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Research Insights: How Do Labor Market Signals Impact Young Professionals’ Careers?
No full textIn Colombia, college graduates who earn a national distinction award for top performance in a mandatory exit exam receive a 7 to 12 percent higher salary compared to peers without the award. This wage premium persists five years post-graduation. The wage premium is larger for graduates from non-elite institutions than graduates of more prestigious institutions. Workers with signals are more likely to be employed at productive firms, finding roles that align closely with their specific skills. The observed wage differences are not attributed to differences in human capital but rather to the effectiveness of the signal in the labor market
Cash transfers in the context of carbon pricing reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean
Get PDFOne reason carbon prices are difficult to implement is that they might imply high additional costs on poor and vulnerable households. In response, studies often highlight that recycling revenues through cash transfers can render carbon pricing reforms progressive. This neglects that existing cash transfer programs target households from low-income groups often imperfectly and that impacts of a carbon price are heterogeneous within income groups. In this study we analyze the role of existing cash transfer schemes to alleviate distributional effects of carbon pricing in 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries. We find carbon pricing to be regressive in 11 countries, progressive in 5, and show that differences within income groups exceed differences between them. Beyond total household expenditures, car ownership and cooking fuel explain the variance in carbon pricing impacts. We show that households who are most affected by carbon pricing, some of them poor, do not necessarily have access to existing cash transfer programs. Governments aiming to compensate households may broaden coverage of existing cash transfer programs or consider complementing instruments such as in-kind transfers or removing existing distortionary taxes
The Transition to Telework in Latin America and the Caribbean: Key Findings using LinkedIn data
No full textThe COVID-19 crisis generated a sudden need for businesses to start operating remotely, and for employees to work from home. In consequence, the use of telework increased rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean as it did globally. However, differences on the severity of containment measures by country, access to internet, and particularities of each country\u27s labor markets may have played a role in the divergence of trends across countries in the post-pandemic scenario. We use data from LinkedIn in 7 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, between January 2020 and April 2022, to shed some light on how telework evolved in a selection of countries in the region during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This note summarizes four findings associated with telework adoption and on the divergences in telework behavior across countries in the post-pandemic period. First, countries with more strict government containment measures experienced higher telework rates along 2020; second, telework adoption seems unrelated with countries\u27 internet network coverage and internet network performance; third, telework adoption reflects the dynamics of the labor demand and was driven mostly by the professional services economic sector; and finally, it seems evident that telework will not return to its pre-pandemic levels and it is here to stay
Fiscal Policy for Resilience and Decarbonization: Contributions to the Policy Dialogue
Get PDFThis publication includes contributions for the design of fiscal policies that are oriented towards decarbonization and resilience to climate change. It addresses the main areas of responsibility of finance ministries by providing a review of the challenges faced by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in each area of responsibility, a summary of advances in knowledge with an emphasis on identifying best practices, and a series of technical guidelines that can be useful for facilitating the integration of climate actions into fiscal policy and management. Given the topicality of these matters and the growing interest shown by ministries of finance to establish their own roadmaps for climate action, it is an opportune moment to present this work, which aims to contribute to the technical dialogue and generate inputs for the design of action plans and roadmaps so that fiscal policies can contribute to decarbonization and economic resilience
2023 Latin American and Caribbean Macroeconomic Report: Preparing the Macroeconomic Terrain for Renewed Growth
No full textLatin America and the Caribbean faces a triple social, fiscal and growth challenge that is limiting the development of the region and its population. Poverty and inequality levels have worsened, public coffers continue to grapple with the impact of the pandemic, and growth remains below potential. This report explores the main challenges for the region in 2023 in the monetary, fiscal, labor, and financial arenas and identifies public policies that will help policymakers chart a path forward. Latin America and the Caribbean has the tools to address its triple challenge. It needs to harness them to prepare the macroeconomic ground for renewed growth
The Gender Earnings Gap in Latin America and the Caribbean: An analysis of its components
Get PDFThis study analyzes gender earnings gap in 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. It finds a significant difference in hourly earnings between men and women in most of the region. It also finds that while women should be earning more per hour than men based on their level of education, the economic sectors in which they work, their occupations, the setting in which they live (urban/rural), and their personal characteristics, they do not, in reality, earn more. The earnings gap favoring men is therefore due to factors that are not explained by the variables used in this study and are rather due to unobservable characteristics associated with discriminatory gender biases. These biases may be cognitive or rooted in poorly designed laws, discrimination, or labor costs related to child-rearing that are overlooked by society. This analysis uses data from the household surveys harmonized by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and it uses two models to estimate the gender earnings gap: the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition and the Nopo decomposition
Scaling Innovations in Development: The Experience of IDB Lab
Get PDFThe approach to scaling up innovations in development is broken due to insufficient skills and funding for intermediation. Intermediation involves the essential technical assistance required by organizations and projects to achieve scale, such as strategic planning, convening, and coordinating stakeholders, and investment packaging. This report derives lessons on how to effectively scale innovations in development through an analysis of 39 IDB Lab projects and approximately 100 interviews. It proposes adhering to four principles for enhancement: establishing a consistent and systematic definition of scale, measuring success based on the maturity of the solution, acknowledging, and fostering the intermediation function, and investing in agile tracking while learning from errors. By implementing these strategies, development organizations can seamlessly incorporate scaling up innovation into their operations
Gender Diversity, Innovation, and Open Innovation in the Caribbean Region
Get PDFThe Caribbean economies are well-ranked in terms of womens participation in the labor market, but less so in terms of innovation, suggesting the relevance of an analysis of gender diversitys impact on innovation. This paper examines how gender diversity in Caribbean firm affects the formation of external partnerships and agreements for innovation, and also how the effects of that diversity on innovative outcomes are influenced by the presence of women in diverse positions within a firm. Using information for 13 Caribbean countries from the Innovation, Firm Productivity and Gender (IFPG) database, this study confirms gender diversity as a factor which both improves the likelihood of innovation, as well as spurring the decision to collaborate with other firms and organizations. However, impacts will depend on the areas within a firm in which women are present. Gender diversity in the total workforce and in production and non-production activities is more effective than when women are present in areas solely related to management. These findings prompt a reflection on policy implications around the definition or improvement of measures oriented to the closing of innovation-related gender gaps
The Road to Educational Inclusion: Four Steps To Develop Systems To Protect Educational Pathways
Get PDFThis document is the third of four publications in the series “The Road to Educational Inclusion: Four Steps to Develop Systems to Protect Educational Pathways”. This series aims to serve as a guide for education ministries and secretariats in the region that are interested in designing and implementing protection systems for educational pathways
Access to Language Training and the Local Integration of Refugees
No full textThis paper examines whether language classes raises refugees\u27 language proficiency and improves their socio-economic integration. Our identification strategy leverages the opening, closing, and gradual expansion of local language training centers in Denmark, as well as the quasi-random assignment of the refugees to locations with varying proximity to a language training center. First, we show that refugees\u27 distance from the assigned language training center is as good as random conditional on initial placement. Second, we show that a one-hour decrease in commuting time increases total hours of class attended by 46 to 71. Third, we use this novel identification strategy to show that 100 additional hours of language class increases fluency in the Danish language by 8-9 percent, post-language training human capital acquisition by 11-13 percent and improve the integration of the refugees in the communities where they were initially placed, as measured by the lower exit rates from those same communities and an almost 70 percent reduction in mobility to the largest, most immigrant-dense cities in Denmark