Person:
Apella, Ignacio Raúl

Global Practice for Social Protection and Labor, The World Bank

Fields of Specialization

social security, social protection, labor economics, population aging, microeconometrics, health economics

ORCID

0000-0003-2584-9070

External Links

RePEc

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Global Practice for Social Protection and Labor, The World Bank

Last updated: January 31, 2023

Biography

Ignacio Apella is an Economist for Social Protection at the World Bank, and has worked on social protection, pension policy and health economics in many Latin America countries. He graduated as an Economist from the University of Buenos Aires and went on to receive a MA on Economics from the University of Buenos Aires. Before joining the World Bank, he was a researcher at the Center for the Study of State and Society (CEDES) and he was Vice Director at the Department of Economic at the University of Buenos Aires. He is author of many studies on social security and pension, health economics and industrial organization in the private pension funds. Recently he published a book on expanding old age income protection coverage in fourteen Latin American countries. He is professor of Microeconomic at the University of Buenos Aires.

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

When We're Sixty-Four: Opportunities and Challenges for Public Policies in a Population-Aging Context in Latin America
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-10-02) Rofman, Rafael; Apella, Ignacio
Latin American countries are in the midst of a demographic transition and, as a consequence, a population-aging process. Over the next few decades, the number of children will decline relative to the number of older adults. Population aging is the result of a slow but sustained reduction in mortality rates, given increases in life expectancy and fertility. These trends reflect welcome long-term improvements in welfare and in economic and social development. But this process also entails policy challenges: many public institutions—including education, health, and pension systems and labor market regulations—are designed for a different demographic context and will need to be adapted. When We’re Sixty-Four discusses public policies aimed at overcoming the two main challenges facing Latin American countries concerning the changing demographics. On one hand, older populations demand more fiscal resources for social services, such as health, long-term care, and pensions. On the other, population aging produces shifts in the proportion of the population that is working age, which may affect long-term economic growth. Aging societies risk losing dynamism, being exposed to higher dependency rates, and experiencing lower savings rates. Nonetheless, in the interim, Latin American countries have a demographic opportunity: a temporary decline in dependency rates creates a period in which the share of the working-age population, with its associated saving capacity, is at its highest levels. This constitutes a great opportunity in the short term because the higher savings may result in increases in capital endowment per worker and productivity. For that to happen, it is necessary to generate institutional, financial, and fiscal conditions that promote larger savings and investment, accelerating per capita economic growth in a sustainable way.
Skills and the Labor Market in a New Era: Managing the Impacts of Population Aging and Technological Change in Uruguay
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-02-18) Rovner, Helena; Apella, Ignacio; Rofman, Rafael
Uruguay faces medium- and long-term challenges associated with two global megatrends: population aging and technological change. These two megatrends have been developing for some time, but policy responses have been late or inadequate in many cases. Trying to delay them--by promoting higher fertility or enforcing restrictions on the adoption of new technologies--would probably be ineffective but also ill-advised, as these trends are generating important opportunities to increase production and welfare. The objective of this book is to identify these opportunities, as well as the challenges that population aging and technological change pose for the Uruguayan economy and to determine how they can be addressed through better-designed public policies, with a focus on the development of new skills that increase workers’ productivity.
Performance and Challenges of the Income Protection System for Older People in Ecuador
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-08) Apella, Ignacio
The purpose of this work is to analyze the performance of the Ecuadorian pension system, its challenges, and available policy options. Therefore, the study analyzes coverage, financing sufficiency, and sustainability indicators that were created based on information from the Encuesta Nacional de Empleo, Desempleo y Subempleo (National Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment Survey) that was carried out over 2003-16. Likewise, actuarial simulations are made by using the World Bank pension reform options simulation toolkit. The findings show that, although in the latest 13 years there has been coverage extension, resulting from an increase in reported employment and an extension of noncontributory pensions, current coverage is still insufficient. In addition to the challenge posed to coverage extension, in the medium term, population aging would exert some pressure on financial sustainability that, within the current framework, would imply a deficit trend starting in the mid-2030s. However, some public policy areas, parametric as well as structural, have been identified that, together with an extension of noncontributory coverage, may provide a more supportive and sustainable scheme.
Nonstandard Forms of Employment in Developing Countries: A Study for a Set of Selected Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe and Central Asia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-09) Zunino, Gonzalo; Apella, Ignacio
The objective of this paper is to study the evolution of the incidence and profile of nonstandard workers in selected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe and Central Asia in the past two decades. The analysis of the profile of this group of workers focuses on three key characteristics that could approximate their productivity: education level, labor income, and task content (manual/cognitive or routine/nonroutine) performed by the workers in their occupations. While in Latin America most of the countries show a stable prevalence in recent decades, in Europe and Central Asia there is not any common pattern across countries. In contrast, from the point of view of the profile of nonstable employment, there are several common characteristics among these types of workers across countries, such as improved level of education, performance of more intensive nonroutine cognitive tasks, and higher variance of labor income. The findings suggest that nonstandard workers are a heterogeneous group. The increase in the incidence of nonstandard employment and its heterogeneity generates concern about the lower level of insurance against certain risks that workers face. Therefore, a greater understanding of the trends in the prevalence and characteristics of nonstandard workers is needed to design regulation and policies oriented to these types of workers.
Technological Change and the Labor Market in Argentina and Uruguay: A Task Content Analysis
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-10) Zunino, Gonzalo; Apella, Ignacio
The objective of this paper is to analyze the employment profile trends in Argentina and Uruguay according to the task content performed by the workers in their jobs. The paper aims to produce an approximation of the impact of technological change on the labor market. The paper uses the definition of an indicator that captures the relative importance of four types of tasks, cognitive/manual and routine/nonroutine, based on the information provided by Occupational Information Network and household surveys. The analysis finds that in the last two decades the relative importance of cognitive tasks in the workplace has increased in line with the reduction of manual tasks, particularly among the youngest cohorts.
Demographic Change in Uruguay: Economic Opportunities and Challenges
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-05-26) Rofman, Rafael; Amarante, Verónica; Apella, Ignacio; Rofman, Rafael; Amarante, Verónica; Apella, Ignacio
Uruguay’s population is slowly aging, driven by the demographic transition that started early in the 20th century. While this reflects significant improvements in mortality and fertility trends, it also creates important challenges for the fiscal sustainability of some social policies and for sustaining medium- and long-term economic growth. Uruguay is going through the “demographic dividend” stage of this process as the proportion of the population ages 15–65 peaks. This temporary situation creates the possibility of increasing the endowment of capital and the labor force and sparking sustained economic growth. For this to happen, institutional, financial, and fiscal conditions are needed that promote larger savings and investment. Demographic Change in Uruguay: Economic Opportunities and Challenges studies the opportunities and challenges that the demographic transition poses for Uruguay’s economy. Once the demographic dividend has passed, population aging will have a significant impact on fiscal accounts, especially in social protection expenditures. This is a serious policy challenge, demanding reforms to adapt the institutions and systems to a new demographic context. The main challenge in the next few decades will be to maintain economic growth on a solid path as the working-age population declines. This will require that labor force participation rates increase, particularly among women and older people, but will also require that those in the labor market increase their productivity. This will be achieved only through sustained growth of the capital per worker ratio and the incorporation of innovations and technological developments that facilitate increased production of goods and services for the entire population.
Effectiveness of Targeting Mechanisms Utilized in Social Protection Programs in Bolivia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-09) Blanco, Gastón; Apella, Ignacio
As part of the 2006-2011 National Development Plan, the Plurinational State of Bolivia launched two cash transfer programs and one youth labor training program aimed at promoting the accumulation of households’ human capital: the Juancito Pinto Educational Grant, the Juana Azurduy Mother-Child Grant, and my first decent job. The objective of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of the targeting mechanisms utilized in these programs. Based on the information provided by the Ongoing Household Survey, we estimate the mechanisms’ potential inclusion and exclusion errors. The results permit us to suggest that the categorical selection mechanisms used in the three programs are effective in reaching the poorest population, although they present distinct levels of inclusion and exclusion errors associated with both the design and implementation problems of the particular mechanism utilized.
As Time Goes By in Argentina: Economic Opportunities and Challenges of the Demographic Transition
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-04-23) Gragnolati, Michele; Rofman, Rafael; Apella, Ignacio; Troiano, Sara; Grushka, Carlos; Comelatto, Pablo; Maceira, Daniel; Barbieri, María Eugenia; Marchionni, Mariana; Alejo, Javier; Cetrángolo, Oscar; Fanelli, José María
The process of demographic transition through which Argentina is passing is a window of both opportunities and challenges in economic and social terms. Argentina is still a young country in which the working-age population represents the largest proportion of its total population. Currently, the country just began a 30-year period with the most advantageous age structure of its population, which could favor greater economic growth. This situation, known as the 'demographic window of opportunity,' will last until the beginning of the 2040s. The dynamics of the fertility and mortality rates signify a gradual ageing of the population, with implications for various dimensions of the economy, the social protection system, public policies, and society in general. This book studies the opportunities and challenges that the demographic transition poses for the Argentine economy, its most important social sectors like the healthcare, education, and social protection systems, and the potential fiscal trade-offs that must be dealt with. The study shows that even though Argentina is moving through its demographic transition, it just recently began to enjoy the window of opportunity and this constitutes a great opportunity to achieve an accumulation of capital and future economic growth. Once the window of opportunity has passed, population ageing will have a significant impact on the level of expenditure, especially spending in the social protection system. This signifies a challenge from a fiscal policy point of view, because if long-term reforms are not undertaken to mediate these effects, the demographic transition will put pressure on the reallocation of fiscal resources among social sectors. Finally, population ageing poses concerns related to sustaining the rate of economic growth with a smaller working-age population. Taking advantage of the current window of opportunities, increasing savings that will finance the accumulation of capital, and increasing future labor force productivity in this way is a challenge for the Argentine economy.
Beyond Contributory Pensions : Fourteen Experiences with Coverage Expansion in Latin America
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015) Rofman, Rafael; Apella, Ignacio; Vezza, Evelyn; Rofman, Rafael; Apella, Ignacio; Vezza, Evelyn
Latin America's population is aging, and many among the growing elderly population are not protected by traditional pension schemes. In response, policy makers have been reevaluating their income protection systems so that between 2000 and 2013, the majority of Latin American countries reformed their social pension schemes to provide near-universal coverage for the elderly. Before this unprecedented wave of reform, most income protection in Latin America was provided through contributory pensions available only to formal sector workers. Considering that informal and unpaid employment characterize labor force participation throughout the region, many elderly were left vulnerable to poverty. The new noncontributory pension programs have alleviated this risk. But countries are still evaluating how to best balance the need for inclusivity with the need for fiscal sustainability. This report examines recent reforms in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay. All countries share the goal of comprehensive pension coverage, but each has unique political environments, social conditions, and economic capacities. Design and implementation of coverage expansion, consequently, has diverged. Comparing results across the region reveals which policies have yielded the most equitable and sustainable outcomes. Each chapter includes a comprehensive analysis of a country's reform experience: a description of significant political and economic developments, the challenges of implementing income protection policies, and prospects for the reforms' durability over time. This report represents a significant addition to the literature on income protection for the elderly.