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Yueling Huang
This paper empirically investigates the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on employment. Exploiting variation in AI adoption across US commuting zones using a shift-share approach, I find that during 2010-2021, commuting zones with higher AI adoption have experienced a stronger decline in the employment-to-population ratio. Moreover, this negative employment effect is primarily borne by the manufacturing and lowskill services sectors, middle-skill workers, non-STEM occupations, and individuals at the two ends of the age distribution. The adverse impact is also more pronounced on men than women.
Sophia Chen
,
Ryu Matsuura
,
Flavien Moreau
, and
Joana Pereira
Prioritizing populations most in need of social assistance is an important policy decision. In the Eastern Caribbean, social assistance targeting is constrained by limited data and the need for rapid support in times of large economic and natural disaster shocks. We leverage recent advances in machine learning and satellite imagery processing to propose an implementable strategy in the face of these constraints. We show that local well-being can be predicted with high accuracy in the Eastern Caribbean region using satellite data and that such predictions can be used to improve targeting by reducing aggregation bias, better allocating resources across areas, and proxying for information difficult to verify.
Aliona Cebotari
,
Enrique Chueca-Montuenga
,
Yoro Diallo
,
Yunsheng Ma
,
Rima A Turk
,
Weining Xin
, and
Harold Zavarce
The paper explores the drivers of political fragility by focusing on coups d’état as symptomatic of such fragility. It uses event studies to identify factors that exhibit significantly different dynamics in the runup to coups, and machine learning to identify these stressors and more structural determinants of fragility—as well as their nonlinear interactions—that create an environment propitious to coups. The paper finds that the destabilization of a country’s economic, political or security environment—such as low growth, high inflation, weak external positions, political instability and conflict—set the stage for a higher likelihood of coups, with overlapping stressors amplifying each other. These stressors are more likely to lead to breakdowns in political systems when demographic pressures and underlying structural weaknesses (especially poverty, exclusion, and weak governance) are present or when policies are weaker, through complex interactions. Conversely, strengthened fundamentals and macropolicies have higher returns in structurally fragile environments in terms of staving off political breakdowns, suggesting that continued engagement by multilateral institutions and donors in fragile situations is likely to yield particularly high dividends. The model performs well in predicting coups out of sample, having predicted a high probability of most 2020-23 coups, including in the Sahel region.
Tohid Atashbar
In this study we introduce and apply a set of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to analyze multi-dimensional fragility-related data. Our analysis of the fragility data collected by the OECD for its States of Fragility index showed that the use of such techniques could provide further insights into the non-linear relationships and diverse drivers of state fragility, highlighting the importance of a nuanced and context-specific approach to understanding and addressing this multi-aspect issue. We also applied the methodology used in this paper to South Sudan, one of the most fragile countries in the world to analyze the dynamics behind the different aspects of fragility over time. The results could be used to improve the Fund’s country engagement strategy (CES) and efforts at the country.
Chris Redl
and
Sandile Hlatshwayo
We produce a social unrest risk index for 125 countries covering a period of 1996 to 2020. The risk of social unrest is based on the probability of unrest in the following year derived from a machine learning model drawing on over 340 indicators covering a wide range of macro-financial, socioeconomic, development and political variables. The prediction model correctly forecasts unrest in the following year approximately two-thirds of the time. Shapley values indicate that the key drivers of the predictions include high levels of unrest, food price inflation and mobile phone penetration, which accord with previous findings in the literature.
Mr. Emre Alper
and
Michal Miktus
Higher digital connectivity is expected to bring opportunities to leapfrog development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Experience within the region demonstrates that if there is an adequate digital infrastructure and a supportive business environment, new forms of business spring up and create jobs for the educated as well as the less educated. The paper first confirms the global digital divide through the unsupervised machine learning clustering K-means algorithm. Next, it derives a composite digital connectivity index, in the spirit of De Muro-Mazziotta-Pareto, for about 190 economies. Descriptive analysis shows that majority of SSA countries lag in digital connectivity, specifically in infrastructure, internet usage, and knowledge. Finally, using fractional logit regressions we document that better business enabling and regulatory environment, financial access, and urbanization are associated with higher digital connectivity.
International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.
This paper highlights that agreement on an important package of reforms of vital significance to the future of the international monetary system was reached at a meeting of the Interim Committee of the Board of Governors of the IMF on the International Monetary System in Kingston, Jamaica, on January 7–8, 1976. The reforms include a substantial quota increase for almost all members, as well as an increase in access to the IMF’s resources for all member countries in the period prior to implementation of the increase in their IMF quotas, and some other amendments.