Person:
Lopez-Acevedo, Gladys
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Poverty,
Jobs,
Inequality,
Microeconomic theory,
Applied economics,
Gender
Degrees
ORCID
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Departments
Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
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Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Gladys Lopez-Acevedo is a Lead Economist and a Program Lead at the World Bank in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice. She works primarily in the Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank. Gladys’ areas of analytical and operational interest include trade, welfare, gender, conflict, and jobs. Previously, she was a Lead Economist in the World Bank Chief Economist’s Office for the South Asian region (SARCE), and Senior Economist in the World Bank Central Vice Presidency Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) unit and in the Latin America region at the World Bank. She is a Research Fellow of the Institute for Labor Economics (I.Z.A); Mexican National Research System (S.N.I); and Economic Research Forum. Prior to joining the World Bank, she held high-level positions in the Government of Mexico and she was a professor at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). She holds a B.A in economics from ITAM and a Ph.D in economics from the University of Virginia.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 55
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Publication
Sewing Success? Employment, Wages, and Poverty following the End of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012-03-14)The global textile and apparel sector is critically important as an early phase in industrialization for many developing countries and as a provider of employment opportunities to thousands of low-income workers, many of them women. The goal of this book is to explore how the lifting of the Multi-fibre Arrangement/ Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (MFA/ATC) quotas has affected nine countries Bangladesh, Cambodia, Honduras, India, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam with the broader aim of better understanding the links between globalization and poverty in the developing world. Analyzing how employment, wage premiums, and the structure of the apparel industry have changed after the MFA/ATC can generate important lessons for policy makers for economic development and poverty reduction. This book uses in-depth country case studies as the broad methodological approach. In-depth country studies are important because countries are idiosyncratic: differences in regulatory context, history, location, trade relationships, and policies shape both the apparel sector and how the apparel sector changed after the end of the MFA. In-depth country studies place broader empirical work in context and strengthen the conclusions. The countries in this book were chosen because they represent the diversity of global apparel production, including differences across regions, income levels, trade relationships, and policies. The countries occupy different places in the global value chain that now characterizes apparel production. Not surprisingly, the countries studied in this book represent the diversity of post-MFA experiences. This book highlights four key findings: The first is that employment and export patterns after the MFA/ATC did not necessarily match predictions. This book shows that only about a third of the variation in cross-country changes in exports is explained by wage differences. While wage differences explain some of the production shifts, domestic policies targeting the apparel sector, ownership type, and functional upgrading of the industry also played an important role. Second, changes in exports are usually, but not always, good indicators of what happens to wages and employment. While rising apparel exports correlated with rising wages and employment in the large Asian countries, rising exports coincided with falling employment in Sri Lanka. Third, this book identifies the specific ways that changes in the global apparel market affected worker earnings, thus helping to explain impacts on poverty. Fourth, in terms of policies, the countries that had larger increases in apparel exports were those that promoted apparel sector upgrading; those that did not promote upgrading had smaller increases or even falling exports. -
Publication
Teachers' Incentives and Professional Development in Schools in Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-02)The quality of education is a determining factor in a nation's competitiveness. To compete globally, Mexico needs to raise its education standards. Several innovations to raise the quality of basic education at the federal and state levels have been developed: professional training of teachers, new "learning presence in schools," and improvement of working conditions and salaries of teachers. The author examines teachers' incentives and their impact on students' learning achievement. She shows that early in their professional lives, teachers in basic public schools are better paid than in other comparable groups. She also finds that some incentives for teachers at the school level improve learning achievement. For instance, the enrollment of teachers in the Carrera Magisterial program has a positive effect on students' learning achievement. Furthermore, teachers' training is most effective when targeted toward increasing their practical experience and developing content-specific knowledge. -
Publication
Determinants of Technology Adoption in Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-02)The author tries to identify the impact of firm-, region-, and industry-specific characteristics on technology adoption by Mexican firms. Cross-sectional and panel data from 1992-99 show that the firms most likely to adopt new technology are large, train workers, have highly skilled workers, are near the U.S. border, and are owned by foreign entities. Also, bigger firms, firms with a large share of highly skilled workers, and firms that train workers, use intensively more complex technologies in their production process. -
Publication
Technology and Firm Performance in Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-02)The author investigates the relationship between a firm's adoption of new manufacturing technology and its performance. A panel database that identifies technological adoption and tracks firms over time allows the use of different measures of firm performance-wages, productivity, net employment growth, job creation, and job destruction. Results show that technology is associated with high firm performance in all these metrics. The effect of new technology on performance is larger for firms located in the north and in Mexico City. This marginal value significantly increased after the 1994 crisis and the North American Free Trade Agreement. Furthermore, technology increased the wage of semi-skilled workers compared with unskilled workers by about 11 percent over seven years. -
Publication
Teachers' Salaries and Professional Profile in Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004-09)Teachers' salaries have often been highlighted as an important issue in discussions on school improvement. The level and structure of teacher remuneration affect morale and the ability to focus on and devote adequate time to teaching. The author examines who teachers are, whether teachers are underpaid, and whether teachers face higher compensation uncertainty than their counterparts face. The results show that teachers in basic education consistently work fewer hours than their occupational counterparts. Regression analysis shows that teachers in basic public schools are better paid early in their professional lives than are other comparable individuals. Because retirement benefits are usually generous, teachers stay within the profession. -
Publication
Technology and Skill Demand in Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-02)The author investigates the effects of technology on the employment and wages of differently skilled Mexican manufacturing workers using firm panel data from 1992-99. She analyzes the relationship between technology and skill demand. Findings support the skill-biased technical change hypothesis. She then examines the temporal relationship of technology adoption to firm productivity and worker wages. The author finds that skilled labor increases after technology adoption. And wages of both skilled and semi-skilled workers exhibit markedly increased growth rates compared with the growth rate of low-skilled workers. The results show that investment in human capital improves technology-driven productivity gains. -
Publication
Professional Development and Incentives for Teacher Performance in Schools in Mexico
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-03)The quality of education is a determining factor in competitiveness. In order to globally compete, Mexico would have to raise its standards beyond its current low achievement. Several innovations at federal and state levels have been developed to raise the quality of basic education. One example is Carrera Magisterial (CM), which is a professional development program that was created as part of the National Agreement for the Modernization of Basic Education in 1992. This program is aimed at raising the quality of basic education through teachers' professional training, new learning presence in schools, and improving working and salary conditions this report evaluates the impact of CM. She shows several important results. First, teacher's enrollment in the CM program has a positive impact on learning achievement. Second, family characteristics are important in explaining students' achievement. Third, investment in primary school teachers is most effective when targeted toward increasing teachers' practical experience and developing content-specific knowledge. And fourth, students in schools with a high degree of supervision on the part of the school principal achieve better scores. -
Publication
A Duration Analysis of CONALEP (Mexico's National Technical Professional School)
(World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004-06)Mexico's National Technical Professional School (Colegio Nacional de Educación Profesional Técnica, CONALEP) is the largest technical education system in the country. CONALEP serves low-income students at the upper-secondary school level in Mexico. Using graduate tracer surveys from CONALEP, the author analyzes the impact of modular courses and reform programs implemented by CONALEP in 1991-92 on CONALEP graduates' labor market outcomes. Results indicate that graduates from the pre-reform program had to search longer for a job compared with those of the post-reform program. Graduates from the post-reform program have 45 percent higher probability of finding a job than those from the pre-reform program. However, the pre-reform program cohorts earned higher hourly wages than those from the post-reform program. -
Publication
On the Use of Transparent Formulae to Allocate Federal Education Transfers
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-12)One of the key questions that arise in discussions of education decentralization, is how federal education resources should be allocated among the various states, and within states, among communities or schools. In general, there are two approaches: (1) bilateral negotiations between the federal government and states with little transparency as to the rules, and (2) formula-based distribution. The authors show that, based on econometric analysis on federal education transfers data in Mexico, the former approach can lead to allocation results that appear contrary to stated policy objectives like equity improvement and greater social inclusion in education. The authors then argue that contrary to common belief, the use of capitation, or per student allocation can improve not only efficiency but also equity. They present a theoretical model to analyze this hypothesis. The authors discuss several variations of the capitation formula, and present an analysis of the characteristics of the winners, and losers of their application, using Mexico as an illustration. -
Publication
Supply-Side School Improvement and the Learning Achievement of the Poorest Children in Indigenous and Rural Schools : The Case of PARE
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-12)In the past, research findings indicated that most of the differences in student learning were due to socioeconomic factors, and that, therefore, the effect of direct educational interventions to reduce learning inequality was very limited. However, the authors show that learning achievement could increase through appropriately designed, and reasonably well-implemented interventions. An examination of Mexico's PARE program reveals that an increase in learning achievement could be possible for rural, and indigenous schools. The authors' overall conclusion is that supply-side interventions can have substantial effects on the learning achievement of children in indigenous, and rural schools in poor areas. But greater attention needs to be paid to the poorest of the disadvantaged children. This positive conclusion, however, should be tempered by results of the urban sample, confirming earlier findings of the negative relationship between PARE, and student learning growth.