Why Digital Tools Could Be Key to Reopening the Region

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

Deserted parks, shuttered businesses, rush-hour traffic reduced to a trickle: it no longer comes off as hyperbole to say the world has been put on hold. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 13 countries have chosen to enter complete lockdown, and 12 have gone the route of a partial or sector-based quarantine. While measures are constantly evolving in response to changing infection rates, governments must prepare to gradually lift lockdown measures, drawing on all tools available to them as they do so.

Poverty, Vulnerability and the Middle Class in Latin America

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

Between 2000 and 2013, Latin America has considerably reduced poverty (from 46.3% to 29.7% of the population). In this paper, we use synthetic panels to show that, despite progress, the region remains characterized by substantial vulnerability that also affects the rising middle-class. More specifically, we find that 65% of those with daily income between $4 and 10, and 14% of those in the middle-class, experience poverty at least once over a ten-year period. Furthermore, chronic poverty remains widespread (representing 91% and 50% of extreme and moderate poverty respectively).

Private education in Latin America and the Caribbean in intensive care

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

The COVID-19 crisis is hitting families and educational systems in the region hard. The pandemic has also had a significant impact on private schools and their community. Many families have lost their jobs and income and have been unable to continue paying monthly school fees/tuition. Other families complain that the distance education their children receive today is of a lower quality service than face-to-face education and refuse to pay the full fees.

Thinking About Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Impacts Through a Science-Informed, Early Childhood Lens

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

The COVID-19 virus is ruthlessly contagious and, at the same time, highly selective. Its capacity to infect is universal, but the consequences of becoming infected are not. While there are exceptions, children are less likely to show symptoms, older adults and those with pre-existing medical conditions are the most susceptible, and communities of color in the United States are experiencing dramatically higher rates of hospitalization and death.

Impact Evaluation of the Job Youth Training Program Projoven

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

This paper brings new evidence on the impact of The Peruvian Job Youth Training Program (Projoven). Compared with prior evaluations of the program, this one has several advantages. This is the first experimental impact evaluation of Projoven, and also the first to measure impacts over a longer period: almost three years after training. Additionally, the evaluation supplements data from a follow-up survey with administrative data from the country's Electronic Payroll (Planilla Electrónica), allowing for a more accurate measure of formal employment.

How Far Can Your Skills Take You

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

This paper provides new evidence to characterize changes in the demand for skills associated with shifts in occupations for a sample of 10 of the G20 countries, using information available from LinkedIn profiles as a new and unique source of dynamic labor market data on occupations and skills. A unique feature of LinkedIn’s data is the availability of granular measures of skill importance by country and occupation.

Social Interactions and Female Voting in Rural Paraguay: The Role of Urbanization Patterns on the Effectiveness of GOVT Campaigns

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

We use a field experiment to evaluate the impact of two informational get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns to boost female electoral participation in Paraguay. We find that public campaigns had no effect either on the probability of registration, or on voter turnout in the 2013 presidential election. However, households that received door-to-door (D2D) treatment were four percentage points more likely to vote.

School Finance in Latin America: A Conceptual Framework and a Review of Policies

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

Education spending has significantly increased in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) over the last few decades. Most education systems in the region have improved teacher salaries, introduced programs that focus on improving learning in the most disadvantaged schools and systemic accountability. The available data suggests that increased spending combined with economic and social reforms has had an impact on educational outcomes such as improvement on primary and secondary completion rate and moderate but sustained progress in closing the learning gap with more developed countries.

Measuring the Quality of the Home Environment of Young Children in Uruguay: Socioeconomic Gradients in the HOME inventory

Submitted by SPH DIGITAL on

Uruguay is one of very few countries in Latin America that has a nationally representative, longitudinal survey of early childhood development. In 2015–2016, during the second wave of the survey, an observational module on the home environment was administered at scale for the first time. The module included items from two subscales (responsiveness and acceptance) of a widely used instrument that measures the quality of the physical and emotional environment: the HOME inventory.

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