rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Impact of Financial Incentives and
            the Role of Information and Communication in Last-Mile
            Delivery of Textbooks in Zambia
This study investigates the impact of
            financial incentives and role of information and
            communication in textbook availability (especially those in
            local languages) in Zambia. It uses the
            difference-in-difference estimation method to identify the
            causal links among the factors. The data used for the study
            were collected in 2017 and 2019 for baseline and end-line
            information. The study shows that providing financial
            incentives to schools increases the likelihood of a school
            receiving textbooks by 0.126. This improvement is mainly
            driven by raising the likelihood of a school collecting the
            books from zone-center schools and District Education Board
            Secretaries offices, by 0.356 and 0.158, respectively.
            Providing financial incentives to District Education Board
            Secretaries does not have any impact on the likelihood of a
            school receiving textbooks.  This is partly because the
            current textbook delivery practice in districts and
            communities relies heavily on the action of schools and less
            on District Education Board Secretaries. Thus, providing
            incentives directly to schools seems to intensify the
            current last-mile textbook distribution practice and has
            better results. In addition, providing information to
            schools on the availability of textbooks at District
            Education Board Secretaries offices improves the outcomes
            significantly with minimum cost.
Implementing Precaution in
            Benefit-Cost Analysis : The Case of Deep Seabed Mining
The cumulative extraction of terrestrial
            mineral deposits has led the mining industry to begin
            exploring seabed resources. The prospect of commercialized
            seabed mining poses major regulatory challenges for the
            International Seabed Authority and countries with mineral
            resources in their coastal jurisdictions. The European Union
            and the World Bank have initiated projects to build capacity
            to manage seabed mining activities. A particular concern is
            the nature of the economic evaluation that should be
            required for the assessment of mining leases. This study
            reviews the academic literature on economic decision making
            under deep uncertainty and makes recommendations for
            incorporating precautionary measures within the benefit-cost
            analysis of seabed mining operations.
Big Data in Transportation : An
            Economics Perspective
This paper reviews the emerging big data
            literature applied to urban transportation issues from the
            perspective of economic research. It provides a typology of
            big data sources relevant to transportation analyses and
            describes how these data can be used to measure mobility,
            associated externalities, and welfare impacts. As an
            application, it showcases the use of daily traffic
            conditions data in various developed and developing country
            cities to estimate the causal impact of stay-at-home orders
            during the Covid-19 pandemic on traffic congestion in
            Bogotá, New Dehli, New York, and Paris. In light of the
            advances in big data analytics, the paper concludes with a
            discussion on policy opportunities and challenges.
Should Consumption Sub-Aggregates Be
            Used to Measure Poverty
Frequent measurement of poverty is
            challenging, as measurement often relies on complex and
            expensive expenditure surveys that try to measure
            expenditures on a comprehensive consumption aggregate. This
            paper investigates the use of consumption
            "sub-aggregates" instead. The use of consumption
            sub-aggregates is theoretically justified if and only if all
            the Engel curves are linear for any realization of prices.
            This is very stringent. However, it may be possible to
            empirically identify certain goods that happen to have
            linear Engel curves given prevailing prices, and when the
            effect of price changes is small, such a sub-aggregate might
            work in practice. The paper constructs such linear
            sub-aggregates using data from Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.
            The findings show that using sub-aggregates is ill-advised
            in practice as well as in theory. This raises questions
            about the consistency of the poverty-tracking efforts
            currently applied across countries, since obtaining
            exhaustive consumption measures remains an unmet challenge.
COVID-19 Age-Mortality Curves Are
            Flatter in Developing Countries
A greater share of reported COVID-19
            deaths occur at younger ages in low- and middle-income
            countries (LMICs) compared to high-income countries (HICs).
            Based on data from 26 countries, people age 70 and older
            constitute 37 percent of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in
            LMICs on average, versus 87 percent in HICs. Only part of
            this difference is accounted for by differences in
            population age structure. In this paper, COVID-19 mortality
            rates are calculated for each age group by dividing the
            number of COVID-19 deaths by the underlying population. The
            resulting age-mortality curves are flatter in countries with
            lower incomes. In HICs, the COVID-19 mortality rate for
            those ages 70-79 is 12.6 times the rate for those ages
            50-59. In LMICs, that ratio is just 3.5. With each year of
            age, the age-specific mortality rate increases by an average
            of 12.6 percent in HICs versus 7.1 percent in LMICs. This
            pattern holds overall and separately for men's and
            women's mortality rates. It reflects some combination
            of variation across countries in age patterns of infection
            rates, fatality rates among those infected, and
            under-attribution of deaths to COVID-19. The findings
            highlight that experiences with COVID-19 in wealthy
            countries may not be generalizable to developing countries.
The Evolution of Built-up Areas in
            Ghana since 1975
This paper uses high-resolution
            satellite data on the proportion of buildings in a 250x250
            meter cell to study the evolution of human settlement in
            Ghana over a 40-year period. The analysis finds a strong
            increase in built-up area over time, mostly concentrated in
            the vicinity of roads, and also directly on the coast. There
            is strong evidence of agglomeration effects in the static
            sense -- buildup in one cell predicts buildup in a nearby
            cell -- and in a dynamic sense -- buildup in a cell predicts
            buildup in that cell later on, and an increase in buildup in
            nearby cells. These effects are strongest over a radius of 3
            to 15 kilometers. No evidence is found that human
            settlements are spaced more or less equally over the
            landscape or along roads. By fitting a transition matrix to
            the data, this paper predicts a sharp increase in the
            proportion of the country that is densely built-up by the
            middle and end of the century, but there is no increase in
            the proportion of partially built-up locations.
Diversification and Cooperation
            Strategies in a Decarbonizing World
Fossil fuel importers can apply various
            climate and trade taxes to encourage fossil fuel–dependent
            countries to cooperate on climate mitigation, and fossil
            fuel–dependent countries can respond with alternative
            diversification and cooperation strategies. This paper runs
            macroeconomic model simulations of alternative strategies
            that the global community and fossil fuel–dependent
            countries can pursue to encourage and enable their
            participation in a global low-carbon transition. The
            following are the findings from the simulations. (i) Fuel
            importers’ unilateral carbon taxes capture fossil
            fuel–dependent countries’ resource rents and accelerate
            their emission-intensive diversification. (ii) Border taxes
            on the carbon content of imports from fossil fuel–dependent
            countries do not induce comprehensive cooperation, but
            broader trade sanctions do. (iii) Cooperative wellhead
            carbon taxes can achieve cooperation without trade wars.
            (iv) Lower-income fossil fuel–dependent countries with large
            untapped reserves need additional incentives and enablers to
            cooperate and diversify into low-carbon assets. (v)
            Incentives to cooperate are misaligned between different
            fossil fuel–dependent countries and between owners of
            different fuels. (vi) The strategies that maximize
            consumption and growth in fossil fuel–dependent countries
            reduce the value of assets in extractive and heavy
            industries. (vii) Asset diversification is a robust,
            long-term strategy but faces the tragedy of the horizon.
Occupational Dualism and
            Intergenerational Educational Mobility in the Rural Economy
            : Evidence from China and India
This paper extends the Becker-Tomes
            model of intergenerational educational mobility to a rural
            economy characterized by farm-nonfarm occupational dualism
            and provides a comparative analysis of rural China and rural
            India. The model builds a micro-foundation for the widely
            used linear-in-levels estimating equation. Returns to
            education for parents and productivity of financial
            investment in children's education determine relative
            mobility, as measured by the slope, while the intercept
            depends, among other factors, on the degree of persistence
            in nonfarm occupations. Unlike many existing studies based
            on coresident samples, our estimates of intergenerational
            mobiity do not suffer from truncation bias. The sons in
            rural India faced lower educational mobility compared with
            the sons in rural China in the 1970s to 1990s. To understand
            the role of genetic inheritance, Altonji et al. (2005)
            sensitivity analysis is combined with the evidence on
            intergenerational correlation in cognitive ability in
            economics and behavioral genetics literature. The observed
            persistence can be due solely to genetic correlations in
            China, but not in India. Fathers' nonfarm occupation
            and education were complementary in determining a sons'
            schooling in India, but separable in China. There is
            evidence of emerging complementarity for the younger cohorts
            in rural China. Structural change in favor of the nonfarm
            sector contributed to educational inequality in rural India.
            Evidence from supplementary data on economic mechanisms
            suggests that the model provides plausible explanations for
            the contrasting roles of occupational dualism in
            intergenerational educational mobility in rural India and
            rural China.
Reform Chatter and Democracy
This paper explores the dynamics of
            media chatter about economic reforms using text analysis
            from about a billion newspaper articles in 28 languages. The
            paper shows that the intensity of reform chatter increases
            during economic downturns. This increase is more significant
            in democracies. Using instrumental variable techniques, the
            analysis finds the relationship to be causal. The paper also
            documents that reform chatter is followed by actual reforms,
            suggesting that democracies benefit from a
            "self-correcting" mechanism stemming from changing
            popular attitudes toward reform.
Adding Fuel to the Fire : Cheap Oil
            during the COVID-19 Pandemic
The outbreak of COVID-19 and the
            wide-ranging measures needed to slow its advance triggered
            an unprecedented collapse in oil demand, a surge in oil
            inventories, and a record one-month decline in oil prices in
            March 2020. This paper examines the likely implications of
            the 2020 oil price plunge for emerging market and developing
            economies. It presents four main results. First, the record
            plunge in oil prices was predominantly driven by demand
            factors as wide-ranging measures to stem the pandemic
            precipitated an unprecedented collapse in oil demand, but
            the surge in oil inventories also exerted downward pressure
            on oil prices. Second, this latest oil price decline was
            preceded by six previous plunges over the past half-century,
            during which energy exporters and importers suffered similar
            initial output losses (about 0.5 percent) that were unwound
            within three years. Third, the current episode of low oil
            prices holds limited promise to boost the global economy
            amid widespread restrictions and narrow room for fiscal
            support in energy-exporting emerging market and developing
            economies. Fourth, many emerging market and developing
            economies entered the current public health crisis with
            precarious fiscal positions; current low oil prices are thus
            an opportunity to review energy-pricing policies, including
            remaining energy subsidies, to mobilize domestic resources.
Relationship between Macroeconomic
            Indicators and Capital Markets Performance in Selected
            Southeastern European Countries
This study tests the weak form of the
            efficient capital markets theorem in five transition
            economies in Southeast Europe between 2005 and 2016. A panel
            pooled mean group estimator is used to examine the
            relationship between macroeconomic indicators and the
            performance of stock market indexes. This is a suitable
            estimator for these young frontier markets, given that they
            have yet to develop the breadth and depth of an advanced
            market—such as ample liquidity and traders—to aggregate
            cross-country data and use level series prime data instead
            of differentials of the same. These frontier capital markets
            are found to be weak form inefficient, meaning that stock
            prices do not reflect available current public information.
            In other words, when a market is transparent and investor
            behavior is rational, the macroeconomic data should be
            included in the value of the stock indexes. The five
            countries may benefit from bringing their capital markets
            legislation in line with those of developed countries and by
            improving corporate governance and transparency. This would
            boost investor trust and liquidity. The coverage of this
            research can be extended to find more standardized data
            values and develop additional factors not captured by this model.
COVID-19 and Corporate Balance Sheet
            Vulnerabilities : A Simple Stress-Test Approach
This paper conducts a simple stress test
            to gauge the ability of listed nonfinancial corporates to
            withstand shocks to earnings and receivables. It targets two
            basic accounting ratios that capture a firm&#x2019;s
            ability to cover its short-term liabilities and interest
            expenses. The sample consists of almost 17,000 firms in 73
            countries and represents US$22.1 trillion in total assets
            and US$6.05 trillion in total debt. The findings show that,
            prior to the pandemic, almost 60 percent of the debt was
            associated with firms that already exhibited vulnerabilities
            according to at least one ratio. A 30-percent shock to
            earnings and receivables raises this to 88 percent, of which
            29 percentage points is vulnerable in terms of both
            indicators, a 230-percent increase compared with before to
            the pandemic. Firms in East Asia and Pacific, the Middle
            East and North Africa, and South Asia appear to be the most
            exposed. Some countries with vulnerable corporate sectors
            also display weaknesses in insolvency frameworks, which may
            impede restructurings and write-downs and contribute to a
            surge in socially inefficient liquidations of cash-strapped
            but otherwise viable firms.
Short-Run Welfare Impacts of Factory
            Jobs : Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia
Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
            face a rapidly growing population and labor force in demand
            of good jobs. Ethiopia has reacted to this challenge by
            prioritizing large-scale industrial development through the
            construction of industrial parks to drive exports, job
            creation, and growth. However, the African experience with
            industrial parks so far has been mixed. To provide further
            evidence on the welfare effects of factory jobs in Ethiopia,
            this study conducted an experiment that facilitated the job
            application and onboarding process for young female job
            seekers at three factories. Using panel data from 827
            applicants, the study finds that the extra support increased
            the likelihood of being employed in the treatment group in
            the short run, largely driven by wage and factory work.
            Further, the intervention raised reported monthly income by
            nearly 30 percent in the treatment group. However, the study
            also finds an adverse impact on health outcomes as well as
            downward adjustments of applicants' expectations and
            perceptions of the earnings potential and desirability of
            factory work in response to the treatment.
The Lives and Livelihoods of Syrian
            Refugees in the Middle East : Evidence from the 2015-16
            Surveys of Syrian Refugees and Host Communities in Jordan,
            Lebanon, and Kurdistan, Iraq
The Syrian crisis has led to rapid and
            large-scale population displacement. This paper has two main
            aims. (i) It documents the size and timing of the Syrian
            refugee influx into Jordan, Lebanon, and Kurdistan,
            characterizing the forced nature of displacement and
            exploring factors that influenced the decision to flee and
            subsequently move within the host country. (ii) The paper
            describes the daily living conditions of refugees after
            displacement, documenting vulnerability along several
            dimensions, such as housing access and quality, labor market
            attachment, and financial security. The data sources include
            the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees'
            registration database and multi-country, multi-topic surveys
            conducted in 2015-16.
Transforming Teacher Education in
            the West Bank and Gaza : Policy Implications for Developing Countries
This paper provides a comprehensive
            review of the World Bank–supported Teacher Education
            Improvement Project for Grades 1-4 Class Teachers in the
            West Bank and Gaza (2008-19) and has important policy
            implications for similar initiatives in other developing
            economies. A professional development index of teaching
            competences was created and used to redesign, develop,
            implement, and evaluate pre-service and in-service programs
            in line with international good practice. By linking
            pre-service to in-service, the index is innovative in
            capturing the continuum of a teacher's professional
            development. The index as well as all elements of the
            pre-service and in-service programs were developed by
            Palestinians with consultant assistance. This developmental
            process strengthened the capacity of those involved and
            ensured understanding and ownership of outputs. The project
            resulted in an increase of fully qualified teachers from 54
            percent in 2011 to 92 percent in 2018. In 2019, five of six
            university pre-service programs were granted unconditional
            accreditation by representative panels chaired by
            international experts. The project won the United
            Kingdom's prestigious Times Higher Education Award for
            International Impact, 2018 due to its innovative approaches
            and potential for replication in other countries. The model
            of reform developed in the project is currently influencing
            the development of strategies for the coherent and systemic
            reform of teacher education in World Bank–supported projects
            in The Gambia and Zambia.
Big Data for Sampling Design : The
            Venezuelan Migration Crisis in Ecuador
The worsening of Ecuador's
            socioeconomic conditions and the rapid inflow of Venezuelan
            migrants demand a rapid government response. Representative
            information on the migration and host communities is vital
            for evidence-based policy design. This study presents an
            innovative methodology based on the use of big data for
            sampling design of a representative survey of migrants and
            host communities' populations. This approach tackles
            the difficulties posed by the lack of information on the
            total number of Venezuelan migrants—regular and
            irregular—and their geographical location in the country.
            The total estimated population represents about 3 percent of
            the total Ecuadoran population. Venezuelans settled across
            urban areas, mainly in Quito, Guayaquil, and Manta
            (Portoviejo). The strategy implemented may be useful in
            designing similar exercises in countries with limited
            information (that is, lack of a recent census or migratory
            registry) and scarce resources for rapidly gathering
            socioeconomic data on migrants and host communities for
            policy design.