rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Nowcasting Global Poverty
This paper evaluates different methods
            for nowcasting country-level poverty rates, including
            methods that apply statistical learning to large-scale
            country-level data obtained from the World Development
            Indicators and Google Earth Engine. The methods are
            evaluated by withholding measured poverty rates and
            determining how accurately the methods predict the held-out
            data. A simple approach that scales the last observed
            welfare distribution by a fraction of real GDP per capita
            growth—a method that departs slightly from current World
            Bank practice—performs nearly as well as models using
            statistical learning on 1,000+ variables. This GDP-based
            approach outperforms all models that predict poverty rates
            directly, even when the last survey is up to five years old.
            The results indicate that in this context, the additional
            complexity introduced by applying statistical learning
            techniques to a large set of variables yields only marginal
            improvements in accuracy.
Does Competition from Informal Firms
            Impact R&D by Formal SMEs Evidence Using Firm-Level
            Survey Data
The informal sector is an important
            source of livelihoods and jobs for a vast majority of people
            in developing countries. However, there is concern that it
            may undermine growth and development of the formal sector.
            For instance, the growth literature indicates that research
            and development activity and innovation are a key driver of
            long-term growth. How does the competition that formal
            sector firms face from informal sector firms affect research
            and development activity by the formal firms? The present
            paper attempts to answer this question using firm-level
            survey data for small and medium-size enterprises in a large
            cross-section of mostly developing countries. The results
            show that higher informal competition leads to greater a
            likelihood of spending on research and development by formal
            firms. For the most conservative baseline specification, a
            one standard deviation increase in informal competition
            leads to an increase of 5.2 percentage points in the
            likelihood of spending on research and development by formal
            firms. This is a large increase given that less than 18
            percent of the firms in the sample engage in research and
            development activity. Further, consistent with the
            “parasite” view of informality, the positive impact of
            informal competition on research and development activity is
            magnified when the business environment is less conducive to
            operating in the formal sector compared with informal sector
            due to factors such as higher corruption, weaker rule of
            law, more burdensome business regulations, and a higher tax
            rate on profits. As expected, there is no impact of informal
            competition on research and development activity among large
            firms. The main findings are robust to several controls,
            alternative specifications, and endogeneity checks.
Getting Real The Uneven Burden of
            Inflation across Households in Turkey
Inflation is typically measured using
            aggregate price indices that are based on bundles of goods
            and services sold or consumed by the “median” agent. In the
            case of households, in particular, budget shares vary
            substantially across income and demographic groups.
            Assessing how inflation behaves at the household level
            requires understanding how heterogenous changes in consumer
            prices affect household choices and well-being differently.
            In recent years, price increases have been particularly high
            in Turkey, with double-digit inflation starting in 2017 and
            intensifying in 2018 and 2020 due to exchange rate
            volatility, macroeconomic instability, and the economic
            disruption brought about by Covid-19. This paper calculates
            income-decile price indices to examine the inflation
            experience across income groups and discusses their
            implications for household welfare. Households in the first
            decile allocate nearly 70 percent of their budget to food
            and housing, twice as much as the corresponding share for
            the typical household in the upper decile. Inflation
            measures that consider these heterogeneities in expenditures
            show a higher burden for the poor in recent inflation
            episodes driven by rapid increases in food prices (2013,
            2015 and 2019). In 2015, for instance, 342,000 additional
            people would have been deemed poor (an increase of 4.2
            percent) had the poverty calculations taken into account the
            actual inflation experience of poor and vulnerable
            households. A methodological extension of the World Bank’s
            upper-middle-income poverty line ($5.50 2011 purchasing
            power parity) that takes into consideration the inflation
            experience of the bottom deciles yields higher poverty rates
            for Turkey every year between 2011 and 2020.
Infrastructure and Structural Change
            in the Horn of Africa
Access to infrastructure supports
            economic development through both capital accumulation and
            structural transformation. This paper investigates the links
            between investments in electricity, Internet, and road
            infrastructure, in isolation and bundled, and economic
            development in the Horn of Africa, a region that includes
            countries with different levels of infrastructure and
            economic development. Using data on the expansion of the
            road, electricity, and Internet networks over the past two
            decades, it provides reduced-form estimates of the impacts
            of infrastructure investments on the sectoral composition of
            employment. Bundled infrastructure investments cause
            different patterns of structural transformation than
            isolated infrastructure investments. The impact of bundled
            road and electricity investments on reducing the sectoral
            employment share in agriculture is found to be 2.5 times
            larger than the impact of roads alone. The paper then uses a
            spatial general equilibrium model to quantify the impacts of
            future regional transport investments, bundled with
            electricity and trade facilitation measures, on economic
            development in countries in the Horn of Africa.
Can Business Grants Mitigate a
            Crisis ? Evidence from Youth Entrepreneurs in Kenya during COVID-19
COVID-19 was a major shock to youth
            entrepreneurs and their businesses in Kenya. This paper
            studies the causal impact of grants&#x2014;worth two
            months of baseline business revenue&#x2014;and business
            development services as potential mitigation measures. Using
            multiple rounds of phone surveys up to seven months from the
            start of the pandemic, the analysis finds that youth who are
            assigned business grants or a combination of grants and
            business development services are significantly more likely
            to maintain a business, earn more revenue and profits,
            retain employees, and report higher confidence and
            satisfaction with life. There are no corresponding effects
            of business development services alone, although the
            follow-up period is extremely short for training effects to
            materialize. These results suggest that cash infusion for
            young entrepreneurs in times of an aggregate shock can be
            instrumental in moderating its immediate harmful impacts.
Exploring the Growth Effects of
            COVID-19 across Developing Countries
This paper investigates the spread of
            the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on economic growth
            across developing countries. It documents the evolution and
            co-movement of COVID-19 infections with government responses
            (including health containment measures) across developing
            countries. It then estimates the impact of the different
            channels of transmission of COVID-19 on economic
            growth—thus, identifying factors that contribute to the
            economic resilience of countries during the pandemic shocks.
            The findings show that the pandemic’s impact on the decline
            in growth was substantive across the different developing
            country groups—although at different rates. The estimates
            show that a deeper downturn in economic activity due to the
            pandemic can be averted in countries with higher levels of
            human capital, well-targeted containment measures, and
            improved global health security. Diversifying trade patterns
            (across products and markets) is also crucial, and so is
            strengthening intraregional trade, as higher commerce across
            borders within the different developing regions may help
            secure the supply chains of essential goods in times of
            crisis—and particularly during pandemics. Finally, having
            fiscal space and a less risky public debt profile can make
            these economies more resilient against crisis.
How Do Shared Experiences of
            Economic Shocks Impact Refugees and Host Communities
            Evidence from Afghan Refugees in Iran
Using representative survey data
            including Iranians and Afghan refugees in Iran in 2011–2019,
            this paper explores the unequal impact of macroeconomic
            fluctuations due to Iran’s nuclear dispute on Afghan
            refugees and host communities. The paper finds that economic
            shock increases refugee’s exit and disproportionately
            reduces their consumption expenditure and aid received from
            the host community. In addition, bad and good economic
            cycles create asymmetric impacts. While negative shocks
            affect the economic outcomes of two communities
            homogenously, it hurts social cohesion between them. In
            contrast, economic recovery benefits refugees relatively
            more in terms of consumption and income, but the impact on
            social cohesion measures is insignificant. The findings also
            suggest that in turbulent economic times, both
            inter-community and intra-community inequalities go up.
Local Peace Agreements and the
            Return of IDPs with Perceived ISIL Affiliation in Iraq
Between 2015 and 2020, communities
            across Iraq signed local peace agreements (LPAs) aimed at
            setting the foundations for peaceful relations between
            internally displaced persons (IDPs) accused of siding with
            ISIL and their ‘home’ communities. This paper maps the
            characteristics of eight such LPAs and compares each with
            the scholarly expectations regarding what makes a ‘good’
            peace agreement. It also considers how the characteristics
            of each LPA affected conditions for safe and sustainable IDP
            return. Overall, the study found that a failure to include
            IDPs directly in LPA negotiations did not appear to
            compromise safe return but did potentially undermine
            sustainability—but at the same time, indirect representation
            of IDPs (through tribal leadership) enabled negotiations to
            occur that would otherwise be impossible; that the inclusion
            of women, youth and civil society contributed to the
            sustainability of IDP return but did not appear to influence
            safe return; that LPAs were an effective tool for addressing
            community concerns around the return of IDPs but typically
            prioritized community concerns over IDP rights, potentially
            creating new grievances; and finally, that mechanisms to
            implement and monitor each LPA were important for building
            community acceptance but empowered new actors and were
            vulnerable to co-optation.
Social Cohesion and Refugee-Host
            Interactions : Evidence from East Africa
Building upon the literature on contact
            theory, this paper explores the role of inter-group
            interaction in shaping social cohesion between refugees and
            host communities in East Africa. It draws upon ﬁrst-hand
            quantitative (n=16,608) and qualitative data collected from
            refugees and nearby host communities in urban and camp-like
            contexts in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda. Focusing on the
            Uganda data, OLS regressions reveal a positive and
            signiﬁcant correlation between refugee-host interaction and
            the perception of hosts towards refugees. This association
            disappears when an instrumental variable (IV) approach is
            used to address endogeneity issues, except when only data
            from the urban context is used. The analysis of
            cross-country data highlights further diﬀerences in the
            types of interaction and perception that matter between
            urban and camp-like contexts. It also suggests that
            ethno-linguistic proximity between refugee and host
            populations is associated with more positive attitudes. In
            all contexts, an important part of attitude formation
            appears to take place at the intra-group level, within
            households and immediate neighbourhoods, independently of
            individual interaction with the out-group. The paper
            proposes a series of policy recommendations to improve
            refugee-host social cohesion, with diﬀerent approaches
            required in urban and camp-like contexts.
Can Economics Become More Reflexive
            Exploring the Potential of Mixed-Methods
This paper argues that Economics can
            learn from Cultural Anthropology and Qualitative Sociology
            by drawing on a judicious mix of qualitative and
            quantitative methods to become more “reflexive.” It argues
            that reflexivity, which helps reduce the distance between
            researchers and the subjects of their research, has four key
            elements: cognitive empathy, the analysis of narratives
            (potentially enhanced by machine learning), understanding
            process, and participation (involving respondents in
            research). The paper provides an impressionistic and
            non-comprehensive review of mixed-methods relevant to
            development economics and discrimination to illustrate these points.
Private Cities : Implications for
            Urban Policy in Developing Countries
Institutional weaknesses limit the
            capacity of local governments to support efficient
            urbanization in developing countries. They also lead to the
            emergence of large developers with the clout to build entire
            cities. This paper analyzes the urbanization process when
            local governments are weak and large developers are
            powerful. Results from a non-cooperative game setting with
            minimal assumptions show that multiple equilibria can emerge
            depending on key institutional parameters of the model and
            the nature of the game, but all of them are inefficient. In
            this simple setting, increasing the capacity of the local
            government may not lead to better outcomes, because it may
            crowd out urban land development by the more effective
            private investor. Subsidizing the large investor can ensure
            efficiency, but it makes the rest of society worse off.
            Selling the rights to the city can be Pareto efficient, but
            only provided that the price at which the rights are sold
            are sufficiently high. However, more analytical and
            empirical work is needed before these analyses can be deemed
            relevant in practice. Competition among jurisdictions, time
            consistency challenges, and the social implications of
            private cities deserve special attention.
A Gender Employment Gap Index (GEGI)
            : A Simple Measure of the Economic Gains from Closing Gender
            Employment Gaps, with an Application to the Pacific Islands
Despite a policy consensus that closing
            gender employment gaps will boost economic growth,
            relatively little is known about the size of these gains in
            many developing countries. This paper develops a new Gender
            Employment Gap Index (GEGI), which is equal to the size of
            long-run GDP per capita gains from closing gender employment
            gaps. The GEGI is simple and transparent and can be easily
            constructed using closed-form expressions for almost all
            countries using macroeconomic employment rate data by
            gender. The basic variant of the GEGI is the gap between
            male and female employment as a share of total employment.
            The full GEGI is similar, but instead of using an aggregate
            employment gap, the full GEGI is the weighted average of a
            “better employment gap” and “other employment gap.” The
            basic and full GEGIs are similar (correlation of 0.97), and
            both average 19 percent across countries. This means that
            GDP per capita in the long run would be almost 20 percent
            higher if female employment were exogenously increased to be
            the same as men’s (other things being equal). The paper also
            provides an application for the Pacific Islands, for which a
            simple measure like the GEGI is particularly important given
            the lack of alternative estimates.
Infrastructure Quality and FDI
            Inflows : Evidence from the Arrival of High-Speed Internet
            in Africa
Does ambient infrastructural quality
            affect foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing
            countries? This paper investigates how the arrival of
            high-speed Internet in Africa triggered FDI to the region.
            It also explores the role of complementary infrastructure,
            such as access to electricity and road connectivity, in
            amplifying the impact of Internet connectivity on
            investment. The identification strategy exploits plausibly
            exogenous variations in access to high-speed Internet
            induced by the staggered arrival of submarine fiber-optic
            Internet cables and spatial variations in terrestrial fiber
            cable networks across locations on the continent. Findings
            from the paper show that access to high-speed Internet
            induces FDI, particularly in the service sector, with the
            finance, technology, retail and health services subsectors
            as the main beneficiaries.  Access to (hard) infrastructure
            such as electricity and roads, amplifies the impact of
            Internet connectivity on FDI, thus highlighting the role of
            complementarities in the impact of infrastructure. Further,
            the results suggest that improvement in quality of
            governance, and increased performance of incumbent firms are
            plausible mechanisms.
Heterogeneous Agglomeration
            Economies in the Developing Countries : The Roles of Firm
            Characteristics, Sector Tradability, and Urban Mobility
Using geo-coded, firm-level data on more
            than 51,000 establishments in 649 metropolitan areas in 98
            developing economies, from the World Bank’s Enterprise
            Surveys and a new global database on city-level mobility and
            congestion, this paper estimates the “pure” firm
            productivity gains of urban density, net of negative
            externalities associated with limited mobility, crime, and
            pollution. The results suggest that the average size of
            agglomeration economies in the developing world is
            comparable to the one observed in advanced countries, but
            the magnitude of the benefits of density on firm
            productivity substantially varies across firms. Returns to
            urban density are higher for firms operating in the
            tradables sector, exporters, foreign-owned firms, larger
            firms, and more experienced firms. Agglomeration economies
            are lost through both limited uncongested mobility and
            congestion, but the latter has a stronger negative effect on
            agglomeration economies and reduces relatively more the
            agglomeration benefits of firms in the non-tradables sector
            than those producing tradables.
Nudging in the Time of the
            Coronavirus : Evidence from an Experimental Tax Trial in
            Albania at the Onset of a Global Pandemic
This paper presents the results of a
            randomized controlled trial testing the effectiveness of
            taxpayer communications informed by behavioral science in
            inducing business payroll tax compliance at the onset of the
            COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, an experimental tax trial
            targeting 5,423 firms was implemented, coinciding with the
            national lockdown due to the global pandemic. The Albanian
            tax authority sent postal letters to employers and selected
            employees highlighting a suspicion that wages were
            under-declared to avoid personal income tax withholding.
            Employers and employees suspected of under-declaring were
            randomly assigned to receive a soft-tone letter
            (highlighting the social importance of contributing through
            taxes), a strong-tone letter (highlighting the penalties
            associated with under-declaring), or none (forming a control
            group against which the impact of receiving the letters
            could be estimated). For employers receiving soft-tone
            letters, the study finds large, statistically significant
            increases on subsequent payroll declarations (by as much as
            10 percent relative to the control group), which gradually
            attenuate over the following six months. No statistically
            significant effects are found for letters sent to employees
            or strong-tone letters. The findings highlight (i) the
            importance of framing of communications as well as the
            importance of smart selection of letter recipients for
            taxpayer communication campaigns, (ii) which type of
            taxpayer communications were most effective in the context
            of the COVID-19 pandemic, and (iii) the role that randomized
            controlled trials and behavioral science can play in
            strengthening the effectiveness of government policy,
            particularly for public revenue mobilization.