Equality of Opportunity and Optimal Cash and In-Kind Policies

This paper examines the argument for public provision of certain private goods, like education and health, based on equality of opportunity by studying the utility possibility frontier of a society in which there is a concern for the distribution of these goods. A given quality of education or health services can be consumed for free in the public sector, but people can opt-out and purchase their desired quality levels in the private sector. Some of the conclusions are: (i) a pure cash transfer is optimal when the utility redistribution is either “sufficiently” small or large; (ii) if and only if both the equality-of-opportunity concern and the utility redistribution are large enough, can an in-kind program which attracts the whole population be justified; (iii) even when everybody chooses the in-kind program, it may be optimal to perform some additional utility redistribution by increasing the size of such program.equality of opportunity, redistribution, education, in-kind

Conditional Cash Transfers and Labour Informality: The Case of Argentina

The Universal Child Allowance for Social Protection (AUH) is Argentina’s main conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme, launched in 2009 by the federal government with ample social and political support. This is a key, massive initiative to broaden the coverage of the welfare state to the entire population and alleviate the typical imbalance of Latin American social protection systems, which are biased toward formal employees.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociale

Equality of opportunity and optimal cash and in-kind policies

Este trabajo examina el argumento para la provisión pública de ciertos bienes privados (e.g. educación y salud) basado en igualdad de oportunidades, mediante el estudio de la frontera de posibilidades de utilidad en una sociedad donde hay preferencias por la distribución de estos bienes. Cierto nivel de calidad de servicios de educación o salud se puede consumir gratis en el sector público, pero los individuos pueden optar por obtener dichos servicios del sector privado. Algunas de las conclusiones son: (i) una transferencia pura de efectivo es óptima cuando la redistribución de utilidad es suficientemente grande o pequeña; (ii) sí y sólo si tanto la preferencia de igualdad de oportunidades y la redistribución de utilidad son lo suficientemente grandes se puede justificar un programa en especie para toda la población; y (iii) aun cuando todos eligen este programa, puede ser óptimo hacer más redistribución aumentando el tamaño del programa.This paper examines the argument for public provision of certain private goods, like education and health, based on equality of opportunity by studying the utility possibility frontier of a society in which there is a concern for the distribution of these goods. A given quality of education or health services can be consumed for free in the public sector, but people can opt-out and purchase their desired quality levels in the private sector. Some of the conclusions are: (i) a pure cash transfer is optimal when the utility redistribution is either "sufficiently" small or large; (ii) if and only if both the equality-of-opportunity concern and the utility redistribution are large enough, can an in-kind program which attracts the whole population be justified; (iii) even when everybody chooses the in-kind program, it may be optimal to perform some additional utility redistribution by increasing the size of such program.Trabajo publicado en el Journal of Public Economics 90 (1-2): 143-169, January, 2006.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS

Equality of opportunity and optimal cash and in-kind policies

Este trabajo examina el argumento para la provisión pública de ciertos bienes privados (e.g. educación y salud) basado en igualdad de oportunidades, mediante el estudio de la frontera de posibilidades de utilidad en una sociedad donde hay preferencias por la distribución de estos bienes. Cierto nivel de calidad de servicios de educación o salud se puede consumir gratis en el sector público, pero los individuos pueden optar por obtener dichos servicios del sector privado. Algunas de las conclusiones son: (i) una transferencia pura de efectivo es óptima cuando la redistribución de utilidad es suficientemente grande o pequeña; (ii) sí y sólo si tanto la preferencia de igualdad de oportunidades y la redistribución de utilidad son lo suficientemente grandes se puede justificar un programa en especie para toda la población; y (iii) aun cuando todos eligen este programa, puede ser óptimo hacer más redistribución aumentando el tamaño del programa.This paper examines the argument for public provision of certain private goods, like education and health, based on equality of opportunity by studying the utility possibility frontier of a society in which there is a concern for the distribution of these goods. A given quality of education or health services can be consumed for free in the public sector, but people can opt-out and purchase their desired quality levels in the private sector. Some of the conclusions are: (i) a pure cash transfer is optimal when the utility redistribution is either "sufficiently" small or large; (ii) if and only if both the equality-of-opportunity concern and the utility redistribution are large enough, can an in-kind program which attracts the whole population be justified; (iii) even when everybody chooses the in-kind program, it may be optimal to perform some additional utility redistribution by increasing the size of such program.Trabajo publicado en el Journal of Public Economics 90 (1-2): 143-169, January, 2006.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS

Cash transfers and female labor force participation: the case of AUH in Argentina

In this paper, we estimate the impact on female labor force participation of a massive conditional cash transfer program—Universal Child Allowance, AUH—launched in Argentina in 2009. We identify the intention-to-treat effect by comparing eligible and non-eligible women over time through a diff-in-diff methodology. The results suggest a negative and economically significant effect of the program on female labor force participation. The disincentive to participate is present for married women, while the effect is not statistically significant for unmarried women with children. We also find evidence on the heterogeneity of the effect depending on woman’s education, husband’s employment status, number and age of children, and whether the woman is the main responsible of domestic chores. The relatively large value of the benefit and the fact that transfers are mostly directed to mothers may explain the sizeable effect of the program on female labor supply. The welfare implications of the results are not clear and deserve further inspection.Facultad de Ciencias EconómicasCentro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociale

How sensitive is regional poverty measurement in Latin America to the value of the poverty line?

This paper contributes to the methodological literature on the estimation of international poverty lines for Latin America based on the official poverty lines chosen by the Latin American governments and commonly used in the public debate. The paper exploits a comprehensive data set of 86 up-to-date official extreme and total urban poverty lines across 18 countries in Latin America, as well as the recently updated values of the national purchasing power parity conversion factors from the 2011 International Comparison Program, and a set of harmonized household surveys. By using 3 and 6 US dollars per person a day at 2011 PPP as the extreme and total poverty lines for Latin America, this paper illustrates the sensitiveness of poverty rates to changes of the values of the poverty lines as a result of the recent update of the PPP values, the period of reference, and the relative cost of living across the countries in the region. The poverty lines with the 2011 PPP values lead to an increase in total poverty rates in Latin America when compared to the 2005 PPP values, while they leave the extreme poverty rate unaffected. In general, country-specific poverty rankings remain fairly stable to the values of the poverty lines selected.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS

How sensitive is regional poverty measurement in Latin America to the value of the poverty line?

This paper contributes to the methodological literature on the estimation of international poverty lines for Latin America based on the official poverty lines chosen by the Latin American governments and commonly used in the public debate. The paper exploits a comprehensive data set of 86 up-to-date official extreme and total urban poverty lines across 18 countries in Latin America, as well as the recently updated values of the national purchasing power parity conversion factors from the 2011 International Comparison Program, and a set of harmonized household surveys. By using 3 and 6 US dollars per person a day at 2011 PPP as the extreme and total poverty lines for Latin America, this paper illustrates the sensitiveness of poverty rates to changes of the values of the poverty lines as a result of the recent update of the PPP values, the period of reference, and the relative cost of living across the countries in the region. The poverty lines with the 2011 PPP values lead to an increase in total poverty rates in Latin America when compared to the 2005 PPP values, while they leave the extreme poverty rate unaffected. In general, country-specific poverty rankings remain fairly stable to the values of the poverty lines selected.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS

Characterization of linseed oil epoxidized at different percentages

Several degree-epoxidized linseed oils (8, 20, 35, 40, 47 and 54%) were prepared for changing different reaction parameters such as temperature, amount of peroxide and enzyme of the well studied chemoenzymatic epoxidation method. The epoxidation reaction following was carried out by Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (H1NMR) which are the most usual spectroscopes for this propose. However, microRaman spectroscopy and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) characterization were used in this work as complementary techniques. Particularly, DSC permitted to correlate the epoxy-aperture energy to each epoxidation percentage making it another optional technique for quantify epoxidation levels in triglycerides