03. Journals

2,963 items available

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http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2210

These are journal articles published in World Bank journals as well as externally by World Bank authors.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 16

Software Adoption, Employment Composition and the Skill Content of Occupations in Chilean Firms

(Taylor and Francis, 2018-12-10) Almeida, Rita K. ; Fernandes, Ana M. ; Viollaz, Mariana

We contribute to the technology, skills, and jobs debate by exploiting a novel data set for Chilean firms between 2007 and 2013, with information on the firms’ adoption of complex software used in client management, production, or administration and business software packages. Instrumental variables estimates show that, in the medium-run, adoption of this complex software reallocates employment away from professional and technical workers, toward administrative and unskilled workers (production and services). Adoption also increases the use of routine and manual tasks and reduces that of abstract tasks within firms. The contrast between ours and previous findings shows that labor market impacts of technology adoption hinge on the type of technology and its complementarity with the skills content of occupations.
Evolving Wage Cyclicality in Latin America

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2018-10) Gambeti, Luca ; Messina, Julian

This paper examines the evolution of the cyclicality of real wages and employment in four Latin American economies, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, during the period 1980–2010.Wages were highly procyclical during the 1980s and early 1990s, a period characterized by high inflation. As inflation declined wages became less procyclical, a feature that is consistent with emerging downward wage rigidities in a low inflation environment. Compositional effects associated with changes in labor participation along the business cycle appear to matter less for estimates of wage cyclicality than in developed economies.
Effect of Lengthening the School Day on Mother's Labor Supply

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2017-10-01) Contreras, Dante ; Sepúlveda, Paulina

This article examines how a policy oriented toward a specific group within the population can have collateral effects on the economic decisions of other groups. In 1996, the Chilean government approved the extension of the school day from half- to full-day school. This article exploits the quasi-experimental nature of the reform's implementation by time, municipality, and age targeting of the program in order to examine how the maternal labor supply is affected by the childcare subsidy implicit in the lengthening of the school day. Using data from the Chilean socioeconomic household survey and administrative data from the Ministry of Education for 1990–2011, we estimate that, on average, there is a 5 percent increase in labor participation and employment rates of single mothers with eligible children (between 8 and 13 years old) with no younger children, who are the group that would be mainly affected by the policy. No significant labor supply responses are detected among others mothers with eligible children.
Exporters, Engineers, and Blue-collar Workers

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2016-04-10) Brambilla, Irene ; Lederman, Daniel ; Porto, Guido

This article investigates differences in the composition of employment between exporting and nonexporting firms. In particular, it asks whether exporting firms hire more engineers relative to blue-collar workers than nonexporting firms. In a stylized partial-equilibrium model, firms produce goods of varying quality and exporters tend to produce higher quality goods, which are intensive in engineers relative to blue-collar workers. Firms are heterogeneous and more productive firms become exporters and have a higher demand for engineers. The article provides causal evidence in support of these theories using the Chilean Encuesta Nacional Industrial Anual (ENIA), an annual census of manufacturing firms. The results from an instrumental variable estimator suggest that Chilean exporters indeed utilize a higher share of engineers over blue-collar workers.
Institutional Investors and Long-Term Investment: Evidence from Chile

(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2015-09-29) Opazo, Luis ; Raddatz, Claudio ; Schmukler, Sergio L.

Developing countries are trying to develop long-term financial markets and institutional investors are expected to play a key role. This paper uses unique evidence on the universe of institutional investors from the leading case of Chile to study to what extent mutual funds, pension funds, and insurance companies hold and bid for long-term instruments and which factors affect their choices. Using monthly asset-level portfolios we show that, despite the expectations, mutual and pension funds invest mostly in short-term assets relative to insurance companies. The significant difference across maturity structures is not driven by the supply side of debt or tactical behavior. Instead, it seems to be explained by manager incentives (related to short-run monitoring and the liability structure) that, combined with risk factors, tilt portfolios toward short-term instruments, even when long-term investing has averaged higher returns. Thus, expanding large institutional investors does not necessarily imply more developed long-term markets.
Stability and Vulnerability of the Latin American Middle Class

(Taylor and Francis, 2013-09-27) Torche, Florencia ; Lopez-Calva, Luis F.

Using panel data-sets from Mexico and Chile for the first years of the 21st century, the authors examine the determinants of middle-class intra-generational mobility. The middle class is defined by means of a latent index of economic well-being that is less sensitive to short-term fluctuation and measurement error than standard measures of income. The authors find high rates of both upward and downward mobility in Mexico and Chile, indicating that the middle class has opportunities to move to higher levels of well-being but is also vulnerable to falling into poverty. In both countries, labour-market resources (education and occupational status of the household head and number of members in the labour market) are much stronger determinants of mobility than demographic factors, suggesting the importance of policies that foster human capital and protect workers from shocks. Rural middle-class households are substantially more vulnerable to falling into poverty and have little chance of advancing to upper classes than their urban counterparts.
Income and Beyond: Multidimensional Poverty in Six Latin American Countries

(Springer Netherlands, 2013-06) Battiston, Diego ; Cruces, Guillermo ; López-Calva, Luis F. ; Lugo, Maria Ana ; Santos, Maria Emma

This paper studies multidimensional poverty for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Uruguay for the period 1992–2006. The approach overcomes the limitations of the two traditional methods of poverty analysis in Latin America (income-based and unmet basic needs) by combining income with five other dimensions: school attendance for children, education of the household head, sanitation, water and shelter. The results allow a fuller understanding of the evolution of poverty in the selected countries. Over the study period, El Salvador, Brazil, Mexico and Chile experienced significant reductions in multidimensional poverty. In contrast, in urban Uruguay there was a small reduction in multidimensional poverty, while in urban Argentina the estimates did not change significantly. El Salvador, Brazil and Mexico, and rural areas of Chile display significantly higher and more simultaneous deprivations than urban areas of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. In all countries, deprivation in access to proper sanitation and education of the household head are the highest contributors to overall multidimensional poverty.
Asia's Deepening Regionalism Brings Shared Prosperity

( 2010-10) Nag, Rajat M.

Asia's coming of age has been the development story of the past 40 years. The reasons for this are varied. But some of the more significant factors have been knowledge exchange, technology transfer, and increased economic integration and cooperation between governments of developing economies. Asia�s success is in part the result of increased dialogue between regional partners, formalized through institutions such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which expanded fromits original five-member core in 1967 to encompass all Southeast Asia by mid-1999 and aims to establish an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015.
Do Exporters Pay Higher Wages? Plant-level Evidence from an Export Refund Policy in Chile

(World Bank, 2009-06-30) Kandilov, Ivan T.

The impact of increased export activity on plant wages is estimated in a developing country context. To avoid potential endogenous selection problems, the empirical analysis benefits from exogenous variation in exports induced by a policy experiment—an export subsidy system implemented in Chile in 1986. Analyses using data from a panel survey of Chilean manufacturing establishments show that while the export subsidy had only a modest positive impact on the industrywide relative high-skilled wage, it significantly increased the plant-level relative high-skilled wage in medium-size establishments, which are most likely to take advantage of the subsidy and enter the export market.
Walking up the Down Escalator : Public Investment and Fiscal Stability

(World Bank, 2008-03-01) Easterly, William ; Irwin, Timothy ; Servén, Luis

When growth-promoting spending is cut so much that the present value of future government revenues falls by more than the immediate improvement in the cash deficit, fiscal adjustment becomes like walking up the down escalator. Although short-term cash flows matter, too tight a focus on them encourages governments to invest too little. Cash-flow targets also encourage governments to shift investment spending off budget by seeking private investment in public projects, irrespective of its real fiscal or economic benefits. To deal with this problem, some observers have suggested excluding certain investments (such as those undertaken by public enterprises deemed commercial or financed by multilaterals) from cash-flow targets. These stopgap remedies may help protect some investments, but they do not provide a satisfactory solution to the underlying problem. Governments can more effectively reduce the biases created by the focus on short-term cash flows by developing indicators of the long-term fiscal effects of their decisions, including accounting and economic measures of net worth, and, where appropriate, including such measures in fiscal targets or even fiscal rules.