The author uses quantile regression to document the evolution of the earnings structure of salaried and self-employed female workers in urban areas in three Latin American countries-Argentina, Brazil, and Costa Rica-after structural reforms were introduced. The analysis covers pre- and...

Between 2000 and 2010, the Gini coefficient declined in 13 of 17 Latin American countries. The decline was statistically significant and robust to changes in the time interval, inequality measures, and data sources. In-depth country studies for Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico suggest two main...

Using panel data from labor force surveys in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, the paper maps out young people's paths from the classroom to the work place during the 1980s through the early 2000s. By decomposing transition matrices into propensity to move and rate of separation and estimating...

An expanding body of literature has shown that better management practices can offer significant boosts to firms' productivity; this research illustrates that firms in South America are no exception. Using recent Enterprise Survey data from seven countries in South America (Argentina, Bolivia,...

Levels of economic development vary widely within countries in the Americas. This paper argues that part of this variation has its roots in the colonial era. Colonizers engaged in different economic activities in different regions of a country, depending on local conditions. Some activities were...

Using subnational historical data, this paper establishes the within country persistence of economic activity in the New World over the last half millennium. The paper constructs a data set incorporating measures of pre-colonial population density, new measures of present regional per capita...

The authors assess the impact of Argentina's main social policy response to the severe economic crisis of 2002. The program aimed to provide direct income support for families with dependents, for whom the head had become unemployed due to the crisis. Counterfactual comparisons are based on a...

The authors summarize the main lessons emerging from Argentina's experience, including universal service obligations in concession contracts. They discuss free-riding risks, moral hazard problems, and other issues that arise when social concerns are delegated to private operators. After...

This paper explores the hypothesis that the credibility of economic policy making in Argentina (or lack thereof) has impacted the volatility of economic performance. To establish the link, a historical review of economic policy making and economic outcomes over the quarter century is presented,...

This paper assesses the equilibrium value of the Argentine peso exchange rate based on the country's economic fundamentals and compares it with the official exchange rate value. The paper estimates a behavioral equilibrium exchange rate model that allows for movements in the equilibrium real...