technical viability, and mechanisms to
            re-allocate land from unsuccessful ventures to more
            productive entrepreneurs are key areas warranting the
            attention of policy makers.
Was growth in Egypt between 2005 and
            2008 pro-poor from static to dynamic poverty profile
This paper presents a detailed picture
            of how sustained growth in Egypt over 2005-2008 affected
            different groups both above and below the poverty line.
            This analysis, based on the Household Income, Expenditure
            and Consumption Panel Survey conducted by Egypts national
            statistical agency, compares the changes in the static
            poverty profiles (based on growth incidence curves on a
            cross-section of data) with poverty dynamics (relying on
            panel data, growth incidence curves and transition
            matrices). The two approaches yield contrasting results: the
            longitudinal analysis reveals that growth benefited the poor
            while the cross-sectional analysis shows that the rich
            benefitted even more. The paper also shows the importance of
            going beyond averages to look at the trajectories of
            individual households. Panel data analysis shows that the
            welfare of the average poor household increased by almost 10
            percent per year between 2005 and 2008, enough to move out
            of poverty. Conversely however, many initially non-poor
            households were exposed to poverty. As a matter of fact,
            only 45 percent of the population in Egypt remained
            consistently out of (near-) poverty throughout the period,
            while the remaining 55 percent of Egyptians experienced at
            least one (near-) poverty episode. This high mobility is not
            a statistical artefact: it reflects the actual process of
            growth. Taking high vulnerability into account is essential
            when designing policies to protect the poor and to ensure
            that growth is really inclusive.
Was growth in Egypt between 2005 and
            2008 pro-poor from static to dynamic poverty profile
WPS5589 Policy Research Working Paper 5589 Was Growth in Egypt Between 2005 and 2008 Pro-Poor From Static to Dynamic Poverty Profile _Daniela Marotta Ruslan Yemtsov Heba El-Laithy Hala Abou-Ali Sherine Al-Shawarby_ The World Bank Middle East and North Africa Region Poverty Reduction and Economic Management March 2011
Impacts of international migration
            and remittances on child outcomes and labor supply in
            Indonesia : how does gender matter
This paper aims to investigate
            empirically how international migration and remittances in
            Indonesia, particularly female migration, affect child
            outcomes and labor supply behavior in sending households.
            The authors analyze the Indonesia Family Life Survey data
            set and apply an instrumental variable estimation method,
            using historical migration networks as instruments for
            migration and remittance receipts. The study finds that, in
            Indonesia, the impacts of international migration on sending
            households are likely to vary depending on the gender of the
            migrants. On average, migration reduces the working hours of
            remaining household members, but this effect is not observed
            in households with female migrants. At the same time, female
            migration and their remittances tend to reduce child labor.
            The estimated impacts of migration and remittances on school
            enrollment are not statistically significant, but this
            result is interesting in that the directions of the effects
            can be opposite when the migrant is male or female
Exchange rate uncertainty and
            optimal participation in international trade
Instead of just focusing on the effect
            of exchange rate levels (undervalued or overvalued exchange
            rates) on trade, this paper provides an analysis of the
            effects of exchange rate volatility levels on international
            trade. Intuitively, an increase in exchange rate volatility
            leads to uncertainty for agents participating in
            international trade, and such uncertainty might have a
            negative impact on international trade flows and
            participation, thereby reducing the advantages of world-wide
            specialization. This is especially crucial for countries
            where exchange rate derivatives markets are not yet well
            developed and the costs of hedging exchange rate risk are
            very high. The model here considers optimal decisions about
            participation in international trade under uncertainty about
            the exchange rate. The main conclusion is that a high level
            of exchange rate volatility can deter entrepreneurs from
            becoming exporters, even though exporting can be highly
            profitable. For those already participating in international
            trade, it is opposite: they may, optimally, choose not to
            leave the market even though staying in this market is
            highly unprofitable in the short run.
Cote d'Ivoire's
            infrastructure : a continental perspective
Infrastructure contributed 1.8
            percentage points to Cote d'Ivoire's annual per
            capita GDP growth over the mid-2000s before conflict began
            to erase the country's infrastructure and its growth
            contributions. Raising the country's infrastructure
            endowment to the level of the region's middle-income
            countries could boost the growth rate by a further 2
            percentage points. Private sector contracts signed in the
            1990s resulted in improved operational performance and
            funding for investments in the water, power, transport, and
            ICT sectors. Impressively, those contracts survived the
            crisis and delivered uninterrupted service. But private
            investment flows have decreased since the mid-2000s. Cote
            d'Ivoire's most pressing infrastructural challenge
            will be to regain the financial equilibrium needed to
            restore a reliable energy supply.  Reestablishing the
            prominence of Abidjan's port will require investments
            in terminal capacity and road and rail infrastructure
            upgrades on hinterland linkages. The underfunding of road
            maintenance and poor sanitation are additional challenges.
            Cote d'Ivoire's annual infrastructure spending was
            $750 million in the mid-2000s, with going to power sector
            operations and maintenance. If the underpricing of power and
            other inefficiencies (valued at $200 million annually) were
            eliminated, the countrys annual infrastructure funding gap
            would amount to $1 billion, and infrastructure goals could
            be reached within 20 years. Cote d'Ivoire's has
            relatively good prospects for bridging its funding gap by
            raising public investment from its low current level,
            choosing more efficient technologies, and harnessing
            additional private investment for infrastructure.