The shock on human capital caused by COVID-19 is likely to have long lasting consequences, especially for children of low-educated families. Applying a counterfactual exercise we project the effects of school closures and other lockdown policies on the intergenerational persistence of education...

Predominant views on the political economy of Latin America and the Caribbean tend to emphasize that elite domination helps to understand the high levels of inequality. The contemporary fiscal version of that assertion goes something like 'the rich are powerful and they dont like taxes, hence we...

This paper studies the process that led to the Argentine crisis. The crisis is understood as a major disappointment of previous expectations, indicated by widespread insolvencies and abrupt declines in consumption. The analysis concentrates on the sequence of public and private decisions, and...

This paper proposes an agenda for the study of the determinants and the processes by which strong policymaking institutions emerge, with emphasis on the most central democratic institution: the legislature. It reviews extant theories of institutionalization, and proposes further ways of...

This paper contributes to an agenda that views the effects of policies and institutional reforms as dependent on the structure of political incentives for national and subnational political actors. The paper studies political incentive structures at the subnational level and the mechanisms...

This paper uses data from the Argentine House of Representatives to study the relationship between legislative effort and political success, as measured by reelection, becoming a leader of the House, and moving to higher political positions. It is found that more effort is associated with a...