After the economic losses, unemployment and mass death of the COVID-19 pandemic, the question of how to effectively manage lockdowns has to be answered. Many experts believe another pandemic is inevitable. If that is true, we have to be ready with empirically tested policies that can maximize economic welfare while preserving life to the maximum extent … [Read more...] about Better Public Policies to Combat Pandemics
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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
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
Why Remittances Soared as the Pandemic Raged
Remittances – money sent from migrants working abroad to families in their home countries – are a major source of income for many in Latin American and the Caribbean, representing as much as 20% of the GDP in nations such as El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, and Jamaica. As occurred after the 2008 global financial crisis, remittances typically dry up in the wake of economic … [Read more...] about Why Remittances Soared as the Pandemic Raged
Behavioral Economics and the Fight against COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an immense impact on people around the world, affecting every aspect of their lives, mostly in a negative way. In Latin America and the Caribbean, most governments have made controlling the spread of the new coronavirus a principal goal. Despite investing immense effort and resources in containing transmission, however, they have been unable to … [Read more...] about Behavioral Economics and the Fight against COVID-19