Mexico's main social support program, Oportunidades, combines two methods to target cash to poor households: an initial self-selection by households who acquire knowledge about the program and apply for benefits, followed by an administrative determination of eligibility based on a means test....

Prioritizing populations most in need of social assistance is an important policy decision. In the Eastern Caribbean, social assistance targeting is constrained by limited data and the need for rapid support in times of large economic and natural disaster shocks. We leverage recent advances in...

This paper evaluates a microsimulation technique by comparing the simulated outcome of a program with its actual effect. The ex ante evaluation is carried out for a conditional cash transfer program, where poor households were given money if the children attended school. A model of occupational...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. A BENCHMARK: PRINCIPLES OF DECENTRALIZATION REFORM -- III. UGANDA'S DECENTRALIZATION PROCESS: THE INSTITUTIONS -- IV. SPECIFIC OUTCOMES IN SERVICE DELIVERY -- V. FINAL REMARKS -- References.

This study measures the impact of changing economic conditions in OECD countries on tourist arrivals to countries/destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean. A model of utility maximization across labor, consumption of goods and services at home, and consumption of tourism services across...

Shocks stemming from Brazil - the large neighbor in South America - have historically been a source of concern for policy-makers in other countries of the region. This paper studies the importance of Brazil's influence on its neighboring economies, documenting trade linkages over the last two...

This paper documents developments in mortgage credit and the housing sector in Latin America over the past decade, and compares them with those of other emerging economies. In particular, it examines the real estate and mortgage markets to assess whether (i) growth in mortgage credit is...

An increasing number of countries - including in Latin America - are reforming their financial stability frameworks in the aftermath of the financial crisis, in order to establish a stronger macroprudential policy function. This paper analyzes existing arrangements for financial stability in...

This is the fourth of a series of papers that are being written as part of a larger project to estimate a small quarterly Global Projection Model (GPM). The GPM project is designed to improve the toolkit to which economists have access for studying both own-country and cross-country linkages. In...