Three
Decades of Neoliberal Economics
in Chile. Achievements, Failures and Dilemmas
Andrés Solimano - June 2009
The Chilean development story of the
last two to three decades is a mix of successes in
the macro, growth, poverty and trade fronts but also of failure in
reducing chronic
inequality of income and wealth. In addition, the current growth
patterns have serious
impacts on the environment, natural resources and energy demand.
Adverse features of
the Chilean development model include urban insecurity and rising
crime, pollution,
pressure on natural resources, congestion and social stratification in
access to education,
health and pensions. A reduction in social inequality would require
changes in several
fronts: more public-sector resources devoted to education; curtailing
current
concentration of wealth and market shares in banking, retail trade, and
private pensions
systems, private health provision, and other sectors; more effective
regulation of big
business; rebalancing of labour unions’ bargaining power capacities and
…/.
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RP2006/38
Melanie Grosse, Kenneth Harttgen, and Stephan Klasen
Measuring
Pro-Poor Progress towards the Non-Income Millennium Development Goals
- (PDF 346KB)
In order to track progress in MDG1 and explicitly link growth,
inequality, and poverty
reduction, several measures of ‘pro-poor growth’ have been proposed in
the literature and
used in applied academic and policy work. These measures, particularly
the ones derived
from the growth incidence curve, allow a much more detailed assessment
of the
distributional impact of growth and its link to poverty reduction.
However, there are no
corresponding measures for tracking the distribution of progress in
non-income dimensions
of poverty, and thus the distribution of progress towards MDGs 2-7. In
this paper, we
propose to extend the pro-poor growth measurement to non-income
dimensions of poverty
(particularly health and education). We empirically illustrate the
approach for Bolivia and
show that it allows a much more detailed assessment of progress towards
MDGs 2-7 by
focusing on the distribution of progress. Furthermore, this extension
also allows an explicit
assessment of the linkage between progress in MDG1 and MDGs 2-7 as well
as extends
traditional incidence analysis by quantifying outcomes in non-income
dimensions of
poverty along the income distribution.
DP2006/04
George Rapsomanikis and Alexander Sarris
The
Impact of Domestic and International Commodity Price Volatility on
Agricultural
Income Instability: Ghana, Vietnam and Peru (PDF
152KB)
The extent to which commodity price volatility affects the income of
producing households
and their vulnerability to poverty and food insecurity depends on
household diversification
patterns and the degree of their exposure to markets. This article
focuses on estimating
agricultural income uncertainties for a number of different household
types in Ghana,
Vietnam and Peru. We develop explicit formulae for household income
variance, and we
combine information from household datasets and commodity price
time-series in order to
estimate the income uncertainty that emanates from price and production
volatility under
different scenarios of exposure to international and domestic markets
shocks. Our results
indicate that market and nonmarket uncertainties significantly affect
the variability of
agricultural income of households in these countries, and especially
households that are
specialized in a few commodities. However, it turns out that, under
current policies, almost
all of their income variability is due to domestic factors, with
international prices not
contributing much, at least in the short run. Wider exposure to
international markets would
increase the income variability of producers who have been subjected to
domestic market
stabilization policies in Ghana and Vietnam, while it would decrease it
in the case of Peru.
DP2003/73
Javier Escobal and Máximo Torero:
Adverse
Geography and Differences in Welfare in Peru - (PDF
3120KB)
In Peru, a country with an astonishing variety of different ecological
areas, with 84
different climate zones and landscapes, with rainforests, high mountain
ranges and dry
deserts, the geographical context may not be all that matters, but it
could be very
significant in explaining regional variations in income and poverty.
The major question
this paper tries to answer is: what role do geographic variables, both
natural and manmade,
play in explaining per capita expenditure differentials across regions
within Peru?
How have these influences changed over time, through what channels have
they been
transmitted, and has access to private and public assets compensated
for the effects of
an adverse geography?
We have shown that what seem to be sizeable geographic differences in
poverty rates in
Peru can be almost fully explained when one takes into account the
spatial
concentration of households with readily observable non-geographic
characteristics, in
particular public and private assets. In other words, the same
observationally equivalent
household has a similar expenditure level in one place as another with
different
geographic characteristics such as altitude or temperature. This does
not mean, however,
that geography is not important but that its influence on poverty,
expenditure level and
growth differential comes about through a spatially uneven provision of
public
infrastructure…/…
RP2005/63
Rafael E. De Hoyos
The
Microeconomics of Inequality, Poverty and Market Liberalizing Reforms
(PDF 472KB)
This paper illustrates how the use of microeconometric techniques can
be used to
uncover the micro dynamics behind macro shocks. Using Mexican micro
data we find
out that—controlling for everything else—between 1994 and 1998 returns
to personal
characteristics in the tradable sector increased particularly those of
skilled labourers. By
the year 2000 the positive shock upon the tradeable sector vanishes
with returns to
personal characteristics converging to the levels observed in the
non-tradable sector. We
use our model’s results to simulate a scenario where the Mexican
economy experienced the negative shock of the peso crises in the
absence of trade liberalization (NAFTA) and
find out that under such a scenario the poverty headcount ratio would
have increased
more than 2 percentage points above the one observed in 1996. The
simulated
second order
effect of these changes shows that the skill mixed changed in a way
that favoured
relatively skilled men and relatively unskilled women. These changes in
labour
participation and occupation had an overall positive income effect
though adverse in
distributive terms.
-
Lucero, Jose Antonio. 2004.
Indigenous
Political Voice and the Struggle for Recognition in Ecuador and Bolivia.
Indigenous struggles in Ecuador and Bolivia provide instructive and
challenging cases of the politics of (in)equity in that conditions of
economic and political crisis (the “lost decade”) coincided with the
emergence of striking indigenous political voice (a decade in which
“Indians won” as Luis Macas put it). Ecuador and Bolivia are often
described as among the more economically and politically troubled
countries in the Americas. These two Andean states are sometimes called
the poorest countries in the hemisphere as a majority of people in each
country lives below the poverty line (Ecuador 67%; Bolivia 63%). With
the more comprehensive metric of the Human Development Index, these
states fare a bit better but still decidedly in the bottom half of
Medium Human Development countries; Ecuador occupying the 100th place,
Bolivia the 114th in the HDI rankings of 177 countries. Politically,
“inchoate party systems” in both countries have done a poor job of
representing the interests of the excluded sectors of society and
massive social protests have driven democratically-elected presidents
from office (2000 in Ecuador, 2003 in Bolivia).
-
Gacitúa Marió, Estanislao and Michael Woolcock, with Marisa von Bulow.
2005
Assessing
Social Exclusion and Mobility in Brazil.
In 2001, the World Bank updated a previous poverty assessment of Brazil
that analyzed the relationship between income variables and household
characteristics. The report provided an updated poverty profile,
analyzed the impact of public social spending on poverty, and reviewed
the effectiveness of selected policy interventions in order to provide
suggestions for the development of a national poverty reduction
strategy. The report identified that further work was needed to assess
issues related to inequality, opportunity and social exclusion.
Previous research on poverty and inequality in Brazil has focused on
the extent to which various factors (labor markets, human capital,
prejudice, location, etc.) contribute to poverty and inequality. Little
attention, however, has been given to social exclusion processes to
explain why certain groups do not have equal access to resources
(economic, cultural and political) and/or do not have the same
opportunities as other groups to improve their living standards.
Similarly, very little is known about the perception Brazilians have of
inequality, and which factors or individual characteristics are seen as
determinants of income inequalities and social mobility.
In response to these concerns, this study was proposed to advance the
development community’s understanding of social exclusion processes in
Brazil. The initial objective was to analyze how processes of social
exclusion created barriers to social mobility among the poor in Brazil,
the better to identify some policy levers or interventions that could
be used to remove those barriers and contribute to more effective
poverty alleviation and social inclusion.
|
A. Figueroa, Catholic University
of Peru - 1999
Social
exclusion and rural development
This paper
examines factors that explain social inequalities in the Third World.
It
develops a new theoretical approach, which focuses on social inequality
and
introduces the concept of social exclusion into the analysis. In so
doing, it specially
addresses the question: is inequality a result of some peculiar form of
social
integration, or rather a result of some exclusions taking place in the
social process?
Social inequality is conceived in this paper in broader terms than
income inequality.
The social process is, for analytical purposes, divided into the three
components:
economic, political, and cultural. Social inequality refers to the
aggregation of
inequality on these components.
Social exclusion is also considered in a particular way. As a fact of
life, we know
that the same group of people who participate in some social relations
may, at the
same time, be excluded from others. Hence, to say that a person is
excluded from
something is a purely descriptive statement, with no analytical value.
In analytical
terms, the question is whether there are some exclusions that have
important effects
upon social inequality. Which are these exclusions in a particular
society? Who is
excluded and from what? Why do these exclusions take place? |
Diego
Winkelried
Income
Distribution and the Size of
the Informal Sector.
This paper
studies the role of income distribution as a determinant of the size of
the
informal sector in an economy by relying on a channel whereby
inequality affects the
behaviour of aggregate demand and thus influences the incentives a firm
has to become
informal. It is further postulated that income distribution affects the
response of the
informal sector to different fiscal policies, either demand or
supply-orientated. The main
findings are that high inequality leads to a large informal sector, and
that redistribution
towards the middle class decreases the size of the informal sector and
increases the
capacity of fiscal instruments to reduce informality. Empirical
evidence for Mexican cities
is provided.
St John’s
College, University of Cambridge - 2005 |
The World Bank Group - 2005
The urban
poor in
Latin America,
Marianne Fay (ed.)
Cover
From the
publishers
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Overview
, by Marianne Fay
Chapter1:
Urban Poverty in
Latin America and the Caribbean: Setting the Stage
By Marianne
Fay and
Caterina Ruggeri Laderchi
Boxes:
1.1 Five Views of
the Connection between Social Relations and Urban Poverty in
Latin America
1.2 Measuring Urban
Poverty
Figures:
1.1 Growth in the
urban population implies further increases in the number of
urban poor, even if urban poverty rates remain constant
1.2 The incidence of
poverty decreases as city size increases
1.3 Poverty rates in
Mexico decline as settlement size increases
1.4 Whether urban or
rural areas are more unequal depends on the country as
well as the segment of the income distribution
1.5 Inequality
generally increases with city size
Tables:
1.1 Poverty is
urbanizing in Latin America and the Caribbean
1.2 Latin America
and the Caribbean will continue to urbanize, but at
varying speeds across subregions
1.3 Urban poverty is
more responsive to growth than rural poverty
1.4 The consumption
patterns of the urban and rural poor are similar: An
illustration from Guatemala, 2002
1.5 The urban poor
generally have much greater access to basic services than the rural poor
1A.1 Distribution of
Household per Capita Income: Inequality Indices
1A.2 Population,
Urbanization, and Poverty Estimates, by Country, 1998
1A.3 Urban
Population Distribution across Latin America
Chapter 2:
Working
One’s Way Up: The Urban Poor and the Labor Market
By Caterina
Ruggeri
Laderchi
Boxes:
2.1 Voices of the
Poor: How the Urban Poor in Mexico View the Connection
between Work and Poverty
Figures:
2.1 Labor income
accounts for more than 85 percent of the income of the urban
poor in Latin America and the Caribbean
2.2 Very poor men
and women are more likely than others to have only
low-level skills
2.3 Returns to
education are lower for Rio de Janeiro’s favela residents
2.4 In Mexico the
percentage of the urban poor employed in good jobs fell
between 1991 and 2000
Tables:
2.1 Unemployment is
higher among the heads of poor households in
selected Latin American countries
2.2 Argentine
households used a variety of labor-market-related strategies to cope
with the 2001–2 Crisis
2A.1 Sources of
Household Income in Urban Areas, by per Capita Household Income Quintile
2A.2 Sources of
Household Income in Rural Areas, by per Capita Household Income Quintile
2A.3 Percentage of
Employed and Unemployed Adults in Urban Areas, by Gender and per Capita
Income Quintile
2A.4 Percentage of
Employed and Unemployed Adults in Rural Areas, by Gender and per Capita
Income Quintile
2A.5 Percentage of Female Adults by Education Level and per Capita
Income Quintile
2A.6 Percentage of
Male Adults by Education Level and per Capita Income Quintile
2A.7 Percentage of Employed Adults and Youth by Education Level
2A.8 Percentage of
Urban Adults Employed in the Informal Sector or Self-Employed, by per
Capita Income Quintile
2A.9 Percentage of
Rural Adults Employed in the Informal Sector or Self-Employed, by per
Capita Income Quintile
Chapter 3:
Keeping a Roof
over One’s Head: Improving Access to Safe and Decent
Shelter
By Marianne
Fay and
Anna Wellenstein
Boxes:
3.1 How the Poor
Typically Acquire Housing: Progressive Housing
3.2 The Central City
Slum of Santo Domingo
3.3 Risk-Adjusted
Housing Strategies in the Slums of Santo Domingo
3.4 A Brief History
of Housing Policies Since the 1950s
3.5 Reforming the
Rental Market in Colombia
3.6 Using Housing
Microfinance: The Micasa Program in Peru
3.7 Costa Rica’s
Direct Demand Housing Subsidy Program
3.8 Minimizing
Deaths from Natural Disasters through Good Planning: The
Case of Cuba
3.9 Providing
Catastrophic Insurance to the Poor: The Experience of Manizales,
Colombia
Figures:
3.1 Services with
lower coverage are the most unequally
distributed
3.2 Utilities
represent a substantial share of household income or
expenditures, especially for the poorest: The case of
Argentina, 2002
3.3 Poor people are
at greatest risk of suffering physical damage from a
natural disaster
Tables:
3.1 Latin America
has very high rates of homeownership
3.2 Homeownership
has been stagnant or fell in the 1990s for the poorest
3.3 Only about half
of poor homeowners have formal title to their homes
or their property
3.4 High average
access to water obfuscates the situation of the
poor
Chapter 4:
Violence, Fear,
and Insecurity among the Urban Poor in
Latin America
By Caroline
Moser, Ailsa Winton,
and Annalise Moser
Boxes:
4.1 The Difficulty of Measuring Crime and Violence
4.2 The Inter-American Development Bank’s Approaches to Measuring the
Costs of
Violence
4.3 The Health Costs of Violence in Latin American Cities
4.4 Community Policing in Hatillo, Costa Rica
4.5 Reducing Crime and Violence in Bogotá
4.6 Preventing Gang Violence in El Salvador: The Homies Unidos Program
Figures:
4.1
The cost of violence varies significantly across countries but is high
throughout Latin America
Tables:
4.1 Urban violence in Latin America and the Caribbean takes many forms.
4.2 Violence imposes significant costs on Latin America
4.3 A variety of approaches and interventions are used to reduce urban
violence
4.4 The Khayelitsha Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading Project
includes
many components
4.5 Budget allocations in violence reduction projects funded by the
Inter-American Development Bank vary
4.6 Colombia and Guatemala have tried to reduce violence by increasing
capital
4A.1 Categories of Violence
4A.2 Types and Sources of Violence Data
4A.3 Incidence of Sexual Abuse of Women in Selected Latin American
Cities
4A.4 Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising
4A.5 Features of Inter-American Development Bank Projects to Reduce
Violence in
Four Latin American Countries
Chapter 5:
Keeping Healthy in
an Urban Environment: Public Health
Challenges for the Urban Poor
By Ricardo
Bitrán, Ursula
Giedion, Rubi Valenzuela, and Paavo Monkkonen
Boxes:
5.1 Improving Hygiene Practices as part of a Water Supply and
Sanitation Project
in Peru
5.2 Providing Preventive Health Services in Low-Resource Communities in
Brazil
Figures:
5.1 Noncommunicable diseases represent an increasing share of the
disease burden
in Latin America and the Caribbean
5.2 The urban poor fare as badly as or worse than the rural poor in
many
countries
5.3 Health indicators in urban areas vary widely across income groups
5.4 Access to basic services rises with income in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
Tables:
5.1 Health indicators in rural and urban areas of Peru, 1997
5.2 Correlation between illness and poverty-related factors in Cali,
Colombia,
1999
Chapter 6:
Relying on
Oneself: Assets of the Poor
By Marianne
Fay and Caterina
Ruggeri Laderchi
Boxes:
6.1 How the Poor Save and Draw on Their Assets:Illustrations from The
Children
of Sánchez
6.2 Drawing on Assets Following the 2002 Economic Crisis in Argentina
and
Uruguay
6.3 Low-Income Homeownership: Examining the Unexamined Goal
6.4 How Profitable Is Small-Scale Landlordism?
6.5 Informal Savings Institutions in Mexico: Tandas, Clubes, and Cajas
de
Ahorros
Chapter 7:
Calling on Friends
and Relatives: Social Capital
By Michael
Woolcock
Boxes:
7.1 Participatory
Budgeting in Bolivia: Getting Top-Down and Bottom-Up Right
7.2 The Astonishing
Success of Villa El Salvador in Lima, Peru
Chapter 8:
Public Social
Safety Nets and the Urban Poor
By Marianne
Fay, Lorena
Cohan, and Karla McEvoy
Boxes:
8.1 Does Social
Protection Address the Needs of the Urban Poor in Latin
America and Caribbean?
8.2 How Do the New
Poor and the Chronic Poor Cope with Macroeconomic Crisis?
8.3 How Effective
Was Argentina’s Jefes Program During the 2002 Crisis?
8.4 Who Are “At-Risk Youth”?
8.5 Argentina’s
Experience with Workfare: The Trajabar Program
8.6 Types of Targeting Methods
8.7 Expanding a
Model Cash Transfer Program from Rural to Urban Areas: Mexico’s
Oportunidades
8.8 Latin America’s
Costly—and Regressive—Social Insurance Systems
Tables:
8.1 The pension
system in urban Peru is highly regressive—and has become more so over
time
8.2 Noncontributory
assistance pensions in Latin America cover a significant
proportion of pension recipients
8A.1 Targeting
Instruments for Safety Net Program in Urban Areas
|
From The
World Bank Group:
Poverty and Income Distribution in Latin America and the Caribbean
|
This page
links to summaries of World Bank poverty analyses, including poverty
assessments, poverty notes, poverty updates, country economic
memorandums and development reports. The full text documents are also
provided when available. Poverty assessments have been key
instruments of the World Bank's poverty reduction strategy since 1992
(see Guidance
on Poverty Assessments).
|
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Argentina
|
1995
|
Argentina's Poor: A Profile
|
| |
2000
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Poor People in a Rich Country |
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2003
|
Crisis and Poverty 2003: A Poverty Assessment |
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Bolivia
|
1996
|
Poverty, Equity and Income: Selected Policies for Expanding
Earning Opportunities for the Poor |
| |
2000
|
Poverty Diagnostic 2000 |
| |
2005
|
Poverty Assessment: Establishing the Basis for More Pro-Poor
Growth |
|
Brazil
|
1995
|
A Poverty Assessment |
| |
2002
|
Strategies for Poverty Reduction in Ceara - The Challenge of
Inclusive Modernization |
| |
2003
|
Inequality and Economic Development in Brazil |
| |
2006
|
Measuring
Poverty Using Household Consumption |
|
Chile
|
1998
|
Poverty and Income Distribution in a High-Growth Economy:
1987-1995 |
| |
2001
|
Poverty and Income Distribution in a High Growth Economy --
The Case of Chile 1987-98 |
|
Colombia
|
1995
|
Poverty Assessment Report |
| |
2002
|
Poverty Report |
|
Costa Rica
|
1997
|
Identifying the Social Needs of the Poor: An Update |
|
Dominican Republic
|
1995
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Growth with Equity: An Agenda for Reform |
|
|
2001
|
Poverty Assessment: Poverty in a High-Growth Economy 1986-2000 |
| |
2005
|
Poverty Assessment: Achieving More Pro-Poor Growth |
|
Ecuador
|
1996
|
Poverty Report |
| |
2000
|
Ecuador
- Crisis, poverty and social services, Vol I
Ecuador
- Crisis, poverty and social services, Vol II
|
| |
2004
|
Poverty Assessment |
|
El Salvador
|
1994
|
The Challenge of Poverty Alleviation |
| |
2005
|
Poverty Assessment: Strengthening Social Policy |
|
Guatemala
|
1995
|
An Assessment of Poverty |
| |
2003
|
Poverty in Guatemala |
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Guyana
|
1994
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Strategies for Reducing Poverty |
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Haiti
|
1999
|
The Challenges of Poverty Reduction |
|
Honduras
|
1995
|
Country Economic Memorandum/Poverty Assessment |
| |
2000
|
Poverty Diagnostic 2000 |
| |
2006
|
Poverty Assessment: Attaining Poverty Reduction |
|
Jamaica
|
1994
|
A Strategy for Growth and Poverty Reduction: Country Economic
Memorandum |
|
Mexico
|
2004
|
Poverty in Mexico: An Assessment of Conditions, Trends, and
Government Strategy |
| |
2005
|
Income Generation and Social Protection for the Poor |
|
Nicaragua
|
1995
|
Poverty Assessment |
| |
2000
|
Poverty Assessment: Challenges and Opportunities for Poverty
Reduction |
| |
2003
|
Poverty Assessment: Raising Welfare and Reducing Vulnerability |
|
Panama
|
1999
|
Poverty Assessment: Priorities and Strategies for Poverty
Reduction |
|
Paraguay
|
1994
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Poverty and the Social Sectors in Paraguay: A Poverty
Assessment |
|
Peru
|
1993
|
Poverty Assessment and Social Policies and Programs for the
Poor |
| |
1999
|
Poverty and Social Developments in Peru, 1994-1997 |
| |
2005
|
Opportunities for All: Poverty Assessment |
|
Trinidad & Tobago
|
1996
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Poverty and Unemployment in an Oil-Based Economy |
|
Uruguay
|
1993
|
Poverty Assessment: Public Social Expenditures and their
Impact on the Income Distribution |
| |
2001
|
Maintaining Social Equity in a Changing Economy |
|
Venezuela
|
2000
|
Investing in Human Capital for Growth, Prosperity, and
Poverty Reduction |
Related
Sections:
For country-specific documents on related topics, see:
- Country
Documents under Poverty Monitoring
- Country
Documents under Impact Evaluation
Back to Poverty
Analysis Home
|
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