rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Do intensity targets control
            uncertainty better than quotas Conditions, calibrations, and caveats
Among policy instruments to control
            future greenhouse gas emissions, well-calibrated general
            intensity targets are known to lead to lower uncertainty on
            the amount of abatement than emissions quotas (Jotzo and
            Pezzey 2004). The authors test whether this result holds in
            a broader framework, and whether it applies to other
            policy-relevant variables as well. To do so, they provide a
            general representation of the uncertainty on future GDP,
            future business-as-usual emissions, and future abatement
            costs. The authors derive the variances of four variables,
            namely (effective) emissions, abatement effort, marginal
            abatement costs, and total abatement costs over GDP under a
            quota, a linear (LIT) and a general intensity target
            (GIT)-where the emissions ceiling is a power-law function of
            GDP. They confirm that GITs can yield a lower variance than
            a quota for marginal costs, but find that this is not true
            for total costs over GDP. Using economic and emissions
            scenarios and forecast errors of past projections, the
            authors estimate ranges of values for key parameters in
            their model. They find that quotas dominate LITs over most
            of this range, that calibrating GITs over this wide range is
            difficult, and that GITs would yield only modest reductions
            in uncertainty relative to quotas.
Land leasing and land sale as an
            infrastructure-financing option
Municipal land sales provide one option
            for financing urban infrastructure investment. In countries
            where land is owned by the public sector, land is by far the
            most valuable asset on the municipal balance sheet. Selling
            land or long-term leasing rights to land use while investing
            the proceeds in infrastructure facilities can be viewed as a
            type of portfolio asset adjustment. This paper shows that in
            China many municipalities have financed more than half of
            their high rates of infrastructure investment from land
            sales, for periods of 10 to 15 years. Much of the remaining
            investment has been financed by municipal borrowing against
            the collateral of land values. Other countries also have
            turned to land sales and leasing for infrastructure finance.
            From a local perspective, land sales have the advantage that
            they typically are free from the intergovernmental
            restrictions that require higher-level approval for
            increases in local tax rates or user fees and that restrict
            local government borrowing. However, financing municipal
            infrastructure investment through land sales creates special
            risks that are not recognized in most intergovernmental
            fiscal frameworks. One danger involves the use of proceeds
            to finance operating budgets. Risk exposure is exaggerated
            by the highly volatile nature of urban land markets and
            evidence that in some countries urban land values in 2006
            reflected a real estate bubble. In the past, Hong Kong, a
            jurisdiction that has relied heavily on land-leasing to
            finance its infrastructure budget, has seen land sales fall
            to zero at the bottom of the real estate cycle. The greatest
            financial sector risk stems from municipal borrowing based
            on inflated land values offered as collateral to banks.
            Sound intergovernmental fiscal management will require
            tighter regulation of municipalities' financial
            leveraging of land assets to avoid excessive risk taking by
            local governments.
Jointness in Bayesian variable
            selection with applications to growth regression
The authors present a measure of
            jointness to explore dependence among regressors in the
            context of Bayesian model selection. The jointness measure
            they propose equals the posterior odds ratio between those
            models that include a set of variables and the models that
            only include proper subsets. They show its application in
            cross-country growth regressions using two data-sets from
            the model-averaging growth literature.
Public infrastructure and growth :
            new channels and policy implications
This paper provides an overview of the
            various channels through which public infrastructure may
            affect growth. In addition to the conventional productivity,
            complementarity, and crowding-out effects typically
            emphasized in the literature, the impact of infrastructure
            on investment adjustment costs, the durability of private
            capital, and the production of health and education services
            are also highlighted. Effects on health and education are
            well documented in a number of microeconomic studies, but
            macroeconomists have only recently begun to study their
            implications for growth. Links between health,
            infrastructure, and growth are illustrated in an endogenous
            growth model with transitional dynamics, and the optimal
            allocation of public expenditure is discussed. The
            concluding section draws implications of the analysis for
            the design of strategies aimed at promoting growth and
            reducing poverty.
Learning levels and gaps in Pakistan
The authors report on a survey of
            primary public and private schools in rural Pakistan with a
            focus on student achievement as measured through test
            scores. Absolute learning is low compared with curricular
            standards and international norms. Tested at the end of the
            third grade, a bare majority had mastered the K-I
            mathematics curriculum and 31 percent could correctly form a
            sentence with the word "school" in the vernacular
            (Urdu). As in high-income countries, bivariate comparisons
            show that higher learning is associated with household
            wealth and parental literacy. In sharp contrast to
            high-income countries, these gaps decrease dramatically in a
            multivariate regression once differences between children in
            the same school are looked at. Consequently, the largest
            gaps are between schools. The gap in English test scores
            between government and private schools, for instance, is 12
            times the gap between children from rich and poor families.
            To contextualize these results within a broader South Asian
            context, the authors use data from public schools in the
            state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Levels of learning and the
            structure of the educational gaps are similar in the two
            samples. As in Pakistan, absolute learning is low and the
            largest gaps are between schools: the gap between good and
            bad government schools, for instance, is 5 times the gap
            between children with literate and illiterate mothers.
What is the real impact of schooling
            on age of first union and age of first parenting New
            evidence from Guatemala
The ages of first union and of first
            parenting are of considerable interest, not only because of
            their implications for individual welfare and well-being
            over the life cycle, but also because they are strongly
            associated with fertility patterns that are thought to have
            important implications for the broader society. But the many
            positive associations between schooling attainment and ages
            of first union and first parenting do not mean that
            increasing education causes increases in ages of first union
            and first parenting. This study contributes to the
            literature by investigating the impact of schooling on ages
            of first union and first parenting using data collected over
            35 years in Guatemala. It advances beyond the previous
            literature by (1) treating schooling as
            behaviorally-determined, which changes the estimated
            schooling impacts considerably in a number of cases, tending
            to result in stronger positive effects of schooling for
            females and weaker ones for males; (2) including other
            aspects of individuals' human capital and parental
            family background, which in some cases changes the estimated
            impact of schooling attainment a fair amount; and (3)
            including outcomes, additional to ages of first union and
            first parenting, such as union partner's human capital
            and union partner's family's social and economic
            status, which enriches the understanding of the multiple
            effects that schooling attainment has on the processes under study.
How are youth faring in the labor
            market Evidence from around the world
This paper uses a new standardized micro
            database for a large set of developing countries to (1)
            describe the patterns of labor market outcomes for youth,
            and (2) explain the contributions of supply and demand
            factors to youth outcomes. The paper shows that youth face
            various difficulties in transitioning to work. This is
            reflected in their relatively higher unemployment rate,
            higher incidence of low paying or unpaid work, and a large
            share of youth who are neither working nor in school. This
            is especially true for young girls who are found outside the
            labor market, some engaged in home production. Finally, the
            paper also finds that cross-country estimates show that
            changes in the youth relative cohort size is unlikely to
            have a large effect on how youth are faring in the labor market.
Banking services for everyone
            Barriers to bank access and use around the world
Using information from 193 banks in 58
            countries, the authors develop and analyze indicators of
            physical access, affordability, and eligibility barriers to
            deposit, loan, and payment services. They find substantial
            cross-country variation in barriers to banking and show that
            in many countries these barriers can potentially exclude a
            significant share of the population from using banking
            services. Correlations with bank- and country-level
            variables show that bank size and the availability of
            physical infrastructure are the most robust predictors of
            barriers. Further, the authors find evidence that in more
            competitive, open, and transparent economies, and in
            countries with better contractual and informational
            frameworks, banks impose lower barriers. Finally, though
            foreign banks seem to charge higher fees than other banks,
            in foreign dominated banking systems fees are lower and it
            is easier to open bank accounts and to apply for loans. On
            the other hand, in systems that are predominantly
            government-owned, customers pay lower fees but also face
            greater restrictions in terms of where to apply for loans
            and how long it takes to have applications processed. These
            findings have important implications for policy reforms to
            broaden access.
Road network upgrading and overland
            trade expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa
Recent research suggests that isolation
            from regional and international markets has contributed
            significantly to poverty in many Sub-Saharan African
            countries. Numerous empirical studies identify poor
            transport infrastructure and border restrictions as
            significant deterrents to trade expansion. In response, the
            African Development Bank has proposed an integrated network
            of functional roads for the subcontinent. Drawing on new
            econometric results, the authors quantify the
            trade-expansion potential and costs of such a network. They
            use spatial network analysis techniques to identify a
            network of primary roads connecting all Sub-Saharan capitals
            and other cities with populations over 500,000. The authors
            estimate current overland trade flows in the network using
            econometrically-estimated gravity model parameters, road
            transport quality indicators, actual road distances, and
            estimates of economic scale for cities in the network. Then
            they simulate the effect of feasible continental upgrading
            by setting network transport quality at a level that is
            functional, but less highly developed than existing roads in
            countries like South Africa and Botswana. The authors assess
            the costs of upgrading with econometric evidence from a
            large World Bank database of road project costs in Africa.
            Using a standard approach to forecast error estimation, they
            derive a range of potential benefits and costs. Their
            baseline results indicate that continental network upgrading
            would expand overland trade by about $250 billion over 15
            years, with major direct and indirect benefits for the rural
            poor. Financing the program would require about $20 billion
            for initial upgrading and $1 billion annually for
            maintenance. The authors conclude with a discussion of
            supporting institutional arrangements and the potential cost
            of implementing them.
Measuring and reducing the impact of
            corruption in infrastructure
This paper examines what we can say
            about the extent and impact of corruption in infrastructure
            in developing countries using existing evidence. It looks at
            different approaches to estimating the extent of corruption
            and reports on the results of such studies. It suggests that
            there is considerable evidence that most existing
            perceptions measures appear to be very weak proxies for the
            actual extent of corruption in the infrastructure sector,
            largely (but inaccurately) measuring petty rather than grand
            corruption. Existing survey evidence is more reliable, but
            limited in extent and still subject to sufficient
            uncertainty that it should not be used as a tool for
            differentiating countries in terms of access to
            infrastructure finance or appropriate policy models. The
            paper discusses evidence for the relative costs of
            corruption impacts and suggests that a focus on bribe
            payments as the indicator of the costs of corruption in
            infrastructure may be misplaced. It draws some conclusions
            regarding priorities for infrastructure anti-corruption
            research and activities in projects, in particular regarding
            disaggregated and actionable indicators of weak governance
            and corruption.
Conditional cash transfers and
            female schooling : the impact of the female school stipend
            program on public school enrollments in Punjab, Pakistan
Instead of mean-tested conditional cash
            transfer (CCT) programs, some countries have implemented
            gender-targeted CCTs to explicitly address intra-household
            disparities in human capital investments. This study focuses
            on addressing the direct impact of a female school stipend
            program in Punjab, Pakistan: Did the intervention increase
            female enrollment in public schools? To address this
            question, the authors draw on data from the provincial
            school censuses of 2003 and 2005. They estimate the net
            growth in female enrollments in grades 6-8 in stipend
            eligible schools. Impact evaluation analysis, including
            difference-and-difference (DD), triple differencing (DDD),
            and regression-discontinuity design (RDD) indicate a modest
            but statistically significant impact of the intervention.
            The preferred estimator derived from a combination of DDD
            and RDD empirical strategies suggests that the average
            program impact between 2003 and 2005 was an increase of six
            female students per school in terms of absolute change and
            an increase of 9 percent in female enrollment in terms of
            relative change. A triangulation effort is also undertaken
            using two rounds of a nationally representative household
            survey before and after the intervention. Even though the
            surveys are not representative at the subprovincial level,
            the results corroborate evidence of the impact using school
            census data.
Conditional cash transfers and
            female schooling : the impact of the female school stipend
            program on public school enrollments in Punjab, Pakistan
WPS4102 <mark>I</mark> MPACT <mark>E</mark> VALUATION <mark>S</mark> ERIES <mark>N</mark> O <mark>. 9</mark>

**Conditional Cash Transfers and Female Schooling:**

**The Impact of the Female School Stipend Program on Public School**

**Enrollments in Punjab, Pakistan**

Nazmul Chaudhury Dilip Parajuli The World Bank

# Abstract

Instead of mean-tested Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs, some countries have implemented gender-targeted CCTs to explicitly address intra-household disparities in human capital investments. This study focuses on addressing the direct impact of a female school stipend program in Punjab, Pakistan – Did the intervention increase female enrollment in public schools? To address this question, we draw upon data from the provincial school censuses 2003 and 2005. We estimate the _net_ growth in female enrollments in grade 6-8 in stipend eligible schools. Impact evaluation analysis, including difference-and-difference (DD), triple differencing (DDD) and regression-discontinuity design (RDD), indicate a modest but statistically significant impact of the intervention. The preferred estimator derived from a combination of DDD and RDD empirical strategies suggests that the average program impact between 2003 and 2005 was an increase of six female students per school in terms of absolute change and an increase of 9 percent in female enrollment in terms of relative change. A triangulation effort is also undertaken using two rounds of a nationally representative household survey before and after the intervention. Even though the surveys are not representative at the sub-provincial level, the results corroborate evidence of the impact using school census data.

# World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4102, December 2006

_The Impact Evaluation Series has been established in recognition of the importance of impact evaluation studies for World Bank operations and for development in general. The series serves as a vehicle for the dissemination of findings of those studies. Papers in this series are part of the Bank’s Policy Research Working Paper Series. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ __________________________________ The authors would like to thank Jishnu Das, Michelle Riboud, Tahseen Sayed and an anonymous referee for their valuable comments and suggestions on the paper.
Current challenges in financial regulation
Financial intermediation and financial
            services industries have undergone many changes in the past
            two decades due to deregulation, globalization, and
            technological advances. The framework for regulating finance
            has seen many changes as well, with approaches adapting to
            new issues arising in specific groups of countries or
            globally. The objectives of this paper are twofold: to
            review current international thinking on what regulatory
            framework is needed to develop a financial sector that is
            stable, yet efficient, and provides proper access to
            households and firms; and to review the key experiences
            regarding international financial architecture initiatives,
            with a special focus on issues arising for developing
            countries. The paper outlines a number of areas of current
            debate: the special role of banks, competition policy,
            consumer protection, harmonization of rules-across products,
            within markets, and globally-and the adaptation and
            legitimacy of international standards to the circumstances
            facing developing countries. It concludes with some areas
            where more research would be useful.
City indicators : now to Nanjing
This paper provides the key elements to
            develop an integrated approach for measuring and monitoring
            city performance globally. The paper reviews the role of
            cities and why indicators are important. Then it discusses
            past approaches to city indicators and the systems developed
            to date, including the World Bank's initiatives. After
            identifying the strengths and weaknesses of past
            experiences, it discusses the characteristics of optimal
            indicators. The paper concludes with a proposed plan to
            develop standardized indicators that emphasize the
            importance of indicators that are measurable, replicable,
            potentially predictive, and most important, consistent and
            comparable over time and across cities. As an innovative
            characteristic, the paper includes subjective measures in
            city indicators, such as well-being, happy citizens, and trust.