rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Measuring household usage of
            financial services : does it matter how or whom You Ask
In recent years, the number of surveys
            of access to and use of financial services has multiplied,
            but little is known about whether the data generated are
            comparable across countries, or within the same country over
            time. This paper reports results from a randomized
            experiment in Ghana to test whether the identity of the
            respondent and the inclusion of product-specific cues in
            questions affect the reported rates of household usage of
            financial services. The analysis shows that rates of
            household usage are almost identical when the head reports
            on behalf of the household and when the rate is tabulated
            from a full enumeration of household use. Randomly selected
            informants (i.e., non-heads of the household) provide a less
            complete summary of household use of financial services than
            the other two methods. The findings also show that for
            credit from formal institutions, informal sources of
            savings, and insurance, usage rates are higher when
            questions are asked about specific financial products rather
            than about the respondents dealings with types of financial
            institutions. In short, who is asked the questions and the
            form in which they are asked both matter.
The Euro-mediterranean partnership :
            trade in services as an alternative to migration
This paper discusses options to
            facilitate movement of workers between high-income and
            developing countries within the framework of trade
            agreements, focusing on the European Unions partnership
            agreements with neighboring countries. Existing frameworks
            for cooperation offer the possibility of expanding temporary
            rather than longer-term or permanent movement of workers
            since extant trade agreements provide scope for negotiating
            specific market access commitments for services, including
            those delivered through the cross-border movement of natural
            persons. Even though the potential for such
            "embodied" trade in services will not be anywhere
            near what would be associated with substantial
            liberalization of migration regimes, furthering the services
            trade dimension in the European Unions ¬trade agreements
            offers significant potential Pareto gains. For the partner
            countries these gains from temporary movement of service
            providers are both direct - through greater employment
            in/revenue from providing services in the European Union -
            and indirect - by helping to increase and sustain higher
            growth at home.
Smoke in the water : the use of
            tariff policy flexibility in crises
As the economic crisis deepens and
            widens, fears of a return to the protectionist spiral of the
            1930s become more common. However, an important difference
            between the 1930s and today is the existence of the World
            Trade Organization and the legal limits it imposes on the
            protectionist responses members can pursue. The objective of
            this paper is threefold. First, to assess the extent to
            which applied tariff can legally be raised without violating
            tariff-bound obligations, and compare it with what is
            economically possible. Second, to examine what has been the
            protectionist response of individual countries when facing
            an economic crisis since the creation of the WTO. Finally,
            to predict how far the protectionist responses will go
            during the current crisis. Results suggest that the policy
            space left when looking at what is economically possible is
            indeed quite large. However, in the recent past very little
            of the available policy space has been used by countries
            suffering from an economic crisis. Our predictions for the
            current crisis are modest tariff hikes in the order of 8 percent.
The global resort to antidumping,
            safeguards, and other trade remedies amidst the economic crisis
This paper examines newly available data
            from the World Bank-sponsored Global Antidumping Database
            tracking the worldwide use of trade remedies such as
            antidumping, countervailing duties, global safeguards and
            China-specific safeguards during the current economic
            crisis. The data indicate a marked increase in WTO members
            combined resort to these instruments beginning in 2008 that
            continued into the first quarter 2009. The use of these
            import-restricting instruments is increasingly affecting
            "South-South" trade, i.e., developing country
            importers initiating and imposing new protectionist measures
            primarily affecting developing country exporters, with a
            special emphasis on exports from China. However, the
            collective value of imports in 2007 for the major (G-20)
            economies that has subsequently come under attack by the use
            of import-restricting trade remedies during the period of
            2008 to early 2009 is likely less than $29 billion, or less
            than 0.45 per cent of these economies total imports, though
            there is substantial variation across countries. While the
            level of trade affected thus far may be small for most of
            these economies, a first assessment of some of the
            case-level data identifies a number of ways in which the
            crisis use of these import-restricting trade remedies may
            have economically important welfare-distorting effects on
            economic activity.
FDI protectionism is on the rise
Over the past two decades or so,
            countries have liberalized their FDI regulatory frameworks
            and have put in place an international investment law regime
            that provides various protections for international
            investors. In the past few years, however, there are signs
            that countries are reevaluating their approach toward such
            investment. As a result, FDI protectionism is on the rise,
            with screening of inward M&As becoming more frequent.
            Typically, this is being done under the guise of
            "national interest" or similar concepts, often
            linked to strategic sectors and national champions. While
            the international investment law regime faces a challenge to
            find the right balance between the rights and
            responsibilities of governments and investors, care needs to
            be taken that the rise of FDI protectionism does not
            endanger a rules-based approach to FDI. An independent FDI
            Protectionism Observatory to monitor new protectionist
            measures and name and shame countries that take them is
            therefore needed.
"Revenue management"
            effects related to financial flows generated by climate policy
This paper discusses possible
            macroeconomic implications for low-income countries of
            increased revenue inflows that may follow from implementing
            certain global greenhouse gas mitigation policies. Such
            revenue sources include revenue from emissions offset
            mechanisms, direct investments, and financial transfers that
            form parts of possible future mitigation treaties. In the
            short run such revenue will come mainly from offset markets
            and donor-sponsored programs, with some additional financial
            inflows due to foreign direct investments. In the longer
            run, comprehensive global cap-and-trade or carbon tax
            schemes could provide a potentially much larger revenue flow
            to many low-income countries. The author argues that the
            macroeconomic implications of such flows are manageable in
            the short run, but the larger revenues resulting from global
            emissions schemes could overwhelm this capacity and lead to
            a number of potential macroeconomic management problems.
Comparing Apples with....Apples :
            how to make (more) sense of subjective rankings of
            constraints to business
The use of expert or qualitative surveys
            to rank countries business investment conditions is
            widespread. However, within the economic literature there
            are concerns about measurement error and endogeneity based
            on characteristics of the respondents, raising questions
            about how well the data reflect the underlying reality they
            are trying to measure. This paper examines these concerns
            using data from 79,000 firms in 105 countries. The findings
            show that first, qualitative rankings correlate well with
            quantitative measures of the business environment, using
            both quantitative measures from within the survey and from
            external sources.  Second, there are systematic variations
            in perceptions based on firm characteristics - focusing in
            particular on size and growth performance. However, it is
            not that an optimistic view of the business environment is
            simply the expression of a firms own performance. Rather,
            firm size and performance affect the relative importance of
            certain constraints, particularly in areas such as finance,
            time with officials/inspectors, corruption, and access to
            reliable electricity. The results also show that much of the
            variation in subjective responses by firm types is largely
            due to differences in the objective conditions across firm
            types. There is little evidence that size and performance
            have non-linear effects in how constraining a given
            objective condition is reported to be. Overall, concerns
            about endogeneity remain in using business environment
            indicators to explain firm performance, but this stems
            primarily from the fact that who you are and how well you
            are doing can affect the conditions you face rather than
            whether the indicator used is qualitative or quantitative.
Welfare impacts of rural
            electrification : evidence from Vietnam
Access to electricity is crucial for
            economic development and there is a growing body of
            literature on the impact of rural electrification on
            development. However, most studies have so far relied on
            cross-sectional surveys comparing households with and
            without electricity, which have well known causal
            attribution problems. This paper is one of the first studies
            to examine the welfare impacts of households rural
            electrification based on panel surveys conducted in 2002 and
            2005 for some 1,100 households in rural Vietnam,. The
            findings indicate that grid electrification has been both
            extensive (connecting all surveyed communes by 2005) and
            intensive (connecting almost 80 percent of the surveyed
            households by 2005). Vietnam is unusual in that once
            electricity is locally available, both rich and poor
            households are equally likely to get the connection. The
            econometric estimations suggest that grid electrification
            has significant positive impacts on households cash income,
            expenditure, and educational outcomes. The benefits,
            however, reach a saturation point after prolonged exposure
            to electricity. Finally, this study recommends investigating
            the long-term benefits of rural electrification - not just
            for households, but for the rural economy as a whole.
Climate change and individual
            behavior : considerations for policy
Climate change is anthropogenic - the
            product of billions of acts of daily consumption. That
            solutions need to be anthropogenic too is well accepted.
            Yet, suggested solutions are normally cast in the realms of
            finance and technology, often neglecting the primal root of
            the problem: individual behavior. An emerging body of
            social-psychology scholarship has examined the barriers and
            drivers of individual behavior in relation to both
            adaptation and mitigation. This paper reviews some of its
            conclusions, and suggests policy areas that should be
            considered in devising appropriate interventions.
Exchange rates during the crisis
Nearly two years after the onset of the
            financial crises, many central banks have brought their
            policy interest rates down to, or close to zero. Various
            governments have seen their budget deficits soar. Both
            policies have affected exchange rates, partly through market
            expectations. With a majority of exchange rates officially
            floating, exchange rate movements do not necessarily reflect
            official decisions as was the case in the 1930s. Yet, also
            in the 2008 crisis, authorities have directly intervened in
            the foreign exchange market, sometimes in order to defend a
            falling currency but in other instances with the aim to
            limit appreciation pressure, akin of competitive
            devaluations. This paper documents the exchange rate
            interventions during the height of the 2008/09 financial
            crisis and identifies the countries which have particular
            high incentives to intervene in the foreign exchange market
            to competitively devalue their currency. While various
            countries had increased incentives to devalue, we find that
            direct exchange rate interventions have been rather limited
            and contagion of devaluation has been restricted to one
            regionally contained case. However, sharp market-driven
            exchange rate movements have reshaped competitive positions.
            It appears that these movements have so far not seriously
            disrupted global trade. After all, a world crisis is likely
            to require widespread exchange rate adjustments as different
            countries are affected in different ways and have different
            capacities to weather the shocks.
Crisis and protection in the
            automotive industry : a global value chain perspective
In this paper the authors apply global
            value chain (GVC) analysis to recent trends in the global
            automotive industry, with special attention paid to
            government interventions triggered by the recent economic
            crisis. The authors first highlight some of the defining
            characteristics of GVCs in this important industry,
            especially the unusually strong regional structure of
            production and sales. National political institutions create
            pressure for local content, which drives production close to
            end markets, where it tends to be organized nationally or
            regionally. They then examine policy reactions to the recent
            economic crisis, and provide some discussion of the
            government interventions in the industry. The authors end
            with a number of policy conclusions that highlight the
            likely impact of the interventions on the evolution GVCs and
            the growth of the industry in developing countries.
Climate change and the economics of
            targeted mitigation in sectors with long-lived capital stock
Mitigation investments in long-lived
            capital stock (LLKS) differ from other types of mitigation
            investments in that, once established, LLKS can lock-in a
            stream of emissions for extended periods of time. Moreover,
            historical examples from industrial countries suggest that
            investments in LLKS projects or networks tend to be lumpy,
            and tend to generate significant indirect and induced
            emissions besides direct emissions. Looking forward,
            urbanization and rapid economic growth suggest that similar
            decisions about LLKS are being or will soon be made in many
            developing countries. In their current form, carbon markets
            do not provide correct incentives for mitigation investments
            in LLKS because the constraint on carbon extends only to
            2012, and does not extend to many developing countries.
            Targeted mitigation programs in regions and sectors in which
            LLKS is being built at rapid rate are thus necessary to
            avoid getting locked into highly carbon-intensive LLKS. Even
            if the carbon markets were extended (geographically,
            sectorally, and over time), public intervention would still
            be required, for three main reasons. First, to ensure that
            indirect and induced emissions associated with LLKS are
            taken into account in investors financial cost-benefit
            analysis. Second, to facilitate project or network financing
            to bridge the gap between carbon revenues that accrue over
            time as the project/network unfolds and the capital needed
            upfront to finance lumpy investments. Third, to internalize
            other non-carbon externalities (e.g., local pollution)
            and/or to lift barriers (e.g., lack of capacity to handle
            new technologies) that penalize the low-carbon alternatives
            relative to the high-carbon ones.
An analysis of various policy
            instruments to reduce congestion, fuel consumption and CO2
            emissions in Beijing
Using a nested multinomial logit model
            of car ownership and personal travel in Beijing circa 2005,
            this paper compares the effectiveness of different policy
            instruments to reduce traffic congestion and CO2 emissions.
            The study shows that a congestion toll is more efficient
            than a fuel tax in reducing traffic congestion, whereas a
            fuel tax is more effective as a policy instrument for
            reducing gasoline consumption and emissions. An improvement
            in car efficiency would also reduce congestion, fuel
            consumption, and CO2 emissions significantly; however, this
            policy benefits only richer households that own a car.
            Low-income households do better under the fuel tax policy
            than under the efficiency improvement and congestion toll
            policies. The congestion toll and fuel tax require the
            travel cost per mile to more than triple. The responsiveness
            of aggregate fuel and CO2 are, approximately, a 1 percent
            drop for each 10 percent rise in the money cost of a car trip.
The pattern of growth and poverty
            reduction in China
China has seen a huge reduction in the
            incidence of extreme poverty since the economic reforms that
            started in the late 1970s. Yet, the growth process has been
            highly uneven across sectors and regions. The paper tests
            whether the pattern of China´s growth mattered to poverty
            reduction using a new provincial panel data set constructed
            for this purpose. The econometric tests support the view
            that the primary sector (mainly agriculture) has been the
            main driving force in poverty reduction over the period
            since 1980. It was the sectoral unevenness in the growth
            process, rather than its geographic unevenness, that
            handicapped poverty reduction. Yes, China has had great
            success in reducing poverty through economic growth, but
            this happened despite the unevenness in its sectoral pattern
            of growth. The idea of a trade-off between these sectors in
            terms of overall progress against poverty in China turns out
            to be a moot point, given how little evidence there is of
            any poverty impact of non-primary sector growth, controlling
            for primary-sector growth. While the non-primary sectors
            were key drivers of aggregate growth, it was the primary
            sector that did the heavy lifting against poverty.
Pricing externalities from passenger
            transportation in Mexico city
The Mexico City Metropolitan Area has
            been suffering severely from transportation externalities
            such as accidents, air pollution, and traffic congestion.
            This study examines pricing instruments to reduce these
            externalities using an analytical and numerical model. The
            study shows that the optimal levels of a gasoline tax and a
            congestion toll on automobiles could generate social
            benefits, measured in terms of welfare gain, of US$132 and
            US$109 per capita, respectively, through the reduction of
            externalities. The largest component of the welfare gains
            comes from reduced congestion, followed by local air
            pollution reduction. The optimal toll and tax would,
            however, double the cost of driving and could be politically
            sensitive. Still, more than half of those welfare gains
            could be obtained through a more modest tax or toll,
            equivalent to $1 per gallon of gasoline. The welfare gains
            from reforming the pricing of public transportation are
            small relative to those from reforming the taxation of
            automobiles.  Although the choice among travel modes depends
            on specific circumstances, in the absence of road travel
            pricing that accounts for externalities, there will be
            potential for higher investment in roads relative to mass
            transit. Given the rapidly increasing demand for
            transportation infrastructure in Mexico City, careful
            efforts should be made to include the full social costs of
            travel in evaluating alternative infrastructure investments.
What explains the cost of
            remittances an examination across 119 country corridors
Remittances are a sizeable source of
            external financing for developing countries. In the LAquila
            2009 G8 Summit, leaders pledged to reduce the cost of
            remittances by half in 5 years (from 10 to 5 percent). Yet,
            empirically, little is known about what drives the cost of
            remittances. Using newly gathered data across 119 country
            corridors, this paper explores the factors that determine
            the cost of remittances. Considering average costs across
            all types of institutions, the authors find that corridors
            with larger numbers of migrants and more competition among
            remittances service providers exhibit lower costs. By
            contrast, remittance costs are higher in richer corridors
            and in corridors with greater bank participation in the
            remittances market. Comparing results across all banks and
            all money transfer operators separately, the analysis finds
            few significant differences. However, estimations for
            Western Union, a leading player in the remittances business,
            suggest that this firms prices are insensitive to competition.