The main objective of this study is to examine one aspect of social exclusion, the geographic isolation of individuals living in El Salvador`s rural areas and its impact on three labor market outcomes: labor force participation decision, sector of employment, and labor income. In this study, it...

Using large household data sets from rural Mexican communities, where a majority of indigenous people live, we analyze the potential explanatory factors for low educational attainment of indigenous children. We find that, overall, indigenous children fare worse than their non-indigenous...

Electronic medical record (EMR) systems are increasingly used in developing countries to improve quality of care while increasing efficiency. There is little systematic evidence, however, regarding EMRs' benefits and costs. This case study documents the implementation and use of an EMR system at...

In spite of the rapid fertility transition experienced by most Latin American and Caribbean countries, teenage fertility has not changed at the same pace or in the same direction. Given that early childbearing is deleterious for both mother and child, we describe differentials in the levels and...

This paper develops a simple dynamic general equilibrium model of an agricultural economy, in which poor farmers borrow wheat from rich farmers to invest in their land. Since wheat output is stochastic (we allow for both idiosynchratic and aggregate shocks) there may be default ex-post. The main...

This paper proposes a new measure of social mobility. It is based on schooling gap regressions and uses the Fields decomposition to determine the importance of family background in explaining teenagers schooling gaps

This paper discusses how young people become adults in Latin America and how that process affects educational attainment. An examination of four countries at three levels of development shows that individuals` educational attainment is closely linked to the decisions that young people make...

This paper examines the institutional determinants of incentives to repay in Costa Rica and their effects on defaults and the design of financial contracts. Enforcement mechanisms help to determine how much is paid back to creditors and how much shareholders receive as dividends. Theoretically,...

Argentina is a federal country and hence, although laws are national and the central bank has national jurisdiction as a regulator of the financial system, the 24 Argentine provinces have independent judicial authority. In this paper we analyze how variations in the effectiveness of the legal...

The objective of this paper is to identify whether the prevailing Brazilian labor market regulations, largely the result of the 1988 constitutional change, have any impact on labor market performance. To reach this objective we explore alternative methodologies, sources of information and...