rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Gender and Tax Incidence of Rural
            Land Use Fee and Agricultural Income Tax in Ethiopia
The rural land use fee and agricultural
            income tax are major payments for rural landholders in
            Ethiopia. This paper examines the gender implications of
            these taxes using tax payment and individual land ownership
            data from the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey 2018/2019. It
            finds that the rural land use fee and agricultural income
            tax, which are assessed on the area of landholdings, are
            regressive. Female-headed- and female adult-only households
            bear a larger tax burden than male-headed and dual-adult
            households. Norms limiting women’s role in agriculture and
            gender agricultural productivity gaps are likely to result
            in lower consumption and accordingly, a higher tax burden
            for female-headed households than for male-headed
            households. Reducing the tax rates for smallholders can
            diminish the gender difference in tax burdens, but the tax
            continues to be regressive. This highlights the difficulty
            of area-based land taxes to be vertically equitable.
What Makes a Program Good ? Evidence
            from Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs in Latin America
            and the Caribbean
Short-cycle higher education programs
            (SCPs) can play a central role in skill development and
            higher education expansion, yet their quality varies greatly
            within and among countries. This paper explores the
            relationship between programs&#x2019; practices and
            inputs (quality determinants) and student academic and labor
            market outcomes. It designs and conduct a novel survey to
            collect program-level information on quality determinants
            and average outcomes for Brazil, Colombia, Dominican
            Republic, Ecuador, and Peru. Categories of quality
            determinants include training and curriculum,
            infrastructure, faculty, link with productive sector, costs
            and funding, and practices on student admission and
            institutional governance. The paper also collects
            administrative, student-level data on higher education and
            formal employment for SCP students in Brazil and Ecuador and
            match it to survey data. Machine learning methods are used
            to select the quality determinants that predict outcomes at
            the program and student levels. Estimates indicate that some
            quality determinants may favor academic and labor market
            outcomes while others may hinder them. Two practices predict
            improvements in all labor market outcomes in Brazil and
            Ecuador&#x2014;teaching numerical competencies and
            providing job market information&#x2014;and one
            practice&#x2014;teaching numerical
            competencies&#x2014;additionally predicts improvements
            in labor market outcomes for all survey countries. Since
            quality determinants account for 20-40 percent of the
            explained variation in student-level outcomes, quality
            determinants might have a role shrinking program quality
            gaps. Findings have implications for the design and
            replication of high-quality SCPs, their regulation, and the
            development of information systems.
Estimating the Impact of Improved
            Roads on Access to Health Care : Evidence from Mozambique
The paper recasts light on the linkage
            between transport infrastructure and human capital
            development. Health care access is an important challenge in
            many developing countries. In particular in remote rural
            areas, it is not easy to access good quality health care
            services. Among others, transport connectivity is often an
            important constraint. The paper estimates the impact of
            transport connectivity on access to health care services in
            Mozambique, especially focused on people’s decision about
            whether they visit and ask for advice at a health facility
            if they have a fever. This is a critical question in
            Mozambique where malaria is still a life-threatening
            disease. About three-quarters of the total population does
            not have access to health facilities by walking. The paper
            shows that transport connectivity to health facilities is a
            significant determinant of people’s health care access.
            Owning transport means, such as a bike or a motorcycle, is
            also instrumental to promoting people’s access to health
            care. The rich are more likely to benefit from health care
            services, suggesting a need for other complementary
            policies, such as a health care subsidy and insurance, to
            improve health care accessibility.
Flood Protection and Land Value
            Creation - Not All Resilience Investments Are Created Equal
This paper investigates the land value
            creation potential from flood mitigation investments in a
            theoretical and applied setting, using the urban area of
            Buenos Aires as a case study. It contributes to the
            literature on the wider economic benefits of government
            interventions and the dividends of resilience investments.
            Using a simple urban economics framework that represents
            land and housing markets, it finds that not all flood
            mitigation interventions display the same potential for land
            value creation: where land is more valuable (city centers
            for example), the benefits of resilience are higher. The
            paper also provides ranges for land value creation potential
            from the flood mitigation works in Buenos Aires under
            various model specifications. Although the estimates vary
            largely depending on model parameters and specifications, in
            many cases the land value creation would be sufficient to
            justify the investments. This result is robust even in the
            closed city configuration with conservative flood damage
            estimates, providing that the parameters remain reasonably
            close to the values obtained from the calibration. Finally,
            acknowledging that fully calibrating and running an urban
            simulation model is data greedy and time intensive—even a
            simple model as proposed here—this research also proposes
            reduced form expressions that can provide approximations for
            land value creation from flood mitigation investments and
            can be used in operational contexts.
Spatial Heterogeneity of COVID-19
            Impacts on Urban Household Incomes : Between- and
            Within-City Evidence from Two African Countries
This paper examines spatial
            heterogeneity in the impacts of the early days of the
            COVID-19 pandemic on urban household incomes in Ethiopia and
            Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Combining new panel
            household surveys with spatial data, the fixed-effects
            regression analysis for Ethiopia finds that households in
            large and densely populated towns were more likely to lose
            their labor incomes in the early phase of the pandemic, and
            their recovery was slower than other households.
            Disadvantaged groups, such as female, low-skilled,
            self-employed, and poor, particularly suffered in those
            towns. In Kinshasa, labor income-mobility elasticities are
            higher among workers—particularly female and/or low-skilled
            workers—who live in areas that are located farther from the
            city core area or highly dense and precarious neighborhoods.
            The between- and within-city evidence from two Sub-Saharan
            African countries points to the spatial heterogeneity of
            COVID-19 impacts, implying the critical role of mobility and
            accessibility in urban agglomerations.
The Anatomy of Index Rebalancings :
            Evidence from Transaction Data
This paper exploits a novel dataset
            covering the universe of transactions in the Colombian Stock
            Exchange to analyze episodes of additions to and deletions
            from MSCI equity indexes. The analysis finds that additions
            and deletions have large price effects: the median
            cumulative abnormal return in absolute value is 5.5 percent.
            The paper shows that these price effects are due to large
            demand shocks by different classes of international
            investors—not only passive funds and ETFs, but also active
            mutual funds, pension funds and government funds—which are
            not absorbed by arbitrageurs. Consistent with recent asset
            pricing models with limits to arbitrage, stock demand curves
            are estimated to be very inelastic: the demand elasticity
            for the median stock in the sample is −0.34, implying that a
            1 percent increase in the demand for the stock increases its
            price by 2.9 percent.
Changing Perceptions of Institutions
            and Standard of Living in Iraq
The history of Iraq over the past decade
            is a stark example of increasing vertical and horizontal
            inequalities, preceding and following a period of violent
            conflict. This paper uses a cross-section of
            individual-level nationally representative survey data to
            study relationships around how adults in Iraq report
            confidence in national institutions, quality of life, and
            quality of service delivery. The findings show that positive
            perceptions across these categories declined during
            ISIS-control and have slowly picked up in recent years. Men
            are more likely than women in the post-ISIS period to report
            lower country leadership approval ratings, a weaker standard
            of living, and depressed job prospects. The analysis finds
            that self-identified Shias, Kurds, and adults living in
            Baghdad are significantly more likely to have a poorer
            quality of life, compared with Sunnis, in the post-ISIS
            period. Nearly all ethno-religious groups, in all periods,
            perceive the government to be corrupt.
Patterns of Labor Market Adjustment
            to Trade Shocks with Imperfect Capital Mobility
This paper explores how different
            investment frictions affect the patterns of responses of
            labor markets to tariff cuts. To investigate these patterns,
            this paper formulates a multi-sector dynamic model featuring
            capital and labor adjustment costs that is fitted to
            Argentine data. Counterfactual simulations of a tariff
            decline in the textile sector are used to show that capital
            adjustment can create long-run responses of real wages that
            are larger than the short-run responses. This happens as
            textile firms disinvest during the transition. This paper
            also shows that the reduction of tariffs on capital inputs
            boosts investment and real wages across sectors. This paper
            assesses the nature of capital adjustment costs, including
            fixed, convex, and irreversibility costs in determining
            these patterns of labor market responses to trade reforms.
Gender Discrimination in Hiring :
            Evidence from an Audit Experiment in Uzbekistan
This paper studies gender discrimination
            in hiring through an experiment that randomly assigned
            fictitious resumes to job advertisements in Uzbekistan. The
            experiment focused on positions commonly advertised in the
            local context, such as accountants, office managers,
            information technology specialists, welders, call center
            operators, and drivers in the capital city. With the single
            exception of the applicant’s gender (signaled by the
            person’s name), the resumes were identical within each job
            category. The study finds strong evidence of prevalent and
            economically significant gender discrimination in response
            rates. Despite identical qualifications, we find that in
            female-dominated professions, women were 185 percent more
            likely to get a callback than men, and in male-dominated
            professions, men were 79 percent more likely to get a
            callback than women. The findings suggest strong gender
            discrimination in hiring practices in Uzbekistan.
Economic Consequences of Trade and
            Global Value Chain Integration : A Measurement Perspective
This paper presents a new approach to
            measuring Global Value Chain (GVC) participation, essential
            for informed policy-making. It introduces a tripartite
            classification of GVC involvement&#x2014;backward,
            forward, and two-sided&#x2014;extending beyond trade to
            include production data. GVCs, vital for global economic
            growth, are networks through which companies internationally
            produce goods and services. The advanced framework
            accurately assesses how different combinations of domestic
            output, trade, and GVC integration correlate with growth and
            output stability. The paper finds that traditional
            trade-based GVC metrics significantly underestimate global
            GVC activity and misrepresent participation in key sectors
            like services and upstream manufacturing. They also
            exaggerate risks during critical stages like early trade
            liberalization in large economies. Additionally, it shows
            that traditional backward-forward classifications
            overestimate backward linkages. The new metrics, applied to
            established models, effectively predict trade disruption
            impacts, indicating that GVC participation increases
            exposure to external shocks but also enhances overall output
            stability by mitigating local shocks. Furthermore, GVC
            participation is a key driver of the positive trade-income
            growth correlation. The complete dataset of these new
            measures is available on the World Bank&#x2019;s WITS
            Platform, and it is regularly updated, providing a key
            resource for GVC analysis.
Education Quality, Green Technology,
            and the Economic Impact of Carbon Pricing
Carbon pricing is increasingly used by
            governments to reduce emissions. The effect of carbon
            pricing on economic outcomes as well as mitigating factors
            has been studied extensively since the early 1990s. One
            mitigating factor that has received less attention is
            education quality. If technological change that reduces the
            reliance of production on emissions is skill-biased, then
            carbon pricing may increase the skill premium of earnings
            and subsequent wage inequality; however, a more elastic
            skill supply through better education quality may mitigate
            adverse economic outcomes, including wage inequality, and
            enhance the effect of carbon pricing on technological change
            and subsequently emissions. A general equilibrium,
            overlapping-generations model is proposed, with endogenous
            skill investment in which the average skill level of the
            workforce can affect the need for emissions in an aggregate
            production function. This study uses data on industrial
            emissions linked to the Organisation for Economic
            Co-operation and Development&#x2019;s Programme for
            International Assessment of Adult Competencies dataset for
            European Union countries. The findings show that, within
            countries, cognitive skills are positively associated with
            employment in industries that rely less on emissions for
            production and in industries that, over time, have been able
            to reduce their reliance on emissions for production. In the
            estimated general equilibrium model, higher cognitive skills
            reduce an economy&#x2019;s reliance on emissions for
            production. Having higher quality
            education&#x2014;defined as the level of cognitive
            skills attained by workers per unit of
            cost&#x2014;increases the elasticity of skill supply
            and, as a result, mitigates a carbon tax&#x2019;s
            economic costs including output loss and wage inequity, and
            enhances its effect on emissions reduction. The implication
            is that investments in education quality are needed for
            better enabling green technological innovation and
            adaptation and reducing inequality that results from carbon pricing.
A Multi-Country Analysis of
            Multidimensional Poverty in Contexts of Forced Displacement
Despite the many simultaneous
            deprivations faced by forcibly displaced communities, such
            as food insecurity, inadequate housing, or lack of access to
            education, there is little research on the level and
            composition of multidimensional poverty among them, and how
            it might differ from that of host communities. Relying on
            household survey data from selected areas of Ethiopia,
            Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, this paper
            proposes a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) that
            captures the overlapping deprivations experienced by poor
            individuals in contexts of displacement. Using the MPI, the
            paper presents multi-country descriptive analysis to explore
            the relationships between multidimensional poverty,
            displacement status, and gender of the household head. The
            results reveal significant differences across displaced and
            host communities in all countries except Nigeria. In
            Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Sudan, female-headed households
            have higher MPIs, while in Somalia, those living in
            male-headed households are more likely to be identified as
            multidimensionally poor. Lastly, the paper examines
            mismatches and overlaps in the identification of the poor by
            the MPI and the $1.90/day poverty line, confirming the need
            for complementary measures when assessing deprivations among
            people in contexts of displacement.
Can Grit Be Taught Lessons from a
            Nationwide Field Experiment with Middle-School Students
This paper studies whether a particular
            socio-emotional skill —grit (the ability to sustain effort
            and interest toward long-term goals)—can be cultivated and
            how this affects student learning. The paper implements, as
            a randomized controlled trial, a nationwide low-cost
            intervention designed to foster grit and self-regulation
            among sixth and seventh grade students in primary schools in
            North Macedonia (about 33,000 students across 350 schools).
            Students exposed to the intervention report improvements in
            self-regulation, in particular the perseverance-of-effort
            facet of grit, relative to students in a control condition.
            The impacts on students are larger when both students and
            teachers are exposed to the curriculum than when only
            students are treated. Among disadvantaged students, the
            study also finds positive impacts on grade point averages,
            with gains of up to 28 percent of a standard deviation one
            year post-treatment. However, the findings also point toward
            a potential downside: although the intervention made
            students more perseverant and industrious, there is some
            evidence that it may have reduced consistency in their
            interests over time.
Assessing the Affordability of
            Nutrient-Adequate Diets
The affordability of nutritious diets is
            increasingly used as a metric of how well a food system
            provides access to nutritious diets for all. Recent work on
            least-cost diets has focused on individuals, while most food
            and anti-poverty programs and policies target the household
            level. Members within households have differing nutritional
            needs, presenting the methodological question: how should
            the cost of nutritious diets be estimated at the household
            level? This study develops bounds on the cost,
            affordability, and seasonal variation of least-cost diets
            for whole households, illustrated with the example of
            Malawi. When intrahousehold sharing is not possible to
            observe, the bounded approach provides insights into the
            range of the cost and affordability, and the extent to which
            the cost may vary seasonally. The results reveal that when
            meals are shared, ignoring demographic diversity within
            households greatly underestimates the affordability of
            adequate diets.
Profiling Living Conditions of the
            DRC Urban Population : Access to Housing and Services in
            Kinshasa Province
This paper examines living
            conditions&#x2014;mainly access to infrastructure and
            basic services&#x2014;in Kinshasa, by focusing on how
            they vary within the city and how they are related to
            household characteristics. First, drawing on a household
            survey conducted in the capital province in 2018, the paper
            shows that many Kinshasa residents live with substandard
            housing and inadequate levels of access to infrastructure
            and basic services. Second, the level and quality of access
            to basic services are highly correlated with
            residents&#x2019; consumption and education levels, as
            well as their neighborhood characteristics. Third, despite
            the presence of negative externalities from the high
            population density, poor households benefit from living in
            dense neighborhoods by gaining a minimum level of access.
            The paper argues that it is imperative to increase the
            supply of affordable housing to lessen the inequality of
            access to services in Kinshasa.