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on Central and South America |
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Issue of 2013‒04‒27
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Luis Eduardo Arango THomas; Diana Carolina Escobar; Emma Mercedes Sandoval |
| Abstract: | Se estiman los salarios de empleados particulares y servidores públicos catalogados como plenamente ocupados y subempleados por ingresos. De igual manera, se estima la brecha salarial entre ellos, para lo cual se utilizan tanto la ecuación de Mincer como la descomposición Blinder-Oaxaca y la metodología propuesta por Ñopo (2008). Los resultados indican que, aunque existe un diferencial de salarios entre ambos grupos, del orden de 40% a 44%, el componente no explicado del mismo es mucho menor (de 25% a 30% del mismo) que el que sugieren los datos a primera vista y conducen, en ocasiones, a generar alarmas sobre el funcionamiento del mercado de trabajo e incluso a hablar de “condiciones de empleo inadecuado” o “empleo de baja calidad”. Aunque algunos subempleados por ingresos podrían tener argumentos para considerarse como tales, presentamos evidencia que muestra que entre el 70% y el 75% del diferencial de salarios es explicado por variables asociadas a capital humano. Igualmente, encontramos que la brecha se presenta con mayor nitidez en la parte alta de la distribución de los salarios: a más edad y mayor educación, mayor es el componente no explicado de la misma, la cual se presenta con mayor claridad en los sectores de minas, transporte y construcción. |
| Date: | 2013–04–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000094:010717&r=lam |
| By: | Azevedo, Joao Pedro; Inchauste, Gabriela; Olivieri, Sergio; Saavedra, Jaime; Winkler, Hernan |
| Abstract: | Demographics, labor income, public transfers, or remittances: Which factor contributes the most to observed reductions in poverty? Using counterfactual simulations, this paper accounts for the contribution labor income has made to the observed changes in poverty over the past decade for a set of 16 countries that have experienced substantial declines in poverty. In contrast to methods that focus on aggregate summary statistics, the analysis generates entire counterfactual distributions that allow assessing the contributions of different factors to observed distributional changes. Decompositions across all possible paths are calculated so the estimates are not subject to path-dependence. The analysis shows that for most countries in the sample, labor income is the most important contributor to changes in poverty. In ten of the countries, labor income explains more than half of the change in moderate poverty; in another four, it accounts for more than 40 percent of the reduction in poverty. Although public and private transfers were relatively more important in explaining the reduction in extreme poverty, more and better-paying jobs were the key factors behind poverty reduction over the past decade. |
| Keywords: | Rural Poverty Reduction,Services&Transfers to Poor,Regional Economic Development,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis |
| Date: | 2013–04–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6414&r=lam |
| By: | Manoel Bittencourt |
| Abstract: | We investigate in this paper whether the exogenous version of the modernisation hypothesis holds in South America, or whether democracy needs development for its own consolidation. We use a sample of all nine countries that re-democratised in the last thirty years or so and the data sets cover two distinct periods, 1970-2007, and 1945-1969. The results, based on dynamic panel time-series data analysis (we use the Fixed Effects, Common Correlated Effects and Fixed Effects with Instrumental Variables estimators), suggest that the modernisation hypothesis holds in the region during the period 1970-2007, or that income, or development in general, plays a positive role in "sustaining" democracy. Moreover, the exogenous version of the modernisation hypothesis does survive scrutiny for the period 1945-1969 as well, a period in which the continent was relatively poorer and democracy a rather elusive concept in the region. We also test for the critical junctures hypothesis, or whether particular historical structural changes play any role in contemporaneous democratisation in the region, however we are not able to provide any concrete evidence in favour of it. Essentially, we suggest that a certain level of development is an important condition for democracy to survive and mature, which - in times of a new democratisation wave taking place in societies with di¤erent developmental paths - is a suggestive observation. |
| Keywords: | Modernisation hypothesis, Democracy, Development, South America |
| JEL: | O10 O54 P16 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:342&r=lam |
| By: | Manoel Bittencourt |
| Abstract: | We investigate in this paper what are the main determinants of government and external debt in South America. Our sample purposely includes all nine South American countries that re-democratised in the last thirty years or so, and the data cover the period 1970-2007. The results, based on principal component and dynamic panel (time-series) data analyses (we use the Pooled OLS, Fixed Effects, Fixed Effects with Instrumental Variables, DIF-GMM and SYS-GMM estimators), suggest that economic growth has had the ability of significantly reduce debt in the region. Other important candidates suggested by the literature, such as inflation, in-equality and constraints on the executive (variables that some would deem important within the rather turbulent South American context), do not present the expected nor clear-cut estimates on government and external debt. Essentially, the results suggest firstly that the (neoclassical) tax-smoothing model holds in South America, or that the continent is, after all, countercyclical, and secondly they highlight the importance of such case studies in order to avoid unwarranted generalisations about the continent's recent history. All in all, in times of a renewed spell of populism in the region and of a severe debt crisis in Europe, these conclusions are suggestive of the importance of an economic environment geared towards generating economic activity and prosperity in, at least, keeping debt under control. |
| Keywords: | Government anf External Debt, Democracy, South America |
| JEL: | H60 N16 O11 O54 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:341&r=lam |
| By: | Ramón E. López; Eugenio Figueroa B.; Pablo Gutiérrez C. |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udc:wpaper:wp379&r=lam |
| By: | Roberto Steiner; Natalia Salazar Ferro; Alejandro Becerra; Jaime Ramírez |
| Abstract: | Este trabajo analiza el comportamiento reciente de los precios de la vivienda en Colombia y busca dar luces sobre si hay los precios están desalineados frente a los fundamentales que los determinan. Para ello se utilizaron dos aproximaciones. La primera utiliza un modelo VAR estructural para hacer pronósticos dentro de muestra. Los resultados sugieren que los precios actualmente observados no están desalineados si dentro de los determinantes fundamentales de los mismos se incluye el precio del suelo. Para la segunda aproximación se construyó un modelo estructural de oferta y demanda de vivienda. Los resultados de este modelo son coherentes con los del modelo VAR y sugieren que cualquier des-alineamiento del precio de la vivienda respecto de sus "fundamentales" se asocia con niveles históricamente altos del precio del suelo. |
| Date: | 2012–06–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000124:010716&r=lam |
| By: | Garcia, Gustavo Adolfo (Autonomous University of Barcelona); Nicodemo, Catia (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the relationship between social networks and the job search behaviour of individuals. Networking is not only based on friends and relatives but also on neighbourhood. The geographic closeness is associated to social interactions. Individuals who are in physical and social proximity share the same sources of information, because they divide individual characteristics or because they learn from one another's behaviour. Using data from Colombia in 2009 we explore how neighbourhoods have an effect on the channel used to search for a job (formal vs informal). People tend to opt for a formal or informal channel depending on the channel selected by employed people in their neighbourhood. In addition, we study the wage premium in using a formal or informal channel, exploring the inequality that can arise using a different job search method. Our results show that the neighbourhood affects the individual's job search method and referral workers earn less wage at the bottom of the wage distribution with respect to non-referred workers. At the top of the wage distribution the difference observed is due to different characteristics between the two groups. Colombia presents persistent high levels of informality and inequality. These features impose important social and economic costs such as low tax collection, low employee protection and deficiencies in the labour intermediation process with strong informational asymmetries in the job search. New policies to regulate the labour market are need. |
| Keywords: | neighborhood effects, formal and informal networks, job search, quantile regression |
| JEL: | J64 J31 J24 P23 J6 J7 J0 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7336&r=lam |