In this paper we analyze the role of economic growth in the recent deceleration of female labor force participation (LFP) in Latin America. We study the relationship between the business cycle and female LFP by estimating fixed effects models, using data from harmonized national household surveys of 18 countries in the period 1987-2014. We find that female LFP follows a countercyclical pattern, especially for vulnerable women, which may be explained by the added-worker effect.

Recent technological innovation in fields such as robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence have reduced the number of workers required in a range of sectors, while lowering costs and increasing reliability. This trend has led policymakers, academics, CEOs, and entrepreneurs to ask what types of jobs will be most affected, what new skillsets will be needed for the jobs of tomorrow, and how governments can ease the transition.

The important debate about how economic fluctuations affect employment reallocation in heterogeneous businesses is currently open in the literature. This debate is relevant as it matters for the understanding of the labor market dynamics, and for devising labor policies that aim at dampening employment fluctuations. The theoretical literature suggests that job-to-job flows reallocate workers from low productivity to high productivity firms and often this pattern is tested assuming that firm size, wages and productivity are positively related.

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs are important anti-poverty programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. There is little evidence, however, of the effectiveness of ongoing CCT programs several years after they have begun. Such evidence is particularly relevant for policymakers because program effects may become larger, as with the operational cycle, or smaller, if enthusiasm on the part of the beneficiaries or the program team wanes. We analyze whether children exposed since birth to a CCT in El Salvador have better outcomes at initial school ages.

Inequality in Latin America fell substantially in the early 2000s. In this paper, we take advantage of administrative matched employee-employed data in Brazil, Chile and Ecuador to examine whether these inequality trends held in the formal sector, as well. We document a significant decrease in the log variance of earnings in Brazil and Ecuador in the early 2000s, whereas inequality in Chile between 2008 and 2015 remained largely flat. In this context, we find that inequality among salaried workers is largely a between-firm phenomenon across these three countries.

We explore the effects of a randomly assigned conditional cash transfer in Honduras (Bono 10000) on early childhood development. We find significant impacts on cognitive development in children 0-60 months, with an average effect size of 0.13 SD. We show differential impacts by type of transfer: 0-5-year-old children from families receiving the “health” transfer, which targeted families with 0-5-year-old children only, benefited significantly from the program, whereas 0-5 year-olds in families receiving the “education” transfer, which targeted 6-18 year-olds, perceived no benefit.

This paper contributes to the teacher sorting literature by analyzing equity in the distribution of teachers in three educational systems in Latin America, with different equalization policies, teacher assignment rules, and incentives to work in disadvantaged schools: Chile, Colombia, and Peru. We use unique micro-data at the teacher and school level to describe the distribution of teachers across the three systems. Two main conclusions emerge from our results.

Maintaining high standards of care from doctors, nurses and other health professionals is of critical importance for an effective and efficient health system. Yet deficient levels of health worker performance, including low effort, absenteeism, and lack of compliance with clinical guidelines, have been documented across numerous countries and contexts. In response, various pay-for-performance interventions that reward providers based on measures of quality of care and health outcomes have been tested, with mixed results.

In this paper we analyze the role of economic growth in the recent deceleration of female labor force participation (LFP) in Latin America. We study the relationship between the business cycle and female LFP by estimating fixed effects models, using data from harmonized national household surveys of 18 countries in the period 1987-2014. We find that female LFP follows a countercyclical pattern, especially for vulnerable women, which may be explained by the added-worker effect.

This paper analyzes the association between quality of parenting programs and child development outcomes. It focuses on parenting programs delivered through home visits (i.e., home visiting programs) in which a paraprofessional works with the caregiver to improve parental practices, skills and knowledge of child development, with an application to the Peruvian national program Programa Nacional Cuna Mas.