This study highlights the interaction between social protection programs and labor markets in the Latin America region. It presents new evidence on the limited coverage of existing programs and emphasizes the challenges caused by high informality for achieving universal social protection for old age income, for health, for unemployment risks and for anti poverty safety nets. It identifies interaction effects between SP programs and the behavioral responses of workers, firms and social prot...

This study highlights the interaction between social protection (SP) programs and labor markets in the Latin America region. It presents new evidence on the limited coverage of existing programs and emphasizes the challenges caused by high informality for achieving universal social protection for old age income, health, unemployment risks and anti-poverty safety nets. It identifies interaction effects between SP programs and the behavioral responses of workers, firms and social protection pro...

Economic Policy and Human Rights presents a powerful critique of three decades of neoliberal economic policies, assessed from the perspective of human rights norms. In doing so, it brings together two areas of thought and action that have hitherto been separate: progressive economics concerned with promoting economic justice and human development; and human rights analysis and advocacy.Focussing on in-depth comparative case studies of the USA and Mexico and looking at issues such a...

Following some historical background, this paper describes how corruption is manifested in Paraguay. The paper distinguishes between factors that explain the growth performance of Paraguay since 1960 (where corruption does not directly enter as a significant factor) and factors that explain the relative level of income of Paraguay in the past 40 or 50 years compared with other countries. It then illustrates how Paraguay's weak institutions may have led to long-term growth below its potential....

This book analyzes recent labor market trends in Latin American countries and the factors that underlie the failure to create more and more productive and rewarding jobs, a failure with substantial political and social costs. The authors analyze how growth and job creation in the region's economies compare with other emerging countries, the impact of job creation and destruction on productivity growth and the creation of "good" jobs, and the relative importance and role of labor market p...

This book offers the first conceptually rigorous analysis of the political and institutional underpinnings of Brazil's recent rise. Using Brazil as a case study in multiparty presidentialism, the authors argue that Brazil's success stems from the combination of a constitutionally strong president and a robust system of checks and balances.

The wave of liberalization that swept world markets in the 1980s and 90s altered the ways that governments manage their economies. Reinventing State Capitalism analyzes the rise of new species of state capitalism in which governments interact with private investors either as majority or minority shareholders in publicly-traded corporations or as financial backers of purely private firms (the so-called “national champions”). Focusing on a detailed quantitative assessment of Brazil’...

Analyzing the experience of Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Lessons from NAFTA aims to provide guidance to Latin American and Caribbean countries considering free trade agreements with the United States. The authors conclude that the treaty raised external trade and foreign investment inflows and had a modest effect on Mexico's average income per person. It is likely that the treaty also helped achieve a modest reduction in poverty and an improvement in job quali...

This book presents some basic theoretical concepts of public finance with a particular emphasis on its impact poverty reduction. Eight case studies from Latin America and Africa illustrate how these concepts are applied in practice and the implementation issues that emerge.

Back in the early 1990s, economists and policy makers had high expectations about the prospects for domestic capital market development in emerging economies, particularly in Latin America. Unfortunately, they are now faced with disheartening results. Stock and bond markets remain illiquid and segmented. Debt is concentrated at the short end of the maturity spectrum and denominated in foreign currency, exposing countries to maturity and currency risk. Capital markets in Latin America look par...

Latin America suffered a profound state crisis in the 1980s, which prompted not only the wave of macroeconomic and deregulation reforms known as the Washington Consensus, but also a wide variety of institutional or "second generation" reforms. The State of State Reform in Latin America reviews and assesses the outcomes of these less studied institutional reforms. This book examines four major areas of institutional reform: a) political institutions and the state organization; b) fiscal instit...

The sizeable increase in income inequality experienced in advanced economies and many parts of the world since the 1990s and the severe consequences of the global economic and financial crisis have brought distributional issues to the top of the policy agenda. The challenge for many governments is to address concerns over rising inequality while simultaneously promoting economic efficiency and more robust economic growth. The book delves into this discussion by analyzing fiscal policy and its...