rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
The econometrics of finance and growth
This paper reviews different econometric
            methodologies to assess the relationship between financial
            development and growth.  It illustrates the identification
            problem, which is at the center of the finance and growth
            literature, using the example of a simple Ordinary Least
            Squares estimation. It discusses cross-sectional and panel
            instrumental variable approaches to overcome the
            identification problem.  It presents the time-series
            approach, which focuses on the forecast capacity of
            financial development for future growth rates, and
            differences-in-differences techniques that try to overcome
            the identification problem by assessing the differential
            effect of financial sector development across states with
            different policies or across industries with different needs
            for external finance. Finally, it discusses firm-level and
            household approaches that allow analysts to dig deeper into
            the channels and mechanisms through which financial
            development enhances growth and welfare, but pose their own
            methodological challenges.
Devolution, accountability, and
            service delivery : some insights from Pakistan
This paper studies the relationship
            between devolution, accountability, and service delivery in
            Pakistan. It examines the degree of accessibility of local
            policy-makers and the level of competition in local
            elections, the expenditure patterns of local governments to
            gauge their sector priorities, and the extent to which local
            governments are focused on patronage or the provision of
            targeted benefits to a few as opposed to providing public
            goods. The main findings of the paper are three-fold. First,
            the accessibility of policy-makers to citizens in Pakistan
            is unequivocally greater after devolution, and local
            government elections are, with some notable exceptions, as
            competitive as national and provincial elections.  Second,
            local government sector priorities are heavily tilted toward
            the provision of physical infrastructure - specifically,
            roads, water and sanitation, and rural electrification - at
            the expense of education and health. Third, this sector
            prioritization is in part a dutiful response to the
            relatively greater citizen demands for physical
            infrastructure; in part a reflection of the local government
            electoral structure that gives primacy to village and
            neighborhood-specific issues, and in part a reaction to
            provincial initiatives in education and health that have
            taken the political space away from local governments in the
            social sectors, thereby encouraging them to focus more
            toward physical infrastructure.
Spatial specialization and
            farm-nonfarm linkages
Using individual level employment data
            from Bangladesh, this paper presents empirical evidence on
            the relative importance of farm and urban linkages for rural
            nonfarm employment. The econometric results indicate that
            high return wage work and self-employment in nonfarm
            activities cluster around major urban centers. The negative
            effects of isolation on high return wage work and on
            self-employment are magnified in locations with higher
            agricultural potential. The low return nonfarm activities
            respond primarily to local demand displaying no significant
            spatial variation. The empirical results highlight the need
            for improved connectivity of regions with higher
            agricultural potential to urban centers for nonfarm
            development in Bangladesh.
Decentralization and the provision
            of public services : framework and implementation
This paper discusses decentralization
            (administrative, fiscal and political) of government in
            public service provision.  It aims to facilitate
            understanding among practitioners, policy makers, and
            scholars about what decentralization entails in practice
            compared to theory.  A review of the empirical literature
            and experience of decentralization is presented. The paper
            highlights issues that policy makers in developing and
            transitional countries should be aware of when reforming
            government, considering their unique political and economic
            environment. The author argues that decentralization
            produces efficiency gains stemming from inter-jurisdictional
            competition, enhanced checks and balances over the
            government through voting at the subnational level, and
            informational advantages due to proximity to citizens.  By
            contrast, arguments against decentralization include the
            risk of an increased level of corruption, coordination
            problems stemming from multiple layers of government, low
            capacity of subnational government, and unproductive
            inter-jurisdictional competition. Decentralization itself
            does not render increased government effectiveness in public
            service provision.  Instead, the effectiveness of government
            largely depends on the quality of human capital and institutions.
A gendered assessment of the brain drain
This paper updates and extends the
            Docquier-Marfouk data set on inter-national migration by
            educational attainment. The authors use new sources,
            homogenize definitions of what a migrant is, and compute
            gender-disaggregated indicators of the brain drain.
            Emigration stocks and rates are provided by level of
            schooling and gender for 195 source countries in 1990 and
            2000. The data set can be used to capture the recent trend
            in women's skilled migration and to analyze its causes
            and consequences for developing countries. The .findings
            show that women represent an increasing share of the OECD
            immigration stock and exhibit relatively higher rates of
            brain drain than men. The gender gap in skilled migration is
            strongly correlated with the gender gap in educational
            attainment at origin. Equating women's and men's
            access to education would probably reduce gender differences
            in the brain drain.
Is migration a good substitute for
            education subsidies
Assuming a given educational policy, the
            recent brain drain literature reveals that skilled migration
            can boost the average level of schooling in developing
            countries. This paper introduces educational subsidies
            determined by governments concerned by the number of skilled
            workers remaining in the country. The theoretical analysis
            shows that developing countries can benefit from skilled
            emigration when educational subsidies entail high .fiscal
            distortions. However when taxes are not too distortionary,
            it is desirable to impede emigration and subsidize
            education. The authors investigate the empirical
            relationship between educational subsidies and migration
            prospects, obtaining a negative relationship for 105
            countries. Based on this result, the analysis revisits the
            country specific effects of skilled migration upon human
            capital. The findings show that the endogeneity of public
            subsidies reduces the number of winners and increases the
            magnitude of the losses.
Trade facilitation in ASEAN member
            countries : measuring progress and assessing priorities
This paper reviews recent progress and
            indicators of trade facilitation in member countries of the
            Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The findings show
            that import and export costs vary considerably in the member
            countries, from very low to moderately high levels. Tariff
            and non-tariff barriers are generally low to moderate.
            Infrastructure quality and services sector competitiveness
            range from fair to excellent. Using a standard gravity
            model, the authors find that trade flows in Southeast Asia
            are particularly sensitive to transport infrastructure and
            information and communications technology. The results
            suggest that the region stands to make significant economic
            gains from trade facilitation reform. These gains could be
            considerably larger than those from comparable tariff
            reforms. Estimates suggest that improving port facilities in
            the region, for example, could expand trade by up to 7.5
            percent or $22 billion.  The authors interpret this as an
            indication of the vital role that transport infrastructure
            can play in enhancing intra-regional trade.
Migration, sorting and regional
            inequality : evidence from Bangladesh
Using household level data from
            Bangladesh, this paper examines the differences in the rates
            of return to household attributes over the entire welfare
            distribution. The empirical evidence uncovers substantial
            differences in returns between an integrated region
            contiguous to the country's main growth centers, and a
            less integrated region cut-off from those centers by major
            rivers. The evidence suggests that households with better
            observed and unobserved attributes (such as education and
            ability) are concentrated in the integrated region where
            returns are higher. Within each region, mobility of workers
            seems to equalize returns at the lower half of the
            distribution. The natural border created by the rivers
            appears to hinder migration, causing returns differences
            between the regions to persist. To reduce regional
            inequality in welfare in Bangladesh, the results highlight
            the need for improving connectivity between the regions, and
            for investing in portable assets of the poor (such as human capital).
Quality of schooling, returns to
            schooling and the 1981 vouchers reform in Chile
This paper exploits unique information
            on cognitive ability to examine the importance of schooling
            and non-schooling cognitive skills for heterogeneous
            individuals using instrumental variables estimation. Using a
            binary instrument based on the 1981 reform in Chile, the
            authors find that the main beneficiaries of the reform were
            those who at the time were pupils in basic schooling (ages
            6-13). For this treated group of pupils, only a negligible
            part of the estimated return to schooling is due to
            classical ability bias. The labor market reward to an
            additional year of schooling is a measure of the
            "true" non-cognitive return to schooling.
            However, once the treated group is expanded to include
            secondary school students, the pure return to schooling
            decreases dramatically, while the return to schooling
            cognitive and non-schooling cognitive skills increases
            accordingly, suggesting that a large part of the estimated
            return in an earnings function is due to classical ability
            bias. For this treated group (mixture of basic school and
            secondary school age students), the labor market rewarded
            cognitive skills (especially those acquired through
            schooling) significantly.
Upgrading the investment policy
            framework of public pension funds
Public pension funds have the potential
            to benefit from low operating costs because they enjoy
            economies of scale and avoid large marketing costs. But this
            important advantage has in most countries been dissipated by
            poor investment performance. The latter has been attributed
            to a weak governance structure, lack of independence from
            government interference, and a low level of transparency and
            public accountability. Recent years have witnessed the
            creation of new public pension funds in several countries,
            and the modernization of existing ones in others, with
            special emphasis placed on upgrading their investment policy
            framework and strengthening their governance structure. This
            paper focuses on the experience of four new public pension
            funds that have been created in Norway, Canada, Ireland and
            New Zealand.  The paper discusses the safeguards that have
            been introduced to ensure their independence and their
            insulation from political pressures. It also reviews their
            performance and their evolving investment strategies. All
            four funds started with the romantic idea of operating as
            'managers of managers' and focusing on external
            passive management but their strategies have progressively
            evolved to embrace internal active management and
            significant investments in alternative asset classes. The
            paper draws lessons for other countries that wish to
            modernize their public pension funds.
Cocaine production and trafficking :
            what do we know
The main purpose of this paper is to
            summarize the information currently available on cocaine
            production and trafficking. The paper starts by describing
            the available data on cocaine production and trade, the
            collection methodologies (if available) used by different
            sources, the main biases in the data, and the accuracy of
            different data sources. Next, it states some of the key
            empirical questions and hypotheses regarding cocaine
            production and trade and takes a first look at how well the
            data match these hypotheses. The paper states some of the
            main puzzles in the cocaine market and studies some of the
            possible explanations. These puzzles and empirical questions
            should guide future research on the key determinants of
            illicit drug production and trafficking. Finally, the paper
            studies the different policies that producer countries have
            adopted to fight against cocaine production and the role
            consumer countries play in the implementation of anti-drug policies.
Spite and development
In a wide variety of settings, spiteful
            preferences would constitute an obstacle to cooperation,
            trade, and thus economic development. This paper shows that
            spiteful preferences - the desire to reduce another's
            material payoff for the mere purpose of increasing
            one's relative payoff - are surprisingly widespread in
            experiments conducted in one of the least developed regions
            in India (Uttar Pradesh). In a one-shot trust game, the
            authors find that a large majority of subjects punish
            cooperative behavior although such punishment clearly
            increases inequality and decreases the payoffs of both
            subjects.  In experiments to study coordination and to
            measure social preferences, the findings reveal empirical
            patterns suggesting that the willingness to reduce
            another's material payoff - either for the sake of
            achieving more equality or for the sake of being ahead - is
            stronger among individuals belonging to high castes than
            among those belonging to low castes.  Because extreme social
            hierarchies are typically accompanied by a culture that
            stresses status-seeking, it is plausible that the observed
            social preference patterns are at least partly shaped by
            this culture. Thus, an exciting question for future research
            is the extent to which different institutions and cultures
            produce preferences that are conducive or detrimental to
            economic development.
China is poorer than we thought, but
            no less successful in the fight against poverty
In 2005, China participated for the
            first time in the International Comparison Program (ICP),
            which collects primary data across countries on the prices
            for an internationally comparable list of goods and
            services. This paper examines the implications of the new
            Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) rate (derived by the ICP) for
            China's poverty rate (by international standards) and
            how it has changed over time. We provide estimates with and
            without adjustment for a likely sampling bias in the ICP
            data. Using an international poverty line of USD 1.25 at
            2005 PPP, we find a substantially higher poverty rate for
            China than past estimates, with about 15 of the population
            living in consumption poverty, implying about 130 million
            more poor by this standard. The income poverty rate in 2005
            is 10, implying about 65 million more people living in
            poverty. However, the new ICP data suggest an even larger
            reduction in the number of poor since 1981.
Global poverty and inequality : a
            review of the evidence
Drawing on a compilation of data from
            household surveys representing 130 countries, many over a
            period of 25 years, this paper reviews the evidence on
            levels and recent trends in global poverty and income
            inequality. It documents the negative correlations between
            both poverty and inequality indices, on the one hand, and
            mean income per capita on the other. It points to the
            dominant role of Asia in accounting for the bulk of the
            world's poverty reduction since 1981. The evolution of
            global inequality in the last decades is also described,
            with special emphasis on the different trends of inequality
            within and between countries. The statistical relationships
            between growth, inequality and poverty are discussed, as is
            the correlation between inequality and the growth elasticity
            of poverty reduction. Some of the recent literature on the
            drivers of distributional change in developing countries is
            also reviewed.
Connecting the unobserved dots : a
            decomposition analysis of changes in earnings inequality in
            urban Argentina, 1980-2002
There are several possible explanations
            for the observed changes in inequality, the returns to
            education, and the gap between the wages of informal and
            formal salaried workers in Argentina over the period
            1980-2002. Largely due to the lack of evidence for competing
            explanations, skill-biased technical change is the most
            likely explanation for the increases in the returns to
            education that occurred in the 1990s. Using a
            semi-parametric re-weighting variance decomposition
            technique and data from the Permanent Household Survey, the
            authors show that during the same period there was an
            increase in the returns to unobserved skill. This finding
            lends support to the hypothesis that skill-biased technical
            change has been a main driver of increases in inequality in
            Argentina. The pattern of changes suggests that the growth
            in returns to unobserved skill may have been partly
            responsible for the relative deterioration of informal
            salaried wages during the 1990s.
Use of modern medical care for
            pregnancy and childbirth care : does female schooling matter
Controversy exists over whether the
            estimated effects of schooling on health care use reflect
            the influence of unobserved factors. Existing estimates may
            overstate the schooling effect because of the failure to
            control for unobserved variables or may be downwardly biased
            due to measurement error. This paper contributes to the
            resolution of this debate by adopting an instrumental
            variable approach to estimate the impact of female schooling
            on maternal health care use. A school construction program
            in Indonesia in the 1970s is used to construct an
            instrumental variable for education. The choice between use
            and non-use of maternal health services is estimated as a
            function of schooling and other variables. Data from the
            Indonesia Family Life Survey are used for this paper.
            Standard regression models estimated in the paper indicate
            that each additional year of schooling does indeed have a
            significant, positive effect on maternal health care use.
            Instrumental variable estimates of the schooling effect are
            larger. The results suggest that schooling has a positive
            impact on maternal health care use even after eliminating
            the effect of unobserved variables and measurement error.
            This paper moves beyond previous work on the impact of
            education on health care use by adopting an IV approach to
            address the problem of endogeneity and measurement error. IV
            methods have been used widely in the labour economics
            literature to examine the impact of schooling on wages and
            other labour market outcomes but rarely to estimate the
            effect of schooling on health outcomes.
The impact of price subsidies on
            child health care use : evaluation of the Indonesian healthcard
Financial barriers to seeking care are
            frequently cited as one of the main causes of
            underutilization of child health care services. This paper
            estimates the impact of Indonesia's healthcard on
            health care use by children. Evaluation of the healthcard
            effect is complicated by the fact that card allocation was
            non-random. The analysis uses propensity score matching to
            control for systematic differences between treatment and
            control groups. A second potential source of bias is related
            to contemporaneous, exogenous  influences on health care use
            unrelated to the healthcard itself. Using panel data
            collected prior to and after the introduction of the
            healthcard, a difference-in-differences estimator is
            constructed to eliminate the effects of exogenous changes
            over time. The author finds that although health care use
            declined for all children during the crisis years of
            1997-2000, use of public sector outpatient services declined
            much less for children with healthcards. The protective
            effect of the healthcard on public sector use was
            concentrated among children aged 0-5 years. The healthcard
            had no significant impact on use of private sector services.
            The results highlight the need to provide adequate
            protection against the financial burden of health care
            costs, particularly during economic crises.