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Publication Adaptation of the Calculator of Social and Environmental Impacts from Small-Scale Gold Mining in the Amazon: Application in Frontier Regions between Brazil, Colombia and Peru(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-11-09) World BankOver the past decade, illegal gold extraction has increased significantly in the Amazon region, partly due to the high international prices of this mineral, the less stringent attitude of some countries in relation to the environment and the pursuit of immediate economic opportunities. Furthermore, this illicit activity is closely intertwined with other illegal practices, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking, and the trafficking of endangered species. This has repercussions not just for the region's ecological wealth, but also for the physical well-being of those safeguarding their lands and the health of communities living in proximity to the extraction zones due to the contamination of their rivers and, consequently, their primary sources of food, such as fish. Despite the international effort to recognize the socio-environmental repercussions of this activity, there are still gaps on this issue, mainly due to the economic losses that this activity represents.Publication Afro-descendants in Latin America: Toward a Framework of Inclusion(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08-28) Freire, German; Diaz-Bonilla, Carolina; Schwartz Orellana, Steven; Soler Lopez, Jorge; Carbonari, FlaviaAbout one in four Latin Americans self-identify as Afro-descendants today. They comprise a highly heterogeneous population and are unevenly distributed across the region, but share a common history of displacement and exclusion. Despite significant gains over the past decade, Afro-descendants still are overrepresented among the poor and are underrepresented in decision-making positions, both in the private and the public sector. The extent to which Latin America will be able to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity will therefore depend, to a very large degree, on the social inclusion of Afro-descendants. The objective of this study is to deepen the region's empirical understanding of the drivers behind the persistent exclusion of the afro-descendants, as a first step to design appropriate solutions. The report proposes a framework to organize and think of the myriad options available to address their situations, based on the experience accumulated by the region and the data available.Publication Minds and Behaviors at Work: Boosting Socioemotional Skills for Latin America’s Workforce(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-07-11) Cunningham, Wendy; Acosta, Pablo; Muller, NoëlAlthough the Latin American region has shown an impressive growth in educational attainment over the past two decades, that education has failed to yield expected benefits. A mounting body of research and policy debates argues that the quantity of education is not an adequate metric of human capital acquisition. Rather, individuals’ skills—what they actually know and can do—should stand as policy targets and be fostered across the life course. Evidence from around the world shows that both cognitive and socio-emotional skills are demanded by employers and favorably affect a range of outcomes, including educational attainment and employment outcomes. Through original empirical research investigating the role of cognitive and socio-emotional skills in shaping adults’ labor market outcomes in Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, and Peru, supplemented by similar studies in other Latin American countries, this review confirms that cognitive skills matter for reaping labor market gains in terms of higher wages and formal jobs in Latin America; but so do socio-emotional skills. Moreover, socio-emotional skills seem to particularly influence labor force participation and tertiary education attendance as a platform to build knowledge. The study also presents a policy framework for skills development by: (i) providing insights by developmental psychologists about when people are neuro-biologically, socio-emotionally, and situationally ready to develop socio-emotional skills, and (ii) suggesting new directions in cognitive development.Publication Shared Prosperity and Poverty Eradication in Latin America and the Caribbean(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-04) Cord, Louise; Genoni, Maria Eugenia; Rodriguez Castelan, Carlos; Cord, Louise; Genoni, Maria Eugenia; Rodriguez Castelan, CarlosOver the last decade Latin America and the Caribbean region has achieved important progress towards the World Bank Group's goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting income growth of the bottom 40 percent, propelled by remarkable economic growth and falling income inequality. Despite this impressive performance, social progress has not been uniform over this period, and certain countries, subregions and even socioeconomic groups participated less in the growth process. As of today, more than 75 million people still live in extreme poverty in the region (using $2.50/day/capita), half of them in Brazil and Mexico, and extreme poverty rates top 40 percent in Guatemala and reach nearly 60 percent in Haiti. This means that extreme poverty is still an important issue in both low- and middle-income countries in the region. As growth wanes and progress in reducing the still high levels of inequality in the region slows, it will be more important than ever for governments to focus policies on inclusive growth. The book includes an overview that highlights progress towards the goals of poverty eradication and shared prosperity between 2003 and 2012, unpacks recent gains at the household level using an income-based asset model, and examines some of the policy levers used to affect social outcomes in the region. It draws on 13 country studies, eight of which are featured in this volume: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. The other case studies include: Bolivia, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Honduras, which will be included in the web version of the book.Publication Discrimination in Latin America : An Economic Perspective(Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank, 2010) Moro, Andrea; Nopo, Hugo; Chong, Alberto; Nopo, Hugo; Chong, Alberto; Moro, AndreaThe chapters presented in this volume adopt a variety of these methodological tools in order to explore the extent to which discrimination against women and demographic minorities is pervasive in Latin America. In chapter two, Castillo, Petrie, and Torero present a series of experiments to understand the nature of discrimination in urban Lima, Peru. They design and apply experiments that exploit degrees of information on performance as a way to assess how personal characteristics affect how people sort into groups. Along similar lines, in chapter three, Cardenas and his research team use an experimental field approach in Colombia to better understand pro-social preferences and behavior of both individuals involved in the provision of social services (public servants) and potential beneficiaries of those services (the poor). In chapter four, Elias, Elias, and Ronconi try to understand social status and race during adolescence in Argentina. They asked high school students to select and rank ten classmates with whom they would like to form a team and use this information to construct a measure of popularity. In chapters five and six, Bravo, Sanhueza, and Urzua present two studies covering different aspects of the labor market using different methodological tools. Based on an audit study by mail, their first study attempts to detect gender, social class, and neighborhood of residence discrimination in hiring practices by Chilean fir. In a second study, they use a structural model to analyze gender differences in the Chilean labor market. In chapter seven, Soruco, Piani, and Rossi measure and analyze possible discriminatory behaviors against international emigrants and their families remaining in southern Ecuador (the city of Cuenca and the rural canton of San Fernando). Finally, in chapter eight, Gandelman, Gandelman, and Rothschild use micro data on judicial proceedings in Uruguay and present evidence that female defendants receive a more favorable treatment in courts than male defendants.