This paper attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of Bolivia's labor market institutions, particularly the Plan Nacional de Empleo de Emergencia (PLANE). It is found that unemployment as conventionally defined may not be the most important problem in Bolivia's labor market, as the non-salaried...

SME Metasys: A Business Management System for SMEs

This report focuses on the determinants of the first type of research output: new knowledge. There are no direct measures of this type of research output, but several proxies have been typically used. The two most important ones that we will apply during the study are (a) publications and (b)...

What is Free Software, Why Free Software , Disadvantages of Free Software, What's Missing in Free Software Today , The Metasys Solution

This paper provides an overview of the role of information and communications technology for small businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean and the development of the MIF ICT4BUS program.

This paper discusses the impact of electronic commerce on the private sector of developing countries and outlines the potential role of the Inter American Development Bank in promoting the use of ICT by small and medium businesses. Information Technology is also reshaping other sectors that are...

The One Laptop Per Child initiative is an educational program that aims at deploying millions of rugged, ultra low-cost, individually connected laptop computers to the majority of children in developing nations that today lack access to such devices.

This report is intended to encourage and reinforce the efforts of policymakers and industry stakeholders throughout the region to accelerate broadband deployment. The report has two primary aims. The first is to help identify public policy and regulatory issues that need to be addressed in order...

This paper has two main objectives. First, it aims at briefly reviewing the concept of Regional Innovation System (RIS) as it has been proposed in the literature, and especially in light of the use that this notion has often had for policy purposes. Second, it reviews considerable empirical...