rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
the spell rather than the change, we hope to be able to better assess causality. We focus on labor-intensive growth in the manufacturing and secondary sectors and on agricultural productivity-intensive growth, since our previous findings suggest that these are the growth patterns that are positively correlated with poverty reduction. We thus test whether these growth patterns can be explained by the selected variables.

# **4.2.1 Regulation and Unionization**

There is a vast literature that analyzes the effect of regulation on employment or on the unemployment rate (for reviews see Heckman and Pages, 2003; Arias et al. 2005; among others). Most of this literature concludes that labor regulation hinders employment creation and raises unemployment and that the impact of labor regulation on productivity growth has been underemphasized. Another strand of literature analyzes the effect of regulation on growth or on poverty. Lustig and McLeod (1997), for example, analyze the impact of minimum wages on poverty in developing countries, while Besley and Burgess (2004) find that pro-poor worker regulation is associated with lower output growth and higher urban poverty in India. The study on “Pro-Poor Growth in the 1990’s” (World Bank, 2005), find that highly regulated labor markets limit the poor from participating in economic growth. The focus of these studies has been aggregate employment or productivity growth rather than the employment/productivity intensity of growth, and few of these studies consider sectoral differences. Moreover, factors other than labor regulation have received little attention. The exception is perhaps a paper by Revenga and Bentolila (1995), who find that for OECD countries the employment intensity of growth is affected by the share of agriculture in total output, firing costs, inter-union and interfirm coordination and the percentage of employees in large firms.

To measure labor regulation we use two sets of variables: (i) those on hiring restrictions and labor costs, and (ii) those on unionization and strikes. The first group includes the monthly minimum wage in absolute value (U.S. dollars) and the minimum wage relative to the average manufacturing wage; the duration of maternity leave; the minimum annual paid leave after one year of work; the social security contributions paid by the worker and the employers as a fraction of salaries; and the severance pay after three years of employment in months of salary. As for unionization, we explored the effect of trade union membership as a percent of the labor force, the coverage of collective agreements as a percent of salaried employment, the number of strikes and lockouts per year, annual work days lost to strikes, and the number of workers involved in strikes and lockouts. We use data on labor regulation compiled by Rama and Artecona (2002) and Sulla, Scarpetta and Pierre (mimeo, World Bank).

24
# **OIL SPILLS ON OTHER COMMODITIES**

# **JOHN BAFFES**

THE WORLD BANK 1818 H Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20433 tel: (202) 458-1880 fax: (202) 522-1151 email: jbaffes@worldbank.org

## **JEL** : O13, Q13, Q33, Q49

**KEY WORDS** : Commodity prices, price indices, crude oil

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the World Bank. I would like to thank Betty Dow, Neil Ericsson, Bruce Gardner, Donald Mitchell, Shane Streifel, Hans Timmer, and an anonymous reviewer for stimulating discussions and valuable comments on earlier drafts.
Hummels, D. (2001). “Time as a Trade Barrier.” Department of Economics, Indiana: Purdue University, Mimeo.

IMD (2000). _World Competitiveness Yearbook_ . IMD: Lausanne.

Kaufmann, Daniel, Aart Kraay, and Pablo Zoido-Lobaton (2002). “Governance Matters II: Updated Indicators for 2000–01” World Bank Working Paper #2772, The World Bank: Washington, D.C.

Lane, Micahel (2001). _International Supply Chain Management and Customs. Peru Case Study_ , Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.

Mann, Catherine L., Sue E. Eckert, and Sarah Cleeland Knight (2000). Global Electronic <u>Commerce: A Policy Primer.</u> Washington: Institute for International Economics Mann, Catherine L., Daniel H. Rosen, and APEC (2001, 2002). The New Economy and <u>APEC. Singapore: APEC Secretariat; reprinted (2002) Washington: Institute for</u> International Economics.

Maskus, Keith E., John S. Wilson and Tsunehiro Otsuki (2001). “An Empirical Framework for Analyzing Technical Regulations and Trade” in _Quantifying the impact of technical barriers to trade: Can it be done?_ Keith Maskus and John S. Wilson eds.

Messerlin, Patrick A and J. Zarrouk (1999). “Trade Facilitation: Technical Regulation and Customs Procedures.” September 1999 for the WTO/World Bank Conference on Developing Countries in a Millennium Round.

Moenius, Johannes (2000). _Three Essays on Trade Barriers and Trade Volumes._ Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, San Diego.

Otsuki, Tsunehiro, John S. Wilson, and Mirvat Sewadeh (2001a) “What Price Precaution? European Harmonisation of Aflatoxin regulations and African groundnut exports.” European Review of Agricultural Economics vol. 28, no. 3: 263-284.

Otsuki, Tsunehiro, John S. Wilson, and Mirvat Sewadeh (2001b). “Saving Two in a Billion: Quantifying the Trade Effect of European Food Safety Standards on African Exports.” _Food Policy 26_ .

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2001). _E-Commerce and Development Report_ . UNCTAD: Geneva.

White, H. (1980). “A Heterosckedasticity-consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroscedasticity.” Econometrica 48: 817-838.

26
- 17 -

**Higher Education:** In higher education the transition from the existing highly elite system catering only 2 percent of the age cohort to a mass system has been slow relative to its several East Asian comparators, and the system is projected to cover only 5 percent of the age cohort in 200010. Although social rate of return from higher education is low, yet future demand in China's expanding labor market argues for finding ways to enable universities to expand current enrollments. Once the demand for secondary school graduates rises, which is a likely prospect in itself, this pool will be enlarged from which only an expanded tertiary

# Adequate. but not excessive vocational: and technical education.

Vocational and Techni.calEducation (V ) plays a:majo 'role dnprepa young Chinese to be producive .labor market entrants, and thereby, t . contribute o 'sustained mtional economic growth. But calculations from the.1993- Labor Force.Sure data. .yield very low private rates. of retum to.. vocational and technical edcoan 9.9 percent respectively. Suchlo6w.retur's canbe ascribed ,to highuniutcosts ratherthan tto a lack of demand: for. technicall skilled. labor. Since VTE is highlife .,d tid aro s specialization-an.pri n ces in China,. future.skill m demanded by employers canot be predicte.. precisely.Therefore,.the issue of VTEplann'ing is hwbest to. frame 'a strategy f'r the 21 st. eMnty that t.provid.es. adequate.butnot texcessive,' c y fr. .trii'ng young labor market .ntrants. .Owing to the need for. trai.nabl QWo rs- ab.l -t -acquire new skils as technology chanesand .S restructured, t gv measures are advisable.: au gmentg inter fficiency.main by improving use of teachers' time, training- for trainers, :and utiizing physical facilities more intensivYe, a.nd modifying govnernm,ent'sr cognition,process-topromote greater institutioal . flexibility and elective otions forstudes These- m s wud-rduceun cos, foster mobbility. and eventually ae retu-rn ,s to invest ts -in .VT.: Augmented Subsidy, Vouchers-an.d Sc hlar asicEdution.

.. . - . - - . . - .--.--....-... . . . .-. .-----. -.

Enabling the poor to b eoe ed ucated, reqires not onl that they have access to, basic.. eduation, but also that they survive through pri mareducwation andmae tetansition to.post-primary education.' Results. frm several studies and B'akf-fiancedp 'jects find. that elimination of fees in.B.angladesh a,nd .Guatala,, intoduction ofvouchers in. Colombia and-Pakistan, have increased students' partiction and transition to-the next cycle:of education. Vou chershave en abledthpoor gain access tose]e prite schools, that have excess capacity. To retain these fi ial, c t h W .u pmary or secondary cycles sdes requiedto dwer it certain radepoint

**10** State Issues New Development Program, no 1, Beijing, Xinhua Domestic Services in Chinese, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (March 3, 1993)
declined from over nine percent to less than two percent between 2002 and 2005.<sup>10</sup> Nonetheless, despite these substantial efforts and achievements, the communication strategies of the authorities only partially succeeded to reach the mass of companies impacted upon. Many firms still complain about a gap between the provisions of the rules and their practical implementation, while others continue to find the access to relevant information difficult. Surveys suggest, for example, that many companies have not even heard about the Silent Approval law.

43. Perhaps as a result the improvements in the rules and regulations were not reflected in perception-based indicators. Thus, Doing Business 2007 ranks Romania 116<sup>th</sup> out of 172 countries in terms of dealing with licenses, even though Romania does well in the overall ease of doing businesses. A similar finding is reported by the BEEPS surveys that report that 40% of firms consider licenses to be a problem for doing business in the country. This is substantially worse than among comparator countries, and does not appear to have improved markedly since 2002 (Figure 9 _)._ 44. Surveys and discussions with companies suggest that, while a limited number of firms seems to be severely affected, most of the difficulties arise for those requesting production and construction licenses. The procedures for obtaining a construction authorization and the certificate for urbanism seem to be long. The procedures to subsequently connect buildings to utilities, mainly gas and electricity, are also long and relatively costly. This paper recommends continuing the simplification of these procedures, as this is critical to the smooth implementation of projects financed from the EU structural and cohesion funds, especially in infrastructure and environment.

**Figure 9. Business Licenses as a Problem for Doing Business (percent of firms indicating business licenses and permits as a problem for doing business)**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 45 41 41<br>39<br>40 36<br>35 31 33<br>30<br>30 27<br>24<br>25<br>20<br>20 17<br>13<br>15<br>10<br>5<br>0<br>Slovakia Turkey Hungary Bulgaria Poland Romania<br>2002 2005<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source:_ EBRD-WB BEEPS, 2005.

10 The 2002 and 2005 BEEPS surveys ask the question “What percent of senior management’s time in 2001 was spent in dealing with public officials about the application and interpretation of laws and regulations and to get or to maintain access to public services?” 16
# **3 Data**

## **3.1 Data Collection**

A baseline questionnaire was collected before performing the random allocation of the scholarship offer. This questionnaire included socio-demographic characteristics of the applicants, educational attainment, questions related to coding skills and previous coding knowledge, employment variables (status, industry where the applicant works, wages), and social skills as measured by the Big Five Inventory by Soto and John (2017). We gathered the tax identification numbers of respondents, which may be used in the future to analyze long term outcomes using administrative data. Given the scale of our experiment and power calculations, we applied the baseline questionnaire to all 803 eligible candidates.

Originally, a first follow-up face-to-face data collection was planned to take place after about one year of the program completion, with the objective of measuring short-term impacts on skill acquisition and employment dynamics. This would have been during September 2020 in Buenos Aires, December 2020 in Bogotá. However, these activities needed to be re-adjusted given the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to still capture the short-term impacts of the program, we designed and implemented an online survey during May and June 2020. The objective of this online survey was threefold: first, it was important to gather information about labor market outcomes of program participants right before the COVID-19 global crisis affected labor markets in both cities. For this, the period of reference of all employment questions in the survey dated back to February 2020. Second, information on educational outcomes and skills was collected in order to measure short-term impacts of the program on these indicators. Third, a specific module related to COVID-19 was administered in order to assess whether bootcamps participants were somehow in a better position than non-participants to tackle the crisis. This module included a question on resilience to a crisis in the job market generated by the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as employment information relative to May 2020, when the questionnaire was administered. Given the challenging times during which this online questionnaire was collected and in order to maximize response rates, we designed an instrument that aimed to last no more than 20 minutes to complete.<sup>13</sup> Data Appendix A.1 provides

> 13The average response time ended up being 22 minutes.

9
One partial exception to the low rate of penetration is Rwanda, where use of most insurance products is very low, but where 80 percent of adults have medical insurance through the government’s _Mutuelle de Santé_ . About half of adults express a need to learn more about both life and asset insurance, suggesting that lack of information is an important barrier to the take-up of other insurance products. Another exception is South Africa, where 46 percent of adults have some sort of funeral insurance coverage, and where penetration of other types of insurance (26 percent) is higher than in lower-income countries as well. The view of insurance here is more positive—three-quarters of those surveyed agree that it is ―important to have insurance just in case‖ of threats such as death, loss of income, funerals, crimes, and so forth.

# **_Business literacy, as indicated by surveys of enterprises, is likely low_**

As discussed in the introduction, improving financial literacy for entrepreneurs may be as important improving the same for consumers in the developing world. FinScope’s household surveys do not contain questions related to business literacy, but they have launched a separate series of surveys of businesses which do contain relevant questions. For instance, according to a survey of businesses in Zambia in 2010, almost 73 percent of MSMEs are prevented from accessing finance because of inadequate business records. The report notes that ―helping MSME owners keep business records, identify more profitable lines of business, develop business plans, and improve general business administration could allow them to increase productivity and make it easier for them to access financial services.‖ Access to finance is also a problem for small businesses relative to larger enterprises, and particularly for the majority of small businesses that are unregistered. On the other hand, the returns to education for enterprise owners are high—one year of additional education apparently boosts labor productivity by 10 percent. The returns to financial literacy education and other forms of capacity building might therefore be high as well.

FinScope conducted a similar survey in South Africa. Just over half of the businesses were formally registered. While most of the owners of unregistered businesses cited the size of their business as the primary reason for staying informal, 18 percent said they didn’t know how to register their business, suggesting a role for a business services intervention. With regard to other measure of financial literacy, 46 percent of businesses said they kept financial records, with service providers more likely to do so than retailers. Those who kept records were most likely to do so for total sales made (64 percent), stock (53 percent), and cost of sales (51 percent). Other 20
increasing affordability and accuracy of handheld GPS devices makes GPS-based land area measurement a desirable alternative for household and farm surveys in countries dominated by smallholder agricultural production. However, with the emergence of GPS-based area measurement as the new, scalable goldstandard for household and farm surveys, a key drawback is related to the operationalization of the technology.

To reduce transportation costs, keep household interview durations within reasonable limits, and avoid the difficulty of asking respondents to accompany enumerators to agricultural plots that are situated far from dwelling locations, survey implementing agencies often require enumerators to only obtain GPS-based area measures for plots within a given (arbitrary and non-cross-country-comparable) radius of dwelling locations. Consequently, non-ignorable shares of area measures are missing in public use datasets. For instance, among the selected national, multi-topic panel household surveys that are supported by the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) program, the rate of missingness in GPS-based plot areas range from 13 (Nigeria) to 44 percent (Uganda), as shown in Table 1. Given the potential selection biases that may be brought on by analyzing only non-missing portions of the datasets, there is a concern that the missing data may limit the operational relevance and the analytical value of GPS-based area measures. And this concern is pressing particularly in the context of a survey program such as the LSMS-ISA that has catalyzed a significant expansion in development research on Africa over the last decade.<sup>2</sup>

> 2 As of November 12, 2018, the official World Bank Microdata Library download count for the publicly available, LSMS-ISA-supported household surveys stood at 37,750, and the lower-bound for the number of research outputs over the last decade based on the LSMS-ISA data, according to the continuing LSMS monitoring of online development research outlets, is estimated at 1,000.

3
Table 7: Fixed-effects regression results for employment elasticity of growth: governance

|Variables||ECA|WE|PECA|PWE|EU10|BalTur|CIS|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||(1)|(2)|(3)|(4)|(5)|(6)|(7)|
|Rule of law|||||||||
|Output|Coeff.|0.140|0.398|0.028|0.170|0.387|0.232|0.069|
||t-stat.|3.6|6.2|2.0|4.0|6.2|0.9|1.9|
|Other variable|Coeff.|-0.001|-0.005|0.004|-0.015|-0.002|-0.042|0.009|
||t-stat.|-0.1|-0.5|1.3|-1.1|-0.2|-0.9|1.0|
||N|320|228|1145|249|108|68|144|
||R2|0.31|0.52|0.24|0.61|0.70|0.29|0.49|
|Corruption control|||||||||
|Output|Coeff.|0.149|0.396|0.029|0.144|0.387|0.217|0.078|
||t-stat.|3.8|6.1|2.1|3.5|6.3|0.8|2.2|
|Other variable|Coeff.|0.019|0.004|0.001|0.020|0.004|0.031|0.019|
||t-stat.|2.4|0.5|0.5|2.2|0.4|0.9|2.3|
||N|320|228|1144|249|108|68|144|
||R2|0.33|0.52|0.23|0.62|0.70|0.28|0.51|
|Political stability|||||||||
|Output|Coeff.|0.134|0.379|0.032|0.160|0.431|0.305|0.070|
||t-stat.|3.4|5.8|2.2|3.9|6.0|1.1|2.0|
|Other variable|Coeff.|0.008|0.009|-0.001|0.002|-0.013|-0.024|0.011|
||t-stat.|1.2|1.5|-0.8|0.2|-1.1|-0.9|1.7|
||N|320|228|1146|249|108|68|144|
||R2|0.31|0.52|0.23|0.61|0.70|0.29|0.50|
|Quality of regulations|||||||||
|Output|Coeff.|0.137|0.405|0.028|0.152|0.435|0.243|0.071|
||t-stat.|3.5|6.1|2.0|3.7|6.8|0.9|2.0|
|Other variable|Coeff.|0.014|-0.004|0.004|0.025|-0.033|0.031|0.005|
||t-stat.|1.6|-0.5|1.7|2.1|-2.2|0.7|0.6|
||N|320|228|1145|249|108|68|144|
||R2|0.32|0.52|0.24|0.62|0.72|0.28|0.49|
|Government effectiveness|||||||||
|Output|Coeff.|0.139|0.365|0.027|0.178|0.390|0.350|0.063|
||t-stat.|3.6|5.7|1.9|4.2|6.3|1.3|1.8|
|Other variable|Coeff.|0.019|0.019|0.006|-0.021|-0.002|-0.080|0.024|
||t-stat.|2.1|2.9|1.9|-1.5|-0.1|-1.4|2.9|
||N|320|228|1144|249|108|68|144|
||R2|0.32|0.54|0.24|0.61|0.70|0.30|0.52|
|Voice and accountability|||||||||
|Output|Coeff.|0.152|0.395|0.029|0.161|0.390|0.255|0.077|
||t-stat.|3.8|6.1|2.0|3.9|6.4|0.9|2.2|
|Other variable|Coeff.|0.014|0.005|0.002|-0.013|-0.028|0.008|0.011|
||t-stat.|1.6|0.3|0.9|-0.8|-1.2|0.2|1.2|
||N|320|228|1146|249|108|68|144|
|Note: The dependent varia<br>parameter estimate of out<br>fixed-effects.|R2<br>ble is em<br>put grow|0.32<br>ploymen<br>th. All reg|0.52<br>t growth<br>ressions|0.23<br>. The out<br>also incl|0.61<br>put coeffi<br>ude count|0.71<br>cient is the<br>ry and year|0.27<br>|0.49|

18
25 infrastructure is accompanied by policies and institutions that promote broader sector-wide reform by introducing competition, addressing tariff reform, developing regulatory frameworks and capabilities, ensuring better contract design and enforcement, and fostering transparency. Each of these topic areas is covered in depth in the large and rapidly growing literature on private participation in infrastructure. Surveys show that when such measures are put in place the outcomes are better--and the public is willing to support private participation (Figure 13).

**Figure 13:  Opinion poll - Peru privatization of electricity generation**

<!-- Start of picture text --> In favor of privatization<br>21%<br>in general<br>In favor of privatization<br>59%<br>if transparent process<br>In favor of privatization<br>if tariffs authorized by 65%<br>regulator<br>In favor of privatization<br>with investment to 69%<br>expand service<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: Apoyo 2002 54. Moreover, given the large investment needs in infrastructure (Box 4), the issue is no longer one of public or private. Meeting the financing needs will require resources from all possible sources including through well-designed public-private partnerships and output-based aid schemes, development of local financial markets, and better use of risk mitigation products (Estache 2004). Opening up private participation to a wider group of players can also be beneficial. Global investors may be withdrawing or becoming more selective because of political and market difficulties, but this is being balanced by a growing trend towards participation by regional and local investors. Four of the top 10 electricity sponsors in 2001-03 for example were companies from Malaysia, Brazil, Hong Kong, and Thailand (Izaguirre 2004). Participation by small-scale providers is also becoming an alternative and in some cases a complement to conventional providers in both rural and urban areas in sectors such as water and sewerage (McIntosh 2003).