The Latin American and Caribbean region is highly exposed to natural disasters. The social and economic impact of these events has been historically very significant and it is showing an increasingly growing trend. During the first quarter of 2010, this unfortunate reality was evidenced with the...

This paper focuses on the performance of IDB projects between 1996 and 2011 disbursements. We present evidence on the evolution of disbursements with respect to the available funds and the evolution of disbursements with respect to the historic disbursement curve of IDB projects. We also...

La Cooperación Sur-Sur (CSS) ha surgido con gran ímpetu en los últimos cinco años e iniciado su consolidación en América Latina y el Caribe (ALC), contribuyendo al aumento del número de actores, de instrumentos de intercambio de conocimiento y experiencias de desarrollo y a la...

Iron deficiency anemia is the most prevalent nutritional deficiency in the world, affecting more than 2 billion people in developing countries. We show that a modest cash transfer substantially reduced anemia among women of reproductive age in rural Ecuador.

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...

The literature on aid effectiveness has focused more on recipient policies than the determinants of aid allocation yet a consistent result is that political allies obtain more aid from donors than non-allies. This paper shows that aid allocated to political allies is ineffective for growth,...

El incremento en la productividad no ha sido un factor que haya contribuido de manera significativa al crecimiento de Costa Rica. En parte, ello se puede explicar por el magro desempeño que el país presenta en materia de innovación. En este texto se efetúa un diagnóstico de las principales...

This paper shows, first, that non-commodity revenues are more volatile in oil- and mineral-rich countries and that quality of institutions is associated with lower volatility. We investigate the channels through which oil and mineral revenue volatility lead to non-commodity revenues volatility,...

This volume honors Raúl Prebisch's contributions to economic thought and uses his 1970 report Change and Development: Latin America's Great Task as a point of departure for analyzing trends in the region in the 1970s and 1980s. This volume comprises a collection of the papers presented at the...

High government debts, weak economic growth, vulnerability to external shocks and the design of sound fiscal consolidation strategies are among the most critical issues that some of the Caribbean countries have currently to deal with. Stabilization programs may harm economic growth but, under...