Documents/Resources
Central America
- Belize
Unemployment Report on unemployment in Belize, produced by the Belize
Development Trust. The
intelligentsia in government circles tends to look at unemployment in Belize
from the perspective of their training and education in temperate zone
industrialized countries. They are also bombarded with statistical methods
and values from organizations like the IMF and World Bank. None of which in
reality apply to unemployment, statistics and the situation in the real
world and needs of Belize.
· Nicaragua: Despite Economic Growth, Poverty Remains High & Basic Consumer Goods Are Becoming More Costly
During 1995, the economy experienced a 4% increase in GDP. But other figures suggest that the economy is underutilizing
human and natural resources. Production of basic goods and services is down, while the quantity of imports and prices for
those goods are rising. At the same time, massive unemployment and a shift of population from agricultural zones to urban
areas has placed a heavy burden on social services. As wages remain static, the basic basket of goods and services is
receding from the reach of a majority of Nicaraguans.
· Poverty, Corruption, & Slow Demilitarization Process Still Threaten Governability in Central America Opening the
economy to foreign trade and investment has been accompanied by the import of the consumer-driven economic
model of the advanced industrialized countries. Yet Central American governments have not been able to deliver on
the promised consumer economy. For the most part, isthmian governments have paid little attention to this phenomenon
and thereby risk the political backlash from frustrated rising expectations. They have focused instead on electoral
democracy, holding out the promise of prosperity in the long term through the slow process of capital accumulation,
development of export-led production, and competitive trade through a disciplined, flexible work force.
·
Structural
Adjustment and the Spreading Crisis In Latin America Stabilization and adjustment
programs pushed on countries badly in need of international financing have, in
some cases, helped to tame inflation and effect some measure of economic growth,
albeit usually uneven and unsustained. In almost all cases, however, they have
depressed wages, undermined rural livelihoods, increased poverty, and further
concentrated income. Nowhere have the polarization of society and the
unsustainability of this economic model been so vivid as in Mexico, which became
overly dependent on imports and foreign capital while sacrificing the
development of its own local productive capacity. Focus on the cases of Bolivia, Costa Rica, El Salvador,
Mexico, and Nicaragua.
o
Decentralization and
Recentralization: Lessons from the Social Sectors in Mexico and Nicaragua
By
Alec Gershberg, Aug 1998. This study is designed to help practitioners prepare
and evaluate institutional reforms for education and health programs. The
framework uses the concept of accountability to link the broad goals of reform
to the key dimensions of organizational arrangements. The case studies, based on
fieldwork in Mexico and Nicaragua, demonstrate a wide variety of available
policy instruments. Significantly, they also demonstrate that the responses to
these instruments are equally various: creative interpretation of central
regulations by local officials, self governing schools that complement public
funds with resources mobilized by fees, the reassertion of national control over
previously decentralized health programs.
General
· Latin American Labor Ministers Analyze Retraining Programs to help Workers Survive in the Global Economy At the
tenth Inter-American Conference of Labor Ministers, held in October 1995 in Argentina under the auspices of the
Organization of American States (OAS), the regional ministers formed a special coordinating commission to prepare
conferences and seminars on changing conditions in the Latin American labor market. The commission--headed by
Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Uruguay—held its first symposium, "The future of the labor
force, productive modernization, adaptation, and professional development," Aug. 22-23 in Costa Rica.Participants
at the conference provided a dismal overview of the impact of market reforms on the regional labor force. Efforts by
nearly every Latin American country to scale back the public sector, promote private investment as the motor force
for development, and open domestic economies to foreign competition have ushered in profound changes in the labor
market.
· The Informal Economy in Latin America. Definition, Measurement, and Policies By Alejandro Portes and Richard
Shauffler (December 1992) The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the informal sector in Latin America.
We will review the major efforts to define the informal sector, to explain its origins, to estimate its relative size, and to
specify the articulation between formal and informal activities. We will also discuss the role of public policy and its
bearing on the growth or contraction of informal enterprise with a particular focus on Mexico, in light of the impending
North American Free Trade Agreement.
·
ILO Documents.
The International Labor Organization brings
governments, workers and employers together to promote human rights in the
workplace, create jobs and improve working conditions.
It is associated with the United Nations.
o
A
Review of the IDB Experience in Low-Cost Housing By Eduardo Rojas,
December 1995. This document contains the results of a review of the recent
experience of the IDB in low-cost housing. This experience derives from three
loans approved in 1992 and 1993 to support housing investment in Paraguay
(PR/683-OC and PR/884-SF), Uruguay (UR/735-OC and UR/736-OC), and Chile
(CH/771-OC). In response to Government policies, the loans in reference departed
from previous Bank practice prompting a revision of the housing policy as
embodied in the Urban Development Policy (OP-751). The review was undertaken by
DPP/POL as part of the activities leading to the amendment of OP-751 and is
complementary to other documents prepared by PRA and DPL during the discussions
preceding the drafting of the proposed amendment.
o
Apertura, Reforma y
Mercado de Trabajo: La experiencia de una década de cambios estructurales en el
Perú By Carmen Pagés-Serra,
Mar. 1999.
“Openness, Reform and Labor Market: The Experience of One Decade of
Structural Changes in Peru” examines the situation of labor in Peru.
The author argues that there is evidence of a deep transformation of the
labor market during the 1990s. The growth of employment, greater capacity for
re-employment for displaced workers, and the fall in formality rates suggest
that the Peruvian market has become more efficient.
However, there are several challenges for the future: in spite of the high
increase of employment, the increase of the size of the labor market has not
helped decrease unemployment.
- Does
Latin American & Caribbean Unemployment Depend on Asian Labour
Standards? By Patrick Belser, Aug. 1998.
The paper has two objectives. The first, in section 1, is to
present a brief description of core international labour standards
promoted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), as well as to
provide an overview of the ratification and -when possible- the
enforcement of these standards in Asia and Latin America. The second
objective of the paper, in Section 2, is to discuss -and provide some
evidence- on possible linkages between labour standards, international
trade, and foreign investment. In particular, the paper defends the view
that -in theory- there are three plausible ways for weak Asian labour
rights to hurt Latin American employment. The first is by increasing Latin
American low skilled labour-intensive manufacturing imports from Asia; the
second is by making Latin American manufacturing exports less competitive;
and the third is by diverting foreign investment away from Latin America.
- El
Desempleo en América Latina y El Caribe a Mediados de los Ańos 90 By
Gustavo Márquez. “Unemployment
in Latin America and the Caribbean in the mid-1990s” argues that labor
is the most valuable factor of production.
Márquez claims that unemployment is one of the major concerns of
Central Americans. It has a
high cost for the unemployed people, in terms of self-esteem, motivation,
and work qualification. Unemployment
generates social alienation and puts a heavy burden on social cohesion:
individuals do not perceive the benefits of the structural reform programs
implemented by their governments and to withdraw their support for the
governing party, thus threatening the stability of political coalitions.
- Inequality
and the Family in Latin America By Ricardo Hausmann and Miguel Székely,
Jan. 1999. This is a
background paper prepared for the Economic and Social Progress Report on Facing
Up to Inequality, published by the IDB, 1998. Part of the paper draws
on the version that appeared as Chapter 3 of the Economic and Social
Progress Report, which was coauthored with Bill Savedoff.
- La
Legislación Laboral en el Proceso de Reformas Estructurales de América
Latina y el Caribe Carmen Pagés-Serra, Eduardo Lora, Mar. 1997.
“Labor Legislation in the Process of Structural Reform of Latin
America and the Caribbean” explores the change in orientation of the
microeconomic policies, as well as the lack of evolution of labor
legislation. This paper argues that Latin American countries need to
adapt their labor legislation to the new context of flexibility and
competition. Thee questions
guide this research plan: which have been the structural reforms in Latin
America, why there have been so few labor reforms, and which are the main
problems of the labor legislation.
- Macro
Policy and Employment Problems in Latin America By Mauricio Olivera
and Eduardo Lora. This paper
was prepared for the 1998 IDB/IIC Annual Meeting entitled: "The
Employment in Latin America: What is the problem and how to address
it?" held on Cartagena, March 1998.
It argues that despite macroeconomic stabilization and structural
reforms, employment problems have persisted in Latin America. The purpose
of this article is to explain this apparent labor paradox. The main
conclusion is that economic cycles explain the fluctuations of employment
and unemployment rate (around their structural levels), while price
stabilizations and structural reforms have affected the composition of
labor demand and relative wages.
- Policy
Options for Poverty Alleviation By Miguel Székely, Mar. 1997.
This work builds on previous research to develop some
methodology that simplifies the identification of the best policy options
for poverty alleviation in a given country. The argument is that when a
population can be divided into subgroups according to an easily
identifiable characteristic, the problem of alleviating poverty through a
targeted mechanism can be viewed as one of choosing among three options:
(i) provoking a marginal change in the average income of certain
subgroups; (ii) changing the distribution of resources within subgroups in
the margin; and (iii) generating a marginal change in the differences
between the subgroups. This
paper is published as Chapter 6 in Székely, M. "The Economics of
Poverty, Inequality and Wealth Accumulation in Mexico", MacMillan,
London, 1998.
- Sibling
Correlations and Social Mobility in Latin America By Momi Dahan, and
Alejandro Gaviria, Feb. 1999. In
this paper, the authors measure social mobility by looking at the extent
to which family background determines socioeconomic success. Roughly
speaking, social mobility can be measure by means of two distinct types of
correlations: intergenerational correlations and sibling correlations.
- UNCTAD
Documents. UNCTAD is a
permanent intergovernmental body. It
is the principal organ of the United Nations General Assembly in the field
of trade and development.
- Effects
of Globalization and Liberalization on Poverty UNCTAD was asked by the
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and
Sustainable Development to be the lead agency in organizing an
inter-agency seminar on the effects of international economic relations on
poverty. The inter-agency seminar took place in Geneva from 15 to 17 April
1996. It included a panel of experts discussion, questions and answers, a
"brainstorming" by agency participants
and experts and the formulation of conclusions
and recommendations.
The findings of the seminar constituted a United Nations system
contribution to the International
Year for the Eradication of Poverty. The conclusions and
recommendations as well as the papers presented at the seminar were
published in November 1996 as a book,
which was distributed to the delegations during the Second Committee
session of the General Assembly when the item of the International
Year was taken up.
- What
has UNCTAD done about poverty alleviation? From 1992 to 1995, UNCTAD's work on poverty alleviation
focused on (i) servicing the Standing Committee on Poverty Alleviation and
(ii) organizing expert fora. The
Standing
Committee on Poverty Alleviation was established as an instrument for
implementing the new partnership for development and peace,
launched in Cartagena, Columbia at UNCTAD VIII. The work of the Standing
Committee focused especially on the poverty dimensions of the economic and
technical issues for which UNCTAD has primary responsibility in the United
Nations system. The committee met annually from 1993 to 1995.
- Expert
fora were held on various occasions to deliberate different issues
selected for in-depth treatment by the Standing Committee at a technical
level. There were three such fora from 1993 to 1995.
- The
reports
prepared by the UNCTAD secretariat include issues and background notes
for the Standing Committee meetings as well as technical papers in
connection with the expert
fora mentioned above.
- Why
UNCTAD has been involved in poverty alleviation? At UNCTAD VIII, which was held in Cartagena, Columbia
in 1992, changes were adopted in UNCTAD's intergovernmental structures and
machinery. Among them, a Standing Committee on Poverty Alleviation was
created with the main objective to contribute
to national and international efforts to prevent, alleviate and reduce
poverty, particularly where it is more acute, as well as to the
formulation of related national and international policies, bearing in
mind the diversity of country situations, including the particular
problems of the least developed countries and the most vulnerable
population groups.
·
World Bank Documents
- Beyond
Unequal Development: An Overview Andrés Solimano (March 1999) This
paper—a product of the Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela Country Management
Unit, Latin America and Caribbean Region- argues that it is time to
rethink the development paradigm.
In the 1980s and 1990s, economic growth (material progress)
became the main development goal under the policies known as the
"Washington Consensus." Earlier concerns about inequalities of
income and wealth were replaced by policies emphasizing macroeconomic
stabilization (reducing inflation and cutting fiscal deficits) and
structural reform (trade liberalization, financial deregulation,
privatization, and a shift to a smaller state). But fiscal adjustment and
market liberalization alone have not brought stable, equitable
development. Inequality of income and wealth, far from declining, seem to
have increased in Latin America.
- Calm
after the Storms: Income Distribution in Chile, 1987–94 Francisco
H. G. Ferreira and Julie A. Litchfield (August 1998) This
paper—a product of the Poverty Reduction Group, Poverty Reduction and
Economic Management Network—is part of a larger effort in the network to
understand income distribution dynamics in developing countries.
With the profound political and economic changes of the 1970s and
1980s behind it, and regardless of its trade patterns, Chile's income
distribution is, for the moment, calm. Education may be the most important
variable affecting the structure of, and changes in, inequality in Chile.
- Economic
Transition and the Distributions of Income and Wealth Francisco H. G.
Ferreira (August 1997). This paper —a product of the Office of the Chief
Economist for East Asia and Pacific— is part of a larger effort in the
department to understand the effects of economic transition on the poor.
Model results suggest the
importance, in the transition from central planning to a market system, of
the government's continuing to provide basic public goods and services,
removing barriers that prevent the participation of the poor in the new
private sector, and ensuring that suitable safety nets are in place.
- Ecuador's
Rural Nonfarm Sector as a Route Out of Property Peter Lanjouw
(March 1998). This paper—a
product of the Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in
the group to study the role of the non-farm sector in the rural economy.
The nonagricultural rural
sector represents a potentially important route out of poverty in Ecuador.
Poverty declines as the share of income from nonagricultural sources
rises. Nonagricultural employment and earnings are positively associated
with better education and infrastructure access. Poverty could be expected
to fall substantially with expansion in non-farm sectors such as
construction, transport, commerce, and services.
- Income
Gains to the Poor from Workfare: Estimates for Argentina's Trabajar
Program Jyotsna Jalan and Martin Ravallion
(July 1999). A workfare program was introduced in response to high
unemployment in Argentina. An ex-post evaluation using matching methods
indicates that the program generated sizable net income gains to generally
poor participants. Jalan and Ravallion use propensity-score matching
methods to estimate the net income gains to families of workers
participating in an Argentinian workfare program. The methods they propose
are feasible for evaluating safety net interventions in settings in which
many other methods are not feasible. The average gain is about half the
gross wage.
- Pension
Reform and Private Pension Funds in Peru and Columbia Monika
Queisser (November 1997) This
paper—a product of the Financial Sector Development Department—is part
of a larger effort in the department to study private pension funding and
contractual savings. The new
private pension systems in Peru and Colombia experienced difficulties
during their first years of existence, but corrective measures
strengthened their performance.
- Pension
Reform in Bolivia: Innovative Solutions to Common Problems
Hermann von Gersdorff (September 1997).
This paper—a product of the
Private Sector Development Cluster, Finance, Private Sector, and
Infrastructure Department—draws on work done for the Bolivia Financial
Markets and Pension Reform Project. In
some respects Bolivia's bold program of pension reform went beyond the
Chilean prototype.
- Pension
Reform in Latin America: Quick Fixes or Sustainable Reform?
Sri-Ram Aiyer (December 1997).
This paper—a product of the
Technical Department, Latin America and the Caribbean Region—is part of
a larger effort in the region to promote financial sector and capital
market reform. Countries in
Latin America have been ahead of countries elsewhere in undertaking the
transition from pay-as-you-go defined-benefit pension plans to fully
funded, defined-contribution pension plans. Now they must address
complementary reform in the banking, insurance, and securities markets.
- Poverty
& Inequality Annual World Bank Conference on Development in
Latin America and the Caribbean 1996: Poverty and Inequality (Proceedings
of a Conference held in Bogotá, Colombia).
This document presents papers from the second annual World Bank
conference on development in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) which
focused on the prospects for reducing poverty and inequality in LAC. The
papers note that poverty has increased over the past 10 years, in the LAC
region, which has pronounced income disparity of all developing regions in
the world. Poverty in the region is a predominantly urban phenomenon, with
75 percent of the population living in urban areas and some 60-65 percent
of the poor living in the cities. Other topics included regional, ethnic,
and gender dimensions of poverty, the Mexican and Argentinean financial
crisis, and severe consequences of economic shocks for both income
distribution and the incidence of poverty.
- Private
Pension Funds in Argentina's New Integrated Pension System
Dimitri Vittas (August 1997) This
paper—a product of the Financial Sector Development Department—is part
of a larger effort in the department to study private pension funds and
contractual savings. Private
pension funds in Argentina's new integrated pension system have shown a
vigorous response and a robust performance in a highly uncertain economic
environment. But despite success in mobilizing long-term funds and in
earning high real investment returns, the funds have suffered from high
operating and marketing costs.
- Protecting
the Poor from Macroeconomic Shocks Francisco Ferreira, Giovanna Prennushi, and
Martin Ravallion (August 1999). To minimize the harmful impact on poor
people of macroeconomic shocks, sound policies for dealing with crises -
and an adequate public safety net - should be in place before a crisis
starts. Many developing countries faced macroeconomic shocks in the
1980s and 1990s. The impact of the shocks on welfare depended on the
nature of the shock, on initial household and community conditions, and on
policy responses. To avoid severe and lasting losses to poor and
vulnerable groups, governments and civil society need to be prepared for a
flexible response well ahead of the crisis. A key component of a flexibly
responsive system is an effective permanent safety net, which will
typically combine a workfare program with targeted transfers and credit.
- Rural
Poverty in Ecuador – A Qualitative Assessment Rural
Poverty in Ecuador—A Qualitative Assessment
Jesko Hentschel, William F. Waters and Anna Kathryn Vandever Webb
(February 1996). This
paper --- a product of the Country Operations Division 1, Latin America
and the Caribbean, Country Department III --- is part of a larger effort
in the department to combine qualitative and quantitative analysis into
economic and sector work. This report aims to assess what poverty means to
marginalized rural families, what kind of survival strategies families use
in times of hardship, and what these families believe is needed to
alleviate their poverty. The rural families express very practical
solutions to overcoming poverty, largely linked to increasing the
productivity of human resources and land through training and small-scale
infrastructure investments.
- Sibling
Correlations and Social Mobility in Latin America By Momi Dahan, and
Alejandro Gaviria, Feb. 1999. In
this paper, the authors measure social mobility by looking at the extent
to which family background determines socioeconomic success. Roughly
speaking, social mobility can be measure by means of two distinct types of
correlations: intergenerational correlations and sibling correlations.
- Social
Security Reform, Income Distribution, Fiscal Policy, and Capital
Accumulation Carlos Serrano (February 1999) This
paper —a product of the Finance, Private Sector, and Infrastructure
Sector Unit, Latin America and Caribbean Region— is part of a larger
effort in the region to study the design, implementation, and consequences
of social security reforms. Before
undertaking social security reform, governments should try to determine
whether such reform will give a significant number of workers more access
to the financial system-because this might considerably affect the fiscal
costs and the type of safety net programs required to minimize the
system's effects on income distribution.
- The
1997 Pension Reform in Mexico Gloria Grandolini and Luis Cerda
(June 1998) This paper —a product of
the Finance, Private Sector, and Infrastructure Unit, Latin America and
the Caribbean Regional Office— is part of a larger effort to study
contractual savings development in Latin America Under Mexico’s reformed
pension system, private pension funds could become the single largest
financial industry in a decade. Their efficiency and investment returns
will profoundly affect the welfare of retirees, the finances of
government, the development of capital markets, and the rate of savings.