This study uses data from Colombia’s 2003 Encuesta de Calidad de Vida to examine how well do electricity strata (proxy for socioeconomic status) explain the choice decision for type of institution and session attended. In the model of choice by type – private vs. public universities – I find that as the electricity strata increases, the marginal probability of enrolling in a public university...

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Se ha relacionado el capital social a la eficiencia en los mercados (Arrow, 1972), al refuerzo del contrato (Durlauf y Fafchamps, 2004) y en general al desarrollo y bienestar (Keefer y Knack 1997; Putnam 2000; Knack y Zak 2003). En el presente trabajo hemos investigado los determinantes del capital social empíricamente, centrándose en tres medidas comunes aproximadas de este: dos ligadas a la...

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This study uses Mexico's 2008 National Household Survey of Income and Expenditure to I construct an easy-to-use scorecard that estimates the likelihood that a household has income below a given poverty line. The scorecard uses ten simple indicators that field workers can quickly collect and verify. Poverty scores can be computed on paper in the field in about five to ten minutes. The scorecard's...

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Designing educational policies under limited budgets requires a thorough analysis of the impact of alternative factors on student performance. This work aims at providing an analysis of the relationship between university performance and its explanatory factors. The analysis Will focus on the Argentinean case, using the 1994 Census of Students in National Universities, which includes data on all...

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The Mexican social security system, after operating for over six decades, has managed to provide healthcare for slightly over half the resident population. There are wide geographical and socioeconomic variations in coverage. To provide wider coverage, the Federal Government created the Sistema de Protección Social en Salud (SPSS) for covering low income family. It becomes the third...

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We present a descriptive analysis of the results of Mexico's 2009 Economic Census regarding the use of bank credit and accounts by productive entities (companies). INEGI was requested to prepare a set of statistics regarding various company characteristics that are relevant to the decisions made by institutions offering banking services. Information was grouped according to company size and to...

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Mexican Government’s Banks offer loan guarantees to private banks in order to spur credit directed to non-financial small and medium sized firms and this policy is examined here. Application of representative data to the comparative static analysis of the guarantee-use decision suggests that these schemes, as currently designed, are justifiable from an economic viewpoint. However, there is some...

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The results of 2000 study of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that while Argentinean students performed similar to their peers in most other Latin American countries, they lagged behind all OECD and most of other participating countries. Attention needs to be given to further master the reading, math and science skills that are needed for a knowledge economy; and...

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In March 2004, BANSEFI and SAGARPA began a project to examine the impact on households I of the Program to Strengthen the Popular Credit and Savings Sector (Programa de Fortalecimiento del Sector de Ahorro y Crédito Popular), which was designed to help non-bank financial intermediaries to abide by the Ley de Ahorro y Crédito Popular (LACP), passed by the Mexican Congress in 2001. During the...

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The book by Cristian Baeza and Truman Packard is based on the next hypothesis: adverse health events reduce the consumption of goods and services different from health services, and many households become poor because of that. While the authors recognize that the evidence they present on the topic is limited, they propose the use of a “universal risk pool” as a way to eliminate the problem of...

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This is a stimulating book which explores the relationship between employment conditions and health outcomes. The authors provide a conceptual framework to illustrate the channels through which health outcomes are determined and affected; this framework includes individual and aggregate variables, such as the economic, political and environmental conditions. The book also includes case studies...

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This book gathers analyses performed by several authors on policies considered appropriate by the World Bank to enhance the quality of basic education provided in Mexico, in particular, education received by majority sectors in our society (World Bank: 2005).

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The Evaluation Report on Social Development Policy in Mexico was published by the National Council for Social Development Policy Evaluation (CONEVAL) in 2008. The Council is one of the constituting elements of the new institutional framework to evaluate the public sector performance, particularly social development policies that were put in place mostly during the first decade of this century....

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The international financial crisis of 2008-2009, its impact on economic activity and contrasting I responses to face it have given new impetus to the debate Between academics, international organization representatives and public officers on the scope for public policies to reduce the adverse impact of externa) shocks and trigger sustainable long-term growth in production and employment. The...

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The book “Public Policy for an Inclusive Growth” (The book) is an opportune and fortunate document. It is opportune because it is presented at a time in which public policy topics are subject to a wide debate in Mexico, and the discussion is fed with diverse points of view, theoretical and political, from which it is the purpose to analyze, design, redesign, implement, and evaluate the government...

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The Economics of Crime: Lessons for and from Latin America makes an important contribution to the study of crime and violence in Latin America and to the debate about what works for reducing crime (and at what cost?). As the title of the book correctly suggests, the book brings together contributions from Latin American economists on the determinants and consequences of crime, as well as...

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The book by Armendáriz and Morduch focuses on how microfinance institutions work, what has been their impact and whether they are financially sustainable. For such purpose the book can be divided—from my viewpoint—into six sections. The first describes the environment of imperfect information that surrounds credit transactions and the consequences that this entails. First the authors define in a...

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Why societies differ in their level of violence? This is the question addressed by North, Wallis, and Weingast. To provide an answer they must develop a rich theory of how individuals and organizations that compose a human group voluntarily surrender their will to act violently in exchange for participating in a society with improved conditions for the creation and conservation of wealth.

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The objective of this article is to put in economic perspective the expenditure in health within the pattern of family expenditure of the Mexican households. Information of the National Survey on Income Expenditure of Households (ENIGH) of Mexico of 2004 is analyzed on: structure of the expenditure of the households, expenditure in health and income-expenditure elasticities in health; by...

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The teachers union in Mexico, or Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE) represents over 1 million members and is the largest in Latin America. This study uses data from the national student tests administered by the Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación (INEE), along with data from the Mexican Ministry of Education and other sources, to investigate the...

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