rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Economics of transiting to renewable
            energy in Morocco : a general equilibrium analysis
Morocco has set an ambitious target of
            supplying 42 percent of electricity through renewable
            sources, 14 percent each through hydro, wind, and solar, by
            2020. To analyze the economic and environmental implications
            of implementing this target, this study uses a dynamic
            computable general equilibrium model with foresight that
            includes explicit representation of various electricity
            generation technologies. Two types of policy instruments, a
            production subsidy financed through fossil fuel taxation and
            a renewable energy mandate financed through increased
            electricity prices, have been considered to attract
            investment in renewable energy. The study shows that meeting
            the renewable target would achieve up to 15 percent
            reduction of national greenhouse gas emissions in 2020
            compared with a situation in the absence of the target, or
            the baseline. However, meeting the target would decrease
            household consumption of goods and services, thereby
            worsening household welfare. The study also shows that the
            renewable production subsidy financed through fossil fuel
            taxation is superior to the mandate policy to meet the
            renewable energy target in Morocco, as the former would
            cause a lower loss in economic welfare and a larger
            reduction of greenhouse gas emissions than the latter.
Insurance and inclusive growth
While the real sector and governments
            (along with a few micro economists) have long recognized the
            core economic role that the insurance function plays, the
            mainstream economics profession has largely treated it as
            invisible background. This literature review of the relevant
            research, most of which has been carried out in the past few
            decades, demonstrates that the insurance sector contributes
            at a basic level to inclusive economic growth and the
            effectiveness of the credit function. It also shows that the
            latter impact may be particularly fundamental in assisting
            the poor to avoid poverty traps and to progress
            economically. However, the research and the theoretical
            models underpinning it also highlight certain constraints to
            the efficient utilization of the insurance function. The
            literature dealing with innovations designed to overcome
            these constraints is reviewed and successful initiatives and
            remaining challenges are identified.
Welfare dynamics measurement : two
            definitions of a vulnerability line and their empirical application
Little research currently exists on a
            vulnerability line that distinguishes the poor population
            from the population that is not poor but that still faces
            significant risk of falling back into poverty. This paper
            attempts to fill this gap by proposing vulnerability lines
            that can be straightforwardly estimated with panel or
            cross-sectional household survey data, in rich- and
            poor-country settings. These vulnerability lines offer a
            means to broaden traditional poverty analysis and can also
            assist with the identification of the middle class or
            resilient population groups. Empirical illustrations are
            provided using panel data from the United States (Panel
            Study of Income Dynamics) and Vietnam (Vietnam Household
            Living Standards Survey) for the period 2004-2008 and
            cross-sectional data from India (National Sample Survey) for
            the period 2004-2009. The estimation results indicate that
            in Vietnam and India during this time period, the population
            living in poverty and the middle class have been falling and
            expanding, respectively, while the opposite has been
            occurring in the United States.
Climate change, industrial
            transformation, and "development traps"
This paper examines the possibility of
            environmental "development traps," or "brown
            poverty traps," caused by interactions between the
            impacts of climate change and increasing returns in the
            development of "clean-technology" sectors. A
            simple specification is used in which the economy can
            produce a single homogeneous consumption good with two
            different technologies. In the "old" sector,
            technology has global diminishing returns to scale and
            depends on the use of fossil energy that gives rise to
            long-lived, damaging climate change. In the "new"
            sector, the technology has convex-concave production and is
            not dependent on the polluting energy input. If the new
            sector does not grow fast enough to move through the phase
            of increasing returns, then the economy may linger at a low
            level of income indefinitely or it may achieve greater
            progress but then get driven back down to a lower level of
            income by environmental degradation. Stimulating growth in
            the new sector thus may be a key element for avoiding an
            environmental poverty trap and achieving higher, sustained
            income levels.
Contracting for the second best in
            dysfunctional electricity markets
Power pools constitute a set of
            sometimes complex institutional arrangements for
            efficiency-enhancing coordination among power systems. Where
            such institutional arrangements do not exist, there still
            can be scope for voluntary electricity-sharing agreements
            among power systems. This paper uses a particular type of
            efficient risk-sharing model with limited commitment to
            demonstrate that second-best coordination improvements can
            be achieved with low to moderate risks of participants
            leaving the agreement. In the absence of an impartial market
            operator who can observe fluctuations in connected power
            systems, establishing quasi-markets for trading excess
            electricity through the kind of mechanism described here
            helps achieve sustainable cooperation in mutually beneficial
            electricity sharing.
Money or ideas a field experiment on
            constraints to entrepreneurship in rural Pakistan
This paper identifies the relative
            importance of human and physical capital for
            entrepreneurship. A subset of rural microfinance clients
            were offered eight full time days of business training and
            the opportunity to participate in a loan lottery of up to
            Rs. 100,000 (USD 1,700), about seven times the average loan
            size. The study finds that business training increased
            business knowledge, reduced business failure, improved
            business practices and increased household expenditures by
            about $40 per year. It also improved financial and labor
            allocation decisions. These effects are concentrated among
            male clients, however. Women improve business knowledge but
            show no improvements in other outcomes. A cost-benefit
            analysis suggests that business training was not
            cost-effective for the microfinance institution, despite
            having a positive impact on clients. This may explain why so
            few microfinance institutions offer training. Access to the
            larger loan, in contrast, had little effect, indicating that
            existing loan size limits may already meet the demand for
            credit for these clients.
The domestic segment of global
            supply chains in China under state capitalism
This paper proposes methods to
            incorporate firm heterogeneity in the standard input-output
            table-based approach to portray the domestic segment of
            global value chains in a country. The analysis uses Chinese
            firm census data for the manufacturing and service sectors,
            along with constrained optimization techniques. The
            conventional input-output table is split into sub-accounts,
            which are used to estimate direct and indirect domestic
            value added in exports of different types of firms. The
            analysis finds that in China, state-owned enterprises and
            small and medium domestic private enterprises have much
            higher shares of indirect exports and ratios of value-added
            exports to gross exports compared with foreign-invested and
            large domestic private firms. Based on input-output tables
            for 2007 and 2010, the paper finds increasing value-added
            export ratios for all firm types, particularly for
            state-owned enterprises. It also finds that state-owned
            enterprises are consistently more upstream while small and
            medium domestic private enterprises are consistently more
            downstream within industries. These findings suggest that
            state-owned enterprises still play an important role in
            shaping China's exports.
Estimation of normal mixtures in a
            nested error model with an application to small area
            estimation of poverty and inequality
This paper proposes a method for
            estimating distribution functions that are associated with
            the nested errors in linear mixed models. The estimator
            incorporates Empirical Bayes prediction while making minimal
            assumptions about the shape of the error distributions. The
            application presented in this paper is the small area
            estimation of poverty and inequality, although this denotes
            by no means the only application. Monte-Carlo simulations
            show that estimates of poverty and inequality can be
            severely biased when the non-normality of the errors is
            ignored. The bias can be as high as 2 to 3 percent on a
            poverty rate of 20 to 30 percent. Most of this bias is
            resolved when using the proposed estimator. The approach is
            applicable to both survey-to-census and survey-to-survey prediction.
Measuring the effect of internet
            adoption on paper consumption
A large fraction of the total supply of
            paper is produced with technologies that have serious
            adverse consequences on the environment and cause
            significant health problems, such as cancer. This paper
            reports on how Internet adoption affects paper consumption.
            The study used country-level panel data on Internet
            penetration and paper consumption disaggregated into various
            paper categories. The empirical strategy is to use
            fixed-effect models to study whether countries with faster
            Internet penetration growth have experienced faster declines
            in paper consumption. The analysis finds that Internet
            penetration significantly decreases aggregate paper
            consumption. Further, the estimates show that Internet
            growth reduces consumption for the paper categories that are
            more likely to be affected by the diffusion of the Internet
            (paper used to print newspapers and books and magazines),
            whereas the growth of the Internet does not have a
            statistically significant impact on a paper category
            unlikely to be affected by the Internet (such as sanitary paper).
Services, inequality, and the dutch disease
This paper shows how Dutch disease
            effects may arise solely from a shift in demand following a
            natural resource discovery. The natural resource wealth
            increases the demand for non-tradable luxury services due to
            non-homothetic preferences. Labor that could be used to
            develop other non-resource tradable sectors is pulled into
            these service sectors. As a result, manufactures and other
            tradable goods are more likely to be imported, and learning
            and productivity improvements accrue to the foreign
            exporters. However, once the natural resources diminish,
            there is less income to purchase the services and
            non-resource tradable goods. Thus, the temporary gain in
            purchasing power translates into long-term stagnation. As
            opposed to conventional models where income distribution has
            no effect on economic outcomes, an unequal distribution of
            the rents from resource wealth further intensifies the Dutch
            disease dynamics within this framework.
Ponzis : the science and mystique of
            a class of financial frauds
Ponzis are among the most ubiquitous and
            least understood phenomena of economic life. They acquired a
            certain salience with the global financial crisis of 2008
            and the crash of Bernie Madoffs celebrated Ponzi scheme.
            This paper explains the structure of Ponzi schemes and goes
            on to argue that what makes this such a troubling phenomenon
            is its ability to be camouflaged amidst legitimate
            practices. It is shown, for instance, that the common
            practice of giving stock options to employees could be a
            potential Ponzi that allows corporations to flourish for a
            while by borrowing from its own future. The paper goes on to
            discuss the need for intelligent regulation to incise
            harmful Ponzis (not all Ponzis are harmful) while taking
            care not to damage other legitimate activities that surround them.
Evidence of development impact from
            institutional change : a review of the evidence on open budgeting
Despite the growing body of literature
            examining the effectiveness of transparency and
            accountability initiatives, there remains limited
            substantiation for whether and how open budgeting
            contributes to reductions in poverty and improvements in the
            lives of the poor. This paper reviews available evidence and
            conclude that institutional changes can contribute to
            higher-level outcomes in certain contexts. The approach
            first draws from existing studies of transparency and
            accountability initiatives and then follows their references
            to broaden the evidence base. The findings highlight the
            importance of measuring budget transparency, accountability,
            and participation and tracing their outcomes along an
            incremental, nonlinear results chain. Logical links or
            ongoing loops in this sequence include the interplay or
            interdependency among these three dimensions; the subsequent
            achievement of key, often mutually reinforcing, intermediate
            development outcomes; and ultimately, improved program or
            service delivery as the key lever for influencing
            development impact. Rather than establishing standard
            indicators, the process begins to identify which aspects of
            the institutional change are valid for measurement and what
            contextual factors to consider. Overall, this review serves
            as a starting point and underscores the need for further
            investigation to establish effective measurement practices
            of institutional change and build an evidence base for
            understanding the relative robustness of institutional
            change paths and the context in which they are likely to matter.
Predicting bank insolvency in the
            Middle East and North Africa
This paper uses a panel of annual
            observations for 198 banks in 19 Middle East and North
            Africa countries over 2001-12 to develop an early warning
            system for forecasting bank insolvency based on a
            multivariate logistic regression framework. The results show
            that the traditional CAMEL  indicators are significant
            predictors of bank insolvency in the region. The predictive
            power of the model, both in-sample and out-of-sample, is
            reasonably good, as measured by the receiver operating
            characteristic curve. The findings of the paper suggest that
            banking supervision in the Middle East and North Africa
            could be strengthened by introducing a fundamentals-based,
            off-site monitoring system to assess the soundness of
            financial institutions.
Why firms avoid cutting wages :
            survey evidence from European firms
Firms very rarely cut nominal wages,
            even in the face of considerable negative economic shocks.
            This paper uses a unique survey of fourteen European
            countries to ask firms directly about the incidence of wage
            cuts and to assess the relevance of a range of potential
            reasons for why the firms avoid cutting wages. The paper
            examines how firm characteristics and collective bargaining
            institutions affect the relevance of each of the common
            explanations put forward for the infrequency of wage cuts.
            Concerns about the retention of productive staff and a
            lowering of morale and effort were reported as key reasons
            for downward wage rigidity across all countries and firm
            types. Restrictions created by collective bargaining were
            found to be an important consideration for firms in Western
            European (EU-15) countries but were one of the lowest ranked
            obstacles in the new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe.
Managing quantity, quality, and
            timing in Indian cane sugar production : ex post marketing
            permits or ex ante production contracts
Private sugar processors in Andhra
            Pradesh, India use an unusual form of vertical coordination.
            They issue 'permits' to selected cane growers a
            few weeks before harvest. These permits specify the amount
            of cane to be delivered during a narrow time period. This
            article investigates why processors create uncertainty among
            farmers using ex post permits instead of ex ante production
            contracts. The theoretical model predicts that ex post
            permits are more profitable than ex ante contracts or the
            spot market under existing government regulations in the
            sugar sector, which include a binding price floor for cane
            and the designation of a reserve area for each processor
            wherein it has a legal monopsony for cane. The use of ex
            post permits creates competition among farmers to increase
            cane quality, which increases processor profits and farmer
            costs. Empirical analysis supports the hypothesis that
            farmers operating in private factory areas have higher unit
            production costs than do their counterparts who patronize cooperatives.
Evolving wage cyclicality in Latin America
A vector autoregression model with
            time-varying coefficients is used to examine the evolution
            of wage cyclicality in four Latin American economies:
            Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, during the period
            1980-2010. Wages are highly pro-cyclical in all countries up
            to the mid-1990s except in Chile. Wage cyclicality declines
            thereafter, especially in Brazil and Colombia. This decline
            in wage cyclicality is in accordance with declining
            real-wage flexibility in a low-inflation environment.
            Controlling for compositional effects caused by changes in
            labor force participation along the business cycle does not
            alter these results.
Demystifying Dutch disease
This paper examines the theory of Dutch
            disease and its implications for practical policy questions.
            Dutch disease is a term that is well-known to economists and
            development practitioners. But it is also a concept that is
            often conflated with "resource curse" and
            misinterpreted as a "disease" that necessarily
            causes adverse impacts on the economy. The paper points out
            that many of the seemingly well-established arguments in
            this field are not necessarily grounded in theory or
            empirical evidence. Great care is needed in diagnosing Dutch
            disease and formulating policy prescriptions based on the
            theoretical framework, given the restrictive assumptions
            that may not be fully applicable and the limited relevance
            to todays inextricably intertwined trade flows. Countries
            facing large inflows of foreign currency should focus on
            safeguarding the domestic economy from the volatility of
            international commodity and capital markets, and building
            robust institutions to reduce adjustment costs and boost
            broader competitiveness. A policy package needs to be
            comprehensive, covering macroeconomic and structural policy
            measures, and should be calibrated to target country
            specific concerns. Policies may need to be adjusted
            continuously in view of the evolving dynamics of the global
            and domestic economic environment.
Budget rules and resource booms : a
            dynamic stochastic general equilibrium analysis
This paper develops a dynamic stochastic
            general equilibrium model to analyze and derive simple
            budget rules in the face of volatile public revenue from
            natural resources in a low-income country like Niger. The
            simulation results suggest three policy lessons or rules of
            thumb. When a resource price change is positive and
            temporary, the best strategy is to save the revenue windfall
            in a sovereign fund, and use the interest income from the
            fund to raise citizens' consumption over time. This
            strategy is preferred to investing in public capital
            domestically, even when private investment benefits from an
            enhanced public capital stock. Domestic investment raises
            the prices of domestic goods, leaving less money for
            government to transfer to households; public investment is
            not 100 percent effective in raising output. In the presence
            of a negative temporary resource price change, however, the
            best strategy is to cut public investment. This strategy
            dominates other methods, such as trimming government
            transfers to households, which reduces consumption directly,
            or borrowing, which incurs an interest premium as debt
            rises. In the presence of persistent (positive and negative)
            shocks, the best strategy is a mix of public investment and
            saving abroad in a balanced regime that provides a natural
            insurance against both types of price shocks. The
            combination of interest income from the sovereign fund,
            transfers to households, and output growth brought about by
            public investment provides the best protective mechanism to
            smooth consumption over time in response to changing
            resource prices.