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on Central and South America |
|
Issue of 2014‒01‒10
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Nora Lustig (Tulane University and Center for Global Development and Inter-American Dialogue.); Florencia Amábile (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); Marisa Bucheli (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); George Gray Molina (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); Sean Higgins (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); Miguel Jaramillo (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); Wilson Jiménez Pozo (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); Veronica Paz Arauco (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); Claudiney Pereira (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); Carola Pessino (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); Máximo Rossi (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); John Scott (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org); Ernesto Yáñez Aguilar (Affilitation available at www.commitmentoequity.org) |
| Abstract: | How much redistribution and poverty reduction is being accomplished in Latin America through social spending, subsidies, and taxes? Standard fiscal incidence analyses applied to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay using a comparable methodology yields the following results. Direct taxes and cash transfers reduce inequality and poverty by nontrivial amounts in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay but less so in Bolivia, Mexico, and Peru. While direct taxes are progressive, the redistributive impact is small because direct taxes as a share of GDP are generally low. Cash transfers are quite progressive in absolute terms, except in Bolivia where programs are not targeted to the poor. In Bolivia and Brazil, indirect taxes more than offset the poverty-reducing impact of cash transfers. When one includes the in-kind transfers in education and health, valued at government costs, they reduce inequality in all countries by considerably more than cash transfers, reflecting their relative size. |
| Keywords: | fiscal incidence, inequality, poverty, taxes, social spending, Latin America. |
| JEL: | H22 I3 O1 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2013-315&r=lam |
| By: | Tas, Emcet O.; Reimao, Maira Emy; Orlando, Maria Beatriz |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of gender and ethnicity on educational outcomes using cross-country evidence from Bolivia, Mexico, Peru, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. It uses the Minnesota Population Center's Integrated Public Use Microdata Series-International database, which includes individual-level data from large, harmonized, and representative samples of country censuses. Using an estimation method analogous to difference-in-differences, the paper finds that gender-based differences in literacy, primary school completion, and secondary school completion are larger for minority ethnic groups compared with others or, alternatively, ethnicity-based differences are larger for women compared with men. The findings suggest that the intersection of gender and ethnicity confers cumulative disadvantage for minority groups, especially in Latin America. The paper discusses the implications of these findings on the design of, targeting in, and resource allocation for development programs. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Education For All,Primary Education,Disability,Gender and Development |
| Date: | 2013–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6734&r=lam |
| By: | Sean Higgins (Department of Economics, Tulane University, USA); Nora Lustig (Department of Economics, Tulane University, USA); Whitney Ruble (Department of Economics, Tulane University, USA); Timothy Smeeding (University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA) |
| Abstract: | We perform the first comprehensive fiscal incidence analyses in Brazil and the US, including direct cash and food transfers, targeted housing and heating subsidies, public spending on education and health, and personal income, payroll, corporate income, property, and expenditure taxes. In both countries, primary spending is close to 40 percent of GDP. The US achieves higher redistribution through direct taxes and transfers, primarily due to underutilization of the personal income tax in Brazil and the fact that Brazil’s highly progressive cash and food transfer programs are small while larger transfer programs are less progressive. However, when health and non-tertiary education spending are added to income using the government cost approach, the two countries achieve similar levels of redistribution. This result may be a reflection of better-off households in Brazil opting out of public services due to quality concerns rather than a result of government effort to make spending more equitable. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, fiscal policy, taxation, social spending. |
| JEL: | D31 H22 I38 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2013-316&r=lam |
| By: | Lasso, Juan Pablo; Ahmed, Ashraf Awadelkarim Widaa; Markendahl, Jan |
| Abstract: | The present document has the objective of analyzing the impact of several factors that are part of mobile telecom markets into the feasibility of sharing resources as a strategy for operators to deploy their networks in a cost-efficient manner and cope with the ever increasing amount of data traffic. These factors include the situation of the operators with their distribution of market shares, the nature of national regulatory authorities, and their lines of action. The study comprises the description and analysis of three markets: Ecuador, Chile, and Sweden, as they pose very different scenarios and are useful to prove the contrast present in two different regions of the world. The results of this research work show that in order to ease the adoption of network sharing in a market, a state of fair competition must be encouraged, reflected by a good distribution of market shares between operators. This is for the most part a task of the regulators, as they must make sure to award resources to operators in an equitable manner, as well as to identify the right moments to introduce new actors into the market, as it is observed in the cases of Chile and Sweden. Additionally, the regulators must have a liberal approach in their decisions, by permitting both active and passive network sharing, as this study shows that this is not the case in Chile and Ecuador so far. -- |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse13:88460&r=lam |
| By: | Jaramillo, Miguel |
| Keywords: | employment, employment security, labour market segmentation, Peru, emploi, sécurité de l'emploi, segmentation du marché du travail, Pérou, empleo, seguridad en el empleo, segmentación del mercado de trabajo, Perú |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:483847&r=lam |