The increased occurrence of extreme weather conditions leading to drought is a key development challenge. This paper studies how these extreme events interact with the political process at the local level using rich administrative data for drought declarations and mayoral elections in Brazil....

This study estimates the effects of the 1970 Ancash earthquake on human capital accumulation on the affected and subsequent generation, 37 years after the shock, using the Peruvian censuses of 1993 and 2007. The main finding is that males affected by the earthquake in utero completed on average...

The existence of populist regimes led by outsiders is not new in history. In this paper a simple framework is presented that shows how and why a populist outsider can be elected to office, and under what conditions he is more likely to be elected. The results show that countries with a higher...

Mobilizing sufficient resources is essential for supporting environmental activities in developing countries, and cofinancing is generally considered an important tool to help developing countries increase the resources they need. Moreover, cofinancing should increase ownership of projects by...

This paper surveys climate change funds related to LAC countries and attempts to derive some implications through performance analyses of these funds. The performance analyses show that the following matters should be addressed: increases in participation of the IDB as an agent in the projects...

Climate change mitigation policies have begun to be discussed in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries in recent years. However, the economic effects of such policies - i. e. , winners and losers - may vary significantly across countries. This paper attempts to shed light on some of these...

The effectiveness of carbon markets in the reduction of emissions at minimal cost requires several conditions. In a dynamic context the inter-temporal dimension adds new conditions for the desirable performance of the market, and some tradeoffs. One tradeoff is related to the duration of...

Evidence on the impacts of a large-scale expansion in public preprimary education is limited and mostly circumscribed to high and middle-income countries. This paper estimates the effects of such an expansion on progression in primary school in rural communities of Guatemala. Combining...

This paper exploits unique features of a recently introduced tariff schedule for natural gas in Buenos Aires to estimate the short-run impact of price shocks on residential energy utilization. The schedule induces a non-linear and non-monotonic relationship between households' accumulated...

This paper examines whether an expansion in the supply of public preschool crowds out private enrollment, using rich data for municipalities in Brazil from 2000-2006, where federal transfers to local governments change discontinuously with given population thresholds. Results from a...