rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Analyzing the effects of U.S.
            macroeconomic policy on U.S. agriculture using the USAGMKTS model
This report describes the results of
            simulating effects of U.S. macroeconomic policy on U.S.
            agriculture using the USAGMKTS model.  The primary purpose
            for which the USAGMKTS model was developed is to determine
            the effects of potential changes in U.S. policy on the
            border prices of corn, sorghum, and soybeans.  The USAGMKTS
            model is a member of a set of interlinked models at
            macroeconomic and sectoral levels of Mexico and the U.S.
            (with enough specification of the rest of the world to close
            the system).  The effects of macroeconomic policy variables
            on macroeconomic variables affecting the agricultural sector
            are derived from the FAIRMODEL of the U.S. macroeconomy.
            These results will be used later to determine the effects of
            U.S. agricultural and macroeconomic policies on Mexican
            agriculture using the MEXAGMKTS model.
Pricing, cost recovery, and
            production efficiency in transport : a critique
The purpose of this paper is to assess
            the efficacy of optimal pricing formulas for pricing and
            cost recovery and to develop a general framework within
            which to analyze the performance of public transport.  Five
            sources of inefficiency in public transport are discussed:
            (a) the goals of the enterprise or the regulation of its
            operations; (b) the structure of the output market; (c) the
            control mechanism between government and the enterprise; (c)
            the managerial incentive structure; and (d) the conditions
            of employment.  Even when public enterprises are bent on
            maximizing consumer welfare, costs are not necessarily
            minimized.  Lack of competition may also exacerbate the
            problem of asymmetric information between owners and
            managers. Owners of public firms are unlikely to exert
            pressure on public enterprises to operate efficiently.  And
            public firms may be protected from insolvency by
            "soft" budget constraints.
Modeling investment behavior in
            developing countries : an application to Egypt
The economic literature on investment
            has been characterized by considerable controversy, even by
            the standards of economists. A number of different, often
            overlapping, models of investment determination have been
            hypothesized and the empirical evidence has done little to
            clarify which, if any, are accurate representations of the
            way in which capital formation occurs in the economy. This
            paper suggests some methodological innovations in modelling
            aggregate investment behavior. A theoretical framework for
            analyzing investment decisions that takes into account some
            of the structural features of a developing economy is
            presented. Starting from the firm's optimization
            problem, an aggregate investment function is derived that
            reflects the results of a survey of decision-making in fifty
            private sector firms in Egypt. The model is then tested at
            the macroeconomic level using new econometric techniques
            that have emerged in the recent literature on stationarity
            testing and cointegration. The relationship between
            investment and an array of government policies is
            highlighted in the econometric analysis. The conclusions,
            both methodological and empirical, are also presented.
Improving data on poverty in the
            Third World : the World Bank's Living Standards
            Measurement Study
This paper is an account of the World
            Bank's effort to collect household-level data on
            poverty in developing countries and what that data says
            about the effects of government policies on living
            conditions of the poor. The main objective of the Living
            Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) surveys is to provide
            household-level data for evaluating the population's
            living conditions. This paper gives a history of LSMS and
            shows general trends that emerged in studies for which LSMS
            data are available: (a) most of the poor are in rural areas;
            (b) most of the poor are in households in which the head
            works in agriculture; and (c) the heads of poor households
            have low levels of education. Selected results of studies on
            the persistence of poverty, the effects on the poor,
            structural adjustment, food stamps and food subsidies, and
            raising user fees for health care and education are presented.
Reforming state enterprises in
            socialist economies : guidelines for leasing them to entrepreneurs
Since the state has proven to be
            incompetent in its management of state owned enterprises a
            new structure must be found that takes into account the
            incompetence of the state but ensures that the state's
            economic interests are preserved the best way possible.  Two
            of the most difficult tasks in this process are how to
            exercise ownership rights to assets and simultaneously
            delegate decision making to the management of the firm.
            This paper finds that the solution of these problems is to
            lease state owned enterprises to entrepreneurs through
            contracts derived from the principal-agent literature where
            the state is the principal and the agent is the lessee.
            Since the state needs to delegate responsibility to the
            management of state owned enterprises, the process of reform
            becomes in reality a principal-agent problem.  To facilitate
            the reform process it is necessary to establish a credit
            market because the lessee may have investment plans that
            need to be financed.  So far no country has yet tried to
            implement lease schemes based on principal-agent contracts.
            Future work needs to build a bridge between theory and
            reality to see whether they both can benefit from the interaction.
Institutional development in World
            Bank projects : a cross sectoral review
As the scope of Bank work in
            institutional development ( ID ) widens, the design of ID in
            Bank projects needs to pay increased attention to several
            emerging problems and inconsistencies : a) without country
            specific sector ID strategy, there is no long term
            perspective to guide project design; b) uneven quality of
            institutional analysis and the limited attention to ID
            issues in economic and sector work can weaken the design
            process; c) the focus of ID work on project implementation
            limits concern for project sustainability; and d) more
            complex, sectorwide ID components call for more rather than
            less supervision.  The task, the author concludes is not to
            broaden ID work but to deepen it. He recommends : 1)
            encourage operational task managers to supplement skills at
            their command by mobilizing experts within the Bank to help
            analysis and design; 2) increase Bank expertise in this
            area; 3) use outside experts, as needsed; 4) expose Bank
            staff to a range of analytical frameworks to improve
            institutional analysis; and 5) make joint ( Bank and
            borrower ) institutional diagnosis and design a norm, giving
            borrowers a greater sense of ownership and creating a solid
            basis for sustainability.
Public enterprise reform : a
            challenge for the World Bank
Public enterprises (PEs) earn an average
            10 percent of GDP in developing countries. Many governments
            are reexamining the role of the state, so questions about
            whether to divest PEs or make them more efficient are likely
            to intensify. The Bank will increasingly be called upon for
            advice and financial support in managing the transition
            period. The Bank should maintain its focus on rationalizing
            the size of PEs, by liquidating nonviable PEs, and
            transfering their ownership or control to the private
            sector, if that will make them more efficient. In helping
            countries improve the efficiency of PEs that remain public,
            the Bank should emphasize both policy framework and
            institutional set-up, and restructuring of individual
            enterprises. It should also extend its analysis of PEs to
            the socialist economies, explore the relationship between
            PEs and the private sector, and study how best to phase and
            sequence PE reforms. The Bank should refine PE reform
            components and tools, especially in terms of the phasing and
            sequencing of price liberalization and competition: the
            budgetary impact of PEs; and the valuation of PEs for
            divestiture. Lastly, it should learn more systematically
            from experience by analyzing the outcomes of PE reforms; the
            performance of divested PEs; the effects on efficiency of
            staff reductions; and the effectiveness of program contracts
            on enterprise efficiency.
The distortionary effects of tariff
            exemptions in Argentina
Tariff exemptions for exporters are
            widely used by many countries as an instrument for providing
            export incentives. This author argues that when tariff
            exemptions are granted as a means of industrial regional
            promotion to an industry independently of its export
            performance, the tariff exemptions lose their potential as
            an export promotion instrument. The case of Argentina is of
            interest because it exemplifies the practice of many
            developing countries. A simple model is used to show that
            the indiscriminate use of duty exemptions has several
            undesirable effects : 1) duty exemptions deprive the
            government of revenues; 2) the more widespread the
            exemption, the less effective they become as an instrument
            for export promotion; 3) exemptions widen the variability of
            effective protection rates of industries in relation to
            their capital intensity; and 4) exemptions increase the
            demand for imports more than an export subsidy does, because
            output in the competing input industry contracts.
Productivity and externalities :
            models of export led growth
In developing countries,
            industrialization for successful export-led growth has been
            associated with rapid structural change and growth in
            productivity. Standard neoclassical growth models have
            difficulty explaining this change in performance. This paper
            has developed a simple analytical model incorporating export
            externalities that capture the large increases in the share
            of trade and total factor productivity that are associated
            with export-led growth. It also has developed a second model
            that breaks growth into its various components, which
            includes the effects of: (a) factor accumulation; (b) moving
            factors from areas of low productivity to area of high
            productivity; (c) exporting heavy and light manufactures;
            and (d) importing capital goods. The paper implements the
            second model with data from an archetypal semi-industrial
            country. The model accounts for the higher total factor
            productivity growth observed in countries pursuing
            export-led growth strategies. It also captures the pattern
            of structural change that such countries experience.
The GATT as international discipline
            over trade restrictions : a public choice approach
The General Agreement on Tariffs and
            Trade (GATT) was built on a mercantilist sense of economic
            welfare and a mercantilist sense that domestic producers had
            a higher claim than foreign producers to the domestic
            market. The trade negotiations process did not attack this
            claim. It gave producers in each country an opportunity to
            increase its value through mutually beneficial exchanges
            with producers in other countries. The process worked as
            long as institutions forced all producers in a country to
            reach a collective decision on trade policy. Another
            mutation of GATT institutions has begun with the development
            in the United States of "301", which provides a
            way for exporting producers to advance their interests
            without bearing the burden of suppressing or buying off
            import competing interests. Indeed, "301" attacks
            foreign restrictions not with the possibility of fewer U.S.
            restrictions, but with the threat of more. Trade remedy
            processes have been installed in many countries, so
            "301s" should not be far behind. The GATT system
            was devised to promote global security and free trade. In
            the present system, export interests will generate trade
            conflicts and import competing interests will generate trade
            restrictions. Simply put, the institutions that shape the
            relevant public choices do not bring out the appropriate
            economic interests, and the resulting policy choices are not
            those that promote economic efficiency.
The new political economy : positive
            economics and negative politics
This paper discusses the theory that
            less politics makes better economics. It argues that this
            perspective on politics misrepresents the dynamics of
            policymaking in developing countries and is seriously
            limited in its ability to explain how policy changes come
            about or how policies are chosen that lead to socially
            beneficial outcomes. The author indicates that most models
            of political economy are not relevant for developing
            countries and are therefore unable to explain policy changes
            or wise policy choices. In light of this, the paper
            recommends an alternative approach to political economy that
            does not treat politics as a negative factor in policy
            choice. It emphasizes understanding the preferences and
            perceptions of policy elites, the circumstances that
            surround the emergence of policy issues, the concerns of
            decision makers, and the factors that affect the
            implementation and sustainability of policy change. In such
            an alternative, politics consists of efforts at problem
            solving through bargaining and the use of political
            resources in the context of great uncertainty.
The macroeconomics of populism in
            Latin America
By populism, this paper refers to an
            economic approach that emphasizes growth and income
            redistribution and deemphasizes the risks of inflation and
            deficit finance, external constraints and the reaction of
            economic agents to aggressive nonmarket policies. It
            analyzes two instances of populism - Chile under Allende and
            Peru under Garcia. These experiences are described in
            detail, not as a righteous assertion of conservative
            economics, but as a warning that populist policies
            ultimately fail, and always at a frightening cost to the
            groups they were supposed to benefit. This paper explores
            the question of whether some variant of populist policies
            could succeed. It suggests that populist policies could
            succeed if they stayed clear of foreign exchange
            constraints, emphasized reactivation for a brief initial
            period, and then shifted to growth policies. Most important,
            expansionary policies must reflect awareness of capacity
            constraints and must rely for financing on an extremely
            orthodox fiscal policy and rigorous tax adminsitration. The
            paper concludes by warning that IMF-style policies,
            unconcerned with growth of social progress, may establish
            financial stability in the short run, but inevitably open
            the door to yet another round of destructive reaction in the
            form of populist policies.
Harmonizing tax policies in Central America
This report proposes an action plan for
            the rationalization of tax structures for Central America.
            To harmonize tax policies among Central American nations,
            the report recommends the following: (a) continuing trade
            liberalization, by reducing the level and dispersion of
            effective trade protection; (b) shifting the tax system from
            reliance on trade to reliance on domestic transactions and
            income; (c) making the value added tax the backbone of the
            tax system; and (d) improving tax administration. It also
            recommends; (e) harmonizing taxes on inputs and exempting
            nontraditional exporters from paying import duties; (f)
            moving toward coordinating factor incomes to avoid double
            taxation; (g) eliminating all quantitative import
            restrictions, prior imports deposits, non-common import
            tariffs and other restrictions on imports from other Central
            American Common Market (CACM) members; (h) applying similar
            principles in designing export taxes on coffee and bananas;
            and (i) not using differential exchange rates to
            discriminate against regional trade. If implemented, it is
            hoped that these reforms, along with other structural
            reforms, would help spark the latent growth potential in
            Central American economies.
Cost and benefits of rent control in
            Kumasi, Ghana
Over the past forty years, rent control
            has been a feature of housing in Ghana.  This study focusses
            on the housing market in Kumasi, the second largest city in
            Ghana.  The authors examine the characteristics of the rent
            control regime in force there, and assess the costs and
            benefits of rent control, on landlords and on tenants, and
            its effect on the housing stock. Rent control has been
            successful in ensuring that housing is very inexpensive for
            most households, in both absolute terms and in the
            proportion of income devoted to rent.  These controls have
            deprived landlords of economic returns on their property,
            causing them to withdraw stock from renting to use for their
            own family members and to reduce maintenance.  However, rent
            control is not the only constraint on the housing market, in
            Kumasi or in Ghana.  The paper also describes other supply
            side and regulatory constraints; such as those affecting
            land, finance, and choice of building design and materials.
            A number of options for relaxation/decontrol are studied
            with the aid of a simple present value model.  Along with
            decontrol of new construction it is recommended that
            floating up and out of controls over a five year period
            should be considered, along with policy changes to ensure
            ready supplies of land, finance, and building materials.
            Such policies are essential, given that private housing
            investment provides the great majority of rooms in Ghanaian
            urban areas.
Inflation and seigniorage in Argentina
Argentina, where increases in inflation
            appear to be closely linked to government attempts to raise
            seigniorage, was chosen for this study because of its
            persistent high rates of inflation and its fiscal imbalance.
            Monetization of fiscal deficits becomes a major force for
            creating money and inflation in countries with limited
            access to domestic and foreign credit. The authors found
            that inflation in Argentina played an important role in
            generating public sector revenues. The authors found that at
            the revenue maximizing rate of inflation, the government can
            get seigniorage of about 7.5  of GDP in steady state.
            Between June 1978 and April 1985, there was a clear,
            positive relation between inflation and the inflation tax
            for rates of inflation below 18 . At the 20  range, the
            inflation tax ranged from 7 to 10  of GDP. Increases in
            inflation above 20  do not give the government more
            inflation tax revenues. The direct implication of this
            situation is that any serious stabilization effort requires
            finding an alternative source of revenue to replace the
            inflation tax.
Do African countries pay more for imports
Using extensive time series information
            on unit values for homogenous goods, this paper first
            examines the distribution of import prices paid by
            developing countries whose trade is highly concentrated with
            a major exporting country (France), and compares these
            prices with those paid to France by other countries whose
            imports come from more diversified sources. The analysis
            employs correlation and regression tests to account for the
            influence of other economic and institutional factors such
            as the degree of market concentration, size of the importing
            market, or the number of alternative trading contacts on
            relative prices. The paper closes with an overall assessment
            of the findings for developing countries' trade and
            commercial policies and also suggests some lines of related
            research that appear to have a high priority.