DIME LAC PROGRAM Contents Major technological changes in the production and analysis of data have opened opportunities to transform the way we use integrated Governance 1 high-frequency data ecosystems and advanced analytical tools, Tax 1 notably when it comes to evaluating the impact of development policy interventions. In the last decade, the World Bank’s impact Justice 1 evaluation body of research demonstrates that this approach is Procurement  2 highly cost-effective across sectors and geographies in increasing Comptroller function 2 the efficiency and effectiveness of Bank-financed investments by large margins. Infrastructure 2 Private sector 3 Harnessing these findings, the Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) team supports several World Bank projects across Latin Gender 3 America and the Caribbean by conducting several impact evaluations, Jobs 4 delivering evidence-based policy recommendations and producing high quality research papers. DIME’s work in the LAC region largely Environment 4 focuses on using technology and technical solutions to transform the efficiency of governance, advance equal access to resources and promote economic development. This includes expanding Authors: Lupe Bedoya, Daniel Chen, Thiago De Gouvea access to markets and opportunities through digitizing systems and Scot de Arruda, Arianna Legovini, Sveta Milusheva, Iva Trako, Caio Piza, and Manuel Ramos-Maqueda processes, as well as leveraging the power of technology to source data essential for delivering targeted policy responses. Governance Tax DIME team is working with the Tax Authority in Honduras (SAR) to improve existing knowledge on data analytics and generate evidence on tax policy and tax administration. At the request of SAR, in FY23 we expect to expand that agenda, providing a series of workshops and trainings on data analytics, modern methods of impact evaluation, and machine learning techniques. Previous research engagement included research papers and policy notes on topics such as corporate minimum taxes and the use of experiments to target compliance interventions. Ongoing projects explore the use of tax data to improve inequality measurement, the impacts of VAT withholding rules and the effects of tax exemptions to CHILE encourage firm formalization. „ Information Provision and Court Performance - Experimental Evidence from Chile: In Chile, DE JURE A joint project between DIME and DECRG researchers will partnered with the Department of Institutional Development support tax authorities in Honduras and Ecuador to improve (DDI) to test whether nudges informing court managers on the taxation of high-net-worth individuals. We will leverage their performance affected overall court productivity. DE our close relationship with these tax authorities to link personal JURE and DDI co-designed an online platform that displays income tax (PIT) and corporate income tax (CIT) registries—through performance metrics at the court and judge levels, such as the identification of the beneficial owners of companies. That is the average case duration, the case clearance rate, and/or the a crucial step to further the ability of tax authorities to correctly rate of realized hearings. Through a randomized controlled trial, identify and tax capital income earnings. DE JURE demonstrated that nudges to court administrators in the platform increased usage of the platform and reduced Justice information frictions. More importantly, the nudges also resulted in behavioral change and improved court productivity. PERU (draft) Improving the Performance of Non-Criminal Justice Services in Peru (P173860): DIME’s DE JURE team is developing „ Impact of Court Digitization on Judicial Efficiency and Firm analytical and digital tools that span different sectors of the Outcomes: In 2016, the Chilean government implemented Peruvian justice system as part of this operation. Embedding the Electronic Processing Law (LTE) in a staggered fashion, impact evaluations in the digital innovations, DE JURE will provide mandating the electronic processing of judicial cases rigorous evidence of the operation’s impact on the efficiency and throughout the country. The reform was aimed at improving quality of justice in Peru. These projects include: judicial productivity, expanding access to justice, and promoting transparency in the judicial system. The staggered implementation of the reform across different courts offers „ Enhancing the Quality of Legal Aid: Impact Evaluation of an opportunity to estimate its causal effects through a set of Tech-Enabled Mediation in Peru (P173860): Peru’s Ministry event studies. Preliminary results of this project by the DIME of Justice, in cooperation with World Bank operations, is in the DE JURE team show that the LTE increased case filings and process of revamping the legal aid services provided by Alegra the accessibility of justice, particularly for small firms. Despite Centers in Peru. These centers are responsible for providing the large case number, the LTE also reduced the duration of free legal advice and assistance to vulnerable populations cases and improved the efficiency of justice. Furthermore, throughout the country. DIME’s DE JURE team has developed DE JURE is currently evaluating the impact of the LTE on firm an innovative app for extrajudicial mediators in Alegra centers to outcomes. ask: Can tech-based self-monitoring improve the performance of mediators, and consequently, the wellbeing of vulnerable BRAZIL people in Peru? Preliminary results find that the app significantly improved mediator performance and dispute resolutions „ Exploratory Dialogue with the Tribunal of Rio de Janeiro: The DE JURE team is engaging in exploratory dialogue with between the parties. As a next step, the team is integrating the Tribunal of Rio de Janeiro (TJRJ) Court. The goal of this an AI-driven peer-recommendation system to enhance best engagement is to conduct research on debt settlements and practices among mediators and improve the mediation service tax compliance, policy areas under the jurisdiction of the TJRJ received by vulnerable populations. Rio Court „ Improving Legal Training: The Impact of Social-Emotional Learning and Class Monitoring on Judicial Performance (P173860): DE JURE works with the Judicial Academy of Procurement Peru, which is responsible for delivering mandatory training to aspiring judges and prosecutors and to current professionals Policies and strategies to make public procurement open, seeking progression in the judicial career. Various extended competitive, accessible, and inclusive towards small-medium curricular experiences and light-touch interventions developed firms (SMEs). Under a Knowledge for Change (KCP) program, by our team have been proven to change attitudes, beliefs, and we are studying how procurement rules affect the participation of high-stakes decision-making, which can improve the efficiency small firms and tender outcomes. In Brazil, we are investigating and motivation of court actors. (policy brief) the effects of a law that allows tenders below a certain value to be exclusive for SMEs. We are also creating a database of all for two intervention groups: high-intensity verification vs. low- procurement and payments at the municipal level to understand intensity verification. Every two weeks inspectors receive how the timing of payments might explain procurement outcomes. individual reports on their performance, and municipalities receive In Chile, we are collecting data at the invoice level to evaluate aggregated reports and a list of best performers. In addition, a whether changes in the timing of payments due to a government short experiment (6-week intervention) was conducted to assess reform affected firms and/or procurement outcomes. In both the impact of conducting inspections with tablets vs. paper on settings, we will use administrative data on public procurement, inspection safety, inspection quality, and inspector efficiency. firm registries, and employer-employee data to assess the impacts This work aims to contribute to our understanding of how to of these policies. improve accountability and e-governance mechanisms to improve governments’ regulatory function. Preliminary results expected early next FY. Comptroller function Leveraging Accountability and Oversight of Public Funds in BRAZIL Chile (P176884): DIME is working with the Governance Practice under a RAS to train public officials in Chile’s Comptroller’s Office „ SEBRAE-SP’s post-COVID recovery “Crédito Retomada”: (CGR, for its Spanish acronym) on impact evaluation methods. How does access to working capital impact firms’ survival and This activity supports the CGR in measuring the impact of its performance? (in partnership with the Brazilian Central Bank). interventions through a diagnostic of good international practices Preliminary impact evaluation results show that access to credit in the definition of key impact evaluation indicators for audits, as reduced firms’ death rates in 60% in a six-months period. well as by developing a methodology for impact evaluation for the „ Foster culture of evidence-based policy design in the Brazilian audit and legal interventions of the CGR. Business Support Program to Micro and Small Enterprises (SEBRAE-SP) in São Paulo state: Build an Impact Evaluation Lab in partnership with the Centre of Microfinance Studies at Infrastructure Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV-SP) to improve SEBRAE-SP’s technical capacity and support the generation of high-quality COLOMBIA evidence for well-informed decision-making. The price of mobility: Assessing the impact of Bogotá’s „ Management quality and SME recovery: DIME and the PSD Integrated System of Transportation (SITP) tariff policies team in the Brazil CMU partnered with SEBRAE-SP to collect on the well-being of vulnerable populations. This research six rounds of the COVID-19 Business Pulse Survey with a panel project takes advantage of a significant upcoming reform in the of 1,800 micro and small firms. The team integrate survey data, transit subsidy policy of Bogota to assess the effects of targeted SEBRAE administrative data, and employer-employee data transit incentives, under imperfect take-up, on mobility, access to investigate whether firms with best managerial practices to healthcare services and job opportunities, as well as effects were able to mitigate the negative demand shocks brought by on overall indicators of well-being such as income, food security the pandemic. and psychological well-being. This project aims to contribute to policy and evidence in several fronts, including on: (i) the impact of transit subsidies beyond transportation outcomes, by measuring Gender household well-being across a variety of dimensions; (ii) the effects of large-scale targeted public transportation incentives; (iii) the PERU implications of low take-up of government social programs and Women Officers, Gender Violence and Human Capital: the impact of addressing informational constraints. Evidence from Women’s Justice Centers in Peru: Many developing countries have unequal access to justice, especially for women. What are the implications of this inequality for gender- Private sector based violence, intra-household bargaining and investments in PERU children? This paper provides quasi-experimental evidence on the effectiveness of women’s justice centers (WJCs) in Peru, which Effects of a risk-based inspections system on business safety are specialized institutions that provide police, medical and legal conditions (P170739): This joint work between DIME and the services aimed at reducing violence against women. Examining FCI GP evaluates the impact of a risk-based inspection electronic the gradual rollout of the WJCs across districts and villages, we system, coupled with independent inspection verification, on find that the opening of a center in the vicinity of the household safety and quality. Inspection quality verification is conducted led to a 10% reduction in the incidence of gender-based violence, as measured by self-reported domestic violence, female deaths Jobs due to aggression (femicides) and hospitalizations due to mental HONDURAS health. This decrease in women’s exposure to violence also has Temporary Jobs for At-Risk Youth (P152314): This IE examines inter-generational effects: WJCs substantially increase human the protective role of a labor market intervention for youth capital investments in children, raising school attendance and growing up in high-violence settings. It was embedded in the test scores. The evidence suggests that these results are driven Honduras Safer Municipalities Project and focuses on a Temporary by an increase in enforcement against gender violence. After Jobs Program for at-risk youth. This includes vocational training, a WJC opens in a district, there is an increase in reporting and group-based vocational training, and a temporary job. Evidence on prosecutions for gender-specific crimes by 40%. supply-side programs aiming to enhance the technical/vocational skills of individual job candidates through education and on-the-job BRAZIL training in high-violence contexts is disappointing, suggesting Demand for Safe Spaces - Avoiding Harassment and Stigma: little benefit beyond limited/rare short term positive impacts. DIME conducted a novel revealed-preference experiment to However, literature examining interventions targeting soft skills estimate women’s willingness to pay to avoid harassment using and personality traits suggest these have the potential to augment crowdsourced data from 22,000 rides on the public train system and sustain short-term impacts observed in more traditional job- in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Participants were offered a series of training interventions, but there is limited evidence of combined paid opportunities to ride either a carriage reserved for women soft-and-hard skills approaches from high-violence settings in low- (although, in practice this was not enforced) or a mixed carriage, and middle-income countries. This project is designed to help fill with a pay differential between the women’s and mixed carriages this gap. Follow-up data collection is ongoing. that varies from ride to ride. A fifth of riders were willing to forgo ” This foregone 20 percent of the fare to ride in the “safe space. payment equals $1.17–2.25 per incident avoided, or approximately Environment 0.4 percent of minimum wage annually. Such a wage penalty MEXICO would cause a 0.48–0.60 percent reduction in female labor supply. Payments for environmental services supported social capital while increasing land management: Payments for EL SALVADOR environmental services (PES) programs incentivize landowners Gender-based violence and empowerment of adolescent girls to protect or improve natural resources. Many conservationists in conflict-affected settings. In partnership with colleagues from fear that introducing compensation for actions previously offered DECRG, DIME is contributing to strengthening the evidence base voluntarily will reduce social capital (the institutions, relationships, on policies and programs that can prevent gender-based violence attitudes, and values that govern human interactions), yet little (GBV) through two components: (i) by creating a valid and reliable rigorous research has investigated this concern. We examined the measurement tool to examine social norms surrounding GBV, and land cover management and communal social capital impacts of (ii) by designing an innovative randomized impact evaluation that Mexico’s federal conservation payments program, which is a key will measure girls empowerment interventions as well as parental example for other countries committed to reducing deforestation, engagement interventions on the prevention of GBV in conflict protecting watersheds, and conserving biodiversity. We used affected settings. In the first component, the measurement a regression discontinuity (RD) methodology to identify causal tool will examine both descriptive and injunctive social norms program effects, comparing outcomes for PES participants and and personal beliefs that maintain and tolerate GBV in conflict- similar rejected applicants close to scoring cutoffs. We found affected settings, and it will identify the composition of the that payments increased land cover management activities, such relevant reference groups, as well as sanctions inflicted for non- as patrolling for illegal activity, building fire breaks, controlling adherence. In the second component, we will evaluate the impact pests, or promoting soil conservation, by ~50%. Importantly, of two types of interventions: (i) the Girl’s Club program, which increases in paid activities as a result of PES did not crowd out provides adolescent girls with critical like skills for their transition to unpaid contributions to land management or other prosocial work. adulthood, and (ii) the Strong Families (Familias Fuertes) workshop, Community social capital increased by ~8-9%, and household- which is designed to ensure that the families of vulnerable young level measures of trust were not affected by the program. These girls (e.g., parents, grandparents, or any other family member who findings demonstrate that major environmental conditional cash have relationship with the girls) provide the support, guidance, and transfer programs can support both land management and the oversight they require to remain in school or in their jobs. attitudes and institutions underpinning prosocial behavior (article).