rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
On-the-job training : returns,
            barriers to provision, and policy implications
Firms that provide on-the-job training
            do so when it is critical to their productivity -- and when
            productivity is critical to their survival. This paper
            begins by confirming a significant and positive return from
            on-the-job training on wages and productivity, as well as
            the presence of positive externalities from on-the-job
            training, while discussing the methodological considerations
            at play. The paper then reviews and validates the presence
            of market failures such as information asymmetries within
            the firm as a result of low-quality management practices
            that dampen firm demand for on-the-job training. Lack of
            competition in the firm’s external environment appears to
            undermine adoption of on-the-job training and other
            complementary productivity-enhancing activities within the
            firm. The literature suggests that for most firms, a
            comprehensive policy approach that resolves external
            constraints to becoming more productive is likely to have a
            positive impact on the provision of on-the-job training and
            adoption of complementary policies. More direct forms of
            firm-level support to improve management capabilities could
            also alleviate under-provision of on-the-job training. Where
            societies have improved welfare as a goal, public policy
            measures would be needed to complement on-the-job training
            for some specific groups of workers (older, less educated,
            women). In essence, the paper highlights the importance of
            demand-side constraints for firms, rather than supply-side
            constraints, for the provision of on-the-job training.
Cities, slums, and early child
            growth : empirical evidence from Bangladesh
This study uses novel household survey
            data that are representative of Bangladesh's large
            cities, and of slum and nonslum areas within the cities, to
            investigate the effects of demographic and socioeconomic
            factors on early child growth in 2013. The study also
            decomposes the difference in mean child growth between slum
            and nonslum areas in 2013, and the increase in mean child
            growth in slum and nonslum areas from 2006 to 2013.
            Mother's education attainment and household wealth
            largely explain the cross-sectional difference and
            intertemporal change in child growth. Although positive in
            some cases, the effects of maternal and child health
            services, and potential health-protective household
            amenities, differ by the type of health facility, household
            amenity, and urban area. The results suggest that a focus on
            nutrition-sensitive programs for slum residents and the
            urban poor is appropriate.
But … what is the poverty rate today
            testing poverty nowcasting methods in Latin America and the Caribbean
Poverty estimates usually lag behind two
            years, which makes it difficult to provide real-time poverty
            analysis to assess the impact of economic crisis and shocks
            among the less well-off, and subsequently limits policy
            responses. This paper takes advantage of up-to-date average
            economic welfare indicators like the gross domestic product
            per capita and comprehensive harmonized micro data of more
            than 180 household surveys in 15 Latin American countries.
            The paper tests three commonly used poverty nowcasting
            methods and ranks their performance by comparing
            country-specific and regional poverty nowcasts with actual
            poverty estimates for 2003–14 period. The validation results
            show that the two bottom-up approaches, which simulate the
            performance of each agent in the economy to nowcast overall
            poverty, perform relatively better than the top-down
            approach, which uses welfare estimates to explain the
            performance of poverty at an aggregate level over time. The
            results are robust to additional sensitivity and robustness tests.
But … what is the poverty rate today
            testing poverty nowcasting methods in Latin America and the Caribbean
WPS8104 Policy Research Working Paper 8104 But ...What Is The Poverty Rate Today?

Testing Poverty Nowcasting Methods in Latin America and the Caribbean _German Caruso Leonardo Lucchetti Eduardo Malasquez Thiago Scot R. Andrés Castañeda_ Poverty and Equity Global Practice Group June 2017
Does the adoption of complex
            software impact employment composition and the skill content
            of occupations evidence from Chilean firms
A major concern with the rapid spread of
            technology is that it replaces some jobs, displacing
            workers. However, technology may raise firm productivity,
            generating more jobs. The paper contributes to this debate
            by exploiting a novel panel data set for Chilean firms in
            all sectors between 2007 and 2013. While previous studies
            examine the impacts of automation on the use of routine
            tasks by middle-educated workers. this study focuses on a
            measure of complex software that is typically used by more
            educated workers in cognitive and nonroutine tasks for
            client, production, and business management. The
            instrumental variables estimates show that in the medium
            run, firms' adoption of complex software affects
            firms' employment decisions and the skill content of
            occupations. The adoption of complex software reallocates
            employment from skilled workers to administrative and
            unskilled production workers. This reallocation leads to an
            increase in the use of routine and manual tasks and a
            reduction in the use of abstract tasks within firms.
            Interestingly, the impacts tend to be concentrated in
            sectors with a less educated workforce, suggesting that
            technology can constrain job creation for the more skilled
            workers there. The paper concludes that the type of
            technology matters for understanding the impacts of
            technology adoption on the labor market.
Tax administration practices and
            firms’ perceptions of corruption : evidence from Europe and
            Central Asia
Two competing conceptualizations of
            corruption in the literature allow viewing it either as
            efficient or burdensome from firms' perspective. Using
            data on the prevalence and nature of firms'
            interactions with tax authorities in 28 countries in Europe
            and Central Asia, this paper contributes to the evaluation
            of competing ideas in the literature about firms’ experience
            of corruption in tax administration. The findings presented
            in the paper provide provisional support for the second line
            of reasoning, that corruption in taxation is a burden,
            rather than a type of efficiency. Special emphasis is given
            to examination of taxation-related determinants of
            corruption prevalence (frequency and magnitude of bribery),
            as well as the effect of the interaction with tax
            authorities on perception of tax and overall corruption.
            Regardless of country context, it appears that, more than
            anything else, perceived corruption in tax administration
            and actual experiences with bribery during interactions with
            tax officials, affect the overall perceptions of corruption.
Measuring women's agency
Improving women's agency, namely
            their ability to define goals and act on them, is crucial
            for advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women.
            Yet, existing frameworks for women's agency measurement
            -- both disorganized and partial -- provide a fragmented
            understanding of the constraints women face in exercising
            their agency, restricting the design of quality
            interventions and evaluation of their impact. This paper
            proposes a multidisciplinary framework containing the three
            critical dimensions of agency: goal-setting, perceived
            control and ability ("sense of agency"), and
            acting on goals. For each dimension, the paper (i) reviews
            existing measurement approaches and what is known about
            their relative quality; (ii) presents new empirical evidence
            from Sub-Saharan Africa: validating vignettes as a
            measurement tool for goal-setting, examining gender and
            regional discrepancies in response to sense-of-agency
            measures, and investigating what information spousal
            disagreement over decision-making roles can provide about
            the intra-household process of acting on goals; and (iii)
            highlights priorities for future research to improve the
            measurement of women’s agency.
Rental regulation and its
            consequences on measures of well-being in the Arab Republic
            of Egypt
The paper delves into the implications
            of a failure to account for rental regulation in the
            measurement of households' welfare, poverty, and
            inequality when using household surveys. Exploiting
            previously unavailable data for the Egyptian case, the paper
            illustrates the long-lasting distortions in the rental
            market that the 1977 rental law has created. The paper finds
            evidence that earlier studies may have substantially
            underestimated households’ welfare in urban areas and
            overestimated urban poverty. National poverty rates show
            smaller corrections, as poverty is mainly a rural phenomenon
            in the Arab Republic of Egypt. An appropriate measure of
            welfare also led to downward corrections in inequality in
            urban Egypt, while increasing the inequality across regions.
            These effects counterbalance each other and nationwide
            inequality estimates are affected only slightly.
Looking into the performance-based
            financing black box: evidence from an impact evaluation in
            the health sector in Cameroon
Performance-based financing is a complex
            health system intervention aimed at improving coverage and
            quality of care. This paper presents the results of an
            impact evaluation in Cameroon that seeks to isolate the role
            of specific components of the performance-based financing
            approach on outcomes of interest, such as explicit financial
            incentives linked to results, additional resources available
            at the point of service delivery (not linked to
            performance), and enhanced supervision, coaching, and
            monitoring. Four evaluation groups were established to
            measure the effects of each component that was studied. In
            general, the results indicate that performance-based
            financing in Cameroon is an efficient mechanism to channel
            payments and funding to the provider level, leading to
            significant increases in utilization in the
            performance-based financing arm for several services (child
            and maternal vaccinations and use of modern family
            planning), but not for others, such as antenatal care visits
            and facility-based deliveries. However, for many of those
            outcomes, the differences between the performance-based
            financing group and the additional financing group are not
            significant. In terms of quality, performance-based
            financing was found to have a significant impact on the
            availability of essential inputs and equipment, qualified
            health workers, reduction in formal and informal user fees,
            and increased satisfaction among patients and providers.
            However, there was a clear effect of additional financing,
            irrespective of whether it was linked to incentives, in
            combination with reinforced supervision through
            performance-based financing. This result suggests that
            enhanced supervision and monitoring on their own are not
            sufficient to improve maternal and child health outcomes.
The many faces of deprivation : a
            multidimensional approach to poverty in Armenia
This note describes a new measure of
            multidimensional poverty developed for Armenia. In 2013, the
            National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia and
            the World Bank began work on a national measure of
            multidimensional poverty to supplement the consumption
            poverty indicator. This measure, which was identified
            through consultations with many stakeholders in Armenia,
            reflects deprivations specific to Armenia in the areas of
            education, health, labor, housing conditions, and basic
            needs. The approach offers insights into the complexity,
            depth, and persistence of poverty in the country; tailoring
            it specifically to the country context enhances its
            relevance for policy. This note uses the new measure to
            describe national trends and regional patterns.
When is the government transfer
            multiplier large
Transfers to individuals were a larger
            part of the 2009 U.S. stimulus package than government
            purchases. Using a two-agent New Keynesian model, this paper
            shows analytically that the multiplier on targeted transfers
            to financially constrained households is (i) larger than the
            purchase multiplier if the zero lower bound (ZLB) binds, and
            (ii) is more sensitive to the degree of monetary
            accommodation of inflation. Targeted transfers provide the
            same boost to demand as purchases, but lower aggregate
            supply relative to purchases, as those receiving transfers
            want to work less. When the aggregate demand curve inverts,
            such as when the zero lower bound binds, the extra inflation
            from lower supply boosts the multiplier. This result also
            holds quantitatively in a medium-scale version of the model.
Preferential trade agreements and
            global value chains : theory, evidence, and open questions
Preferential trade agreements today are
            more numerous and deeper than they were a quarter century
            ago. Do deep agreements promote countries' integration
            into global value chains? What are the economic mechanisms?
            How do countries choose their trade agreement partners?
            Would the undoing of deep agreements disrupt global value
            chains? What is the outlook for trade agreements and global
            value chains going forward? This paper reviews the small but
            growing literature on the role of deep agreements as the
            institutional underpinnings of global value chains. It
            discusses the available evidence and theoretical arguments,
            providing directions for future research in this area.
Municipal pooled financing of
            infrastructure in the United States : experience and lessons
Despite a world awash with liquidity,
            large infrastructure supply gaps exist across developing and
            emerging markets. Infrastructure has been largely
            decentralized to subnational governments in many countries,
            and many policymakers are keenly interested in developing
            subnational bond markets to give subnational governments
            access to private financing for infrastructure. Despite
            this, the transaction costs of bond issuance are still
            prohibitive for many subnational governments to access
            financing. Pooled financing, through regional infrastructure
            funds, municipal funds, or bond banks, has become a
            sought-after solution for helping subnational governments
            access private financing for infrastructure. In the United
            States, municipal bond banks that were established since the
            1970s have become a cost-effective and stable model for
            expanding subnational financing for many small
            municipalities, while maintaining strong credit ratings with
            virtually no defaults from sub-borrowers. The municipal bond
            banks have been successful in lowering financing costs for
            many small, unrated local governments, with loan sizes as
            low as less than $50,000. This paper examines the policies
            and structures that have made pooled financing successful in
            the United States, including regulatory frameworks,
            governance and managerial systems, the role of project
            appraisal, operations and pricing, and managing the default
            risks of borrowers. The paper also explores broader lessons
            for developing countries that are interested in establishing
            pooled financing for subnational infrastructure.
Regressive or progressive the effect
            of tobacco taxes in Ukraine
Tobacco taxes are usually considered
            regressive, as the poorest individuals allocate larger
            shares of their budget toward the purchase of
            tobacco-related products. However, because these taxes also
            discourage tobacco use, some of the most adverse effects and
            their economic costs are reduced, including lower life
            expectancy at birth, higher medical expenses, increased
            years of disability among smokers, and the effects of
            secondhand smoke. This paper projects the effects of an
            increase in the tobacco tax on household welfare in Ukraine.
            It considers three price-elasticity scenarios among income
            deciles of the population. The results show that although
            tobacco taxes are often criticized for being regressive in
            the short run, in a more comprehensive scenario that
            includes medical expenses and working years, the benefits of
            tobacco taxes far exceed the increase in tax liability,
            benefitting in large measure lower income households. The
            results also indicate that lower health expenditure seems to
            be the main driver, because of the reduction in
            tobacco-related diseases that require expensive treatments.
            Tobacco taxes are also associated with positive
            distributional effects related to the higher long-term price
            elasticities of tobacco consumption.
Learning the impact of financial
            education when take-up is low
Financial education programs are
            increasingly offered by governments, nonprofits, and
            financial institutions. However, voluntary participation
            rates in such programs are often very low, posing a severe
            challenge for randomized experiments attempting to measure
            their impact. This study uses a large experiment on more
            than 100,000 credit card clients in Mexico. The study shows
            how the richness of financial data allows combining
            nonexperimental methods with the experiment to yield
            credible measures of impact, even with take-up rates below 1
            percent. The findings show that a financial education
            workshop and personalized coaching result in a higher
            likelihood of paying credit cards on time, and of making
            more than the minimum payment, but do not reduce spending,
            resulting in higher profitability for the bank.
SME finance
This paper takes stock of the empirical
            evidence on the financing challenges faced by small and
            medium enterprises, especially in developing countries. The
            paper first discusses the institutional constraints that
            impede access to finance, including the lack of reliable
            credit information, lack of suitable collateral, and weak
            legal institutions. It next highlights firm heterogeneity
            among small and medium enterprises in accessing finance. The
            focus is on various policies and reforms that have been
            shown to be effective in improving access to credit for
            small and medium enterprises. The paper concludes by
            highlighting areas where new research could be effective.
The impact of fiscal policy on
            inequality and poverty in Zambia
This study assesses the redistributive
            impact of fiscal policy––and its individual elements––in
            Zambia. Zambia's 2015 fiscal policy reduces inequality;
            the largest reduction is created by in-kind public service
            expenditures on education. However, fiscal policy also
            increases poverty in three ways: (1) there is a relatively
            low level of targeted, direct-transfer spending; (2) energy
            subsidies, which do not reach many poor households, absorb a
            large share of expenditures; and (3) tax instruments create
            a burden greater than what is received as direct or indirect
            benefits from subsidies or direct transfers. The number of
            poor and vulnerable individuals who experience net cash
            subtractions from their incomes is greater than the number
            of poor and vulnerable individuals who experience net
            additions. Eliminating subsidy spending while compensating
            poor households would help fiscal policy achieve poverty
            reduction and even greater inequality reduction. If
            subsidies on fuel, electricity, and agricultural inputs were
            eliminated without any compensatory mechanism, such as an
            increase in the Social Cash Transfer program's coverage
            and benefit levels, the impact of fiscal policy on poverty
            would likely be muted. In 2015, Zambia exempted over 80
            percent of the average household's consumption basket.
            However, value-added tax exemptions imply only that some
            portion of value-added is not taxed, and so do not entirely
            eliminate a value-added tax burden. A more efficient way to
            deliver net benefits to poor and vulnerable households is
            through targeted cash transfers at a scale large enough to
            compensate for the burden created across households by
            value-added tax and other indirect taxes.