rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Moving teachers to Malawi's
            remote communities : a data-driven approach to teacher deployment
There are severe geographical
            disparities in pupil-teacher ratios (PTR) across Malawi,
            with most teachers concentrated near commercial centers and
            in rural schools with better amenities. Most of the
            variation in PTR is concentrated in small sub-district
            areas, suggesting a central role for micro-geographic
            factors in teacher distribution. Employing administrative
            data from several government sources, regression analysis
            reveals that school-level factors identified by teachers as
            desirable are closely associated with PTR, including access
            to roads, electricity, and water, and distance to the
            nearest trading center, suggesting a central role for
            teachers' interests in PTR variation. Political economy
            network mapping reveals that teachers leverage informal
            networks and political patronage to resist placement in
            remote schools, while administrative officials are unable to
            stand up to these formal and informal pressures, in part
            because of a lack of reliable databases and objective
            criteria for the allocation of teachers. This study curates
            a systematic database of the physical placement of all
            teachers in Malawi and links it with data on school
            facilities and geo-spatial coordinates of commercial
            centers. The study develops a consistent and objective
            measure of school remoteness, which can be applied to
            develop policies to create rules for equitable deployments
            and targeting of incentives. Growing awareness of
            disparities in PTRs among district education officials is
            already showing promising improvements in targeting of new
            teachers. Simulation results of planned policy applications
            show significant potential impacts of fiscally-neutral
            approaches to targeted deployments of new cohorts, as well
            as retention of teachers through data-calibrated incentives.
Economic growth, convergence, and
            world food demand and supply
In projecting global food demand to
            2050, much attention has been given to rising demand due to
            the projected population increase from the current 7.4
            billion to more than 9 billion. An increasingly important
            source of the increase in food demand is per capita demand
            growth induced by rising income per person. Since the
            proportion of income spending on food decreases as incomes
            rise, growth in global food demand will be greater if
            incomes grow faster in developing countries than in
            high-income countries. Such a pattern of income convergence
            has become established in recent years, making it important
            to assess the implications for food demand and supply. Using
            a resource-based measure of food that accounts for the much
            higher production costs associated with dietary upgrading,
            this paper concludes that per capita demand growth is likely
            to be a more important driver of food demand than population
            growth between now and 2050. Using the middle-ground
            International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis Shared
            Socioeconomic Pathway projections to 2050, which assume
            continued income convergence, the paper finds that the
            increase in food demand (102 percent) would be roughly a
            third greater than without convergence (78 percent). Since
            the impact of convergence on the supply side is much more
            muted, convergence puts upward pressure on world food
            prices, partially offsetting a baseline trend toward falling
            world food prices to 2050.
The profits of wisdom : the impacts
            of a business support program in Tanzania
Business training programs in low-income
            settings have shown limited, if any, impacts on firm
            revenues and profits, particularly for female entrepreneurs.
            This paper uses a randomized design to compare the impacts
            of two types of business training programs targeting women
            with established small businesses in urban Tanzania. The
            basic version of the training relied on in-class sessions to
            strengthen the managerial and technical skills of the
            participants. In the enhanced version, training was
            supplemented by individual visits from business coaches to
            the sites of participants&#x2019; activities, as well as
            other services tailored to their individual needs. The study
            finds no impact of the basic training on business practices
            and business outcomes. Participants in the enhanced training
            are more likely to adopt new practices, but show no effects
            for revenue or profits, on average. However, the average
            masks large heterogeneous effects: entrepreneurs with low
            levels of experience show reduced revenues; those with more
            experience benefit from the program. This finding suggests
            that business training programs may have greater impacts if
            they are more carefully targeted.
State ownership of financial
            institutions in Europe and Central Asia
This paper introduces key findings from
            a new cross-country survey on state-owned financial
            institutions in Europe and Central Asia. It covers 41 such
            institutions operating in the region as of end 2016, and
            considers variables in the areas of mandates, instruments,
            performance, governance, and monitoring/evaluation. It
            presents results over the period following the global
            financial crisis up to 2015, distinguishes between
            state-owned commercial and development financial
            institutions, and looks at differences among three
            geographical sub-regions.
Preschool and child development
            under extreme poverty : evidence from a randomized
            experiment in rural Mozambique
This study analyzed the impact of a
            community-based preschool program on child development and
            schooling outcomes in high-poverty areas of rural
            Mozambique. Preschools were randomly assigned to 30 of 76
            eligible communities. Using a panel survey of 2,000
            households with preschool aged children, the study found
            that children who attended preschool experienced gains in
            cognitive development, communication, fine motor skills, and
            socio-emotional skills, scoring 0.33 standard deviations
            higher on a child development screening test. Preschoolers
            were 21 percentage points more likely to be enrolled in
            primary school, 14.9 percentage points more likely to enroll
            at the appropriate age, and had higher cognitive and
            communication scores in first grade. Treatment effects were
            generally larger for children from vulnerable households,
            those with higher initial development levels, and those with
            longer exposure to treatment. The preschool intervention
            also generated positive spillovers by increasing the school
            enrollment of older siblings and labor supply of adult
            caregivers. At a cost of approximately $3 per child per
            month, community-led preschools have the potential to be a
            cost-effective policy option for helping children meet their
            development potential even in the most resource deprived
            parts of the world.
ICT adoption and wage inequality :
            evidence from Mexican firms
This paper uses a panel of firms from
            the Mexican Economic Censuses and analyzes at the
            microeconomic level how labor markets adapt to the adoption
            of information and communication technologies. The paper
            studies the effects of the adoption of information and
            communication technologies over the labor structure of the
            firm and wages. Thus, it assesses whether increasing the use
            of information and communication technologies leads to an
            increasing demand for skilled relative to low-skilled labor,
            and, thus, analyzes its effects on the wage gap between the
            two groups. The results of this analysis show that there is
            indeed an effect of the adoption of information and
            communication technologies over the demand for
            higher-skilled workers. However, for the manufacturing and
            services sectors, instead of increasing the wage gap between
            skilled and unskilled workers, the wage gap decreases. The
            results for the manufacturing sector appear to be driven by
            an increasing sophistication of blue-collar workers due to
            the organizational adjustments derived from the adoption of
            information and communication technologies.
Cross-border spillover effects of
            the g20 financial regulatory reforms : results from a pilot survey
In 2009, the G20 embarked on an
            ambitious financial regulatory reform agenda to address the
            fault lines that caused the global financial crisis.
            Although the global benefits are expected to outweigh the
            overall costs, these reforms could produce cross-border
            adverse spillover effects to individual emerging markets and
            developing economies that are not required to implement the
            reforms themselves, but are affected by their implementation
            elsewhere. To improve the evidence base on such potential
            adverse impacts, the World Bank has undertaken qualitative
            surveys of senior officials at regulatory agencies, local
            banks, and global banks that are active in seven emerging
            markets and developing economies. While important caveats
            prevent the formulation of definitive conclusions, the
            survey finds that banks and regulators routinely have
            different perspectives on the impacts. Most banks claim
            adverse effects on financial products, services, and
            markets; regulators broadly expect the effects to be
            positive over the longer term, but some recognize they may
            be negative during the transition phase. Regulators tend to
            agree that the (potential for) spillover impacts demand
            stronger home-host coordination, impose a higher supervisory
            burden, and require a stronger role for the international
            community to monitor and evaluate the impacts. The findings
            also emphasize the need for regulatory consistency within
            and between jurisdictions to ensure a level playing field.
            Taken together, more work remains to better understand the
            nature of these spillover effects, how they shape the
            provision of commercial financing to meet developmental
            objectives, and what action can be taken to mitigate any
            adverse impacts.
Cross-border spillover effects of
            the g20 financial regulatory reforms : results from a pilot survey
WPS8300 Policy Research Working Paper 8300 Cross-Border Spillover Effects of the G20 Financial Regulatory Reforms Results from a Pilot Survey _Clive Briault Erik Feyen Ines Gonzalez Del Mazo Brian Kwok Chung Yee Jan Rademacher Ilias Skamnelos_ Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice Group January 2018
Transport corridors and their wider
            economic benefits : a critical review of the literature
Transport corridors can generate wider
            economic benefits and costs through their effects on a
            potentially diverse set of development outcomes, such as
            economic growth, poverty, jobs, equity, environmental
            quality, and economic resilience. To advance understanding
            of how corridors could generate wider economic benefits,
            this paper undertakes a quantitative review of the
            literature that estimates the economic benefits of large
            transport infrastructure projects. It conducts a
            meta-analysis of 234 estimated impacts found in 78 studies.
            It focuses on roads, rails, and waterways because transport
            corridors based on these modes have clearer potential for
            economic spillovers than, for example, airline routes. The
            conceptual structure for the review is guided by a simple
            canonical model describing the policy maker's problem
            in maximizing the net wider economic benefits of corridors.
            The meta-analysis confirms that characteristics of
            individual studies, as well as the placement and design of
            the transport infrastructures systematically influence the
            findings of the corridor studies. It also shows that, on
            average, estimated impacts of corridor interventions on
            economic welfare and equity tend to be beneficial, while
            they are often detrimental for environmental quality, and
            possibly also for social inclusion. Because, around this
            average, impacts vary widely, policy makers could use
            complementary policies and institutions to mitigate
            potential trade-offs and support losers. To clarify the
            nature and extent of these trade-offs and varied impacts
            across locales and population groups, much more research is required.
The making of behavioral development economics
A core insight from early behavioral
            economics is that much of human judgment and behavior is
            influenced by "fast thinking" that is intuitive,
            associative, and automatic; very little human thinking
            resembles the rational thinking that characterizes homo
            economicus. What is less well-recognized is that innate
            reliance on cognitive shortcuts means that cultural mental
            models --categories, concepts, social identities,
            narratives, and worldviews -- profoundly influence judgment
            and behavior. Individuals have a cultural
            "toolkit" or "repertoire" of mental
            models that they use to perceive and interpret a situation
            and construct a response. Many researchers have connected
            cultural mental models to economic development, yet they
            rarely identify their research findings as
            "behavioral" economics. This research constitutes
            a second strand of behavioral economics that illuminates the
            tight interlinkages between preferences, culture, and
            institutions and points to new policy opportunities. It
            brings the discipline almost full circle back to 18th and
            19th century perspectives. This essay cautions against
            strong reductionism in which sociological influences on
            decision making are squeezed into a rational actor model.
The impact of the Syrian refugee
            crisis on firm entry and performance in Turkey
This study analyses how the Syrian
            refugee inflows into turkey affected firm entry and
            performance. To estimate the casual effects, instrumental
            variables, difference-indifferences and synthetic control
            methodologies are used. The results suggest that hosting
            refugees is favourable for firms. Total firm entry does not
            seem to be significantly affected. However, there is a
            substantial increase in the number of new foreign-owned
            firms. In line with the increase in new foreign-owned firms,
            there is some indication of growth in gross profits and net sales.
Hit and run income shocks and school
            dropouts in Latin America
How do labor income shocks affect
            household investment in upper secondary and tertiary
            schooling? Using longitudinal data from 2005-15 for
            Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, this paper explores the
            effect of a negative household income shock on the
            enrollment status of youth ages 15 to 25. The findings
            suggest that negative income shocks significantly increase
            the likelihood that students in upper secondary and tertiary
            school exit school in Argentina and Brazil, but not in
            Mexico. For the three countries, the analysis finds evidence
            that youth who drop out due to a household income shock have
            worse employment outcomes than similar youth who exit school
            without a household income shock. Differences in labor
            markets and safety net programs likely play an important
            role in the decision to exit school as well as the
            employment outcomes of those who exit across these three countries.
Geo-spatial modeling of access to
            water and sanitation in Nigeria
The paper presents the development and
            implementation of a geo-spatial model for mapping
            populations' access to specified types of water and
            sanitation services in Nigeria. The analysis uses
            geo-located, population-representative data from the
            National Water and Sanitation Survey 2015, along with
            relevant geo-spatial covariates. The model generates
            predictions for levels of access to seven indicators of
            water and sanitation services across Nigeria at a resolution
            of 1×1 square kilometers. The predictions promise to hone
            the targeting of policies meant to improve access to basic
            services in various regions of the country.
Resource misallocation and
            productivity gaps in Malaysia
The reallocation of resources from low-
            to high-productivity firms can generate large aggregate
            productivity gains. The paper uses data from the Malaysian
            manufacturing census to measure the country's
            hypothetical productivity gains when moving toward the level
            of within-sector allocative efficiency in the United States
            to be between 13 and 36 percent. Across three census periods
            in 2000, 2005, and 2010 (the most recent available), the
            productivity gaps appear to have somewhat widened. This
            suggests that the "catching-up" process remains a
            challenge and a potential opportunity, particularly if total
            factor productivity is expected to be the dominant source of
            future economic growth. The simulations, based on different
            magnitudes of the realization of hypothetical productivity
            gains, show that Malaysia's gross domestic product
            growth can potentially increase by 0.4 to 1.3 percentage
            points per year over five years. The analysis accounts only
            for resource misallocation within sectors. There may be
            other, possibly large, resource misallocation across
            sectors. If so, closing those gaps could boost total factor
            productivity and gross domestic product growth even further.
Cash Transfers, Food Prices, and
            Nutrition Impacts on Nonbeneficiary Children
Based on a randomized evaluation, the
            paper shows that a household-targeted Philippine cash
            transfer program significantly raised the local price of key
            foods relevant for child nutritional status. This shift in
            prices increased stunting among young nonbeneficiary
            children by 34 percent (11 percentage points). Price and
            stunting effects increase in program saturation; at median
            saturation, the village income shock is 15 percent. These
            effects persist 2.5 years after program introduction. The
            authors confirm the price patterns in their experimental
            sample against price information from
            nationally-representative household expenditure surveys
            across the 6-year rollout of the program. Failing to
            consider such general equilibrium effects may overstate the
            net benefits of targeted cash transfers. In areas where
            targeting of social programs covers a large proportion of
            the population, offering the program on a universal basis
            may avoid such long-lasting negative impacts at moderate
            additional cost.
Paris climate agreement and the
            global economy : winners and losers
The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement was the
            first instance of countries adhering to take a collective
            action against global warming. More than 190 countries came
            forward and submitted their contributions in the form of
            Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, reflective of
            their ability and capacity to reduce greenhouse gas
            emissions, as each country set its own targets and actions.
            For some countries, it meant a significant decline in their
            emissions by 2030, while others, like China, the United
            States, and India, decided on a more gradual phasing out
            extending beyond 2030. This paper estimates the economic
            impacts of implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement in
            terms of its implications for welfare, gross domestic
            product, investments, and trade for major countries and
            regions. It uses a computable general equilibrium framework
            to model global, regional, and country impacts. The analysis
            suggests that the economic impacts will be mostly felt in
            the European Union if the Paris Agreement is fully
            implemented. The European Union is likely to suffer a
            welfare loss of 1.0 to 1.5 percent by 2030. Among
            non-European countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico
            will also be affected, with an expected welfare loss of
            about 1.5 percent. Some of the major emitters, such as China
            and India, will experience minimal impacts to their welfare,
            and the United States will experience a welfare loss of only
            about 0.7 by 2030. The sectoral analysis of production and
            trade suggests a significant loss to fossil fuel–based
            sectors, while clean energy sectors can experience
            significant gains.