rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Who are the unbanked
This paper uses nationally
            representative survey data from Mexico to compare households
            with savings accounts in formal financial institutions to
            their neighbors who do not have such accounts. The survey,
            which was conducted in 2005, contains information on nearly
            5,000 households. The findings show that although
            neighboring banked and unbanked households have similar
            demographic and occupational profiles, the former are more
            educated and have markedly greater wealth. The median banked
            household spends 32 percent more per capita than the median
            unbanked household, and the median per capita wealth in
            banked households is 88 percent higher than that in unbanked
            households. The findings suggest that education levels,
            wealth, and unobserved household attributes that might be
            correlated with wealth and education play a major role in
            explaining who is banked.
Cyclical movements in unemployment
            and informality in developing countries
This paper analyzes the cyclical
            properties of worker flows in Brazil and Mexico, two
            important developing countries with large unregulated or
            informal sectors.  It generates three stylized facts that
            are critical to the accurate modeling of the sector and
            which suggest the need to rethink the approaches to date.
            First, the unemployment rate is countercyclical essentially
            because job separations of informal workers increase
            dramatically in recessions. Second, the share of formal
            employment is countercyclical because of the difficulty of
            finding formal jobs from inactivity, unemployment and other
            informal jobs during recessions rather than because of
            increased separation from formal jobs. Third, flows from
            formality into informality are not countercyclical, but, if
            anything, pro-cyclical. Together, these challenge the
            conventional wisdom that has guided the modeling the sector
            that informal workers are primarily those rationed out of
            the formal labor market. They also offer a new synthesis of
            the mechanics of the cyclical adjustment process. Finally,
            the paper offers estimates of the moments of worker flows
            series that are needed for calibration.
Bank involvement with SMEs : beyond
            relationship lending
The "conventional wisdom" in
            academic and policy circles argues that, while large and
            foreign banks are generally not interested in serving SMEs,
            small and niche banks have an advantage in doing so because
            they can overcome SME opaqueness through relationship
            lending. This paper shows that there is a gap between this
            view and what banks actually do. Banks perceive SMEs as a
            core and strategic business and seem well positioned to
            expand their links with SMEs. The recent intensification of
            bank involvement with SMEs in various emerging markets
            documented in this paper is neither led by small or niche
            banks nor highly dependent on relationship lending. Rather,
            all types of banks are catering to SMEs and larger,
            multiple-service banks have in fact a comparative advantage
            in offering a wide range of products and services on a large
            scale, through the use of new technologies, business models,
            and risk management systems.
Do the biggest aisles serve a
            brighter future global retail chains and their implications
            for Romania
During the past two decades many
            economies have opened their retail sector to foreign direct
            investment, yet little is known about possible implications
            of such liberalization on the economies of developing host
            countries. Using firm-level data from Romania, this study
            examines how the presence of global retail chains affects
            firms in the supplying industries. Applying a
            difference-in-differences method, the econometric analyses
            yield the following conclusions. The expansion of global
            retail chains leads to a significant increase in the total
            factor productivity in the supplying industries. Their
            presence in a region increases the total factor productivity
            of firms in the supplying industries by 15.2 percent and
            doubling the number of chains leads to a 10.8 percent
            increase in total factor productivity. However, the
            expansion benefits larger firms the most and has a much
            smaller impact on small enterprises. This conclusion is
            robust to several extensions and specifications, including
            the instrumental variable approach. These results suggest
            that the opening of the retail sector to foreign direct
            investment may stimulate productivity growth in upstream
            manufacturing and extend our understanding of foreign direct
            investment in service sectors.
Demanding to be served : holding
            governments to account for improved access
This paper presents an overview of the
            constitutional-legal provisions on access to services in
            developing countries and shows that rights to public
            services are not justice-able. It further documents the
            performance record to show that governments' response
            to such a weak accountability framework has been predictable
            - poor performance in service delivery with little
            accountability. The paper also shows that while there has
            not been a shortage of ideas on how to deal with this
            problem, most approaches have failed because they could not
            diagnose and deal with the underlying causes of government
            dysfunction. The paper presents an analytical perspective on
            understanding the causes of dysfunctional governance and the
            incentives and accountability regimes that have the
            potential to overcome this dysfunction. The paper also
            documents practices that have shown some promise in
            improving access. The paper then integrates ideas from
            successful practices with conceptual underpinnings for good
            governance and presents a citizen-centric (rights based)
            governance approach to access. It further explores how such
            a citizen empowerment and government accountability
            framework can be implemented in practice, especially in the
            context of developing countries, where most governments
            still operate in a command and control environment with
            little or no orientation to serve their people. It also
            presents ideas on how to overcome resistance to such reforms.
Fiscal policy instruments for
            reducing congestion and atmospheric emissions in the
            transport sector : a review
This paper reviews the literature on the
            fiscal policy instruments commonly used to reduce transport
            sector externalities. The findings show that congestion
            charges would reduce vehicle traffic by 9 to 12 percent and
            significantly improve environmental quality. The vehicle tax
            literature suggests that every 1 percent increase in vehicle
            taxes would reduce vehicle miles by 0.22 to 0.45 percent and
            CO2 emissions by 0.19 percent. The fuel tax is the most
            common fiscal policy instrument; however its primary
            objective is to raise government revenues rather than to
            reduce emissions and traffic congestion. Although
            subsidizing public transportation is a common practice,
            reducing emissions has not been the primary objective of
            such subsidies. Nevertheless, it is shown that transport
            sector emissions would be higher in the absence of both
            public transportation subsidies and fuel taxation. Subsidies
            are also the main policy tool for the promotion of clean
            fuels and vehicles. Although some studies are very critical
            of biofuel subsidies, the literature is mostly supportive of
            clean vehicle subsidies.
The development impact of the
            illegality of drug trade
This paper reviews the unintended
            consequences of the war on drugs, particularly for
            developing countries, and weighs them against the evidence
            regarding the efficacy of prohibition to curb drug use and
            trade. It reviews the available evidence and presents new
            results that indicate that prohibition has limited effects
            on drug prevalence and prices, most likely indicating a
            combination of inelastic drug demand (due to its addictive
            properties) and elastic supply responses (due to black
            markets). This should turn the focus to the unintended
            consequences of drug prohibition. First, the large demand
            for drugs, particularly in developed countries, generates
            the possibility of massive profits to potential drug
            providers. This leads to the formation of organized crime
            groups, which use violence and corruption as their means of
            survival and expansion and which, in severe cases, challenge
            the state and seriously compromise public stability and
            safety.  Second, prohibition and its derived illegal market
            impose greater costs on farmers than on drug traffickers. In
            many instances, this entails the transfer of wealth from
            poor peasants to rich (and ruthless) traders. Third,
            criminalization can exacerbate the net health effects of
            drug use. These consequences are so pernicious that they
            call for a fundamental review of drug policy around the world.
Governance matters VII : aggregate
            and individual governance indicators 1996-2007
This paper reports on the latest update
            of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research
            project, covering 212 countries and territories and
            measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and
            2007: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and
            Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness,
            Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption.
            The latest aggregate indicators are based on hundreds of
            specific and disaggregated individual variables measuring
            various dimensions of governance, taken from 35 data sources
            provided by 32 different organizations. The data reflect the
            views on governance of public sector, private sector and NGO
            experts, as well as thousands of citizen and firm survey
            respondents worldwide. The authors also explicitly report
            the margins of error accompanying each country estimate.
            These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring
            governance using any kind of data. The authors also briefly
            describe the evolution of the WGI since its inception, and
            show that the margins of error on the aggregate governance
            indicators have declined over the years, even though they
            still remain non-trivial. The authors find that even after
            taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit
            meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring
            progress over time. In less than a decade, a substantial
            number of countries exhibit statistically significant
            improvements in at least one dimension of governance, while
            other countries exhibit deterioration in some dimensions.
            These aggregate indicators, spanning more than a decade,
            together with the disaggregated individual indicators, are
            available at www.govindicators.org.
Minority status and labor market
            outcomes : does india have minority enclaves
This paper uses data from the 61st Round
            of the National Sample Survey to understand the employment
            outcomes of Dalit and Muslim men in India.  It uses a
            conceptual framework developed for the US labor market that
            states that ethnic minorities skirt discrimination in the
            primary labor market to build successful self-employed
            ventures in the form of ethnic enclaves or ethnic labor
            markets. The paper uses entry into self-employment for
            educated minority groups as a proxy for minority enclaves.
            Based on multinomial logistic regression, the analysis finds
            that the minority enclave hypothesis does not hold for
            Dalits but it does overwhelmingly for Muslims. The
            interaction of Dalit and Muslim status with post-primary
            education in urban areas demonstrates that post-primary
            education confers almost a disadvantage for minority men: it
            does not seem to affect their allocation either to salaried
            work or to non-farm self-employment but does increase their
            likelihood of opting out of the labor force - and if they
            cannot afford to drop out, they join the casual labor
            market. Due to the complexity of these results and the fact
            that there are no earnings data for self-employment, it is
            difficult to say whether self-employment is a choice or
            compulsion and whether builders of minority enclaves fare
            better than those in the primary market.
Broadening the offering choice of
            corporate bonds in emerging markets : cost-effective access
            to debt capital
The development of corporate bond
            markets has been constrained in many emerging economies,
            partly because the regulatory model is implicitly designed
            for stand-alone public offerings. Corporate bonds are
            intrinsically more suitable for non-retail investors than
            for retail investors. Nonetheless, the prevailing regulatory
            model puts an excessive emphasis on disclosure and investor
            protection as well as government oversight, regardless of
            targeted investors. Such a non-differentiating regulatory
            approach disconnects issuers from investors by considerably
            raising opportunity costs to issuers. Broadening the choice
            of offering methods would lower corporate bond issuance
            costs, thereby allowing more issuers to finance their
            investments with bond issues. Additional forms of offerings
            are traditional private placements, institutional offerings,
            and shelf registration facilitated by integrated disclosure.
Social assistance and poverty
            reduction in Moldova, 2001-2004 an impact evaluation
This paper assesses the impact of social
            assistance benefits on household welfare in Moldova.
            Ignoring standard issues of impact evaluations such as
            selection bias, behavioral responses, unobserved
            heterogeneity and endogeneity, an incidence analysis
            suggests that increased spending on social assistance
            enhances the probability of moving out of poverty and
            reduces the probability of moving into poverty. However,
            double difference estimates (based on a mimicked randomized
            experiment) and parametric estimates (based on panel data)
            indicate that social benefits have not contributed to
            improve household welfare or reduce poverty. Double
            difference estimates point to a negative impact on welfare.
            Parametric estimates do not yield any consistent significant
            impact on welfare or poverty. The author concludes that the
            growth in population coverage and expenditure on cash
            benefits that characterized social assistance policies in
            recent years has not resulted in a significant improvement
            in welfare, all other factors being equal.
The measurement of inequality of
            opportunity : theory and an application to Latin America
What part of the inequality observed in
            a particular country is due to unequal opportunities, rather
            than to differences in individual efforts or luck? This
            paper estimates a lower bound for the opportunity share of
            inequality in labor earnings, household income per capita
            and household consumption per capita in six Latin American
            countries. Following John Roemer, the authors associate
            inequality of opportunity with outcome differences that can
            be accounted for by morally irrelevant pre-determined
            circumstances, such as race, gender, place of birth, and
            family background. Thus defined, unequal opportunities
            account for between 24 and 50 percent of inequality in
            consumption expenditure in the sample. Brazil and Central
            America are more opportunity-unequal than Colombia, Ecuador,
            or Peru. "Opportunity profiles," which identify
            the social groups with the most limited opportunity sets,
            are shown to be distinct from poverty profiles: ethnic
            origin and the geography of birth are markedly more
            important as determinants of opportunity deprivation than of
            outcome poverty, particularly in Brazil, Guatemala, and Peru.
Who gets the credit and does it
            matter household vs. firm lending across countries
While the theoretical and empirical
            finance literature has focused almost exclusively on
            enterprise credit, about half of credit extended by banks to
            the private sector in a sample of 45 developing and
            developed countries is to households. The share of household
            credit in total credit increases as countries grow richer
            and financial systems develop. Cross-country regressions,
            however, suggest a positive and significant impact on gross
            domestic product per capita growth only of enterprise but
            not household credit. These two findings together partly
            explain why previous studies have found a small or
            insignificant effect of finance on growth in high-income
            countries.  In addition, countries with a lower share of
            manufacturing, a higher degree of urbanization, and more
            market-oriented financial systems have a higher share of
            household credit. It is thus mostly socio-economic trends
            that determine credit composition, while policies
            influencing banking market structure and regulatory policies
            are not robustly related to credit composition.
Procurement efficiency for
            infrastructure development and financial needs reassessed
Infrastructure is the engine for
            economic growth. The international donor community has spent
            about 70-100 billion U.S. dollars on infrastructure
            development in developing countries every year. However, it
            is arguable whether these financial resources are used
            efficiently, particularly whether the current infrastructure
            procurement prices are appropriate. Without doubt a key is
            competition to curb public procurement costs. This paper
            analyzes procurement data from multi and bilateral official
            development projects in three infrastructure sectors: roads,
            electricity, and water and sanitation. The findings show
            that the competition effect is underutilized. To take full
            advantage of competition, at least seven bidders are needed
            in the road and water sectors, while three may be enough in
            the power sector. The paper also shows that not only
            competition, but also auction design, especially lot
            division, is crucial for reducing unit costs of
            infrastructure. Based on the estimated efficient unit costs,
            the annual financial needs are estimated at approximately
            360 billion U.S. dollars. By promoting competition, the
            developing world might be able to save at most 8.2 percent
            of total infrastructure development costs.
Multidimensionality and
            renegotiation : evidence from transport-sector
            public-private-partnership transactions in Latin America
Multidimensional auctions are a natural
            and practical solution when auctioneers pursue more than one
            objective in their public-private-partnership transactions.
            However, it is difficult to achieve auction efficiency with
            multiple award criteria. Using auction data from road and
            railway concessions in Latin America, the probability of
            renegotiation this paper estimates by a two-stage least
            squares technique with a binary selection in the first-stage
            regression. The findings show that auctioneers tend to adopt
            the multidimensional format when the need for social
            considerations, such as alleviation of unemployment, is
            high. This implies that such political considerations could
            hinder efficiency and transparency in auctions. The analysis
            also shows that the renegotiation risk in infrastructure
            concessions increases when multidimensional auctions are
            used. Rather, good governance, particularly anti-corruption
            policies, can mitigate the renegotiation problem.
The impact of food inflation on
            urban poverty and its monetary cost : some
            back-of-the-envelope calculations
This paper uses a sample of 73
            developing countries to estimate the change in the cost of
            alleviating urban poverty brought about by the recent
            increase in food prices. This cost is approximated by the
            change in the poverty deficit, that is, the variation in
            financial resources required to eliminate poverty under
            perfect targeting. The results show that, for most
            countries, the cost represents less than 0.1 percent of
            gross domestic product. However, in the most severely
            affected, it may exceed 3 percent. In all countries, the
            change in the poverty deficit is mostly due to the negative
            real income effect of those households that were poor before
            the price shock, while the cost attributable to new
            households falling into poverty is negligible. Thus, in
            countries where transfer mechanisms with effective targeting
            already exist, the most cost-effective strategy would be to
            scale up such programs rather than designing tools to
            identify the new poor.
The impact of food inflation on
            urban poverty and its monetary cost : some
            back-of-the-envelope calculations
WPS4666 Policy ReseaRch WoRking PaPeR 4666 The Impact of Food Inflation on Urban Poverty and Its Monetary Cost: Some Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations _Sébastien Dessus Santiago Herrera Rafael de Hoyos_ The World Bank Development Economics Vice Presidency July 2008