Salud, interculturalidad y comportamientos de riesgo

Este libro reúne las investigaciones asociadas a tres ponencias presentadas en el Seminario “Desigualdad, salud y educación”, realizado en Lima en noviembre del 2010 con el auspicio de la Fundación Ford, actividad que constituyó la principal celebración del Grupo de Análisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE) por sus 30 años de labor académica profesional.  Para organizarlo se contó con el apoyo del Instituto de Educación Internacional y del Centro Internacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo (IDRC). Este evento fue uno de los tres seminarios llevados a cabo en ocho días de trabajo que tuvieron lugar en distintas fechas y con la asistencia de un público muy diverso de funcionarios, académicos, estudiantes y representantes de la sociedad civil.   Autor: Varios autores. 2011   Haga click en el vínculo para descargarlo http://www.grade.org.pe/publicaciones/detalle/1049

Segregación educativa y la brecha salarial por género entre los recién graduados universitarios en Colombia

By:	Laura Cepeda Emiliani Juan D. Barón
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000102:009310&r=lam
In this paper we show the importance of subject of degree in explaining the gender wage gap in Colombia. In order to minimize the influence of gender differences in experience, promotions, and job changes on the wage gap, we focus on college graduates who have a formal job and who have been in the labor market at most one year. Using unique, administrative datasets with detailed subjects of degree, we find that the wage gap against women is on average 11% and that 40% of it can be explained by differences in subject of degree. Using a distributional decomposition, we find an increasing gender wage gap across the distribution of wages (from 2% at the bottom to 15% at the top), although subject of degree explains a lower 30% of the gap at the top. Policies designed to reduce the gender wage gap need to address the differing gender educational choices and the factors that influence them. These policies would be more effective in reducing the gap for median wage earners. RESUMEN: En este trabajo mostramos la importancia del área de estudio para explicar la brecha de salarios por género en Colombia. Para minimizar la influencia que pueden tener las diferencias por género en la experiencia, ascensos laborales y cambios de trabajo sobre la brecha, nos enfocamos en los graduados universitarios con trabajos formales que hayan estado en el mercado laboral como máximo un año. Utilizando bases de datos administrativas y únicas con información detallada acerca de las áreas de estudio de los graduados, encontramos que la brecha salarial en contra de las mujeres es en promedio 11% y que el 40% de ella puede ser explicada por diferencias en el área de estudio. Asimismo, una descomposición en la distribución salarial nos muestra que la brecha aumenta a lo largo de la distribución (de 2% en la parte baja a 15% en la parte alta), aunque el área de estudio explica un porcentaje menor, 30 %, de la brecha en la parte alta. Las políticas diseñadas para reducir la brecha deben enfocarse en las distintas decisiones educativas que toman hombres y mujeres y los factores que las influencian. Estas políticas serían más efectivas en reducir la brecha para los que ganan salarios cercanos a la media.

Yet Another Look at the Modernisation Hypothesis: Evidence from Latin America

By:	Manoel Bittencourt (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201205&r=lam
We investigate in this paper whether the modernisation hypothesis holds in Latin America, and our sample includes nine Latin American countries that re-democratised in the last forty years or so. The data set covers the period between 1970 and 2007, and the results, based on dynamic panel data analysis (we use the Fixed Effects, Fixed Effects with Instrumental Variables, DIF-GMM and SYS-GMM estimators), suggest that the modernisation hypothesis holds in the region, or that income, or development in general, play a positive role on democracy. We also test for the critical junctures hypothesis, or whether particular historical structural changes play any role in contemporaneous democratisation in the region, however we are not able to provide any concrete evidence in favour of it. Essentially, we suggest that a certain level of development is an important condition for democracy to mature and survive, which-- in times of a new democratisation wave taking place in societies with different levels of development-- is a suggestive observation.
Keywords:	Modernisation hypothesis, democracy, development, Latin America
JEL:	O10

Labor Informality and the Incentive Effects of Social Security: Evidence from a Health Reform in Uruguay

By:	Marcelo Bérgolo Guillermo Cruces
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:62318&r=lam
This paper studies the incentive effects of social security benefits on labor market informality following a policy reform in Uruguay. The reform extended health benefits to dependent children of private sector salaried workers, and thus altered the incentive structure of holding formal jobs within the household. The identification strategy of the reform¿s effects relies on a comparison between workers with children (affected by the reform) and those without children (unaffected by the reform). Difference in differences estimates indicate a substantial effect of this expansion of coverage on informality rates, which fell significantly by about 1.3 percentage points (a 5 percent change) among workers in the treatment group with respect to those in the control group. The evidence also indicates that individuals within households jointly optimized their allocation of labor to the formal and informal sector. Workers responded to the increased incentives for only one member of the household to work in the formal sector. These findings provide evidence of the relevant and substantial incentive effects of social security benefits on the allocation of employment.
Keywords:	Labor :: Workforce & Employment, Labor :: Social Security, Health :: Health Policy, CEDLAS

Is There Such Thing as Middle Class Values? Class Differences, Values and Political Orientations in Latin America

By:	López-Calva, Luis Felipe (World Bank) Rigolini, Jamele (World Bank) Torche, Florencia (New York University)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6292&r=lam
Middle class values have long been perceived as drivers of social cohesion and growth. In this paper we investigate the relation between class (measured by the position in the income distribution), values, and political orientations using comparable values surveys for six Latin American countries. We find that both a continuous measure of income and categorical measures of income-based class are robustly associated with values. Both income and class tend to display a similar association to values and political orientations as education, although differences persist in some important dimensions. Overall, we do not find strong evidence of any "middle class particularism": values appear to gradually shift with income, and middle class values lay between the ones of poorer and richer classes. If any, the only peculiarity of middle class values is moderation. We also find changes in values across countries to be of much larger magnitude than the ones dictated by income, education and individual characteristics, suggesting that individual values vary primarily within bounds dictated by each society.
Keywords:	middle class, income, values, political orientations
JEL:	D3

Retirement and home production : A regression discontinuity approach

By: Elena Stancanelli (Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques)
Arthur Van Soest (Tilburg University, Netspar)


URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fce:doctra:1128&r=ltv


Existing studies show that individuals who retire replace some private consumption by home production, but do not consider joint behaviour of couples. Here we analyze the causal effect of retirement of each partner on hours of home production of both partners in a couple. Our identification strategy exploits the earliest age retirement laws in France, enabling a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach. We find that own retirement significantly increases own hours of home production and the effect is larger for men than for women. Moreover, retirement of the female partner significantly reduces male hours of home production but not vice versa.
Keywords: House work, Ageing,Retirement,Regression Discontinuity
JEL: D13

Número de hermanos, orden de nacimiento y resultados educativos en la niñez: evidencia en Perú

Víctor Saldarriaga   

 

SALDARRIAGA, Víctor. Número de hermanos, orden de nacimiento y resultados educativos en la niñez: evidencia en Perú. Lima: GRADE, 2011. 111p. Avances de Investigación, 1. 
[sólo versión electrónica]

http://www.grade.org.pe/upload/publicaciones/archivo/download/pubs/AI_1.pdf

El presente estudio investiga el efecto del número de hijos y el orden de nacimiento en la asistencia a la escuela, en la probabilidad de retraso escolar y en el año o grado normativo para la edad en niños de 6 a 14 años de edad.

La estrategia de identificación se basa en el uso de variables instrumentales, tomando los eventos de nacimientos múltiples y preferencias por balance de sexo de los hijos como potenciales instrumentos de identificación. Utilizando datos de las Encuestas Demográficas y de Salud Familiar (ENDES) de los años 1996, 2000, 2004-2008 y 2009, se encuentra que un hijo adicional en familias afectadas por eventos de nacimientos múltiples incrementa la probabilidad de asistencia a la escuela de los hijos mayores entre 3,5 y 4,5 puntos porcentuales. Este efecto es mayor en niños residentes en zonas rurales, en los varones y en aquellos niños que reportan vivir en hogares donde ambos padres se encuentran presentes. No obstante, el efecto es menor para niños con edades más cercanas a los 6 años.

No se encuentran efectos significativos en la probabilidad de retraso escolar ni tampoco en el año o grado normativo para la edad de los niños, lo cual sugiere que no existe un vínculo causal entre el tamaño familiar y el progreso escolar de los niños. Adicionalmente, se encuentran efectos diferenciados de acuerdo al orden de nacimiento de los hijos.

Impacto del programa Juntos sobre nutrición temprana

Miguel Jaramillo    Alan Sánchez   

JARAMILLO, Miguel y Alan SÁNCHEZ. Impacto del programa Juntos sobre nutrición temprana. Lima: GRADE, 2011. 70p. Documento de Investigación, 61.

http://www.grade.org.pe/upload/publicaciones/archivo/download/pubs/ddt61.pdf

Desde fines del 2005, el programa Juntos brinda transferencias monetarias condicionadas a los hogares ubicados en los distritos pobres del Perú. En el año 2010, había alrededor de 420 mil hogares beneficiados. Si bien se evidencian mejoras en los indicadores nutricionales de los niños afiliados al programa, la pregunta de la investigación es: ¿hasta qué punto estas mejoras serían consecuencia de Juntos? Esta pregunta es válida dado que durante el periodo de estudio existe una tendencia clara hacia la reducción en los niveles de desnutrición crónica a nivel nacional. Según cifras oficiales, la desnutrición crónica disminuyó de 28.5% en 2007 a 23.2% en 2010.

Los resultados evidencian que Juntos habría favorecido a aquellos niños ubicados en los percentiles inferiores de la distribución de estado nutricional, ayudándolos a superar la desnutrición crónica extrema; sin embargo, no ha tenido efectos sobre la desnutrición crónica global. Así mismo, comparando hogares afiliados al programa, no se detecta un efecto sobre el estado nutricional del tiempo de permanencia en el programa. Finalmente, se encuentra evidencia de efectos heterogéneos de Juntos, de manera tal que niños nacidos en hogares con madres con mayor educación tienden a beneficiarse del efecto nutricional del programa.

Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2010: Stabilization after the Crisis

By:	René Maldonado Natasha Bajuk María Luisa Hayem
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:61918&r=lam
This paper deals with remittance trends in Latin America and the Caribbean, including statistics and indicators. In 2010, remittance flows to Latin America and the Caribbean marked the end of the downward trend brought on by the 2008-2009 global financial and economic crisis. The overall regional volume of remittances sent home reached levels similar to the previous year with a slight increase of 0.2%. However, higher inflation rates and stronger local currencies in many countries resulted in an -8.7% drop in the value of these remittances, once received.
Keywords:	Financial Sector :: Financial Services, Financial Sector :: Remittances, Economics :: Financial Crises & Economic Stabilization, Labor :: Workforce & Employment, Social Development :: Migration & Migrants, cash flows, remittance sending countries

New Developments in the Measurement of Welfare and Well-being

By: Bernard M.S. van Praag (University of Amsterdam)
Erik J.S. Plug (University of Amsterdam)


URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20120005&r=ltv


This paper is dating from 1995, when it has been presented at the Ragnar Frisch Centennial Memorial Conference in Oslo. It has never been published before. In this paper for the first time the Cantril ladder question data have been employed in the way which later has become known as happiness economics. After two introductory sections 1and 2, Section 3 explains the Leyden School methodology to estimate financial satisfaction or in traditional terms a (cardinal) welfare function of money. In Section 4 the Cantril ladder question is employed to estimate a function of satisfaction with life as a whole. It is found that well-being is quadratic in the number of children, leading to an optimum number of children, given income and given the fact of a one-breadwinner- or two- breadwinners-family. In Section 5 the effects of children on financial satisfaction and on satisfaction with life as a whole are compared. With respect to financial satisfaction it is found that the more children there are the smaller financial satisfaction. Comparison of the two effects makes it possible to distinguish between the monetary cost associated with having children and the non-monetary benefits caused by having children. Part of this paper is based on Plug and Van Praag (1995).
Keywords: happiness economics; Leyden School; Cantril Ladder; family equivalence scales; costs and benefits of children
JEL: B50

Under-investment in state capacity: the role of inequality and political instability

By: Mauricio Cárdenas
Didem Tuzemen


URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedkrw:rwp11-07&r=ltv


Existing studies have shown that the state's ability to tax, also known as fiscal capacity, is positively related to economic development. In this paper, we analyze the determinants of the government's decision to invest in state capacity, which involves a trade-off between present consumption and the ability to collect more taxes in the future. Using a model, we highlight some political and economic dimensions of this decision and conclude that political stability, democracy, income inequality, as well as the valuation of public goods relative to private goods, are important variables to consider. We then test the main predictions of the model using cross-country data and find that state capacity is higher in more stable and equal societies, both in economic and political terms, and in countries where the chances of fighting an external war are high, which is a proxy for the value of public goods.