We explore the time pattern of remittances using data on return migrants from the Mexican Migration Project. Some of these return migrants have settled in the U.S. and are returning to Mexico to visit family and friends, whereas others are temporary migrants returning home after a working spell in the U.S. We find that the dollar amount remitted first increases with time spent in the U.S. to...

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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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The focus on short-term macroeconomic factors, including unemployment and wages, is insufficient to explain international migration. Institutional factors, bound to change only in the long run, can potentially have a large impact on migration flows. To illustrate this, we analyze Mexico-U.S. migration focusing on social security coverage, an important indicator of job formality. Using...

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In this paper, I use longitudinal data from the 1998 and 2001 Living Standard Measurement Surveys in Nicaragua to examine the impact of the emigration of household members on the household labor market integration and poverty. The main findings of the paper are that households from which an emigrant left had a reduction in members, a reduction in working members, a reduction in labor income than...

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The Inter-American Conference on Social Security (CISS) and Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) co-hosted an international conference on “The Effects of Migration on Sending Countries” in February of 2006. The major objective of the conference was to examine a variety of channels through which migration affects the sending countries. Migrants change the dynamic of sending households; alter labor...

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The 2006 Issue of the Report on Social Security in the Americas is divided in four chapters. The first two chapters address older-adult issues, the third chapter deals with disability-related problems, and the fourth chapter discusses Social Security agreements in the Americas. In the Presentation, it was pointed out that the objective of the Report on Social Security in the Americas is to become...

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This paper describes the Chilean experience concerning the implementation of a new unemployment insurance (UI) program. The use of individual savings accounts and private management are essential elements. In addition, a redistributive fund (Common Fund) helps workers pool risks, distributing resources from employed to unemployed workers and from stable firms to workers with low incomes and...

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This article examines health sector reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean to discuss the ideological, theoretical, and conceptual elements that inform the reform agenda and the models put forward for attaining greater equity in the region’s countries. Its starting assumption is that the relevant literature generally neglects the economic, social, and political aspects underlying the...

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This paper analyzes the roles of health goods and services markets within the regional integration process. It is a known fact that the consolidation of integrated markets is slower regarding social goods and services (as health and education) than among other goods and services (e.g. durable consumption goods). The paper discusses the nature of the health sector and its global dimension, showing...

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This paper reviews the determinants and conditionalities of the process of universalizing public health in developed countries, notably the European ones, and in Brazil, and is aimed at highlighting their differences. The first part discloses the main interpretations on the constructing of the Welfare State, emphasizing the characteristics of that historical moment and its articulation with...

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The formation of social capital is critical for developing countries. This paper investigates the effects of attempts to recover public spaces in marginalized areas of Mexico. The effects are estimated through balancing in the propensity scores. We focus on the results of perception of safety, support and social capital. When efforts are made to recover public spaces, the perception of safety...

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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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Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have proved to be effective in inducing chronic poor households to invest in the human capital of their children while helping reduce poverty. They have also protected child human capital from the shocks that affect these households. In this paper, we argue that many non-poor households exposed to uninsured shocks have to use children as risk coping...

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Over the last decade, Argentina embarked on a broad education reform, the Federal Education Law (LFE), being its main objective to expand access to basic education, mainly, by a new organization of the schooling level structure with the extension of mandatory schooling from 7 to 10 years. The provinces reactions were heterogeneous. We try to evaluate the relationship among the LFE and access and...

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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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Despite countless initiatives to alleviate malnutrition over the years, it affects hundreds of thousands of children in Sri Lanka. Understanding the determinants of malnutrition and their contribution to socio-economic inequality in malnutrition is essential in targeting specific socio-economic groups to improve their nutrition levels. This study attempts to identify the socio-economic...

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This study analyzes achievements and obstacles in the process of moving towards universal coverage of essential health care services in Costa Rica. It describes the country as exemplary in the region, both in terms of population health status as well as health financing indicators. Life expectancy and the level of pre-payment are both comparable to high income countries. However, the process that...

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This paper aims to analyse the space and time distribution of the infant mortality rate (IMR) at municipality level in Colombia before and after conferring greater responsibilities to the municipalities for the administration of the local health care systems. Using special econometrics, we find that there is a geographical concentration of IMR persisting over time and defining two groups 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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Micro and small-sized enterprises (MSE) have a central role in economic development in Latin America given their large contribution to employment generation, their share in the total number of firms and, to a lesser extent, their contribution to gross domestic product. Yet, their production is mainly oriented to the domestic market and they are characterized by an increasing productivity gap with...

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