This paper provides a synthesis of the four papers on the Latin American and Caribbean economies: Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. It focuses on the following themes: macroeconomic stabilization and fiscal challenges, poverty and inequality, and the use of natural resources...

In the 2000s, Costa Rica experienced moderate economic growth and a general improvement in labour market conditions. From 2000 to 2012, Costa Rica grew at the Latin American average. Most labour market indicators improved during 2001 - 09 and 2010 - 12 (the series with comparable data). However,...

Informal work is often considered a place of employment for marginalized and vulnerable workers who have been rationed out of preferred formal work. However, informality can also be seen as a dynamic sector that budding entrepreneurs and those looking for flexible working conditions enter...

We divide workers into six work statuses: formal self-employed, upper-tier informal self-employed, lower-tier informal self-employed, formal wage-employed, upper-tier informal wage-employed, and lower-tier informal wage-employed. In both Costa Rica and Nicaragua, earnings are highest for formal...

This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture. From the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals and will continue under the Sustainable...

Conflict depletes all forms of human and social capital, as well as supporting institutions. The scale of the human damage can overwhelm public action, as there are many competing priorities and resources are often insufficient. What then should be the priorities for 'post-conflict' policy?...

This paper investigates the impact of social transfer programmes on school enrolment and child labour in Malawi utilizing a micro-simulation evaluation method. Four hypothetical cash transfer programmes, differentiated in terms of their conditions on children's enrolment and gender, are...

Notwithstanding the unprecedented attention devoted to reducing poverty and fostering human development via scaling up social sector spending, there is surprisingly little rigorous empirical work on the question of whether social spending is effective in achieving these goals. This paper...

The paper investigates whether multi-party coalition government is better for the protection of socially backward classes, i.e. Scheduled Castes, in India. We have looked at the impact of types of government on the reduction of the gap between Scheduled Castes and Upper Castes in terms of...

We contribute to the literature on trends in living standards in Tanzania by analysing child welfare using two multi-dimensional approaches, first-order dominance (FOD) and Alkire-Foster (AF). Between 1991/92 and 2010, remarkably similar area rankings emerge that suggest a widening gap between...