rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Structural reforms and labor market
            outcomes : international panel data evidence
This paper explores the impact of
            structural reforms on a comprehensive set of macro-level
            labor-market outcomes, including the unemployment rate, the
            average wage index, and overall and female employment levels
            and labor force participation rates. Together these outcome
            variables capture the overall health of the labor market and
            the aggregate welfare of workers. Yet, there seems to be no
            other comprehensive empirical investigation in the existing
            literature of the impact of structural reforms at the
            cross-country macro level on labor-market outcomes other
            than the unemployment rate. Data were collected from a
            variety of sources, including the World Bank World
            Development Indicators, the International Monetary Fund
            International Financial Statistics, and the International
            Labor Organization Key Indicators of the Labor Market. The
            resulting dataset covers up to 88 countries, the majority
            being developing, for 10 years on either side of structural
            reforms that took place between 1960 and 2001. After
            documenting the average trends across countries in the
            labor-market outcomes up to 10 years on either side of each
            countrys structural reform year, the authors run
            fixed-effects ordinary least squares as well as instrumental
            variables regressions to account for the likely endogeneity
            of structural reforms to labor-market outcomes. Overall the
            results suggest that structural reforms lead to positive
            outcomes for labor. Unlike related literature, the paper
            does not find conclusive evidence on unemployment.
            Redistributive effects in favor of workers, along the lines
            of the Stolper-Samuelson effect, may be at work.
Place and child health : the
            interaction of population density and sanitation in
            developing countries
A long literature in demography debates
            the importance of place for health. This paper assesses
            whether the importance of dense settlement for child
            mortality and child height is moderated by exposure to local
            sanitation behavior. Is open defecation, without a toilet or
            latrine, worse for infant mortality and child height where
            population density is greater? Is poor sanitation an
            important mechanism by which population density in?uences
            health outcomes? The paper uses newly assembled data sets to
            present two complementary analyses, which represent di?erent
            points in a trade-o? between external and internal validity.
            The first analysis concentrates on external validity by
            studying infant mortality and child height in a large,
            international child-level data set of 172 Demographic and
            Health Surveys, matched to census population density data
            for 1,800 subnational regions. The second analysis
            concentrates on internal validity by studying child height
            in Bangladeshi districts, with a new data set constructed
            with Geographic Information System techniques, and controls
            for ?xed e?ects at a high level of geographic resolution.
            The paper ?nds a statistically robust and quantitatively
            comparable interaction between sanitation and population
            density with both approaches: open defecation externalities
            are more important for child health outcomes where people
            live more closely together.
Trade and civil conflict :
            revisiting the cross-country evidence
This paper revisits and expands the
            evidence on the impact of trade shocks on intra-state
            conflict with a large sample of developing countries in the
            1960-2010 period. The results suggest that increases in the
            prices of a country's exported commodities raise the
            country's risk of civil conflict and its duration. The
            effect on conflict risk is mainly driven by the price of
            point-source commodities, in line with the rapacity effect
            theory of conflict. However, the paper does not find support
            for the opportunity cost theory via exported commodities.
            The analysis also finds that intense trading with contiguous
            countries is associated with lower duration of intra-state
            conflict, consistent with the idea that such trade reduces
            the incentive of contiguous countries to fuel conflict in
            their neighbor. Trading with neighbors is also associated
            with a lower risk of conflict, when such trade occurs under
            trade agreements. By contrast, neither imported commodity
            prices nor the economic cycle in export markets appears to
            exert any influence on the probability or duration of
            conflict. The paper identifies several conditions under
            which changes in the value of exported commodities cease to
            matter for conflict probability.
Incomplete integration and contagion
            of debt distress in economic unions
This paper compares different fiscal
            integration schemes on the basis of their ability to finance
            public investments and resilience to debt distress and
            contagion. Complete integration schemes, where a central
            authority chooses the level of public investments with
            productivity-enhancing externalities across different
            jurisdictions, are shown to be superior to incomplete
            integration schemes, where member governments choose public
            investments unilaterally. As a result, equilibrium income is
            greater for citizens of member states under a complete
            integration scheme. Moreover, complete integration schemes
            are shown to be more resilient to idiosyncratic shocks and
            more effective in limiting contagion of debt distress. This
            is mainly because the central authority can credibly borrow
            more without risking default than member states taken
            together can and it can "transfer resilience"
            across them if needed. These findings inform discussions on
            structural aspects of secular stagnation in Europe by
            emphasizing a potential challenge in the institutional
            design of fiscal responsibilities.
Transparent government and business
            regulation : "open for business"
This paper presents new indicators for
            185 economies measuring the accessibility of business
            regulatory information. The paper shows that the new data
            can serve as meaningful proxies for the overall transparency
            of governments and the new data have explanatory power for
            the quality of business regulation. The paper finds the
            regulatory environment to be most opaque in Sub-Saharan
            Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, where
            businesses can often only access basic regulatory
            information by meeting a government official. By contrast,
            in countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
            and Development and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, access
            is more direct via websites, public billboards, and
            brochures. Moreover, Organisation for Economic Co-operation
            and Development economies are more consistent in their
            transparency efforts across government agencies. The paper
            also finds that while resources as proxied by income levels
            play some role in explaining why some economies make more
            information easily accessible than others, those resources
            are not the only determining factor; regardless of income,
            more democratic governments tend to make greater
            transparency efforts. Finally, easier access to basic
            regulatory information is associated with greater regulatory
            quality and less corruption.
Sukuk markets : a proposed approach
            for development
The issuance of sukuk, as an instrument
            in Islamic finance, has been growing in recent years. Many
            policy makers and businesses are looking at the sukuk
            markets as sources of long-term financing. The paper
            identifies key issues impeding further development of sukuk
            markets globally, namely, standardization of structures and
            practices, investor protection concerns relating to
            insolvency and governance regimes, and market liquidity. The
            paper also offers approaches in developing domestic sukuk
            markets and in accessing the international market. The
            authors suggest that, in developing domestic sukuk markets,
            policy makers use a framework similar to that of the
            development of conventional bond markets, that is, by
            establishing (1) well-functioning money markets, (2)
            efficient primary markets and securities-offering regimes,
            (3) a robust and diversified investor base, (4) a market
            infrastructure that facilitates trading, price transparency,
            and efficient clearing and settlement of transactions, (5)
            derivatives market and hedging tools to support risk
            management by issuers and investors, and (6) a credible
            legal and regulatory framework. In accessing the
            international market, the issues policy makers or potential
            sukuk issuers should consider include awareness of and
            knowledge of sukuk, legal foundation, taxation, governance,
            and obligors' credit rating.
How significant is Africa's
            demographic dividend for its future growth and poverty reduction
Africa will be undergoing substantial
            demographic changes in the coming decades with the rising
            working age share of its population. The opportunity of
            African countries to convert these changes into demographic
            dividends for growth and poverty reduction will depend on
            several factors. The outlook will likely be good if African
            countries can continue the gains already made under better
            institutions and policies, particularly those affecting the
            productivity of labor, such as educational outcomes. If
            African countries can continue to build on the hard-won
            development gains, the demographic dividend could account
            for 11 to 15 percent of gross domestic product volume growth
            by 2030, while accounting for 40 to 60 million fewer poor in
            2030. The gains can become much more substantial with even
            better educational outcomes that allow African countries to
            catch up to other developing countries. If the skill share
            of Africa's labor supply doubles because of
            improvements in educational attainment, from 25 to about 50
            percent between 2011 and 30, then the demographic dividends
            can expand the regional economy additionally by 22 percent
            by 2030 relative to the base case and reduce poverty by an
            additional 51 million people.
Economic effects of the Syrian war
            and the spread of the Islamic state on the Levant
This paper uses a global computable
            general-equilibrium framework with new detail on six Levant
            countries -- the Arab Republic of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan,
            Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, and Turkey -- to quantify
            the direct and indirect economic effects of the Syrian war
            and the advance of the Islamic State on the Levant. Syria
            and Iraq bear the brunt of the direct economic costs, while
            the other Levant countries lose in per capita but not in
            aggregate terms. The fact that the Islamic State's
            spread has undermined regional trade adds to varying degrees
            to the direct costs in all Levant economies and in the case
            of Syria and Iraq doubles the welfare losses. All these
            countries are foregoing opportunities to expand intra-Levant
            trade and the associated gains in economic efficiency and
            diversification. The average welfare effects are not
            indicative of within-country incidence, which varies among
            workers, landowners, and capitalists.
Measuring risk preferences in rural
            Ethiopia : risk tolerance and exogenous income proxies (Vol. 1of1)
Risk-aversion has generally been found
            to decrease in income. This may lead one to expect that poor
            countries will be more risk-averse than rich countries.
            Recent comparative findings with students, however, suggest
            the opposite, giving rise to a risk-income paradox. This
            paper tests this paradox by measuring the risk preferences
            of more than 500 household heads spread over the highlands
            of Ethiopia and finds high degrees of risk tolerance. The
            paper also finds risk tolerance to increase in income
            proxies, thus completing the paradox. Using exogenous
            proxies, the paper concludes that part of the causality must
            run from income to risk tolerance. The findings suggest that
            risk preferences cannot be blamed for the failure to adopt
            new technologies. Alternative explanations are discussed.
Wage growth, landholding, and
            mechanization in Chinese agriculture
This paper uses farm panel data from
            China to examine the dynamics of land transactions, machine
            investments, and the demand for machine services. Recently,
            China's agriculture has experienced a large expansion
            of machine rentals and machine services provided by
            specialized agents, which has contributed to mechanization
            of agricultural production. The empirical results show that
            an increase in nonagricultural wage rates leads to expansion
            of self-cultivated land size. A rise in the proportion of
            nonagricultural income or the migration rate also increases
            the size of self-cultivated land. Interestingly, however,
            relatively educated farm households decrease the size of
            self-cultivated land, which suggests that relatively less
            educated farmers tend to specialize in farming. The demand
            for machine services has also increased if agricultural wage
            and migration rate increased over time, especially among
            relatively large farms. The results on crop income support
            the complementarity between rented-in land and machine
            services (demanded), which implies that scale economies are
            arising in Chinese agriculture with mechanization and active
            land rental markets.
Export shocks and the volatility of
            returns to schooling : evidence from twelve Latin American economies
This paper builds on previous studies to
            uncover evidence suggesting that cyclical fluctuations in
            returns to schooling are determined by fluctuations in
            foreign demand, which tend to be positively correlated with
            returns to schooling. The effect of export fluctuations
            (driven by changes in foreign demand) seems to be attenuated
            by labor market rigidities, such as constraints on employers
            to hire temporary workers on an hourly basis. This evidence
            suggests that countries that have flexible labor markets and
            experience volatility in their external demand might also
            experience volatility in returns to schooling. The paper
            discusses why this might be a concern for developing countries.
Integrating qualitative methods into
            investment climate impact evaluations
Incorporating qualitative methods into
            the evaluation of development programs has become
            increasingly popular in recent years, both for the
            distinctive insights such approaches can bring in their own
            right and because of their capacity to complement the
            strengths -- and where necessary correct some of the
            weaknesses -- of quantitative approaches. Some initial work
            deploying mixed methods has been undertaken in the
            assessment of investment climate reforms, but considerable
            room for expansion exists. This paper summarizes some of the
            key principles and practices underpinning mixed methods
            evaluations in development, highlight some notable examples
            of how such work has been conducted (and the particular
            contributions it has made), and offers some guidelines for
            those seeking to increase the sophistication and utility of
            qualitative methods in the evaluation of investment climate reforms.
Climate change, groundwater
            salinization and road maintenance costs in coastal Bangladesh
The potentially-adverse impact of
            salinity on paved roads is well-established in the
            engineering literature. The problem seems destined to grow,
            as climate-related changes in sea level and riverine flows
            drive future increases in groundwater salinity. However,
            data scarcity has prevented systematic analysis for poor
            countries. This paper assesses the impact of groundwater
            salinity on road maintenance expenditures in the coastal
            region of Bangladesh. The assessment draws on new panel
            measures of salinity from 41 stations in coastal Bangladesh,
            and road maintenance expenditures, income, road network
            length, and road surfaces from 20 coastal municipalities. In
            a model relating maintenance expenditure for paved roads to
            groundwater salinity, municipal income, and road network
            length, large and significant effects are found for
            salinity. The regression model is used to predict the effect
            of within-sample salinity variation on road maintenance
            expenditure share, holding municipal income and road length
            constant at sample mean values. Increasing salinity from its
            sample minimum to its sample maximum increases the predicted
            road maintenance expenditure share by 252 percent. The
            implied welfare impact may also be substantial, particularly
            for poor households, if diversion of expenditures to road
            maintenance reduces support for community sanitation,
            health, and other infrastructure related programs.
European economic and monetary union
            sovereign debt markets
This paper focuses on developments in
            the European Economic and Monetary Union sovereign debt
            markets in the past decade. The ?rst part analyzes the
            integration and segmentation structure of the bond markets
            of the Economic and Monetary Union before and after the
            sovereign debt crisis, by introducing the novel concept of
            correlation-based stable networks. Accordingly, a fair
            integration is observed between the bond markets during the
            pre-crisis period. However, a strict segmentation emerges,
            separating the members struggling with debt problems and the
            ones with relatively strong ?scal performances during the
            sovereign debt turmoil. The segmentation structure is
            clearly visualized, revealing the potential paths for crisis
            and recovery transmission in the future. In the second part,
            the paper comments on the recent decreasing trend in
            Economic and Monetary Union member bond yields and their
            increasing degree of co-movement. Accordingly, the paper
            argues that these changes do not depend on the ?scal
            performances of the member countries, but depend on the
            illusion of quality that appeared with the Fed (U.S. Federal
            Reserve) tapering signals in early 2013.
More than copper: toward the
            diversification and stabilization of Zambian exports
This paper analyzes Zambian export
            patterns using a new transaction-level trade data set for
            the period 1999-2011. The data show that, in international
            comparison, Zambian exports are exceptionally concentrated
            (on mining products). This reliance has been increasing in
            recent years. Zambia's exports are also characterized
            by a high level of churning of firms and products.
            Multivariate models of survival probabilities suggest that
            exchange rate volatility and difficult access to imported
            inputs significantly inhibit diversified and stable exports.
            The econometric analysis is complemented with a qualitative
            study of the Zambian export sector. The analysis concludes
            that one of the main policy levers for unleashing
            Zambia's full potential as an exporter is by
            facilitating access to imported inputs. Additional measures
            that ease foreign exchange transactions, simplify export and
            certification requirements, and increase the predictability
            of Zambia's trade regime could be effective to promote
            Zambia's nontraditional exports.
Long-run effects of democracy on
            income inequality : evidence from repeated cross-sections
This paper assesses the link between
            democracy and inequality. Inequality is measured at the
            cohort level with pseudo-panel data built from nine Latin
            American countries' household surveys (1995-2009,
            biannual). Democracy is measured as a stock during long
            periods of time both before and after each cohort's
            year of birth. The paper presents evidence that long-run
            historical patterns in the degree of democracy relate to
            income inequality. However, this relationship is
            non-monotonic: inequality ?rst increases with the stock of
            democracy before falling. The paper also presents evidence
            that education may be a mechanism explaining this result.
Local budget transparency and
            participation : evidence from the Kyrgyz Republic
The paper investigates determinants of
            civic participation in local budget processes in rural areas
            in the Kyrgyz Republic by using data from the Life in
            Kyrgyzstan survey, conducted in 2012. The analysis of the
            data suggests that although civic awareness and interest in
            local budget processes is relatively high, the participation
            rate in local budgeting processes is low. The paper also
            shows that interest, awareness, and participation are
            positively associated with the age, education, employment,
            risk-taking attitudes, trust, and social capital of
            respondents. The paper documents that unawareness and lack
            of participation are largely related to being female, of
            non-Kyrgyz ethnic origin, inactive in the labor market,
            recent internal migrants, and residents of communities with
            poor infrastructure.