Providing unemployment insurance is particularly problematic in countries with high informality because workers can claim unemployment benefits and work in the informal sector at the same time. This paper proposes a method to evaluate alternative schemes to provide insurance for unemployed...

We study the impact of welfare payments in Ecuador on the probability that women and men work, and on whether they are employed in the formal or informal sectors. Our analysis is based on two distinct identification strategies and two separate sources of data spanning more than 10 years. We find...

This paper uses a regression discontinuity design to study the impacts of a noncontributory pension program covering one-third of Bolivian households during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the program was not designed to provide emergency assistance, it took on additional importance during the...

In this chapter reviews the literature and inform policy debates about the effects of minimum wages (MW) on income inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

This paper studies the effects of the minimum wage on the life cycle of firms. We first build a tractable model where heterogeneous firms have labor market power, invest in innovation, and choose formal or informal sectors. The model predicts that a minimum wage hike not only shrinks young and...

This paper assesses the effects of the Colombian Unemployment Subsidy (US), which includes benefits as well as training for some recipients. Using regression discontinuity and matching differences-in-differences estimators, the study finds that participation in the labor market, earnings of...

The link between innovation and employment is at the center of the policy debate. This paper sheds light on how labor market regulations affect the relationship between different types of innovation and employment in Latin America. We estimate the model developed by Harrison et al. (2014) using...

Is a school's impact on high-stakes test scores a good measure of its overall impact on students? Do parents value school impacts on high-stakes tests, longer-run outcomes, or both? To answer the first question, we apply quasi-Experimental methods to data from Trinidad and Tobago and estimate...

This paper explores rank-ordered teacher candidates' preferences for public schools in Peru by analyzing the 2015 teacher hiring process. Our analysis shows that, in seeking permanent positions in public schools, candidates appear to search closer to where they attended their Teacher Education...

Latin America and the Caribbean must respond to the challenge of climate change while making progress with other sustainable development goals. How much will it cost to meet climate change goals in this context? This work reviews the evidence on the costs of meeting the goals the goals of the...