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
Harnessing Emotional Intelligence: A New Frontier in Combating School Violence
In Central America's Northern Triangle—Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—educational institutions face a crisis of in-school and out-of-school violence and dropout rates 22% above the average for the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. This crisis—often gang-related—jeopardizes not only the safety of students, but their long-term mental health and economic … [Read more...] about Harnessing Emotional Intelligence: A New Frontier in Combating School Violence
The Economic Impacts of Climate Change and El Niño in the Andes
As climate change continues its persistent advance, its main effects, such as higher temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns, are becoming increasingly frequent and clear. One such effect is the El Niño Phenomenon (ENP), an anomalous warming of the surface waters of the Central and Eastern Pacific Ocean, which, in turn, modifies the climatic conditions for South American … [Read more...] about The Economic Impacts of Climate Change and El Niño in the Andes
The Governance Dimension of Persistent Inequality in Latin America
Despite decades of democratic governance and policy reforms, economic inequality in Latin America remains a stubborn reality. Concentrated income and wealth among the richest 10% of the population has left the poorest 10% with less than 2% of total income. The disparities have endured for the last 30 years, even in relatively stable democracies like Chile, Colombia, and … [Read more...] about The Governance Dimension of Persistent Inequality in Latin America
The Imperatives of Fiscal Health
By 2020, at the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, Latin American and Caribbean governments had spent so much on health and transfers to keep people and firms afloat that the average primary balance (the budget balance without interest payments on debt) had soared to -4.8% of GDP. Then a positive thing happened. Rather than lingering in deficit, as it had after the 2009 response … [Read more...] about The Imperatives of Fiscal Health