A growing number of cities around the world have established systems of monitoring the quality of urban life. Many of those systems combine objective and subjective information and attempt to cover a wide variety of topics. This paper introduces a simple method that takes advantage of both types...

This paper assesses how electoral outcomes in both presidential and legislative elections in Latin America have been affected by the adoption of economic policies that seek to improve macroeconomic stability and facilitate the functioning of markets. The database includes 17 Latin American...

An unbalanced panel data of around fifty countries between 1985 and 2003 is used to estimate the vulnerability of public social expenditures (health and education) to other fiscal variables. The database allows comparisons between Latin America and the rest of developing countries. Public social...

Based on Akerlof and Kranton (2005), who argue that group identity and social norms influence individual preferences towards work effort, a model is developed to understand why firms create good job conditions, taking into account the cost of implementing them and their impact on wages and...

This paper compares objective and subjective definitions of the middle-class using data from the 2007 World Gallup Poll. Seven objective income-based definitions of social class are contrasted with a self-perceived social status measure. Mismatches between the objective and subjective...

This paper proposes a methodology to resolve the problems that result from using a combination of objective and subjective information in evaluating urban quality of life. The paper further suggests techniques to identify and rank issues of potential importance for urban dwellers. In order to...

This paper empirically explores the effects of payroll taxes, value-added taxes and corporate income taxes on a variety of labor market outcomes such as employment, unemployment, informality, and wages. Using national-level data on labor variables for 15 Latin American countries, the results...

This paper aims to understand why and by how much perceptions of social ranking differ from objective rankings based on self-reported income. It focuses on the middle class because persons of all income levels show a strong bias towards identifying themselves as middle class. Using a rich...

This paper provides a summary of the findings contained in a forthcoming issue of the Latin American Journal of Economics on entrepreneurship in Latin America as a vehicle for upward social mobility, especially for the middle class. The income persistence coefficients estimated with pseudo-panel...

This paper summarizes the findings in this special issue of the Latin American Journal of Economics on entrepreneurship's role in upward social mobility in Latin America, especially for the middle class, often considered the cradle of entrepreneurship. The income-persistent coefficients...