We document changes in income and earnings inequality in the five Central American countries from the early 1990s to 2009. In the 1990s Costa Rica had the most equal distribution of income in Central America, and one of the most equal distributions of income in Latin America. At the other...

We find that family separation during migration has a negative impact on the educational success of immigrant children in U.S. schools. Children separated from parents during migration are more likely to be behind others their age in school, are more likely to repeat a grade, and are more likely...

In this paper we use an individual- and household-level panel data set to study the impact of changes in legal minimum wages on a host of labor market outcomes including: a) wages and employment, b) transitions of workers across jobs (in the covered and uncovered sectors) and employment status...

Este trabajo pretende examinar dos preguntas: ¿cómo y por qué cambió la distribución de los ingresos en los países de América Central en los años noventa?, y, ¿por qué están los ingresos distribuido en una manera más equitativa en Costa Rica en comparación a los otros países de la...

After declining from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, earnings inequality in Costa Rica stabilized from 1987 to 1992 and then increased from 1992 to 1999. In this paper we use recently-developed techniques to measure the extent to which these changes in earnings inequality were the result of...

The classic dual economy models of developing countries hold minimum wages (among other institutions) accountable for persistent dualism. They note that applying or enforcing minimum wage laws in only one sector of the economy will create wage differentials which will not be eroded with labor...