7962 research outputs found
Sort by
Conciliation and Co-responsibility for Care. Guide to Promote Gender Equality in Latin American and Caribbean Companies: Dimension 5
No full textConciliation and co-responsibility for care is one of the eight dimensions of the Guide to promote gender equality in Latin American and Caribbean companies. This guide aims to provide direction to the business sector in designing and implementing measures that promote equal opportunities for men and women in workplace environments. It includes evidence, supporting tools, and both regional and international case studies. Additionally, it offers clear roadmaps with flexible recommendations adaptable to diverse business contexts and needs
Research Insights: How Does the Enforcement of Labor Market Regulations Affect Informality and Firms?
Get PDFLabor inspections reduce informality but slow firm growth: inspections mandate formalization and impose fines, causing immediate compliance but long-term stagnation in growth for audited firms in Brazil. Informality is pervasive: both large and small firms hire informal workers, and informal workers are similar to formal employees in age, education, and gender but earn slightly less. Inspections dampen innovation and dynamism: firms subjected to audits innovate less, with declines in trademark registrations and organizational complexity
Research Insights: How Does Intra-firm Trade Affect Multinational Production and the Transfer of Knowledge?
Get PDFMultinational Corporations (MNCs) strategically position their production facilities near customers to counter the “trade gravity effect” where geographical distance reduces foreign sales through shipping costs and trade barriers. Despite this, the foreign sales of larger firms engaged in intra-firm trade remain influenced by the distance from headquarters. The transfer of intermediate inputs, technology, and processes from headquarters to affiliates is vital for enabling cross-border production and knowledge exchange. However, it reintroduces shipping costs, further diminishing affiliate sales. Reducing barriers to intra-firm trade can help enhance knowledge transfer across countries and narrow global productivity and income gaps
Piloting Drought Management Participatory Modeling-Based Approaches in Chile
Get PDFChile\u27s unique geography and climatic zones, including the arid Atacama desert in the north and the cold, humid Patagonian zone in the south, represents a challenges for water resource management. Droughts, and particularly mega-droughts, have become more frequent and intense, affecting not only the north but also central regions like the Maipo basin basin, located in the Metropolitan Region. To address these issues, this project aims to develop a Drought Management Plan (DMP) for the Maipo basin, and to support analysis of drought conditions, including characterization of spatial coverage, intensity, and duration, a Drought Management module has been implemented in WaterALLOC, combining the Hydro-BID and MODSIM modeling systems. This case study focuses on the Maipo river basin in Chile, using the Drought Management module in WaterALLOC to simulate response stages for mitigating drought impacts. The study highlights the importance of integrated tools and modeling systems for enhanced water resources planning and decision-making in drought-prone regions. Finally, a capacity training program aimed at strengthening the technical capacities of local stakeholders in water resources management was implemented
Disability Employment Quotas: Effects of Laws and Nudges
Get PDFWe study the effects of a new 1% employment quota enacted in Chile in 2018 using anonymized administrative data on monthly employer-employee linkages and disability certification records. Our firm-level difference-in-difference results show a 15-20% increase in the number of people with disabilities working in eligible firms after the quota. About a third of the employment effects occur through the relabeling of existing workers as workers with disabilities, and the remainder through new hires. There are no negative effects found for the firms or other workers. We also conducted an experiment in quota-eligible firms to study if firms can be nudged to employ people with disabilities (PwD) by sending letters containing different information. We find that the pure information treatment increased the number of PwD working in the firms and that most of this impact is explained by an increase in the reclassification of incumbent workers. While not transformational for the labor market, inclusion of PwD, quotas and nudges do have an effect
Connecting the Dots: The Role of Internationally Mobile Scientists in Linking Nonmobile with Foreign Scientists
No full textStudying and working abroad, internationally mobile scientists meet foreign scientists and become carriers of knowledge. The benefits of international scientific mobility might extend to nonmobile colleagues who collaborate with mobile scientists. In this paper, we investigate the role played by Brazilian and Colombian scientists who are mobile in connecting nonmobile scientists with foreign scientists. We combine publicly available data from online curriculum vitae (CVs), scholarship programs, and publications in OpenAlex. We analyze a large sample covering approximately 70 percent of scientists for both countries and their coauthorship networks between 1990 and 2021, combining panel estimations and a difference-in-differences (DiD) event study. We find that nonmobile scientists who coauthor with mobile scientists coauthor more publications with foreign scientists. The number of collaborations by nonmobile scientists with foreign scientists increases with the number of unique mobile scientists the nonmobile scientists interact with. This is because the effect of collaborating with a unique mobile scientist is short-lived. Results suggest that mobile scientists who stay abroad more (diaspora) may be the most effective in creating connections with foreign scientists. Our paper contributes to the literature on scientific mobility and brain drain. We provide first insights into the spillover generated by mobility experiences in connecting nonmobile scientists with foreign scientists. Our results indicate a need to increase brain gain and reduce brain drain from home countries by increasing the links between mobile scientists and nonmobile scientists
The Digital Transformation of Seoul National University Bundang Hospital
Get PDFThis case study underscores the significance of digitalization in healthcare, exemplified by Korea\u27s successful integration of electronic health record (EHR) systems, which has markedly enhanced clinical services quality and efficiency. Focusing on the Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH), a leading national multispecialty academic medical center in Korea, the case study details the hospital\u27s journey towards digitalization through the implementation of its interoperable EHR system, BESTCare. Through focus group interviews with field-deployed staff, the study reveals the critical factors for successful digital transformation in hospital management, including leadership investment decisions and the engagement of end-users from the outset. The gradual yet significant benefits of digital transformation, such as cost efficiency and clinical quality improvements, are highlighted, along with the adaptability of digital tools in crisis situations like the COVID-19 pandemic. The study concludes with the documented impacts of BESTCare and other digital tools on care quality and efficiency, suggesting that similar digital transformation efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean could lead to significant health outcomes improvements while maintaining current healthcare spending levels
Innovative Climate and Disaster Risk Finance Solutions: Resilience Building and Fiscal Strengthening
Get PDFThe Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region is one of the most exposed and vulnerable to the effects of climate change and natural disasters. These threats pose escalating risks to the ability of LAC countries to achieve the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. To catalyze adaptation actions in the region, The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) offers a suite of innovative Climate and Disaster Risk Finance (CDRF) products and services for borrowing member countries that empowers them to proactively manage climate and disaster risks, enhance financial preparedness, foster long-term economic and fiscal stability, and mobilize public and private sector resources for disaster risk management
Expectations of Economy and Finance Ministries on Carbon Pricing and Evidence of their Effectiveness
Get PDFThis document analyzes the expectations and objectives of the Ministries of Finance, Economy, and Finance of Latin America and the Caribbean regarding implementing carbon pricing mechanisms. It contrasts it with existing evidence regarding these instruments. Twelve qualitative interviews were conducted with specialists from ministries in the region, revealing that countries mainly adopted these instruments to support climate policy. To do so, ministries seek, in some cases, for these instruments to incentivize emissions reduction or, in other cases, to meet fiscal and investment mobilization goals for climate action. While countries have positive expectations about their effectiveness in reducing emissions, they still need to evaluate their performance. The analysis of existing evidence concludes that carbon pricing implemented to date has had modest effects on emissions, with multiple barriers preventing them from reaching their theoretical potential. However, if these instruments are well-designed, they can be complementary tools to support decarbonization efforts, as they cannot catalyze the necessary structural transformations independently. Therefore, the recommendation is to include them in a broader set of climate policies, mitigate their distributive effects, evaluate their outcomes, and strengthen the technical capacities of ministries
Active labor market policies in Bolivia: Impact of the Employment Support Program II
No full textActive labor market policies are a set of public policy instruments that seek to promote labor market integration, especially for groups with low levels of employability and income. Evidence indicates that these policies have been effective in promoting access to quality jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean (Urzúa & Puentes, 2010; Card et al., 2010, 2018; Escudero, 2018; Escudero et al., 2019; Carranza & Mckenzie, 2023). The Employment Support Program (PAE), implemented by the Plurinational Employment Service of Bolivia (SPEBO) under the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Welfare (MTEPS), and supported by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) since 2010 through a loan contract, is part of this type of policy. PAE I is an earlier version of the program that was approved in 2010, implemented between 2011 and 2018, while PAE II was approved in 2016, and implemented between 2018 and 2022. The general objective of the Employment Support Program II was to improve the labor market insertion of job seekers accessing the Bolivian Public Employment Service in formal economic units. The specific objectives were: (i) to strengthen the positioning of the Bolivian Public Employment Service; and (ii) to improve the effectiveness of service delivery to job seekers accessing the Bolivian Public Employment Service. We analyzed the impact of PAE II on employment, employment in formal economic units and monthly income in Bolivia. We opted for a quasi-experimental approach due to the non-random nature of the assignment of participants to the program: access to the program is universal and the selection of candidates from the lists prepared by the SPEBO is discretionary on the part of the firms. To identify the causal impact of the program, we combine survey data from beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, with an empirical strategy that resorts to extensions of difference-in-differences models. The use of this estimation strategy is that, in order to see if the program really has an impact on income and employment, we cannot simply compare the income or employment of those who participated in PAE II with those who did not, as there may be many other differences between these two groups that affect the results. This is where we need a counterfactual: an estimate of the employment history that would have been followed by PAE II participants had they not participated in the program. The difference-in-differences model, under certain assumptions, allows us to estimate the counterfactual, and thus to identify the causal impact that the program had on those who participated in it. We find that participation in PAE II -which offers labor intermediation, direct subsidy and on-site training for three months- increases the probability of obtaining a job by 14 pp, with this effect being stronger in women (14.8 pp) compared to men (14 pp). In terms of employment in formal economic units, the employment rate increases by 14.9 pp, being higher in women (14.9 pp) than in men (14.3 pp). The monthly income of active beneficiaries will increase by 9.5%. This effect is greater in women, with an increase in income of 11.7% compared to 8.1% in men. The impact of PAE II is particularly strong in the short term and decreasing over time, however, it has a positive and significant impact on both employment and income up to 24 months after starting the program. The results indicate that PAE II has effectively reduced barriers to access to the formal labor market in Bolivia and has improved the income trajectory of beneficiaries. This is seen in the increase in the probability of finding employment in formal economic units and an improvement in monthly income, suggesting an increase in the productivity of active beneficiaries. This increase in productivity is aligned with the in-plant training component of the program. These findings are consistent with previous evaluations of the program that also suggest positive impacts on beneficiaries, especially on employment (Novella & Valencia, 2022). Our findings are in line with the literature that indicates that well-designed, targeted, and incentivized training and labor intermediation programs tend to generate sustainable improvements in labor outcomes, especially for groups that traditionally have restricted access to the labor market