Research has established that health status is affected not only by medical factors but also by socioeconomic variables. In this paper we analyze the links between health status (measured by self-reported illness occurrence in the last 12 months) and individuals’ socioeconomic situation. Using...

In this paper we analyze the recent performance, perspectives and some policy options for two public social security programs in Uruguay: pensions and unemployment insurance. We review the impact of these programs on public expenditure, including recent and expected future trends, and on income...

Incomplete and highly fragmented work histories threaten to leave many contributors of the pension schemes in Latin America without the minimum pension guarantee or even without access to the ordinary pension. We propose a methodology to assess this risk, identify vulnerable groups and study...

We present a brief discussion about religious behavior from a microeconomic perspective considering individual decisions about church attendance and its frequency in some Latin European and American countries. With this aim, we analyze the links between individuals’ religiosity and several...

This paper analyzes and compares socioeconomic inequalities in the use of healthcare services by the elderly in four South-American cities: Buenos Aires, Santiago, Montevideo and San Pablo. We use data from SABE, a survey on Health, Well-being and Aging administered in 2000. After having...

Mechanisms for sharing the common tariff revenue in a customs union have received little attention in the literature (Syropoulus, 2003). Comparative analyses show that in past and current customs unions two main mechanisms are been used: generals rules and common funds. In this paper, a new...

This paper provides new evidence on the magnitude of the elasticity of substitution between labour and capital for the Uruguayan manufacturing sector. Labour demand is derived using a right-to-manage model estimated for the period 1985-1997 using data for six industries. The evidence found...

The paper argues that a comprehensive evaluation of education reform in particular in developing countries needs considering the triangle’ quality-quantity-equity of educational policies in the short, medium and long term in a broader context than the education system itself. There is no...

This paper studies household decisions about participation and investment in risky financial markets, using a unique panel dataset of Italian households. Micro data show that households are enormously heterogeneous in their financial decisions. Most of this heterogeneity is associated with the...

A common scenario for international commerce is the existence of restrictions on free trade,even when the majority of economists agree on the benefits of it, whatever the country’s size or whatever the country’s economic development. In contexts where politicians offer different policy...