The tables in this document present an inventory of some of the available poverty lines for all IDB member countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The listed poverty lines are expressed as per capita monthly amounts of nominal local currency and are estimated based on the reference...

This paper tests the sensitivity of poverty indexes to the choice of adult equivalence scales, assumptions about the existence of economies of scale in consumption, methods for treating missing and zero incomes, and different adjustments to handle income misreporting. We also perform sensitivity...

This document was prepared in the context of the Program for the "Improvement of Surveys and the Measurement of Living Conditions in Latin America and the Caribbean" (ISLC/MECOVI). Bolivia ranks among Latin America's so-called "early adjusters". While Bolivia's economic reforms, which began in...

In this paper we will not intend to derive improved poverty measures for the Americas. Our pretensions are much more modest. The purposes of the paper are to provide an inventory of available poverty estimates for the countries of the region derived from a variety of studies and data sources...

This presentation was commissioned by the Poverty Reduction and Social Protection Network of the Regional Policy Dialogue for the VIII Hemispheric Meeting celebrated on April 24th and 25th, 2003.

This paper evaluates Progressive Housing Program; a public housing program that facilitates the purchase of a new home. The evaluation finds that the program’s package (savings requirement, voucher and mortgage) design is inappropriate if the program is targeted to the poor. In fact the...

The Mexican Government initiated two innovative programs cash transfer schemes in the last decade: PROGRESA, which is a national anti-poverty scheme directed at chronic rural poverty, and PROCAMPO, a scheme designed to compensate farmers for the negative price effects of NAFTA. The analysis of...

This paper joins in the debate on the size of the middle class in Latin America, providing an analysis of its structure and characteristics. Using several measurements, it finds that 40-60 percent of Latin American households are middle class, a share which has consolidated over the past decade....

Protected areas are a cornerstone of forest conservation in developing countries. Yet we know little about their effects on forest cover change or the socioeconomic status of local communities, and even less about the relationship between these effects. This paper assesses whether 'win-win'...

This technical note analyzes the methodologies used to evaluate neighborhood upgrading programs, describes their results, and suggests approaches for future evaluations. Local and central governments are increasingly utilizing slum or neighborhood upgrading programs to deal with the multiple...