People and their jobs: What could be more basic to a person's well being? Where people work determines how they live, how their families live, and how economies perform. The quantity and quality of jobs available has implications for individuals and countries alike. That is why the problems with...

This book breaks away from the exclusively macroeconomic focus of development studies to bring the spotlight to the place where decisions are made: households. Complementing this microeconomic view with an aggregate approach, this volume uncovers clues to declining fertility, skyrocketing female...

Las instituciones fiscales del mañana, título inaugural de la serie Instituciones para la gente, aborda temas de gestión pública clave para el desarrollo económico de América Latina y el Caribe. Presenta los desafíos que enfrentan los países de la región para consolidar instituciones...

"Women at Work: Challenges for Latin America" presents a series of empirical studies that use household survey data from Latin America to analyze trends in female labor force participation rates, the impact of trade liberalization on women's work, tendencies in gender wage differentials and...

The 2007 Report on Economic and Social Progress in Latin America analyzes the nature and evolution of sovereign debt in Latin America and discusses the policies that can be followed by countries and international financial institutions (IFIs) to reduce the vulnerabilities associated with it....

The objective of this book is to provide policy recommendations to reduce the economic vulnerability of the poor to adverse shocks and help them cope with income downturns. The authors suggest that, social equity arguments aside, insuring the poor is desirable in terms of economic efficiency....

This report raises a number of fundamental questions about the multidimensional and interrelated nature of social exclusion and moves beyond the traditional emphasis on outcomes and groups to view exclusion as a process that results from societal traits that limit the functionings of the...

En la segunda mitad del siglo XX, Costa Rica experimentó un rápido crecimiento económico y social combinado con un sostenido desarrollo democrático y una base de equidad social. Sin embargo, en los últimos años la capacidad de los gobiernos costarricenses para avanzar en la agenda de...

¿Qué determina la capacidad de los países para diseñar, aprobar e implementar políticas públicas efectivas? Para abordar esta pregunta, este libro analiza el proceso de formulación de políticas en ocho países latinoamericanos en base a una metodología común con fundamentos en la...

The book explores the impact of transport costs on trade in Latin America and the Caribbean, and argues that transport costs have assumed an unprecedented strategic importance to the region. The region can no longer rely solely on trade agreements, proximity, labor costs and an abundant supply...