This paper describes private actors' involvement in Colombia's policymaking process. While more transparent and formal channels are used to discuss horizontal policies, they are also less effective. The adoption of targeted policies, however, follows a faster track and depends more on political...

This paper presents a comparative overview of mobility patterns in 14 Latin American countries between 1992 and 2003. Using three alternative econometric techniques on constructed pseudo-panels, the paper provides a set of estimators for the traditional notion of income mobility as well as for...

This paper presents new empirical evidencesuggesting that the net effect of trade openness on output volatility is stabilizing. The methodology employed seeks to correct for the likely endogeneity of trade in this setting using gravity estimates as instrumental variables. The results confirm...

This paper estimates the effect of training quality on labor-market earnings using a Peruvian non-experimental training program, PROJOVEN, which targets disadvantaged youths aged 16 to 24 years. The identification of causal effects is possible because of two attractive features in the data....

Although financial development is good for long-term growth, not all countries pursue policies that render full financial development. This paper builds on an extensive political economy literature to construct a theoretical model showing that the intensity of opposition to financial development...

The role of regional integration agreements as a determinant of the location of FDI has become an increasingly relevant issue for emerging economies. In Latin America, the largest effects are likely to be associated with the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In this regard, there are a...

This paper examines the microeconomic interventions used to complement Washington Consensus reforms in Latin America. It maintains that the kind of interventions currently in vogue in most countries lack a sound theoretical and empirical foundation or are applied in a manner likely to prove...

Latin American economies are exposed to substantial external vulnerability. Domestic imbalances and terms of trade shocks are often exacerbated by sudden financial distress. This paper explores ways of overcoming external vulnerability, drawing lessons from a detailed comparison of the response...

This paper compares gender wage gaps for Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s using the non-parametric matching methodology introduced by Ñopo (2008), which allows an analysis not only of average gaps but also their distributions. While a simple...

Even as Trinidad and Tobago seeks productive diversification away from the energy sector, the process underlying the country's productive development policies (PDP) is in a state of transition from state-directed industrial policy to a newer approach with extensive private-public participation....