From the point of view of economic development, education is the acquisition of knowledge and skills through experiences from conception onwards over the life cycle that increase productivity broadly defined. Education can occur through, but is not limited to, formal educational activities such...

Inequality in Mexico rose between 1989 and 1994 and declined between 1994 and 2010. We examine the role of market forces (demand and supply of labour by skill), institutional factors (minimum wages and unionization rate), and public policy (cash transfers) in explaining changes in inequality. We...

Inequality in Latin America unambiguously declined in the 2000s. The Gini coefficient fell in 16 of the 17 countries where there are comparable data, and the change was statistically significant for all of them. Existing studies point to two main explanations for the decline in inequality: a...

Between 2000 and 2010, the Gini coefficient declined in 13 of 17 Latin American countries. The decline was statistically significant and robust to changes in the time interval, inequality measures, and data sources. In-depth country studies for Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico suggest two main...

Shielding the Poor presents a group of studies on social protection in the developing world from leading researchers. These studies address the issue of vulnerability of the poor to adverse shocks and propose policies to increase their protection and coping capacity. The studies emphasize the...

Shielding the Poor presents a group of studies on social protection in the developing world from leading researchers. These studies address the issue of vulnerability of the poor to adverse shocks and propose policies to increase their protection and coping capacity. The studies emphasize the...