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on Central and South America |
| By: | Guillermo Cruces (University of Nottingham); Diego Fernandez Meijide (Universidad de San Andres); Sebastian Galiani (Tulane University); Ramiro Galvez (UTDT); Maria Lombardi (UTDT) |
| Abstract: | Does generative artificial intelligence (AI) widen or narrow productivity gaps across workers? We study this in a randomized online experiment with 1, 174 adults aged 25-45 who completed a workplace-style problem-solving task with or without a generative AI assistant, followed by an unassisted module. AI improves performance for all participants, but gains are larger among those with less education. Without AI, higher-education participants outperform lower-education participants by 0.548 standard deviations; with AI, the gap falls to 0.139, closing about three-quarters of the initial difference. Chat logs show that lower-education participants obtain substantial assistance, while higher-education participants use AI more effectively. Gains are not purely due to delegation: treated participants do not perform worse once AI is removed, and lower-education participants retain part of their improvement, although a sizable gap re-emerges. Intensive AI use raises assisted performance regardless of participants' own effort, but follow-up performance improves only when intensive use is combined with sustained effort. Generative AI narrows effective productivity differences in task execution, while human-capital differences continue to shape unassisted performance and tool use. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.04198 |
| By: | Berniell, Inés; Gasparini, Leonardo; Marchionni, Mariana; Ramírez-Leira, Lucía |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the dynamics of vulnerable non-poor households in Latin America, focusing on how they compare with the poor and how both groups respond to macroeconomic fluctuations. Using harmonized household survey microdata from 15 countries over more than three decades (1992-2024), complemented with longitudinal data for four of the regions largest economies, we examine how the size of socioeconomic groups evolves with long-run economic growth and cyclical fluctuations and whether labor market responses to macroeconomic conditions differ systematically between poor and vulnerable individuals. We find that the share of vulnerable non-poor individuals has risen modestly, reflecting higher inflows from poverty than outflows to richer groups. While labor market outcomes are strongly procyclical for both poor and vulnerable individuals, a striking pattern emerges across countries: In less developed economies, vulnerable individuals experience significantly stronger cyclical changes in labor market outcomes than the poor, whereas the opposite pattern arises in more developed economies, particularly along employment margins. Exploiting longitudinal data, we further show that transitions into and out of vulnerability are driven primarily by changes in labor income, especially through employment and hourly earnings adjustments. Overall, the results highlight that the relationship between vulnerability and macroeconomic fluctuations depends critically on labor market structure, which shapes the adjustment margins available to different groups of workers. |
| Keywords: | Employment |
| JEL: | I32 J21 J46 E32 O54 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14708 |
| By: | Sabrina Siniscalchi (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Sociales); Henry Willebald (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía) |
| Abstract: | We reconstruct long-run private wealth and national income for Uruguay, 1860–1940, by re-estimating Ochoa’s benchmark inventories with harmonized concepts and prices. Using a Piketty–Zucman-style framework, we document levels and turning points of the wealth–income ratio (β), the composition of private wealth (agricultural land, housing, other assets), an accounting decomposition separating the saving-induced terms (s/β) from real capital gains (q), and the evolution of the capital share (α) and implied return r=α/β. Uruguay’s β begins near the lower envelope traced by the United States and Sweden, rises after the 1880s toward the European core, and declines from the 1910s into the 1930s. Throughout, the portfolio remains persistently land-heavy –agricultural land (including livestock) dominates early on and falls only gradually– contrasting with the shift toward housing and other assets in core economies. The decomposition shows that phases of increase of real wealth are associated with positive s/β and q effects, while contractions reflect mainly capital losses. We hypothesize –and the evidence is consistent with the claim– that the exhaustion of the agro-export model was the primary driver of the interwar decline in β (closure of the agrarian frontier, technological limits of natural pastures, adverse external shocks, and stock liquidation), with fiscal and regulatory initiatives (e.g., higher taxation of large landholdings) as plausible auxiliary channels. By providing a transparent, Uruguay-first account within a bounded cross-country context, the paper expands the empirical basis for understanding the long-run dynamics of wealth, returns, and inequality in peripheral, land-intensive economies. |
| Keywords: | Wealth, Savings, Capital gains, Uruguay |
| JEL: | N36 D31 E01 E21 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-11-26 |