rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
The great recession and the future
            of cities
This paper describes the serious fiscal
            crisis faced by cities around the world following the Great
            Recession of 2008. Five years later, the after-effects of
            this major crisis continue to be felt and limit economic
            opportunities in cities. Section 1 summarizes how the crisis
            was triggered and how it unfolded in the US, then spread to
            the rest of world -- highlighting the links between
            financial sector and housing sector. Section 2 discusses the
            impact of the crisis on urban revenue and expenditure, and
            the stimulus programs and recovery plans devised as a short
            term response by cities around the world.  Section 3 then
            discusses longer term strategies to ensure the financial,
            social and environmental sustainability of cities. The
            authors make the point -- and back up our assertions with
            specific examples -- that urban decision-makers must take a
            long view and find ways to create opportunities for their
            citizens, making sure that their decisions are financially
            sustainable in the long term. Today's decisions should
            not lock cities out of options tomorrow, and cities must be
            managed with flexibility so as to adapt to unforeseen new
            circumstances. The authors also argue that, while there has
            been a lot of talk about "smart cities" and new
            technologies among urban specialists and urban planners, it
            is ultimately the focus on basic economics (sustainable
            financing, providing good services to consumers and
            incentives for providers), good governance and good
            institutions that will create sustainable, dynamic and
            livable cities.
Perils of simulation : parallel
            streams and the case of stata's rnormal command
Large-scale simulation-based studies
            rely on at least three properties of pseudorandom number
            sequences: they behave in many ways like truly random
            numbers; they can be replicated; and they can be generated
            in parallel. There has been some divergence, however,
            between empirical techniques employing random numbers, and
            the standard battery of tests used to validate them. A
            random number generator that passes tests for any single
            stream of random numbers may fail the same tests when it is
            used to generate multiple streams in parallel. The lack of
            systematic testing of parallel streams leaves statistical
            software with important potential vulnerabilities.  This
            paper shows one such vulnerability in Stata's rnormal
            function that went unnoticed for almost four years, and how
            to detect it.  It then shows practical implications for the
            use of parallel streams in existing software.
MDGs that nudge : the Millennium
            Development Goals, popular mobilization, and the post-2015
            development framework
The Millennium Development Goals, which
            expire in 2015, were a global agreement to promote human
            development and reduce poverty. But they did not create a
            legalized institutional regime, in which precise obligations
            would be delegated to specific actors, nor were they, in
            many respects, compatible with the incentives of the
            countries whose heads of state endorsed them. They most
            resembled international human rights treaties, which are
            also not legally coercive, and which achieve their effects
            largely through their role in social and political
            mobilization. But unlike human rights treaties, the
            Millennium Development Goals' targets and goals were
            not psychologically, morally, and politically salient. The
            goals and targets for the proposed second round of
            Millennium Development Goals should be easier to grasp and
            embed within them a causal narrative about the causes and
            remedies of global poverty. Their formulation and
            implementation should also draw on national institutions and
            processes, which most people find more persuasive than
            discussions at the international level. The paper develops
            these ideas and presents examples for how post-2015
            development goals and targets might be presented in ways
            that are more compelling.
Split decisions : family finance
            when a policy discontinuity allocates overseas work
Labor markets are increasingly global.
            Overseas work can enrich households but also split them
            geographically, with ambiguous net effects on decisions
            about work, investment, and education. These net effects,
            and their mechanisms, are poorly understood. This study
            investigates a policy discontinuity in the Philippines that
            resulted in quasi-random assignment of temporary,
            partial-household migration to high-wage jobs in Korea. This
            allows unusually reliable measurement of the reduced-form
            effect of these overseas jobs on migrant households. A
            purpose-built survey allows nonexperimental tests of
            different theoretical mechanisms for the reduced-form
            effect. The study also explores how reliably the
            reduced-form effect could be measured with standard
            observational estimators. It finds large effects on
            spending, borrowing, and human capital investment, but no
            effects on saving or entrepreneurship. Remittances appear to
            overwhelm household splitting as a causal mechanism.
Determinants of export survival in
            the Lao PDR
This paper explores a rich dataset of
            monthly firm-level data on the population of exporters of
            Lao PDR from 2005 to 2010. The survival analysis uses a
            discrete-time logistic model based on
            firm-product-destination triplets while accounting for
            unobserved heterogeneity. It looks in detail at the role
            played by two important and related determinants of
            survival: experience and networks. These are particularly
            relevant for developing countries, where relevant export
            experience in firms is likely to be limited and networks
            leveraging it all the more important. The analysis reveals
            the positive impact of having prior experience with the
            export product and destination, experience with importing,
            as well as using a developed neighboring country as launch
            platform. Networks are found to be most relevant when they
            are most specific -- the largest impact comes from province
            level aggregations of firms selling the same product in the
            same market during a particular month. A competing risks
            model was also investigated to discern the impact of these
            determinants on the likelihood of experiencing an upgrade to
            a superior product versus termination when a trade contract ends.
Small is beautiful, at least in
            high-income democracies: the distribution of policy-making
            responsibility, electoral accountability, and incentives for
            rent extraction
Why is there significant variation in
            rent extraction among high-income democracies? A large
            number of political economy investigations into this
            research question have found that a long period of
            democratic rule and high per capita income are associated
            with less rent extraction among public policy-makers.
            However, attempts to explain the residual, yet significant,
            variation in rent extraction among countries that possess
            both these characteristics have been significantly more
            circumspect and disputed. This paper explores how the
            distribution of policy-making responsibilities between
            electorally accountable decision-makers and their
            electorally unaccountable public policy-making counterparts
            determines the optimal level of rents extracted in any given
            high-income democracy context. Specifically, the paper
            formally models how: (1) variation in the ratio of
            electorally accountable decision-makers to electorally
            unaccountable decision-makers, by altering (2) voters'
            evaluation of incumbent competency, changes (3) the
            incentives that policy-makers, wishing to remain in office,
            have to minimize their short-term level of rent extraction
            in order to signal their competency and hopefully retain
            office. Given these "career concerns," the
            theoretical model predicts that an increase or decrease in
            the ratio will be associated with more or less rent
            extraction. This hypothesis is then tested empirically.
            Establishing that the ratio does robustly predict variation
            in rent extraction is a significant finding, as it can
            enable analysts to predict how changes in policy-making
            contexts may affect the incentives for good governance in
            this sub-set of countries.
The role of men in the economic and
            social development of women : implications for gender equality
This paper is a critical review of the
            literature on the issue of how male behavior affects female
            outcomes in the promotion of gender equality. It employs the
            family as the main unit of analysis because a large part of
            gender interactions occurs within this institution. This
            survey first summarizes recent studies on the distribution
            of power within the family and identifies several factors
            that have altered the bargaining position of men and women
            over the last decades. It then reviews empirical work on the
            contribution of men, as fathers and husbands, to the health
            and socioeconomic outcomes of women in both developed and
            developing countries. Finally, it discusses a set of
            economic policies that have intentionally or unintentionally
            affected men's attitudes and behaviors. The main
            implication is that policies meant to achieve gender
            equality should focus on men rather than exclusively target women.
Decomposing the labor market
            earnings inequality: the public and private sectors in
            Vietnam, 1993-2006
In contrast with the typical transition
            to a market economy, earnings inequality in Vietnam between
            1993 and 2006 appears to have decreased, and the earnings
            gap in favor of public employees appears to have widened.
            The paper uses a comparative advantage model to disentangle
            the effect of sorting workers across sectors from the effect
            of the differences in returns to workers' skills. The
            selection of the best workers into the public sector is
            clearly an important component of the explanation for the
            public-private sector earnings gap, but the widening of this
            gap over time is primarily due to changes in the
            compensation patterns. The paper finds that, in the 1990s,
            public employees were underpaid compared with their earning
            potential in the private sector whereas, in the early 2000s,
            public employees earned similar returns to their comparative
            advantage in the public and private sectors. The increasing
            homogeneity in returns to skills in the Vietnamese labor
            market appears to explain both the increase in the
            public-private pay gap and the decrease in overall inequality.
Mass media and public policy :
            global evidence from agricultural policies
Mass media play a crucial role in
            information distribution and in the political market and
            public policy making. Theory predicts that information
            provided by the mass media reflects the media's
            incentives to provide news to different groups in society
            and affects these groups' influence in policy making.
            The paper use data on agricultural policy from 69 countries
            spanning a wide range of development stages and media
            markets to test these predictions. The empirical results are
            consistent with theoretical hypotheses that public support
            for agriculture is affected by the mass media. In
            particular, an increase in media (television) diffusion is
            associated with policies that benefit the majority to a
            greater extent and is correlated with a reduction in
            agriculture taxation in poor countries and a reduction in
            the subsidization of agriculture in rich countries, ceteris
            paribus. The empirical results are consistent with the
            hypothesis that increased competition in commercial media
            reduces transfers to special interest groups and contributes
            to more efficient public policies.
Using administrative data to
            evaluate municipal reforms : an evaluation of the impact of
            Minas Facil Expresso
Efforts to make it easier for firms to
            register formally are the most common form of business
            regulatory reform over the past decade. While there is
            evidence that large reforms have resulted in some increases
            in registration rates, recent experimental evidence suggests
            very few informal firms choose to register when given
            information about how to do so. This raises the question of
            whether it is productive for governments to continue to
            extend simplification efforts to all firms, especially those
            in more remote areas where many of the benefits of
            registering may be reduced. This study uses administrative
            data to evaluate the impact of Minas Facil Expresso, a
            program in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, which
            attempted to expand a business start-up simplification
            program to more remote municipalities. Using
            difference-in-differences with 56 months of registration
            data for 822 municipalities, the analysis finds introducing
            these units actually led to a reduction in registration
            rates, and no change in tax revenues. The paper uses this
            evaluation to illustrate the design choices and issues
            involved in using administrative data to evaluate reforms,
            with the goal of also providing a template that can be used
            for evaluating similar reforms elsewhere.
Closing rural-urban MDG gaps in
            low-income countries : a general equilibrium perspective
This paper addresses policies aimed at
            closing the rural-urban gap for one of the Millennium
            Development Goals (MDGs), the under-five mortality rate
            (U5MR). The paper relies on the Maquette for MDG Simulations
            (MAMS), a computable general equilibrium model, applied to
            the database of an archetypical low-income country. The
            scenarios, which focus on the period 2013-2030, include a
            "business-as-usual" base scenario and policy
            scenarios that analyze efforts to raise the rural population
            up to the urban level in terms of health services or the
            under-five mortality rate. The policy scenarios are
            implemented with alternative sources of fiscal space. The
            results indicate that, if current trends continue,
            considerable progress for MDGs should be expected by 2030.
            If the government raises rural health services, then the
            decline in the rural U5MR would accelerate. If most
            additional resources come from foreign grants or government
            efficiency gains, then the repercussions for other
            development indicators, including poverty reduction, would
            be positive. However, if most additional resources are from
            domestic taxes or borrowing, then progress for the rural
            U5MR would come at the expense of less progress for other
            indicators. Sensitivity analysis shows that these
            qualitative findings are robust to different values for two
            parameters related to initial rural-urban cost and service
            gaps. However, quantitatively, the results depend on the
            values of these two parameters, implying that individual
            country characteristics strongly influence the fiscal-space
            requirements for and consequences of equalizing rural-urban
            MDG services and outcomes.
Gender equality and economic growth
            in Brazil : a long-run analysis
This paper studies the long-run impact
            of policies aimed at fostering gender equality on economic
            growth in Brazil. The first part provides a brief review of
            gender issues in the country. The second part presents a
            gender-based, three-period OLG model that accounts for
            women's time allocation between market work, child
            rearing, human capital accumulation, and home production.
            Bargaining between spouses depends on relative human capital
            stocks, and thus indirectly on access to infrastructure. The
            model is calibrated and various experiments are conducted,
            including investment in infrastructure, conditional cash
            transfers, a reduction in gender bias in the market place,
            and a composite pro-growth, pro-gender reform program. The
            analysis showed that fostering gender equality, which may
            partly depend on the externalities that infrastructure
            creates in terms of women's time allocation and
            bargaining power, may have a substantial impact on long-run
            growth in Brazil.
Petroleum product pricing and
            complementary policies: experience of 65 developing
            countries since 2009
Unable to cope fully with steadily
            climbing world oil prices since mid-2009, many of the 65
            countries reviewed in this paper have progressed slowly or
            even reversed course in reforming pricing of petroleum
            products. End-user prices in July 2012 varied by two orders
            of magnitude across the countries. More than two-fifths,
            including some that had only recently adopted automatic
            pricing mechanisms, froze the prices of gasoline, diesel, or
            both for months or even years on end during the study
            period. When the prices were finally adjusted, the increases
            were sometimes substantial, leading to large-scale protests,
            partial or full reversals of price adjustments, or softening
            of pricing reform policy. Governments' attempts to keep
            domestic prices artificially low -- through price control,
            export or quantity restrictions, or political pressure put
            on oil companies -- have helped curb inflation in the short
            term, but frequently with serious negative consequences:
            flourishing black markets, smuggling, fuel adulteration,
            illegal diversion of subsidy funds, large financial losses
            suffered by fuel suppliers, deteriorating refining and other
            infrastructure, and acute fuel shortages causing
            economy-wide damage. In several countries, subsidies, price
            controls, and other restrictions have helped protect
            inefficient refineries and oil marketers. Mitigation
            responses have included fuel conservation programs; fuel
            diversification, particularly liquid biofuels to substitute
            gasoline and diesel; and efforts to lower costs of supply,
            including strengthening infrastructure, promoting price
            competition, hedging, negotiating price discounts with
            exporters, and bulk procurement. Various forms of assistance
            to consumers have also been offered, especially to
            households, agriculture, transport, and fisheries.
The financing and growth of firms in
            China and India : evidence from capital markets
This paper studies the extent to which
            firms in China and India use capital markets to obtain
            financing and grow. Using a unique data set on domestic and
            international capital raising activity and firm performance,
            it finds that the expansion of financial market activity
            since the 1990s has been more limited than what the
            aggregate figures suggest. Relatively few firms raise
            capital. Even fewer firms capture the bulk of the financing.
            Moreover, firms that issue equity or bonds are different and
            behave differently from other publicly listed firms. Among
            other things, they are typically larger and grow faster. The
            differences between users and non-users exist before the
            capital raising activity, are associated with the
            probability of raising capital, and become more accentuated
            afterward. The distribution of issuing firms shifts more
            over time than the distribution of those that do not issue,
            suggesting little convergence in firm size among listed firms.
Foreign wage premium, gender and
            education : insights from Vietnam household surveys
This paper investigates the differential
            impacts of foreign ownership on wages for different types of
            workers (in terms of educational background and gender) in
            Vietnam using the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys
            of 2002 and 2004. Whereas most previous studies have
            compared wage levels between foreign and domestic sectors
            using firm-level data (thus excluding the informal sector),
            one advantage of using the Living Standards Surveys in this
            paper is that the data allow wage comparison analyses to
            extend to the informal wage sector. A series of Mincerian
            earnings equations and worker-specific fixed effects models
            are estimated. Several findings emerge. First, foreign firms
            pay higher wages relative to their domestic counterparts
            after controlling for workers personal characteristics.
            Second, the higher the individual workers' levels of
            education, the larger on average are the wage premiums for
            those who work for foreign firms. Third, longer hours of
            work in foreign firm jobs relative to working in the
            informal wage sector are an important component of the wage
            premium. Finally, unskilled women experience a larger
            foreign wage premium than unskilled men, reflecting the low
            earning opportunities for women and a higher gender gap in
            the informal wage sector.