rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
How does bank competition affect
            systemic stability
Using bank level measures of competition
            and co-dependence, the authors show a robust positive
            relationship between bank competition and systemic
            stability. Whereas much of the extant literature has focused
            on the relationship between competition and the absolute
            level of risk of individual banks, in this paper we examine
            the correlation in the risk taking behavior of banks, hence
            systemic risk. The analysis finds that greater competition
            encourages banks to take on more diversified risks, making
            the banking system less fragile to shocks. Examining the
            impact of the institutional and regulatory environment on
            systemic stability shows that banking systems are more
            fragile in countries with weak supervision and private
            monitoring, high government ownership of banks, and in
            countries with public policies that restrict competition.
            Furthermore, lack of competition has a greater adverse
            effect on systemic stability in countries with generous
            safety nets and weak supervision.
Managing state debt and ensuring
            solvency : the Indian experience
The paper presents the policymakers
            perspective on the reforms undertaken to manage states debt
            and ensure solvency. While the sustained high growth rates
            of the Indian economy played a part in alleviating the
            interest burden on debt and ensuring that the debt does not
            grow in an explosive trajectory, major reforms were
            implemented to reverse the fiscal decline, develop fiscal
            responsibility rules to ensure sustained adjustment, and
            move toward a market-based financing of state deficits. The
            serious efforts at fiscal consolidation and institutional
            reforms have enabled states to set on the path toward fiscal
            correction. Nonetheless, weak global growth prospects and
            the risk of a further rise in global commodity and fuel
            prices could generate the dilemma of needing to compress
            expenditures for ensuring fiscal sustainability while
            simultaneously needing counter-cyclical spending to boost
            growth, and challenge the fiscal adjustment process.
Together we stand agglomeration in
            Indian manufacturing
This paper uses plant-level data to
            examine the impact of industrial and trade policy reforms on
            the geographic concentration of manufacturing industries in
            India from 1980 to 1999. First, the research shows that
            de-licensing and liberalization in foreign direct investment
            significantly reduced spatial concentration, but trade
            reforms had no significant effect on spatial concentration.
            Second, plants respond differently to policy reforms based
            on their size. Liberalization in foreign direct investment
            and de-licensing caused small plants to disperse, while
            trade liberalization had the opposite effect. However, for
            large plants trade liberalization led to lower spatial concentration.
Economy-wide implications of direct
            and indirect policy interventions in the water sector:
            lessons from recent work and future research needs
Water is increasingly becoming a
            limiting factor for sustainable economic growth and
            development in many countries. Its allocation has
            significant impacts on overall economic efficiency,
            particularly with growing physical scarcity in certain
            regions. Greater water supply variability further increases
            vulnerability in affected regions. Water also has become a
            strategic resource involving conflicts among those who may
            be affected differently by various policies. This paper
            analyzes various policy interventions aimed at improving
            water allocation decisions, using a novel approach that
            incorporates macro and micro level considerations in a
            unified analytical framework. The framework facilitates
            assessment of various linkages among policies and their
            impacts within individual sectors and economy-wide. Drawing
            on country based studies in Morocco, South Africa, Turkey,
            and Mexico, the analysis reveals difficult tradeoffs among
            various policy objectives, including priorities placed on
            different sectors, regional advantages, and general economic
            efficiency gains versus broader social impacts. The
            comparison of policy impacts demonstrates the usefulness of
            the framework in information that policy makers can use to
            rank the policy interventions according to the emphasis
            placed on different policy objectives. The paper also
            compares approaches used in other studies that apply
            computable general equilibrium models in various contexts of
            water, environment and agriculture.
General purpose
            central-provincial-local transfers (DAU) in Indonesia : from
            gap filling to ensuring fair access to essential public
            services for all
Indonesia has come a long way from
            centralized governance to decentralized local governance,
            and today Indonesia ranks among the most decentralized
            developing countries. The Government of Indonesia is
            revisiting all aspects of local governance to make
            appropriate legal and institutional adjustments based on
            lessons leaarned during the past decade. An important area
            of this re-examination and possible reform is the central
            financing of subnational expenditures. The system of
            intergovernmental finance represents one of the most complex
            systems ever implemented by any government in the world. The
            system is primarily focused on a gap-filling approach to
            provincial-local finance in an objective manner to ensure
            revenue adequacy and local autonomy but without
            accountability to local residents for service delivery
            performance. This paper takes a closer look at Dana Alokasi
            Umum -- the most dominant program of unconditional central
            transfers to finance provincial-local government
            expenditures in Indonesia. The paper also presents
            illustrative simulations of alternative programs and
            compares these with the existing Dana Alokasi Umum
            allocations. The paper concludes that super complexity leads
            to lack of transparency, inequity, and uncertainty in
            allocation. Simpler alternatives are available that have the
            potential to address autonomy and equity objectives while
            also enhancing efficiency and citizen-based accountability.
            Such alternatives would represent a move away from the
            complex gap-filling approach to simple output-based
            transfers to finance operating expenditures. Capital grants
            would deal with infrastructure deficiencies. And the
            alternatives would institute fiscal capacity equalization as
            a residual program with an explicit standard to ensure that
            all local jurisdictions have adequate means to deliver
            reasonably comparable levels of public services at
            reasonably comparable levels of tax burdens across the country.
Financial inclusion in Africa : an overview
This paper summarizes financial
            inclusion across Africa. First, it provides a brief overview
            of the African financial sector landscape. Second, it uses
            the Global Financial Inclusion Indicators (Global Findex)
            database to characterize adults in Africa that use formal
            and informal financial services and identify the barriers to
            formal account ownership. Next, it uses World Bank
            Enterprise Survey data to examine how the use of financial
            services by small and medium enterprises in Africa compares
            with small and medium enterprises in other developing
            regions in terms of account ownership and availability of
            lines of credit. The authors find that less than a quarter
            of adults in Africa have an account with a formal financial
            institution and that many adults in Africa use informal
            methods to save and borrow. Similarly, the majority of small
            and medium enterprises in Africa are unbanked and access to
            finance is a major obstacle. Compared with other developing
            economies, high-growth small and medium enterprises in
            Africa are less likely to use formal financing, which
            suggests formal financial systems are not serving the needs
            of enterprises with growth opportunities.
Who is deprived who feels deprived
            labor deprivation, youth and gender in Morocco
One of the recurrent explanations of the
            Arab spring is that governments were disconnected from their
            populations and that public policies were simply not in line
            with people's sentiments and expectations.  This paper
            provides a methodology to better understand how objective
            conditions of deprivation are translated into subjective
            feelings of deprivation using a strand of the recent
            literature on relative deprivation. The authors apply this
            methodology to better understand the question of gender and
            youth deprivation in the context of the Moroccan labor
            market. They find that the reference group (the people with
            whom people compare themselves) plays a pivotal role in
            understanding how feelings of labor deprivation are
            generated. This can explain the apparent mismatch between
            objective conditions and subjective feelings of deprivation
            related to joblessness among young men and women. The
            methodology can help us understand why greater discontent
            may be exhibited by a group of individuals who are in fact
            less deprived in a material sense. It can also potentially
            help governments design public policies that address
            objective conditions of deprivation, such as unemployment,
            with a better understanding of subjective implications.
Who is deprived who feels deprived
            labor deprivation, youth and gender in Morocco
WPS6090 Policy Research Working Paper 6090 Who _Is_ Deprived? Who _Feels_ Deprived? Labor Deprivation, Youth and Gender in Morocco _Umar Serajuddin Paolo Verme_ The World Bank Middle East and North Africa Region Economic Policy, Poverty and Gender Unit June 2012
Financial globalization in emerging
            countries : diversification vs. offshoring
Financial globalization has gathered
            attention since the early 1990s because of its
            macro-financial implications and growing importance. But
            financial globalization has taken shape via different forms
            over time. This paper examines two important, concurrent
            dimensions of financial globalization: diversification and
            offshoring. The diversification dimension refers to the
            increase in foreign assets and liabilities in
            countries' portfolios. Offshoring is related to the
            reallocation of financial activities to international
            markets. The former focuses on who holds the assets, the
            latter on where transactions take place. The authors find
            that globalization via the diversification channel expanded
            throughout the world during the 2000s, as domestic residents
            invested more abroad and foreigners increased their
            investments at home, generating more cross-border holdings.
            However, financial globalization via offshoring displays
            more mixed patterns, with variations across markets and
            countries. The paper also shows that the nature of financing
            through both diversification and offshoring has improved for
            emerging countries.
CGE modeling of market access in services
This paper examines how the applied
            multi-sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) literature
            has moved into quantication of the impacts of greater market
            access for services. This includes discussion of
            multi-sector linkages to the service sector, as well both
            measuring barriers to trade and investment (generally with a
            mix of firm surveys, price comparisons, and econometrics),
            and how changes in these barriers, however measured, have
            been implemented in the CGE literature. Three challenges are
            highlighted. The first is identification of how trade in
            services takes place and how market access is therefore
            affected by policy. The second is to find data sufficiently
            robust for modeling purposes. The third, linked to the data
            problem, is to quantify the barriers to be examined.
            Significant progress has been made in modeling foreign
            direct investment and linking this to productivity, which
            turns out to be important. The paper also provides an
            example of modeling productivity linkages to openness and
            domestic regulation, with an applied CGE model of Italy.
            This illustrates cross-sector linkages and the integration
            of economic data and policy measures to define service
            sector experiments. Priorities for future research include
            better modeling of market structure, the linkages between
            sectors and the complementarities between different modes of
            supplying services.
Policy barriers to international
            trade in services : evidence from a new database
Surprisingly little is known about
            policies that affect international trade in services.
            Previous analyses have focused on policy commitments made by
            countries in international agreements but these commitments
            do not in many cases reflect actual policy. This paper
            describes a new initiative to collect comparable information
            on services trade policies for 103 countries, across a range
            of service sectors and the relevant modes of service
            delivery. The resultant database reveals interesting
            patterns in policy. Across regions, some of the fastest
            growing countries in Asia and the oil-rich Gulf states have
            the most restrictive policies in services, whereas some of
            the poorest countries are remarkably open. Across sectors,
            professional and transportation services are among the most
            protected in both industrial and developing countries, while
            retail, telecommunications and even finance tend to be more
            open. An illustrative set of results suggests that trade
            policies matter for investment flows and access to services.
            In particular, restrictions on foreign acquisitions,
            discrimination in licensing, restrictions on the
            repatriation of earnings and lack of legal recourse all have
            a significant and sizable negative effect, reducing the
            expected value of sectoral foreign investment by $2.2
            billion over a 7-year period, compared with "open"
            policy regimes. In terms of access to services, credit as a
            share of gross domestic product is on average 3.3 percentage
            points lower in countries with major restrictions on the
            establishment of foreign banks as compared with those that
            only impose operational restrictions.
Economic implications of moving
            toward global convergence on emission intensities
One key contentious issue in climate
            change negotiations is the huge difference in carbon dioxide
            (CO2) emissions per capita between more advanced
            industrialized countries and other nations. This paper
            analyzes the costs of reducing this gap. Simulations using a
            global computable general equilibrium model show that the
            average the carbon dioxide intensity of advanced
            industrialized countries would remain almost twice as high
            as the average for other countries in 2030, even if the
            former group adopted a heavy uniform carbon tax of $250/tCO2
            that reduced their emissions by 57 percent from the
            baseline. Global emissions would fall only 18 percent, due
            to an increase in emissions in the other countries. This
            reduction may not be adequate to move toward 2050 emission
            levels that avoid dangerous climate change. The tax would
            reduce Annex I countries' gross domestic product by 2.4
            percent, and global trade volume by 2 percent. The economic
            costs of the tax vary significantly across countries, with
            heavier burdens on fossil fuel intensive economies such as
            Russia, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The health effects of universal
            health care : evidence from Thailand
This paper exploits the staggered
            rollout of Thailands universal health coverage scheme to
            estimate its impacts on whether individuals report
            themselves as being too ill to work. The statistical power
            comes from the fact that there is an average of 62,000
            respondents in the labor force survey at each survey date
            and no less than 68 survey dates, most of which are just one
            month apart. The analysis finds that universal coverage
            reduced the likelihood of people reporting themselves to be
            too sick to work: the authors estimate the effect to be
            -0.004 one year after universal coverage and -0.007 three
            years after. The estimated effects are much larger among
            those age 65 and over. Universal coverage had a much larger
            effect on health (about four times larger) than the Village
            Fund scheme, which provided free credit to rural households
            through a subsidized microcredit scheme and which was rolled
            out around the same time as universal coverage.
Agriculture and trade opportunities
            for Tanzania : past volatility and future climate change
Given global heterogeneity in
            climate-induced agricultural variability, Tanzania has the
            potential to substantially increase its maize exports to
            other countries. If global maize production is lower than
            usual due to supply shocks in major exporting regions,
            Tanzania may be able to export more maize at higher prices,
            even if it also experiences below-trend productivity.
            Diverse destinations for exports can allow for enhanced
            trading opportunities when negative supply shocks affect the
            partners' usual import sources. Future climate
            predictions suggest that some of Tanzania's trading
            partners will experience severe dry conditions that may
            reduce agricultural production in years when Tanzania is
            only mildly affected. Tanzania could thus export grain to
            countries as climate change increases the likelihood of
            severe precipitation deficits in other countries while
            simultaneously decreasing the likelihood of severe
            precipitation deficits in Tanzania. Trade restrictions, like
            export bans, prevent Tanzania from taking advantage of these
            opportunities, foregoing significant economic benefits.
The impacts of public hospital
            autonomization : evidence from a quasi-natural experiment
This paper exploits the staggered
            rollout of Vietnams hospital autonomization policy to
            estimate its impacts on several key health sector outcomes
            including hospital efficiency, use of hospital care, and
            out-of-pocket spending. The authors use six years of panel
            data covering all Vietnams public hospitals, and three
            stacked cross-sections of household data. Autonomization
            probably led to more hospital admissions and outpatient
            department visits, although the effects are not large. It
            did not, however, affect bed stocks or bed-occupancy rates.
            Nor did it increase hospital efficiency. Oddly, despite the
            volume effects and the unchanged cost structure, the
            analysis does not find any evidence of autonomization
            leading to higher total costs. It does, however, find some
            evidence that autonomization led to higher out-of-pocket
            spending on hospital care, and higher spending per treatment
            episode; the effects vary in size depending on the data
            source and hospital type, but some are quite large -- around
            20 percent. Autonomy did not apparently affect in-hospital
            death rates or complications, but in lower-level hospitals
            it did lead to more intensive style of care, with more lab
            tests and imaging per case.
Poverty and distributional impact of
            gas price hike in Armenia
Armenia meets about 75 percent of its
            energy needs through imports, with natural gas imports from
            Russia accounting for about 80 percent of total energy
            imports and 60 percent of total primary energy supply.
            Because of high dependence on imported energy, Armenia is
            vulnerable to external energy price shocks, which are often
            beyond the control of its policymakers. A most recent case
            in point was the 2010 Russian gas tariff increase, which led
            to a nearly 40 percent increase in the retail gas price for
            residential consumers. Coming on the heels of the global
            economic recession that hit Armenia's economy hard, the
            price hike amplified the impact on households that rely
            primarily on gas for heating and cooking. Using aggregate
            energy consumption data and a nationally representative
            household survey immediately before the crisis, this paper
            provides an overview of household energy consumption
            patterns, highlights Armenia's energy vulnerability,
            and estimates the direct poverty and distributional impacts
            of the increase in the cost of imported gas. The analysis
            shows that the gas price hike resulted in a significant
            increase in energy expenditures, with disproportionately
            higher impact on the poor and vulnerable households. The
            paper concludes with a discussion on the effectiveness of
            the mitigation measures employed by the Government of Armenia.