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Groundbreaking Rigorous Evidence on Violence Against Women
Full text linkViolence against women (VAW) is a persistent and deeply rooted issue that requires urgent policy action. Despite increasing global attention, significant knowledge gaps remain regarding effective prevention and response strategies. This policy brief presents new evidence on innovative approaches to addressing VAW in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the unintended consequences of economic empowerment programs, the impact of climate-related stress on violence, the role of gender in judicial decision-making, and the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy as a violence prevention strategy. Strengthening the evidence base is essential for developing targeted, data-driven policies that promote gender equality and a future free from violence
Aggregate Implications of Heterogeneous Inflation Expectations: The Role of Individual Experience
Full text linkWe explore the implications of heterogeneous, history-dependent inflation expectations in a general equilibrium setting. We propose an experience-based expectations-augmented Kalman filter to represent consumers\u27 heterogeneous inflation expectations, where heterogeneity arises from an anchoring-to-the-past mechanism. Using survey data, we show that the model replicates US consumers\u27 inflation expectations and their heterogeneity across cohorts. We introduce this mechanism into a New Keynesian model and find that heterogeneous expectations anchor aggregate responses to the agents\u27 inflation history, producing sluggish expectations dynamics. Central banks should be active to prevent inflationary episodes that agents will remember far into the future
Training Leaders for School Management in Pernambuco
Full text linkIn this Technical Note, we document the unique experience of the state of Pernambuco in restructuring its School Management Training Program (Progepe), adopting the Certificate in Education Finance (CFE) from Georgetown University as its methodological framework. For the first time, the course included educational finance modules, and the study aimed to analyze the profile of the future school managers participating in the program, as well as their perceptions and prior and post-training knowledge regarding education funding at national, local, and school levels. The methodology consisted of administering questionnaires at two different points in the Progepe course: before the program began (Wave I) and at the end of the training (Wave II). The analysis of responses (N5,586) allowed us to identify changes in participants\u27 perceptions regarding various aspects of financial management in education. The key findings from the longitudinal analysis revealed important progress, particularly in the understanding of the concept of efficiency in education funding, as well as improvements in participants\u27 comprehension of the expenditure structure of a Department of Education, with an increase in the recognition of teachers\u27 salaries as the main spending component. The pseudo difference-in-differences analysis did not identify statistically significant patterns of heterogeneous learning among different participant profiles. In conclusion, the Progepe experience demonstrates the relevance and potential of continuing education programs focused on education finance for school managers. However, the study also highlights the need for continuous improvement in such training programs and for more structural changes in the initial training of teachers to strengthen financial management in schools more comprehensively. The lessons learned from Progepe may serve as a reference for other training initiatives in education management, both in Brazil and in other Latin American contexts
Stakeholder Engagement and Information Disclosure
Full text linkThis publication is an update of the technical note on Meaningful Consultation, which described principles and content that should be present for a consultation process to be considered meaningful. The updated publication describes principles of a meaningful stakeholder engagement process from consultation to engagement throughout the lifetime of a program. It is consistent with existing the IDBs Environmental and Social Policy Framework and reflects both explicit and implicit requirements in these policies and accompanying procedures and requirements. It is also broadly consistent with policy requirements of other IFIs, and with national legislation in many countries. The content of the note has also been informed by international good practice developed not only by IFIs, but also by UN agencies such as UNDP; academia; civil society; and others, both through formal policy language or guidance, and more informally through evolving case practice experience
Can Financial Hedging Serve Macroprudential Objectives?
Full text linkWe examine hedging as a macroprudential tool in a Sudden Stops model of an economy exposed to commodity price fluctuations. We find that hedging commodity revenues yields significant welfare gains by stabilizing public expenditure, which heavily depends on these revenues. However, this added stability weakens precautionary motives and exacerbates the pecuniary externality that drives overborrowing in such models. As a result, hedging and traditional macroprudential policy act as complements rather than substitutes, with more ag- gressive hedging inducing a stronger macroprudential response. Our findings suggest that while hedging enhances stability and improves welfare, it does not eliminate the need for macroprudential regulation
Identifying Labor Market Power: A Quasi-Experimental Approach
Full text linkWe test whether firms react to changes in the wages and size of their competitors. We use a unique institutional feature of public procurement auctions in Brazil: the moment in which the auction ends is random. For close auctions, winner and runner-up are as good as randomly assigned. We first show that firm-specific demand shocks lead to increases in the size and wages of the firm receiving the shock. Then, we document that these firm-specific demand shocks lead to increased wages of other (competing) firms in the same local labor market. We do not find negative effects on competitors\u27 firm size. The effects are driven by competing firms responding to demand shocks from firms with high labor market share
AquaFund as a Catalyzer for Water Sanitation and Climate Action in Latin America and the Caribbean
Full text linkLatin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a privileged region in terms of water, accounting for 30 percent of the worlds freshwater resources (The World Bank, 2013). Water plays a pivotal role in the population\u27s health and quality of life. With 140 cities growing at a faster population rate than megacities in the Region, water is the basis for the economic growth of LAC. Water availability, combined with increasing extreme events in the region, are the two main sources of concern for Latin Americas economic growth and safety in the near future. In this context, AquaFund (AQF) has played a leading role in financing and providing technical expertise for water management, adaptation and mitigation policies to generate more resilient economies in the region. This current publication includes a compilation of both the mitigation and adaptation policies adopted by AquaFund\u27s technical cooperation, as well as relevant strategies developed by the Fund that has served as a catalyzer for Water and Climate Action finance
Public Pensions, Retirement, and Earlier-in-Life Labor Supply: Preliminary Evidence from Ecuador
Full text linkPublic pensions may influence labor supply throughout the lifecycle. In this paper, we exploit pension eligibility regulations to study how pension programs impact retirement and earlier-in-life labor supply decisions. Our context is Ecuador, where a workers eligibility age depends on the number of years they have contributed to the social security system. First, we use large-scale administrative data to document spikes in retirement at the pension eligibility ages of 60, 65, and 70. Next, we show how the increases in retirement at each of these eligibility ages are consistent with economic incentives and driven by different groups of people who begin working in the formal labor market at different ages. Finally, we use survey data and a regression discontinuity design to investigate whether eligibility rules influence earlier-in-life decisions about when to begin working in the formal sector. We find a discontinuous increase in transitions to formal work at age 50, consistent with forward-looking people timing their entrance to the formal sector to minimize contributions to the social security system while maintaining eligibility for benefits. Additional analyses on mechanisms shed light on the potential paths workers can take to facilitate these informal-to-formal transitions; the results suggest a key role for family firms
IDB’s Work on Care Systems: An Interactive Menu
No full textCare is essential work and a fundamental pillar for economic growth and well-being. Everyone will require care at some point in their life. Care includes healthcare, household care, care for dependent people and caregivers, and self-care. The following interactive menu of care solutions features some of the latest programs and projects in which the IDB has supported governments in Latin America and the Caribbean. Each category shows the breadth of the work covering different dimensions of care systems, such as governance and financing, services, cultural change, data, regulations, training, quality standards, and support for paid and unpaid caregivers
Inequality in Air Pollution Monitoring and Exposure: Evidence from Four Latin American Cities
Full text linkWe study inequality in monitoring and exposure to particulate matter air pollution in four metropolitan areas of Latin America, Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City, Mexico, Gran Santiago, Chile, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. We find that the population residing in close proximity to at least one monitoring station in Bogota, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo generally have higher educational attainment and income. In contrast, in Gran Santiago, education levels are generally higher further from monitoring stations. In Bogota, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo, the distance to the closest monitoring station declines and the number of monitoring stations within 3 km increases as the mean education level of the census geographic unit increases. Considering only census geographic units that contain a monitoring station, we find that areas where individuals with lower educational attainment reside tend to be exposed to higher pollution levels. While we find small and mostly insignificant disparities in mean annual concentrations of particulate matter, we find that lower education quintiles experience significantly more hours of extreme pollution relative to the highest education quintile. Non-linear effects of pollution imply that the small disparity in mean concentrations likely masks large disparities in the negative impacts of air pollution. Our findings indicate that in Bogota, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo, air pollution exposure is likely to be better monitored for those with higher educational attainment and income, and in all four cities, lower income and education groups have greater exposure to extreme levels of air pollution