rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
What explains prevalence of informal
            employment in European countries : the role of labor
            institutions, governance, immigrants, and growth
This paper looks into institutional and
            other macro determinants of prevalence of informal dependent
            employment, as well as informal self-employment, in European
            countries, using European Social Survey data on work without
            legal contract in on 30 countries, covering years 2004-2009.
            Consistently with theoretical predictions, quality of
            business environment has a significant negative impact on
            prevalence of both types of informal employment. The share
            of non-contracted employees is negatively affected by
            perceived quality of public services and positively related
            to economic growth. Informal self-employment is positively
            related to growth in Europe at large, as well as in Eastern
            and Southern Europe. The level of GDP per capita also has a
            positive impact on the prevalence of informal employment in
            Europe at large and within Eastern and Southern Europe,
            whilst an opposite effect is found in Western and Northern
            Europe. Other things equal, the share of non-contracted
            employees in the labor force across European countries
            increases with the minimum-to-average wage ratio, with union
            density, with the share of first and second generation
            immigrants, and with income inequality, but falls with
            stricter employment protection legislation (EPL) and higher
            tax wedge on labor. Thus it appears that in Europe at large,
            labor cost effects of EPL and taxes are weaker than their
            impact via perceptions of job security and law enforcement,
            along with tax morale and the income effect. Yet the EPL
            effect on informality is positive (i.e., cost-related) when
            either Eastern and Southern Europe or Western and Northern
            Europe are considered separately. Furthermore, within
            Western and Northern Europe, the minimum wage effect is
            negative, whilst within Eastern and Southern Europe, the
            union effect is negative; in both cases, we offer a supply
            side explanation.
Coordinating tax reforms in the
            poorest countries : can lost tariffs be recouped
A revenue-neutral switch from trade
            taxes to domestic consumption taxes is fraught with
            implementation challenges in countries with a large informal
            sector. It is shown for a sample of low-income countries
            over 25 years that they have had a mixed record of
            offsetting reductions in trade tax revenue. The paper then
            analyzes the specific case of Nepal, using a unique data set
            compiled from unpublished customs records of imports,
            tariffs and all other taxes levied at the border. It
            estimates changes to revenue and domestic production
            associated with two sets of reforms: i) proportional tariff
            cuts coordinated with a strictly enforced value-added tax;
            and ii) proposed tariff cuts under a regional free trade
            agreement. It is shown that a revenue-neutral tax reform is
            conditional on the effectiveness with which domestic taxes
            are enforced. Furthermore, loss of revenue as a result of
            intra-regional free trade can be minimized through judicious
            use of Sensitive Lists that still cover substantially all
            the trade as required by Article XXIV of the GATT.
Undeclared economic activity in
            central and eastern Europe -- how taxes contribute and how
            countries respond to the problem
The paper examines the incentives and
            distortions created by tax policy and administration
            structures that motivate individuals to undeclare or
            under-declare work in the new EU member countries. It
            analyses the tax level and the tax structure "mix"
            of tax instruments, the special taxation regimes set up to
            attract workers and entrepreneurs back into the formal
            economy and how tax policies such as the introduction of a
            "flat tax" on income from labor and capital
            impacted workers and entrepreneurs in terms of formalizing
            work. It also attempts to gain some insight  into the
            effectiveness of tax administration by comparing some input
            and output measures As non-tax factors can amplify the
            adverse effects of taxes on the labor market and reduce the
            effectiveness of tax reform, some of these other economic
            framework conditions are also discussed. This paper
            concludes by refining the main results and possible best
            practices for tackling undeclared work. The paper argues
            that the new EU member countries have had mixed success
            tackling undeclared work. While taxation matters, other
            underlying conditions for formal sector activity are also
            important. Addressing the problem of undeclared work
            therefore requires a broad policy approach with further
            improvements in tax policies, tax administration, and in
            general economic framework conditions for formal sector activity.
Assessing real exchange rate misalignments
There is a renewed debate on the role of
            exchange rate policies as an industrial policy tool in both
            academic and policy circles. Policy practitioners usually
            examine real exchange rate misalignments to monitor the
            behavior of this key relative price and, if possible,
            exploit distortions in the traded and non-traded relative
            price to promote growth. Anecdotal evidence shows that some
            countries have pursued very active exchange rate policies to
            promote the export sector and enhance growth by undervaluing
            their currencies. The main goal of this paper is to provide
            a systematic characterization of real exchange rate
            undervaluations. The long-run real exchange rate equation is
            estimated using: (a) Johansen time series cointegration
            estimates, and (b) pooled mean group estimates for
            non-stationary panel data. The paper constructs a dataset of
            real undervaluation episodes. It first evaluates whether
            (and if so, to what extent) economic policies can be used to
            either cause or sustain real undervaluations. In this
            context the paper empirically models the likelihood and
            magnitude of sustaining real exchange rate undervaluations
            by examining their link to policy instruments (such as
            exchange rate regimes and capital controls, among other
            policies) using probit and Tobit models. Finally, it
            investigates whether foreign exchange intervention can
            generate persistent real exchange rate deviations from
            equilibrium. In general, it finds that intervention can lead
            to greater persistence in the incidence and magnitude of
            real exchange rate undervaluations.
Educational upgrading and returns to
            skills in Latin America : evidence from a supply-demand
            framework, 1990-2010
It has been argued that a factor behind
            the decline in income inequality in Latin America in the
            2000s was the educational upgrading of its labor force.
            Between 1990 and 2010, the proportion of the labor force in
            the region with at least secondary education increased from
            40 to 60 percent. Concurrently, returns to secondary
            education completion fell throughout the past two decades,
            while the 2000s saw a reversal in the increase in the
            returns to tertiary education experienced in the 1990s. This
            paper studies the evolution of wage differentials and the
            trends in the supply of workers by educational level for 16
            Latin American countries between 1990 and 2000. The analysis
            estimates the relative contribution of supply and demand
            factors behind recent trends in skill premia for tertiary
            and secondary educated workers. Supply-side factors seem to
            have limited explanatory power relative to demand-side
            factors, and are only relevant to explain part of the fall
            in wage premia for high-school graduates. Although there is
            significant heterogeneity in individual country experiences,
            on average the trend reversal in labor demand in the 2000s
            can be partially attributed to the recent boom in commodity
            prices that could favor the unskilled (non-tertiary
            educated) workforce, although employment patterns by sector
            suggest that other within-sector forces are also at play,
            such as technological diffusion or skill mismatches that may
            reduce the labor productivity of highly-educated workers.
The challenges to long run fiscal
            sustainability in Romania
Romania, along with many other countries
            in the European Union, faces daunting fiscal challenges.
            Fiscal balances deteriorated sharply following the global
            economic crisis, forcing Romania to implement a fiscal
            consolidation that was one of the largest in the European
            Union, but which may not be sustainable without a recovery
            of economic growth. Although the ratio of public debt to
            gross domestic product is still relatively modest, at around
            35 percent, long-term fiscal solvency is threatened by the
            costs of funding the public pension system in the face of
            adverse demographic shifts over the next 50 years. Because
            of widespread tax evasion, the tax system in Romania is one
            of the least efficient in the European Union. Tax reforms
            that can reduce the amount of tax lost to evasion and fraud
            could make a major contribution to enhancing fiscal sustainability.
Reducing distortions in
            international commodity markets : an agenda for multilateral cooperation
Global commodity markets are affected by
            a variety of government policies that may expand or lower
            overall supply and as a result affect world prices for the
            specific products concerned. Market failures and market
            structures (market power along the value chain) also affect
            supply. This paper briefly reviews a number of factors that
            may distort international commodity markets with a view to
            identifying elements of an agenda for multilateral
            cooperation to reduce such distortions. Much of the policy
            agenda that arises is domestic and requires action by
            national governments. But numerous policies -- or absence of
            policy -- generate international spillovers that call for
            the negotiation of international policy disciplines.
            Independent of whether distortions are local or
            international in scope, the complexity of prevailing market
            structures and their impacts on efficiency call for much
            greater monitoring and analysis by the international community.
Aid tying and donor fragmentation
This study tests two opposing hypotheses
            about the impact of aid fragmentation on the practice of aid
            tying. In one, when a small number of donors dominate the
            aid market in a country, they may exploit their monopoly
            power by tying more aid to purchases from contractors based
            in their own countries. Alternatively, when donors have a
            larger share of the aid market, they may have stronger
            incentives to maximize the development impact of their aid
            by tying less of it. Empirical tests strongly and
            consistently support the latter hypothesis. The key finding
            -- that higher donor aid shares are associated with less aid
            tying -- is robust to recipient controls, donor fixed
            effects and instrumental variables estimation. When
            recipient countries are grouped by their scores on
            corruption perception indexes, higher shares of aid are
            significantly related to lower aid tying only in the
            less-corrupt sub-sample. This finding is consistent with the
            argument that aid tying can be an efficient response by
            donors when losses from corruption may rival or exceed
            losses from tying aid. When aid tying is more costly, as
            proxied by donor country size and income, it is less
            prevalent. Aid tying is lower in the Least Developed
            Countries, consistent with the OECD Development Assistance
            Committee's recommendation to its members.
Reputation matters : spillover
            effects in the enforcement of US SPS measures
This paper uses a novel dataset on
            United States food import refusals to show that reputation
            is an important factor in the enforcement of sanitary and
            phytosanitary measures. The strongest reputation effect
            comes from a country's own history of compliance in
            relation to a particular product. The odds of at least one
            import refusal in the current year increase by more than 300
            percent if there was a refusal in the preceding year, after
            controlling for other factors. However, the data are also
            suggestive of the existence of two sets of spillovers.
            First, import refusals are less likely if there is an
            established history of compliance in relation to other goods
            in the same sector. Second, an established history of
            compliance in relation to the same product by neighboring
            countries also helps reduce the number of import refusals.
            These findings have important policy implications for
            exporters of agricultural products, especially in
            middle-income countries. In particular, they highlight the
            importance of a comprehensive approach to upgrading
            standards systems, focusing on sectors rather than
            individual products, as well as the possible benefits that
            can come from regional cooperation in building sanitary and
            phytosanitary compliance capacity.
The unexpected global financial
            crisis : researching its root cause
The world is currently still struggling
            with the aftermath of the worst economic crisis since the
            Great Depression. Following a description of the eruption,
            evolution and consequences of the global crisis, this paper
            reviews alternative hypotheses for the causes of the global
            financial crisis as well as their empirical evidence. The
            paper refutes the frequently voiced view that the global
            crisis was caused by global imbalances that reflected
            economic policies of East Asian countries. Instead, it
            argues that global imbalances were the result of excess
            demand in the United States, resulting from both the public
            debt in the United States arising from the Afghanistan and
            Iraqi wars and tax cuts and the overconsumption by
            households supported by the wealth effect from the housing
            bubble in the United States. The housing bubble itself was
            the outcome of the Federal Reserve's low interest rate
            policy in the aftermath of the burst of the
            "dot-com" bubble in 2001, the lack of appropriate
            financial regulation, and housing policies aimed at
            expanding the mortgage market to low-income borrowers. It
            was possible to maintain the large trade deficits of the
            United States for such a long period of time because of the
            dollar's reserve currency status. When the housing
            bubble in the United States burst, the global crisis ensued.
            The paper also analyzes why China's trade surplus
            increased significantly in general and with the United
            States in particular in recent years, and argues that this
            increase was caused by both the relocation of the
            labor-intensive tradable sector of East Asian economies to
            China and high corporate saving rates in China as a result
            of its dual-track approach to reform.
Beyond Keynesianism : global
            infrastructure investments in times of crisis
As the world recovers only slowly from
            the 2008 financial crisis and Europe is facing a looming
            debt crisis, concerns have increased that the "new
            normal" -- a period of high unemployment, low returns
            on investment, high risks, and low growth -- may become
            protracted in advanced economies. If growth remains weak,
            unemployment rates and debt levels will be slow to recede.
            Consequently, the global recovery may continue to be fragile
            for years to come. What the world needs now is a
            growth-lifting strategy. This strategy could take the form
            of a global infrastructure initiative. Since debt levels are
            high, governments in the United States and Europe could
            increase demand and support growth through investments in
            bottleneck-releasing infrastructure projects that are
            self-financing. An infrastructure initiative should,
            however, go beyond the borders of advanced countries and
            include developing countries. Economic and social returns to
            infrastructure investments tend to be high in developing
            countries, which have become increasingly important drivers
            of global growth. At the same time, infrastructure
            investments require capital goods, most of which are
            produced in high-income countries. Scaling up infrastructure
            investment in developing countries could therefore help
            generate a virtuous cycle in support of a global recovery.
Surviving the global financial
            crisis : foreign ownership and establishment performance
This paper examines how different
            establishments performed during the recent global financial
            crisis, focusing on the role of foreign ownership. The paper
            investigates how foreign ownership affected
            establishments' responses to negative economic shocks,
            using a cross-country panel dataset with detailed
            information on operation, location and industry for more
            than 12 million establishments from 2005-2008. The evidence
            shows that multinational subsidiaries on average fared
            better than local counterfactuals with similar economic
            characteristics. Among multinational subsidiaries,
            establishments with stronger production and financial
            linkages with parent companies showed greater resilience.
            Finally, in contrast to the crisis period, the impact of
            foreign ownership and linkages on an establishment's
            performance was insignificant in non-crisis years.
Is the financial safety net a
            barrier to cross-border banking
A bank's interest expenses rise
            with its degree of internationalization, measured by its
            share of foreign liabilities in total liabilities or a
            Herfindahl index of international liability concentration,
            especially if the bank is performing badly. The results in
            this paper suggest that an international bank's cost of
            funds raised through a foreign subsidiary is 1.5-2.4 percent
            higher than the cost of funds for a purely domestic bank.
            That is a sizeable difference, given that the overall mean
            cost of funds is 3.3 percent. These results can be explained
            by limited incentives for national authorities to bail out
            an international bank, as well as an inefficient recovery
            and resolution process for international banks. In any
            event, a less reliable financial safety net appears to be a
            barrier to cross-border banking.
Bilateral M&A activity from the
            global south
This paper studies the factors
            associated with outbound bilateral mergers and acquisitions
            (M&A) activity by firms located in emerging economies.
            The authors document recent trends in emerging market
            M&A flows, which have risen dramatically over the past
            decade, and explore the factors that may have contributed to
            this rise. They find distinct patterns for M&A deals
            according to whether the acquisition targets are in other
            emerging economies or advanced countries, and that these
            differences can be attributed to differing theoretical
            motivations behind foreign direct investment. The authors
            also consider the implications of their model for future
            M&A originating in the global South, in light of the
            global financial crisis of 2008.