In 2014, Uruguay launched an ambitious financial inclusion program, joining other countries in the region that have sought to give citizens greater access to banking and financial services and encourage the use of electronic payments instruments that avoid the need for cash. Unbanked people in Uruguay, as in other countries of the region, had traditionally lacked ways to … [Read more...] about Examining the Effectiveness of a Financial Inclusion Reform in Uruguay
How the COVID Pandemic Affected Automation and Labor Markets in Peru
As COVID-19 struck the developing world, governments imposed mobility restrictions to reduce contagion, causing severe disruptions in labor markets. In Latin America and the Caribbean, where 57% of all workers hold informal jobs that often require them to be physically present, nearly half of the labor force was compelled to stop work in the first phases of the … [Read more...] about How the COVID Pandemic Affected Automation and Labor Markets in Peru
Reducing Extreme Weather Impacts on Rural Children through Financial Inclusion
Heavy rainfall and long droughts in many parts of the world have become more frequent and intense with changes in climate. They have caused crops to wither in the field or be washed away, disrupted water supplies, harmed livestock, damaged farm equipment, and upended agricultural infrastructure. Rural families whose livelihoods depend on land and natural resources are the most … [Read more...] about Reducing Extreme Weather Impacts on Rural Children through Financial Inclusion
AI and the Future of (No?) Work in Developing Countries
For the last two centuries, workers have been the central factor of production. As a result, real wages in industrialized countries have steadily risen and living standards soared to 20 times what they were 200 years ago. But the Age of Labor—with humans providing the main component of output—may be coming to a rapid end. Artificial Intelligence (AI) could soon reach the level … [Read more...] about AI and the Future of (No?) Work in Developing Countries
Policy Options for Combating Pandemics in Informal Settlements
Pandemics, while devastating for populations at large, deliver a disproportionate impact when they sweep through the dense informal settlements of developing countries with their narrow alleyways and broken dwellings. Death rates, high everywhere, soared through such places during the COVID-19 crisis. Until recently, however, no research had been conducted on the role of … [Read more...] about Policy Options for Combating Pandemics in Informal Settlements