rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Unequal before the law : measuring
            legal gender disparities across the world
Several economies have laws that treat
            women differently from men. This study explores the degree
            of such legal gender disparities across 167 economies around
            the world. This is achieved by constructing a simple measure
            of legal gender disparities to evaluate how countries
            perform. The average number of overall legal gender
            disparities across 167 economies is 17, ranging from a
            minimum of 2 to a maximum of 44. The maximum possible legal
            gender disparities is 71. The measure is found to be
            correlated with other measures of gender inequality,
            implying the measure does capture gender inequality while
            also differing from preexisting measures of gender
            inequality. A high degree of legal gender disparities is
            found to be negatively associated with a wide range of
            outcomes, including years of education of women relative to
            men, labor force participation rates of women relative to
            men, proportion of women top managers, proportion of women
            in parliament, percentage of women that borrowed from a
            financial institution relative to men, and child mortality
            rates. Subcategories within the legal disparities measure
            help to uncover specific types of legal disparities across economies.
The capabilities driving
            participation in global value chains
Global value chains have altered the
            nature of global trade and offer significant opportunities
            for developing countries to expand exports, access
            technology, and raise productivity. Policy makers rightly
            seek to understand what it takes to participate in global
            value chains. In practice, this means understanding what it
            takes to attract lead firms and upgrade to higher
            value-added activities. Recent literature has pointed to a
            range of underlying characteristics that may drive
            participation in global value chains. Using a modified
            factor-content methodology, this paper shows that proximity
            to markets, efficient logistics, and strength of
            institutions are among the most important capabilities.
            However, the paper also shows that each sector has a unique
            mix of capability requirements. Fixed structural
            characteristics limit the range of sectoral possibilities
            for a given country, but, by reducing policy-related gaps, a
            country may be able to increase its competitiveness for
            participating in global value chains. The paper applies the
            methodology to Southern African Customs Union countries, and
            demonstrates that, by filling gaps in underlying
            capabilities, these countries could increase participation
            in certain global value chain sectors.
Uncertainty as a factor in
            investment decisions : the case of the Russian
            Federation's regions
This paper argues that although the bulk
            of the literature tends to focus on regulatory uncertainty
            stemming from formal practices, uncertainty that comes from
            unpredictable informal practices surrounding regulation is
            an underexplored additional form of regulatory uncertainty.
            The paper uses the results of empirical analysis of several
            unique firm-level data sets to argue that firms in Russian
            institutional environments adapt to informal practices of
            business-government interactions, so long as these practices
            are predictable. The paper draws a distinction between
            differences in levels of relatively well-ordered (and often
            centralized) and therefore predictable corruption—a
            predictable component of the cost of doing business—and
            variation in experiences with corruption, which often
            results from decentralized, unconstrained
            ("administrative") corruption and the rent-seeking
            incentives of lower level officials. It argues that a
            significant obstacle to investment decisions at the regional
            level is not so much formal or informal rules per se, but
            lack of predictability of their application. It also
            examines in-country inconsistency in property rights
            enforcement as another source of underexplored regulatory
            uncertainty tied to informal practice. Unlike administrative
            corruption, inconsistent property rights enforcement is a
            fundamental, existential threat to businesses. To test this
            hypothesis, the paper draws on a measure that captures
            private "raiders'" attacks on firms—hostile,
            often violent takeovers of firms by outsiders aided and
            often abetted by law enforcement agencies. The paper argues
            that the greater is the number of raider attacks for a given
            region, the greater is the uncertainty and the less likely
            is investment.
How many years have refugees been in exile
The estimated duration of forced
            displacement situations is a key parameter in defining an
            adequate response to the crisis. Where the crisis is short,
            humanitarian aid may suffice; when it lasts, development
            interventions are required. Using data from the United
            Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, this paper proposes
            propose a new approach to estimate the mean and median
            durations of exile, and their variations over time. The
            analysis finds that people who were refugees at the end of
            2015 have been in exile for an average duration of 10.3
            years and a median duration of 4 years; the average duration
            of exile has varied between 10 and 15 years since the late
            1990s. The number of people who are in protracted situations
            (over five years) has been steady at 5 million to 7 million
            since the mid-1990s, and currently stands at 6.6 million.
            For those people, the average duration of exile is as long
            as 21.2 years. All these estimates are very sensitive to two
            situations: Afghanistan, where the crisis has been ongoing
            since 1979 and increases all averages, and the Syrian Arab
            Republic, which is relatively recent and lowers the averages.
The state of economics, the state of
            the world
This paper, based on the introductory
            remarks made at the two-day conference on "The State of
            the Economy, the State of the World," is an
            idiosyncratic stocktaking of the trajectory of economics
            from Adam Smith to contemporary times, with special
            attention to the rise of development economics. Given the
            challenges faced by the global economy in recent times, and
            especially since 2008, it is time for a serious evaluation
            of economics for policy making. The paper comments on some
            potential themes and ideas that motivated the conference and
            formed the basis of discussions and debate. This is done
            keeping in mind the nature of knowledge engagement the World
            Bank Group is expected to have with the world.
Combining preschool teacher training
            with parenting education : a cluster-randomized controlled trial
This paper evaluates a government
            program in Malawi, which aimed to improve quality at
            community-based childcare centers and complemented these
            efforts with a group-based parenting support program.
            Children in the integrated intervention arm (teacher
            training and parenting) had significantly higher scores in
            measures of language and socio-emotional development than
            children in centers receiving teacher training alone at the
            18-month follow-up. However, the study finds no effects on
            child assessments at the 36-month follow-up. Significant
            improvements at the centers relating to classroom
            organization and teacher behavior in the teacher-training
            only arm did not translate into improvements in child
            outcomes at either follow-up. The findings suggest that, in
            resource-poor settings with informal preschools, programs
            that integrate parenting support within preschools may be
            more effective than programs that simply improve classroom quality.
From commodity discovery to production
Major resource discoveries have
            transformed growth prospects for many low-income countries.
            However, the sharp downturn in commodity prices in recent
            years is affecting resource investment in these countries,
            and may delay the development of recent discoveries into
            production. This study investigates lead times from
            discovery to production for a unique data set of gold and
            copper discoveries worldwide during 1950-2014. The study
            employs standard parametric and nonparametric duration
            analysis. The results suggest an important role for copper
            prices; for instance, an upswing at the time of discovery
            can hasten the development of the mine by two to three years
            in low-income countries. There appears to be a similarly
            beneficial impact on lead times of sounder macroeconomic
            policies and quality of governance.
Minimizing ecological damage from
            road improvement in tropical forests
A spatial econometric model is used to
            link road upgrading to forest clearing and biodiversity loss
            in the moist tropical forests of Bolivia, Cameroon, and
            Myanmar. Using 250-meter cells, the model estimates the
            relationship between the rate of forest clearing in a cell
            and its distance to the urban market, with explicit
            attention given to road quality and simultaneity, terrain
            elevation and slope, the agricultural opportunity value of
            the land, and its legal protection status. Forest clearing
            is found to be most responsive to the distance to the
            nearest urban market, especially with secondary roads with
            lower typical speeds. Using the estimated forest-clearing
            response elasticities and a composite biodiversity
            indicator, an index of expected biodiversity loss from
            upgrading secondary roads to primary status is computed in
            each cell. The results identify areas in the three countries
            where high expected biodiversity losses may warrant
            additional protection as road upgrading continues. In
            addition, the results provide ecological risk ratings for
            individual road corridors that can inform environmentally
            sensitive infrastructure investment programs.
Russian Federation : how services
            contribute to competitiveness
Globalization is creating many new trade
            and growth opportunities, with services trade increasingly
            becoming an issue for export-oriented economies. Services
            are important to country trade strategies, because they
            represent activities in which countries may have a
            comparative advantage, and they are drivers of
            competitiveness for the whole economy. This paper uses data
            from the World Development Indicators, two new databases
            (the Export in Value-Added database from the Global Trade
            Analysis Project, and Trade in Services data), and
            firm-level data. The paper employs a wide range of
            indicators to analyze the trade competitiveness of the
            services sector in the Russian Federation. Since service
            exports are less than would be expected considering
            Russia's level of development, the study finds that the
            contribution of services to export diversification could be
            heightened significantly. The scale of Russian business
            services exports is relatively low, although exports of
            traditional services, like transport and travel, are
            performing well. Despite the relatively minor importance of
            exports of modern services, the category of other business
            services has in recent years been growing fast, and business
            services have strengthened their revealed comparative
            advantages. Yet Russia still has much potential for
            expanding trade in modern services. There is also potential
            to diversify services exports to other markets, such as
            France, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere in Asia, which today
            seems underexploited. Finally, although exports of direct
            services are low, services such as transport, distribution,
            finance, and other business services are making major
            contributions to other exports, in particular energy.
Faraway or nearby domestic and
            international spillovers in patenting and product innovation
The diffusion of knowledge plays a
            central role in endogenous growth theories. Simply put, in
            these models new knowledge can be generated from preexisting
            knowledge. In other words, existing knowledge is a pure
            public good, which can benefit any economic agent anywhere.
            More generally, endogenous growth theories rely on a broad
            set of assumptions that have not been tested sufficiently,
            especially for developing economies. The scope and nature of
            knowledge spillovers is, however, important for policy,
            because the presumed positive spillovers can justify
            government intervention (if the spillovers are localized) or
            laissez faire (if the spillovers are international). This
            paper empirically assesses the scope and direction of
            knowledge spillovers in national patenting and, separately,
            product innovation by firms. The first set of exercises
            tests whether the cumulative knowledge specifications of the
            knowledge production function can explain international
            patterns of patenting or whether own research and
            development is necessary to produce patents. The second set
            of exercises analyzes whether firm product-quality upgrading
            and the introduction of new products depend on product
            innovation within industries, within or across countries.
            The evidence supports the view that existing stocks of
            knowledge, domestic and foreign, enhance national innovation
            and entrepreneurship in the form of product innovation. More
            specifically, the evidence suggests that within-country and
            international knowledge spillovers are positive, but
            international spillovers can be negative for firms that are
            far from innovative firms in terms of productivity. The
            results depend on the concept of “distance” between
            countries and firms.
Can the culture of honor lead to
            inefficient conventions experimental evidence from India
Experiments in the United States have
            found that pairs of individuals are generally able to form
            socially efficient conventions in coordination games of
            common interest in a remarkably short time. This paper shows
            that this ability is not universal. The paper reports the
            results of a field experiment in India in which pairs of men
            from high and low castes repeatedly played a coordination
            game of common interest. Low-caste pairs overwhelmingly
            coordinated on the efficient equilibrium, consistent with
            earlier findings. In contrast, high-caste pairs coordinated
            on the efficient equilibrium at a much lower rate, with only
            47 percent in efficient coordination in the final period of
            the experiment. The study traces the divergence in outcomes
            to how an individual responds to the low payoff he obtains
            when he attempts efficient coordination but his partner does
            not. After this event, high-caste men are significantly less
            likely than low-caste men to continue trying for efficiency.
            The limited ability to form the efficient convention can be
            explained by the framing effect of the culture of honor
            among high-caste men, which may lead them to interpret this
            event as a challenge to their honor, which triggers a
            retaliatory response.
Deepening without broadening jobs in
            Ghana's private sector
Creating productive jobs is one of the
            greatest challenges in Ghana. This paper looks at job
            creation and its relationship with firm productivity and the
            quality of jobs among registered firms in the Ghanaian
            private sector, based on the 2013 World Bank Enterprise
            Survey. The study looks at the typology of firms in the
            industry and service sectors, identifying those that have
            created the most jobs, and the relative quality of these
            jobs in terms of productivity and firms' average wage
            bill. Although the formal private sector employs only a tiny
            share of total employment, the results show that larger and
            older firms account for the majority of workers, and formal
            jobs density is highest in Accra (Accra Metropolitan Area
            and Tema). Large firms also pay higher wages on average, are
            more productive, and account for most of the aggregate net
            formal job creation between 2010 and 2012. However, the
            relationship between size and productivity is positive and
            statistically significant, mostly driven by the upper part
            of the firm size distribution, pointing to potential market
            segmentations as micro, small, and medium firms create fewer
            jobs and are less productive. Removing barriers to the
            growth of micro, small, and medium size enterprises, and to
            the allocation of resources toward more efficient firms
            should be a key priority for policy makers.
When the cat's away : the
            effects of spousal migration on investments on children
Household expenditures for
            children-related goods may change when one of the parent
            migrates and do so differently depending on whether it is
            the mother or the father that leaves. A sequential model
            that explains migration and budget allocation choices is
            proposed and its predictions are tested on data from
            Indonesia. Selection of households into female migration is
            accounted for using a set of instrumental variables derived
            from the model. Results show that when children are left
            with fathers, the household budget is significantly diverted
            toward the purchase of adult private goods, but the share of
            budget devoted to children remains unaffected because
            mothers compensate by giving up their own private
            consumption and sending home more remittances.
Poor households' productive
            investments of cash transfers : quasi-experimental evidence
            from Niger
Cash transfer programs have spread
            rapidly as an instrument to raise household consumption and
            reduce poverty. Questions remain about the sustainability of
            cash transfer impacts in low-income settings such as
            Sub-Saharan Africa and, in particular, on whether cash
            transfers can foster productive investments in addition to
            raising immediate consumption among the very poor. This
            paper presents evidence that a cash transfer project in
            rural Niger induced investments in assets and productive
            activities that were sustained among the very poor 18 months
            after project completion. Results show lasting increases in
            livestock assets and participation in saving groups
            (tontines). Cash transfers also contributed to improved
            agricultural productivity, but no effects in terms of
            diversification of other household enterprises are found.
            Productive asset gains are, notably, largest among the
            poorest of the poor, suggesting that small regular cash
            transfers combined with enhanced saving mechanisms can relax
            constraints to asset accumulation among the extreme poor.
Is predicted data a viable
            alternative to real data
It is costly to collect the household-
            and individual-level data that underlies official estimates
            of poverty and health. For this reason, developing countries
            often do not have the budget to update their estimates of
            poverty and health regularly, even though these estimates
            are most needed there. One way to reduce the financial
            burden is to substitute some of the real data with predicted
            data. An approach referred to as double sampling collects
            the expensive outcome variable for a sub-sample only while
            collecting the covariates used for prediction for the full
            sample. The objective of this study is to determine if this
            would indeed allow for realizing meaningful reductions in
            financial costs while preserving statistical precision. The
            study does this using analytical calculations that allow for
            considering a wide range of parameter values that are
            plausible to real applications. The benefits of using double
            sampling are found to be modest. There are circumstances for
            which the gains can be more substantial, but the study
            conjectures that these denote the exceptions rather than the
            rule. The recommendation is to rely on real data whenever
            there is a need for new data, and use the prediction
            estimator to leverage existing data.