Labor markets in Central America and the Dominican Republic face limited direct impacts from technological advancements compared to developed countries. However, substantial migration flows to high-income countries, particularly the United States, mean that the impacts of technological change do...

Este estudio tiene por objeto estimar el producto potencial de los países de Centroamérica, Haití, México y la República Dominicana entre 1990 y 2022, utilizando filtros estadísticos y la función de producción Cobb-Douglas. El aporte de este ejercicio consiste en estimar el PIB potencial...

We study how drug-related violence affects emigration from Central America, a region with rapidly rising migration to the United States. Using multiple data sources, we apply an instrumental variables strategy based on proximity to drug-trafficking routes and coca production in Colombia. We find...

This paper examines the impact of procedural justice and sanctions on police legitimacy in a middle-income context using a between-subjects vignette experiment among civilians and police officers in Honduras. The scenarios involved civilian-police interactions following a minor infraction,...

En esta investigación, se lleva a cabo un análisis estadístico y econométrico para evaluar los efectos del aumento del gasto público sobre la actividad económica durante la pandemia de enfermedad por coronavirus (COVID-19) en los países de Centroamérica y la República Dominicana, en el...

Este estudio tiene por objeto estimar el producto potencial de los países de Centroamérica, Haití, México y la República Dominicana entre 1990 y 2022, utilizando filtros estadísticos y la función de producción Cobb-Douglas. El aporte de este ejercicio consiste en estimar el PIB potencial...

This Human Capital Review aims to provide analytical foundations in the support of policies that improve human capital outcomes for the following four UMI countries in Central America: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. The objective of this report is to identify the key...

This paper examines the impact of procedural justice and sanctions on police legitimacy in a middle-income context using a between-subjects vignette experiment among civilians and police officers in Honduras. The scenarios involved civilian-police interactions following a minor infraction,...

The Survivor-centered Accessibility Framework Evaluation (SAFE), supported by the State and Peacebuilding Fund (SPF), comprehensively examines access barriers faced by women and girls in transit who are survivors of GBV across Central America. It focuses on the physical, social, legal, and...

In rural and peri‑urban areas of Central America, community water organizations (CWOs) provide water to 60 % of the population, thereby playing a pivotal role in achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals. However, the underlying environmental, climatic, and institutional factors...

After-school programs (ASP) that keep youth protected while engaging them in socio-emotional learning might address school-based violent behaviors. This paper experimentally studies the socio-emotional-learning component of an ASP targeted to teenagers in public schools in the most violent...

After-school programs (ASP) that keep youth protected while engaging them in socio-emotional learning might address school-based violent behaviors. This paper experimentally studies the socio-emotional-learning component of an ASP targeted to teenagers in public schools in the most violent...

This report aims to review Latin America and Caribbean (LC2) projects both in preparation and implementation phases to identify key entry points to address Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). This review sought to identify VAWG prevention and response actions beyond Sexual Exploitation and...

This paper explores international trade data, classified by technology-intensiveness and type of products, to identify stylized facts, strengths, and weaknesses of the trade patterns in the region of Central America and the Dominican Republic between 1975 and 2016. I focus the analysis not only...

The Washington, DC, metropolitan area, encompassing parts of DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV), receives immigrants from all over the world, especially Central America. This includes minors who face unique struggles before, during, and after their migration journeys. In this paper, we utilize...

This paper explores the potential growth of Central America and the Dominican Republic after the 2008-2009 crisis to shed light on their 2020 pre-pandemic macroeconomic vulnerability and to ascertain that the observed path is deviating more than before from its potential. Using Hodrick-Prescott...

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and central banks worldwide implemented a wide range of policies to support households and businesses, among them a series of measures to support the availability of credit. This paper quantitatively assesses how monetary and regulatory policy...

Purpose - In this paper, the authors suggest that Central Americans can use entrepreneurship to solve economic uncertainty in their home country and that entrepreneurship can contribute to reducing the number of undocumented migrants to the USA. Design/methodology/approach - The authors first...

The Advisory Services and Analytics (ASA) Mitigating Gender-Based Violence Risks and Expanding the gender-based violence (GBV) portfolio in Central America carried out in FY21 aimed to develop and apply a methodology to screen World Bank (WB) projects across sectors to identify entry points for...

This note aims to close the knowledge gap about the effectiveness and capacity of labor migration sending systems in NCA countries. The report assesses whether NCA countries have the fundamental elements of an effective labor migration sending system, identifies the missing elements, and offers...

Social Protection and Labor (SPL) Systems help individuals and societies manage risk and volatility and protect them from poverty through instruments that address the challenges of resilience, equity and opportunity. SPL systems include social safety nets, social insurance, and labor market...

The impact of violence from young gangs on the economic growth is obviously substantial, but measuring such impact to get a sense of the intensity of its effects on the economic performance is subject to a great deal of uncertainty. As such, this paper primarily attempts to close this gap by...

This paper uses the example of Central Americans from the Northern Triangle living in the United States as an illustration of the decisions of refugees to forego formal asylum in favour of irregular status. The question at the centre of this paper is: how might we understand the decisions of...

Very few labor-based pathways for regular migration are available for people in Northern Central America, often called the 'Northern Triangle' of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. This note briefly summarizes the state of labor-based migration channels in the region. It then argues that...

Cocaine trafficking has a significant but understudied influence on Central American economies. The economic implications of this trade have repercussions for both regional development and drug control policy debates, and therefore deserve greater attention. Towards that end, in this paper we...

Honduras has been Central America's focal point for drug trafficking towards the United States for years as the region's main transit country. Recent court cases held in the United States have revealed the symbiotic relationship between state actors, business elites and drug trafficking...

Despite the well-documented human costs of the war on drugs, and the growing evidence of the environmental impacts of illicit economies, the militarized repression of the illicit drug trade remains a central hemispheric security and cooperation strategy in Northern and Central American...

This study considers the economic impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on commercial enterprises in four Central American countries - El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. At the time of analysis, neither the pandemic nor its economic consequences had fully run their course....

Este informe explora diversos aspectos de los flujos migratorios provenientes de los países del Norte deCentroamérica, más específicamente, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras y Nicaragua. Se realiza unacaracterización socioeconómica detallada de los hogares migrantes (aquellos hogares con al...

In contrast to expectations, remittances to Central America and the Caribbean (CAC) surprised positively during 2020 and 2021. This study revisits the key macro indicators driving remittances, looks at the heterogeneous impacts of the global financial crisis (GFC) and COVID shocks, then uses...

The paper assembles and harmonizes sectoral data from several sources to study the industrial trends in six Central American economies. The industrial employment share contracted by 2.5 percentage points on average in the last two decades. This deindustrialization was not trade-driven in which...

This paper investigates factors that predict variation in digital and non-digital remittance fees over time and across countries, exploring differences between CAPDR and other regions. The paper fills a void in the literature on how country- and corridor-specific factors relate to remittance...

This paper investigates factors that predict variation in digital and non-digital remittance fees over time and across countries, exploring differences between CAPDR and other regions. The paper fills a void in the literature on how country- and corridor-specific factors relate to remittance...

Central America is one of the world's most vulnerable regions to extreme climate events. The literature estimates the macroeconomic effects of climate events mainly using annual data, which might underestimate the true effects as these extreme events tend to be short-lived and generate...

In contrast to expectations, remittances to Central America and the Caribbean (CAC) surprised positively during 2020 and 2021. This study revisits the key macro indicators driving remittances, looks at the heterogeneous impacts of the global financial crisis (GFC) and COVID shocks, then uses...