rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Survey responses from women workers
            in Indonesia's textile, garment, and footwear industries
Young, single, women workers dominate
            the labor-intensive textile, clothing, and footwear
            industries in Indonesia. This survey interviewed 300 such
            workers to examine three main questions: (1) Are firms
            complying with labor regulations? (2) Are women workers
            aware of their legal rights with respect to wages and
            working ions? and (3) Does the presence of the official
            labor union (SPSI) in the workplace make a difference in the
            implementation of labor regulations? The survey finds that
            compliance with minimum wages was high -80 percent of the
            permanent workers earned at least the minimum wage.
            Compliance was also high for maternity leave and hours
            worked a week (forced overtime work was not a major issue).
            Compliance was low for overtime compensation and menstrual
            leave with compensation. Compliance with labor regulations
            was higher for large firms, higher based on length of
            service, and relatively higher in textiles and garments
            compared with footwear. The survey finds that workers are
            most knowledgeable about overtime pay. The minimum wage
            regulation has the highest compliance rate, while overtime
            pay the lowest rate, by firms. The survey also found that
            half the members of the official labor union thought that it
            had not been effective in improving their wages or working
            ions. While fewer workers knew whether a collective labor
            agreement existed in their workplace, most of the
            respondents who were aware of one indicated that it resulted
            in improved working conditions.
Ghana's labor market (1987-92)
Using the household survey and other
            data sources, the authors analyze returns to education and
            other aspects of Ghana's labor market profile from 1987
            to 1991. The labor force grew slower than the population did
            between 1980 and 1990, but the supply of labor is expected
            to increase as the population of youth is expected to grow
            faster from 1990 to 2000. And labor force participation
            rates for 26- to 45-year-olds have been increasing rapidly.
            Over time, the average labor force participation rates of
            women have become equal to men's; that of children
            younger than 15 has remained unchanged at 38 percent. More
            than half of Ghana's child laborers are employed in
            agriculture. The formal sector's share of employment is
            on the decline, while the private informal sector's
            share has increased, especially in urban areas. Over time,
            the informal sector (in which most workers have a primary
            education or less) has absorbed more labor than the formal
            sector (in which most workers have middle or secondary
            schooling). Unemployment is pervasive in urban areas, and is
            less visible in rural areas. Labor productivity may not have
            increased and is possibly declining. Between 1987 and 1992,
            there was reverse migration, with many people moving from
            urban to rural areas, mostly for family reasons.
            Employment-related migration has also been on the increase.
            As is true elsewhere, the level of education affects
            participation in the labor force. Literacy rates for women
            are lower than those for men, which is one reason men
            dominate the private formal sector. The rate of return to
            education increases with higher education and work
            experience. The return for each additional year of schooling
            ranges from 4 percent to 6 percent in Ghana, quite high for
            a Sub-Saharan African country. Private and social returns to
            education are greater for primary than for secondary or
            postsecondary education.
Using tariff indices to evaluate
            preferential trading arrangements : an application to Chile
The author presents a tariff index that
            uses constant-elasticity-of-substitution aggregators of
            tariff line data to calculate how preferential tariff
            reductions affect both prices and average tariff rates. A
            simple general-equilibrium model with sector-specific
            factors of production can be combined with the tariff
            indices to calculate how a preferential trade arrangement
            affects sectoral output, factor prices, and general welfare.
            The general equilibrium model is simple enough that it can
            be calculated on an Excel spreadsheet, and is flexible
            enough to be used with different ranges of available
            domestic data. The author presents an example of the model,
            simulating the effects of free trade agreements between
            Chile and MERCOSUR countries and between Chile and NAFTA
            countries. Calculations for the case of Chile show that the
            index is simple to calculate because of its recursive
            structure, which allows large amounts of detailed tariff
            line data to be aggregated for use with domestic production
            data that is available only at a more aggregated level. The
            author finds that results using the tariff aggregators may
            differ substantially from those derived using simpler
            averages of tariff reductions. Reductions in import prices
            using the index were 10 to 30 percent larger than those
            calculated using a simple average of tariffs. Ignoring the
            information available in tariff line data could lead to a
            substantial overestimate of the average tariff rate on
            imports after a preferential reduction. The tariff index
            could be extended to incorporate the role of quantitative
            restrictions. The general equilibrium model could be used to
            consider the effects on domestic production of allowing
            reallocation of capital between industries over time.
Privatization, public investment,
            and capital income taxation
The authors investigate the optimal
            boundary between the public and private production sectors.
            They use a model in which government and private production
            coexist -in which a range of production activities can be
            carried out by either the government or the private sector.
            In effect, the government determines which activities to
            maintain within the public sector and which to privatize. In
            choosing the sectoral boundary, the government trades off
            the relative inefficiency of marginal government production
            against the private investment distortion created by tax
            policy. In an open economy, the private investment decision,
            is distorted by a source-based income tax. In a closed
            economy, the private investment decision is distorted by
            either a private investment tax or a savings tax. Either tax
            produces a wedge between the gross return on investment and
            the net-of-tax return received by savers. Because of this
            tax wedge, the private cost of capital exceeds the shadow
            cost of public capital. Optimally, the government sector is
            shown to be "too large" in the sense that the
            government carries out some activities in which it has an
            efficiency disadvantage and the private sector has an
            efficiency advantage. And it invests more in those
            activities than the private sector would. Generally the size
            of the government sector is related positively to the
            investment tax wedge. The level of investment taxes -and
            thus the size of the state production sector- may be
            affected by tax competition in the international economy. As
            international capital becomes more mobile, there seems to be
            more scope for international (investment) tax competition.
            As a result of tax competition, perhaps, corporate income
            tax rates have been on a downward trend in European
            countries. In Europe, the general lowering of corporate
            income taxes has coincided with a trend toward privatizing
            government activities. The authors focus on the relationship
            between capital income taxes and the size of the government
            production sector. Analogously, one could consider the
            relationship between labor income taxes and the size of the
            state sector. In that instance, the model predicts that a
            formerly state-owned enterprise, after privatization,
            reduces its payroll. Privatization also seems to lead to
            reduced employment levels. These results hold in both open
            economy and closed economy versions of the model.
Cents and sociability : household
            income and social capital in rural Tanzania
The authors construct a measure of
            "social capital" in rural Tanzania, using data
            from the Tanzania Social Capital and Poverty Survey (SCPS),
            a large-scale survey that asked individuals about the extent
            and characteristics of their associational activity and
            their trust in various institutions and individuals. They
            match this measure of social capital with data on household
            income in the same villages (both from the SCPS and from an
            earlier household survey, the Human Resources Development
            Survey). In doing so, they show that "social
            capital" is indeed both capital (in that it raises
            incomes) and social (in that household incomes depend on
            village, not just household, social capital). The magnitude
            of social capital's effect on incomes is impressive: a
            one standard deviation increase in village social capital
            increases a household proxy for income by at least 20 to 30
            percent. This is as great an impact as an equivalent
            increase in nonfarming assets, or a tripling of the level of
            education. Data from the two surveys make it possible to
            identify some of the proximate channels through which social
            capital affects incomes: better publicly provided services,
            more community activity, greater use of modern agricultural
            inputs, and greater use of credit in agriculture.
Making education in China equitable
            and efficient
As China consolidates its rapid economic
            gains and continues its drive toward a market-oriented
            environment, the country's international
            competitiveness will depend greatly on the quality of its
            human resources. China has made impressive gains in human
            resource development in the past two decades, and continuing
            to do so will help reduce poverty in two ways: indirectly,
            by increasing the productivity and efficiency of its labor
            force, and directly, by fostering the earning capacity of
            the poor. Eventually, improving human resources will spur
            economic growth and enhance welfare. Progress in human
            resource development has steadily slowed in recent years,
            however, because of two broad problems. First, the
            distribution of education services continues to discriminate
            against the poor, largely because they have not benefited
            from recent gains in economic growth and are being choked
            off from access to services. Second, some mechanisms and
            arrangements for delivering services have created targeting
            inefficiencies. The author argues that the government's
            priorities should be to improve the equity, efficiency, and
            quality of social services, as well as their financing.
The practice of access pricing :
            telecommunications in the United Kingdom
Telecommunications was the first network
            utility to be privatized in the United Kingdom. Drawing on
            15 years' experience and discussion in the field, the
            author shows the economic principles of regulation in
            general and access pricing in particular that have been
            implemented. British Telecommunications (BT), formed as a
            public enterprise in 1980-81, was privatized in 1984. Since
            then the approaches to regulation have changed in three
            broad periods: the duoply, the transition to competition,
            and the recently introduced normalization phase. Dealing
            with each period, the author focuses on how the actual
            implementation of access charges are determined, at the same
            time providing background needed on regulatory intervention
            generally. Rather than follow the model of competition for a
            common infrastructure, Oftel [the Office of
            Telecommunications, the regulatory agency] has encouraged
            competition between alternative networks, which benefits
            customers but involves duplication of fixed costs. As a
            result of Oftel's approach, customers have seen their
            bills reduced 50 percent in real terms since privatization.
            It is difficult to know how much to attribute this
            remarkable result to technological progress (BT halved its
            workforce in the same period), to regulatory intervention
            (Oftel set string caps until 1997), or to competition (there
            are hundreds of players in the market). The author contends
            more weight should probably be given to the first two.
            Entrants have not achieved big market shares, if one
            considers the asymmetric regulation that has been in place
            for more than a decade. Indirectly, at least, competition
            benefited consumers by applying discipline to BT's
            behavior. Oftel's approach was interventionist until
            1997, when it began trying to normalize the industry, as
            authority overseeing competition. The odds on complete
            deregulation are slight, and some controls on industry will
            remain. In the longer term, Oftel should especially monitor
            anticompetitive practices and collusive behavior among the
            bigger players (BT, CWC, and cellulator operators), The
            United Kingdom's interconnection experience
            demonstrates the complexity of the problem and its
            relationship to other topics, such as tariff rebalancing,
            access deficit, and universal service. Although a bit ad
            hoc, the recent incentive regulation, with a network cap
            based on proper accounting procedures and engineering
            models, may represent the best practice available today in
            the telecommunications industry, says the author.
Financial intermediation and growth
            : Causality and causes
The authors evaluate: a) whether the
            level of development of financial intermediaries exerts a
            casual influence on economic growth; and b) whether
            cross-country differences in legal and accounting systems
            (such as creditor rights, contract enforcement, and
            accounting standards) explain differences in the level of
            financial development. Using both traditional cross-section,
            instrumental-variable procedures and recent dynamic panel
            techniques, they find that development of financial
            intermediaries exerts a large causal impact on growth. The
            data also show that cross-country differences in legal and
            accounting systems help determine differences in financial
            development. Together, these findings suggest that legal and
            accounting reform that strengthens creditor rights, contract
            enforcement, and accounting practices boosts financial
            development and accelerates economic growth.
Social security reform, income
            disribution, fiscal policy, and capital accumulation
The author explores the effects a
            transition from a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) social security
            system to a fully funded system may have on income
            distribution, fiscal policy, and capital accumulation. The
            author presents a heterogeneous agent model developed to
            study the transition from a state-managed pay-as-you-go
            social security system to a privately managed fully funded
            system. He assumes that agents can differ in their human
            capital endowments and in their access to the financial
            system. The author finds that, for some initial
            distributions, when access to the financial system is
            restricted for some individuals, income distribution may
            improve with privatization of the pension system. Where
            there is complete access to the financial system before
            reform, however, income distribution deteriorates in all
            cases. Regardless of the initial distributions, reform of
            the type described here increases the level of physical
            capital in the economy. But the increase will be larger the
            larger the fraction of the population composed of poor
            individuals, or the higher their level of human capital. The
            author also finds that different initial distributions will
            have different effects on the fiscal policy needed to
            finance reform. Similarly, different forms of reform
            financing will have different effects on intragenerational
            distribution. In the case in which government decides to
            maintain a constant level of debt, generations alive when
            the reform takes place will have lower lifetime earnings
            than those born after them. The author also finds that the
            taxes needed to pay for transitional workers' pensions
            will be higher when the fraction of the population with
            access to the financial system in the PAYG equilibrium is higher.
Restructuring of insider-dominated firms
Using enterprise survey data for
            1995-97, the author studies and compares how different modes
            of privatizing to insiders affect enterprise restructuring
            in two former Soviet republics, Georgia and Moldova.
            Restructuring in companies in which incumbent managers
            received significant ownership stakes for free was similar
            to that in companies that were still state-owned. By
            contrast, restructuring was faster in companies bought by
            their managers. The author interprets these results as
            suggesting that managers' incentives to restructure
            decrease when they regard their newly acquired ownership as
            a windfall gain.
Determinants of motorization and
            road provision
The authors survey past trends in
            vehicle ownership and road network expansion to analyze
            determinants of their growth at the national and urban
            level. Surprisingly, they find that: Nationally, income is a
            major determinant of both vehicle ownership and road length.
            Nationally, paved road length and vehicle ownership has been
            increasing about as fast as income, while total road length
            is increasing less rapidly than income. In urban areas
            vehicle ownership increases as fast as income, while total
            road length increases very slowly with income. Because
            national paved road networks are expanding about as fast as
            national motor vehicle fleets, national congestion is
            unlikely to be worsening. But because urban road length is
            growing more slowly than the number of urban motor vehicles,
            urban congestion is rising with income over time. Increased
            urban congestion is stimulating decentralized urban growth.
            Income elasticities are greater than price elasticities in
            absolute terms, for both vehicle ownership and use-an
            important finding because prices are often used as an
            instrument to control motor vehicle ownership and use. If
            price elasticities are half as large as income elasticities,
            pries would have to grow twice as fast as incomes to
            stabilize vehicle ownership. Breaking the link between
            income growth, rising congestion, and urban decentralization
            will be difficult: Restraining auto ownership in urban areas
            requires high tax rates, and increasing the supply of urban
            roads is costly. Elasticity estimates vary, but a good point
            estimate for the income elasticity of fleet growth is 1.
            This means country motor vehicle fleets grow in proportion
            to country incomes. More than half the world's annual
            increase in motor vehicles is likely to occur in high-income
            countries until 2025 (assuming GNP growth of 3 percent in
            high-income countries, 5 percent in low- and middle-income
            countries). The motor vehicle fleet is in low- and
            middle-income countries is not projected to exceed that in
            high-income countries until after 2050. Carbon dioxide
            emissions are likely to be distributed similarly.