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on Central and South America |
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Issue of 2014‒10‒03
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Sebastián Saiegh |
| Abstract: | This paper uses joint scaling methods and similar items from three large-scale surveys to place voters, parties and politicians from different Latin American countries on a common ideological space. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the findings reveal that the "median" voter in Latin America is located to the left of the ideological spectrum, and that voter's ideological locations are highly correlated with their partisan attachments. The location of parties and leaders suggests that three distinctive clusters exist: one located at the left of the political spectrum, another at the center, and a third to the right. The results also indicate that legislators in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru tend to be more "leftist" than their voters. The ideological drift, however, is not large enough to substantiate the claim that a representation gap exists in those countries. |
| Keywords: | Civil Society, Public Administration & Policy Making, Representation gap, Ideological drift, Ideology, Partisanship |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:86258&r=lam |
| By: | Alejandra Mizala (Universidad de Chile); Hugo Ñopo (Inter-American Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | How much are teachers paid in comparison to those in other professions in Latin America? How have these differences evolved at the turn of the 20th century? This paper documents the extent to which teachers are underpaid vis-à-vis workers in other professional and technical occupations in thirteen Latin-American countries circa 2007. It also analyses the evolution of the earnings gaps between circa 1997 and circa 2007. After controlling the earnings differentials by observable characteristics linked to productivity, using the methodology developed in Ñopo (2008), we find that teachers are underpaid vis-à-vis other professionals and technicians in Latin America in both periods: circa 1997 and circa 2007. This has been the case for hourly earnings gaps at the main and secondary jobs. However, the analysis performed provides evidence that the earnings gap decreased during the decade of analysis, most of the drop is attributed to a general trend in earnings gap reduction rather than as a result of teachers’ improvements on their observable characteristics. The earnings gap shows important heterogeneities, across countries and along the earnings distributions. |
| Keywords: | education, wage differentials, professional labor markets, national and international labor standards, Latin America, Caribbean |
| JEL: | I2 J31 J44 J8 O54 |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apc:wpaper:2014-015&r=lam |
| By: | Jamie Bologna (West Virginia University, College of Business and Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper exploits a unique dataset on corruption and informal sector employment in 476 Brazilian municipalities to estimate whether corruption impacts GDP or income levels once variation in informal economic activity is taken into account. Overall, I find that higher levels of corruption and a larger informal economy are generally associated with poor economic outcomes. However, only the size of the informal economy has a statistically significant effect. This effect is robust to the inclusion of a variety of controls and fixed effects, as well as an instrumental variable analysis. Further, these effects are large in magnitude. For example, a one standard deviation increase in the share of total employees that are informally employed explains a decrease in GDP per-capita of about 18 percent. |
| Keywords: | corruption, informal economy, income levels, growth |
| JEL: | D73 O17 O43 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wvu:wpaper:14-26&r=lam |
| By: | NU. CEPAL. Subsede de México |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecr:col031:4926&r=lam |
| By: | World Bank |
| Keywords: | Poverty Reduction - Rural Poverty Reduction Banks and Banking Reform Social Protections and Labor - Labor Markets Finance and Financial Sector Development - Debt Markets International Economics and Trade - Free Trade |
| Date: | 2014–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:20027&r=lam |
| By: | Gabriela Guerrero (GRADE); Juan Leon (GRADE); Kirrily Pells (Young Lives); Martin Woodhead (Young Lives) |
| Abstract: | El desarrollo de los niños y su bienestar están significativamente influenciados por su entorno familiar y comunitario, lo que se tiene que tener en cuenta respecto de los niños pobres porque ellos enfrentan mayores riesgos. Este documento resume las conclusiones que surgen del estudio Niños del Milenio/Young Lives para mostrar cómo el desarrollo de los niños está determinado por diferentes factores de su ambiente -incluyendo riesgos y oportunidades- destacando los cambios diarios en sus vidas durante esta, la primera década del siglo XXI. El texto demuestra cómo la reducción de la pobreza y la mejora del acceso a los servicios y la educación han reducido algunas desventajas, así como han creado nuevas oportunidades para muchos niños. Sin embargo, vemos tres aspectos principales en los que los niños más pobres se están quedando atrás, pese a que los niveles de vida de otros niños más privilegiados están mejorando. Primero, la expansión de la cobertura educativa y las altas aspiraciones de los niños y sus padres, requiere ser aprovechado a través de mejoras en la calidad de la escuela, eficacia y pertinencia. Empero, no todos los niños se han beneficiado del incremento de la cobertura escolar puesto que existen marcadas diferencias de calidad de la escuela y de las condiciones educativas, que en algunos casos podrían mitigar las desventajas de los niños, pero que las podrían agravar en otros. Segundo, los niños que viven en las comunidades más pobres tienen más probabilidades de sufrir múltiples desventajas simultáneas, como vivir en zonas rurales remotas, carecer de buena infraestructura estatal y eficientes servicios públicos, recibir educación de mala calidad y acceder en menor medida a la tecnología. Abordar la inequidad precisa políticas enfocadas en las áreas geográficas vulnerables, más que en hogares individuales. Tercero, el cambio social en las actitudes y aspiraciones están trayendo nuevas oportunidades para los niños, así como novedosas expectativas sobre sus roles y futuras responsabilidades. Pero, al mismo tiempo, en muchos casos, las niñas y mujeres jóvenes enfrentan más tensiones y presiones sociales. Así, las políticas públicas deben tener en cuenta también los problemas en que se relaciona pobreza y género, puesto que ello moldea las costumbres de las familias de los niños y niñas. Asegurar que los jóvenes puedan acceder a una educación de buena calidad, servicios de salud y oportunidades de empleo es una manera importante de combatir eventuales prácticas tradicionales. El documento sostiene que la creación de un entorno que sostenga el desarrollo del niño requiere abordar las causas estructurales de la inequidad, priorizando las comunidades donde los niños sufren múltiples desventajas simultáneamente. Este es el contexto para el entorno post- 2015, y para el desarrollo de políticas sociales eficaces que aseguren que “nadie se quede atrás”. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gad:ninosm:ninosmcambiandolavida&r=lam |
| By: | Florencia Amábile (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República); Marisa Bucheli (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República); Máximo Rossi (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República) |
| Abstract: | In Uruguay the tax structure and social spending reduce inequality and poverty for the whole society (Bucheli et al. 2013). In this study we analyze the effect of fiscal policy by race considering whites, afros and indigenous. The main question of our paper is whether the reduction of inequality and poverty benefit a racial group over the others or affectracial ethnic groups equally. The three racial groups are equally likely to be taken off extreme poverty by the direct transfer system. However, the hazard of leaving moderate poverty is lower for indigenous than for the other two groups. So the direct transfer system reduces poverty of the three groups but does not achieve to put racial groups on an equal footing. When analyzing the average income, the qualitative conclusions are on the same direction. Racial gap narrows slightly –led by in-kind transfers- and does not disappear. |
| Keywords: | inequality, poverty, race, fiscal policy, direct transfers. |
| JEL: | I38 I32 D63 H22 H24 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:wpaper:0214&r=lam |
| By: | Elvio Accinelli (Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de la República); Edgar J. Sánchez Carrera (Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we consider a society composed of citizens grouped in different economic strata based on income, who must pay taxes, but there are incentives to do so, and a set of public officials (auditors), whose function is to monitor compliance with the tax rules among citizens. We assume that corrupt auditors can accept bribes from evaders. We show that income inequality as a driver acts of corruption and tax evasion. Next we introduce an evolutionary model to analyze the progress or regression of evasion and corruption among public officials. We conclude with some observations on policies and incentives to combat these social ills. |
| Keywords: | corrupt behavior; taxes; evolutionary game. |
| JEL: | C72 C73 O11 O55 K42 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ude:wpaper:0514&r=lam |
| By: | Guillermo Alves (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía); Gabriel Burdin (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía); Andres Dean (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between workplace democracy and job flows (net job creations, gross job creations and destructions) by comparing the behavior of worker-managed firms (WMFs) and conventional firms. The empirical analysis relies on high frequency administrative firm-level panel data from Uruguay over the period April 1996-July 2009. The main findings of the paper are that (1) WMFs exhibit much more stable job dynamics than CFs; (2) both types of firms have decreasing in age and increasing in size gross job creation profiles; (3) there are heterogeneous employment regimes within WMFs: high job creation and destruction rates of hired workers and low job creation and destruction of members. This paper contributes to the literature on the role of institutions in shaping job flows. Our results have important implications for the understanding of the allocative efficiency effects of worker participation. |
| Keywords: | Job flows, Worker-managed firms |
| JEL: | D21 J54 J63 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-10-14&r=lam |