rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
The role of institutions in poverty
            reduction : a focus on the productive sectors
The author of this paper contends that
            institutional development (ID) is critical to growth and
            sustainable poverty reduction. Although there is no single
            model for poverty-oriented institutional development, and ID
            initiatives vary considerably across sectors and nations,
            important common lessons have been learned about successful
            institutional development initiatives. The author presents
            these in terms of six components: (a) forming and
            strengthening local organizations; (b) supporting
            institutional pluralism; (c) building links between
            poverty-oriented institutions; (d) adopting the appropriate
            organizational structure and encouraging strong leadership;
            (e) adopting the learning process approach; and (f)
            mobilizing local resources and the participation of poor
            people. Both successful and unsuccessful programs are used
            to illustrate the importance of these components.
            Institutional investments often require unconventional,
            potentially costly programs and projects. ID initiatives
            have been criticized in terms of the costs and benefits of
            different approaches, the scale on which they can operate,
            their compatibility with conventional project frameworks,
            the degree and types of decentralization they require, and
            their political feasibility. Using case studies from
            different productive sectors and subsectors, the author
            illustrates how these objections may be unwarranted and that
            investments in institutional development can be both
            economically and politically viable.
How trade and macroeconomic policies
            affect economic growth and capital accumulation in
            developing countries
The author of this report provides
            cross-country empirical evidence on the relationship between
            trade and macroeconomic policy and economic growth. He finds
            that countries following sustainable strategies perform
            better than those following unsustainable strategies.
            Indeed, unsustainable policies hurt growth. Sustainable
            policies (as in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong,
            Thailand, and Malaysia) promote exports and lead to real
            exchange rates that are either fully aligned or even
            undervalued for prolonged periods of time but are relatively
            stable. Unsustainable policies (more common in developing
            countries) include polices that tax export and overvalue
            exchange rates for extended periods, leading to periodic
            balance of payments crises and a highly unstable real
            exchange rate. The author also finds that: (a) export
            promotion policies generate faster growth than policies that
            remove import restrictions; (b) economic instability and
            foreign debt are key determinants of capital growth; and (c)
            contrary to conventional belief, capital accumulation
            appears to be stimulated by direct export restrictions and
            does not seem to be directly affected by economic instability.
How factors in creditor countries
            affect secondary market prices for developing country debt
Bank loans to many developing countries
            trade at a discount on the secondary market. These discounts
            are typically assumed to reflect only the repayment
            prospects of the borrower country. But the authors
            demonstrate that factors in the creditor countries have a
            major impact on secondary market prices. Their empirical
            investigation suggests a systematic relationship between
            secondary market prices and the size distribution of
            banks' portfolios. There is a strong negative
            correlation between discounts in the secondary market and
            U.S. banks' heavy exposure to developing country debt.
            It is estimated that every US$4 billion increase in a large
            bank's exposure to a country reduces the discount 10 to
            15 cents on the dollar. The authors find that discounts and
            total bank capital are positively correlated over time : a
            US$8 billion increase in the capital of the largest U.S.
            banks increases discounts by nearly 25 cents on the dollar.
            They explain their results with a simulation model of a
            representative bank with minimum capital requirements,
            flat-rate deposit insurance, and limited liability. The
            bank's portfolio adjustment decision involves trading
            risky foreign loans in the secondary market or making
            short-term domestic loans. The model yields a negative
            relationship between the banks' exposure to developing
            countries and discounts in the secondary market.
Cross-country studies of growth and
            policy : methodological, conceptual, and statistical problems
This paper reviews the conceptual,
            methodological, and statistical problems associated with
            drawing inferences from cross-country regressions. The
            authors elaborate on the particular problems associated with
            empirical attempts to link particular policies with long-run
            growth. They hope to stimulate improvements in the design,
            implementation, and interpretability of cross-country
            investigations and to caution readers about the confidence
            they place in existing findings.
Education and productivity in
            developing countries : an aggregate production function approach
The estimated rates of return to
            education are typically (often considerably) above 10
            percent a year in real terms - a respectable rate of return.
            The rates of return are highest for primary education, and
            higher in countries where educated manpower is scarcer, and
            the durability of educational capital can be as high as 50
            years.  The effect of education on real output has not been
            well documented.  The authors have pooled data on 58
            developing countries, from 1960 through 1986, to estimate an
            aggregate production function using as independent variables
            the quantities of capital, labor, land, average educational
            attainment of the labor force, and chronological time.  They
            measured the percentage change in a region's real GDP
            in response to an increase of one year in the average
            educational attainment of the working age population in
            1985.  The estimated effects range from negative to more
            than 5 percent a year.  The results suggest : a) a positive
            relationship between the level of primary schooling achieved
            and the size of its effect; b) a threshold of four years of
            schooling before primary school has an effect; and c) the
            effect of secondary education seems to be independent of the
            level of secondary schooling attained, although local
            factors may predominate here.  The authors conclude that
            education is an important determinant of aggregate real
            output and productivity but that its effect varies
            considerably across countries and regions.
The macroeconomic effects of the
            public sector deficit : the case of Thailand
In the past, the Thai government usually
            ran a budget deficit.  In recent years, the deficit has
            become a surplus.  A continued high growth rate in the last
            three years produced an unexpected rise in tax revenues, and
            the growth of public spending was effectively controlled.
            The government has adopted an early retirement plan for
            foreign debts and in fiscal 1991, for the first time in
            recent history, the government proposes to balance the
            budget.  The central government's actual spending is
            usually below planned spending - which is overestimated
            during slumps and underestimated during booms.  Tax capacity
            has increased gradually over time relative to GDP.  This
            factor has contributed most to reducing the public deficit.
            There have also been more automatic stabilizers and a
            decline in dependence on foreign trade tax.  Thailand's
            pattern of deficit finance has contributed to macroeconomic
            stability.  In times of high deficit, the government relies
            less on borrowing from the central bank and more on
            borrowing from commercial banks and the private sector.
            Money-financed deficits are more likely to exacerbate
            inflation and the current account deficit than any other
            method of deficit financing.  The strong growth of the Thai
            economy is attributable partly to appropriate fiscal
            responses to external shocks.  Stable prices helped
            facilitate the depreciation of the real effective exchange
            rate, further strengthening export and output growth.
The macroeconomics of the public
            sector deficit : the case of Argentina
Argentina has had a quarter century
            without growth at a time of rapid economic growth in the
            rest of the world.  This paper looks at the role that public
            sector behavior, particularly government spending, taxation
            and deficit financing, may have had on the economic
            stagnation in Argentina.  Government spending declined when
            the final crisis of the Argentine economy began in 1982, but
            more because of resource constraints than deliberate
            political action.  The government ran a primary deficit
            every year from 1961 to 1989, so it issued money and
            interest-bearing debt.  As a result, the economy experienced
            high real interest rates and inflation.  Despite heavy
            fiscal pressure, fiscal spending has continued to grow,
            systematically exceeding revenues.  From 1964 to 1975, the
            deficit was financed by creating money; with the fall of
            Peron and the beginning of a military regime, debt financing
            became significant.  The regression study in this report
            shows that every 1 percent of primary deficit is financed
            with 0.7 percent of revenue from creating money.  Public
            debt plays a peculiar role in Argentina's finances. The
            central bank has become the chief borrower of about 80
            percent of the private banks' lending power.  In this
            context, a policy of tight money to reduce aggregate demand
            basically increases the transfers from the public to the
            private sector because of the higher deficit that the rise
            in interest rates generates.
The macroeconomics of the public
            sector deficit : the case of Morocco
This paper tries to uncover the reasons
            underlying the performance of the Moroccan economy.  The
            author argues that wage moderation and judicious monetary
            policies were instrumental in restraining inflation.  With
            one brief exception in 1983, monetary authorities remained
            firmly committed to eschew any inflationary financing of the
            budget deficit.  This strategy could only succeed however
            because of the wide ranging system of credit and monetary
            regulations which worked to channel domestic funds toward
            the Treasury at relatively low costs.  The prospects for the
            continuation of such a strategy are not favourable however.
            As far as the growth performance is concerned, it appears
            that it can be attributed to an outstanding export response
            to the new trade regime on the one hand and a set of
            favourable supply shocks, including a string of record
            agricultural harvests and the collapse of real oil prices,
            on the other.  The paper studies the evolution of the budget
            and its different components and argues that the reluctance
            by Morocco's policy makers to monetize existing budget
            deficits is well explained by the sharply unfavourable
            trade-offs between higher monetization and inflation
            existing in Morocco.  It analyzes the implications that
            continuing budgetary disequilibria has on investment and
            saving decisions and finds that such implications may be
            substantial, even though they may not work their way
            exclusively through traditional interest rates channels.
Rent sharing in the multi-fibre
            arrangement : theory and evidence from US apparel imports
            from Hong Kong
Available estimates of tariff
            equivalents of quotas and welfare calculations on the costs
            of multi-fibre arrangements (MFA) for developing countries
            are based on the premise of perfect competition in both
            product and license markets. It is also assumed that the
            exporting countries that administer the MFA quotas receive
            all the scarcity rents. The authors argue that, in the
            presence of market power on the buyers' side in the
            product markets combined with concentration in the license
            markets, the importing countries might retain part of this
            rent. Although the impact of imperfect competition on rent
            appropriation has been analyzed in literature, rent sharing
            has so far been ignored in both analytical and empirical
            work. This paper makes a theoretical case for rent sharing,
            and then analyzes U.S. imports of apparel products from Hong
            Kong. The authors find that rent sharing substantially
            affects the estimated magnitude of welfare losses that
            exporting developing countries suffer because of MFA quotas.
The role of officially supported
            export credits in sub-Saharan Africa's external financing
This paper addresses the question of how
            important officially supported export credits (OSECs) were,
            both in quantity and quality, in Sub-Saharan Africa's
            (SSA) external financing during the last two decades, and
            examines the prospects for the 1990s. The paper begins by
            briefly explaining the financial structure of foreign trade,
            the role of export credits in this context, and the basic
            functions of export credit agencies (ECAs). It goes on to
            present the trends in OSECs during the 1970s and the 1980s
            as a source of external finance for developing countries in
            general, and for SSA in particular. The authors deal with
            some of the distortions caused by export credit subsidies,
            including the problems of "moral hazard" and
            "adverse selection". The paper looks at the
            current need and prospects for external finance in the 1990s
            and addresses how to enhance the efficiency of OSECs,
            emphasizing the cooperation between ECAs and multilateral
            development agencies, an issue which is particularly
            important for poorer developing countries such as those
            found in SSA.
Hungary : financial sector reform in
            a socialist economy
Financial reforms in formerly centrally
            planned economies take a different form than in market
            economies because they imply not only liberalizing the
            system but also reshaping the structure and functioning of
            financial markets.  And the reforms must be designed to
            facilitate the conduct of monetary policy under rapidly
            changing economic circumstances.  To fulfill this role,
            financial reforms should: (1) provide the authorities with
            monetary policy instruments that contribute to short-term
            stabilization; and (2) provide the incentives for inducing a
            more efficient intermediation of savings though the
            financial markets.  In this context, the authors identify
            the main tasks and targets of financial reform and comment
            on the key development of the Hungarian process.  Hungary
            has made substantial progress, they conclude, but
            macrofinancial indicators suggest that administrative and
            technical obstacles remain and that supporting measures must
            be deepened.  The four steps needed are:  (1) the ability of
            the monetary authority to conduct monetary policy must be
            enhanced; (2) the operating and financial condition of
            financial intermediaries must be improved; (3) healthy
            competition among financial intermediaries must be
            encouraged; and (4) a prudential regulatory framework that
            does not discriminate against the development of securities
            market must be established.
Size rationalization and trade
            exposure in developing countries
Given the lack of direct evidence
            regarding industrial adjustment in response to trade
            liberalization, this paper tackles some very basic
            questions. Specifically, in LDCs, how is trade orientation
            correlated with the size distribution of plants and with
            plant-level labor productivity? It begins with a simple
            model that summarizes some effects of trade exposure on
            producer size and productive efficiency that have been
            stressed in the recent analytical and simulation literature.
            It then examines annual plant-level data from Chile and
            Colombia to determine whether these effects can be
            confirmed. The empirical results indicate that, over the
            long run, higher trade exposure is correlated with smaller
            plant sizes, controlling for industry and country effects.
            However, the mix of high versus low productivity plants is
            not strongly associated with trade exposure. Both of these
            findings cast doubt on the mechanisms linking trade, plant
            size, and productivity in a number of recent analytical and
            simulation studies.
The domestic financial market and
            the trade liberalization outcome : the evidence from Sri Lanka
The authors developed a framework for
            analyzing the relationship between domestic financial
            markets and the effects of trade liberalization and applied
            it to Sri Lanka's experience between 1977 and 1987.
            They found that the domestic financial market significantly
            affects the outcome of trade liberalization.  Because Sri
            Lanka deregulated its interest rates when it undertook the
            trade liberalization, this allowed those earning more from
            trade liberalization to hold financial assets rather than
            nontradables.  The availability of savings and time deposits
            at attractive interest rates prevented the premature
            appreciation of the exchange rate, thus helping to maintain
            the competitiveness stimulated by trade liberalization.  By
            reforming interest rates, removing credit ceilings, and
            increasing competition among banks, Sri Lanka helped
            increase private sector savings - which could be reallocated
            to the tradable sector.  Unlike earlier studies on financial
            reform in Sri Lanka, this one finds that financial reforms
            have increased private savings in financial institutions,
            raised economywide financial intermediation ratios, and
            expanded credit to the private sector.  More important, the
            authors find a statistically significant relationship
            between the financial intermediation ratio and the real
            exchange rate.
To prescribe or not to prescribe :
            on the regulation of pharmaceuticals in less developed countries
An important source of failure in
            markets and justification for government intervention in the
            health sector of LDCs is imperfect information.
            Pharmaceutical use is one area in which widespread problems
            have been noted with substantial misuse, improper diagnosis
            and problems of compliance noted among both the population
            at large and health care providers, presumably due to a lack
            of information concerning appropriate use. One possible
            instrument vis-a-vis the regulation of pharmaceuticals in
            LDCs is the decision by public health officials to make a
            particular drug available over the counter (OTC) to
            consumers or to require a prescription from a licensed
            professional. The choice is one of balancing two competing
            risks. On the one hand, allowing self-prescription by the
            consumers who do not have medical training runs the risk of
            gross errors of diagnosis and mistaken prescriptions with
            possibly serious health consequences. On the other hand,
            requiring the intervention of a skilled professional incurs
            the risk that the patient does not receive the appropriate,
            potentially life saving, drug at all. With medical personnel
            in very short supply in many parts of the developing world,
            the real cost of visiting licensed medical facilities can be
            prohibitively high. This paper presents a very general
            methodology for evaluating the tradeoff between these
            competing risks.
The challenging arithmetic of
            poverty in Bangladesh
The arithmetic of poverty in Bangladesh
            is challenging from a number of perspectives. Counting
            Bangladesh's poor is difficult to do with seemingly
            tolerable precision, even just to get some idea of whether
            recent efforts to alleviate poverty have succeeded. But that
            is only the beginning of the challenge. The details of how
            to find resources, and design and implement effective
            policies - the arithmetic of poverty alleviation in
            Bangladesh - pose a severe challenge to policy analysts,
            governments, and the international community. This paper
            aims to offer a critical assessment of recent evidence
            relevant to these issues. It addresses the following three
            questions: (i) Has poverty decreased in Bangladesh during
            the 1980s? (ii) How responsive is poverty in Bangladesh to
            economic growth and changes in relative inequalities? (iii)
            What are the prospects for poverty alleviation through
            currently anticipated economic growth in Bangladesh? The
            paper takes a close look at some recent data suggesting that
            the problem of poverty in Bangladesh may be diminishing
            quite rapidly. It offers an empirical assessment of how much
            impact on poverty in Bangladesh is expected from economic
            growth, and from changes in overall inequality.