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This paper analyzes the development of Latin America over the past three decades by using growth incidence curves and weighted growth rates calculated on the basis of harmonized microdata from national household surveys. Over the past three decades, Latin America has made progress in fundamental socioeconomic indicators. On average, there has been significant growth in income as well as some educational and housing variables, particularly among the lower income strata. In contrast, progress was slower among the most vulnerable population in other important areas (e.g., higher education, female labor participation). Despite notable improvements in various areas of development captured through household surveys, the evidence reveals that substantial shortfalls and disparities still persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper appraises quantitatively the efficiency of public expenditure of 15 Latin American countries using cross-country data for averages between 2000 and 2009. For this purpose two non-parametric methods are used: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Free Disposal Hull (FDH). Selected output indicators in primary and secondary school are evaluated respect to public spending in education per student. As a study case, Colombia's efficiency scores are compared with the most efficient peers in each of the educational levels to identify best practices and achieve better results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the effect of an enrolment fee elimination program in Ecuador. Using propensity score matching, I estimate the impact of the initiative on dropout rates for primary and secondary school students. Overall, the findings suggest that the program had non-negligible and positive effects on the probability of continuing in school one year after the intervention for those students enrolled in the 2007-2008 school year, in spite of already high enrolment and low dropout rates. The estimated difference between paying and non-paying students in continuation rates is around 2 to 4 percentage points. The impact of fee elimination is heterogeneous to demographic characteristics. Male, urban and non-poor students seem to benefit the most. The program has no effect for female, rural or poorer students. Much bigger differences in continuation rates exist between groups of secondary students. The effects are particularly significant for male secondary school students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The empirical literature on the impact of violent conflicts on educational outcomes has focused on the impact of violence on human capital accumulation, neglecting other relevant outcomes such as educational equity. Using the empirical implementation of Ferreira and Gignoux (2011) of Roemer (1998)'s conceptual framework of equality of opportunities, this paper estimates the impact of conflict intensity on educational equity in Colombia, as measured by the school performance in the Saber 11° test, for the period 1997-2010. To deal with potential biases due to reverse causality or omitted variables, we use the apprehension of murderers by the public force as a source of exogenous variation of violence in an instrumental variables estimation. The results suggest that conflict increases equality of opportunities in educational attainment. By increasing school dropout, conflict induces a positive selection in terms of ability and effort for the proportion of students who remain in the system. This suggests that caution is needed when interpreting patterns of educational equity based on outcomes rather than processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]