Increased international production fragmentation implies that firms at home rely on imported intermediates for production. In this context, tariff policy design needs to consider the impact downstream of changes in tariffs upstream.
... Exibir mais + Policy makers embarking on tariff reforms need to answer questions such as: what is the impact of tariff changes on production costs downstream? What are the key input tariffs that could be reduced to lower production costs in priority sectors considering sectors' backward linkages? Or how will a tariff rationalization plan that focuses on tariff reductions in raw materials and intermediates affect effective protection across sectors? This paper presents the Upstream Tariff Simulator, a simple Microsoft Excel–based tool designed to help policy makers answer these questions, by combining information on tariffs and input-output structures and allowing alternative sectoral aggregations, and alternative market structures for input markets. It provides the underlying conceptual framework and a range of examples that show the insights that the tool can provide to policy makers when analyzing the impact of tariff reforms.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9158 FEB 20, 2020
The productivity of the world's natural resources is critically dependent on a variety of highly uncertain factors, which obscure individual investors and governments that seek to make long-term, sometimes irreversible investments in their exploration and utilization.
... Exibir mais + These dynamic considerations are poorly represented in disaggregated resource models, as incorporating uncertainty into large-dimensional problems presents a challenging computational task. This study introduces a novel numerical method to solve large-scale dynamic stochastic natural resource allocation problems that cannot be addressed by conventional methods. The method is illustrated with an application focusing on the allocation of global land resource use under stochastic crop yields due to adverse climate impacts and limits on further technological progress. For the same model parameters, the range of land conversion is considerably smaller for the dynamic stochastic model as compared to deterministic scenario analysis. The scenario analysis can thus significantly overstate the magnitude of expected land conversion under uncertain crop yields.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9159 FEB 20, 2020
Several new statistical tools and analytical frameworks have been developed recently to measure countries' and sectors' involvement in global value chains.
... Exibir mais + Such wealth of methodologies reflects that different empirical questions call for distinct accounting methods, along with different levels of aggregation of trade flows. This paper is a companion to the conceptual framework presented in Borin and Mancini (2019). The paper describes a new Stata module, icio, that allows the user to construct the most appropriate measure for given empirical questions on trade in value-added and participation in global value chains of countries and sectors. By exploiting inter-country input-output tables, icio provides decompositions of aggregate, bilateral, and sectoral exports and imports according to the source and destination of their value-added content. As different measures are suited to address distinct economic questions, icio is designed to be flexible also in this respect.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9156 FEB 19, 2020
Regulation often creates opportunities for public officials to extract bribes. If this is true, deregulation offers a simple way to combat corruption.
... Exibir mais + However, empirical evidence on the corruption and regulation nexus is limited. Further, the corruption indices used are based on experts' opinions, which may suffer from perception bias. The present paper attempts to address these shortcomings using firm-level survey data for 131 mostly developing countries on the experiences of the firms with bribery and regulatory burden. Exploiting within-country and industry-level variation in regulatory burden, the analysis finds a large, positive effect of regulatory burden on corruption. For the baseline results, the bribery rate is higher by about 0.03 percentage point for each percentage point increase in the regulatory burden. The finding is robust to several endogeneity checks.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9149 FEB 18, 2020
Millions of forcibly displaced people apply for asylum every year facing uncertain outcomes. What can explain cross-country heterogeneity in these outcomes?
... Exibir mais + This study provides estimates of the determinants of asylum admission policies in host countries using a bilateral panel data set covering 201 origin and 113 destination countries between 2000 and 2017. The paper shows that in high-income countries, unlike in low- and middle-income countries, approval policies are influenced by political factors such as political polarization and electoral periods. The study also finds that macroeconomic factors, labor market outcomes, and public spending can play an important role in final decisions on asylum.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9153 FEB 18, 2020
Do elites capture foreign aid? This paper documents that aid disbursements to highly aid-dependent countries coincide with sharp increases in bank deposits in offshore financial centers known for bank secrecy and private wealth management, but not in other financial centers.
... Exibir mais + The estimates are not confounded by contemporaneous shocks such as civil conflicts, natural disasters, and financial crises, and are robust to instrumenting with predetermined aid commitments. The implied leakage rate is around 7.5 percent at the sample mean and tends to increase with the ratio of aid to GDP. The findings are consistent with aid capture in the most aid-dependent countries.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9150 FEB 18, 2020
Although emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) weathered the global recession a decade ago relatively well, they now appear less well placed to cope with the substantial downside risks facing the global economy.
... Exibir mais + In many EMDEs, the room for monetary and fiscal policies to respond to shocks has eroded; underlying growth potential has slowed; and the momentum for improving policy frameworks, institutions, and business climates seems to have slackened. The experience of the 2009 global recession highlights once again the critical role of policy room in shielding economic activity during adverse shocks. The subsequent decade of anemic growth underlines the need for sound policy frameworks, institutions, and business environments to promote sustained growth. With the global growth outlook weakening and vulnerabilities rising, the policy priority for EMDEs is now to improve resilience to shocks and to lift long-term growth prospects.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9148 FEB 13, 2020
Tourism is an important source of foreign exchange and employment across developing economies. A scant literature has explored the relationship between tourism and the advent of the internet.
... Exibir mais + This paper contributes to the tourism-trade literature and studies the empirical relationship between international tourism and the adoption of digital technologies that facilitate search about tourism opportunities across countries. It links foreign visits with the spread of the use of the internet in sending countries and the level of development of business-to-consumer digital tools in host countries. The paper estimates a well-specified gravity model of tourist arrivals between country pairs with panel data. The results indicate that frictions affecting bilateral tourism flows have been attenuated by the advent of digital tools. The absolute value of the effects of bilateral geographic distance, language differences, and border-contiguity seem to be reduced by the use of the internet by potential tourists and the business sector in host countries. The results are robust to alternative proxies for internet use for tourism search proxied by data from Google trends. The paper also presents simulations of the potential impacts of advances in the adoption of digital tools over time, linking the adoption process to mechanisms of technology adoption that are commonplace in the literature.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9147 FEB 13, 2020
Urban planning and design quite literally shape the environment around us — and that environment, in turn, shapes how we live, work, play, move, and rest.
... Exibir mais + As such, the processes of planning and design have a direct relationship with the structures and behaviors that define our societies, often both reflecting and reinforcing the inequities within them. While it is almost universally understood that women, girls, people with disabilities, and sexual and gender minorities face significant social and economic disadvantages when compared with ablebodied, cisgender, heterosexual men, what is still not fully understood and accepted among many planning and designpractitioners is exactly how conditions in the built environment — and the lack of diversity in the voices shaping it — feed into and perpetuate gender inequity. In general, cities work better for heterosexual, able-bodied, cisgender men than they do for women, girls, sexual and gender minorities, and people with disabilities. Key aspects of the built urban environment – related to access, mobility, safety and freedom from violence, health and hygiene, climate resilience, and security of tenure – create disproportionate burdens for women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities of all ages and abilities, thus exacerbating and reinforcing existing gender inequities. Faced with challenges ranging from transportation services that prioritize commuting over caregiving, to the lack of lighting and toilets in public spaces, many feel inconvenienced, ill-at-ease, and unsafe in the urban environment. These issues stem largely from the absence of women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities in planning and design decisions, leading to assumptions around their needs and the encoding of traditional gender roles within the built environment.
Exibir menos -
Urban planning and design quite literally shape the environment around us — and that environment, in turn, shapes how we live, work, play, move, and rest.
... Exibir mais + As such, the processes of planning and design have a direct relationship with the structures and behaviors that define our societies, often both reflecting and reinforcing the inequities within them. While it is almost universally understood that women, girls, people with disabilities, and sexual and gender minorities face significant social and economic disadvantages when compared with ablebodied, cisgender, heterosexual men, what is still not fully understood and accepted among many planning and designpractitioners is exactly how conditions in the built environment — and the lack of diversity in the voices shaping it — feed into and perpetuate gender inequity. In general, cities work better for heterosexual, able-bodied, cisgender men than they do for women, girls, sexual and gender minorities, and people with disabilities. Key aspects of the built urban environment – related to access, mobility, safety and freedom from violence, health and hygiene, climate resilience, and security of tenure – create disproportionate burdens for women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities of all ages and abilities, thus exacerbating and reinforcing existing gender inequities. Faced with challenges ranging from transportation services that prioritize commuting over caregiving, to the lack of lighting and toilets in public spaces, many feel inconvenienced, ill-at-ease, and unsafe in the urban environment. These issues stem largely from the absence of women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities in planning and design decisions, leading to assumptions around their needs and the encoding of traditional gender roles within the built environment.
Exibir menos -
Swift and decisive action is needed to address rising risks and accelerate progress toward the World Bank Group (WBG) Twin Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
... Exibir mais + Building on the strong implementation record and comparative advantages of the International Development Association (IDA), the 19th replenishment of IDA (IDA19) will support the world's poorest and most vulnerable countries to implement country-driven solutions that generate growth, are people-centered and strengthen resilience. The world has made great strides in poverty reduction, but global headwinds and emerging challenges threaten both hard-fought development gains and further progress. Extreme poverty has fallen in IDA countries, from 49 percent in 2002 to 31 percent in 2015. The impressive progress made by several IDA countries to date demonstrates that further progress toward the SDGs is possible. Nonetheless, there is urgency to do more. The number of people living in extreme poverty in current IDA countries has remained constant over the past 10 years at around 500 million people. According to Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict, there are more violent conflicts than at any time in the past 30 years. The world is also facing the largest forced displacement crisis ever recorded. In IDA countries, economic growth has often come with inequalities and led to exclusion. Gender gaps remain in poverty, education and employment. The jobs challenge is acute in IDA countries: around 20 million jobs need to be created in IDA countries every year for the next decade, simply to meet the growing number of young men and women entering the labor market. Hunger, after years of decline, is on the rise, returning to levels from a decade ago. IDA countries are among those least able to adapt to climate change, and within those countries the livelihoods of the poor and most vulnerable will be affected the most. In the absence of decisive policy action, extreme weather shocks could exacerbate growth and demographic challenges, and could lead to an additional 100 million extreme poor by 2030. Looking ahead, the near-term economic outlook for IDA countries is challenging, amid an uncertain global outlook, which is already resulting in subdued investment and weak external demand for goods and services produced by IDA countries. To compound these challenges, an increasing number of IDA countries are at risk of debt distress, making them more vulnerable to shocks and less able to borrow sustainably to meet their extensive development needs, including human capital needs. Absent swift action, rising risks and vulnerabilities could severely undermine progress made in the fight against poverty and create regional and global spillovers.
Exibir menos -
Relatório da Diretoria Executiva 146261 FEB 11, 2020
Salinity in surface waters is on the rise throughout much of the world. Many factors contribute to this change, including increased water extraction, poor irrigation management, and sea-level rise.
... Exibir mais + To date no study has attempted to quantify the impacts on global food production. This paper develops a plausibly causal model to test the sensitivity of global and regional agricultural productivity to changes in water salinity. To do so, it utilizes several local and global data sets on water quality and agricultural productivity and a model that isolates the impact of exogenous changes in water salinity on yields. The analysis trains a machine-learning model to predict salinity globally, to simulate average global food losses over 2000-13. These losses are found to be high, in the range of the equivalent of 124 trillion kilocalories, or enough to feed more than 170 million people every day, each year. Global maps building on these results show that pockets of high losses occur on all continents, but the losses can be expected to be particularly problematic in regions already experiencing malnutrition challenges.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9144 FEB 10, 2020
The fallout of nitrogen pollution is considered one of the largest global externalities facing the world, impacting air, water, soil, and human health.
... Exibir mais + This paper combines data from the Demographic and Health Survey data set across India, Vietnam, and 33 African countries to analyze the causal links between pollution exposure experienced during the very earliest stages of life and later-life health. The results show that pollution exposure experienced in the critical years of development—from birth until age three—is associated with decreased height as an adult, a well-known indicator of overall health and productivity, and is robust to several statistical checks. Because adult height is related to education, labor productivity, and income, this also implies a loss of earning potential. The analysis begins within an assessment in India, where the data are more available, and is then extended to geographic settings including Vietnam and 33 countries in Africa. The results are consistent and show that early-life exposure to nitrogen pollution in water can lower height-for-age scores during childhood in Vietnam and during infancy in Africa. These findings add to the evidence on the enduring consequences of water pollution and identify a critical area for policy intervention.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9143 FEB 06, 2020
This paper studies how crises prompted firms to switch borrowing across markets, impacting the amount borrowed, maturity, and currency denomination at the firm and aggregate levels.
... Exibir mais + Using data on worldwide debt issuance from advanced and emerging economies, the paper shows that firms shifted their issuances between domestic and international syndicated loans and corporate bonds during financial crises. Firms reduced their borrowing in shock-hit markets but increased it in other debt markets. Firms also moved toward longer-term markets, maintaining (or even increasing) their borrowing maturity. As they moved toward domestic markets during international crises, firms reduced the share of foreign currency debt. The opposite occurred during domestic crises. Large firms were the ones that switched between international and domestic markets, affecting aggregate capital raising activity. The analysis of four distinct markets generates patterns consistent with credit supply shocks that are different from those obtained when studying the dynamics of individual markets.
Exibir menos -
Documento de trabalho sobre pesquisa de políticas WPS9142 FEB 06, 2020
The forthcoming World Development Report (WDR) 2019: The Changing Nature of Work studies how the nature of work is changing as a result of advances in technology today.
... Exibir mais + Fears that robots will take away jobs from people have dominated the discussion over the future of work, but the World Development Report 2019 finds that on balance this appears to be unfounded. Work is constantly reshaped by technological progress. Firms adopt new ways of production, markets expand, and societies evolve. Overall, technology brings opportunity, paving the way to create new jobs, increase productivity, and deliver effective public services. Firms can grow rapidly thanks to digital transformation, expanding their boundaries and reshaping traditional production patterns. The rise of the digital platform firm means that technological effects reach more people faster than ever before. Technology is changing the skills that employers seek. Workers need to be better at complex problem-solving, teamwork and adaptability. Digital technology is also changing how people work and the terms on which they work. Even in advanced economies, short-term work, often found through online platforms, is posing similar challenges to those faced by the world's informal workers. The Report analyzes these changes and considers how governments can best respond. Investing in human capital must be a priority for governments in order for workers to build the skills in demand in the labor market. In addition, governments need to enhance social protection and extend it to all people in society, irrespective of the terms on which they work. To fund these investments in human capital and social protection, the Report offers some suggestions as to how governments can mobilize additional revenues by increasing the tax base.
Exibir menos -
Relatório de Desenvolvimento Mundial 130189 FEB 05, 2020
