There is a recent renewal of interest in the relation between shifts in age structures of populations and various economic outcomes. These shifts are triggered by changes in fertility and mortality that take place some years before becoming apparent in the standard age structure and that may...

Poverty reduction remains one of the main challenges for Latin America at the end of the 20th century. We argue that poverty in Latin America or at least the 'excess poverty' given the level of income in the region, is a problem caused mainly by high inequality. But, income inequality in the...

One of the main concerns of Latin Americans today is the lack of adequate employment opportunities. This concern is based on the widespread perception that not enough employment is being generated, and that few individuals have access to well- remunerated jobs. This work asks whether there is a...

This paper develops and applies a new approach to the estimation of the impact of economy-wide reforms on wage differentials using a new high-quality data set on wage differentials by schooling level for 18 Latin American countries for the period 1980-1998. The results indicate that reform...

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 miss reporting. We also perform...

This paper presents microeconomic simulation techniques to examine what drives differences in inequality across countries. The simulation decomposes cross-country inequality differences into the importance of individual decisions, such as fertility, mating, labor force participation, and...

In this paper, social mobility is measured by looking at the extent to which family background determines socioeconomic success. An index of social mobility for developing countries is proposed based on the correlation of schooling gaps between siblings

This paper applies a new approach to the estimation of the impact of policy, both the levels and the changes, on wage differentials using a new high-quality data set on wage differentials by schooling level for 18 Latin American countries for the period 1977-1998. The results indicate that...

This paper processes 76 household surveys from 17 Latin American countries to document changes in poverty and inequality during the 1990s, and performs an analysis of the effect of economic reforms on inequality and poverty by using an expanded data base of 94 surveys spanning the 1977-2000...

This work assesses the changes in aggregate poverty and inequality that have taken place in Latin America during the past 26 years. With this objective, we put together the largest number of observations on income distribution for the region for the period from 1970-1995. We find that poverty...