viernes, 23 de marzo de 2012

Educational Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap for Recent College Graduates in Colombia



By:Laura Cepeda Emiliani
Juan D. Barón
URL:http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000094:009382&r=lam
In this paper we show the importance of subject of degree in explaining the gender wage gap in Colombia. In order to minimize the influence of gender differences in experience, promotions, and job changes on the wage gap, we focus on college graduates who have a formal job and who have been in the labor market at most one year. Using unique, administrative datasets with detailed subjects of degree, we find that the wage gap against women is on average 11% and that 40% of it can be explained by differences in subject of degree. Using a distributional decomposition, we find an increasing gender wage gap across the distribution of wages (from 2% at the bottom to 15% at the top), although subject of degree explains a lower 30% of the gap at the top. Policies designed to reduce the gender wage gap need to address the differing gender educational choices and the factors that influence them. These policies would be more effective in reducing the gap for median wage earners.

Policy Regimes, Inequality, Poverty and Growth: The Chilean Experience, 1973-2010



By:Contreras, Dante
URL:http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-04&r=lam
Since the 1970s, Chile has exhibited a highly skewed income distribution accompanied with strong fluctuations over time. Although income distribution worsened notably in the 1970s-80s, a significant improvement was recorded in the first half of the 1990s, resulting from better economic and social policies in the return to democracy. Nonetheless, Chile still faces significant challenges to improve development. There must be an active macroeconomic policy focused on the real economy. Chile also needs profound microeconomic reforms, including (i) capital markets, developing long-term financing channels for small businesses; (ii) radical progress in quality of education and labour training; and (iii) vigorous public support for innovation.
Keywords:income distribution, macroeconomic policy, microeconomic policies

Inequality Trends and their Determinants: Latin America over 1990-2011


By:Cornia, Giovanni Andrea
URL:http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-09&r=lam
The paper reviews the steady and widespread decline in income inequality which has taken place in most of Latin America over 2002-10 and whichâ..â..if continued for another 2-3 yearsâ..â..would reduce the average regional income inequality to pre-liberalization levels. The paper then focuses on the factors, which may explain such inequality decline. A review of the literature and an econometric test indicate that a few complementary factors played an important role in this regard, including a drop in the skill premium following a rapid expansion of secondary education, and the adoption of a new development model by a growing number of left-of-centre governments which emphasizes fiscally-prudent but more equitable macroeconomic, tax, social expenditure and labour policies. For the region as a whole, improvements in terms of trade, migrant remittances, FDI and world growth playeda less important role than expected although their impact was perceptible in countries where such transactions were sizeable.
Keywords:income inequality, human capital inequality, policy regimes, external conditions, Latin America

lunes, 19 de marzo de 2012

 ¿Está el piso parejo para los niños en el Perú? Medición y comprensión de la evolución de las oportunidades.

Por: Jaime Saavedra, Renos Vakis y Javier La investigación se concentra en tres temas. En primer lugar, trata de comprender la manera en que las circunstancias personales del niño o la niña (las características de sus padres, su origen étnico, género y lugar de nacimiento) influyen en el acceso a bienes y servicios fundamentales para su bienestar, particularmente en las áreas de salud, educación e infraestructura básica de vivienda. En segundo lugar, examina la evolución de las oportunidades en la última década del Perú, un periodo en el que el país ha logrado extraordinarias tasas de crecimiento económico y reducciones significativas en el nivel de pobreza. En tercer lugar, evalúa algunas de las políticas que pueden haber estado relacionadas con dichos cambios para ofrecer orientación sobre el tipo de intervenciones que podrían permitir un acceso más equitativo a aquellos bienes y servicios clave para promover las oportunidades entre los grupos de la población tradicionalmente relegados.   El objetivo subyacente del trabajo es poner en el debate económico y social en el Perú la evolución y el nivel actual de la desigualdad de oportunidades, con el fin de promover la discusión de las políticas que se necesitan para subsanar dicha desigualdad.
Haga click en el vínculo para descargarlo

http://www.grade.org.pe/publicaciones/detalle/1048

domingo, 18 de marzo de 2012

Relación de Kuznets en América Latina. Explorando más allá de la media condicional

By: Javier Alejo (CEDLAS-UNLP)

 URL:      http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0129&r=lam

 Este trabajo realiza un estudio sobre la relación de Kuznets para América Latina con el objetivo de caracterizar el cambio de la tendencia en la evolución reciente de sus indicadores de desigualdad de ingresos. Utilizando encuestas de hogares se construye un panel de regiones latinoamericanas con datos de desigualdad y desarrollo de una calidad superior a los anteriormente utilizados en la literatura empírica sobre la hipótesis de Kuznets. Los cambios en la desigualdad están asociados a múltiples factores observables vinculados al desarrollo tales como el crecimiento económico, el nivel de capital humano, el grado de apertura y urbanización, la estabilidad económica, entre otros; junto a una multiplicidad de determinantes que no son de fácil medición por los trabajos empíricos. La incorporación al análisis de los cuantiles condicionales puede ayudar a estudiar si este conjunto de factores que no son mensurables pueden generar senderos de desarrollo y equidad heterogéneos. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que la relevancia práctica de la relación de Kuznets depende la interacción con el resto de las variables de desarrollo. Una vez que se incorpora al análisis todos los factores vinculados al desarrollo, es poco factible que el cambio en la tendencia de la desigualdad de América Latina esté relacionado al crecimiento económico. Keywords: desigualdad, América Latina, datos en panel, regresión por cuantiles

Segregación Escolar por Nivel Socioeconómico. Midiendo el Fenómeno y Explorando sus Determinantes

By: Emmanuel Vazquez (CEDLAS-UNLP)

 http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0128&r=lam

 Este trabajo hace uso de datos suministrados por el Programa Internacional de Evaluación de Alumnos (PISA) con el objetivo de proveer una cuantificación de los niveles y la evolución de la segregación escolar por nivel socioeconómico en el mundo y contribuir a la discusión de sus determinantes. Los resultados sugieren un ranking de países que muestra a América Latina como una región de alta segregación escolar en términos relativos y donde la segregación entre escuelas públicas y privadas es relevante. Se encuentra además que la segregación escolar por nivel socioeconómico es mayor en aquellos países y períodos de tiempo en los que la desigualdad y la participación del sector privado en la matrícula es mayor, en tanto ciertos patrones de localización geográfica pueden también jugar un rol importante. Keywords: segregación, educación, PISA JEL: D63

Trends in Tariff Reforms and Trends in the Structure of Wages

By: Sebastián Galiani (Department of Economics, Washington University in St Louis) Guido Porto (Development Research Group, The World

 URL:       http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0124&r=lam

 This paper provides new evidence on the impacts of trade reforms on wages. We first introduce a model of trade that combines a non-competitive wage setting mechanism due to unions with a factor abundance hypothesis. The predictions of the model are then econometrically investigated using Argentine data. Instead of achieving identification by comparing industrial wages before and after one episode of trade liberalization, our strategy exploits the recent historical record of policy changes adopted by Argentina: from significant protection in the early 1970s, to the first episode of liberalization during the late 1970s, then back to a slowdown of reforms during the 1980s, and finally to the second episode of liberalization in the 1990s. These swings in trade policy represent broken trends in trade reforms that we can compare with observed trends in wages and wage inequality. We use unusual historical data sets of trends in tariffs, wages, and wage inequality to examine the structure of wages in Argentina and to explore how it is affected by tariff reforms. We find that i) trade liberalization, ceteris paribus, reduces wages; ii) industry tariffs reduce the industry skill premium; iii) conditional on the structure of tariffs at the industry level, the average tariff in the economy is positively associated with the aggregate skill premium. These findings suggest that the observed trends in wage inequality in Latin America can be reconciled with the Stolper-Samuelson predictions in a model with unions. Keywords: Trade liberalization, Stolper-Samuelson, Wage inequality, non-competitive wages and unions. JEL: F14

Informalidad laboral en las áreas urbanas de Colombia

By: Luis Armando

 URL:    http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000102:009364&r=

 This paper aims to carry out a depiction of labor informality in Colombia. We discuss the different alternatives that have been considered when defining and measuring labor informality and, based on technical criteria, employ the definitions related to the lack of affiliation to social security schemes (healthcare and pensions) and that of DANE for measuring the intensity of informality in the twenty-three major Colombian cities. The results show that when defining informality as the lack of affiliation to social security, nearly six out of ten employees belong to the informal sector. Additionally, informal workers in Colombia are characterized by low educational and income levels, besides from working in smaller establishments, when compared to the formal workers. From a regional perspective, the cities outward to the trapezoid conformed by Bogota, Cali, Medellin and Bucaramanga, the country’s main economic location, have the highest informality rates. RESUMEN: El presente documento tiene por objetivo llevar a cabo una caracterización de la informalidad en Colombia. Se discuten las diferentes alternativas que se han considerado para definir y medir la informalidad y, basado en criterios técnicos, se emplea la definición asociada a la no afiliación a seguridad social (salud y pensión) y la del DANE para medir el nivel de informalidad en las veintitrés principales ciudades del país. Los resultados muestran que, definiendo la informalidad por la falta de aportes a seguridad social, cerca de seis de cada diez empleados se ubicaría en el sector informal. Asimismo, el perfil de los informales en Colombia se caracteriza por presentar bajos niveles educativos, menores niveles de ingreso y se desempeñan en establecimientos de menor tamaño que los trabajadores formales. A nivel regional, los niveles más altos en el grado de informalidad lo presentan ciudades que están por fuera del centro de actividad económica del país, especialmente las ciudades que no se encuentran en el trapecio formado por Bogotá, Cali, Medellín y Bucaramanga.

Educational Upgrading and Returns to Skills in Latin America. Evidence from a Supply-Demand Framework, 1990-2010

By: Leonardo Gasparini (CEDLAS - UNLP) Sebastián Galiani (Washington University in St. Louis) Guillermo Cruces (CEDLAS-UNLP and CONICET) Pablo Acosta (World Bank, Human Development, Latin America and Caribbean

 URL:  http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0127&r=lam

 It has been argued that a factor behind the decline in income inequality in Latin America in the 2000s was the educational upgrading of its labor force. Between 1990 and 2010, the proportion of the labor force in the region with at least secondary education increased from 40 to 60 percent. Concurrently, returns to secondary education completion fell throughout the past two decades, while the 2000s saw a reversal in the increase in the returns to tertiary education experienced in the 1990s. This paper studies the evolution of wage differentials and the trends in the supply of workers by educational level for 16 Latin American countries between 1990 and 2000. The analysis estimates the relative contribution of supply and demand factors behind recent trends in skill premia for tertiary and secondary educated workers. Supplyside factors seem to have limited explanatory power relative to demandside factors, and are only relevant to explain part of the fall in wage premia for highschool graduates. Although there is significant heterogeneity in individual country experiences, on average the trend reversal in labor demand in the 2000s can be partially attributed to the recent boom in commodity prices that could favor the unskilled (nontertiary educated) workforce, although employment patterns by sector suggest that other withinsector forces are also at play, such as technological diffusion or skill mismatches that may reduce the labor productivity of highlyeducated workers.

lunes, 12 de marzo de 2012

Cash Transfers, Behavioral Changes, and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment



By:Karen Macours
Norbert Schady
Renos Vakis
URL:http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:62538&r=lam
Cash transfer programs have become extremely popular in the developing world. There is a large literature on the effects of these programs on schooling, health and nutrition, but relatively little is known about possible impacts on child development. This paper analyzes the impact of a cash transfer program on cognitive development in early childhood in rural Nicaragua. Identification is based on random assignment. We show that children in households assigned to receive benefits had significantly higher levels of development nine months after the program began. There is no fadeout of program effects two years after the program had ended and transfers were discontinued. We show that the changes in child development we observe are unlikely to be a result of the cash component of the program alone.
Keywords:Social Development :: Poverty, Education :: Early Childhood Education, Social Development :: Youth & Children, child development, transfers
JEL:D12

The dynamics of inequality change in a highly dualistic economy: Honduras, 1991-2007





By:Stephan Klasen (University ot Goettingen / Germany)
Thomas Otter
Carlos Villalobos (University of Goettingen / Germany)
URL:http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:got:iaidps:215&r=lam
We examine the drivers of inequality change in Honduras between 1991-2007, trying to understand why inequality increased in Honduras until 2005, while it was falling in most other Latin American countries. Using annual household surveys, we document first rising inequality between 1991-2005, which is followed by falling inequality thereafter. Using an inequality decomposition technique, we show that the rising inequality between 1991 and 2005 was, for the most part, driven by the dispersion of labour incomes in rural areas. We also show that the extraordinary labour earnings disequalization is mainly the result of a widening wage gap between the tradable and non-tradable sectors and occupations, combined with highly segmented labor markets and poor overall educational progress. The underlying determinants of the divergence between tradable and non-tradable sectors were highly overvalued currencies and poor commodity process for Honduras’ agricultural exports. Between 2005 and 2007, however, the inequality reduction was a result of equalizing trends in labour and non-labour incomes. The commodity boom promoting the tradable sector and remittances (in this order) played a significant role here, with government transfers playing a small supporting role. Since the decline in inequality is largely driven by international factors, we cannot be sure whether the decline in inequality will continue.
Keywords:Inequality, Decomposition, Education, Wages, Honduras, Migration
JEL:C15

The Effects of Gender Quotas in Latin American National Elections



By:Kotsadam, Andreas (Dept of Economics, University of Oslo)
Nerman, Måns (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)
URL:http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0528&r=lam
This study investigates the effects of gender quotas in national elections on political participation, public policy, and corruption in Latin America. We are able to replicate the findings from previous research that women in politics do affect these outcomes, but only when we treat the number of women in parliament as exogenous. We argue, however, that the introduction of gender quotas caused an – in this context – exogenous increase in women’s representation, and while we find that quotas in Latin America increased the number of women in parliament, we find no substantial effects beyond mere representation. The mechanisms for these findings are scrutinized, and we find no indications that quota women are more marginalized than other elected women in Latin American parliaments. Hence, increasing women’s representation by means of gender quotas may not result in the same outcomes as an increased representation in non-quota elections.<p>
Keywords:gender quotas; Latin America; women in parliament
JEL:D72

Estimating the Impacts of Bolivia's Protected Areas on Poverty



By:Canavire Bacarreza, Gustavo Javier (Georgia State University)
Hanauer, Merlin M. (Sonoma State University)
URL:http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6341&r=lam
Protected areas represent a powerful policy tool for the preservation of ecosystems and their services. The rapid proliferation of protected areas in Bolivia over the past several decades has prompted interest in understanding their impacts on surrounding populations. Recent studies from other developing countries show that protected areas have had positive impacts on poverty. Using rich biophysical and socioeconomic data from Bolivia we find that municipalities with at least 10% of their area occupied by a protected area established between 1992 and 2000 exhibited differentially greater levels of poverty reduction between 1992 and 2001 compared to similar municipalities unaffected by protected areas. We find that our results are robust to a number of econometric specifications, spillover analyses and a placebo study. Although our overarching results that Bolivia's protected areas were associated with poverty reduction are similar to previous studies, our underlying results differ subtly, but significantly. Previous studies found that controlling for key observable covariates led to fundamentally antithetical results compared to naïve (uncontrolled) estimates. Conversely, our results indicate that naïve estimates lead to an over estimation of the poverty reducing impacts of protected areas. Our results expose the heterogeneity of protected area impacts across countries and, therefore, underscore the importance of country-level impact evaluations in order to build the global knowledge base regarding the socioeconomic impacts of protected areas.
Keywords:ecosystems, poverty, protected areas, impacts, program evaluation, econometrics, Bolivia
JEL:C14

Inequality Trends and their Determinants: Latin America over 1990-2010



By:Giovanni Andrea Cornia (Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche)

URL:
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2012_02.rdf&r=lam

The paper reviews the steady and widespread decline in income inequality which has taken place in most of Latin America over 2002-10 and which––if continued for another 2-3 years––would reduce the average regional income inequality to pre-liberalization levels. The paper then focuses on the factors, which may explain such inequality decline. A review of the literature and an econometric test indicate that a few complementary factors played an important role in this regard, including a drop in the skill premium following a rapid expansion of secondary education, and the adoption of a new development model by a growing number of left-of-centre governments which emphasizes fiscally-prudent but more equitable macroeconomic, tax, social expenditure and labour policies. For the region as a whole, improvements in terms of trade, migrant remittances, FDI and world growth played a less important role than expected although their impact was perceptible in countries where such transactions were sizeable.

Keywords:
income inequality, human capital inequality, policy regimes, external conditions, Latin America
JEL:D31

Dinámica Laboral en Chile



By:Macarena García
Alberto Naudon
URL:http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chb:bcchwp:659&r=lam
In this article we use data from the National Employment Survey conducted by Chile’s National Statistics Institute (INE) to analyze the dynamic behavior of the Chilean labor market during the years 1993 to 2009. We study both the size and the cyclical behavior of flows among three different labor market states: employment, unemployment, and out of labor force. We also evaluate the contribution of those flows to the variance of the unemployment rate.

Discriminate: Evidence from a Series of Natural Field Experiments


By: Uri Gneezy
John List
Michael K. Price


URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17855&r=ltv


Social scientists have presented evidence that suggests discrimination is ubiquitous: women, nonwhites, and the elderly have been found to be the target of discriminatory behavior across several labor and product markets. Scholars have been less successful at pinpointing the underlying motives for such discriminatory patterns. We employ a series of field experiments across several market and agent types to examine the nature and extent of discrimination. Our exploration includes examining discrimination based on gender, age, sexual orientation, race, and disability. Using data from more than 3000 individual transactions, we find evidence of discrimination in each market. Interestingly, we find that when the discriminator believes the object of discrimination is controllable, any observed discrimination is motivated by animus. When the object of discrimination is not due to choice, the evidence suggests that statistical discrimination is the underlying reason for the disparate behavior.


JEL: C93

Poverty, Inequality and Social Policies in Brazil, 1995-2009

By: Pedro H. G. Ferreira de Souza (Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA))


URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:wpaper:87&r=ltv


Since the mid-1990s, Brazil has undergone extensive reforms that have finally reversed the dismaying economic performance of the 1980s. In particular, poverty and inequality indicators have improved dramatically, especially since the late-2000s. This paper provides an overview of such recent trends and discusses the role played by four major government interventions: public education, the minimum wage law, Social Security pensions and Social Assistance transfers. Additionally, available data sets and methods for policy evaluation are also discussed. (?)


Keywords: Poverty, Inequality and Social Policies in Brazil, 1995-2009

Social Policies and the Fall in Inequality in Brazil: Achievements and Challenges


By: Pedro H. G. Ferreira de Souza (Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA))


URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:135&r=ltv


By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the most usual international depiction of Brazil is that of a burgeoning, upcoming country. Although in many ways frankly exaggerated, this marks a stark contrast with a not-so-distant past. This turnaround has had a lot to do with favourable international circumstances, but it also owes a lot to extensive reforms that made possible something that was almost unprecedented in Brazil: pro-poor growth. (?)


Keywords: Social Policies and the Fall in Inequality in Brazil: Achievements and Challenges

The Rise and Fall of Income Inequality in Mexico: 1989-2010


By: Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez (El Colegio de México)
Gerardo Esquivel (El Colegio de México)
Nora Lustig (Tulane University)


URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2012-04&r=ltv


Inequality in Mexico rose between 1989 and 1994 and declined between 1994 and 2010. We examine the role of market forces (demand and supply of labour by skill), institutional factors (minimum wages and unionization rate), and public policy (cash transfers) in explaining changes in inequality. We apply the ‘re-centered influence function’ method to decompose changes in hourly wages into characteristics and returns. The main driver is changes in returns. Returns rose (1989-1994) due to institutional factors and labor demand. Returns declined (1994-2006) due to changes in supply and --to a lesser extent--in demand; institutional factors were not relevant. Government transfers contributed to the decline in inequality, especially after 2000.


Keywords: inequality, wages, disposable income, labor markets, Mexico
JEL: D31

lunes, 5 de marzo de 2012

Cash Transfers, Behavioral Changes, and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment



By:Karen Macours
Norbert Schady
Renos Vakis

URL:
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:62538&r=lam

Cash transfer programs have become extremely popular in the developing world. There is a large literature on the effects of these programs on schooling, health and nutrition, but relatively little is known about possible impacts on child development. This paper analyzes the impact of a cash transfer program on cognitive development in early childhood in rural Nicaragua. Identification is based on random assignment. We show that children in households assigned to receive benefits had significantly higher levels of development nine months after the program began. There is no fadeout of program effects two years after the program had ended and transfers were discontinued. We show that the changes in child development we observe are unlikely to be a result of the cash component of the program alone.
Keywords:Social Development :: Poverty, Education :: Early Childhood Education, Social Development :: Youth & Children, child development, transfers
JEL:D12

The Effects of Gender Quotas in Latin American National Elections



By:Kotsadam, Andreas (Dept of Economics, University of Oslo)
Nerman, Måns (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

URL:
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0528&r=lam

This study investigates the effects of gender quotas in national elections on political participation, public policy, and corruption in Latin America. We are able to replicate the findings from previous research that women in politics do affect these outcomes, but only when we treat the number of women in parliament as exogenous. We argue, however, that the introduction of gender quotas caused an – in this context – exogenous increase in women’s representation, and while we find that quotas in Latin America increased the number of women in parliament, we find no substantial effects beyond mere representation. The mechanisms for these findings are scrutinized, and we find no indications that quota women are more marginalized than other elected women in Latin American parliaments. Hence, increasing women’s representation by means of gender quotas may not result in the same outcomes as an increased representation in non-quota elections.<p>
Keywords:gender quotas; Latin America; women in parliament
JEL:D72

Estimating the Impacts of Bolivia's Protected Areas on Poverty



By:Canavire Bacarreza, Gustavo Javier (Georgia State University)
Hanauer, Merlin M. (Sonoma State University)

URL:
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6341&r=lam

Protected areas represent a powerful policy tool for the preservation of ecosystems and their services. The rapid proliferation of protected areas in Bolivia over the past several decades has prompted interest in understanding their impacts on surrounding populations. Recent studies from other developing countries show that protected areas have had positive impacts on poverty. Using rich biophysical and socioeconomic data from Bolivia we find that municipalities with at least 10% of their area occupied by a protected area established between 1992 and 2000 exhibited differentially greater levels of poverty reduction between 1992 and 2001 compared to similar municipalities unaffected by protected areas. We find that our results are robust to a number of econometric specifications, spillover analyses and a placebo study. Although our overarching results that Bolivia's protected areas were associated with poverty reduction are similar to previous studies, our underlying results differ subtly, but significantly. Previous studies found that controlling for key observable covariates led to fundamentally antithetical results compared to naïve (uncontrolled) estimates. Conversely, our results indicate that naïve estimates lead to an over estimation of the poverty reducing impacts of protected areas. Our results expose the heterogeneity of protected area impacts across countries and, therefore, underscore the importance of country-level impact evaluations in order to build the global knowledge base regarding the socioeconomic impacts of protected areas.

Keywords:
ecosystems, poverty, protected areas, impacts, program evaluation, econometrics, Bolivia
JEL:C14

Inequality Trends and their Determinants: Latin America over 1990-2010



By:Giovanni Andrea Cornia (Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche)

URL:
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2012_02.rdf&r=ltv

The paper reviews the steady and widespread decline in income inequality which has taken place in most of Latin America over 2002-10 and which––if continued for another 2-3 years––would reduce the average regional income inequality to pre-liberalization levels. The paper then focuses on the factors, which may explain such inequality decline. A review of the literature and an econometric test indicate that a few complementary factors played an important role in this regard, including a drop in the skill premium following a rapid expansion of secondary education, and the adoption of a new development model by a growing number of left-of-centre governments which emphasizes fiscally-prudent but more equitable macroeconomic, tax, social expenditure and labour policies. For the region as a whole, improvements in terms of trade, migrant remittances, FDI and world growth played a less important role than expected although their impact was perceptible in countries where such transactions were sizeable.

Keywords:
income inequality, human capital inequality, policy regimes, external conditions, Latin America
JEL:D31

The Labor Market Return to an Attractive Face: Evidence from a Field Experiment



By:López Bóo, Florencia (Inter-American Development Bank)
Rossi, Martín A. (Universidad de San Andrés)
Urzua, Sergio (University of Maryland)

URL:
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6356&r=ltv

We provide new evidence on the link between beauty and hiring practices in the labor market. Specifically, we study if people with less attractive faces are less likely to be contacted after submitting a resume. Our empirical strategy is based on an experimental approach. We sent fictitious resumes with pictures of attractive and unattractive faces to real job openings in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We find that attractive people receive 36 percent more responses (callbacks) than unattractive people. Given the experimental design, this difference can be attributed to the exogenous manipulation of facial attractiveness of our fake job applicants.

Keywords:
facial attractiveness, callback rates, labor market discrimination
JEL:J71

Big ideas: wellbeing and public policy



By:Richard Layard

URL:
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:355&r=ltv

Richard Layard outlines the development of CEP research on what makes people happy and how society might best be organised to promote happiness.

Keywords:
Wellbeing, happiness, public policy