Latin America has a longstanding tradition in multidimensional poverty measurement through the unsatisfied basic needs (UBN) approach. However, the method has been criticized on several grounds, including the selection of indicators, the implicit weighting scheme and the aggregation methodology,...

It has been argued that a factor behind the decline in income inequality in Latin America in the 2000s was the educational upgrading of its labor force. Between 1990 and 2010, the proportion of the labor force in the region with at least secondary education increased from 40 to 60 percent....

This paper studies poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean from a multidimensional perspective, exploiting the Gallup World Poll, a survey that provides a unique opportunity to perform intercountry comparisons. By applying factor analysis we find that welfare can be appropriately summarized...

This paper presents a set of statistics that characterize the degree of income polarization in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The study is based on a dataset of household surveys from 21 LAC countries in the period 1989-2004. Latin America is characterized by a high level of income...

Capital accumulation can modify the relative productivity between skilled and unskilled workers, leading to changes in the wage structure. In particular, if capital goods are relatively more complementary to skilled workers, a positive correlation between investment in physical capital and the...

This paper provides evidence on the incidence of poverty among older people in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), based on household survey microdata from 20 countries. The situation of older people is characterised in terms of income, education, health and access to services vis-à-vis the...

In 2002, in the midst of a serious macroeconomic crisis, Argentina implemented a large social program (the Programa Jefes de Hogar, PJH) that provides cash transfers to unemployed household heads meeting certain criteria. In practice, the difficulty in monitoring the unemployment requirement for...

This paper documents patterns and recent developments on income inequality in Latin America (LA). New comparative international evidence confirms that LA is a region of high inequality, although maybe not the highest in the world. Income inequality has fallen in the 2000s, suggesting a turning...