rafmacalaba/datause-encoder-data huggingface dataset:
Policy Research Working Paper 9658

# **Abstract**

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in border closures in many countries and a sharp reduction in overall international mobility. However, this disruption of legal pathways to migration has raised concerns that potential migrants may turn to irregular migration routes as a substitute. This paper examines how the pandemic has changed intentions to migrate from The Gambia, the country with the highest pre-pandemic per-capita irregular migration rates in Africa. A large-scale panel survey conducted in 2019 and 2020 is used to compare changes in intentions to migrate to Europe and to neighboring Senegal. The data show that the pandemic has reduced the intention to migrate to both destinations, with approximately one-third of young males expressing less intention to migrate. The largest reductions in migration intentions are for individuals who were unsure of their intent pre-pandemic, and for poorer individuals who are no longer able to afford the costs of migrating at a time when these costs have increased and their remittance income has fallen. This paper also introduces the methodology of priming experiments to the study of migration intentions, by randomly varying the salience of the COVID-19 pandemic before eliciting intentions to migrate. There is no impact of this added salience, which appears to be because knowledge of the virus, while imperfect, was already enough to inform migration decisions. Nevertheless, despite these decreases in intentions, the overall desire to migrate the backway to Europe remains high, highlighting the need for legal migration pathways to support migrants and divert them from the risks of backway migration.

This paper is a product of the Development Research Group, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at dmckenzie@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
_Table 5: Equivalent Variation when Remove VAT with Tax Replacement_

||Base|Remove VAT and replace with a uniform<br>Direct taxes<br>Rich HH income|adjustment to :<br>Commodity|
|---|---|---|---|
|||taxes|taxes|
|h_d0|8.524|4.254<br>4.338|0.998|
|h_d1|11.921|3.02<br>3.421|1.022|
|h_d2|16.32|3.452<br>4.371|0.902|
|h_d3|21.233|2.059<br>4.131|0.756|
|h_d4|27.408|1.817<br>4.975|0.563|
|h_d5|35.165|1.399<br>5.213|0.399|
|h_d6|49.336|0.964<br>5.602|0.124|
|h_d7|70.317|0.138<br>5.906|-0.176|
|h_d8|106.417|-0.932<br>6.255|-0.501|
|h_d91|83.058|-1.663<br>-12.132|-0.656|
|h_d921|28.58|-0.48<br>-9.847|-0.902|
|h_d922|33.727|-0.699<br>-8.714|-1.062|
|h_d923|38.089|-1.89<br>-11.329|-1.103|
|h_d924|78.538|-1.573<br>-6.361|-1.613|

Source: South Africa CGE model simulations

# **5.2 Tax revenue**

Another way to evaluate the current tax structure is to report the effectiveness of each instrument as a source of government revenue. We consider 5 (10, 15, 20, 25) percent increases in indirect tax rates and report the percent change in government revenue in Figure 4. Both production taxes and the VAT have a broad tax base and therefore are more effective at generating government revenue than tariffs.

_Figure 4: Increase in government revenue as indirect taxes are increased_ <!-- Start of picture text --> 5<br>4.5<br>4<br>3.5<br>3<br>2.5<br>2<br>1.5<br>1<br>0.5<br>0<br>5 10 15 20 25<br>Percent increase in tax rates<br>VAT Tariff Production Commodity<br>percent change<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: South Africa CGE model simulations 15
<!-- Start of picture text --> MNY ARE YO BANe469 ES A TRIP WoRLD NOTa<br>C0VIt NTHNT Mm ? R IN ^15 PAYMNt5<br>/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br>BUT W * DIt S, 'WJiNT 600D WILL.<br>F4R WE TO Yv<br>W .<br>I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ i:*t ,= I:t<br>Avi<br>k . ,* - ; - * '--*,-t 4 Kg<br><!-- End of picture text --> Boston Globe, 10/3/88 32
_Page 15 of 32_ asked by the press to explain the outcome. The official's response was to say, 'It's not my fault; I had to rely on the forecasts made by our staff, and they seem to have made a big mistake here'." Like in the UK study above, Wachs specifically interviewed consultants. He found, as one consultant put it, that "success in the consulting business requires the forecaster to adjust results to conform with the wishes of the client," and clients typically wish to see costs underestimated and benefits overestimated (1990: 151-152).

On the basis of his pioneering study, Wachs (1990: 145) concludes that forecasts of costs and benefits are presented to the public as instruments for deciding whether or not a project is to be undertaken, but they are actually instruments for getting public funds committed to a favored project. Wachs (1990: 146, 1986: 28) talks of "nearly universal abuse" of forecasting in this context, and he finds no indication that it takes place only in transit planning; it is common in all sectors of the economy where forecasting routinely plays an important role in policy debates, according to Wachs.

In conclusion, the UK and US studies arrive at results that are basically similar. Both studies account well for existing data on cost underestimation and benefit overestimation. Both studies falsify the notion that in situations with high political and organizational pressure the lowballing of costs and highballing of benefits is caused by non-intentional technical error or optimism bias. Both studies support the view that in such situations promoters and forecasters intentionally use the following formula in order to secure approval and funding for their projects:

# Underestimated costs  + Overestimated benefits =  Project approval

Using this formula, and thus "showing the project at its best" as one interviewee said above, results in an inverted Darwinism, i.e., the "survival of the unfittest." It is not the best projects that get implemented, but the projects that look best on paper. And the projects that look best on paper are the projects with the largest cost underestimates and benefit overestimates, other things being equal. But these are the worst, or "unfittest," projects in the sense that they are the very projects that will encounter most problems during construction and
33 Figure 3: Welfare change from the combination of cotton tariff and subsidy reform and post-2001 GM cotton adoption, as a percent of GDP, as a multiple of the percentage change for the world as a whole <!-- Start of picture text --> Other Sub-Sahara Africa<br>India<br>Uganda<br>Pakistan<br>OtherSoutAFR<br>Full Liberalization<br>Zambia<br> GMO adoption after Full<br>Mozambique<br>Liberalization<br>C. Asia and S.E. Europe<br>Turkey<br>SACU (w/o S. Africa)<br>Nigeria<br>MENA<br>Other South Asia<br>-8 -4 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: Authors’ GTAP model simulation results
8 the greatest impact should be on unskilled wages, since these averages will be closer to minimum wages. Consider first the case of Mexico. Table 4 lists for Mexico various measures of wage inequality for unskilled, skilled, and aggregate employment in manufacturing firms from 1984 to 1990. As is clear from the table, wage inequality has risen somewhat within Mexico over this period, both across industries and across firms within industries. Although high and low paying firms are not uniformly distributed across Mexican states, there is little evidence of changing dispersion here.

Table 5 presents inequality measures using the Colombian data. The first thing to note is the greater equality of inter-industry wages among firms in Colombia The data show moderate declines in inequality both within and across industry, although the equalizing effect is somewhat stronger among skilled workers. As in Mexico, the greatest effect is within industry, with little trend across regions. I I In sum, patterns in wage dispersion in Mexico and Colombia are consistent with the view that minimum wages have their greatest impact on the earnings of workers, and perhaps firms, whose wages lie nearest to the minimum wage. Falling inequality in Colombia over a period of time that brackets a very severe recession is perhaps the more interesting stylized fact, because it is not easily explained by business cycle conditions. 12

# **IIL The Impact of Minimum Wages on Employment and Wages**

_Time Series Data_ Given the largely national scope to minimum wage fixing in the U.S., time series studies have dominated the literature on U.S. minimum wages and their effect on wages and employment (for excellent summaries of these studies see Brown, Gilroy, and Kohen, (1982) and Hamermesh (1993)). A limited time-series of data are available in Mexico and Colombia that permit somewhat analogous tests to those I lBoth economies are highly corporatist, which might explain the dominance of within industry effects. 12 If workers who hold high paying "good jobs" are more protected than marginal workers who hold "bad jobs" in a downturn then wage inequality should be counter cyclical. The work of Wachter (1970) on the interindustry wage structure confirmed this counter cyclicality when applied to the gap between union and nonunion wage differences. DiNardo and Lemieux (1994) suggest that the decline in union institutions, not supply and demand factors, is responsible for the rise in inequality in the U.S. in the 1980s.
today. Rwanda’s 2019–20 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) reports that 40% of women report experiencing physical and/or sexual IPV in their lifetime, with 24% reporting incidents in the previous year.<sup>6</sup> Supporting norms remain widespread, particularly in rural areas, with 41% of women and 18% of men believing husband-to-wife violence can be justified in some circumstances (Mannell et al., 2018). This context is further shaped by the 1994 genocide’s legacy of sexual violence, where rape was used as a weapon of war.

In parallel, over the past three decades, Rwanda has become a global leader in gender equality reforms. Following the genocide, when women comprised 70% of the population, women’s organizations successfully advocated for female representation in the interim government (Hansén, 2017). Since then, Rwanda has enacted comprehensive reforms including equal land ownership rights (1999), a 30% gender quota for civil servants and parliamentarians (2003, now exceeded), and equal pay legislation (2009). The government also passed a Gender-Based Violence Bill requiring all citizens to report violence, and penalties of eight months to two years imprisonment for perpetrating IPV including ‘harassing one’s spouse’ and marital rape (Mannell et al., 2018). At compulsory monthly community meetings, gender-based violence is regularly discussed. Recent reforms have overturned men’s legal status as household heads (Abbott and Malunda, 2016), established IPV survivor support centers, and expanded women’s rights in marriage, divorce, and inheritance — including protections for unofficially married women. These progressive legal reforms have been mirrored in health and education policies for women and girls, resulting in improved maternal mortality, contraceptive access, and girls’ educational attainment (DHS, 2016).

However, a significant gap persists between national policy and local attitudes, particularly in rural areas. Traditional gender norms about women’s subservience to men remain influential, and many are unaware of legal changes. For instance, in our study sample, only 24% of men and 12% of women know that Rwandan law establishes husband and wife as equal heads of household.

# **2.2 Couples Training Intervention**

There is growing global interest in couples-based approaches to IPV prevention. These programs aim to reduce violence by engaging both partners in critical discussions about gendered power

> 6These rates increased from the 2014–15 DHS, which reported 34% lifetime IPV and 21% previous-year IPV. The DHS collects IPV data through face-to-face interviews.

6
# **1. Introduction**

The taxation of motor fuel displays a great variability across different countries (Fig. 1). While these products are generally subject to broadly similar consumption taxes ( _i.e._ , VAT and excises), the rates applied by individual countries, especially on the excise component, vary substantially. As a consequence, the final share of taxes in the final price paid by consumers ranges from a high 70 percent ( _e.g._ , The Netherlands, U.K., or Turkey) to virtually zero or negative ( _e.g._ , subsidies in oil-producing countries).

<!-- Start of picture text --> Retail Gasoline Prices** and Taxes Selected Countries, November 2007***<br>Netherlands<br>United K~nadom u<br>Gerhany<br>Belgium<br>Denmark<br>Portugal<br>Italy<br>Hong Kong<br>France<br>F~nland<br>Sweden<br>South Korea'<br>Luxembour<br>polan! Ireland a $6.06<br>Slovak~a 1k6.00<br>AuStrja $5.89<br>Czech Republ~c J 9.76<br>'Malta<br>Braz!l*<br>Spa~n<br>Slovenia<br>U anda*<br>8reece<br>Singapore*<br>Uruguay*<br>C-pr0s<br>Ken a*<br>~a&ia<br>Israel'<br>Japan<br>Australla'<br>L~thuan~a<br>New Zealand'<br>India' -<br>Canada I $4.20<br>Estonia ' r$4.16<br>China'<br>United States 3<br>Botswana' Lebanon* Ukraine' 2 . - $2.88<br>Vietnam' $2.76<br>Jamaica* 3<br>Puerto Rico 5<br>Ar %;:' ] ! 8 ! ? ? 2<br>kigerla* $2.08<br>Indones~a:<br>'rinidad & Tob.. 1.56 $ per Gallon<br>$0 $2 $4 $6 $8<br><!-- End of picture text -->

**Fig. 1.** Gasoline Taxation around the World (2007).

(Source: Energy D ́etente November 2007 issue.) From a national perspective, should motor fuel be taxed differently than other goods? While the public finance literature provides guidance on the optimal structure for indirect taxation ( _e.g._ , Atkinson and Stiglitz, 1980) which implies different rates for different goods, from a practical point of view, administrative costs generally discourage differential taxation. However, excisable goods are an exception, since these are easy to tax at the source (typically imports or reduced number of domestic producers). Moreover, in the case of motor fuel, its consumption generates substantial external effects, which justifies its differential taxation. In addition, the taxation of oil rents could warrant specific taxation We thank Masami Kojima, Apurva Sarangi and Jon Strand for useful comments.

1
**Table 1: Mean differences**

||**(1)**|**(2)**|**(3)**|
|---|---|---|---|
||Mean value<br>for SMEs<br>sample|Mean value<br>for Large<br>firms sample|Difference<br>(SME minus<br>Large firms)|
|Sales decline (%)|34.77|22.55|12.22***|
|Labor Productivity (logs)|10.4|10.91|-0.511***|
|Supply disruption Y:1 N:0|0.67|0.52|0.152***|
|Overdraft|0.29|0.48|-0.194***|
|Finance obstacle (0-4)|1.45|1.24|0.210***|
|Skills obstacle (0-4)|1.28|1.54|-0.266***|
|Young firm (<=10 years old): Y:1 N:0|0.21|0.11|0.098***|
|Exports (proportion of sales)|0.05|0.19|-0.141***|
|Foreign ownership (proportion)|0.06|0.19|-0.126***|
|Introduced new product/service Y:1 N:0|0.304|0.366|-0.062**|
|Spent on R&D Y:1 N:0|0.093|0.204|-0.111***|
|Government support Y:1 N:0|0.18|0.17|0.013|
|High share of women workers: Y:1 N:0|0.61|0.61|-0.002|
|Capital city Y:1 N:0|0.32|0.32|-0.006|
|Taxes are a major obstacle Y:1 N:0|29.88|26.36|3.512|
|Obstacles severity|1.24|1.22|0.019|
|Sole proprietorship Y:1 N:0|0.29|0.09|0.209|
|Shareholding company (non-traded) or<br>Partnership Y:1 N:0|0.57|0.63|-0.054|

Significance level is denoted by ***(1%), **(5%). Standard errors used are Huber-White robust and clustered on the country.

51
<!-- Start of picture text --> Raising capital execution<br>Eliminating operational efficiencies<br>Tariff cost recovery<br>Potential for reallocation<br>More than 30bn USD gap to<br>which PPPs can contribute 40%<br><!-- End of picture text --> <!-- Start of picture text --> S & ><br>es & SS SE S<br>& s Sod<br>s ©<br>Re 4 ee os s &<br>of<br><!-- End of picture text -->
The 1985-1994 Global Real Estate Cycle. Page 18

- Across national _residential markets,_ three tiers of volatility seem to have been experienced. First, in the most volatile group one finds Australia, the UK and Finland, with Finland the worst case. In the second group of still strong to average volatility one finds Canada, Norway, Sweden, Fiance and Japan. In the third category of countries one finds Germany and Denmark where the residential sector was clearly not in phase with the global cycle, nor was volatility significant. The mild German housing price boom starts in 1989 with reunification, and so does the office price boom in Berlin.

Figure 7: Housing Price Boom in Selected OECD Countries <!-- Start of picture text --> Housing Price Boom: Continental Europe, Japan<br>(rnpminalresidentrealestatepricess 1980-100)<br>240.0 .<br>200.01 -- _- __ ______ - - -____ - -__- - -____ - -__- - -___- - - - - - - - -<br>60.0<br>19o0 1981 1942 1963 1 984 9S 1986 E 1987 196U 1989 1990 1991 1992<br>1--Japan -_n-France -i-Germany<br><!-- End of picture text -->

- Comparative data on volatility differences between the multi-unit residential sector and the detached housing sector was not obtained. In Sweden, Jaffee [1994] shows that the multi-unit sector was less volatile. But in that segment of that country , the state sector plays a very important role in the three strategic areas of financing mechanisms, access to land, and construction.

- The _office property market_ was the real estate segment which experienced the greatest real estate price and investment volatility. National office cycles appear to have also been the most synchronous. Next comes the residential market. Among the office markets the most volatile by a wide margin appears to have been Spain, but it is not possible to ascertain whether the data available suffers from a particular sample bias in this case.

- National and/or local land use and development regulations appear to have played a significant role. The office market exhibit considerably more price volatility than other real estate segments. The data suggest that investment volatility while usually substantial remained less than price volatility. Markets in capital cities and other major centers have been more volatle than regional centers. A diffusion process has been at work and regional booms tend to lag being the capital markets.
In order to minimize the pressure on the credit officers, and to assess early results to ensure default did not rise substantially, the conversion was completed in three waves.<sup>12</sup> We stratified the randomization by credit officer in order to ensure all credit officers had the same proportion of treatment (converted) and control centers. Since there were only 11 credit officers, the stratification ensured both a fair implementation across credit officers, and also an assignment to treatment that is not correlated with credit officer characteristics. In addition, we periodically checked with credit officers and conducted surprise visits to center meetings and clients’ homes to confirm that converted centers had individual liability and that control centers had group liability.

# _B.  Data Collected_

We use data from five sources. First and most importantly, we use the Green Bank’s full administrative data on repayment and savings, loan sizes and client retention rates for all 3,343 clients who were active members of the 169 centers at the time of the first randomization in August 2004, as well as the 8 new centers opened after August 2004. Second, we use data from an activity-based costing exercise that credit officers conducted, where for a given week, they had to keep a log of how they allocated their time across the different tasks they typically perform (e.g., attending meetings, assessing new clients, enforcing repayments, etc). Third, we use a baseline survey conducted in November 2004 regarding the social relationships in the treatment groups as well as control groups. Fourth, we use data from a follow-up survey on social networks, conducted in January 2006. Finally, we use a survey of clients conducted in November 2005 (over one year after the start of the experiment) designed to understand the observed differences between converted and control centers.

Table 1 presents summary statistics and some orthogonality checks that show that the randomization yielded observably similar treatment and control groups. As of August 2004, prior

> 12 Note that increased default is not necessarily bad for the bank, since the bank cares about profits not merely default.

11