El desempleo es uno de los fenómenos más temidos de nuestros tiempos. Pocos fenómenos económicos son reportados tan amplia y sistemáticamente por la prensa, y menos aún generan tal nivel de debate en la opinión pública. Hay razones para este nivel de interés. Los costos económicos de...

This article, which serves as an introduction to a group of studies prepared by the IDB Office of the Chief Economist, presents the perceptions of Latin American citizens and employers concerning the employment problem. It compares them to the conditions in the labor markets of the region.

This paper examines the impact of the recent wave of trade liberalization and economic reform on employment. Four alternative measures of openness and four measures of the real exchange rate are used to measure the impact of trade reforms on manufacturing and economy-wide employment. Across a...

This paper reviews the regulations governing hiring, firing, overtime work, social security contributions, minimum wages, and collective bargaining in the region, examining their impact on labor market outcomes.

The adoption of emergency employment and short-term training programs to provide income support to the population affected by the episodes of economic volatility since 1995 reveals the failure of the traditional, labor law-based income support mechanisms in the region. These emergency programs...

This paper uses a newly developed panel data set for Venezuela in the period between 1994 and 2002 to analyze three basic questions. the first relates to the influence of personal characteristics and previous labor market experience in the choice of different search methods. The second question...

Recent policy debates on the reform of social service delivery systems focus on the decentralization of services and the introduction of competition in order to improve the quality of services. Despite the common assumption that public sector unions oppose these reforms, their responses were...

This paper analyzes the reaction of teachers` and doctors` unions to a series of social sector reforms in the region, including administrative decentralization, provider payment mechanisms, and the introduction of performance evaluation and private provision. It combines the literature of...

Según los resultados de encuestas de opinión pública de Apoyo S. A. , hacia 1991 la inflación, el terrorismo y el desempleo eran, en ese orden, los problemas más graves que afectaban a la población peruana. Hacia mediados de los noventa, resuelto el problema inflacionario, y atenuado...

Using panel data for Peru for the period 1994-2000, we find that when households receive two or more services jointly, the welfare increases of the household, as measured by changes in consumption, are larger than when services are provided separately. Such an increase appears to be more than...