rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Policy Research Working Paper 6841

# **Abstract**

The paper explores whether one of the largest programs in the world for women’s empowerment and rural livelihoods, the Indira Kranti Patham in Andhra Pradesh, India, has had an impact on the economic and social wellbeing of households that participate in the program. The analysis usespanel data for 4,250 households from two rounds of a survey conducted in 2004 and 2008 in five districts. Propensity score matching was used to construct control groups and outcomes are compared with differences-in-differences. There are two major impacts. First, the Indira Kranti Patham program increased participants’ access to loans, which allowed them to accumulate some assets (livestock and durables for the poorest and nonfarm assets for the poor), invest in education, and increase total expenditures (for the poorest and poor). Women who participated in the program had more freedom to go places and were less afraid to disagree with their husbands; the women participated more in village meetings and their children were slightly more likely to attend school. Consistent with the emphasis of the program on the poor, the impacts were stronger across the board for the poorest and poor participants and were more pronounced for long-term Scheduled Tribe participants. No significant differences are found between participants and nonparticipants in some maternal and child health indicators. Second, program participants were significantly more likely to benefit from various targeted government programs, most important the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, but also midday meals in schools, hostels, and housing programs. This was an important way in which the program contributed to the improved wellbeing of program participants. The effects captured by the analysis accrue to program participants over and above those that may accrue to all households in program villages.

This paper is a product of the Sustainable Development Department, South Asia Region. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The authors may be contacted at gprennushi@worldbank.org and agupta20@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
Table 4: Impacts on Firm Performance

|||Pr|ofts|||Business inputs||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||(1)<br>Last year’s proft<br>(Unconditional)<br>(IHS)|(2)<br>Last year’s proft<br>(Conditional)<br>(IHS)|(3)<br>Last 30 days proft<br>(Unconditional)<br>(IHS)|(4)<br>Last 30 days proft<br>(Conditional)<br>(IHS)|(5)<br>Value of owned equipment<br>(Unconditional)<br>(IHS)|(6)<br>Value of inventory stock<br>(Unconditional)<br>(IHS)|(7)<br>Value of raw materials<br>(Unconditional)<br>(IHS)|
|Treatment (0/1)|1.644|0.596|-1.754|-2.747|1.540|0.826|-0.834|
||(1.11)|(1.00)|(1.58)|(1.75)|(0.93)|(1.06)|(0.95)|
|Psychometric score above median (0/1)|1.977*|-0.182|0.792|-0.541|2.278**|1.127|0.880|
|2|(1.02)|(0.86)|(1.48)|(1.69)|(0.92)|(1.04)|(0.88)|
|**ANCOVA**<br>1|✓|✓|✓|✓|✗|✗|✗|
|Observations|124|105|124|105|124|124|124|
|Control mean|9.102|11.33|5.967|7.431|8.760|7.409|3.404|
|_R_<sup>2</sup>|0.050|0.019|0.046|0.084|0.071|0.023|0.016|
|Randomization inference p-value|0.13|0.41|0.20|0.075|0.10|0.43|0.32|
|Sharpened q-value|0.20|0.26|0.23|0.20|0.83|0.83|0.83|

Notes: Outcomes 1-2 are self-reported profits from the main business from the year 2013 in the Ethiopian calendar (which is 2020 in the Gregorian calendar). Outcomes 3-4 are self-reported profits from the main business for the past 30 working days. Outcome 5 is the self-reported value of owned equipment, where the respondent was asked to estimate the replacement value of all owned equipment and machinery for the main business. Outcome 6 is the self-reported value of inventory stock, where the respondent was asked to estimate the value of final goods for sale that they currently have in stock for their main business. Outcome 7 is the self-reported value of raw materials, where the respondent was asked to estimate the value of product components and raw materials for their main business. Conditional amounts represent only those whose businesses were open, whereas unconditional amounts include those not operating any business with a value of 0. Only Inverse Hyperbolic Sine (IHS) transformed versions of variables are presented. Psychometric scores in the IE sample ranged from 370 to 452, and the median score used a cut-off is 383 (note that 370 was the qualifying score to receive an uncollateralized loan). Includes a control for number of children in the households that was imbalanced between treatment and control at baseline. Observations represent number of individuals. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. * _p <_ 0 _._ 05, ** _p <_ 0 _._ 01, *** _p <_ 0 _._ 001
(Jalan and Ravallion, 2002). A considerable body of descriptive evidence related to the growth of migration in China raises the possibility that migrant opportunity may be an important mechanism for poverty reduction. Studies of the impact of migration on migrant households suggest that migration is associated with higher incomes (Taylor, Rozelle and de Brauw, 2003; Du, Park, and Wang, 2006), facilitates risk-coping and risk-management (Giles, 2006; Giles and Yoo, 2007), and is associated with higher levels of local investment in productive activities (Zhao, 2003).

The use of migrant networks and employment referral in urban areas are important dimensions of China’s rural-urban migration experience. Rozelle et al (1999) emphasize that villages with more migrants in 1988 experienced more rapid migration growth by 1995. Zhao (2003) shows that number of early migrants from a village is correlated with the probability that an individual with no prior migration experience will choose to participate in the migrant labor market. Meng (2000) further suggests that variation in the size of migrant ‡ows to di¤erent destinations can be partially explained by the size of the existing migrant population in potential destinations.<sup>8</sup>

# 3.2 The RCRE Household Survey

The primary data sources used for our analyses are the village and household surveys conducted by the Research Center for Rural Economy at China’s Ministry of Agriculture from 1986 through the 2003 survey year. We use data from 90 villages in eight provinces (Anhui, Jilin, Jiangsu, Henan, Hunan, Shanxi, Sichuan and Zhejiang) that were surveyed over the 17-year period, with an average of 6305 households surveyed per year. Depending on village size, between 40 and 120 households were randomly surveyed in each village.

The RCRE household survey enumerates detailed household-level information on incomes and expenditures, education, labor supply, asset ownership, land holdings, savings, formal

> 8Referral through one’s social network is a common method of job search in both the developing and developed world. Carrington, Detragiache, and Vishnawath (1996) explicitly show that in a model of migration, moving costs can decline with the number of migrants over time, even if wage di¤erentials narrow between source communities and destinations. Survey-based evidence suggests that roughly 50 percent of new jobs in the US are found through referrals facilitated by social networks (Montgomery, 1991). In a study of Mexican migrants in the US, Munshi (2003) shows that having more migrants from one’s own village living in the same city increases the likelihood of employment.

15
History matters at the plot level for all measures of forest quality as it did at the forest level. Plots in forests that had more vegetation in 1990 are also of higher quality in 2013. As was true at the forest level, plots in larger forests tend to be of higher quality, adjusting for all other factors, except when measured by trees per hectare, which is not statistically significant. Sal forests are estimated to have more carbon, trees and seedlings per hectare, probably reflecting the greater primary productivity of those ecosystems. Hill plots have more trees and seedlings per hectare than the _Terai_ , but an extra meter of plot altitude is estimated to result in 16-20 fewer kilograms of carbon and about the same fewer seedlings per hectare.

Plots governed by forest user groups with more households (i.e. larger groups) have more trees per hectare and more crown cover. As was true at the forest level as well, Forestperhh is not a significant determinant of forest quality in any model. These results again suggest that population pressure is not an important factor and if anything the effects of population are positive. Other variables are estimated to be significant on idiosyncratic bases.

Plot level propensity score matching models presented in Table 16 confirm the results at the forest level and also the panel-by-plot random effects estimates, but due to the larger sample sizes and details on plot characteristics (aspect, soil type and color, sal forest, etc.) these models offer more precise estimates.<sup>18</sup>

> 18 As discussed above and detailed in the Appendix, NCFs were chosen to match with CFs sampled by MoFSC (2013).  There was therefore no trouble balancing all blocks.  Plots within forests, where much more heterogeneity exists and which were sampled randomly, were more difficult to match.  While at the forest levels all exogenous variables could be used to estimate the CF dummy and CanIDFUGyear propensity scores, to obtain balance only the following variables were used in the plot level propensity score estimations:  NDVI_1990 Sal forest dummy and clay/loam soil dummy.

**33 |** P a g e
will analyze them in more detail.

# **4.2 Other variables and data restrictions**

In order to take into account other sources of variation that might be correlated with distance to the libraries, we take into account variables that the literature has identified as key determinants of the quality of education. Variables used to control for institutional characteristics come from the C600 (a registry of students and school staff) and C100 (a registry of school infrastructure) from the Ministry of Education. Neighborhood controls are derived from the General Population Census of 2005 conducted by DANE (national statistics department). The relationship of these variables to our measures of quality of education is described in Table 3.

Though C100 information is only available starting from 2002, it provides valuable information on the physical infrastructure of schools. It includes data on sports facilities, the presence of a school library and a measure of the quality of educational assets, a dummy which is one if the school has simultaneously computer, physics and chemistry labs. From the C600 form we introduce several time-varying variables per school which are related to the supply-side of quality of education. First, we take into account the number of students per school in a logarithmic scale and the teacher-pupil ratio of the school. Larger schools are correlated with better results. To provide us with an idea of the overall quality of the facilities, we include the area in squared meters of classrooms and sport facilities per student. We also take into account the proportion of teachers with a graduate degree as a proxy of their human capital. As the public sector incentivizes the concentration of teachers with more qualifications, its relationship with quality seems to be negative as described by N ́u ̃nez et al. (2002). Gender differences might be relevant, so we include the proportion of female students and teachers. Finally, we include some controls specific to the examined cohort: its size and the ratio of female test-takers. This data were cleaned by removing schools with a teacher-student ratio greater than 0.5 (one teacher for every two students) or equal to 0 (no teacher to student) as these ratios indicate that the data may contain errors.

Finally, neighborhood-level controls are available at the census block level from 2005. We averaged the information of the blocks which were at least 50 meters from the school.

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# **Table 4**

## Present and Initial Size of Sample Garment Firms, by Period of Founding

|Period of Foundin|g|Prese|nt Size (|Numb|er<br>of W|orkers)||_Averag_|_e Slze_|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|and Initial Size|<20|20-49|50-74|75-9|9 100-|200 >200|All|Start|**_Now_**|
|Pre-1980||||||||||
|Initial. Size||||||||||
|<5||1|1|2|1||5|2.4|86|
|5-9||2|2||1||5<br>|7.6|80|
|10-20|||1|2|1|1|5|14|177|
|>20||||||2|2|25.5|775|
|na||||||2|2|NA|650|
|**Al1 **||3|4|4|3|5|19|<br>10|240|
|1980-84||||||||||
|Initial Size||||||||||
|**c5**|3|2|1|1|1||8|2.6|56|
|5-9||4|1||||5|7|59|
|10-20|||1||||1|10|35|
|>20||1|||1|1|3|36.7|143|
|na||1|1||||2|na|44|
|**Al1**|3|9|3|1|2|1|19|<br>10.4|68.6|
|**1987-1992**||||||||||
|InitialSize||||||||||
|<5|2||||||2|2.5|6|
|5-9||2|1||||3|7|36|
|10-20||1||||1|2|13|64|
|>20|||||1||1|120|150|
|na|||1||||1|na|35|
|All,|3|3|1|0|2|0|9|21.5|**48.2**|
|All||||||||||
|Initial Size||||||||||
|<5|5|3|2|3|2||15|2.53|60|
|5-9||8|4|0|1||13|<br>7.2|62|
|10-20|1|<br>1|1|2|2|1|8|13.2|5 131|

**35**
COST RECOVERY, EQUITY, AND EFFICIENCY IN WATER TARIFFS IN AFRICA

**Figure 6. Utilities meeting cost-recovery thresholds**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 3.5<br>3<br>2.5<br>2<br>1.5<br>1 $0.8/m<br>$0.4/m<br>0.5<br>0<br>0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50<br>Utility<br>At 4m 3 , % of utilities meeting<br> GWI O&M cost ($0.4/m 3 ) 58 (26)<br> AICD O&M cost (utility specific) 53 (20)<br> GWI capital cost ($0.4/m 3 ) 29 (13)<br>At 10m 3 , % of utilities meeting<br> GWI O&M cost ($0.4/m 3 ) 36 (16)<br> AICD O&M cost (utility specific) 34 (13)<br> GWI capital cost ($0.4/m 3 ) 9 (4)<br>At 40m 3 , % of utilities meeting<br> GWI O&M cost ($0.4/m 3 ) 64 (29)<br> AICD O&M cost (utility specific) 58 (22)<br> GWI capital cost ($0.4/m 3 ) 20 (9)<br>Effective Tariff at 10m3<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source:_ AICD WSS Survey Database, 2007.

# 4 Do tariffs provide efficient price signals?

An efficient tariff structure involves setting prices that signal the marginal benefits of water use to consumers. Prices should therefore encompass not only financial costs, but also the externalities that the use of water imposes on the economy and environment. A well-designed, efficient tariff guarantees the highest aggregate benefits for the marginal cost of supplying water (Whittington, Boland, and Foster, 2002).

The efficiency of tariff structures is evident from a number of attributes. First, metering that precisely estimates water use encourages frugality. The official estimates of metering are relatively high in African utilities, with many reporting more than 90 percent metering in their service areas. But the extent of functioning and the evidence of meter tampering are not known. Second, fixed-fee or minimum consumption charges are applicable in half the water utilities in Africa, and usually complemented by a volumetric charge. This fixed fee can usually vary from $1 to $4 per month irrespective of the volume of water used. While the volumetric charge is dependent on water consumption, the fixed fee does not provide any incentive to consumers to be frugal in water use. Fixed charges, operated in an era of increasing water use—often associated with rising population and incomes—can lead to stagnation of revenues, with a consequent impact on efficient utility functioning (Whittington, Boland, and Foster, 2002). Third, the IBT structures achieve efficiency by meeting the long-run marginal cost (LRMC) at the 13
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principle of withholding, and in fact has been characterized as a 'form of withholding" intended to implement a retail (or other) sales tax more efficiently. Under the commonly used invoice system of administering the value-added tax, a taxpayer at any stage in the production process credits his tax paid on the prior stage against his own collections of VAT. The difference i. paid to Government. In theory each taxpayer should have i strong interest in proving that VAT has been paid at the prior stage--hence the self-checking nature of the tax. Although economists have been intrigued with this self-checking mechanism, the tax in practice is far from self-enforcing; evasion occurs because **at** the retail stage the tax **Is** not self-checking. In addition, taxpayers have a coson interest In avoiding the tax altogether, and legal exemptions open up channels of evasion.

Row can a VAT be administered successfully in developing countries? 1/ An important requirement for successful VAT administration is to structure the tax to minimize problems of implementation. From the administrative point of view a single rate is highly desirable; if necessary, the VAT can be supplemented with selective consumption taxes to reduce regressivity. Despite Initial skepticism about high VAT rates, experience (e.g., in Brazil and Chile) has shown that rates in the neighborhood of 18 to 20 percent can be enforced. Exemptions complicate VAT administration because the distinction between what is exempt and what is taxed is often tenuous or 1/ See Casanegra de Jantscher, Milka, 'Problems of Administering a Value-Added Tax In Developing Countries," International Monetary Fund, VP/86/15.
_to be much more strongly related to precipitation changes than to temperature changes ...[]. There are some more subtle patterns, however. In large parts of eastern Europe, European Russia, central Canada ...[], and California ...[], a major—and unprecedented—shift in stream flow from spring to winter has been associated not only with a change in precipitation totals but more particularly with a rise in temperature: Precipitation has fallen as rain, rather than snow, and therefore has reached rivers more rapidly than before. In cold regions, such as northern Siberia and northern Canada, a recent increase in temperature has had little effect on flow timing because precipitation continues to fall as snow ...[].”_ IPCC (2001:Section 4.3.6.1)

# However, the IPCC (2001:Section 4.3.6.1) concludes that:

_“...it is very difficult to identify trends in the available hydrological data, for several reasons. Records tend to be short, and many data sets come from catchments with a long history of human intervention. Variability over time in hydrological behavior is very high, particularly in drier environments, and detection of any signal is difficult. Variability arising from low-frequency climatic rhythms is increasingly recognized, and researchers looking for trends need to correct for these patterns. Finally, land-use and other changes are continuing in many catchments, with effects that may outweigh any climatic trends.”_ Specifically, not all river basins are affected by climate in the same way. Differences have been observed both within a given country or even a state. (Miller, Bashford and Strem (2006), for example, study 6 basins in Central-Northern California. While the trend of the impact of the various future climate scenarios on the 6 water systems is similar, it is evident that the six basins are different in their level of sensitivity to the same expected changes in temperature and precipitation.

A comparison between 5 international river basins (the Nile, Zambezi, Indus, Mekong, and Uruguay) in Riebsame et al. (2002) suggests that basins in drier regions (e.g., Nile, Zambezi) 6
The analysis of bindings on tariffied agricultural protection in the industrial countries indicate that the degree of liberalization achieved was modest in most commodities. An exception is Japan, where significant reductions in protection were achieved from very high historical levels. In other OECD countries, the UR results indicate that protection in the EU would increase substantially for a number of commodities if domestic prices are raised by the end of the implementation period to the levels indicated by the EU's ad-valorem tariff equivalents. If the EU applies the maximum specific tariffs in the Schedules, the estimated post-UR ad-valorem tariff equivalents in 1995 indicate significant potential increases in protection in major commodities relative to recent levels and relative to the average protection in 1979-93.

For developing countries, the UR negotiations provided the opportunity to increase their integration into the international trading system. Several developing countries in East and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Middle East reduced protection in some commodities and chose to lock in previous unilateral reforms. However, most countries in Africa (except South Africa) and South Asia did not use the Round to consolidate domestic efforts at trade reform, with many countries making no substantial liberalization commitments on border protection. In general, the agricultural agreement left many developing country distortions outside of its discipline, such as state-trading monopolies and policies that tax agriculture either explicitly by taxing exports or by maintaining domestic prices below world prices or implicitly by providing higher protection to industry. There is no additional provision to enhance transparency in the belhavior of state trading enterprises for either importing or exporting through these agencies. This will likely be an important area of trade distortion for developing countries, not only for present participants but also for those seeking membership to the WTO, particularly China, and the countries of the former Soviet Union where state trading still dominate trade in agriculture. The lack of effective control over the actions of state-trading monopolies or effective discipline on resale prices weakens or eliminates the effects of lower tariffs. In a few cascs, bilateral agreements provide bindings on mark-ups on resale prices as in the case of 53