rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Food security and wheat prices in
            Afghanistan : a distribution-sensitive analysis of
            household-level impacts
This paper investigates the impact of
            increases in wheat flour prices on household food security
            using unique nationally-representative data collected in
            Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008. It uses a new estimator, the
            Unconditional Quantile Regression estimator, based on
            influence functions, to examine the marginal effects of
            price increases at different locations on the distributions
            of several food security measures. The estimates reveal that
            the negative marginal effect of a price increase on food
            consumption is two and a half times larger for households
            that can afford to cut the value of food consumption (75th
            quantile) than for households at the bottom (25th quantile)
            of the food-consumption distribution. Similarly, households
            with diets high in calories reduce intake substantially, but
            those at the bottom of the calorie distribution (25th
            quantile) make very small changes in intake as a result of
            the price increases. In contrast, households at the bottom
            of the dietary diversity distribution make the largest
            adjustments in the quality of their diets, since such
            households often live at subsistence levels and cannot make
            large cuts in caloric intake without suffering serious
            health consequences. These results provide empirical
            evidence that when faced with staple-food price increases,
            food-insecure households sacrifice quality (diversity) in
            order to protect calories. The large differences in
            behavioral responses of households that lie at the top and
            bottom of these distributions suggest that policy analyses
            relying solely on ordinary least squares estimates may be misleading.
Productivity and the welfare of nations
This paper shows that the welfare of a
            country's representative consumer can be measured using
            just two variables: current and future total factor
            productivity and the capital stock per capita. These
            variables suffice to calculate welfare changes within a
            country, as well as welfare differences across countries.
            The result holds regardless of the type of production
            technology and the degree of market competition. It applies
            to open economies as well, if total factor productivity is
            constructed using domestic absorption, instead of gross
            domestic product, as the measure of output. It also requires
            that total factor productivity be constructed with prices
            and quantities as perceived by consumers, not firms. Thus,
            factor shares need to be calculated using after-tax wages
            and rental rates and they will typically sum to less than
            one. These results are used to calculate welfare gaps and
            growth rates in a sample of developed countries with
            high-quality total factor productivity and capital data.
            Under realistic scenarios, the U.K. and Spain had the
            highest growth rates of welfare during the sample period
            1985-2005, but the U.S. had the highest level of welfare.
Participatory accountability and
            collective action : evidence from field experiments in
            Albanian schools
There is general agreement that the
            existence of participatory institutions is a necessary
            condition for accountability, especially where top-down
            institutions are malfunctioning or missing. In education,
            the evidence on the effectiveness of participatory
            accountability is mixed. This paper argues that
            participation is a social dilemma and therefore depends, at
            least partly, on individuals' propensity to cooperate
            with others for the common good. This being the case, the
            mixed evidence could be owing to society-level
            heterogeneities in individuals' willingness and ability
            to overcome collective action problems.  The authors
            investigate whether individuals' propensity to
            cooperate plays a role in parents' decisions to
            participate in both a school accountability system -- a
            "short route" to accountability -- and
            parliamentary elections -- a "long route" to
            accountability -- by combining survey data on 1,800
            individuals' participation decisions with measures of
            their willingness to contribute to a public good in the
            context of a very simple, clearly defined laboratory
            experiment. They conduct a study in a new democracy,
            Albania, involving parents of children enrolled in primary
            schools. The findings confirm that, both across individuals
            within communities and across communities, the decision to
            hold teachers and school directors accountable directly
            through participation at the school level, and indirectly
            through political participation correlates with
            cooperativeness in a simple public goods game.
Optimizing the size of public road contracts
Procurement packaging has important
            effects on not only the bidders' bidding behavior, but
            also contractors' performance. By changing the size of
            public contracts, procurers can encourage (or discourage)
            market competition and improve contract performance,
            avoiding unnecessary cost overruns and project delays. In
            practice, there is no single solution about how to package
            public contracts. With procurement data from road projects
            in Nepal, this paper examines the optimal size of road
            contracts in rural areas. The optimum varies depending on
            policy objectives. To maximize the bidder participation, the
            length of road should be about 11 kilometers. To minimize
            cost overruns and delays, the contracts should be much
            larger at 17 and 21 kilometers, respectively. Compared with
            the current procurement practices, the findings suggest that
            procurers take more advantage of enlarging road packages,
            although contracts that are too large may increase the risk
            of discouraging firms from participating in public tenders.
World food prices and human
            development: Policy simulations for archetype low-income countries
In recent years, world food prices have
            increased and fluctuated widely. This paper explores the
            impact of international food prices and domestic policies on
            Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and macro indicators for
            two archetype low-income countries, a net food exporter and
            a net food importer, using Maquette for MDG Simulations
            (MAMS), a Computable General Equilibrium model. The
            simulations, which cover the period 2011-2025, indicate that
            the size of positive (negative) effects on macro and MDG
            indicators of a food export (import) price increase depend
            on the initial gross domestic product share for food exports
            (imports), leaving countries that are heavily involved in
            international food trade more exposed to international
            shocks. Given relatively low elasticity estimates, the
            impact of changes in food prices on undernourishment are
            relatively marginal. Flexible responses (in terms of
            production shares, whether output is exported or sold at
            home, and whether domestic demanders buy imports or domestic
            output) enable countries to benefit from or be less hurt by
            price changes. The case for policy responses to higher
            import prices is stronger for the net food importer. An
            untargeted food subsidy, financed by taxes or spending cuts,
            reduces undernourishment at the cost of a slight
            deterioration for most other indicators. By contrast,
            aid-financed food subsidies neutralize the negative impact
            of higher import prices whereas financing via domestic
            borrowing is counterproductive, leading to a deterioration
            across all indicators. If administered at moderate costs,
            tax-financed targeted transfers more effectively reduce
            headcount poverty and inequality with macroeconomic
            repercussions similar to those of tax-financed subsidies.
Workers' age and the impact of
            trade shocks
Do trade shocks affect workers
            differently because of their age? This paper examines the
            issue by estimating the lifetime mobility of workers based
            on the sectors in which they work. Using U.S. data, the
            paper shows that mobility costs rise with a worker's
            age and years of experience, but stay the same regardless of
            his or her education level. In addition, using a
            general-equilibrium simulation of counterfactual
            trade-liberalization policies in the metal manufacturing
            sector, the paper shows that trade shocks affect workers
            with higher mobility costs more, for both winners and losers
            of the policy shocks. But the effects taper off over a
            worker's lifetime, especially when they are close to retirement.
Financing of firms in developing
            countries : lessons from research
This paper reviews and synthesizes
            theoretical and empirical research on the role of finance in
            developing countries. First, the paper presents the stylized
            facts about firms in developing nations as well as the
            legal, financial and broader institutional framework in
            which these firms operate. Next, the paper focuses on the
            financing choices available to small and medium firms in
            developing countries and highlights areas needing additional research.
Identifying aid effectiveness
            challenges in fragile and conflict-affected states
Fragile and conflict-affected states
            face daunting challenges for development. Aid has a greater
            importance on development in these states than in others,
            and therefore aid effectiveness management and delivery of
            aid  bears serious consideration. Despite its significance,
            aid effectiveness is appreciably lower in fragile and
            conflict-affected states than in others. What are the key
            aid effectiveness challenges in these states and how can
            these issues be better addressed? As important initial
            steps, this paper aims to identify (i) aid effectiveness
            challenges facing fragile and conflict-affected states and
            (ii) good aid effectiveness examples using the results of
            the Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration on aid
            effectiveness, which was designed as a mechanism to support
            global and country level accountability. Both fragile and
            conflict-affected states (recipients) and development
            partners (providers) are mutually accountable for aid
            effectiveness; therefore, this paper focuses on both sides.
            While the analysis confirms the significantly lower aid
            effectiveness performance in fragile and conflict-affected
            states -- especially on aid on budget, aid predictability,
            and use of country systems -- good performance examples in
            several of these states are identified. The aid
            effectiveness performance of development partners in fragile
            and conflict-affected states differs significantly across
            different groups. Multilateral development banks and other
            multilateral organizations perform better on average than
            bilateral organizations and vertical funds. Disaggregation
            of development partner performance at the institutional
            level and the partner country level enables the analysis
            successfully to identify good performance examples. In using
            the results of this paper to improve aid effectiveness, key
            additional steps should include (i) considering whether the
            identified challenges are essential; (ii) analyzing the
            factors/reasons behind good performance examples; and (iii)
            discussing whether good performance examples can provide
            lessons that can be adapted and applied.
Assessing economic and political
            impacts of Hydrological variability on treaties : case
            studies on the Zambezi and Mekong basins
International river basins will likely
            face higher hydrologic variability due to climate change.
            Increased floods and droughts would have economic and
            political consequences. Riparians of transboundary basins
            governed by water treaties could experience non-compliance
            and inter-state tensions if flow falls below levels presumed
            in a treaty. Flow information is essential to cope with
            these challenges through water storage, allocation, and use.
            This paper demonstrates a simple yet robust method, which
            measures gauge station runoff with wetness values derived
            from satellite data (1988-2010), for expanding sub-basin
            stream flow information to the entire river basin where
            natural flow information is limited. It demonstrates the
            approach with flow level data that provide estimates of
            monthly runoff in near real time in two international river
            basins: Zambezi and Mekong. The paper includes an economic
            framework incorporating information on existing institutions
            to assess potential economic and political impacts and to
            inform policy on conflict and cooperation between riparians.
            The authors conclude that satellite data modeled with gauge
            station runoff reduce the uncertainty inherent in
            negotiating an international water agreement under increased
            hydrological variability, and thus can assist policy makers
            to devise more efficient institutional apparatus.
Measuring financial inclusion : the
            Global Findex Database
This paper provides the first analysis
            of the Global Financial Inclusion (Global Findex) Database,
            a new set of indicators that measure how adults in 148
            economies save, borrow, make payments, and manage risk. The
            data show that 50 percent of adults worldwide have an
            account at a formal financial institution, though account
            penetration varies widely across regions, income groups and
            individual characteristics. In addition, 22 percent of
            adults report having saved at a formal financial institution
            in the past 12 months, and 9 percent report having taken out
            a new loan from a bank, credit union or microfinance
            institution in the past year. Although half of adults around
            the world remain unbanked, at least 35 percent of them
            report barriers to account use that might be addressed by
            public policy. Among the most commonly reported barriers are
            high cost, physical distance, and lack of proper
            documentation, though there are significant differences
            across regions and individual characteristics.
Shifting patterns of economic growth
            and rethinking development
This paper provides an historical
            overview of both the evolution of the economic performance
            of the developing world and the evolution of economic
            thought on development policy. The 20th century was broadly
            characterized by divergence between high-income countries
            and the developing world, with only a limited number (less
            than 10 percent of the economies in the world) managing to
            progress out of lower or middle-income status to high-income
            status. The last decade witnessed a sharp reversal from a
            pattern of divergence to convergence --particularly for a
            set of large middle-income countries. The latter phenomenon
            was also driven by increasing economic ties among developing
            countries, and on the intellectual scale, increased
            knowledge generation and sharing among the developing
            countries. Re-thinking development policy implies
            confronting these realities: 20th century economic
            divergence, the experience of the handful of success
            stories, and the recent rise of the multi-polar growth
            world. The paper provides descriptive data and a literature
            survey to document these trends. The paper also provides a
            brief survey of the role of multilateral institutions -- in
            particular, the World Bank -- in this changing context and
            offers suggestions on how they can adapt their strategies to
            improve development outcomes.
Distortions in the international
            migrant labor market :evidence from Filipino migration and
            wage responses to destination country economic shocks
The authors use an original panel
            dataset of migrant departures from the Philippines to
            identify the responsiveness of migrant numbers and wages to
            gross domestic product shocks in destination countries. They
            find a large significant elasticity of migrant numbers to
            gross domestic product shocks at destination, but no
            significant wage response. This is consistent with binding
            minimum wages for migrant labor. This result implies that
            labor market imperfections that make international migration
            attractive also make migrant flows more sensitive to global
            business cycles. Difference-in-differences analysis of a
            minimum wage change for maids confirms that minimum wages
            bind and demand is price sensitive without these distortions.
Distortions in the international
            migrant labor market :evidence from Filipino migration and
            wage responses to destination country economic shocks
WPS6041 Policy Research Working Paper 6041 Distortions in the International Migrant Labor Market Evidence from Filipino Migration and Wage Responses to Destination Country Economic Shocks _David McKenzie Caroline Theoharides Dean Yang_ The World Bank Development Research Group Finance and Private Sector Development Team April 2012
Impact of social fund on the welfare
            of rural households : evidence from the Nepal poverty
            alleviation fund
The Nepal Poverty Alleviation Fund is a
            World Bank supported community-driven development program.
            Its objective is to improve rural welfare, particularly for
            groups that have traditionally been excluded for reasons of
            gender, ethnicity, caste, and location. Since its launch in
            2004, the Fund has covered the 40 poorest districts of the
            country, supported some 15,000 community organizations, and
            benefited more than 2.5 million people.  This paper attempts
            to estimate the impact of this large-scale program using a
            randomized phase-in approach, in which certain localities
            are randomly selected for earlier intervention than others.
            Using two rounds of survey data and a
            difference-in-difference combined with instrumental variable
            estimation method, it finds statistically significant causal
            impact of the program on key welfare outcomes. The
            treatment-on-the-treated estimate on real per capita
            consumption is 19 percent growth. Other impacts include a 19
            percentage points decline on incidence of food insecurity
            (defined as food sufficiency for six months or less) and a
            15 percentage points increase in the school enrollment rate
            among 6-15 year-olds. Impacts (positive or negative) are yet
            to be detected on indicators associated with child
            malnutrition, social capital, and empowerment. The policy
            implications of these results should be of interest to the
            government and to development partners in determining what
            may be effective instruments to deliver services to
            marginalized communities in what remains a fragile and
            difficult political environment.
Impact of social fund on the welfare
            of rural households : evidence from the Nepal poverty
            alleviation fund
WPS6042 Policy Research Working Paper 6042 Impact of Social Fund on the Welfare of Rural Households Evidence from the Nepal Poverty Alleviation Fund _Dilip Parajuli Gayatri Acharya Nazmul Chaudhury Bishnu Bahadur Thapa_ The World Bank South Asia Region Sustainable Development Unit and Human Development Unit April 2012