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Publications (112)
Journal Article
– Evidence from Mexican municipalities
Part of Journal Special Issue
Clientelist Politics and Development
Journal Article
– Supply vs demand factors
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study estimates the relative importance of alternative supply and demand mechanisms in explaining the rise of female labor-force participation (FLFP) over the last 55 years in Mexico. The growth of FLFP in Mexico between 1960 and 2015 followed an S-shaped, with a...
Working Paper
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Violent conflicts affect the lives and livelihoods of almost one quarter of the world’s population. But the effects of violent conflict are not uniform. This study assesses the differential effects of violent conflict on young people’s education, job prospects, and forms of civic engagement and...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Latin American countries
Part of Journal Special Issue
Women’s Work
Working Paper
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We investigate the impact of childhood exposure to organized criminal violence on sociopolitical attitudes in Mexico, where an entire generation of youths has been raised amid the country’s most violent conflict over the past century. We fielded an in-person survey to nearly 3,000 urban youths...
Working Paper
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– The role of oil theft and narcocracy and the electoral consequences of organized crime
When does organized crime resort to assassinating politicians? In narcocracies, criminal groups co-opt political elites through bribery in exchange for protection to traffic illegal drugs. When criminal groups compete, they may also resort to political violence to influence which candidate wins...
Government responsiveness is an integral feature of representative democracy. Its importance could be amplified in times of crisis, especially if citizens cannot rely on market actors for help. Governments can soften the impacts of negative shocks to the status quo, or exponentiate them by their...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The nature of informal employment in urban Mexico
Part of Journal Special Issue
What sustains informality
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Mexican informal and formal workers
Part of Journal Special Issue
What sustains informality
Working Paper
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This paper analyses the land tenure reform that took place in Mexico in 1992 and its PROCEDE programme (Ejido Rights Certification Programme). It considers the counter-agrarian reform’s objectives, the context in which it was proposed, and the different actors involved. It delves into the main...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Mexican municipalities
Does clientelism perpetuate the weak state capacity that characterizes many young democracies? Prior work explains that clientelist parties skew public spending to private goods and under-supply public goods. Building on these insights, this article argues that clientelism creates a bureaucratic...
Working Paper
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Voter coercion is a recurrent threat to pro-poor redistribution in young democracies. In this study we focus on Mexico’s paradigmatic Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) programme. We investigate whether local mayors exploited POP to coerce voters, and if so, what effect these actions had on the...
Working Paper
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There are sound theoretical reasons to expect clientelism to suppress economic growth: politicians who garner support by offering employment to voters and grassroots party members can do so more effectively when the voters’ participation constraint is met with low wages. Hence, clientelism can...
Blog
At the global level, gender gaps in labour force participation have narrowed and over half a billion women have joined the workforce in the last 30 years. However, there is enormous variation in women's labour force participation (FLFP) across low- and middle-income countries, and there is no clear...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Labour markets and fiscal redistribution 1989–2014
From the book:
Inequality in the Developing World
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Latin American countries
We study the causal effect of motherhood on labour market outcomes in Latin America by adopting an event study approach around the birth of the first child based on panel data from national household surveys for Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay.Our main contributions are: (i) providing new and...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Mexican informal and formal workers
In this paper we analyse informal work in Mexico, which accounts for the majority of employment in the country and has grown over time. We document that the informal sector is composed of two distinct parts: salaried informal employment and self-employment. Relative to self-employment and formal...
Working Paper
pdf
– Supply vs demand factors
We estimate the relative importance of alternative labour supply and demand mechanisms in explaining the rise of female labour force participation over the last 55 years in Mexico. The growth of female labour force participation in Mexico between 1960 and 2015 followed an S-shape, with a...
Working Paper
pdf
– Uncovering the nature of informal employment in urban Mexico
Using a special module of the 2015 Mexican Labour Force Survey with information on workers’ preferences for jobs with social security coverage, I estimate that 80 per cent of informal workers in large urban areas would prefer to work in a job that provides them with such coverage. A discrete choice...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from changes in the occupational structure of employment in the USA and Mexico
The decline of employment in middle-wage, routine task intensive jobs has been well documented for the USA. Increased offshoring towards lower-income countries such as Mexico has been proposed as a potential driver of this decline. Our analysis provides a unique and new approach to address the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The Case of Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera Programme
This paper follows a quasi-experimental research design to assess the impact of the electronic payment system of Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) programme. The switch from cash payments to electronic payments delivered via savings accounts is found to have medium-term effects on...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– 1990–2015
This article is currently available on early view. The paper studies the decline of the labor income share (LIS) in Mexico during the period 1990–2015. The decline is mostly explained by reductions within the economy’s major sectors (including manufacturing, tradables, and non-tradables) rather than...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A transition model for Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera program
The effects of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) on poverty and well-being have been widely studied. However, there is limited knowledge on how a CCT should respond to the dynamics of poverty. How should program administrators treat beneficiaries that exit poverty in period t-1, but exhibit a high...
Income inequality is the result of complex processes with multiple interacting driving forces but understanding those drivers in emerging economies is particularly difficult because of data and analytical challenges. While most middle-income countries produce comprehensive household surveys these...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from the Panic of 1907
Using height as a proxy for physical productivity of labour, this paper estimates the selection of Mexican migration to the United States at the beginning of the flow (1906–08), and it exploits a natural experiment of history to evaluate the impact of random shocks on short-run shifts in selection...
Blog
As with many other developed and emerging economies, in recent decades Mexico has experienced a long-term decline in the labour income share. In other words, wages have decreased compared with other sources of income such as capital income. The share of wages in total income has fallen from about 40...
– On the rise again
Since 1989, inequality in Mexico has risen, declined, and risen again. The evolution of labour income inequality is at the core of this pattern. To reverse the current trend of rising inequality, access to secondary and tertiary education should continue to expand, minimum wages should be increased...
Working Paper
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– Labour markets and fiscal redistribution 1989–2014
Income inequality in Mexico increased between 1989 and 1994; between 1994 and 2006, inequality declined; and, between 2006 and 2014, inequality was again on the rise. We apply decomposition techniques to analyse the proximate determinants of labour income inequality and fiscal incidence analysis to...
As with many other developed and emerging economies, in recent decades Mexico has experienced a long-term decline in the labour income share. The decline is observed in both the share of wages in value added and in more comprehensive measures that include the labour income of the self-employed. What...
Working Paper
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– The case of Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera programme
This study presents an analysis of the electoral impacts of one of the most prominent conditional cash transfers in the world: Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) programme. Using population censuses, and POP’s administrative records and elections data, we exploit the targeting criteria...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Analyzing income distribution changes for the case of Mexico
Part of Journal Special Issue
Inequality
Working Paper
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– 1992–2015
This paper uses income and expenditure surveys from 1992 to 2014 and public tax and spending accounts to estimate the redistributive impact of Mexico’s fiscal system over this period. It presents standard and marginal benefit incidence analysis for the principal public transfers (education, health...
Working Paper
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– Puzzles solved and unsolved
We analyse the evolution and proximate determinants of labour income inequality in Mexico between 1989 and 2017. Labour income inequality increased between 1989 and 1994 and declined between 1994 and 2006. What happened after 2006 is subject to uncertainty. The national labour force survey shows a...
Working Paper
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– 1990–2015
This paper studies the decline of the labour share in Mexico during the period 1990–2015. It calculates the wage share and alternative measures of the labour income share (which includes labour income of the self-employed) for the whole economy, the private business sector, and its major economic...
Working Paper
pdf
– Indigenous opposition to wind farm development in Mexico
In less than a decade, foreign investors have erected more than 3,200 wind turbines across the Isthmus of Techuantepec investing billions of dollars and generating more than 90 per cent of Mexico’s wind energy. The isthmus is also home to more than one thousand indigenous communities whose ancestors...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Mexico
In the absence of health insurance, households have to self-insure against the risk of ill health, which may involve the use of mechanisms that have long-term consequences. This study analyses whether Mexican households are able to smooth consumption after severe health shocks, as well as the...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Mexico during the 2008 financial crisis
This paper explores the relationship between a large government cash transfer programme, changes in inequality, and political participation in Mexico. The results show that increases in the coverage of the programme during the 2008 financial crisis resulted in greater individual participation in the...
Working Paper
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The market environment in which discriminatory firms operate may be a relevant determinant of their extent of discrimination. In this paper we aim at analysing the effect of local labour market conditions on a firm’s decision to discriminate. We use a direct measure of discrimination using online...
Working Paper
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Mexico’s low-carbon technology perspectives show lack of coherence with the rising ambition in climate change commitments, for which Mexico is internationally praised. The comparison of two recent energy reforms, corresponding to two administrations, explains this lack of coherence by, on the one...
Working Paper
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– Mexico country study
During the 2000s Mexico grew less than the average for Latin America. Labour market indicators exhibited mixed changes, with improvements over the period for some of them and deterioration for others. The country was severely hurt by the international crisis of 2008, but Mexico surpassed its pre...
Working Paper
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– Anonymous Versus Panel Income Approaches
We reconcile, both theoretically and empirically, changes in inequality with panel income changes over periods of economic growth and decline. We also explore what factors account for the trends of short-run inequality and of inequality in individual average earnings. Finally, we explore what...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Electoral Outcomes of Mexico's Certification Program
Part of Journal Special Issue
Land and Property Rights
Working Paper
pdf
– A Transitional Model for Mexico’s Oportunidades Programme
Social protection programmes have emerged as one of the most important anti-poverty policy strategies in developing countries. Their effects on poverty and well-being have been widely studied. Yet, there is limited knowledge on how a transfer programme should respond to the dynamics of poverty. This...
Working Paper
pdf
– The Impact of Oportunidades’ Electronic Payment System in Mexico
This paper follows a quasi-experimental research design to assess the impact of the electronic payment system of Mexico’s Oportunidades programme. The switch from cash payments to electronic payments delivered via a bank account is found to have implications in terms of reallocation between saving...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Falling Inequality in Latin America
Improved household accessibility to credit is a significant determinant of intra-household allocation of labor resources with important implications for productivity, income, and poverty status. However, credit accessibility could also have wider impacts on poverty if it leads to new hires outside...
Blog
– An Interview with James Foster
17 October 2013 James Foster describes the importance of moving beyond income poverty as a way of assessing 'who is poor?' and 'how poor?'. Multidimensional poverty includes dimensions such as education, health, living conditions, and sanitation. Latin and Central American governments (initially...
Blog
Rachel M. Gisselquist There is much to commend in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as we approach their target deadline of 2015. In addition to the major improvements achieved in poverty, health, and education, the establishment of a set of worldwide targets, and their incorporation by...
Blog
– Mobility and Vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean
Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva [1] The concept of social class and specifically middle class, has been widely discussed in sociology and other social sciences, but mostly ignored in modern economics. In practice, the middle class has been defined in terms of income, consumption patterns, occupational...
Working Paper
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– a Subjective Well-Being Approach
A subjective well-being approach is followed to assess the magnitude of inefficiency in the use of income. The information comes from a Mexican survey and an X-inefficiency technique is used. The paper shows that there exists substantial inefficiency in the use of income at all income levels, even...
Working Paper
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Using panel datasets from Mexico and Chile for the 2000s, we examine the determinants of middle-class intra-generational mobility. We define the middle class by means of a latent index of economic wellbeing that is less sensitive to short-term fluctuation and measurement error than standard measures...
Blog
Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a glimmer of better days to come. I heard birdsong for the first time last week, and the great annual bird migrations into our northern lands are now underway...
Working Paper
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Inequality in Mexico rose between 1989 and 1994 and declined between 1994 and 2010. We examine the role of market forces (demand and supply of labour by skill), institutional factors (minimum wages and unionization rate), and public policy (cash transfers) in explaining changes in inequality. We...
Working Paper
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– Electoral outcomes of Mexico’s second land reform
The Mexican land reform, one of the most sweeping in the world, proceeded in two steps: it granted peasants highly incomplete property rights on more than half of the Mexican territory starting in 1914, creating strong economic and political dependence for beneficiaries on the ruling political party...
Book Chapter
Flera länder i Latin- och Sydamerika har under det senaste decenniet infört sociala trygghetssystem för att minska den utbredda fattigdomen. Miguel NiñoZarazúa går här igenom bakgrunden till dessa reformer och vilka effekter de har fått. Fokus ligger framför allt på Progresa/Oportunidades i Mexiko...
Journal Article
Part of Journal Special Issue
Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality in Latin America
Journal Article
Part of Journal Special Issue
Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality in Latin America
Working Paper
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Static and dynamic gains from trade are the reasons why countries embark on the path of free trade, expecting this to promote industrialization and development. There is nothing, however, in the conventional theory of international trade that guarantees that these gains will materialize and even if...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Mexico
This paper uses a subjective wellbeing approach to study the role of household arrangements on the health satisfaction of an individual. It also studies the impact of household arrangements on health satisfaction across different income groups, by contrasting two main theories of the family: the...
Working Paper
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International remittances have been portrayed as the human face of globalization given their potential to alleviate poverty by directly increasing household income. Using a panel of rural households in Mexico from October 1998 to November 2000 this study assesses whether this is in fact the case...
Book Chapter
– Issues, Empirical Results and Programmes in Latin America
From the book:
The International Mobility of Talent
Displaying 64 of 112 results