rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
The optimal mix of pricing and
            infrastructure expansions to alleviate traffic congestion
            and in-bus crowding in grand Casablanca
Like in many large cities in developing
            countries, traffic in Grand Casablanca, Morocco, is
            congested and public buses are crowded. These conditions are
            alleviated by a combination of supply-side infrastructure
            expansions, such as more buses and new road capacity, and
            demand-side pricing instruments, such as parking and fuel
            taxes. Using an empirical urban transportation mode choice
            model for Casablanca, this study finds a mix of these
            expansion policies and pricing instruments to alleviate
            congestion and maximize aggregate social welfare. The
            optimal mix is sensitive to the marginal costs of the
            infrastructure expansions. If the city were to spread out in
            its periphery where land constraints do not exist and land
            is available at lower prices, a supply-side instrument,
            particularly the optimal expansion of roads, would be far
            more effective in achieving welfare gains than the use of
            optimal pricing instruments without new roads. By contrast,
            if the city were to densify in already built-up areas, land
            and other physical constraints and the high price of land
            may leave expensive “elevated roads” as the only option. In
            this case, demand-side instruments together with the
            elevated roads would equally contribute to reduce traffic
            congestion and in-bus crowding.
The dynamics of development :
            innovation and reallocation
This paper proposes a quantitative model
            of endogenous firm dynamics to study growth acceleration
            episodes triggered by reforms. It finds that reversals of
            entry distortions lead to persistent growth in TFP and
            declining average firm size, as in the experience of
            successful post-communist transitions. Removing
            idiosyncratic distortions results in a more protracted path
            of TFP and a rising average firm size, as in non-communist
            growth accelerations. When calibrating the reforms to
            China’s liberalization, the model accounts for one-third of
            the observed growth in TFP, while matching the dynamics of
            average firm size and income inequality.
How does participation in value
            chains matter to African farmers
Trade and participation in global value
            chains can play a key role in economic diversification and
            development. This paper deepens the discussion about
            productivity growth and upgrading in agriculture in Africa,
            and the role of national, regional, and international value
            chains in supporting such structural change. The analysis in
            this report is based on quantitative and qualitative surveys
            undertaken in 2016 in Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia, where 3,935
            farmers, 60 aggregators, and 56 buyers in the maize,
            cassava, and sorghum value chains were interviewed in the
            three countries. The descriptive results show that farmers
            who were on a contract saw greater structural
            transformation; higher output; and better access to seeds,
            fertilizers, pesticides, technology, and extension services
            compared with farmers who were not on a contract. To
            identify more robustly the link between value chain
            participation and contract farming with productivity and
            upgrading, the paper looks at the relationship using a
            variety of empirical methodologies, ranging from ordinary
            least squares and probit regressions to propensity score
            matching. Based on the empirical evidence, the hypothesis
            that value chain participation leads to structural
            transformation cannot be confirmed. The paper does find
            evidence that formal or informal contractual arrangements
            that regulate the provision of inputs to production, such as
            fertilizer, technology, extension services, and market
            information, positively affect upgrading. It remains
            nevertheless important to understand the impact of
            government policies on the emergence of value chains given
            that value chains support contractual arrangements.
Impact of conflict on adolescent
            girls in South Sudan
Violent conflict and instability affect
            men and women in heterogeneous ways, including
            differentiated impacts on economic, social, physical, and
            mental well-being. This study assesses the impact of the
            post-2013 conflict in South Sudan on adolescent girls and
            young women. The analysis uses data from the Adolescent
            Girls Initiative endline survey and the Armed Conflict
            Location & Event Data to measure conflict exposure using
            constructed cluster-level, self-reported, and external
            conflict exposure variables. The impact of conflict exposure
            is then estimated on a set of socioeconomic outcomes of
            adolescent girls by comparing exposed and non-exposed
            clusters before and after the conflict. The results suggest
            that girls from clusters more affected by the conflict had
            statistically different outcomes compared with girls from
            less affected clusters. Specifically, there is strong
            evidence that the conflict negatively affected outcomes
            related to income opportunities, aspirations, marriage, and
            household characteristics, but increased self-reported
            empowerment and entrepreneurial potential scores. The
            results indicate that impacts on labor supply, personal
            motivation, household conditions, and other forms of
            victimization are important channels through which conflict
            negatively impacts adolescent girls.
Better loans or better borrowers
            impact of meso-credit on female-owned enterprises in Ethiopia
This paper explores the impact of large,
            individual-liability loans on the growth of women-owned
            microenterprises in Ethiopia. Traditionally, microfinance
            institutions in Ethiopia have primarily catered to female
            enterprises with group lending schemes that provide very
            small loans. The limitations of this model are two-fold: in
            addition to these micro-loans being too small in size to
            fuel meaningful business growth, many of the female
            enterprises that are targeted with these loans face binding
            constraints, such as concentration in lower-growth sectors,
            lack of alternative job opportunities, limitations on time
            and mobility, and restrictive gender norms. The paper
            investigates the impact of credit to female entrepreneurs in
            a novel context, by examining larger loans, provided to
            growth-oriented women entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs
            fall in the "missing middle" or
            "meso-finance" segment of the financial market
            because their credit needs are too large for microfinance,
            but not large enough for commercial banks. The paper uses a
            propensity score matching methodology to examine the impact
            of loans offered to women as part of the Women
            Entrepreneurship Development Project, a program funded by
            the World Bank International Development Association, that
            targets growth-oriented women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia. The
            results suggest that large, individual-liability loans can
            make a significant difference in accelerating growth in the
            business incomes and employment levels of women-owned enterprises.
Better loans or better borrowers
            impact of meso-credit on female-owned enterprises in Ethiopia
WPS8511 Policy Research Working Paper 8511 Better Loans or Better Borrowers?

Impact of Meso-Credit on Female-Owned Enterprises in Ethiopia _Salman Alibhai Niklas Buehren Sreelakshmi Papineni_ Africa Region Gender Global Theme Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice July 2018
Jati inequality in rural Bihar
Caste is a persistent driver of
            inequality in India, and it is generally analyzed with
            government-defined broad categories, such as Scheduled Caste
            and Scheduled Tribe. In everyday life, however, caste is
            lived and experienced as jati, which is a local system of
            stratification. Little is known about economic inequality at
            the jati level. This paper uses data from poor rural
            districts in Bihar to explore expenditure inequality at the
            jati level. Inequality decompositions show much more
            variation between jatis than between broad caste categories.
            The analysis finds that even within generally disadvantaged
            Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, some jatis are
            significantly worse off than others.  Consistent with
            previous work, the paper also finds that inequality is
            largely driven by inequality within jatis. This finding has
            implications for the implementation of large-scale poverty
            alleviation programs:  the benefits of programs intended for
            disadvantaged castes are concentrated among specific jatis.
How would cross-border electricity
            trade stimulate hydropower development in South Asia
This study examines the importance of
            enhancing the cross-border transmission interconnections and
            regional electricity trade to promote hydropower in the
            South Asia region and quantifies the potential of hydropower
            development and trade under alternative scenarios. While
            South Asia is endowed with large (> 350 gigawatts)
            hydropower potential, only around 20 percent has been
            exploited so far. This study shows that development of
            regional electricity markets through expanded cross-border
            transmission interconnections and regional electricity trade
            agreements is needed to benefit the region from the
            exploitation of the untapped hydropower resources. It also
            finds that development of hydropower in the region would
            increase by 2.7 times over the next two decades if the
            region could facilitate an unconstrained flow of electricity
            across the borders in South Asia. If a moderate carbon tax
            is added on top of that, hydropower capacity in 2040 could
            be more than three times as high as the current level.
Gross capital flows by banks,
            corporates, and sovereigns
This paper constructs a new dataset of
            quarterly capital flows by sector and establishes four
            facts. First, the co-movement of capital inflows and
            outflows is driven by banks. Second, procyclicality of
            capital inflows is driven by banks and corporates, whereas
            sovereigns' external liabilities move acyclically in
            advanced and countercyclically in emerging countries. Third,
            procyclicality of capital outflows is driven by advanced
            countries' banks and emerging countries'
            sovereigns (reserves). Fourth, capital inflows and outflows
            decline for banks and corporates when global risk aversion
            increases, whereas sovereigns' flows show no response.
            These facts are inconsistent with a large class of
            theoretical models.
Spatial and sectoral heterogeneity
            of occupational choice in Cameroon
This paper investigates the relationship
            between location, agglomeration, access to credit,
            informality, and productivity across cities and industries
            in Cameroon. Emphasizing the link between micro-foundations
            and the data, the paper develops and estimates a structural
            model of occupational choice in which heterogeneous agents
            choose between formal entrepreneurship, informal
            entrepreneurship, and non-entrepreneurial work. Their
            decision-making process is driven by institutional
            constraints such as entry costs, tax enforcement, and access
            to credit. The model predicts that agglomeration has a
            non-monotonic effect on formalization, and entrepreneurial
            profits increase with agglomeration effects. Estimating the
            model by the generalized method of moments, the paper finds
            that the returns to capital and labor are not uniform across
            sectors and cities. Manufacturing industries are highly
            constrained in capital and the elasticity of capital is
            higher in Yaoundé and Douala, whereas labor elasticity is
            higher in Kribi. Counterfactual simulations show that an
            increase in roads provision can have a substantial impact in
            terms of output, formalization, and productivity. A
            reduction in the current interest rate has a large and
            significant impact on formalization and no significant
            effect on business creation. Likewise, while the current tax
            rate is suboptimal for most cities, a tax reduction policy
            would have a much greater impact on formalization than on
            business creation. These effects differ substantially across
            cities and sectors, suggesting that those policy instruments
            could be implemented accordingly to support formalization
            and business creation.
Assessing the international
            comovement of equity returns
The international comovement of equity
            returns has been viewed as reflecting either pervasive
            common shocks or local linkages between countries. This
            paper brings these perspectives together by assessing the
            comovement of equity returns in a dynamic model that allows
            for both common factors and spatial dependence, using
            quarterly data for 40 advanced and emerging countries over
            the past two decades, and including GDP growth, the real
            interest rate, and credit as fundamental variables.
            Estimation results employing a bias-corrected quasi-maximum
            likelihood approach provide strong indication that the
            cross-country dependence of equity returns results from both
            spatial effects and common shocks captured by a latent
            common factor -- weak and strong dependence, respectively.
            The factor exhibits a robust negative correlation with
            market measures of aggregate risk. Countries' exposure
            to the common factor rises with their extent of trade
            openness and the degree of rigidity of their exchange rate
            regime. Despite its simplicity, the empirical model fits the
            data well. All these results are robust to the use of
            alternative spatial weight matrices. The paper also shows
            that ignoring cross-country dependence leads to distorted
            parameter estimates and a marked deterioration of the
            explanatory power of the empirical model.
Integrating variable renewable
            energy in the Bangladesh power system : a planning analysis
Integration of large-scale variable
            renewable energy (VRE) generation resources -- wind and
            solar -- into national grids has been gaining importance as
            costs of these technologies, especially that of solar,
            continues to fall rapidly. However, there continues to be a
            lack of a framework to systematically analyze the role
            played by large-scale VRE integration for most developing
            countries. This study develops such a framework and applies
            it to analyze VRE policies in Bangladesh. The study uses a
            least-cost planning approach to assess the volume of solar
            and wind that can technically and economically be integrated
            in the power system, accounting for spinning reserve
            generation capacity requirements and adequacy of
            transmission capacity. The study shows that solar and wind
            can provide a significant share of the 13 to 21 GW of new
            capacity needed by 2025 to meet rapidly growing electricity
            demand, although most of it does not pass the cost/benefit
            test in the near term till 2022. Efforts are also required
            to cope with what otherwise would be a large and costly
            increase in on-demand ("spinning") reserve
            capacity. The analysis demonstrates how an investment
            strategy to cover peak demand, and prudent changes in system
            operational practices, allow for the system to provide the
            needed reserve capacity without a prohibitive increase in
            system costs. In addition, the study examines the adequacy
            of transmission capacity for the first large-scale solar and
            wind project in Bangladesh.
The shifting natural wealth of
            nations : the role of market orientation
This paper explores the effect of market
            orientation on (known) natural resource wealth using a novel
            dataset of world-wide major hydrocarbon and mineral
            discoveries. Consistent with the predictions of a two-region
            model, the empirical estimates based on a large panel of
            countries show that increased market orientation causes a
            significant increase in discoveries of natural resources. In
            a thought experiment whereby economies in Latin America and
            sub-Saharan Africa remained closed, they would have only
            achieved one quarter of the actual increase in discoveries
            they have experienced since the early 1990s. The results
            call into question the commonly held view that natural
            resource endowments are exogenous.
Tax Evasion in Africa and Latin
            America : the role of distortionary infrastructures and policies
This paper examines the impact of the
            quality of the business environment as well as the
            monitoring capacity of the tax agency on firms' tax
            evasion and production decisions. First, the paper uses
            firm-level data for 30 African and Latin American countries
            to show that tax evasion and distortions stemming from the
            business environment are positively and significantly
            correlated, while sales not reported for tax purposes and
            institutional quality are negatively and significantly
            correlated. Second, the paper develops a general equilibrium
            model where heterogeneous firms make tax evasion decisions
            based on their assessment of the quality of their business
            environment as well as the monitoring capacity of the tax
            agency. The model simulations for each country in the
            African and Latin American sample show that the model can
            explain 35 percent of the variation in tax evasion and more
            than 49 percent of the dispersion in output per worker
            across the sample countries. Finally, a series of
            counterfactual experiments shows that, at the current level
            of deterrence, governments could decrease sales not reported
            for tax purposes by 21 percent, by reducing distortions
            stemming from the business environment by half. The paper
            presents empirical supporting evidence consistent with
            testable predictions of the model.
Measuring districts' monthly
            economic activity from outer space
Evening-hour luminosity observed using
            satellites is a good proxy for economic activity. The
            strengths of measuring economic activity using nightlight
            measurements include that the data capture informal
            activity, are available in near real-time, are cheap to
            obtain, and can be used to conduct very spatially granular
            analysis. This paper presents a measure of monthly economic
            activity at the district level based on cleaned Visible
            Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite nightlight and rural
            population. The paper demonstrates that this new method can
            shed light on recent episodes in South Asia: first, the 2015
            earthquake in Nepal; second, demonetization in India; and,
            third, violent conflict outbreaks in Afghanistan.
Should I stay or should I go : do
            cash transfers affect migration
The paper reviews the evidence on a
            "hot" and yet underexplored question -- that is,
            whether and how social assistance programs (especially cash
            transfers) affect domestic and international migration. Out
            an initial sample of 269 papers, 10 relevant empirical
            studies examine the question. The programs are classified
            into three clusters: (i) social assistance that implicitly
            deters migration centering on place-based programs, (ii)
            social assistance that implicitly facilitates migration by
            relaxing liquidity constraints and reducing transaction
            costs, and (iii) social assistance that is explicitly
            conditioned on spatial mobility. The paper finds that
            impacts on migration generally align with the implicit or
            explicit goals of interventions. Under cluster (i), the
            likelihood of moving declined between 0.22 and 11 percentage
            points; among schemes in clusters (ii) and (iii), the
            probability to move soared between 0.32-25 and 20-55
            percentage points, respectively. The analysis also finds
            spillover effects within households and communities. While
            social assistance seems not to determine migration decisions
            per se, it nonetheless enters the broader calculous of
            mobility decision making. As such, social protection can be
            an important part of public policy packages to manage
            mobility. More research is needed to improve understanding
            of the role of social protection in structural
            transformation -- a process underpinned by domestic mobility
            and the performance of which may ultimately affect
            international migration.