How much might human capital policies affect earnings inequalities and poverty?

Economic inequality and poverty have persisted in Latin America despite important changes in political and policy regimes. This paper explores the relationship between various human capital programs aimed to reduced poverty and how improvements of those in poverty in the left tail of the earning income distribution are likely to reduce inequality. First it reviews some recent benefit/cost estimates for human capital intervention in LAC, suggesting some investments in which the returns appear quite high. Then it turns over to how much increases in schooling attainment targeted to the poor would reduce poverty and income inequality. This is illustrated empirically using the 2004 Chilean Social Protection Survey data. Alternative simulations suggest significant impacts of well targeted increases in schooling attainment on reducing poverty and inequality.Inequality, Poverty, Human capital.

An evaluation of the impact of PROGRESA on pre-school child height

One of the major components of the PROGRESA program has been directed toward improving the nutritional status of small children in poor rural communities in Mexico. Results suggest that PROGRESA may be having fairly substantial effects on lifetime productivities and earnings of currently small children in poor households.Nutrition. ,

Schooling is Associated Not Only with Long-Run Wages, But Also with Wage Risks and Disability Risks: The Pakistani Experience

Many studies document significantly positive associations between schooling attainment and wages in developing countries. But when individuals enter occupations subsequent to completing their schooling, they not only face an expected work-life path of wages, but a number of other occupational characteristics, including wage risks and disability risks, for which there may be compensating wage differentials. This study examines the relations between schooling on one hand and mean wages and these two types of risks on the other hand, based on 77,685 individuals from the wage-earning population as recorded in six Labor Force Surveys of Pakistan. The results suggest that schooling is positively associated with mean total wages and wage rates, but has different associations with these two types of risks: Disability risks decline as schooling increases but wage risks, and even more, wage rate risks increase as schooling increases. The schooling-wage risks relation, but not the schooling-disability risks relation,is consistent with there being compensating differentials.Wages, Risks, Labor Markets, Job Disabilities, Compensating Differentials,Developing Country, Schooling

An evaluation of the impact of PROGRESA on pre-school child height

One of the major components of the PROGRESA program has been directed toward improving the nutritional status of small children in poor rural communities in Mexico. Results suggest that PROGRESA may be having fairly substantial effects on lifetime productivities and earnings of currently small children in poor households.Nutrition. ,

Correlates and Determinants of Child Anthropometrics in Latin America: Background and Overview of the Symposium

This paper provides a summary of the work in seven papers of a Latin American Research Network project intended to identify the following information. The private and public determinants of child anthropometrics; The extent to which the private and public determinants interact and whether interactions suggest gross substitution or complementarities; and The extent to which the influence of the determinants of child anthropometrics vary by the age and gender of the child. Countries for which results are reported included in the project are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua.

The Impact of the PROGRESA/Oportunidades Conditional Cash Transfer Program on Health and Related Outcomes for the Aging in Mexico

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs link public transfers to human capital investment in hopes of alleviating current poverty and reducing its intergenerational transmission. Whereas nearly all studies of their impacts have focused on youth, these CCT programs may also have an impact on aging adults, by increasing household resources or inducing changes in allocations of time of various household members, that may be of substantial interest, particularly given the rapid aging of most populations. This paper contributes to this under-researched area by examining health and work impacts on the aging for the best known and most influential of these programs, the Mexican PROGRESA/Oportunidades program. For a number of health indicators, the program appears to significantly improve health, with impacts that are larger with a greater time receiving the program. However, most of these health impacts are concentrated on women.conditional cash transfers, aging, health, Mexico

Descomposición de las diferencias de fertilidad entre regiones del mundo y a través del tiempo: ¿Importa más una mejor salud que la formación de la mujer?

(Disponible unicamente en Inglés) Recientemente se ha reavivado el interés en la relación entre las variaciones en las estructuras etarias de las poblaciones y diversos resultados económicos. Esas variaciones son producto de cambios en las tasas de fertilidad y mortalidad que se producen algunos años antes de hacerse visibles en la estructura etaria estándar y que pueden crear oportunidades para desarrollos subsiguientes. Una gran cantidad de países de todo el mundo todavía están experimentando o quizá están a punto de experimentar un descenso de la tasa de fertilidad. En este trabajo primero se definen las diferencias entre las tasas de fertilidad y mortalidad y las proporciones de dependencia correspondientes entre regiones y a través del tiempo. Luego se emplea un panel de 96 países durante el período de 1965 a 1995 para descomponer las diferencias de las tasas de fertilidad entre países desarrollados y en desarrollo, y las diferencias de fertilidad entre 1960 y 1995 en varias regiones en desarrollo y 22 países individuales de la región de América Latina y el Caribe. Estas descomposiciones indican que las principales correlaciones de las diferencias de fertilidad a través del espacio y el tiempo son la escolaridad y la salud de la mujer, y que la primera tiene más que ver con la diferencia de fertilidad entre regiones/países en un momento dado, mientras que la segunda tiene más que ver con bajas de fertilidad en el tiempo. Esto sugiere que es posible que se haya exagerado la importancia de la relación de una mayor escolaridad de la mujer en comparación con la escolaridad de la mujer en la obra publicada, la cual se fundamenta en gran medida en relaciones de inferencia longitudinal de datos representativos.

Social Exclusion in Latin America: Introduction and Overview

This paper presents the results of an Inter-American Development Bank Research Network project on Social Exclusion in Latin American and the Caribbean. The object of this project is to document and analyze the extent and consequences of some specific types of social exclusion in Latin America. The project has concentrated on some particular forms of exclusion that are important for the determination of incomeand thus poverty and income inequalityand that are relatively amenable to quantitative analysis. The purposes of the project are also to shed some light on the mechanisms of social exclusion, and to provide some guidance for policies aimed at addressing them.

Schooling Inequality, Crises, and Financial Liberalization in Latin America

Latin America is characterized by high and persistent schooling, land, and income inequalities and extreme income concentration. In a highly unequal setting, powerful interests are more likely to dominate politics, pushing for policies that protect privileges rather than foster competition and growth. As a result, changes in policies that political elites resist may be postponed in high-inequality countries to the detriment of overall economic performance. This paper examines the relationship between structural, high inequality—measured by high levels of schooling inequality—and liberalization of the financial sector for a sample of 37 developing and developed countries for the period 1975 to 2000. Liberalization of the financial sector can be broadly thought of in the Latin American pre-2000 context as opening credit markets that earlier were largely restricted, including by ending directed credit. For our measure of structural inequality we use data on schooling Gini coefficients that have not previously been used in this context. In our sample, we find that increases in financial liberalization were associated with bank crises and other domestic and external shocks, and that higher schooling inequality reduces the impetus for liberalization brought on by bank crises.Latin America, education, inequality, financial liberalization