There is a broad consensus regarding the need to improve student outcomes in the educational systems of Latin America and the Caribbean. After an attempt to institute various reforms and initiatives, the demand for quality and equity continues to be heard throughout the region. Meeting this demand will require significant changes, regarding not only the teaching of subjects that are relevant to needs of a knowledge society, but also teaching them in a way that takes full account of the educational context that 21st century society has generated.

Having a good teacher is the most important school-related factor for student achievement, to the point of closing the gap between low and high-income students. However, the empirical literature is almost silent regarding teacher selection. This paper estimates a teacher selection model using recruitment data from Enseña Perú, a program that recruits top university graduates from all majors and places them in vulnerable schools.

The introduction of technology in education is gaining momentum worldwide. One model of incorporating technology into education that has gained tremendous traction in Latin America and the Caribbean is One-to-One computing. The term "One-to-One" refers to the ratio of digital devices per child so that each child is provided with a digital device, most often a laptop, to facilitate learning. The objective of this document is to provide an overview of One-to-One implementations with a regional focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Enseña Chile (ECh) is one model in the direction of helping close the achievement gap between low-income and high-income students in Chile, and is a first adaptation of the Teach for America (TFA) model in Latin America. This paper provides the first evidence on the impact of the implementation, and is the first evaluation of Teach For America model to shed light on how it affects non-cognitive skills.

This paper critically discusses the theoretical and empirical literature on the quantitative and qualitative employment impact of technological change, compares the relative explanatory power of the competing theories, and explains in detail the macro and micro evidence on the issue, with reference both to the advanced economies and the developing countries (DCs).

This paper presents the evaluation of the Enterprise Restructuring Support Program in Argentina. The aim of the program was to increase the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises by cofinancing technical assistance that can be classified as either support for process innovation or support for product innovation. Although these types of programs do not primarily aim to create jobs, they are implemented assuming that they do, or at least that they do not destroy jobs. This paper tests this assumption.

The employment impact of innovation in the heterogeneous universe of services was studied using data from the 2004-2009 Uruguayan service innovation surveys. The empirical evidence shows that the impact of product innovation on employment is positive, while process innovation appears to have no effect. The effect varies according to the skill level of the labor force, across sectors, and the type of innovation strategy pursued by firms.

This paper provides evidence about the relationship between innovation and employment in Argentina. In particular, it quantifies the impact of different types of innovations (process or product innovations) on employment growth and skill composition (skilled-unskilled labor) and the impact of different innovation strategies (buy or make) on employment growth, and analyzes whether these impacts depend on firm size or technology intensity.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between innovation and employment, in terms of both its quantity and quality, in Uruguay. The effect of product and process innovation on employment growth and on employment composition in terms of skills was studied, using data from manufacturing firms' innovation surveys, matched against economic activity surveys. The impact of different innovation strategies was also analyzed, particularly producing technology vs. sourcing technology externally. The results revealed that product innovation is associated with employment growth.

This paper studies the degree to which innovation by Costa Rican manufacturing firms creates or displaces employment, how different innovation strategies affect employment, and how these effects vary by firm size and type of employment demand characteristics (skills and gender). In particular the research focuses on the differential effects of product and process innovations on employment growth. Particular attention is paid to identifying innovation impacts on employment generation by SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises).