This paper reviews the role of Social Protection and Labor in supporting both climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. The Climate Crisis is impacting the poor and vulnerable disproportionally, both as a consequence of climate shocks and through the distributional impacts of climate mitigation...

This paper reviews the role of Social Protection and Labor in supporting both climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. The Climate Crisis is impacting the poor and vulnerable disproportionally, both as a consequence of climate shocks and through the distributional impacts of climate mitigation...

Risk and uncertainty are on the rise, and countries across Europe and Central Asia (ECA) are not immune from it. The region is being hit by crises, conflicts, and continued uncertainty that are negatively affecting people's livelihoods in the short term and prosperity in the long term. Then...

By most measures, the 2000s were one of the most impressive decades for economic development in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). With the exception of 2009, the region s gross domestic product per capita grew consistently at an average rate of 2.5 percent between 2000 and 2012. During the...

We examine how formal and informal contract enforcing institutions interact in a competitive market with asymmetric information where consumers do not observe quality before purchase. Firm level incentives for producing high quality can be achieved with an informal enforcement mechanism,...

This paper compares for 13 Latin American countries the poverty and inequality impacts of cash transfer programs that are given to all children and the elderly (that is,"categorical"transfers), to programs of equal budget that are confined to the poor within each population group (that...

Middle class values have long been perceived as drivers of social cohesion and growth. This paper investigates the relation between class (measured by position in the income distribution), values, and political orientations using comparable values surveys for six Latin American countries. The...

This paper compares for 13 Latin American countries the poverty and inequality impacts of cash transfer programs that are given to all children and the elderly (that is, "categorical" transfers), to programs of equal budget that are confined to the poor within each population group (that is,...

More than a third of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean currently live in poverty. Will the region be able to simultaneously increase economic growth and reduce poverty given its scarce fiscal resources? The message of this paper is that the public policies needed to achieve these...