This issue of IDEA explores the workings of democratic institutions in Latin America and how they shape economic and other policies. It analyzes the roles, incentives, capabilities and interaction of key political players: the legislature, business, organized labor and the media.  Based on a recent IDB book, How Democracy Works: Political Institutions, Actors, and Arenas in Latin American Policymaking, the newsletter provides a taste of the multiple, complex actors at work on the region¿s policymaking stage.

This technical note discusses how behavioral economics insights can be used to enhance the design of health interventions, with emphasis on those addressing non-communicable diseases, by promoting behavioral changes. These interventions are neither sophisticated nor costly, and are particularly suited for cases in which individuals are seemingly not making rational choices about their health. The main contribution of this note is the attempt to orient non-expert practitioners in the analysis of the problem and design of the intervention.

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs have become the main social assistance interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), reaching 129 million individuals in 18 countries in 2010. Programs shared key characteristics such as the payment of cash grants and the incorporation of co-responsibilities, but varied greatly in terms of coverage, infrastructure, routines, and even objectives.

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs have become in many countries the largest social program and the framework upon which a social protection network is being built. These programs have more than 24 million beneficiaries in the Latin America and the Caribbean region and have been subject to many types of evaluations showing them to be an effective means of increasing demand for health and education services. This study analyzes Familias en Accion, the national CCT program in Colombia.

This document measures access and use of financial services making use of information from household surveys in Latin America and the Caribbean

The objective of the document is to asses the level of interaction of the Bono de Desarrollo Humano benficiaries in Quito with the financial sector. Specifically the study tries to understand different aspects related to the use of electronic cards to pay the BDH transfers and the wellbeing on beneficiaries.

The introduction of mandatory health insurance in developing countries is often questioned because of the difficulties in enrolling self-employed workers, who represent a segment of the labor force that is increasing in size. Partial population coverage, coupled with adverse selection effects, raises serious concerns about the financial viability of social health insurance schemes.

Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) are an endogenous innovation from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) that aims to reduce current poverty while developing the human capital of the next generation, in the attempt to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Pioneered in Brazil and Mexico in the late 1990s, by 2011 CCTs had spread to 18 countries in the region and covered as many as 135 million beneficiaries.

Through this review we have sought to further understanding of the state of preprimary, primary, and secondary numeracy education in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Research on the opportunities available to students in the region presents a troubling picture. Young people are not being properly prepared for the numeracy requirements of an increasingly interconnected world economy. Culprits include weak curricula, inadequate learning materials, and teachers¿ lack of proficiency in mathematics and the natural sciences.

Our interest in understanding the determinants of adolescent childbearing and how adolescent childbearing influences educational trajectories derive from a concern about the inverse relationship between educational outcomes and adolescent fertility. Through in-depth interviews with 118 women, we contrast the educational trajectories of adolescent and adult childbearers in urban neighborhoods in Paraguay and Peru. The findings suggest that adolescents who face obstacles that discourage academic achievement and high aspirations in life are also more likely to bear children.