While micro and small firms account for a big share of overall employment in Latin America and the Caribbean, they often struggle to grow in part because they lack skills or encounter other difficulties in selling their goods and services to buyers. This limits the size of markets they can access. For example, data from the World Enterprise Surveys shows that only 6.7% of … [Read more...] about Can Improving Market Access Spur Small Business Growth and Jobs in Latin America?
Diego Vera-Cossio
Diego Vera-Cossio is an economist in the Research Department of the Inter-American Development Bank. His area of interest is development economics. In particular, his research analyzes how different policies help or prevent family businesses from growing in contexts in which access to finance is limited. He is also interested in understanding how different methods of targeting and delivering resources from public programs affect policy effectiveness. Diego, a citizen of Bolivia, received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego in 2018. He holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from Universidad de Chile and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Universidad Católica Boliviana.
From Empowerment to Inequality: The Tradeoffs of Community-Based Targeting
Local leaders know a lot about the people in their communities, including their level of wealth and need. That can often allow them to distribute resources, like anti-poverty funds, more effectively than far away bureaucracies. But where community members must decide on the basis of multiple, difficult-to-verify criteria, things get murky. How should loans, for example, be … [Read more...] about From Empowerment to Inequality: The Tradeoffs of Community-Based Targeting
Can Digital Payments Boost the Impact of Social Programs?
With tens of millions of citizens receiving cash transfers from social programs each month, Latin America and Caribbean governments have long sought ways to improve payment delivery and boost financial inclusion to improve savings, access to credit, and overall welfare. One attempted solution is encouraging recipients to open bank accounts to receive digital cash transfer … [Read more...] about Can Digital Payments Boost the Impact of Social Programs?
New Tools for Targeting Social Programs in the Midst of Crises
In recent decades, dozens of countries around the world have adopted cash transfer programs to combat poverty and prevent it from being passed from generation to generation. While many of these programs have been highly successful at tackling long-term poverty, incomes fluctuate due to economic shocks and the target population of social programs move. During economic crises, … [Read more...] about New Tools for Targeting Social Programs in the Midst of Crises
A New Miracle? The Promises of Digitalization and Financial Inclusion in Latin America
Latin America and the Caribbean has made a big leap towards using digital technologies to expand financial inclusion, and there are reasons to be hopeful: Several initiatives in the region have expanded the supply of innovative digital financial products which, in theory, should untap inclusive growth by enabling millions of micro and small firms and households to integrate … [Read more...] about A New Miracle? The Promises of Digitalization and Financial Inclusion in Latin America