Examining the Feasibility of Livestock Insurance in Mongolia
Examining the Feasibility of Livestock Insurance in Mongolia

Author: Jerry Robert Skees

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13:

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Herders in Mongolia have suffered tremendous losses in recent dzud (winter disasters), with livestock mortality rates of over 50 percent in some locales. This study examines the feasibility of offering insurance to compensate for animal deaths. Such an undertaking is challenging in any country. Mongolia offers even more challenges given the vast territory in which herders tend over 30 million animals. Traditional approaches that insure individual animals are simply not workable. The opportunities for fraud and abuse are significant. Monitoring costs required to mitigate this behavior would be very high. This study focuses on the potential for using the livestock mortality rate at a local level (for example, the sum or rural district) as the basis for indemnifying herders. Applications of index insurance are growing around the world, although no country has so far implemented such insurance for livestock deaths. But few countries have such frequent and high rates of localized animal deaths as does Mongolia, and it is one of the few countries that perform an animal census every year. This concept may therefore be precisely what is needed to start a social livestock insurance program. Just as important, the insurance that is used in Mongolia should not interfere with the exceptional efforts that experienced herders take to save animals during severe weather. Using an individual insurance may, in fact, diminish these efforts. Herders may ask, "Why should I work so hard to save my animals if I will simply be compensated for those that are lost?" Since the index insurance would pay all herders in the same region the same rate, the incentives for management to mitigate livestock losses remain strong. No one would reduce their effort to collect on insurance. Those who increase their efforts during a major event (dzud) would likely be compensated for this effort even though they do not lose livestock. In some cases, they could reasonably expect to receive payments that would compensate for the added effort or the added cost of trying to save their livestock.

The New Bryant & Stratton Counting-House Book-Keeping
The New Bryant & Stratton Counting-House Book-Keeping

Author: Silas Sadler Packard

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2022-10-27

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 1018051104

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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Law and Finance
Law and Finance

Author: Thorsten Beck

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13:

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New research suggests that cross-country differences in legal origin help explain differences in financial development. This paper empirically assesses two theories of why legal origin influences financial development. First, the political' channel stresses that (i) legal traditions differ in the priority they give to the rights of individual investors vis- ...-vis the state and (ii) this has repercussions for the development of property rights and financial markets. Second, the adaptability' channel holds that (i) legal traditions differ in their ability to adjust to changing commercial circumstances and (ii) legal systems that adapt quickly to minimize the gap between the contracting needs of the economy and the legal system's capabilities will foster financial development more effectively than would more rigid legal traditions. We use historical comparisons and cross-country regressions to assess the validity of these two channels. We find that legal origin matters for financial development because legal traditions differ in their ability to adapt efficiently to evolving economic conditions.

Aid, Policy, and Growth in Post-conflict Societies
Aid, Policy, and Growth in Post-conflict Societies

Author: Paul Collier

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13:

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Countries emerging from civil war attract both aid and policy advice. This paper provides the first systematic empirical analysis of aid and policy reform in the post-conflict growth process. It is based on a comprehensive data set of large civil wars and covers 27 countries that were in their first decade of post-conflict economic recovery during the 1990s. The authors first investigate whether the absorptive capacity for aid is systematically different in post-conflict countries. They find that during the first three post-conflict years, absorptive capacity is no greater than normal, but that in the rest of the first decade it is approximately double its normal level. So ideally, aid should phase in during the decade. Historically, aid has not, on average, been higher in post-conflict societies, and it has tended to taper out over the course of the decade. The authors then investigate whether the contribution of policy to growth is systematically different in post-conflict countries, and in particular, whether particular components of policy are differentially important. For this they use the World Bank policy rating database. The authors find that growth is more sensitive to policy in post-conflict societies. Comparing the efficacy of different policies, they find that social policies are differentially important relative to macroeconomic policies. However, historically, this does not appear to have been how policy reform has been prioritized in post-conflict societies.

The Case for International Coordination of Electricity Regulation
The Case for International Coordination of Electricity Regulation

Author: Antonio Estache

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13:

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Abstract: A decade long experience shows that monitoring the performance of public and private monopolies in South America is proving to be the hard part of the reform process. The operators who control most of the information needed for regulatory purposes have little interest in volunteering their dissemination unless they have an incentive to do so. Estache, Rossi, and Ruzzier argue that, in spite of, and maybe because of, a much weaker information base and governance structure, South America's electricity sector could pursue an approach that relies on performance rankings based on comparative efficiency measures. The authors show that with the rather modest data currently available publicly, such an approach could yield useful results. They provide estimates of efficiency levels in South America's main distribution companies between 1994 and 2000. Moreover, the authors show how relatively simple tests can be used by regulators to check the robustness of their results and strengthen their position at regulatory hearings. This paper"a joint product of the Governance, Regulation, and Finance Division, World Bank Institute, and the Finance, Private Sector, and Infrastructure Unit, Latin America and the Caribbean Region"is part of a larger effort in the institute to increase understanding of infrastructure regulation.

Decentralized Creditor-led Corporate Restructuring
Decentralized Creditor-led Corporate Restructuring

Author: Marinela E. Dado

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 60

ISBN-13:

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Countries that have experienced banking crises have adopted one of two distinct approaches toward the resolution of nonperforming assets--a centralized or a decentralized solution. A centralized approach entails setting up a government agency--an asset management company--with the full responsibility for acquiring, restructuring, and selling of the assets. A decentralized approach relies on banks and other creditors to manage and resolve nonperforming assets. Dado and Klingebiel study banking crises where governments adopted a decentralized, creditor-led workout strategy following systemic crises. They use a case study approach and analyze seven banking crises in which governments mainly relied on banks to resolve nonperforming assets. The study suggests that out of the seven cases, only Chile, Norway, and Poland successfully restructured their corporate sectors with companies attaining viable financial structures. The analysis underscores that as in the case of a centralized strategy the prerequisites for a successful decentralized restructuring strategy are manifold. The successful countries significantly improved the banking system's capital position, enabling banks to write down loan losses; banks as well as corporations had adequate incentives to engage in corporate restructuring; and ownership links between banks and corporations were limited or severed during crises. This paper--a product of the Financial Sector Operations and Policy Department--is part of a larger effort in the department to examine the resolution of financial crises.

Financial globalization : unequal blessings
Financial globalization : unequal blessings

Author: Augusto de la Torre

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 28

ISBN-13:

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De la Torre, Levy Yeyati, and Schmukler present a framework to analyze financial globalization. They argue that financial globalization needs to take into account the relation between money (particularly in its role as store of value), asset and factor price flexibility, and contractual and regulatory institutions. Countries that have the "blessed trinity" (international currency, flexible exchange rate regime, and sound contractual and regulatory environment) can integrate successfully into the world financial markets. But developing countries normally display the "unblessed trinity" (weak currency, fear of floating, and weak institutional framework). The authors define and discuss two alternative avenues (a "dollar trinity" and a "peso trinity") for developing countries to safely embrace international financial integration while the blessed trinity remains beyond reach. This paper--a product of the Office of the Chief Economist, Latin America and the Caribbean Region, and the Investment Climate Team, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the Bank to assess the implications of financial globalization for emerging economies.

The Wage Labor Market and Inequality in Vietnam in the 1990s
The Wage Labor Market and Inequality in Vietnam in the 1990s

Author: John Luke Gallup

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 46

ISBN-13:

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Has the expansion of wage employment in Vietnam exacerbated social inequalities, despite its contribution to income growth? Gallup uses the two rounds of the Vietnamese Living Standards Survey (VLSS) to evaluate the contribution of wage employment to inequality and income growth over the period of rapid economic growth in the 1990s following market reforms. If Vietnam sustains its economic development in the future, wage employment will become an ever more important source of household income as family farms and self-employed household enterprises become less prevalent. Observing the recent evolution of wage employment compared with farm and non-farm self-employment provides clues as to how economic development will change Vietnamese society, in particular its impact on income inequality within and between communities. The author shows that standard methods for calculating income inequality can be severely biased due to measurement error when decomposing the contribution of different sectors, regions, or groups to overall inequality. A new method for consistent decomposition of inequality by income source shows that despite the rapid growth of wages in the 1990s, wage inequality fell modestly. Contrary to the results of uncorrected methods, wage employment contributes a roughly similar amount to overall income inequality as other nonagricultural employment (household enterprise and remittances, mainly). Agricultural income actually reduces overall income inequality because inequality between agricultural households is much lower than inequality between nonagricultural households, and agricultural income has a lower correlation with other income sources. Wage employment has not been the locus of growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots in Vietnam. A declining share of agriculture as the economy grows in Vietnam means that income inequality will rise, assuming that within-sector inequality does not change. This rising inequality, due to the shrinking share of agriculture, will be difficult to avoid without giving up economic growth and rapid poverty reduction in Vietnam. Historically, the process of economic development has always brought about a transition out of small farms and household enterprises into wage employment as worker productivity increases and non-household enterprises dominate the economy.