rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
How integration into the Central
            African Economic and Monetary Community affects
            Cameroon's economy: general equilibrium estimates
The authors quantify the impact on
            Cameroon of three aspects of its new regional trade
            agreement with the Central African Economic and Monetary
            Community (the CEMAC agreement): i) improved access to
            markets in CEMAC; ii) preferential tariff reduction; and
            iii) reduction of its external tariff through implementation
            of the common external tariff of CEMAC. They estimate that
            Cameroon will gain from the agreement but show how
            Cameroon's regional market power greatly affects the
            magnitude of its gains. They assume that Cameroon has
            regional market power in both imports and exports despite
            being small in world markets. They find that better access
            to partner markets and reduction of the external tariff
            explain virtually all of Cameroon's welfare gain. In
            their preferred scenario (Cameroon having regional market
            power), reduction of the external tariff explains
            three-quarters of the welfare gain. If Cameroon further
            reduces tariffs to its regional partners, the effect on its
            economy is a loss of real income but the impact is
            negligible. Should Cameroon's partners fail to provide
            tariff-free access to their markets, the authors estimate
            that, given Cameroon's regional market power, Cameroon
            would gain even more from free trade than it would from
            implementing the CEMAC arrangements.
Health policy in poor countries :
            weak links in the chain
The authors show how the recent
            empirical and theoretical literature on health policy sheds
            light on the disappointing experience with the
            implementation of primary health care. They emphasize the
            evidence on two weak links between government spending on
            health and improvements in health status. First, the
            capability of developing country governments to provide
            effective services varies widely -- so health spending, even
            on the "right" services, may lead to little actual
            provision of services. Second, the net impact of government
            provision of health services depends on the severity of
            market failures. Evidence suggests these are the least
            severe for relatively inexpensive curative services, which
            often absorb the bulk of primary health care budgets.
            Government policy in health can more usefully focus directly
            on mitigating market failures in traditional public health
            activities and, in more developed settings, failures in the
            markets for risk mitigation. Addressing poverty requires
            consideration of a much broader set of policies which may --
            or may not -- include provision of health services.
Pension reform in Latin America :
            quick fixes or sustainable reform
Because of better health and higher
            standards of living, people are living longer. By 2030, more
            than 16 percent of the world's population will be older
            than 60, compared with 9 percent today.  As a result,
            pension systems will need reform.  Most current systems have
            substantial unfunded liabilities that will impose
            significant financial burdens on future generations without
            providing adequate protection for older individuals and
            lower-income workers.  Pension reform is inevitable because
            of demographic imperatives and because many pension systems
            are financially unsustainable.  Unfunded public pension
            systems pose political risk if promises to future retirees
            cannot be met.  Pension reform is both technically and
            politically complex but more and more countries are
            beginning to address the problem.  The question is whether
            to adopt quick fixes or sustainable changes that will
            benefit the macroeconomy and protect elderly and
            lower-income citizens.  Quick fixes--typical in many
            economies--generally involve changes in eligibility (such as
            retirement age), changes in the rate of contribution or the
            population of workers on which contributions are calculated,
            or changes in the structure of benefits.  Countries in Latin
            America have been ahead of other regions in undertaking
            major reform from pay-as-you-go defined-benefit pension
            plans to fully funded, defined-contribution pension plans.
            Because of the successful Chilean pension model, a notable
            number of Latin American countries have undertaken deep
            pension reform.  The author highlights reform efforts in a
            sample of countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and
            Peru.  Vigilance is still needed, says the author.
            Effective oversight is essential, and so is complementary
            reform in the banking, insurance, and securities markets.
            In capital markets, for example, regulation must be
            strengthened and the requirement that pension fund
            investments be made only in government-related securities
            must be eliminated.  New types of insurance must be made
            available and there must be increased competition among
            insurance providers.  More work must be done but the
            region's pension systems have started on the right course.
Leading indicators of currency crises
The authors examine the empirical
            evidence on currency crises and propose a specific
            early-warning system.  This system involves monitoring the
            evolution of several indicators that tend to exhibit unusual
            behavior in the periods preceding a crisis.  An indicator
            exceeding a certain threshold value should be interpreted as
            a warning "signal" that a currency crisis may take
            place within the following 24 months.  The threshold values
            are calculated to strike a balance between the risk of
            having many false signals and the risk of missing many
            crises.  Within this approach, the variables with the best
            track record include exports, deviations of the real
            exchange rate from trend, the ratio of broad money to gross
            international reserves, output, and equity prices.  The
            evidence does not support some of the other indicators that
            were considered, including imports, bank deposits, the
            difference between foreign and domestic real deposit
            interest rates, and the ratio of lending to deposit interest rates.
Surviving success : policy reform
            and the future of industrial pollution in China
China's recent industrial growth, a
            remarkable success story, has been clouded by hundreds of
            thousands of premature deaths and incidents of serious
            respiratory illness caused by exposure to industrial air
            pollution.  Seriously contaminated by industrial discharges,
            many of China's waterways are largely unfit for direct
            human use.  This damage could be substantially reduced at
            modest cost.  Industrial reform combined with stricter
            environmental regulation has reduced organic water pollution
            in many areas and has curbed the growth of air pollution.
            But much higher levels of emissions controls (of
            particulates and sulfur dioxide) are warranted in
            China's polluted cities.  For the cost-benefit analysis
            that led to this conclusion, the authors developed three
            scenarios projecting pollution damage under varying
            assumptions about future policies.  Their findings are:
            Even if regulation is not tightened further, continued
            economic reform should have a powerful effect on pollution
            intensity.  Organic water pollution will stabilize in many
            areas and actually decline in some.  Air pollution will
            continue growing in most areas but at a much slower pace
            than industrial output.  The cost of inaction would be
            high--most of China's waterways will remain heavily
            polluted, and many thousands of people will die or suffer
            serious respiratory damage.   Continuing current trends in
            tightened regulation for water pollution will lead to sharp
            improvements; adopting an economically feasible policy of
            much stricter regulation will restore the health of many
            waterways.  The stakes are even higher for air pollution
            because regulatory enforcement has weakened in many areas in
            the past five years.  Reversing that trend will save many
            lives at extremely modest cost.  China's National
            Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) has recommended a
            tenfold increase in the air pollution levy; adopting
            NEPA's very conservative recommendation would produce a
            major turnaround in most cities.  For representative Chinese
            cities, a fiftyfold increase in the levy is probably
            warranted economically.  To be cost-effective, heavy sources
            of particulate and sulfur dioxide emissions should be
            targeted for abatement.  Reducing emissions from large
            private plants is so cheap that only significant abatement
            makes sense -- at least 70 percent abatement of sulfur
            dioxide particulates and even greater abatement of
            particulates in large urban industrial facilities.
Transportation infrastructure
            investments and regional trade liberalization
The author examines whether trade
            liberalization should create a greater incentive for
            countries to invest in transportation infrastructure. He
            pays special attention to the case of preferential trade
            liberalization between neighboring countries, where
            investments in roads or railroads are specific to the
            partner country and will thus have spillover effects. The
            existence of spillovers will lead to gains from cooperative
            agreements about investment levels. The author shows that in
            a small country the incentive to invest in infrastructure
            depends on the level of the tariff when demand is linear. If
            protection is in the form of a quota, on the other hand,
            trade liberalization will increase the optimal
            infrastructure investment. He shows that in a two-country
            model with spillovers between countries, the cooperative
            equilibrium may involve either more or less investment than
            the noncooperative equilibrium, depending on the pattern of
            trade between the two countries and the degree of
            substitutability between investments in the two countries.
            For a relatively small country, for example, there would be
            more underinvestment in railroad and highway infrastructure
            to neighboring countries than there would be in airport and
            harbor infrastructure. The first type of investment is
            specific to certain markets and is likely to affect the
            relative price of goods in those markets. The second type of
            investment, on the other hand, will send goods to world
            markets generally, where prices are likely to be relatively
            unaffected by the investments. The author examines the
            desirability of linking regional trade and infrastructure
            agreements. The prediction generated by his model is that in
            the absence of cooperative agreements between countries,
            there will be underinvestment in those forms of
            transportation in which the investments will have spillover
            effects to other countries. The author identifies two forms
            of gains from infrastructure agreements: internalizing the
            terms-of-trade effects and thus avoiding the inefficient
            investment levels that arise in noncooperative choices of
            investment levels; and internalizing the effects of the
            infrastructure investment in the tariff negotiations
            process, in cases where countries cannot commit to future
            tariff rates.
Health and labor productivity : the
            economic impact of onchocercal skin disease
Teams from two institutions studied the
            economic impact of health status on productivity and income.
            They studied whether onchocercal skin disease caused
            economic damage to the labor force at a coffee plantation in
            southwest Ethiopia, and how much. The research team
            estimated the daily wage equation for wage employees.
            Empirical analysis revealed that permanent male employees,
            the core of the plantation labor force, suffer significant
            losses in economic productivity (in the form of lower daily
            wages earned) as a result of onchocercal skin disease.
            Depending on the severity of onchocercal skin disease, and
            controlling for such factors as age, daily wages were 10 to
            15 percent lower among those exhibiting skin-related problems.
Cost-benefit analysis of the Global
            Dracunculiasis Eradication Campaign (GDEC)
Dracunculiasis (or Guinea worm disease)
            was endemic in several African countries as well as in
            India, Pakistan, and Yemen. The past decade, however, has
            seen a remarkable decline in the incidence of dracunculiasis
            as a result of the Global Dracunculiasis Eradication
            Campaign. The authors compare spending on the eradication
            campaign with estimates of increased agricultural production
            resulting from reductions in infection-related morbidity as
            a result of the program. Using a project horizon of 1987-98,
            they calculate the economic rate of return as 29 percent,
            under conservative assumptions about the average
            incapacitation caused by Guinea worm infection (five weeks).
            After 1998, Sudan is projected to be the only country in
            which the disease will remain endemic. The authors'
            results indicate that for economic returns in Sudan to be
            consistent with those in other countries where the disease
            was endemic, eradication must be completed in Sudan at the
            very latest by 2001.
Cost recovery and pricing of payment services
A modern payment system is essential for
            promoting domestic and international trade and exchange as
            well as developing financial markets. Payment users will be
            directed toward the most efficient payment methods when the
            costs of producing those services are reflected in the
            prices paid. Resources are being wasted in the United States
            because consumers see no important difference in transaction
            prices or bank costs between using a check or using
            electronic direct debit in paying a bill, even though the
            social costs of these two instruments are different.
            Electronic payments cost only a third to half as much as
            paper-based payments. An estimated $100 billion (or 1.5
            percent of GDP) is being lost by the continued use of
            paper-based checks. When payment instruments are not
            appropriately priced, the costs must be covered elsewhere.
            One common solution is to let loan revenues cover part of
            payment expenses (keeping loan rates higher to compensate).
            When prices reflect the full cost of producing the service,
            users demand the services that use the fewest real
            resources. The authors give examples of payment prices and
            price schedules and show how underlying cost data are used
            to "build up" to a price. They outline how payment
            services may best be structured to: a) Appropriately reflect
            economies of scale or scope in the production of payment
            services; b) Adjust cost recovery percentages to accommodate
            how much demand conditions associated with start-up differ
            from those associated with mature operation. (During a new
            system's early years of operation, the transaction
            volume may be low and some form of underrecovery of costs
            may be required to encourage use of the system. But any such
            underrecovery must be built into future pricing arrangements
            once the systems are established and traffic volumes are at
            a level where full cost recovery is practical. To ensure
            fairness, the pricing structure must also guarantee that
            latecomers to the system not get more favorable treatment
            than the initial user group.); and c) Induce efficient use
            of scarce resources. They note the economic principles that
            recommend certain pricing methods over others and apply
            equally to payment services provided by the private sector
            or through a government agency. They show why costs should
            be recovered through user transaction fees.
Current accounts in debtor and
            creditor countries
The authors reexamine a classic question
            in international economics: What is the current account
            response to a transitory income shock such as a temporary
            improvement in the terms of trade, a transfer from abroad,
            or unusually high production? To answer this question, they
            construct a world equilibrium model in which productivity
            varies across countries and international borrowing and
            lending take place to exploit good investment opportunities.
            Despite its conventional ingredients, the model generates
            the novel prediction that favorable income shocks lead to
            current account deficits in debtor countries and current
            account surpluses in creditor countries. Evidence from
            thirteen OECD countries broadly supports this theoretical prediction.
Private ownership and corporate
            performance : some lessons from transition economies
Using a large sample of data on
            mid-sized firms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland,
            the authors compare the performance of privatized and state
            firms in the environment of the postcommunist transition.
            They find strong evidence that private ownership--except for
            worker ownership-- dramatically improves corporate
            performance.  They find no evidence of the
            "privatization shock" that was supposed to afflict
            the behavior of firms undergoing rapid changes in ownership.
            Instead, they observe a severe shock from marketization,
            affecting both state and privatized firms--but a shock for
            which private ownership provides a powerful antidote.  Among
            their other findings are :  a) Private ownership is most
            effective in improving a firm's ability to generate
            revenues, an area in which entrepreneurship seems to be
            required.  Ownership also affects a firm's ability to
            remove the rather obvious cost inefficiencies inherited from
            the past, but this effect is less pronounced, as both state
            and privatized firms engage in significant cost
            restructuring.  b) Privatized firms generate significantly
            more employment gains than state firms.  It is their
            superior ability to generate revenues, rather than
            competence at cost-cutting, that allows them to sustain or
            expand employment.  This is why privatization is the
            dominant strategy for expanding employment in transition. c)
            Outsider-owned firms perform better than insider-owned firms
            on most performance measures, but there is enough difference
            between employee- and manager-owned firms to suggest that
            putting all insiders under a common umbrella is unjustified.
            Although the effects of managerial ownership are ambiguous,
            putting employees in control appears to offer no advantages
            over state ownership on any measure and creates a distinct
            disadvantage in terms of employment performance.  d) Among
            outsider owners, privatization funds seem to do as well at
            revitalizing the privatized companies as do other outsider
            owners; in particular, the authors find no evidence that
            funds are less effective than  'strategic'
            investors.  And foreign investors provide perhaps less of an
            edge than might have been expected; their impact appears no
            stronger than that of major domestic outsiders.
Economic reform and progress in
            Latin America and the Caribbean
In the late 1980s, after decades of poor
            economic management, many Latin American and Caribbean
            countries undertook structural reform that placed them on a
            path toward superior economic performance. The authors
            examine the experience in structural reform in five areas:
            governance (reforming public institutions), international
            trade, financial markets, labor markets, and the generation
            and use of public resources. To characterize the experience
            with structural reform in the region, they develop
            quantitative indicators for different types of policy reform
            and for their outcomes. They conclude that the most progress
            has been made in liberalizing international trade. In this
            area the region has done almost as well as the Asian newly
            industrialized countries (NICs). The least progress has been
            made in reforming labor markets. In most countries there are
            still severe constraints on hiring and firing workers,
            payroll tax rates are high, there are few or no mechanisms
            for resolving labor disputes, and there is too much public
            employment. Financial development has improved, especially
            the depth of financial intermediation, private sector
            participation in banking, and the size and activity of stock
            markets. As for the efficient generation and use of public
            resources, much has been done to make the value-added tax
            system efficient and to privatize public enterprises. Reform
            gains in governance have been modest. Latin America remains
            well behind the Asian NICs and OECD countries, especially
            regarding the rule of law (judicial and police systems) and
            the quality of public administration (procedural clarity and
            the bureaucracy's honesty and technical competence). A
            great deal has been accomplished, but compared with the
            Asian NICs and OECD countries, there is still substantial
            room for improvement.