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on Central and South America |
| By: | Bargain, Olivier; Jara, H. Xavier; Rivera, David |
| Abstract: | Latent feelings of economic vulnerability and social stagnation may have catalyzed the unprecedented uprisings that shook Latin America and other parts of the world in 2018-2019. We document this process in the context of Chile, leveraging survey data on protest participation and its potential determinants. Specifically, we construct a “social gap” index, measuring the disconnect between objective and perceived social status. Our findings suggest that this status misperception predicts protest involvement beyond factors such as perceived living costs, the subjective value of public services, peer influence, redistributive views and political demands. Notably, the social gap operates independently of broader feelings of unfairness and anger toward inequalities in explaining protests. |
| Keywords: | protests; social gap; perceived inequality; social status |
| JEL: | D31 D63 D74 |
| Date: | 2025–11–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:130068 |
| By: | Mehrotra, Santosh (University of Bath) |
| Abstract: | The paper applies the “dual synergies” model—linking economic growth, poverty reduction, and human capability formation—to explain why Latin America (LAC) remains trapped at middle-income levels. It challenges orthodox views that prioritize growth alone, arguing instead that growth, social policy, and human capital mutually reinforce each other. Using stylized facts, the paper shows that LAC’s extractive, commodity-dependent development model has produced volatile growth, weak job creation, high informality, and limited poverty reduction. This contrasts sharply with East Asia, where coordinated industrial policy, early investments in health and education, and financial deepening enabled sustained growth and structural transformation. In LAC, weak fiscal capacity, low savings, foreign-dominated banking, and inequality constrain public investment in human capital, weakening growth–poverty links. The paper argues that breaking the middle-income trap requires an integrated strategy: a renewed, state-capable industrial policy aimed at diversification, innovation, and manufacturing upgrading, combined with stronger social policies. |
| Keywords: | industrial policy, Latin America, East Asia |
| JEL: | O11 O14 O15 O25 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18352 |
| By: | Marcelo Caffera; Alejandro Lopez-Feldman |
| Abstract: | We describe the main insights from the papers included in this special issue, Challenges for the Development of Latin America in the Anthropocene: Current Research in Environmental Economics. The contributions are organized around three themes: the economic and welfare impacts of temperature variability, the role of institutions and user rights in shaping environmental governance, and the effectiveness of regulatory instruments for managing ambient and atmospheric pollution. Together, these papers show that environmental outcomes in Latin America are deeply shaped by institutional capacity, governance quality, and social inequality. By combining rigorous empirical analysis with attention to local contexts, they demonstrate how environmental economics can inform policy responses to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. |
| Keywords: | Latin America; climate impacts; governance and institutions; environmental regulation; pollution; climate change |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnt:wpaper:2513 |
| By: | Juanita Bloomfield; Ana Balsa; Alejandro Cid; Philip Oreopoulos |
| Abstract: | Early childhood in developing countries -where risk factors are more prevalent and resources more limited- demand effective and scalable models. We design and experimentally evaluate a telephonic assistance and messaging program for highly vulnerable families with children aged 0 to 3. The intervention focuses on supporting positive parenting practices at home, fostering language development, and offering one-to-one assistance for taking up the government benefits that families are entitled to. The program was implemented in Uruguay with 1360 families that qualified to receive support from the government agency Uruguay Crece Contigo. Treated families receive weekly calls and text and audio messages three times a week for 8 months. We find that the program increases the weekly frequency of parental involvement in stimulating activities and reduces parental stress. In addition, treated families achieve greater access to social benefits and programs including cash transfers and labor market programs. Effects on parental stress are larger for families that received cash transfers during the intervention, and effects on parental stimulation are larger by families experiencing higher economic shocks at baseline. |
| JEL: | J13 I10 I20 H43 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnt:wpaper:2404 |
| By: | Juanita Bloomfield; Jose Maria Cabrera |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the long-term effects of receiving the Uruguayan Plan de Atención Nacional a la Emergencia Social (PANES), a large unconditional cash transfer program, on outcomes for young and unborn children. We use a rich dataset that matches program administrative data to vital natality data and educational records 8 to 12 years after the beginning of the program. Overall, we find small and barely significant effects on educational attainment and delay. Among children exposed to the program during early childhood (between ages zero to five), the results show significant beneficial effects for those with low birth weight. |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnt:wpaper:2405 |
| By: | Samuel Berlinski; Guillermo Cruces; Sebastian Galiani; Paul Gertler; Fabian Gonzalez |
| Abstract: | We study the long-run effects of a large public expansion of pre-primary education in Argentina. Between 1993 and 1999 the federal government financed the construction of new preschool classrooms targeted to departments with low base- line enrollment and high poverty, creating roughly 186, 000 additional places. We link administrative records on classroom construction to four population censuses and estimate difference-in-differences models that compare treated and untreated cohorts across high- and low-construction departments. An additional preschool seat per child increases post-kindergarten schooling by about 0.5 years, raising the probability of completing secondary school by 11.9 percentage points and of enrolling in post-secondary education by 7.1 percentage points. For women, access to the program also reduces completed fertility: an additional seat lowers the number of live births per woman by 0.18, and we find no evidence that selective migration biases these estimates. We find little impact on labor-market outcomes at the census date, consistent with beneficiaries still being in school or in the early stages of their careers. A benefit-cost analysis based on the estimated schooling gains, standard Mincer returns, and observed construction and operating costs yields a benefit-cost ratio of about 11 and an internal rate of return of 13%. Our findings show that universal at-scale pre-primary expansions in middle-income countries can generate sizable improvements in human capital and demographic outcomes at relatively low fiscal cost. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J38 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34552 |
| By: | Lustig, Nora; Vigorito, Andrea |
| Abstract: | Inequality measures based on household surveys may be biased because they fail to capture the upper tail of the income distribution properly. The "missing rich" problem stems from sampling errors, item and unit nonresponse, underreporting of income, and data preprocessing techniques like top coding. This paper reviews salient approaches to address the underrepresentation of the rich in household surveys. Approaches are classified based on information sources and method. In terms of information sources, the distinction is between within-survey data and survey data combined with external sources (e.g., tax records). In terms of methods, we identify three categories: replacing, reweighting, and combined reweighting and replacing. We show that income inequality levels and trends are sensitive to the correction approach. This paper is a companion piece to the chapter of the same name and includes all the appendices that could not be incorporated into the chapter due to space limitations. (Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality Working Paper) |
| Date: | 2025–12–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:97ng6_v1 |