rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Should income inequality be reduced
            and who should benefit redistributive preferences in Europe
            and Central Asia
This paper examines support for reducing
            inequality and for income redistribution to specific groups
            in Europe and Central Asia. The paper uses the Life in
            Transition Survey to analyze cross-country differences in
            redistributive preferences and the determinants of
            individual-level differences in such preferences. The
            analysis tests for various possible motivations, such as
            self-interest, beliefs about the fairness of the
            income-generating process, past social mobility experience,
            or expectations of future social mobility. Fewer people
            wanted to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor in
            2010 than in 2006 in transition countries. Support for
            redistribution toward specific groups is highest for the
            disabled and the elderly, but there is high heterogeneity
            across countries in support for various redistributive
            policies, as well as in the alignment between average
            beliefs and actual policies. The empirical analysis confirms
            the importance of beliefs about fairness in influencing
            redistributive preferences, together with self-interest and
            past and expected social mobility in European Union member
            states (Western European and new member states), but only to
            a limited extent in the non-European Union member state
            group of transition countries. Regarding redistribution to
            specific groups, self-interest appears to be an important
            motivation for support for the elderly and families with
            children, whereas values and beliefs are important drivers
            of support for the working poor and the unemployed. Although
            framing matters, the results are broadly robust to
            alternative measures of support for reducing inequality.
Success in difficult environments :
            a portfolio analysis of fragile and conflict-affected states
The World Bank Group has identified
            support to fragile and conflict-affected states as a
            strategic priority. This paper provides a systematic
            portfolio review of the International Development
            Association-funded projects in fragile and conflict-affected
            states during 2001 to 2013 and a detailed empirical analysis
            of the correlations between project and country-level
            characteristics with project outcome ratings. The portfolio
            review identifies a decline in the proportional amount of
            resources directed to fragile and conflict-affected states
            and a decline in the number of internationally recruited
            staff based in these countries. The empirical analysis finds
            no statistical difference in whether projects obtain at
            least a moderately satisfactory outcome rating between
            countries that are fragile and conflict-affected states and
            those that are not. Examination of the distribution of
            project outcome ratings indicates that projects in fragile
            and conflict-affected states obtain slightly lower ratings
            conditional on being unsatisfactory or satisfactory.
            Detailed cross-section regression analysis finds that
            indicators of project complexity, such as supervision costs,
            staff time, preparation time, and financing, are correlated
            with lower outcome ratings. Project leader characteristics
            are correlated with project outcome ratings, but to a lesser
            degree in fragile and conflict-affected states, potentially
            indicating that it is more difficult for project leaders to
            influence project outcomes in these environments. Last, a
            new approach to control for unobservable project
            characteristics, such as inherent complexity or ambition,
            shows preliminary evidence that changes in the project
            leader and increases in the supervision budget are
            correlated with improvements in project performance.
Oil and civil conflict : can public
            spending have a mitigation effect
This paper explores the conditions under
            which public spending could minimize violent conflict
            related to oil wealth. Previous work suggests that oil can
            lead to violent conflict because it increases the value of
            the state as a prize or because it undermines the
            state's bureaucratic penetration. Yet, little has been
            said on how oil wealth could be used to prevent the onset of
            violent conflict through public spending by buying off
            citizens and elites, increasing state legitimacy by
            providing basic services, or strengthening the military and
            security apparatus. The empirical analysis (148 countries
            over 1960-2009) shows that higher levels of military
            spending are associated with lower risk of small- and
            large-scale conflict onset in countries rich in oil and gas.
            By contrast, in economies with little natural resources,
            increases in military spending are associated with a higher
            risk of conflict. Welfare expenditure is associated with
            lower risk of small-scale conflict, irrespective of the
            level of oil revenue. However, general government spending
            does not appear to have any robust mitigating effects.
Transitioning from low-income growth
            to high-income growth : is there a middle income trap
Is there a "middle income
            trap"? Theory suggests that the determinants of growth
            at low and high income levels may be different. If countries
            struggle to transition from growth strategies that are
            effective at low income levels to growth strategies that are
            effective at high income levels, they may stagnate at some
            middle income level; this phenomenon can be thought of as a
            "middle income trap." This paper does not find
            evidence for (unusual) stagnation at any particular middle
            income level. However, it does find evidence that the
            determinants of growth at low and high income levels differ.
            These findings suggest a mixed conclusion: middle-income
            countries may need to change growth strategies to transition
            smoothly to high-income growth strategies, but this can be
            done smoothly and does not imply the existence of a middle
            income trap.
Rent imputation for welfare
            measurement : a review of methodologies and empirical findings
As well acknowledged in the literature,
            housing is often the dominant consumption good for most
            households. As such, it should be included in a
            comprehensive welfare aggregate to measure people's
            living standards accurately. However, assigning a value to
            the flow of the dwelling for homeowners and nonmarket
            tenants is problematic. Over the last decades several
            estimation techniques have been proposed and implemented by
            practitioners covering from very simple to sophisticated
            approaches. This paper provides an extensive review of
            different methods to impute rent, commonly used for welfare
            analysis. It also gives an overview of how this problem has
            been addressed by other economic domains, namely national
            accounts, price indices, purchasing power parities, and
            taxation. Finally, after setting up a theoretical framework,
            the paper summarizes the empirical findings about the
            distributional impact of including imputed rents in welfare aggregates.
Twinning the goals : how can
            promoting shared prosperity help to reduce global poverty
In 2013, the World Bank adopted two
            goals: First, reduce global extreme poverty to 3 percent by
            2030. Second, promote shared prosperity defined as the
            income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population
            within a country. This paper simulates the global poverty
            headcount under three growth scenarios for the bottom 40
            percent up to 2030. The analysis deploys a set of
            "shared prosperity premiums," in which the bottom
            40 percent in each country grows at a differential rate from
            the projected growth in the mean. With no distributional
            change, the global headcount reaches between 6.7 and 4.7
            percent in 2030, depending on the average growth scenario
            used for the simulations. However, if the incomes of the
            bottom 40 percent grow 2 percentage points faster than the
            mean, the World Bank's poverty goal is achieved with
            the global poverty falling to below 3 percent in 2030 in the
            scenarios which average growth rates are extrapolated from
            the early 2000s. While such a "shared prosperity
            premium" is not unprecedented in recent growth spells,
            maintaining it over 20 years in every country is optimistic.
            The paper shows that in the baseline growth scenario, the
            global poverty rate could either reach the 3 percent target,
            or be close to 10 percent, depending on the "shared
            prosperity premium."
Income diversification patterns in
            rural Sub-Saharan Africa : reassessing the evidence
Is Africa's rural economy
            transforming as its economies grow? This paper uses
            comparable income aggregates from 41 national household
            surveys from 22 countries to explore the extent of income
            diversification among rural households in Sub-Saharan
            Africa, and to look at how income diversification in
            Sub-Saharan Africa compares with other regions, taking into
            account differences in levels of development. The paper also
            seeks to understand how geography drives income
            diversification, focusing on the role of agricultural
            potential and distance to urban areas. The countries in the
            African sample have higher shares of on-farm income (63
            versus 33 percent) and lower shares on nonagricultural wage
            income (8 and 21 percent) compared with countries of other
            regions. Specialization in on-farm activities continues to
            be the norm in rural Africa (52 percent of households, 21
            percent in other regions). In terms of welfare,
            specialization in nonagricultural income-generating
            activities stochastically dominates farm-based strategies in
            all of the countries in our African sample. Crop income is
            still important for welfare, however, and even at higher
            levels of household income, crop activities continue to play
            an important complementary role. Regardless of distance and
            integration in the urban context, when agro-climatic
            conditions are favorable, farming remains the occupation of
            choice for most households in the African countries for
            which the study has geographically explicit information.
            When urban integration is low and agricultural conditions
            more difficult, the picture is mixed, with households more
            likely to engage more fully in nonfarm activities in Niger
            and Malawi, but less likely to do so in Uganda and Tanzania.
The economic effects of a borrower
            bailout : evidence from an emerging market
This paper studies the credit market
            implications and real effects of one the largest borrower
            bailout programs in history, enacted by the government of
            India against the backdrop of the 2008-2009 financial
            crisis. The study finds that the stimulus program had no
            effect on productivity, wages, or consumption, but led to
            significant changes in credit allocation and an increase in
            defaults. Post-program loan performance declines faster in
            districts with greater exposure to the program, an effect
            that is not driven by greater risk-taking of banks. Loan
            defaults become significantly more sensitive to the
            electoral cycle after the program, suggesting the
            anticipation of future credit market interventions as an
            important channel through which moral hazard in loan
            repayment is intensified.
Urbanization and housing investment
This paper provides the first systematic
            empirical assessment of the pace at which housing investment
            has responded to rising demand from urbanization.  The
            assessment used National Accounts Statistics to build a data
            set of residential housing investment for more than 90
            countries. The data set explicitly accounts for investment
            by households, the government, and the private sector. The
            analysis finds that housing investment follows an S-shaped
            trajectory taking off around per capita GDP of about $3,000
            (US$2005) and tapering down at per capita GDP around $36,000
            (US$2005).  The analysis also finds that between 2001 and
            2011, housing investment in low-income economies averaged
            4.56 percent of gross domestic product and 9.12 percent in
            upper-middle-income economies. An important finding is that
            countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have housing elasticities
            similar to comparable low-income and lower-middle-income
            economies. In financing housing investment, the paper finds
            that developing countries tend to rely much more on domestic
            savings and government debt, whereas high-income
            Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
            countries lever capital markets by tapping foreign savings.
            Not only does excessive reliance on domestic savings and
            government debt increase the sensitivity of housing
            investment to the cyclicality of growth of gross domestic
            product, it also can potentially crowd out investments in
            health and education.
Housing consumption and urbanization
Rapid urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa
            places immense pressure on urban services to meet the needs
            of the burgeoning urban population. Although several
            country- or city-level reports offer insight into the
            housing challenges of specific places, little is known about
            regional patterns affecting housing markets. This lack of
            clear knowledge on the relative importance of the factors
            influencing households' housing demand in countries in
            Sub-Saharan Africa inhibits policy makers, researchers, the
            private sector, and development partners from making
            informed decisions when addressing affordable housing
            provision and the rapid increase in and growth of informal
            settlements. To shed light on the contours of housing
            patterns and impediments impacting the region's
            households, this paper provides a systematic review of
            housing conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa. By drilling down
            into the housing issues in the region from the perspective
            of the household, the paper analyses the trade-offs
            households make in allocating their budgets over time to
            housing and other amenities and provides a first
            approximation at understanding the differences in
            households' expenditure patterns and housing decisions
            across countries. The findings suggest that rather than
            emphasizing policies that purport to increase expenditures
            on housing at this stage of development, policy makers in
            Sub-Saharan Africa should focus on extending access to basic
            services and strengthening coordination between land use
            planning and service provision. As incomes increase, this
            focus would allow households the opportunity to access
            houses that are equipped with basic infrastructure and help
            countries move toward better overall quality of housing.
What makes a currency procyclical an
            empirical investigation
This paper looks at the correlation
            between the cyclical components of gross domestic product
            and the exchange rate and classifies countries'
            currencies as procyclical if they appreciate in good times,
            countercyclical if they appreciate in bad times, and
            acyclical otherwise. With this classification, the paper
            shows that: (i) the countries that are commodity exporters
            and experience procyclical capital flows tend to have
            procyclical currencies; (ii) countries with procyclical
            currencies tend to restrict their capital accounts, perhaps
            as an attempt to reduce the degree of procyclicality; (iii)
            countries with procyclical currencies pursue procyclical
            monetary policy; (iv) however, in the last decade, there is
            a disconnect between the cyclicality of currency and
            monetary policy; and (v) the disconnect may reflect a
            decline in the fear of floating, which can be partially
            attributed to an improvement in countries' net foreign
            asset positions.
The creative wealth of nations : how
            the performing arts can advance development and human progress
Cultural activities are increasingly
            noted as drivers of meaningful development. But they have
            yet to gain a prominent place in the architecture of
            development strategy. The performing arts, discussed here,
            exhibit direct effects on social progress and economic
            growth through trade in music, movies, and temporary work
            permits for artists, for example. Indirect contributions may
            also include environmental stewardship, tourism, nation
            branding, social inclusion, cultural democracy, and shifting
            cultural behaviors. These direct and indirect contributions
            are not well documented. As such, how is the creative or
            cultural sector a crucial part of the wealth of nations, and
            how could the World Bank Group better leverage the
            performing arts in its development strategy? This discussion
            provides a broad snapshot, from arts education, to social
            inclusion, to international trade in services. Key
            constraints include: the paucity of data and the difficulty
            of measuring cultural activities, the challenge of
            intellectual property, and the unclear benefits of cultural
            tourism. Part I sets the stage. Part II then provides policy
            options to foster the performing arts as a promising engine
            for development. Suggestions include: 1. expanding direct
            involvement in artistic projects, 2. increasing the use of
            performing arts to address social issues, 3. collecting
            data, 4. promoting intellectual property training programs,
            5. supporting digital platforms in the developing world that
            advance indigenous music, and 6. funding studies on such
            areas as cultural tourism. Progress still needs to be made
            in the discussion of the diverse ways that the performing
            arts can contribute to meaningful development.
Importing high food prices by
            exporting : rice prices in Lao PDR
This paper shows how a developing
            country, Lao PDR, imports high glutinous rice prices by
            exporting its staple food to neighboring countries, Vietnam
            and Thailand. Lao PDR has extensive export controls on rice,
            generating a sizable difference between domestic and
            international prices. Controls are relaxed after good
            harvests, leading to a surge in exports early in the season
            and rapidly rising prices later in the year. There is thus a
            strong case for removal of trade restrictions since they
            give rise to price spikes, keep the long-term price of
            glutinous rice low, and thereby hinder increases in income
            from agriculture. Although this is a case study of Lao PDR,
            the findings may equally apply to other developing countries
            that export their staple food.
What doesn't kill you makes you
            poorer : adult wages and the early-life disease environment
            in India
A growing literature documents links
            between early-life health and human capital, and between
            human capital and adult wages. Although most of this
            literature has focused on developed countries, economists
            have hypothesized that effects of early-life health on adult
            economic outcomes could be even greater in developing
            countries. This paper asks whether the early-life disease
            environment in India influences adult economic wages. The
            paper uses two measures of early-life disease environment to
            investigate this question: infant mortality rates and open
            defecation. A district-level differences-in-differences
            strategy is used to show that men born in district-years
            with lower infant mortality and better sanitation earned
            plausibly higher wages in their 20s and 30s. The effect
            estimates are applied to calculate the fiscal and welfare
            consequences of the disease environment, which are
            considerable. In particular, eliminating open defecation
            would increase tax revenue by enough to offset completely a
            cost to the government of over \$400 per household that
            stops defecating in the open. A fiscally neutral elimination
            of open defecation in India would increase the net present
            value of lifetime wages by more than \$1,800 for an average
            male worker born today. These large economic benefits ignore
            any other benefits of improved health or reduced mortality.
            The result suggests that the disease environment could have
            important effects on developing-country economic outcomes.