Person:
Sanchez, Carolina
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Labor economics,
Poverty and distributional analysis,
Gender,
Public policy,
Inequality and Shared Prosperity,
Jobs and Development
Degrees
Departments
Poverty and Equity Global Practice
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Carolina Sánchez-Páramo, a Spanish national, is currently the Senior Director of the Poverty and Equity Global Practice (GP) at the World Bank. Prior to this assignment, she was the Poverty and Equity GP Practice Manager in the Europe and Central Asia region. Carolina has worked on operations, policy advice and analytical activities in Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Asia, and was part of the core team working on the WDR2012, “Gender Equality and Development”. Her main areas of interest and expertise include labor economics, poverty and distributional analysis, gender equality and welfare impacts of public policy. She has led reports on poverty and equity, labor markets and economic growth in several countries, as well as social sector operations. She has published articles in refereed journals and edited books on the topics described above. Carolina has a PhD in Economics from Harvard University.
Publication Search Results
1 - 5 of 5
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Publication
Closing the Gap in Education and Technology
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003)This report focuses not only on the gaps facing Latin America in both education and technology, but especially on the interactions between the two. The central premise of the report is that skills and technology interact in important ways, and this relationship is a fundamental reason for the large observed differences in productivity and incomes across countries. This report argues that skills upgrading technological change, and their interaction are major factors behind total factor productivity growth. Skill-biased technological change is indeed being transferred today at faster speeds to LAC countries, as elsewhere. Technological change has been complementary with skill levels in Latin America in the last two decades. It is further estimated that firms have substantially increased the demand for educated workers in the region, particularly workers with tertiary education. This technological transformation appears to be intimately related to patterns of integration in the world economy. Firms in sectors with higher exposure to trade are subject to more competitive pressures. Adopting and adapting more advanced technologies and hiring and training more educated workers is one way to respond to this pressure to become more productive. The increased potential demand for education offers the possibility to accelerate productivity growth in the economy by closing the educational and technological gaps that Latin American countries exhibit with respect to their peers. -
Publication
Off and Running? Technology, Trade and the Rising Demand for Skilled Workers in Latin America
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-04)The authors describe the evolution of relative wages in five Latin American countries-Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. They use repeated cross-sections of household surveys, and decompose the evolution of relative wages into factors associated with changes in relative supply and relative demand. The authors have three main conclusions: 1) Increases in the relative wages of the most skilled (university-educated) workers took place concurrently with increases in their relative abundance in all of the countries except Brazil. This is strong evidence of increases in the demand for skilled workers. 2) Increases in the wage bill of skilled workers occurred largely within sectors, and in the same sectors in different countries, which is consistent with skill-biased technological change. 3) Trade appears to be an important transmission mechanism. Increases in the demand for the most skilled workers took place at a time when countries in Latin America considerably increased the penetration of imports, including imports of capital goods. The authors show that changes in the volume and research and development intensity of imports are significantly related to changes in the demand for more skilled workers in Latin America. Their research complements earlier work on the effects of technology transmitted through trade on productivity and on the demand for skilled labor. -
Publication
Pending Issues in Protection, Productivity Growth, and Poverty Reduction
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-12)This paper selectively synthesizes much of the research on Latin American and Caribbean labor markets in recent years. Several themes emerge that are particularly relevant to ongoing policy dialogues. First, labor legislation matters, but markets may be less segmented than previously thought. The impetus to voluntary informality, which appears to be a substantial fraction of the sector, implies that the design of social safety nets and labor legislation needs to take a more integrated view of the labor market, taking into account the cost-benefit analysis workers and firms make about whether to interact with formal institutions. Second, the impact of labor market institutions on productivity growth has probably been underemphasized. Draconian firing restrictions increase litigation and uncertainty surrounding worker separations, reduce turnover and job creation, and poorly protect workers. But theory and anecdotal evidence also suggest that they, and other related state or union induced rigidities, may have an even greater disincentive effect on technological adoption, which accounts for half of economic growth. Finally, institutions can affect poverty and equity, although the effects seem generally small and channels are not always clear. Overall, the present constellation of labor regulations serves workers and firms poorly and both could benefit from substantial reform. -
Publication
Poverty in Ecuador
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-05)The note looks at poverty in Ecuador, assessing macroeconomic developments through its policies to maintain stability with fiscal discipline, and increase economic productivity and competitiveness, in particular, the 1998/99 crisis, the 2000 dollarization and their effect on poverty. From 1990 to 2001, national consumption-based poverty rose from 40 to 45 percent, and the number of poor people increased from 3.5 to 5.2 million. Poverty increased by over 80 percent in urban areas at the Costa and the Sierra, was stable in the rural Costa, and rose 15 percent in the rural Sierra. Poverty rates continued to be highest in rural areas, but rapid urbanization increased the number of poor people living in urban areas. Employment is the main income source, frequently the only one, for most urban families. Thus policies that generate employment and wage income are crucial for reducing urban poverty. The 1998/99 crisis sent employment and real labor income plummeting, urban poverty rose, and poor urban households resorted to various coping strategies, such as increased labor force participation, and migration. Poverty declined slowly after 2000, reflecting just a weak formal employment creation. It is stipulated social expenditures could be used more effectively, for significant improvements are needed in education provision, and quality, especially in rural areas, while health service coverage must be expanded and integrated better across different subsystems, and providers. -
Publication
Trade Liberalization and Labor Reform in Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1990s
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-05)This note synthesizes the findings of research on trade and labor in the region, including World Bank studies on: (i) trade and job quality, (ii) informality, and (iii) labor policies in the region. First, the evidence on the relationship between trade liberalization, macro-restructuring and labor market outcomes during the 1990s is reviewed. Second, labor market rigidities will be analyzed and the extent to which reform efforts facilitated formal employment creation. Finally, based on lessons learned from the 1990s, a new agenda for labor market reform is proposed which reflects more closely the new environment in which Latin American governments now operate.