rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Deep integration and UK-EU trade relations
This paper studies the impact of deep
            agreements on United Kingdom-European Union trade relations.
            A standard gravity model is applied to assess the effect
            that European Union membership had on the United
            Kingdom's trade. The paper uses new information on the
            content of trade agreements to build a measure of
            "depth" based on the number of provisions the
            agreements cover. The analysis relies on information on
            goods, services, and value-added trade from the World Input
            Output Database. Deep trade agreements are found to increase
            goods and services trade by 42 percent, and value-added
            trade by 14 percent on average. European Union membership
            had a particularly strong effect on United Kingdom's
            services and global value chain trade. Because of its
            membership, the United Kingdom's services trade more
            than doubled, and the country's backward and forward
            participation in global value chains increased by more than
            30 percent each. The paper uses these estimates to evaluate
            the future of United Kingdom-European Union trade under
            different scenarios. The findings show that United
            Kingdom-European Union trade declines under all scenarios,
            ranging between 6 and 28 percent for trade in value added.
            This drop is sharper (particularly for services and global
            value chain trade) the lower is the depth of the future
            arrangement relative to the depth of the European Union
            agreement. As trade flows adjust slowly to changes in trade
            costs, these effects are expected to emerge over time. But
            the trade-off between the depth of trade agreements and
            trade intensity will delimit policy choices going forward.
Taxing the good distortions,
            misallocation, and productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa
This paper uses comprehensive and
            comparable firm-level manufacturing census data from four
            Sub-Saharan African countries to examine the extent, costs,
            and nature of within-industry resource misallocation across
            heterogeneous firms. The paper finds evidence of severe
            misallocation in which resources are diverted away from
            high-productivity firms toward low-productivity ones in all
            four countries, although the magnitude differs across
            countries. The paper shows that a hypothetical reallocation
            of resources that equalizes marginal returns across firms
            would increase manufacturing productivity by 31.4 percent in
            Cote d'Ivoire and as much as 162.7 percent in Kenya.
            The paper emphasizes the importance of the quality of the
            underlying data, by comparing the results against those from
            the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. The comparison finds that
            the survey-based results underestimate the extent of
            misallocation vis-a-vis the census. Finally, the paper finds
            that the size of existing distortions is correlated with
            various measures of business environment, such as lack of
            access to finance, corruption, and regulations.
Breaking into tradables : urban form
            and urban function in a developing city
Many cities in developing economies,
            particularly in Africa, are experiencing urbanization
            without industrialization. This paper conceptualizes this in
            a framework in which a city can produce non-tradable goods
            and -- if it is sufficiently competitive -- also
            internationally tradable goods, potentially subject to
            increasing returns to scale. A city is unlikely to produce
            tradables if it faces high urban and hinterland demand for
            non-tradables, or high costs of urban infrastructure and
            construction. The paper shows that, if there are increasing
            returns in tradable production, there may be multiple
            equilibria. The same initial conditions can support
            dichotomous outcomes, with cities either in a low-level
            (non-tradable only) equilibrium, or diversified in tradable
            and non-tradable production. The paper demonstrates the
            importance of history and expectations in determining
            outcomes. Essentially, a city can be built in a manner that
            makes it difficult to attract tradable production. This
            situation might be a consequence of low (and
            self-fulfilling) expectations or history. The predictions of
            the model are consistent with several observed features of
            African cities.
Get rich or die tryin' :
            perceived earnings, perceived mortality rate and the value
            of a statistical life of potential work-migrants from Nepal
Do potential migrants have accurate
            information about the risks and returns of migrating abroad?
            And, given the information they have, what is their revealed
            willingness to trade risks for higher earnings? To answer
            these questions, this paper sets up and analyzes a
            randomized field experiment among 3,319 potential work
            migrants from Nepal to Malaysia and the Persian Gulf
            countries. The experiment provides them with information on
            wages and mortality incidences in their choice destination,
            and tracks their migration decision three months later. The
            findings show that potential migrants severely overestimate
            their mortality rate abroad, and that information on
            mortality incidences lowers this expectation. Potential
            migrants without prior foreign migration experience also
            overestimate their earnings potential abroad, and
            information on earnings lowers this expectation. Using
            exogenous variation in expectations for the inexperienced
            potential migrants generated by the experiment, the study
            estimates migration elasticities of 0.7 in expected earnings
            and 0.5 in expected mortality. The experiment allows the
            calculation of the trade-off the inexperienced potential
            migrants make between earnings and mortality risk, and hence
            their value of a statistical life. The estimates range from
            US$0.28 million to US$0.54 million, which is a reasonable
            range for a poor population.
Death scares : how potential
            work-migrants infer mortality rates from migrant deaths
This paper studies how potential work
            migrants infer mortality rates from incidents of migrant
            deaths. In the context of migrant workers from Nepal to
            Malaysia and the Persian Gulf countries, the study finds
            that the death of a migrant from a district lowers migration
            outflows in subsequent months. Furthermore, this migration
            response is stronger when there have been more migrant
            deaths in recent months. Using relevant elasticities, this
            study finds that the migration response implies large
            changes in mortality rates perceived by potential migrants.
            Models of learning fallacies better explain the observed
            responses than a standard model of rational Bayesian learning.
Long-term growth scenarios for Bangladesh
Bangladesh has achieved robust economic
            growth over the past 10 years, with real GDP growing by more
            than 6 percent on average each year. This paper investigates
            whether the country will be able to maintain such high
            levels of growth going forward. A simple growth model
            calibrated to the Bangladesh economy is used to analyze
            various growth scenarios. The main finding of the paper is
            that it is crucial for the country to focus on reforms to
            raise total factor productivity (TFP) growth, to sustain the
            high real GDP growth seen in the recent past. The country
            will fail to achieve high growth in absence of strong TFP
            growth despite meeting the levels of investment as outlined
            in the Seventh Five Year Plan. The model is also used to
            gain insights on government debt sustainability given
            different growth scenarios. The analysis highlights the
            significance of meeting revenue targets in maintaining
            sustainability, considering the planned expansion in expenditures.
Firms' export decisions :
            demand trumps financial shocks
This paper studies the relationship
            between access to credit, demand shocks, and export market
            adjustments using firm-level panel survey data for 24
            economies in the Eastern Europe and Central Asian region.
            The study finds that domestic shocks to demand have a
            significant influence on the firm's decision to
            participate in international markets (extensive margin) and
            on the firm's share of foreign sales (intensive
            margin). Foreign shocks to demand only affect the
            firm's share of foreign sales. Conversely, the role of
            financial constraints on either the extensive or the
            intensive margin is more nuanced. The results are robust to
            various specifications of financial constraints and
            different estimation methods.
Impact of oil price fluctuations on
            financial markets since 2014
This paper investigates the causal
            impact of oil price fluctuations on financial markets since
            January 2014. Following a heteroscedasticity-based event
            study approach, the paper instruments changes in oil prices
            by exogenous shocks in oil supply. It finds that oil price
            declines raise uncertainty and hurt risky assets (U.S.
            stocks and high-yield corporate bonds) while lifting safe
            assets (U.S. investment-grade bonds and long-term Treasury
            bonds). In addition, lower oil prices boost the U.S. dollar
            and reduce the prices of emerging market equities.
            Remarkably, the declines in oil prices hurt several sectors
            that supposedly benefit from lower oil prices, such as basic
            materials, industrials, and transportation.
The impact of mining on spatial
            inequality recent evidence from Africa
This paper investigates the relationship
            between mining and spatial inequality in Africa during
            2001-12. The identification strategy is based on a
            unilateral causation between mining and district inequality.
            The findings show that when minerals are aggregated, mining
            increases district inequality. But an analysis of individual
            minerals shows that mining affects district inequality
            positively and negatively, suggesting that mineral wealth
            can be a curse and a blessing. Further analysis suggests
            that these results largely depend on whether mining is
            active or closed, the scale of mining operations, the value
            of minerals extracted, and the nature of mining activities
            -- important dimensions for shaping mining policies aimed at
            bolstering socioeconomic development in Africa.
Evaluation of an adolescent
            development program for girls in Tanzania
This paper evaluates a program targeted
            to adolescent girls in Tanzania that aims to empower them
            economically as well as socially. The program was found to
            be highly successful in Uganda in terms of economic, health,
            and social outcomes. In contrast, this evaluation finds that
            the program did not have any notable effect on most of these
            outcomes in the Tanzanian setting. The evaluation also
            measures the impact of the program with and without
            microcredit services. The findings show that the addition of
            microcredit improves the take-up of the program and savings
            of the participants. The paper explores programmatic
            implementation information that helps explain the marked
            difference in outcomes between Uganda and Tanzania. This
            research shows that layering additional microfinance
            services onto an adolescent development program can be an
            effective tool to attain greater inclusion of youth in
            financial services, and brings out important issues of the
            generalizability of the research findings.
The impact of mass bed net
            distribution programs on politics : evidence from Tanzania
Functioning democracy requires that
            citizens reward politicians who deliver benefits, yet there
            is surprisingly little causal evidence of changes in citizen
            views or behavior in response to specific government
            programs. This question is examined in Tanzania, which has
            recently implemented large health programs targeting
            diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria. Tanzania's
            2010-2011 national anti-malaria campaign took place
            concurrently with a national household survey, which enables
            a regression discontinuity design based on interview date to
            estimate the effect of this program on the popularity of
            local politicians. Bed net distribution results in large,
            statistically significant improvements in the approval
            levels of political leaders, especially in malaria endemic
            areas. Effects are largest shortly after program
            implementation, but smaller effects persist for up to six
            months. These findings suggest that citizens update their
            evaluation of politicians in response to programs,
            especially when these services address important problems,
            and that the effects decay over time, but not completely.
Services in the trans-pacific
            partnership : what would be lost
As the fate of the Trans-Pacific
            Partnership (TPP) hangs in balance, an evaluation of what it
            offers could inform current decisions and shape future
            negotiations. The TPPs services component has been hailed as
            one of the agreement's major accomplishments. To assess
            the agreement's impact on national policy in the major
            services sectors, we created a new public database. This
            database reveals that TPP commitments seldom go beyond
            countries' applied policies, suggesting the explicit
            liberalization resulting from the agreement is limited only
            to a few countries and a few areas. However, the TPP
            enhances transparency and policy certainty because
            parties' services commitments cover more trading
            partners, more sectors and are in some cases closer to
            applied policies than their commitments under previous
            agreements. Furthermore, new TPP rules, including on
            state-owned enterprises, government procurement and
            competition policy, could enhance services market access. In
            particular, the TPP breaks new ground in prohibiting
            restrictions on international data flows, while at the same
            time creating unprecedented obligations on all parties to
            protect consumers from fraud and protect privacy. These dual
            obligations on importing and exporting countries represent a
            model for regulatory cooperation that could elicit greater
            market opening if applied to other areas.
Toward labor market policy 2.0 : the
            potential for using online job-portal big data to inform
            labor market policies in India
Economists and other social scientists
            are increasingly using big data analytics to address
            longstanding economic questions and complement existing
            information sources. Big data produced by online platforms
            can yield a wealth of diverse, highly granular,
            multidimensional information with a variety of potential
            applications. This paper examines how online job-portal data
            can be used as a basis for policy-relevant research in the
            fields of labor economics and workforce skills development,
            through an empirical analysis of information generated by
            Babajob, an online Indian job portal. The analysis
            highlights five key areas where online job-portal data can
            contribute to the development of labor market policies and
            analytical knowledge: (i) labor market monitoring and
            analysis; (ii) assessing demand for workforce skills; (iii)
            observing job-search behavior and improving skills matching;
            (iv) predictive analysis of skills demand; and (v)
            experimental studies. The unique nature of the data produced
            by online job-search portals allows for the application of
            diverse analytical methodologies, including descriptive data
            analysis, time-series analysis, text analysis, predictive
            analysis, and transactional data analysis. This paper is
            intended to contribute to the academic literature and the
            development of public policies. It contributes to the
            literature on labor economics through application of big
            data analytics to real-world data. The analysis also
            provides a unique case study on labor market data analytics
            in a developing-country context in South Asia. Finally, the
            report examines the potential for using big data to improve
            the design and implementation of labor market policies and
            promote demand-driven skills development.
Foreign banks and trade: bridging
            the information gap
Foreign banks can play an important role
            in facilitating international trade. Most research has
            focused on the financing role banks can play, but less is
            known about the information role. This paper estimates a
            gravity model using sub-regional data from Turkey between
            2002 and 2010 to explore whether foreign banks promote trade
            through the information channel. The presence of a foreign
            banks from a trade partner promote the exports of the
            sub-region. In addition, the analysis finds that the
            footprint of these foreign banks matters more for exports
            than the presence of these banks and the level of financial
            development of the sub-region. Banks from countries
            neighboring trade partners can also decrease exports. When
            taking into account financial conditions and examining the
            differential impacts during the recent financial crisis, the
            analysis finds that the footprint of foreign banks has the
            largest impact on trade.
Distribution of consumption
            expenditure in East Asia
Using a new database of household
            surveys, this paper examines inequality among all
            individuals living in developing East Asia regardless of
            their country of residence. The East Asian Gini index
            increased from 39.0 in 1988 to 43.3 in 2012. Inequality
            increased during the initial decade, regardless of the
            choice of inequality measure. The trend appears to have
            reversed in the mid-2000s. Regional inequality is now almost
            entirely explained by within-country differences, while gaps
            in average income across countries have become unimportant.
            This reversal has been driven by rising national inequality
            especially in populous countries, counteracted by catch-up
            growth in average incomes, particularly in China.
            Interpersonal differences in income at the regional level
            have thus become internalized within national boundaries.
Dynamics of child development :
            analysis of a longitudinal cohort in a very low income country
Longitudinal patterns of child
            development and socioeconomic status are described for a
            cohort of children in Madagascar who were surveyed when they
            were 3–6 and 7-10 years old. Substantial wealth gradients
            were found across multiple domains: receptive vocabulary,
            cognition, sustained attention, and working memory. The
            results are robust to the inclusion of lagged outcomes,
            maternal endowments, measures of child health, and home
            stimulation. Wealth gradients are significant at ages 3–4,
            widen with age, and flatten out by ages 9-10. For vocabulary
            and sustained attention, the gradient grows steadily between
            ages three and six; for cognitive composite and memory of
            phrases, the gradient widens later (ages 7-8) before
            flattening out. These gaps in cognitive outcomes translate
            into equally sizeable gaps in learning outcomes. Between 12
            and 18 percent of the predicted gap in early outcomes is
            accounted for by differences in home stimulation, even after
            controlling for maternal education and endowments.
Assessing the accuracy of
            electricity demand forecasts in developing countries
This study assesses the accuracy of
            time-series econometric methods in forecasting electricity
            demand in developing countries. The analysis of historical
            time series for 106 developing countries over 1960-2012
            demonstrates that econometric forecasts are highly accurate
            for the majority of these countries. These forecasts
            significantly outperform predictions of simple heuristic
            models, which assume that electricity demand grows at an
            exogenous rate or is proportional to real gross domestic
            product growth. The quality of the forecasts, however,
            diminishes for the countries and regions, where rapid
            economic and structural transformation or exposure to
            conflicts and environmental disasters makes it difficult to
            establish stable historical demand trends.