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 studies the effect of ambient light on crime, taking advantage of the daylight saving time (DST) policy, which imposes exogenous variations in daylight exposure at specific hours of the day. The paper uses a rich administrative database managed by Chile's national police, a...

This paper analyzes gender bias in teaching in low-performing schools in Chile. To carry out the analyses, the authors used videotaped classes for fourth graders and coded 237 tapings. Results show a general (although not uniform) bias in teachers' actions that resulted in less attention to...

This study explores sex differences in language and socio-emotional skills. It focuses on children 7 months old to 6 years old in Chile in 2012 and Nicaragua in 2013. A focus on young children allowed for ruling out a set of environmental and identity effects to explain the gap. Females had an...

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...

This paper evaluates the impacts of increasing female representation in Bolivian municipal councils on public policy choices and welfare outcomes. By combining detailed administrative panel data on municipal expenditures and revenues together with electoral data, an innovative regression...

Does entrepreneurship contribute to improving social mobility in Ecuador? This paper constructs a pseudo-panel to analyze the dynamic effect of entrepreneurship on Ecuadorian household incomes during the period 2002-2010. Using three estimation scenarios, the paper finds a significant level of...

This paper analyzes gender earnings gaps in Barbados and Jamaica, using a matching comparisons approach. In both countries, as in most of the Caribbean region, females' educational achievement is higher than that of males. Nonetheless, males' earnings surpass those of their female peers....