rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
the data, such as the Overview of State-Owned Companies made available by the Secretariat for Coordination and Governance of State-owned Companies (SEST).<sup>6</sup> In the case of indirect ownership by the government, through multiple entities or other state-owned firms, it is less straightforward to obtain a reliable measure of the ownership fraction. In those cases, we provide a conservative estimate of the government ownership share by considering the minimum share observed in the multiple layers of ownership.

We test the reliability of the ownership share estimates by plotting a distribution of the firms’ government shares in Orbis for each BOS type according to the classification in RAIS. Figure 1 illustrates that the government ownership shares are mostly consistent with the information on ownership type in RAIS, concentrated in 100% for fully public firms, with values ranging from 50% and 99% for mixed firms, and with a more scattered distribution in values lower than 50% for participated firms. We use available ownership information in RAIS to correct the shares of government ownership shares when possible: we input ownership of 100% for all public firms, and we input ownership of 51% for mixed-capital firms whenever the estimated share is below that level or when an estimate for that firm is not available.

Lastly, we use the sector taxonomy industry classification proposed by Dall’Olio et al. (2022), which defines three groups based on the rationale for industry state participation. According to this classification, competitive industries are those with no issues of economic efficiency or market failures that would justify the presence of state-owned enterprises. By contrast, industries described as natural monopolies or partially contestable would have some grounds for justifying the presence of state-owned firms. While in natural monopolies this justification is based on a market structure characterized by economies of scale and subadditivity costs, partially contestable industries are defined by the presence of market failures that could be addressed with direct state participation, such as market power or externalities (Dall’Olio et al., 2022). Table 3 shows the total number of firms within our sample within each taxonomy group in 2020, along with the corresponding percentage relative to the total number of firms and the number of BOS within those groups.

> 6Overview of State-Owned Companies (http://www.panoramadasestatais.planejamento.gov.br/).

6
# **1 Introduction**

Almost three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still recovering from disruptions in lives and welfare that are unprecedented in recent times. In 2020, economic activity – contracted in nine out of ten economies worse than during the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II or the global financial crisis of 2007-08 – while global poverty increased for the first time since 1998, increasing the number of extreme poor by 70 million in 2020 (World Bank 2022b). Labor market impacts have been particularly severe with workplace disruptions due to social distancing requirements and global supply chain disruptions affecting many sectors and occupations. Recovery has been slow and challenging, impeded by inflationary pressures and the war in Ukraine.

Analysis of household phone surveys early in the pandemic suggested that the impact of COVID-19 on employment and incomes was large and unequal across and within economies. Employment and incomes dropped sharply almost everywhere but particularly in middleincome countries (MICs) during the first few months of the pandemic when governments adopted sweeping containment measures, including lockdowns, quarantines and social distancing. Within countries, restrictions on mobility and economic activity were associated with larger losses in employment and income among more vulnerable population groups, including those with lower levels of education, women, and urban informal workers (Bundervoet et al. 2022; Khamis et al. 2021; Kugler, Viollaz, et al. 2021).

The objective of this paper is to update the analysis of the early employment and income impacts of the pandemic over a considerably larger sample of countries,<sup>1</sup> and to describe how the welfare impact of the economic crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic evolved throughout 2020 and 2021. Toward those ends, we utilize a comprehensive database of high-frequency phone surveys (HFPS) that covers 80 economies in five out of six World Bank regions, representing a combined population of over 2.5 billion.<sup>2</sup> The HFPS database spans April 2020 through December 2021, with at least four survey rounds available in most economies represented. While this database is unique in its coverage, especially during a period when data collection efforts were halted in many countries at least temporarily, it also comes with a set of caveats. Biases associated with phone surveys were discussed extensively in previous papers. This paper discusses additional caveats related to the way phone survey data measure employment, which are important for interpretation of the evidence.

> 1For comparison, the analysis of initial impacts covered around 30 economies in earlier papers such as Bundervoet et al. (2022).

> 2While phone survey data also exist for countries in South Asia, they are dropped from the analysis because, at the time of writing, data was available only from one survey round and differences in the survey instrument prevented the construction of comparable employment indicators that are representative of the population.

1
# **1. Introduction**

A long-standing literature has examined female entrepreneurship, as well as differences across female and male-owned firms, in developed countries. (See Parker, 2009, for an overview of this literature.) More recently, there has also been an increased interest in female-run firms in developing countries and their potential for creating growth in these countries. Many microfinance programs focus on female borrowers, encouraging women to set up firms, and several government programs are also geared towards promoting female entrepreneurship.

However, compared to the developed country evidence, there is little systematic evidence on the characteristics and performance of female-owned firms in developing countries<sup>2</sup> . Moreover, obstacles faced by female business owners in developing countries could differ from obstacles in developed countries and could also differ across countries or regions within the developing world, depending on the institutional, cultural, and religious background of the region. For this reason, it is important to study the characteristics, performance, and obstacles of female-owned firms separately for different regions.

This paper examines female entrepreneurship in Latin America. It first uses nationally representative labor market surveys to characterize how female firm ownership in Latin America varies across firm size and industry in eight Latin American countries. In all countries, female firm owners are concentrated in the smallest firms, as measured by employees, reaching up to 50 percent of micro firm owners. The percentage of female firm owners is much smaller among larger firms, going down to 12 percent. With respect to industries, the percentage of female firm owners is highest in trade, followed by manufacturing and services.

The paper then relies on firm level surveys from a number of Latin American countries to investigate differences in characteristics and performance across female-and male-owned firms. These firm surveys cover a range of different firms, from micro firms to large manufacturing firms. All surveys show that female-owned firms are not only smaller in terms of their number of employees, as was evident in the labor market surveys, but also in terms of sales, costs, and the value of physical capital. The magnitude of the difference in employees ranges from 9 to 36 percent, and the magnitude of the difference in sales ranges from 23 to 104 percent. Femaleowned firms also have lower average and median profits than male-owned firms. Average profits are between 15 and 20 percent of a standard deviation lower for female-owned firms than for male-owned firms. Finally, female firm owners tend to have fewer years of education than male firm owners, and they work about 25 percent fewer hours than male firm owners.

> 2 Exceptions include Bardasi and Getahun (2008), De Mel, McKenzie, and Woodruff (2009), and World Bank (2008).

2
# B. 'WITHOUT' project situation:

8. Water use of the consumers (project beneficiaries defined In para.1.) to be replaced by the project: (allocate no. of parsons according to drinking water source)

|year(1)|electric<br>handpum<br>shallow well|p bucket|other<br>sources|vendors<br>|non-resi-<br>dentlal|<br>total<br>(pressF9)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|no. of<br>persons|0<br>0|0|<br>0|<br>0|<br>n/a|0|
|cubic|||||||
|meter/yea|r<br>0<br>0|0|0|<br>0|<br>0|<br>0|
|year(6)|electric<br>handpu, p<br>|bucket|other|vendors|non-resi-|total|
||shallow well||sources||dential|(pressF9)|
|no.of<br>persons|0<br>0|0|0|<br>0|<br>n/a|0|
|cubic|||||||
|meter/year|<br>0<br>0|0|0|<br>0|<br>0|<br>0|
|year(1 1)|electric<br>handpump|bucket|other|vendors|non-resi-|total|
||shallow well||sources||dential|(pressF9)|
|no.of<br>persons|0<br>0|0|0|0|<br>n/a|0|
|cubic|||||||
|meter/year|<br>0<br>0|0|0|0|<br>0|<br>0|
|year(1 6)|electric<br>handpump<br>|bucket|other|vendors|non-resi-|total|
||shallow well||sources||dential|(pressF9)|
|no.of|0<br>0|0|0|0|<br>n/a|0|
|persons|||||||
|cubic|||||||
|meter/year|<br>0<br>0|0|0|0|0|0|
|year(21)|electric<br>handpump|bucket|other|vendors|non-resi-|total|
||shallow well||sources||dential|(pressF9)|
|no.of<br>persons|0<br>0|0|0|0|n/a|0|
|cubic|||||||
|meter/year|<br>0<br>0|0|0|0|0|0|
|year(26)|electric<br>handpump|bucket|other|vendors|non-resi-|total|

33
provision costs are borne by the younger generation in a pay‐as‐you‐go system.<sup>3</sup> The elderly are also likely to support an increase in government spending on health care, especially when the costs of provision can be financed through general taxation. On the other hand, support for higher spending on primary or secondary education is often stronger among the younger generations, who benefit from provision for their children. Cross‐country evidence indeed highlights the importance of age as a key determinant of preferences over government provision (Busemeyer, Goerres and Weschle, 2009).

While it is difficult to assess the age‐specific benefits and costs of different government programs, in the case of education, for example, a rising share of elders in the population can be argued to result in lower school funding and falling quality of education services ‐ a hypothesis known as the “grey peril”. Studies based on median voter theory suggest that ageing creates an income effect that leads to lower spending on education but which is offset almost entirely by a price effect that militates in favor of higher spending per student (Fletcher and Kenny, 2008). Taken at face value, the empirical evidence provides little solace to policy makers who expect higher government spending on age‐related issues to be compensated at least in part by lower spending on education as a result of population ageing.

Despite the usefulness of the median voter theorem as a benchmark, the literature also suggests that motivation other than self‐interest may attenuate or amplify the impact of ageing on preferences over policy. As explained more fully below, preferences may be driven by altruism, the externalities produced by selected expenditure programs, and other factors. Furthermore, the link between ageing and preferences is mediated by electoral turnout; in other words, the preferences of older voters may be different from the preferences of non‐voters.<sup>4</sup> The net impact of ageing on expenditure preferences is therefore an empirical question.

In this paper, we use data from the Life in Transition Survey II (LITS II), which was collected by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank in late 2010. LITS II covers almost 39,000 households in 34 countries in Europe and the former Soviet Union. The data set provides answers to questions on individuals’ attitudes to policy, gauged in terms of their preferences for allocating government spending to a variety of programs, including health care, education, pensions and assistance to the poor, as well as standard individual characteristics that are known to affect

> 3 See Jaime‐Castillo (2013) for evidence on attitudes and determinants of reform of pension systems in Europe based on Eurobarometer data.

> 4 Although the relationship between turnout and redistribution has been previously studied (Larcinese, 2007), to the best of our knowledge this is the first attempt to link ageing, expenditure preferences and electoral turnout.

3
earned 88 percent of their 1975 salaries (World Bank, 1986, pp. 58-59). The government was less successful in imposing wage restraints on parastatals And the private sector although some wage compression could be observed in each sector. This compression is blamed for Zambia's high unemployment and serious financial disincentives for acquiring skills. 25. A World Bank study of the Tunisian economy finds wages in public enterprises exceeding those in the private sector (1985, pp. 19-21). The study also offers evidence of wage compression attributable to labor market policies and administered wage structures. Noah and Middleton (1987) cite evidence of wage compression in China. China's recent efforts to restructure its economy have introduced changes that resemble a competitive market economy. **The** pace of change **kas** been slow, however, and much of the old system remains, including a naticnally determined wage scale with meager earnings differentials between levels of skills. The authors argue that 'Combined with very slow promotion, this compressed wage structure provides few financial incentives to workers to raise their levels of productivity (p.4)." This limitation of incentives for training is referred to as one of the important underlying causes of China's severe shortage of skilled labor.

26. Fallon and Riveros (1986, p. 23) conclude that governments have generally limited rather than encouraged real wage increases in recent years and that high wage regimes are now the exception rather than the rule. They argue instead that mandatory government regulations on labor compensations have come to play a more important role in wage rigidity increasing non-wage costs. Included in these costs are support for health and family welfare, as well as workers' job security and pension schemes.

17
Policy Research Working Paper 9497

# **Abstract**

This paper introduces a new global database and a policy classification framework that records the financial sector policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic across 154 jurisdictions. It documents that authorities around the world have taken a diverse array of measures to mitigate financial distress in markets and for borrowers, and to support the provision of critical financial services to the real economy. Measures that focus on the banking sector constitute the majority of policies taken and aim to take advantage of the flexibility embedded in the international standards. However, emerging markets and developing economies tend to rely more on prudential measures that go beyond this embedded flexibility compared with advanced economies, which may reduce bank balance sheet transparency and increase risks. Using Cox proportional hazards and Poisson regressions, the paper takes initial steps to analyze the determinants of policy makers’ responsiveness and activity in emerging markets and developing economies, respectively. The results indicate that policy makers have typically been significantly more responsive and have taken more policy measures in emerging markets and developing economies that are richer and more populous. Countries with higher private debt levels tend to respond earlier with banking sector and liquidity and funding measures. The spread of COVID-19, macro-financial fundamentals, and fiscal and containment policies appear to play a limited role. In a substantially smaller sample, the paper explores the role of banking characteristics and finds that emerging markets and developing economies with higher private credit levels and that have adopted Basel III features have taken fewer policy measures. Future work is necessary for better unerstanding the country determinants of the policy response as well as the effectiveness and potential unintended consequences of the measures.

This paper is a product of the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at efeijen@worldbank.org, talonsogispert@worldbank.org, tkliatskova@worldbank.org, and dmare@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
some sharecropped plots (although the number of plots involved for sharecropping is rather small so these numbers are sensitive to relatively few plots recorded incorrectly). The decline in perceived transfer rights on non-rented plots is also occurring irrespective of mode of acquisition.

Data on transfer rights can be relatively straightforwardly collected per plot. Land tenure insecurity is likely to be different: it refers to a specific perception that land may be lost via land reform. To measure this we have access to a history of land reform (i.e. did the household lose or gain any land during the pre-1991 land reform episodes), land losses during recent land reform during the data collection period, as well as questions on whether the household expects to loose land in the next 5 years and how. Jacoby et al. (2002) use data on land lost in a hazard model to get at the risk of expropriation. Perception data, since they are by their nature forward-looking, are arguably more appropriate to think about investment decisions. These data were collected in the 1999 round, except for the data on pre-1991 land losses during land reform. Table 3 suggests substantial insecurity, whichever way used to measure it. Quite a few households (21 percent) lost land during land reform, although few did so in the most recent period, between 1994 and 1999<sup>6</sup> . Land sharing, losing land to other family members is also an important concern (30 percent). Most importantly for our discussion, and about 5 percent perceive that they will lose land in land reallocation in the next five years.

**Table 3: Descriptive statistics of household level variables: land tenure security: selected ERHS villages (measured in 1999 unless explicitly stated)**

|Variable|1999|
|---|---|
|Land Reform and Reallocation Experience||
|Land lost at the time of land reform and land reallocation (based on round 1,<br>1994, recall data) (%)|0.21|
|Lost land during the last five years due to land redistribution (%)<br>Lost land during the last five years due to land sharing among family (%)|0.01<br>0.09|
|Perception of Land Insecurity in the Coming Five Years||
|Decrease in land size due to land reallocation (%)|0.05|
|Decrease in land size due to sharingamongfamilymembers(%)|0.30|
|Number of household observations|366|

> 6 This is again less than elsewhere in the country. The full sample of the ERHS suggested that about 34 percent lost land during land reform, and 7 percent lost land in the last five years. This is consistent with other data reported earlier related to land reform.

13
We can also estimate the welfare impact of both IMR and sanitation using the estimates from our quantile regressions. To begin with, consider the regression of wages on IMR; in the same way that we can estimate the increase in income taxes paid for each worker in our sample, we can also estimate their increase in after-tax income. Then, we assume log utility (i.e. _θ_ = 1), and _E_ <u>[</u> _c_<sup>_−θ_</sup> (1 _−t_ ( _y_ )) _γy_ <u>]</u> calculate the value of _B_ ( _t_ 0 _, t_ 1) _E_ ( _c_<sup>_−θ_</sup> ) . We find that workers receive an increase in after-tax income that is equivalent on average to 1172 INR per year, or $21.49; over a 40-year working life, this provides a present value of $231.76, and the economy-wide value is $42.10 billion, just slightly larger than the baseline value.

Next, the quantile regression of wage on sanitation coverage can be used to estimate the welfare gain from eliminating open defecation, using the same procedure as in appendix C.1. The average first-cohort worker’s gain in after-tax income is equivalent to $2235 in present-value terms. Adding up the gains over the next century, the economy-wide present value is $232.6 billion, again slightly larger than the baseline value of $192.7 billion.

Finally, we look at the quantile regression of consumption on IMR. Weighting by marginal utility, a 1% point decline in IMR raises average consumption by a value equivalent to $9.59 per person per year. This is equivalent to $230.28 per person in present value, a welfare increase of $4.22 billion per cohort, and a total economy-wide present-value increase of $112.35 billion, again larger than the baseline value.

# **References**

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- Alderman, Harold, Hans Hoogeveen, and Mariacristina Rossi. 2009. “Preschool Nutrition and Subsequent Schooling Attainment: Longitudinal Evidence from Tanzania.” _Economic Development and Cultural Change_ 57 (2):239–260.

- Almond, Douglas, Janet Currie, and Mariesa Herrmann. 2012. “From Infant to Mother: Early Disease Environment and Future Maternal Health.” _Labour Economics_ 19 (4):475–483.

- Baird, Sarah, Joan Hamory Hicks, Michael Kremer, and Edward Miguel. 2011. “Worms at Work: Long-Run Impacts of Child Health Gains.” Working paper, UC Berkeley.

- Barreca, Alan I. 2010. “The Long-Term Economic Impact of In Utero and Postnatal Exposure to Malaria.” _Journal of Human Resources_ 45 (4):865–892.

- Bleakley, Hoyt. 2007. “Disease and Development: Evidence from Hookwork Eradication in the American South.” _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ 122 (1):73–117.

- ———. 2010. “Malaria Eradication in the Americas: A Retrospective Analysis of Childhood Exposure.” _American Economic Journal: Applied Economics_ 2 (2):1–45.

- Borooah, Vani K. and Sriya Iyer. 2005. “Vidya, Veda, and Varna: The Influence of Religion and Caste on Education in Rural India.” _Journal of Development Studies_ 41 (8).

- Bozzoli, Carlos, Angus Deaton, and Climent Quintana-Domeque. 2009. “Adult Height and Childhood Disease.” _Demography_ 46 (4):647–669.

27