rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Nonrenewable resources, income
            inequality and per capita GDP : an empirical analysis
This analysis examines the relationship
            between nonrenewable resource dependence, economic growth
            and income inequality. It uses a two-equation system in
            which the Gini index and GDP per capita are the dependent
            variables and the stock of nonrenewable resources as a share
            of national wealth -- i.e. resource dependence -- is the
            independent variable. Using a dataset that includes
            information on 43 countries from 1980 to 2012, this paper
            estimates several model specifications in order to check the
            robustness of the results under different assumptions and to
            account for income-group-related heterogeneity among
            countries. The baseline model provides strong evidence that
            natural resource dependence is negatively correlated with
            both per capita GDP and the Gini index; in other words,
            resource dependence is associated with lower income levels,
            but also with a more equal distribution of income.
            Interestingly, however, after controlling for country income
            group, the sign and magnitude of these relationships appear
            to become dependent on national-level structural
            characteristics. Among higher-income countries, greater
            nonrenewable natural resource dependence is associated with
            lower income inequality, while there is no statistically
            significant correlation with GDP per capita. Among the
            lower-income group, greater dependence on nonrenewable
            natural resources is associated with both higher levels of
            income inequality and lower per capita GDP. Further analysis
            focusing on a subsample of non-renewable resource rich
            countries confirms these findings.
Gender gaps in cognitive and
            non-cognitive skills in early primary grades : evidence from
            rural Indonesia
This paper examines gender gaps in
            cognitive and non-cognitive skills among a sample of more
            than 10,000 children between the ages of 6 and 9 in rural
            Indonesia. In terms of cognitive skills, the analysis finds
            evidence of gender gaps favoring girls at each age in test
            scores of language (0.158-0.252 standard deviations) and
            mathematics (0.155-0.243 standard deviations) in the early
            years of primary school. Girls also perform significantly
            better than boys in non-cognitive skills, with higher scores
            on the social competence (0.086-0.247 standard deviations)
            and emotional maturity domains (0.213-0.296 standard
            deviations) of the Early Development Instrument, a finding
            consistent with research from high-income countries.
            Decomposition analyses are used to investigate the extent to
            which enrollment patterns in preschool and primary school as
            well as parenting practices contribute to these gender gaps
            in cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Standard
            decomposition approaches are extended to correct for
            selection on observables. The findings show that gender
            differences in enrollment patterns play a role in explaining
            gender gaps in test scores, while differences in parenting
            practices do not. However, the relative contribution of
            observed factors to gender gaps depends on the available
            quality of preschool services in the child’s village and
            whether the outcome of interest is cognitive or
            non-cognitive skills.
Intergenerational education mobility
            in Africa : has progress been inclusive
This paper employs nationally
            representative household survey data on parents of adult
            individuals to analyze the intergenerational transmission of
            education in nine Sub-Saharan African countries. The paper
            provides the levels, trends, and patterns of
            intergenerational persistence of educational attainment over
            50 years, with a special focus on gender differences. The
            study finds a declining cohort trend in the
            intergenerational educational persistence in all the
            countries, particularly after the 1960s. The increase in
            educational mobility coincides with drastic changes in
            educational systems and a huge investment in human capital
            accumulation in the region following independence.
            Nevertheless, the education of parents' remains a
            strong determinant of educational outcomes among the
            children in all the countries. Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, and
            Uganda experienced the highest intergenerational mobility,
            and the Comoros and Madagascar the lowest. In all the sample
            countries, more mobility is observed in the lower tail of
            the distribution of education. Intergenerational educational
            persistence is strong from mothers to children, and the
            effect is more pronounced among daughters than sons. The
            results highlight the need for targeted redistributive
            policies that improve intergenerational mobility in the region.
Global talent flows
The global distribution of talent is
            highly skewed and the resources available to countries to
            develop and utilize their best and brightest vary
            substantially. The migration of skilled workers across
            countries tilts the deck even further. Using newly available
            data, the paper first reviews the landscape of global talent
            mobility, which is both asymmetric and rising in importance.
            Next, the determinants of global talent flows at the
            individual and firm levels are presented and some important
            implications are sketched. Third, the national gatekeepers
            for skilled migration and broad differences in approaches
            used to select migrants for admission are reviewed. Looking
            forward, the capacity of people, firms, and countries to
            successfully navigate this tangled web of global talent will
            be critical to their success.
The effect of the Swedish payroll
            tax cut for youths on firm profitability
Payroll taxes in Sweden were reduced
            substantially for people ages 26 years or younger on July 1,
            2007. The objective of this tax cut was to lower youth
            unemployment. The question of how gains from payroll taxes
            are distributed between workers and owners of firms has been
            the focus of considerable theoretical and empirical
            attention. This paper examines the impact of the Swedish
            reform on firm profits using individual-level and firm-level
            microdata. Previous investigations into the effects of this
            particular reform have focused entirely on the effects on
            employment and wages, or have been limited to the retail
            sector. This paper finds that the reform was not associated
            with a general increase in firm profitability, but that
            there is some evidence of a positive effect on profits in
            the retail and wholesale sector.
Firm financing in Chile after the
            2014-15 tax reform: debt or equity debt or equity
This paper analyzes the effects of the
            2014-15 Chilean tax reform on firms' incentives to
            retain earnings and finance their operations with equity
            versus debt. The analysis comprises a comparison with the
            situation of the pre-reform period, and draws some
            conclusions about firms' valuation. The approach
            consists of analyzing the effects of the tax reform on total
            taxes paid and cash flows received by investors. Although
            the final effects are specific to the firm and investor, as
            they depend on the firm's dividend payout ratio and
            each investor's personal income tax rate, the results
            show that in general the reform reduced the value of firms
            and lessened the incentives to retain earnings. The
            simulations show that the majority of firms would choose the
            accrual or "attributed" tax–based system. However,
            if the latter is not permitted, firms will choose debt over
            equity. The cash-based or semi-integrated system becomes the
            preferred option only when elusion (or tax avoidance) is possible.
How do cities in Ethiopia create jobs
This paper reviews city-based
            industrialization across Ethiopia to understand (a) its
            importance in driving net job creation, and (b) the factors
            that determine the success of high-growth industries and
            cities. The focus of the analysis is on firms, industries,
            and cities in Ethiopia that create and sustain jobs. The
            analysis finds that much of new job creation is found in
            emerging cities, although capital intensity in production is
            also increasing. As in other countries, 97 percent of new
            jobs are created by large firms, and it is incumbents and
            not new entrants that contribute to initial and sustained
            increases in employment. Agglomeration economies, better
            business environment, and access to better infrastructure
            are factors that matter, albeit differently, depending on
            firms' size, life-cycle, and rate of growth.
Does debt relief improve child
            health evidence from cross-country micro data
This paper analyzes the effects of a
            multilateral debt relief program on child health. The
            International Monetary Fund and the World Bank launched the
            Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative in the late 1990s
            to reduce the debt burdens of poor countries, and explicitly
            linked the initiative to the aim of poverty reduction and
            social targets. As a result, debt-servicing costs have gone
            down by an average 1.8 percentage points of gross domestic
            product in Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. However, the
            social effects of debt relief are not well known. The paper
            employs micro data on infant mortality from 56
            country-specific Demographic and Health Surveys to
            investigate the effects of the Heavily Indebted Poor
            Countries Initiative on child health. The retrospective
            fertility structure of the data allows for analysis using
            the within-mother variation in the probability of survival
            of babies before and after different stages of the
            initiative. The results suggest that after a debt-ridden
            country enters the program, which is conditional on reform
            and pro-development policies, and receives interim debt
            relief, the probability of infant mortality goes down by
            about 0.5 percentage point. This translates into about 3,000
            fewer infant deaths in an average Heavily Indebted Poor
            Country. The findings are particularly strong for infants
            born to poor mothers and mothers living in rural areas, and
            are driven by access to vaccines early in life and during
            pregnancy. There are no child health effects from graduating
            from the program and receiving full debt relief.
Model and methods for estimating the
            number of people living in extreme poverty because of the
            direct impacts of natural disasters
Natural disasters have an impact on
            poverty through many different channels -- economic growth,
            health, schooling, behaviors -- that are difficult to
            quantify. It is nonetheless possible to assess the
            short-term impacts of income losses. A counterfactual
            scenario is built of what people's income would be in
            developing countries in the absence of natural disasters.
            This scenario uses surveys of 1.4 million households in 89
            countries. Depending on where they live and work, what they
            consume, and the nature of their vulnerability, the
            additional income that each household in the survey could
            earn every year on average in the absence of natural
            disasters is calculated. The analysis concludes that if all
            disasters could be prevented next year, 26 million fewer
            people would be in extreme poverty—that is, living on less
            than $1.90 a day. A systematic analysis of the uncertainty
            suggests that this impact could lie between 7 million if all
            the most optimistic assumptions are combined, and 77 million
            if we retain only the most pessimistic assumptions.
Secondary towns and poverty
            reduction : refocusing the urbanization agenda
This review is framed around the
            exploration of a central hypothesis: A shift in public
            investment toward secondary towns from big cities will
            improve poverty reduction performance. Of course the
            hypothesis raises many questions. What exactly is the
            dichotomy of secondary towns versus big cities? What is the
            evidence for the contribution of secondary towns versus
            cities to poverty reduction? What are the economic
            mechanisms for such a differential contribution and how does
            policy interact with them? The review finds preliminary
            evidence and arguments in support of the hypothesis, but the
            impacts of policy on poverty are quite complex even in
            simple settings, and the question of secondary towns and
            poverty reduction is an open area for research and policy analysis.
Can enhancing the benefits of
            formalization induce informal firms to become formal
            experimental evidence from Benin
Governments around the world have
            introduced reforms to attempt to make it easier for informal
            firms to formalize. However, most informal firms have not
            gone on to become formal, especially when tax registration
            is involved. A randomized experiment based around the
            introduction of the entreprenant legal status in Benin is
            used to provide evidence from an African context on the
            willingness of informal firms to register after introducing
            a simple, free registration process, and to test the
            effectiveness of supplementary efforts to enhance the
            presumed benefits of formalization by facilitating its links
            to government training programs, support to open bank
            accounts, and tax mediation services. Few firms register
            when just given information about the new regime, but 9.6
            percentage points more register when they were visited in
            person and the benefits were explained. The full package of
            supplementary efforts boosts the impact on the formalization
            rate to 16.3 percentage points, demonstrating that enhancing
            the benefits of formalization does induce more firms to
            formalize. Firms that are larger, and that look more like
            formal firms to begin with, are more likely to formalize,
            providing guidance for better targeting of such policies.
            However, formalization appears to offer limited benefits to
            the firms, and the costs of personalized assistance are
            high, suggesting that such enhanced formalization efforts
            are unlikely to pass cost-benefit tests.
When the money runs out : do cash
            transfers have sustained effects on human capital accumulation
This study examines the medium-term
            effects of a two-year cash transfer program targeted to
            adolescent girls and young women. Significant declines in
            HIV prevalence, teen pregnancy, and early marriage among
            recipients of unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) during the
            program evaporated quickly two years after the cessation of
            transfers. However, children born to UCT beneficiaries
            during the program had significantly higher height-for-age
            z-scores at follow-up. On the other hand, conditional cash
            transfers (CCTs) offered to out-of-school females at
            baseline produced a large increase in educational attainment
            and a sustained reduction in the total number of births, but
            caused no gains in health, labor market outcomes, or
            empowerment. The findings point to both the promise and the
            limitations of cash transfer programs for sustained gains in
            welfare among young women.
Can tax incentives for electronic
            payments reduce the shadow economy : Korea's attempt to
            reduce underreporting in retail businesses
Increasing tax revenues by reducing the
            shadow economy has been a central goal of tax policy and
            administration in the Republic of Korea since the National
            Tax Service was established as an independent agency in
            1966. This paper examines the Tax Incentive for
            Electronically Traceable Payments, which was introduced by
            the Korean tax authorities in 1999 to promote payments made
            using credit cards, debit cards, and electronic cash
            receipts in business-to-consumer transactions. The tax
            incentive allows wage and salary earners to claim tax
            deductions for eligible purchases made using electronically
            traceable payments when they file their year-end income tax
            settlements. The tax incentive scheme greatly contributed to
            changing the Korean economy into a cashless economy over the
            past decade and a half. Card payments as a ratio of
            Korea's gross domestic product have ranked the highest
            in the world since 2005, reaching 49 percent in 2014. The
            Tax Incentive for Electronically Traceable Payments scheme
            has changed the taxpayer ratio over business income earners
            from stagnant at around 30 percent through the late 1990s,
            to approximately 80 percent at present. The effective
            personal income tax rate for business income followed a
            continuous upward trend, from 3.4 percent in 1998 to 6.3
            percent in 2013. The total revenue increase driven by the
            tax incentive scheme was estimated as W 3.4 trillion, with
            the scheme's costs reaching W 1.9 trillion. The net
            gain was an estimated W 1.4 trillion (approximately US$1.3
            billion), which increased personal income tax revenue by 4.2
            percent. The tax incentive scheme also had a positive impact
            on income redistribution, decreasing the Gini coefficient by
            0.11 percentage points.
Foreign banks and international
            transmission of monetary policy : evidence from the
            syndicated loan market
This paper uses loan-level data from 124
            countries over 1995–2015 to examine the transmission of
            monetary policy through the cross-border syndicated loan
            market. The results show that the expansion of monetary
            policy increases cross-border credit supply especially to
            weaker firms. However, greater foreign bank presence in the
            borrower country appears to reduce the potentially
            destabilizing impact of lower policy interest rates on
            cross-border lending, as it attenuates increases in loan
            volume and maturity while magnifying increases in
            collateralization and covenant use. The mitigating effect of
            foreign banking presence in the borrowing country on the
            transmission of monetary policy is robust to controlling for
            borrower-country economic and financial development, and a
            range of borrower and lender country policies and
            institutions, including the strength of bank regulation and
            supervision, exchange rate flexibility, and restrictions on
            capital flows. The findings qualify the characterization of
            international banks as sources of credit instability, and
            suggest that foreign bank entry can improve the stability of
            cross-border credit in the face of international monetary
            policy shocks.
Conditionality as targeting :
            participation and distributional effects of conditional cash transfers
Conditional cash transfer programs,
            whereby transfers to households are conditional on school
            attendance or health checkups, have become a widespread
            policy tool. They are viewed as a means of immediate poverty
            alleviation through the cash payments, and as a foundation
            of long-term poverty reduction through the emphasis on human
            capital formation. Because targeted transfers are usually
            conditioned on the consumption of normal goods, richer
            eligible households are more likely to consume more
            educational and health care opportunities than poorer ones.
            Thus, the eligible poorest households may benefit least from
            conditional cash transfers even to the extent that they may
            not participate at all. If conditionality is conceptualized
            as a cost at the margin, it may be leading poor households
            to opt out. This paper proposes a framework to model
            household decision making on participation (or not) in cash
            transfer programs depending on whether a conditionality
            exists. The paper outlines the optimal size of the cash
            transfer such that a fixed government budget maximizes the
            poverty reduction. The paper also shows that unconditional
            cash transfers may be preferable over conditional cash
            transfers if a government has a sufficiently high degree of
            poverty aversion, that is, if, beyond the poverty headcount,
            the government cares about how poor the poor are or the
            distance of the poorest among the poor below the poverty
            line. This basic argument carries over from income poverty
            to education poverty. The framework can be useful in shaping
            the recent discussion on the merits of universal benefits
            over conditional transfers in reducing poverty.