The report provides a preliminary assessment of DR-CAFTA (the Dominican Republic and Central American Free trade Agreement), with particular attention to three key themes: (1) expected trade and non-trade benefits, (2) actions that Central American countries need to pursue to capitalize...

Informality: exit and exclusion analyzes informality in Latin America, exploring root causes and reasons for and implications of its growth. The authors use two distinct but complementary lenses: informality driven by exclusion from state benefits or the circuits of the modern economy, and...

This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and...

This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and...

This contribution documents the effect of the global financial crisis on women's off-farm employment in China's rural labor force. It begins by comparing the difference between the actual off-farm employment rate and the off-farm employment rate under the assumption of “business as usual”...

This study examines the complex relationships between rainfall shocks, agricultural productivity, and rural economic activity in Rajasthan, India's largest state. Using district-level agricultural data from 1990 to 2015, enterprise surveys from 2010 to 2016, and household consumption data from...

This paper examines rural non-farm employment in Rajasthan, India, using multiple surveys and administrative data. The analysis covers three key aspects: individual and district-level determinants of participation in non-farm activities, the relationship between non-farm employment and household...

This study combines pre-COVID-19 household surveys with 2020 macro data to simulate changes in household economic welfare and poverty rates through job losses, labor income changes, and non-labor (remittance) income changes during 2020 in Brazil, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, South Africa, and...

Costa Rica is well-known for its socio-economic achievements with low levels of poverty and inequality by Latin American standards. It also performs well in health, access to improved water supplies, suitable housing and other basic services, including electricity and sanitation, relative to...

This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and...