rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Macroeconomic management and
            intergovernmental relations in China
Over the past 15 years, China has
            gradually moved from a highly centralized to a decentralized
            system in almost all aspects of economic management.
            Decentralization has changed the role of each level of
            government in economic management, and has greatly
            complicated the relations between levels of government. The
            author analyzes three aspects of intergovernmental relations
            and their impact on macroeconomic management and market
            development, and suggests the implications for future
            reform. He addresses three main questions. First, how do
            fiscal relations between the central and local government
            affect the central government's ability to use fiscal
            policy to achieve stabilization and equalization? Localities
            have controlled effective tax rates and tax bases in two
            ways: they controlled tax collection by offering tax
            concessions, and they found ways to shift budgetary funds to
            extrabudgetary funds, thus avoiding tax-sharing with the
            central government. As a result, the center has had to
            resort to ad hoc instruments to influence revenue
            remittances from local areas, which caused perverse
            reactions. Second, how do monetary relations between the two
            levels of government affect the central bank's ability
            to control the money supply? In the past 14 years, the
            economy has overheated several times because of an excessive
            money supply. The author argues that blame for this should
            be assigned not to the central bank, but to the
            institutional structure of monetary relations between the
            central and local governments. The main source of trouble is
            the central government's inability to commit to a
            preannounced credit policy. How does the division of
            regulatory power between the central and local governments
            affect the functioning of the market system? As the central
            government relaxed its control over the economy, local
            governments used the powers transferred to them to restrict
            market competition. What is needed is a legal framework
            (including a fair trade commission) that restricts local
            governments' ability to abuse power.
Restructuring Uganda's debt :
            the commercial debt buy - back operation
Uganda's commercial debt buy-back
            operation was financed by the International Development
            Association's Debt Reduction Facility (IDA Facility),
            with cofinancing from the governments of Germany, the
            Netherlands, and Switzerland and the European Union.
            Commercial debt service is a serious burden to many
            low-income economies. Yet, although the IDA Facility has
            existed since 1989, only a handful of countries have been
            able to avail themselves of its resources. That is not
            altogether surprising: commercial debt buy-backs can be
            extremely complex, requiring substantial preparation for a
            well-articulated external debt strategy based on
            comprehensive data. One objective in describing
            Uganda's operation is to discuss the requirements of
            the IDA Facility and to shed light on how Uganda satisfied
            them and on which areas needed special attention.
            Uganda's offer to buy back its uninsured commercial
            debt at a discout of 88 percent of face value was extremely
            successful. Of the total eligible debt of US $188 million,
            Uganda bought back debt worth US $153 million, reflecting a
            participation rate by creditors of 80 percent. As a result,
            most of Uganda's commercial debt has been eliminated.
            The remaining commercial obligations accrue to creditors
            that either have work in progress or that hold some form of
            security or collateral for their claims. Uganda's debt
            problems are far from resolved. Much of the country's
            Paris Club debt is ineligible for rescheduling because it
            was contracted after the cutoff date. Arrears owed to
            non-OECD bilateral creditors have continued to mount, as
            these creditors have resisted restructuring Uganda's
            obligations to them. And servicing that part of multilateral
            debt that is nonconcessional or less concessional also is a
            burden. Resolving Uganda's external debt problem will
            require concerted action on several fronts: 1) continued
            economic reform; 2) vigorous pursuit of export
            diversification and growth; and 3) no letup in seeking
            creative ways to restructure the debt portfolio. Uganda must
            find grant funding wherever possible, or contract only the
            most concessional debt.
Firm behavior and the labor market
            in the Hungarian transition
The authors describe the main changes in
            the Hungarian labor market since 1989.  They focus
            especially on changes in behavior in state and privatized
            firms, since the shedding and restructuring of labor are at
            the heart of the transition.  They describe five types of
            firms: 1) state firms (often in bad shape and/or natural
            monopolies); 2) firms privatized by insiders; 3) firms
            privatized by outside (but domestic) investors; 4) new
            small-scale ("de novo") private firms.  The state
            and de novo firms are increasingly outside the tax system -
            the state firms by de facto tax exemptions, the de novo
            firms through tax evasion.  As the de novo sector grows, the
            effective tax yield will tend to fall, shifting the tax
            burden to the other three types of firms.  Subsidizing the
            growth of the private sector may have been desirable
            initially, but it is dynamically undesirable.  It is
            important to change the distribution of the tax burden,
            while setting tax rates that enhance the growth of labor.
            The type of growth seen in the last four years is probably
            not sustainable.  With tax evasion high, average payroll
            taxes in the taxable sector have until recently risen
            sharply.  Social insurance spending and other labor taxes
            represented about 34 percent of hourly compensation costs in
            1992 - significantly more proportionately than in OECD and
            most transition economies. And high contribution rates
            together with apparent real wage rigidity have depressed the
            rate of job creation in the taxed sectors.  Wage levels are
            lower than in neighboring countries but higher than in other
            transition economies.  Despite adverse shocks to output and
            employment, consumption wages have risen slightly and unit
            labor costs have clearly increased.  The authors emphasize
            the continuing loss of employment and its changing
            distribution in terms of ownership, sector, and taxation -
            as well as associated changes in unemployment that have
            resulted from the asymmetric paths of the state and private sectors.
Distributive concerns when replacing
            a pay-as-you-go system with a fully funded system
The author uses a simulation model to
            quantify the impact on income distribution of having a
            neutral social security program that is fully funded replace
            a progressive social security program that redistributes
            income toward the poor but is financed by a pay-as-you-go
            method. He finds that if the original pay-as-you-go system
            is large enough to yield an income replacement rate of at
            least 40 percent for the middle class and 200 percent for
            the poor, then the proposed change helps the poor in the
            long run, so long as public debt does not increase by more
            than 40 percent of GDP during the transition. Such a reform
            allows an increase in the capital stock per worker, so in
            the long run the poor benefit more through higher real wages
            than they lose because progressive redistribution has ended.
            In the short run, however, a compensatory program is needed
            because the poor lose their subsidy before receiving the
            long-term benefit. In most cases, the 40 percent of GDP
            available from the increase in public debt is enough to
            finance a transfer program that compensates the poor in the
            "short" run (the first 50 years). The author
            concludes that concern about the welfare of the poor is
            unwarranted, in both the short and long runs, if the
            compensatory program is implemented.
Brazil's sugarcane sector : a
            case of lost opportunity
The Brazilian sugar and ethanol story
            goes like this: direct market intervention overrides market
            forces.  Markets undergo dramatic change.  Intervention
            establishes vested interests.  Rent-seeking blocks
            adjustment to market change.  Economic objectives become
            blurred behind political objectives.  Opportunities go
            begging.  Industry profitability suffers.  And national
            income is forgone.  The authors use a simple economic model
            of the Brazilian sugarcane sector and policy interventions
            to measure the costs of existing policies and to develop
            better policies.  Brazil is an efficient producer of sugar,
            but policy intervention has caused: (a) underproduction of
            sugar cane (too much ethanol, not enough sugar); (b) missed
            opportunities to market ethanol in high-value uses (as an
            octane enhancer and clean fuel); (c)missed opportunities to
            make the world sugar market more competitive.  Adopting more
            market-based policies could be worth billions of additional
            dollars annually to Brazil.
Quality change and other influences
            on measures of export prices of manufactured goods
Measures of long-term trends in world
            export prices for manufactured goods, and in the terms of
            trade between manufactured goods and primary products, are
            sensitive to many choices in methods for weighting indexes,
            base periods, and (most important) changes in quality. For
            example: 1) wieghting products by their importance in
            exports to developing countries, rather than by their
            importance in exports to all countries, reduces the
            estimated rate of increase in prices for manufactured goods
            by about 0.1 or 0.2 percentage points a year; 2) a shift in
            weights from those of an early year (1963) to those of a
            recent year (1986) reduces the rate of increase in prices by
            about a third of a percentage point a year; 3) export price
            indexes with weights of Japanese exports grow about 0.2 to
            0.4 percentage points a year less than one weighted by the
            U.S. export composition, with the larger difference for
            indexes based on 1963 weights; 4) adjusting the price index
            for exports of machinery and transport equipment for quality
            changes not accounted for in the price indexes reduces the
            rate of increase for those products by about one percentage
            point a year, and that adjustment for only those products
            reduces the estimated rate of increase in prices for all
            manufactures by about half a percentage point a year.
            Conservative estimates of the bias in the most commonly used
            measure of export prices of manufactured products - the U.N.
            export unit value index for manufactures - suggest that this
            measure overstates the long-run rise in prices for
            manufactured goods by more than half a percentage point a
            year, probably one percentage point or more. If so, there
            has been no long-term trend toward the prices of
            manufactured goods rising faster that prices for primary
            products. However, no conceivable estimate of bias in
            measures of prices for manufactured goods would reverse the
            picture of declining relative prices for primary products in
            the 1980s.
Modernizing payment systems in
            emerging economies
The authors address the following
            questions in this overview of payment systems: What is a
            payment system? How can efficient systems contribute to the
            development of modern, market-based financial institutions
            and markets? What elements are necessary for payment systems
            to operate efficiently? What are the operational
            characteristics of a modern payment system? What is the
            World Bank approach to selected payment system initiatives,
            design, and development? Effective, efficient payment
            systems, they conclude, are vital for the economic
            development of emerging economies. Efficient payment systems
            help promote the development of commerce, enhance economic
            policy oversight, control the risk inherent in moving large
            values, and reduce the financial, capital and human
            resources devoted to the transfer of payments. Many emerging
            economies lack the financial and technical resources to
            develop such systems. Many turn technical resources to
            develop such systems. Many turn to the World Bank and other
            international agencies for assistance. Unfortunately, some
            believe that the entire solution for an effective payment
            system rests in obtaining modern computer hardware and
            believe the World Bank's sole contribution is to
            finance hardware costs. Hardware procurement alone will not
            solve problems of payment systems. These countries need
            organizational plans and structure for national payment
            systems before they spend money on computer equipment. They
            often lack the expertise to design and operate modern
            payment systems, so they may need technical assistance from
            financial experts before they invest in systems development.
            The design of a new payment system should be kept simple.
            Many emerging economies lack the infrastructure and banking
            sophistication to leapfrog from basic to state-of-the-art
            payment systems. The first task is to fix the most serious
            problems. The second is to upgrade the current systems
            incrementally, to meet basic standards of timeliness,
            security, and reliability. As these improvements are made,
            the countries can turn their attention to long-term,
            advanced solutions. Each country's payments system is
            unique. To simply import another country's system
            without adjusting for the target country's geography,
            infrastructure, banking and legal structures, culture, and
            needs could lead to suboptimal solutions. Development of the
            system should follow a disciplined plan for defining the
            needs of users and for organizing the project team and
            project goals.
Voucher funds in transitional
            economies : the Czech and Slovak experience
Voucher funds have arisen in the
            transitional economies of Eastern and Central Europe that
            have used voucher privatization. These funds collect
            vouchers from citizens and use them to buy shares in
            enterprises. In the Czech and Slovak Republics, voucher
            funds are typically organized as corporations owned by the
            citizens who contributed their vouchers. Recently, they have
            also been organized as unit trusts (either open-ended or
            closed). A management company manages the funds under a
            contract that specifies the management fee. The management
            company is typically owned by the initial sponsor of the
            fund - for example, a bank. Voucher funds can give owners a
            diversified and professionally managed portfolio. More
            important, the funds select who sits on an enterprise's
            governance boards (which oversee management and
            profitability). Although experience is limited, the funds in
            these two countries have probably stopped most fraud and
            self-serving by enterprise mangers and are beginning to
            encourage the restructuring needed for profitability. A few
            funds have replaced poorly performing or dishonest managers;
            more often, because qualified replacements are few, they
            encourage managers to improve performance. There have been
            complaints about funds' performance. Some have made
            unrealistic promises to voucher holders and have appointed
            poorly qualified members to management boards. There is
            concern about conflicts of interest in the bank-sponsored
            funds and excessive control of enterprises. Funds typically
            lack capital or expertise to undertake restructuring - but
            few other potential owners are likely to be better
            qualified. The author examines 27 regulations that have been
            proposed for funds. Regulations in transitional economies,
            unlike regulations in most western countries, should
            encourage funds to play a strong role in corporate
            governance, he contends, as few potential owners have this
            ability. Most important, regulations should require that
            funds disclose information about their operations so their
            owners can monitor and control fund managers. The regulatory
            regime, the author says, should discourage monopolies and
            anticompetitive behavior; create incentives for fund
            managers to improve fund performance; discourage
            self-serving or fraudulent behavior by fund managers, and
            conflicts of interest; and eliminate high-risk investments
            unacceptable to fund owners. Because there is so little
            experience with these funds, the regulatory regime should
            not be unduly restrictive. As problems arise, regulations to
            deal with them can be added.
The supply response to exchange rate
            reform in sub-Saharan Africa (empirical evidence)
In the diversity of exchange rate
            regimes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the 1980s, there was
            a trend toward more flexible regimes and smaller parallels
            markets.  How particular exchange rate arrangements affect
            such factors as output supply cannot be determined for SSA
            countries on the basis of experience in other developing
            countries, because SSA countries differ in the composition
            of their exports and imports, in level of industrialization,
            and in development of the financial sector. The authors
            supplement a survey of the literature with empirical
            testing, using pooled time-series and cross-section data for
            22 countries in SSA for 1971-91.  Among their findings: (a)
            When macroeconomic policies are inconsistent and there is a
            failure to adjust to adverse shocks, fixed regimes lead to
            overvaluation and the development of widespread parallel
            markets for foreign exchange.  (b) SSA countries have
            attempted exchange-rate unification through occasional
            devaluations, a crawling peg, official dual markets, foreign
            exchange auctions, and a market pricing rule.  Most such
            experiences have been gradual, and their outcomes mixed.
            Success in exchange-rate unification (as experience in Ghana
            and Uganda shows) depends on three crucial elements:
            supportive monetary and fiscal policy, external budgetary
            and balance-of-payments support, and official commitment to
            a credible reform process.  (c) In the face of significant
            adverse real shocks (internal and external), built-in
            monetary and fiscal rules in fixed exchange rate regimes
            with currency convertibility (as in the CFA zone) may be
            inadequate to bring about the required short-term
            adjustment.  As elsewhere in the developing world, the
            effect of real devaluation on output in SSA is mixed in the
            short run (contractionary when demand elasticities are low)
            and neutral in the long-run.  Real depreciations have
            neutral effects on per capita growth of real output in the
            transition to steady state.   (d) Farm producers in SSA
            respond to price incentives for a single agricultural crop
            as farmers do elsewhere in the developing world: they behave
            rationally.  And econometric evidence confirms that growth
            in agricultural exports is not achieved at the expense of
            food production. (e) Applying the Granger-causality test to
            this data set reveals strong causality, running in both
            directions, between money growth rates and inflation.  It
            also shows causality running from output to inflation, and
            from inflation to nominal devaluation.