Publications
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Ethnic and Gender Wage Gaps in Ecuador
Returns to labor for workers with similar endowments of productive characteristics in Ecuador are influenced by two characteristics that, arguably, should play no role on the determination of wages: gender and ethnicity. The authors analyzes wage gaps due to both characteristics in Ecuador for the period 2003-2007, applying a matching comparisons technique developed in Ñopo […]
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Ethnicity and Earnings in a Mixed-Race Labor Market
The study examines the relationship between earnings and racial differences in a context in which various races have coexisted and mixed during several centuries, as is true in many parts of the postcolonial world and specifically urban Peru. Coarse indicators of racial differences do not suffice in capturing this relationship; therefore, the authors introduce a score-based […]
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Returns to Private Education in Peru
The private provision of educational services has been representing an increasing fraction of the Peruvian schooling system, especially in recent last decades. While there have been many claims about the differences in quality between private and public schools, there is no complete assessment of the different impacts of these two type of providers on the […]
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The Making of a Latin American Global Economist
The paper provides some background for considering the future of these two traditions by looking at global Latin American graduate economic programs. It reports the findings of a survey of Latin American global economics programs and discusses the debate between global economics and traditional economics, arguing that there is a role for both, with global […]
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An Extension of the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition to a Continuum of Comparison Groups
The paper proposes an extension of the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition from two to a continuum of comparison groups. The proposed decomposition is then estimated for the case of racial wage differences in urban Peru, exploiting a novel data set that allows the capturing of mestizaje (racial mixtures).
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Traditional Excluding Forces: A Review of the Quantitative Literature on the Economic Situation of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendants, and People Living with Disability
Unequal income distribution in Latin America and the Caribbean is linked to unequal distributions of (human and physical) assets and differential access to markets and services. These circumstances, and the accompanying social tensions, need to be understood in terms of traditional fragmenting forces; the sectors of the population who experience unfavorable outcomes are also recognized […]
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Using Pseudo-Panels to Measure Income Mobility in Latin America
The paper presents a comparative overview of mobility patterns in 14 Latin American countries between 1992 and 2003. Using three alternative econometric techniques on constructed pseudo-panels, the paper provides a set of estimators for the traditional notion of income mobility as well as for mobility around extreme and moderate poverty lines. The estimates suggest very […]
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Occupational Training to Reduce Gender Segregation: The Impacts of ProJoven
The paper discusses program evaluation for ProJoven, the Peruvian youth labor training program. Complementing detailed fieldwork, the econometric work implements a two-stage matching procedure on propensity scores, gender and labor income. This allows identification of differentiated program impacts on males and females and attacks the problem of Ashenfelter’s Dips. The evaluation shows substantial differences in […]
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Discrimination in Latin America: An Elephant in the Room?
The paper surveys evidence on discrimination in Latin America and shows that there is a widespread perception of discrimination, especially against the poor, the uneducated and those who lack connections. The channels through which discrimination occurs may be built on the basis of economic factors. However, while perception surveys may be informative, they are less […]
