We study the effects of a Bolivian law that introduced benefits and protections for child workers (who are overwhelmingly informal workers) and lowered the de facto legal working age from 14 to 10. We employ a difference-in-discontinuity approach that exploits the variation in the law's...

Past research has provided evidence of the role of some personal characteristics as risk factors for depression. However, few studies have examined jointly their specific impact and whether country characteristics change the probability of being depressed. In general, this is due to the use of...

This paper examines the implicit subsidies within pension systems across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region. We first calculate the theoretical benefits of pension for hypothetical workers in 25 countries in LAC. We show that, on average, LAC's pension systems are subsidized, as they...

This chapter examines socioeconomic inequality in Latin America through the lens of race and ethnicity. We primarily use national census data from the International Public Use Micro Data Sample (IPUMS). Since censuses use inconsistent measures of race and ethnicity, we also draw on two...

This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown on criminal activity in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. We find a large, significant, robust, and immediate decline in crime following quarantine restrictions. We observe the effect on property crime reported...

In 1997, the Mexican government designed the conditional cash transfer program Progresa, which became the worldwide model of a new approach to social programs, simultaneously targeting human capital accumulation and poverty reduction. A large literature has documented the short and medium-term...

We study the effects of conditional cash transfers to pregnant women on stillbirths and child survival in Bolivia. Payments are conditional on compliance with medically recommended prenatal care and skilled birth attendance. At a value equivalent to just 1% of monthly household consumption, the...

La baja participación de los hogares más vulnerables en los servicios públicos sigue siendo uno de los grandes desafíos para el diseño e implementación de políticas. Existe una vasta literatura documentando los beneficios de la educación inicial para cerrar inequidades y brechas en el...