rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Resource management and the effects
            of trade on vulnerable places and people : lessons from six
            case studies
Lessons from six case studies illustrate
            the complex relationships between international trade,
            vulnerable ecologies and the poor. The studies, taken from
            Africa, Asia and Latin America and conducted by local
            researchers, are set in places where the poor live in close
            proximity to ecologies that are important to global
            conservation efforts, and focus on the cascading
            consequences of trade policy for local livelihoods and
            environmental services. Collectively, the studies show how
            under-valued common resources are often poorly protected and
            consequently subject to shifting economic incentives,
            including those that arise from trade. The studies provide
            examples where trade works to accelerate the use of natural
            resources and to exacerbate unsustainable dependencies by
            the poor, and other examples where trade has the opposite
            effect. An important conclusion is that local livelihood and
            technology choices have important consequences for how
            environmental resources are used and should be taken into
            account when designing policies to safeguard fragile ecologies.
Can disaggregated indicators
            identify governance reform priorities
Many highly-disaggregated cross-country
            indicators of institutional quality and the business
            environment have been developed in recent years. The promise
            of these indicators is that they can be used to identify
            specific reform priorities that policymakers and aid donors
            can target in their efforts to improve institutional and
            regulatory quality outcomes. Doing so however requires
            evidence on the partial effects of these many very detailed
            variables on outcomes of interest, for example, investor
            perceptions of corruption or the quality of the regulatory
            environment. In this paper we use Bayesian Model Averaging
            (BMA) to systematically document the partial correlations
            between disaggregated indicators and several closely-related
            outcome variables of interest using two leading datasets:
            the Global Integrity Index and the Doing Business
            indicators. We find major instability across outcomes and
            across levels of disaggregation in the set of indicators
            identified by BMA as important determinants of outcomes.
            Disaggregated indicators that are important determinants of
            one outcome are on average not important determinants of
            other very similar outcomes. And for a given outcome
            variable, indicators that are important at one level of
            disaggregation are on average not important at other levels
            of disaggregation. These findings illustrate the
            difficulties in using highly-disaggregated indicators to
            identify reform priorities.
The remitting patterns of African
            migrants in the OECD
Recorded remittances to Africa have
            grown dramatically over the past decade. Yet data
            limitations still mean relatively little is known about
            which migrants remit, how much they remit, and how their
            remitting behavior varies with gender, education, income
            levels, and duration abroad. This paper constructs the most
            comprehensive remittance database on immigrants in the OECD
            currently available, containing microdata on more than
            12,000 African immigrants. Using this microdata the authors
            establish several basic facts about the remitting patterns
            of Africans, and then explore how key characteristics of
            policy interest relate to remittance behavior. Africans are
            found to remit twice as much on average as migrants from
            other developing countries, and those from poorer African
            countries are more likely to remit than those from richer
            African countries. Male migrants remit more than female
            migrants, particularly among those with a spouse remaining
            in the home country; more-educated migrants remit more than
            less educated migrants; and although the amount remitted
            increases with income earned, the gradient is quite flat
            over a large range of income. Finally, there is little
            evidence that the amount remitted decays with time spent
            abroad, with reductions in the likelihood of remitting
            offset by increases in the amount remitted conditional on remitting.
Export performance and trade
            facilitation reform : hard and soft infrastructure
The authors estimate the impact of
            aggregate indicators of "soft" and
            "hard" infrastructure on the export performance of
            developing countries. They build four new indicators for 101
            countries over the period 2004-07. Estimates show that trade
            facilitation reforms do improve the export performance of
            developing countries. This is particularly true with
            investment in physical infrastructure and regulatory reform
            to improve the business environment. Moreover, the findings
            provide evidence that the marginal effect of infrastructure
            improvement on exports appears to be decreasing in per
            capita income. In contrast, the impact of information and
            communications technology on exports appears increasingly
            important for richer countries. Drawing on estimates, the
            authors compute illustrative exports growth for developing
            countries and ad-valorem equivalents of improving each
            indicator halfway to the level of the top performer in the
            region. As an example, improving the quality of physical
            infrastructure so that Egypt's indicator increases
            half-way to the level of Tunisia would increase exports by
            10.8 percent. This is equivalent to a 7.4 percent cut in
            tariffs faced by Egyptian exporters across importing markets.
The impact of the 1999 education
            reform in Poland
Increasing the share of vocational
            secondary schooling has been a mainstay of development
            policy for decades, perhaps nowhere more so than in formerly
            socialist countries. The transition, however, led to
            significant restructuring of school systems, including a
            declining share of vocational students. Exposing more
            students to a general curriculum could improve academic
            abilities. This paper analyzes Polands significant
            improvement in international achievement tests and the
            restructuring of the education system that expanded general
            schooling to test the hypothesis that delayed vocational
            streaming improves outcomes. Using propensity score matching
            and differences-in-differences estimates, the authors show
            that delayed vocationalization had a positive and
            significant impact on student performance on the order of
            one standard deviation.
The offshore services value chain :
            developing countries and the crisis
This paper analyzes the recent evolution
            and impact of the global economic crisis on the offshore
            services industry. Using a global value chains framework,
            the authors classify the offshore services sector in a
            comprehensive set of general and industry-specific
            activities that correspond to different segments and stages
            in the value-adding process for services. Through an
            analysis of the impact of the economic crisis on the
            industry, a small decline in demand was found; however this
            did not cause any structural changes in the market. The
            crisis has created two opposing effects: general contraction
            of demand by existing customers due to the recession; and,
            at the same time, a substitution effect by which new
            services are being moved from developed countries to
            emerging economies in search of cost reduction.  The paper
            concludes that the offshore services industry will continue
            to offer growth opportunities for developing countries not
            only among existing market players, but also a range of new
            countries. The industry has the potential to become an
            important source for employment and economic growth around
            the globe.
Aid for trade, infrastructure, and
            the growth effects of trade reform : issues and implications
            for Caribbean countries
This paper examines how aid-for-trade
            programs can help to magnify the growth benefits that
            developing countries can reap from trade reform and global
            integration, with a special emphasis on the Caribbean
            region. The first part discusses various rationales for
            trade-related aid, viewed both as a compensatory scheme
            (aimed at cushioning the impact of revenue cuts and
            adjustment costs) and a promotion scheme (aimed at
            alleviating supply-side constraints). In the latter case,
            particular attention is paid to the role of infrastructure
            as a constraining factor on trade expansion. The second part
            discusses the relevance of aid-for-trade arguments for
            Caribbean countries and identifies a number of specific
            issues for the region. The third part illustrates the
            potential growth effects of aid-for-trade programs with
            simulation results for the Dominican Republic -- a country
            where infrastructure indicators remain relatively weak. The
            results illustrate the potentially large growth benefits
            that a temporary and well-targeted aid-for-trade program can
            provide to countries of the region.
Within-school tracking in south
            Korea : an analysis using Pisa 2003
The 2003 PISA Korea sample is used to
            examine the association between within-school ability
            tracking and mathematics achievement. Estimates of a variety
            of econometric models reveal that tracking is positively
            associated with mathematics achievement among females and
            that this association declines for higher achieving females.
            No evidence of an association between males and tracking is
            detected. While this association for females cannot be
            interpreted as a causal effect, the presence of a measurable
            association indicates the need for further research on
            tracking in Korea with a particular focus on gender differences.
Accounting for selectivity and
            duration-dependent heterogeneity when estimating the impact
            of emigration on incomes and poverty in sending areas
The impacts of international emigration
            and remittances on incomes and poverty in sending areas are
            increasingly studied with household survey data. But
            comparing households with and without emigrants is
            complicated by a triple-selectivity problem: first,
            households self-select into emigration; second, in some
            emigrant households everyone moves while others leave
            members behind; and third, some emigrants choose to return
            to the origin country. Allowing for duration-dependent
            heterogeneity introduces a fourth form of selectivity -- one
            must now worry not just about whether households migrate,
            but also when they do so. This paper clearly sets out these
            selectivity issues and their implications for existing
            migration studies, and then addresses them by using survey
            data designed specifically to take advantage of a randomized
            lottery that determines which applicants to the
            over-subscribed Samoan Quota may immigrate to New Zealand.
            The analysis compares incomes and poverty rates among left
            behind members in households in Samoa that sent Samoan Quota
            emigrants with those for members of similar households that
            were unsuccessful in the lottery. Policy rules control who
            can accompany the principal migrant, providing an instrument
            to address the second selectivity problem, while differences
            among migrants in which year their ballot was selected allow
            for estimation of duration effects. The authors find that
            migration reduced poverty among former household members,
            but they also find suggestive evidence that this effect may
            be short-lived as both remittances and agricultural income
            are negatively related to the duration that the migrant has
            been abroad.
Accounting for selectivity and
            duration-dependent heterogeneity when estimating the impact
            of emigration on incomes and poverty in sending areas
WPS5268 Policy Research Working Paper 5268 Accounting for Selectivity and DurationDependent Heterogeneity When Estimating the Impact of Emigration on Incomes and Poverty in Sending Areas _John Gibson David McKenzie Steven Stillman_ The World Bank Development Research Group Finance and Private Sector Development Team April 2010
Cambodia 1998-2008 : an episode of
            rapid growth
Cambodia's growth over 1998-2008
            has been remarkable (almost 10 percent per annum for a
            decade). This paper applies a "growth diagnostic"
            approach to understand how this happened and how it can be
            sustained. Past growth has been driven by the coincidence of
            a set of historical and geographic factors (including
            opportunistic policy responses), together with the use of
            natural assets (although in a non sustainable way) and the
            elaboration of productive sector-specific governance
            arrangements. Several of these factors are unfortunately not
            self-sustaining and the global economic crisis of 2008-09 is
            exposing these vulnerabilities. A growth diagnostic flags a
            number of short-term priorities to ensure the
            competitiveness of existing industries, as well as more
            medium-term priorities for the country to continue
            attracting foreign investment and start mobilizing more
            domestic savings. A key economic policy objective is the
            diversification of the economy, which requires a reduction
            in unproductive risks and costs as well as creative
            solutions to coordination failures.
Openness and technological
            innovation in East Asia : have they increased the demand for skills
This paper examines whether the
            increased openness and technological innovation in East Asia
            have contributed to an increased demand for skills in the
            region. The author explores a unique firm level data set
            across eight countries in Asia and the Pacific region. The
            results strongly support the idea that greater openness and
            technological innovation have increased the demand for
            skills, especially in middle-income countries. In
            particular, while the presence in international markets has
            been skill enhancing for most middle-income countries, this
            is not the case for manufacturing firms operating in China
            and in low-income countries. The author interprets this to
            support the premise that if international integration in the
            region continues to intensify and technology continues to be
            skilled biased, policies aimed at mitigating the skills
            shortages should produce continual and persistent increase
            in skills.
Is protectionism on the rise
            assessing national trade policies during the crisis of 2008
To understand the role of trade policies
            in the crisis of 2008, this paper constructs the overall
            trade restrictiveness indices for a wide range of countries
            using their tariff schedules in 2008 and 2009. The index
            summarizes the trade policy stance of a country, taking into
            account the share of each good in trade as well as its
            corresponding import demand elasticity. Results show that
            there is no widespread increase in protectionism via tariff
            policies since the global financial crisis has unfolded.
            While many countries have adjusted tariffs upward on
            selected products, only a handful of countries, such as
            Malawi, Russia, Argentina, Turkey and China focus on
            products that have significant impacts on trade flows. The
            United States and the European Union, by contrast, rely
            mainly on anti-dumping duties to shield domestic industries.
            Overall, while the rise in tariffs and anti-dumping duties
            in these countries may have jointly caused global trade to
            drop by as much as US$43 billion during the crisis period,
            it explains less than 2 percent of the collapse in world trade.
Water, sanitation and
            children's health : evidence from 172 DHS surveys
This paper combines 172 Demography and
            Health Survey data sets from 70 countries to estimate the
            effect of water and sanitation on child mortality and
            morbidity. The results show a robust association between
            access to water and sanitation technologies and both child
            morbidity and child mortality. The point estimates imply,
            depending on the technology level and the sub-region chosen,
            that water and sanitation infrastructure lowers the odds of
            children to suffering from diarrhea by 7-17 percent, and
            reduces the mortality risk for children under the age of
            five by about 5-20 percent. The effects seem largest for
            modern sanitation technologies and least significant for
            basic water supply. The authors also find evidence for the
            Mills-Reincke Multiplier for both water and sanitation
            access as well as positive health externalities for
            sanitation investments. The overall magnitude of the
            estimated effects appears smaller than coefficients reported
            in meta-studies based on randomized field trials, suggesting
            limits to the scalability and sustainability of the health
            benefits associated with water and sanitation interventions.
Designing the payout phase of funded
            pension pillars in central and eastern European countries
Over the past decade or so, most Central
            and Eastern European countries have reformed their pension
            systems, significantly downsizing their public pillars and
            creating private pillars based on capitalization accounts.
            Early policy attention was focused on the accumulation phase
            but several countries are now reaching the stage where they
            need to address the design of the payout phase. This paper
            reviews the complex policy issues that will confront
            policymakers in this effort and summarizes recent plans and
            developments in four countries (Poland, Hungary, Estonia,
            and Lithuania). The paper concludes by highlighting a number
            of options that merit detailed consideration.
Rethinking multipliers in a
            globalized world
This paper uses the central tool of an
            investment-savings and monetary-policy model with an
            augmented Philips curve and presents a few extensions of
            that model to analyze the multiplier effects of
            macroeconomic policies in the United States. In doing so,
            the authors incorporate realistic assumptions in the model
            related to the recent financial characteristics of the
            global economy. The monetary policy reaction function embeds
            a new augmented Taylor-rule incorporating housing and stock
            prices and the credit lending rate. And the household
            consumption and firm investment decisions incorporate
            housing and stock assets and the credit market frictions.
            The equilibrium income is derived and compared with the
            actual nominal gross domestic product of the United States
            for the period 1990 to 2009. More importantly, fiscal and
            trade multipliers are derived and discussed. The main
            finding is that government spending, tax cut, and trade
            multipliers are relatively smaller in size when more
            realistic features are incorporated in the model. The model
            simulation shows that the model can track actual gross
            domestic product reasonably well. The model should be
            further improved before it could be used for policy exercises.
Vulnerability of bangladesh to
            cyclones in a changing climate : potential damages and
            adaptation cost
This paper integrates information on
            climate change, hydrodynamic models, and geographic overlays
            to assess the vulnerability of coastal areas in Bangladesh
            to larger storm surges and sea-level rise by 2050. The
            approach identifies polders (diked areas), coastal
            populations, settlements, infrastructure, and economic
            activity at risk of inundation, and estimates the cost of
            damage versus the cost of several adaptation measures. A
            27-centimeter sea-level rise and 10 percent intensification
            of wind speed from global warming suggests the vulnerable
            zone increases in size by 69 percent given a +3-meter
            inundation depth and by 14 percent given a +1-meter
            inundation depth. At present, Bangladesh has 123 polders, an
            early warning and evacuation system, and more than 2,400
            emergency shelters to protect coastal inhabitants from tidal
            waves and storm surges. However, in a changing climate, it
            is estimated that 59 of the 123 polders would be overtopped
            during storm surges and another 5,500 cyclone shelters (each
            with the capacity of 1,600 people) to safeguard the
            population would be needed. Investments including
            strengthening polders, foreshore afforestation, additional
            multi-purpose cyclone shelters, cyclone-resistant private
            housing, and further strengthening of the early warning and
            evacuation system would cost more than $2.4 billion with an
            annual recurrent cost of more than $50 million. However, a
            conservative damage estimate suggests that the incremental
            cost of adapting to these climate change related risks by
            2050 is small compared with the potential damage in the
            absence of adaptation measures.