The results of the triennial Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam tend to land in Latin America and the Caribbean like a shower of icy water. The 2015 exam was no different. For all the progress the region has made in education, for all the increases in investment and near universal enrollment at the primary school level, the region sat in the bottom half of … [Read more...] about Where Peruvian Education Reaps Rewards
#inequality
Who’s the BO$$? What Lies Behind Women’s Economic Empowerment
Women have been consolidating their economic power in the region, increasing their autonomy within the family and commanding the attention of banking and other marketing sectors. In our newly released report, Social Pulse 2016: Realities and Perspectives, we find that the contribution of women to the total labor income of households in the region increased from 28% in 1996 to … [Read more...] about Who’s the BO$$? What Lies Behind Women’s Economic Empowerment
Public Transfers to Households: Who are the Real Beneficiaries?
Knowing how governments spend their resources is important because it reflects their development priorities. Moreover, it allows, especially in lean times, trying and seeing “what can be done to improve growth and maintain recent and perhaps fragile benefits in terms of prosperity and social protection?” as mentioned in a previous publication of this blog. In recent years, … [Read more...] about Public Transfers to Households: Who are the Real Beneficiaries?
Crime, Inequality and the Rio Olympics
Before and during the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, two different visions of the city emerged, at least partly from portraits in the foreign press. There was a glamorous Rio with its well-to-do sports fans, elegant neighborhoods and nightclubbers fired up by Samba and caipirinhas. And there was a Rio of the slums or favelas, with their poverty, drug gangs and killings. To be … [Read more...] about Crime, Inequality and the Rio Olympics
Tracking the Decline of the Right
Mauricio Macri presented a face of change to world leaders in Davos last month, the first Argentine president to represent the South American country at the World Economic Forum in over a decade. Macri's efforts to normalize relations with international stakeholders reflect a new direction in policies and international relations that have taken hold since December 2015 when he … [Read more...] about Tracking the Decline of the Right