Miscellaneous Knowledge Notes
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Publication
Modeling the Revenue and Distributional Effects of Tax Reform in Paraguay: Challenges and Lessons
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06)In 2019, the Government of Paraguay (GOP) embarked on a comprehensive tax reform to simplify and modernize its tax system. At the request of the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and building on long-standing policy dialogue with the country, the World Bank (WB) Poverty team worked quickly to develop a micro-simulation tool to inform policymakers on the potential revenue and distributional effects of the reform as it was being developed. In this note, we summarize the context, approach, challenges, and lessons learned from constructing the Fiscal Simulation Tool and highlight the tool’s long-term value for policy dialogue and decision making. -
Publication
Early Labor Market Impacts of COVID-19 in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-01-22)The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic sharply reduced mobility and economic activity, disrupting the lives of people around the globe. This brief presents estimates on the crisis’ impact on labor markets in 39 countries based on high-frequency phone survey (HFPS) data collected between April and July 2020. Workers in these countries experienced severe labor market disruptions following the COVID-19 outbreak. 34 percent of respondents reported stopping work, 20 percent of wage workers reported lack of payment for work performed, 9 percent reported job changes due to the pandemic, and 62 percent reported income loss in their household. Measures of work stoppage and income loss in the HFPS are generally consistent with GDP growth projections in Latin America and the Caribbean but not in Sub-Saharan Africa, indicating that the phone survey data contributes valuable new information about the impacts of the crisis. Ensuring availability of such critical data in the future will require investments into statistical and physical infrastructure as well as human capital to set up Emergency Observatories, which can rapidly deploy phone surveys to inform decision makers. -
Publication
COVID-19 Monitoring Survey in Poor and Slum Areas of Dhaka and Chittagong: Bangladesh Food Security and Coping Strategies as of Round 2, September 2 - October 2020
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021)By September 2020, Dhaka and Chittagong labor markets in Bangladesh showed signs of recovery in employment. Employment recovered faster in Chittagong, reaching pre-COVID-19 levels, while Dhaka remained below pre-COVID-19 employment levels. To track the impacts of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis on labor markets and household coping strategies, a rapid phone survey was implemented on a representative sample of households living in poor and slum areas of Dhaka and Chittagong City Corporations (CCs). This brief, the third in the series, summarizes results from the first and second rounds of the rapid phone survey, conducted from June 10 to July 10, 2020, and from September 2 to October 11, 2020. Ninety-four percent of respondents interviewed in the first survey round were reached in the second round. This brief focuses on how the labor market situation, and how food security and coping strategies evolved between the two rounds. -
Publication
COVID-19 Monitoring Survey in Poor and Slum Areas of Dhaka and Chittagong: Bangladesh Labor Market Situation As of Round 3, January 13 - February 27, 2021
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021)To track the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on labor markets and household coping strategies, a rapid phone survey was implemented on a representative sample of households living in poor and slum areas of Dhaka and Chittagong City Corporations (CCs). This brief, the fifth in the series, summarizes results from the first, second, and third rounds of the rapid phone survey, conducted from June 10 to July 10, 2020, from September 2 to October 11, 2020, and from January 13 to February 27, 2021, respectively. Eighty-eight percent of respondents interviewed in the first and second survey rounds were reached in the third round (see annex 1 for details of the survey design and response rates). This brief focuses on how the labor-market situation evolved between the rounds a year after the onset of the crisis. -
Publication
COVID-19 Monitoring Survey in Poor and Slum Areas of Dhaka and Chittagong: Bangladesh Labor Market Situation as of Round 2, September 2 - October 11, 2020
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021)By September 2020, Dhaka and Chittagong labor markets in Bangladesh showed signs of recovery in employment. Employment recovered faster in Chittagong, reaching pre-COVID-19 levels, while Dhaka remained below pre-COVID-19 employment levels. To track the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on labor markets and household coping strategies, a rapid phone survey was implemented on a representative sample of households living in poor and slum areas of Dhaka and Chittagong City Corporations (CCs). This brief, the third in the series, summarizes results from the first and second rounds of the rapid phone survey, conducted from June 10 to July 10, 2020, and from September 2 to October 11, 2020. Ninety-four percent of respondents interviewed in the first survey round were reached in the second round. This brief focuses on how the labor market situation evolved between the two rounds. -
Publication
A Customizable Microsimulation Tool to Analyze Distributional Effects of Country Fiscal Policies
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-12)Microsimulation modelling has become a powerful tool to analyze the effects of fiscal policy changes. The World Bank’s Equity Policy Lab (EPL) has developed a customizable microsimulation tool to assess the distributional effects of tax, benefits, and other fiscal reforms. This Note explains why and how countries use the microsimulation tools, using examples from Ecuador and Armenia—2 of the more than 20 countries that have developed and used the tool over the past 2 years—to demonstrate its effectiveness in engaging government officials and informing policy making. -
Publication
Mapping Deprivations in Mauritania
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-09)Recent economic growth In Mauritania has helped reduce poverty, but spatial disparities in terms of both monetary welfare and access to services and opportunities remain. Designing policies and projects to improve living conditions requires localized and updated data not usually available from household surveys. Deprivation mapping—a new spatial deprivation analysis tool—uses administrative and geospatial settlement-level data (the lowest administrative unit in our case study Mauritania) to estimate settlement access deprivations across 4 dimensions: social services, basic infrastructure, opportunities, and exposure to weather/climate shocks. Database and visualizations (map) highlight and rank each settlement’s deprivation index, enhancing national data and showing spatial differences in the depth, complexity, and persistence of deprivations to inform policies and prioritize investments. -
Publication
Comparing Approaches to Project COVID-19 Effects on Poverty
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-07)Different studies use different approaches to forecast how many people will fall into poverty due to the outbreak of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19), with largely different results. Even when using the same growth forecasts and poverty lines, poverty projections differ largely by approaches: one projects poverty to increase by around 400 million individuals, while another estimates as few as 49 million individuals will fall into poverty. This note compares approaches and how their specific methodological details lead to different estimates of poverty effects from the COVID-19 pandemic. -
Publication
Increasing Taxes on Tobacco in Low and Middle-Income Countries: Hurting or Saving the Poor?
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-07)Policy makers hesitate to increase tobacco taxes over concerns about taxes being regressive and potentially increasing poverty and inequality. This note summarizes a set of studies of the effects of raising tobacco taxes in 11 low and middle-income countries using an extended cost-benefit analysis (ECBA) and harmonized national household budget survey data and introduces the TOBACTAX Tool. The studies find that demand price elasticities for tobacco products are larger among lower-income households and that the poor receive the largest long-term gains from tobacco taxation. Tobacco taxes have progressive long-term effects due to lower medical expenses and added years of productive life, which contribute to poverty reduction in most countries studied. TOBACTAX Tool can help replicate such analyses elsewhere. -
Publication
Health and Distributional Effects Taxing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages: The Case of Kazakhstan
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) has been linked to a range of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and over 12 types of cancer (Singh, et al. 2015). Increasingly, governments around the world are taxing SSBs to curb sugar consumption. However, especially in low and middle-income countries, concern is growing over the apparent regressive character of consumer taxes. This note contributes to the literature on the effect of taxes on unhealthy products. The extended cost-benefit analysis (ECBA) methodology is applied to assess distributional effects of an increase of SSB taxes on household expenditures, out-of-pocket (OOP) medical expenses, and productivity in Kazakhstan. Results suggest that the long-term net income effect of an increase in SSB taxes is progressive: lower-income deciles benefit relatively more than higher-income deciles.