rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
inclusion, we find that while a better regulatory environment strengthens the efficiency of legal reforms, widespread social norms that discriminate against women negate the beneficial effect that legal equality has on women’s financial inclusion. We conduct several robustness tests to ensure the reliability of our results.

Our paper contributes to the literature on women’s access to finance along two distinct dimensions. First, this study adds to the literature exploring the economic outcomes of gendered laws. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the earliest studies to systematically investigate the issue of legal gender equality and its association with women’s access to financial services. Our findings complement those of Demirguc-Kunt et al. (2013), where the focus is restricted to developing economies in 2011. The authors demonstrate that the ability to work, to be the head of a household and to receive inheritance contributes to the likelihood of a woman owning an account. Nonetheless, the data structure does not allow for the identification of any causal relationship between legal frameworks and women’s access to financial services. In comparison, we use a sample covering a larger set of countries and capturing a more comprehensive set of questions on financial inclusion based on four waves of data, i.e., 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2021. We also control for a broader range of country characteristics in addition to legal restrictions, such as the level of economic development and, importantly, the prevalence of social norms and the broader regulatory environment. Moreover, we propose, in addition to our OLS results, an instrumental variable approach, which brings us closer to making assertations of causality.

Second, this paper considers an important country-specific factor of access to and use of all financial services, not just credit as done in large parts of the literature. Perrin and Bertrand (2022) show that legal protections are associated with lower levels of reluctance among women-led firms to apply for loans or lines of credit, but they are not associated with the success rates of these applications. Thus, we enrich extant literature about the determinants of gender-based differential access to financial services. We enlarge the scope of financial inclusion beyond the simple access to credit and, furthermore, we consider a wider range of gendered laws in order to capture potential spillover effects beyond those areas of the law that directly target equal financial inclusion.

The remainder of the study continues as follows. Section 2 provides the theoretical backdrop on the link between gendered laws and financial inclusion. Section 3 provides an overview of the variables and the methodology used, followed by a discussion of the results in 4
# **3. Measuring Mental Health/the PINZMS Data**

The data used in this paper are from the Tongan component of the Pacific Island-New Zealand Migration Survey (PINZMS), a comprehensive household survey designed to measure multiple aspects of the migration process. This survey includes questions on household demographics, education, labor supply, income, asset ownership and food consumption, based where possible on the most widely used surveys in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands to enhance comparability. The survey pays special attention to health issues, relying on both self-reported information (overall self-rated health and its change, use of health facilities, smoking and drinking behavior, hypertension and diabetes histories) and anthropometric measurements (blood pressure, height, weight and girth).

The mental health questions use the Mental Health Inventory 5 (MHI-5) of Veit and Ware (1983).<sup>5</sup> This is a five item scale with a maximum score of 25 and minimum score of 5. Higher scores are desirable in that they indicate the experience of psychological well-being and the absence of psychological distress during the past month. The MHI-5 measure was developed for use in the general population and has been used as part of general surveys of health and quality of life in addition to specific studies on mental health. The measure compares well to other more detailed measures. For example, Berwick et al. (1991) compared the screening accuracy of the MHI-5 with that of the longer 18-item MHI, the 30-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30), and a 28-item Somatic Symptom Inventory (SSI-28). The MHI-5 was found to be as good as the MHI-18 and the GHQ-30, and better than the SSI-28, for detecting major depression, general affective disorders, and anxiety disorders The unique feature of the PINZMS survey is that it has a mechanism that allows selection biases to be overcome. New Zealand has a special immigration category, established in 2001, called the Pacific Access Category (PAC), which allows an annual quota of 250 Tongans to migrate to New Zealand without going through the usual migration categories used for groups such as

> 5 We use version 2, which is the mental health component of the 36 item short-form health survey (SF-36) which has - been used in over 50 countries as part of the International Quality of Life Assessment project (http://www.sf <u>36.org). Appendix 1 lists the specific questions used in the MHI-5.</u>

7
# **4.1 Recovering the Production Function Parameters**

I estimate the parameters of (25) using proxy estimators for each industry separately. These methods use a control function in a firm specific decision to proxy for productivity and control for the simultaneity bias that arises because input demand and unobserved productivity are correlated. I follow Ackerberg et al. (2006) who extends Olley and Pakes (1996) and Levinsohn and Petrin (2003).<sup>14</sup> Under the time to build assumption for capital, capital used in production in period _t_ is known in period _t−_ 1. Given the restrictive labor laws in India on hiring, firing and closing down plants, there are adjustment costs to labor.<sup>15</sup> I assume like Ackerberg et al. (2006), that labor is not completely free and is chosen at _t − b_ where 0 _< b <_ 1. Firms make decisions on importing intermediate inputs. There are fixed costs to imports which involve searching for suppliers, navigating customs procedures and getting delivery of inputs across borders. Under this setup, material inputs are not fully adjustable. I assume material inputs are chosen at _t − c_ where 0 _< c <_ 1. Energy inputs are fully flexible and are chosen at period _t_ after capital, labor, material inputs (domestic and imported) and productivity is observed.<sup>16</sup> The demand function for energy inputs is given by _eit_ = _h_ ( _kit, lit, mit, χit, ωit_ ). Under the monotonicity assumption (the demand for the variable input _h_ ( _kit, lit, mit, χit, ωit_ ) is strictly increasing in _ωit_ ), the energy demand function can be inverted to proxy for unobserved productivity. _ωit_ = _h_<sup>_−_1</sup> ( _kit, lit, mit, χit, eit_ ) is the inverse demand function for energy.

Under the Ackerberg et al. (2006) method, no parameter is estimated in the first stage. The first stage is used to get a consistent estimate of expected output ( _φ_<sup>�</sup> _it_ ( _._ )).

where In addition to the firm variables in _h_<sup>_−_1</sup> ( _._ ), I also include year dummies to account for macro trends that could impact input demand. I use a full fifth degree polynomial in capital, labor, material inputs, labor and energy to get an estimate of _φ_<sup>�</sup> _it_ . Once _φ_<sup>�</sup> _it_ ( _._ ) is estimated, for any candidate candidate values of the coefficients, productivity can be written as For the candidate values of the coefficients, the productivity series can be used to estimate the

> 14Ackerberg et al. (2006) argue that the labor parameter cannot be consistently identified in the Olley and Pakes (1996) and Levinsohn and Petrin (2003) method.

> 15See Hasan et al. (2007) for a discussion on labor market regulations and rigidities in India.

> 16The exact ordering of the timing assumptions of when labor and material inputs are chosen does not impact the empirical estimation. The only assumption needed for the empirical estimation is that energy is chosen after observing other inputs and productivity.

14
Table 2 Regression results, OECD import concentration on time trend

||All im|ports|Extra-OECD im|ports only|
|---|---|---|---|---|
|Regressors:|(1)<br>Herfindahl|(2)<br>Theil|(3)<br>Herfindahl|(4)<br>Theil|
|time|-0.002***|-0.013***|-0.007***|-0.023***|
||(-13.19)|(-34.03)|(-31.80)|(-43.53)|
|timesq|0.000|0.000***|0.000***|0.000***|
||(1.616)|(4.723)|(23.17)|(28.13)|
|Constant|0.218***|2.913***|0.425***|3.330***|
||(202.6)|(861.4)|(221.1)|(686.9)|
|Observations|54030|54030|53769|53769|
|Number of index|1301|1301|1301|1301|
|R-squared|0.571|0.671|0.510|0.570|
|turning point|2001|2001|1993|1997|
|Product FE|yes|yes|yes|yes|

Notes: t statistics in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 As for the extensive margin, Figure 4 shows the evolution of simple and importweighted averages, across SITC4 lines, of the number of exporters to the OECD over the sample period.

<!-- Start of picture text --> Figure 4<br>Average number of exporters to OECD, 1963-2006<br>All suppliers<br>(a) Simple average (b) Import-weighted average<br>1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010<br>Year Year<br>Extra-OECD suppliers only<br>80 140<br>120<br>60<br>100<br>wav_nber<br># suppliers, simple av. 40<br>80<br>60<br>20<br><!-- End of picture text --> 19
- OWUSU, V., ABDULAI, A. & ABDUL-RAHMAN, S. 2011. Non-farm work and food security among farm households in Northern Ghana. _Food policy,_ 36 **,** 108-118.

- REARDON, T., STAMOULIS, K., BALISACAN, A., CRUZ, M., BERDEGUÉ, J. & BANKS, B. 1998. Rural non-farm income in developing countries. _The state of food and agriculture,_ 1998 **,** 283-356.

- REARDON, T., TAYLOR, J. E., STAMOULIS, K., LANJOUW, P. & BALISACAN, A. 2000. Effects of non ‐ farm employment on rural income inequality in developing countries: an investment perspective. _Journal of agricultural economics,_ 51 **,** 266-288.

- SMALE, M., KUSUNOSE, Y., MATHENGE, M. K. & ALIA, D. 2016. Destination or Distraction? Querying the Linkage Between Off-Farm Work and Food Crop Investments in Kenya. _Journal of African Economies_ .

- SMITH, D. R., GORDON, A., MEADOWS, K. & ZWICK, K. 2001. Livelihood diversification in Uganda: patterns and determinants of change across two rural districts. _Food Policy,_ 26 **,** 421-435.

-

- START, D. 2001. The rise and fall of the rural non farm Economy: Poverty Impacts and Policy options. _Development policy review,_ 19 **,** 491-505.

- WOLDENHANNA, T. & OSKAM, A. 2001. Income diversification and entry barriers: evidence from the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. _Food Policy,_ 26 **,** 351-365.

WOOLDRIDGE, J. M. 2010. _Econometric analysis of cross section and panel data_ , MIT press.

WORLD BANK. 2016. _Malawi Poverty Assessment_ . World Bank, Washington, DC.

24
Finally, future cross-country analysis of procurement can benefit from new indicators as more data become available. A new sub-indicator on “procurement monitoring” in the 2016 PEFA Framework assesses the accuracy and comprehensiveness of databases on procurement contracts. More importantly, a new “Benchmarking Public Procurement” data set for 180 countries provides objective indicators on various stages of the procurement life cycle, from the standpoint of information and other transactions costs to private suppliers (World Bank, 2017). Numerical indexes cover the stages of needs assessment, call for tender and bid preparation; bid submission; bid opening, evaluation and award; content and management of the procurement contract; performance guarantee, and payment of suppliers. In addition to the indexes, the underlying information on which they are calculated is available, as well as (non-scored) information on complaints mechanisms.

29
# Table of Contents

|Page|
|---|
|Summary<br>...........................................<br>i|
|Introduction ..........................................<br>1|
|1. Inflation in 1985-1989 .....................................<br>3|
|1.1 "Types'ofInflation................................<br>3<br>1.2 An International Comparison ...........................<br>4<br>1.3 Investment-Induced Inflation ...........................<br>6<br>1.4 Inflationary Expectations .............................<br>6|
|<br>_1.5_Monetization of Imbalances<br>..<br>7|
|1.6 Monopolistic Structure ...............................<br>8|
|2. Inflation Estimators ......................................<br>9|
|2.1 OfficialIndices ...................................<br>9<br>2.2 Disequilibrium Theory and Inflation .............<br>11<br>2.3 Savings and its Derivatives ...........................<br>13<br>2.4 Conjuncture Test .................................<br>15<br>_2.5_Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) Estimates ..................<br>16<br>2.6 Investment Sector .................................<br>18|
|3. Prices in the Transition Period 1990-1991<br>..<br>19<br>3.1 Preliminary Steps in 1990 and the Impact on Inflation ...........<br>19<br>3.2 Price Liberalization of 1991 ..........................<br>21|
|4. Conclusions .........................................<br>22|
|Table I: Official Price Indices, 1980-1991 ........................<br>25<br>Table I: Official Price Indices, 1990, Quarterly Data .................<br>26|
|<br>Table IH: Official Price Indices, 1991, Month-on-sMonth Changes ....<br>......<br>27|
|<br>Table TV: Monetary Indicators, 1980-1991 .........................<br>28|
|<br>Table V: Conjuncture Tests, 1980-1990 ..........................<br>29<br>Table VI: Households' Deposits in 1991 ....<br>.....<br>................29|
|References<br>.........................................<br>30|
Subramanian 2005, IMF 2005). In general, the inconclusive results on the impact of remittances and growth are largely due to the difficulty of separating the cause from the effect: if remittances react counter-cyclically to growth, then the negative relationship between the two is a result of reverse causality running from growth to remittances, not vice versa.

# **_2.2 Social impacts on the origin country_**

At its best, migration can be a rewarding experience that is made in the interest of the household welfare, but in most cases moving to another country and being separated from one’s immediate family takes place at considerable emotional cost (D’Emilio _et al._ 2007). Especially temporary circular migration increases the risk for family breakdown, fragmentation of social networks and psychosocial stress (Kahn _et al._ 2003). The emotional impact is not just limited to the migrants themselves, but also to the family left behind. Especially in poorer households where the whole family cannot afford to emigrate together, they emigrate one member at a time resulting in eroded family structures and relationships.<sup>11</sup> As described by D’Emilio _et al._ (2007), the longer the separation between the migrating parents and their children, the more children lose parents’ reference in the management of the household, their authority and their role as providers of love and material care. Parents are gradually replaced by other family members, or the children take upon themselves the task of parenting. The feelings of rejection, abandonment and loss follow the children left behind, and cannot be compensated by the material gifts and remittances sent from abroad. To some extent the recent technological advances in terms of e-mail and affordable telephone calls might allow the transnational families to form and foster social ties even at a distance (UNDP 2009, p. 76).

Separation from the parents has also long-term consequences in all aspects of the children’s lives. Evidence from Mexico points to the fact that the offspring from migrant

> 11 Interpreting the high divorce rates among migrants is not always straightforward. While it is true that protracted separation can take its toll on family cohesion, Lucas (2005, 268) points out that those whose marriages were unstable to begin with are more likely to migrate. It is also true that migration provides new economic opportunities for women, and increased economic independence may provide them an escape from a failed marriage. Furthermore, migration might provide an exit strategy in societies where divorce is not an option.

9
# **3.3 Before-after approach with block fixed effects**

While the above design will provide robust evidence on the impact of land titling, effects of policy changes that affect treatment and control areas equally are not identified. To separately analyze these impacts and those of new systematic or sporadic titling on newly registered owners’ gender and the share of plots for which transfer in land or mortgage markets were registered, we use annual data at block level for 20002019 as described above. Block and year fixed effects are used to control for time invariant local conditions and time variant common shocks. If included as an independent variable, the lagged stock of sporadically registered/titled plots is instrumented by its second lag. Formally, for each block _i_ and year _t_ , we have the number of plots (denoted by i ) that entered the registry for the first time in _t_ , separately for systematic ( i ) and sporadic ( i ) modalities of registration/titling. We rr vv pp also have information on the stock of registered plots at rr _t_ , denoted by rr i overall and by i and i for vv pp systematic and sporadic modalities, respectively. For both stock and flow, we know if plots entering the RR RR RR registry at _t_ are in the name of females alone ( i _or_ i ), males alone ( i or i ) or males and females FF FF MM MM jointly ( i or i ). Letting _P_ be an indicator variable for the post-2010 regime when the Land Act was rr RR rr RR JJ JJ effective and LAA had been established, the basic equation to be estimated is rr RR i 1 i 2 i i (2) ii ii where i is either i i or YYi = ααi , i.e., the difference between the number of plots registered in the + ββ rr + ββ rr ∗PP+ λλ + εε FF MM JJ MM name of females individually or jointly and that of men orYY rr −rr rr −rr i i , the difference between the number of JJ FF plots registered in the name of females jointly and individually; is a block fixed effect, is a time fixed rr −rr effect, and ε is the error term. Our interest in (2) is in _β2_ , the point estimate of the program effect as the total αα λλ impact of LARP-induced changes. Conceptually, estimated program impact comprises three elements, namely the effects of (i) a decrease in the cost or complexity of first-time sporadic registration; (ii) a reduction of the transaction cost of registering transfers and mortgages; and (iii) systematic titling of plots in target areas through a process of awareness raising and elimination of cost for title issuance. As the number of plots registered/titled sporadically and systematically before and after policy reform is observed and i i i , it is possible to isolate impacts pp vv of policy reform from those of systematic titling by estimating rr = rr + rr i 1 i 2 i 3 i i (2’) pp pp vv ii ii where variables are as above, YY = αα1 is the estimated direct effect of the increase in sporadic registrations (pre-+ γγ rr + γγ rr ∗PP+ γγ rr + λλ + εε reform), 2 the estimated impact of the ‘pure’ policy change on sporadically registered plots, and 3 the γγ estimated impact of policy changes plus systematic titling. The estimated impact of systematic titling over γγ γγ 12
# **1. Introduction**

Over the past few years, the Chinese government has increased its focus on rural development. Premier Wen Jiabao has repeatedly called for attention to the “ _sannong wenti_ ”, i.e., problems related to agriculture, farmers, and rural society.<sup>1</sup> In line with this new focus, the government has significantly increased resources allocated to the rural sector, and introduced many new programs. Beginning with the Rural Tax and Fee Reform in 2002, the government has also implemented a number of reforms aimed at improving the fiscal health of rural governments and alleviating farmers’ burdens.

The government has announced the long-term goal of building a _xiaokang_ (well-off) and harmonious society.<sup>2</sup> The 16<sup>th</sup> Party Congress defined the objective of a _xiaokang_ society – to be reached by 2020 – to include social, environmental, equality, and many other objectives -- in addition to income and economic growth.<sup>3</sup> As stated by Premier Wen Jiabao, these long-term goals involve “putting people first,” and promoting reform and innovation in accordance with the “five balances” ⎯ balancing urban and rural development, balancing development among regions, balancing economic and social development, balancing man and nature, and balancing domestic development and opening wider to the outside world.<sup>4</sup> Under this strategy, the building of a “new socialist countryside” (NSC) is designated as a top priority for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010). In his speech to the National People’s Congress in March 2006, Premier Wen Jiabao referred to the project as a

> 1 The key policy objectives related to the _sannong wenti_ include increasing agricultural productivity and maintaining food security, raising farmers’ incomes, reducing poverty, and improving environmental sustainability.

> 2  The term _xiaokang_ society refers to a well-off society in which all people can lead a fairly comfortable life. The term was first used by Deng Xiaoping when reform and opening up were launched in the late 1970s. Deng defined _xiaokang_ with reference to a target per capita GDP of US$800 by 2000. Because of China’s rapid economic growth, a _xiaokang_ society as defined by Deng was roughly achieved by the end of the last century.

> 3 Areas of a _xiaokang_ society set by the Party include, in addition to the GDP per capita growth target (US$3,000 by 2020), improving democracy; advancing science and education; enriching culture; fostering social harmony; and upgrading the texture of the life of the people. See Jiang Zemin, _Report at 16_<sup>_th_</sup> _National Congress of the Communist Party of China,_ November 17, 2002.  See website: http://service.china.org.cn. Many attempts have been made to further specify a _xiaokang_ society, and develop indicators and targets for its monitoring. See, for example, China Statistics Press (1999, Appendix 1); UN Country Team in China (2004); Li and Zhu (2003). 4 Wen (2004).

2