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The growth of Learning Analytics (LA) as a research field has been extensively documented since its beginnings. This paper provides a broad overview of the publications that Latin American authors have published in the last years by performing a quantitative review of the literature (from 2011 to 2019). A total of 282 papers were collected and categorized according to a multidimensional model composed of seven dimensions (data collected, stakeholders targeted, goals of the paper, techniques employed, maturity of the tool, research approaches and ethical issues). The paper describes how the field has evolved over the years in Latin America, presenting the main characteristics of the papers from different perspectives (year, type of venue, language) together with the descriptives of the categorized dimensions and the relations between them. At last, papers are presented in number by countries and institutions, and we perform an authorship and coauthorship analysis with information extracted from the selected papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. Sodium is often a limiting nutrient for terrestrial animals, and may be especially sought by herbivores. Leafcutter ants are dominant herbivores in the Neotropics, and leafcutter foraging may be affected by nutritional demands of the colony and/or the demands of their symbiotic fungal mutualists. We hypothesized that leafcutter colonies are sodium limited, and that leafcutter ants will therefore forage specifically for sodium. 2. Previous studies demonstrated that leafcutter Atta cephalotes Linnaeus workers preferentially cut and remove paper baits treated with NaCl relative to water control baits. Atta cephalotes colonies in this study were presented with baits offering NaCl, Na2SO4, and KCl to test whether leafcutters forage specifically for sodium. Sucrose and water were used as positive and negative controls, respectively. 3. Atta foragers removed significantly more of the baits treated with NaCl and Na2SO4 than the KCl treatment, which did not differ from water. The NaCl and Na2SO4 treatments were collected at similar rates. We conclude A. cephalotes forage specifically for sodium rather than for anions (chloride) or solutes in general. This study supports the hypothesis that leafcutter ants are limited by, and preferentially forage for, sodium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study on the adoption and the impact of new modules in a learning analytics dashboard supporting the dialogue between student advisors and students when advising on a study plan for the next academic semester in Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral, a higher education institute in Ecuador. The impact and the adoption of the new dashboard modules were assessed using a mixed‐methods approach. The quantitative approach builds on data of 172 advisors in 34 programs and 4481 advising sessions in 2019 (post) and 4747 advising sessions in 2018 (pre) to assess the adoption and use of the dashboard, the level of support experienced by the advisors, the impact of the new dashboard modules on the difference between the advised study plan and the plan students register for, and students' academic achievement. The qualitative approach with observations of 14 staged advising dialogues and semi‐structured interviews with eight advisors was used to assess how the dashboard was used and to get deeper understanding of the perceived usefulness and impact of the dashboard. The results show that an institution‐wide deployment of dashboard modules tailored to the needs of the advisors can be achieved and can increase the level of support perceived by the advisors and significantly decrease the gap between the suggested study plans in advising dialogues and the study plans that students actually register for. On the short‐term, however, no significant changes in academic achievement were observed. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic? Academic advising can positively impact retention, academic achievement and study completion.Learning analytics dashboards are promising pieces of educational technology for academic advising as they can trigger reflection and sense‐making of educational data.Evaluation of learning analytics dashboards is often still immature and not well‐connected to the actual goals of the dashboards. Large‐scale evaluations looking at impact of dashboards are even scarcer.What this paper adds? This paper adds, to the scarce scientific evidence on academic advising dashboards, a large‐scale case study on a dashboard supporting the advisor student dialogue during the composition of well‐balanced study plans.The paper presents research evidence of the impact of the dashboard on the support advisors experience, the study plans suggested by the advisors and the ones actually registered by the students and students' academic achievement. Evidence is based on a quantitative analysis, using data of 172 advisors from 34 programs representing more than 9000 advising dialogues, and a qualitative analysis using observations and interviews.Implications for practice and/or policy Dashboards to support academic advising dialogues can be realized institution‐wide at scale. Training of student advisors supports a large scale deployment.Well‐designed dashboards that focus on addressing needs of advisors increase the level of support that advisor experience when advising students.Dashboard accommodating the simulation of study plans and the workload associated with them, succeed in decreasing the variance in suggested plans between advisors and reduce the gap between the study plans that advisors suggest to student and the study plans that students actually register for. Short‐term impact on academic achievement was not observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the transformation of agrifood systems in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Context of traditional retail and wholesale system; Determinants of and patterns in the diffusion of supermarkets in the regions; Consequences of the evolution of procurement systems for agrifood business.

Russia has been a powerful ally in Venezuela's complex crisis, having developed political, economic and cultural relations with the Venezuelan state by employing various foreign policy instruments such as mutual support in multilateral fora, foreign aid, loans, commodity trading, military support and cultural diplomacy. What explains this support, despite Venezuela's severe political and economic crisis? Different perspectives have contributed to discussions on shifts in Russian foreign policy towards Latin America since the end of the Cold War. However, studies subscribing to traditional international relations theories have occasionally focused on a single issue or dimension. Such a focus may be problematic when analysing the multifaceted portfolio applied to Russian foreign policy. Based on the Two‐Good Theory approach, its focus on change and maintenance of the status quo, and the concept of substitutability, this research paper elaborates on Russia's foreign policy strategy towards Venezuela to explain policy priorities by examining the alliance with the Venezuelan Maduro regime. Furthermore, the paper highlights the link between the tangible characteristics of energy security and arms sales and intangible aspects, such as cultural diplomacy, which are important explanatory factors of Russian support for Venezuela. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting youth and female entrepreneurship is crucial to inclusive growth and the future economic and social prospects of developing countries. Evidence tends to suggest that young and female entrepreneurs are in a minority, and the extent and generating mechanisms of this outcome tend to be country‐specific. This collection of papers brings together recent empirical contributions exploring key drivers of this heterogeneity entrepreneurial propensity of youth and female in the context of a group of countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, paying special attention to the role of and issues relating to access to credit, attitudes to risk, and migratory status. A common thread in all the papers is the effective role of risk, uncertainty, and asymmetric information in the determination of entrepreneurship and in the demand for and allocation of credit when potential entrepreneurs are from specific groups, that is, women, indigenous women, women and youth in conflict and post‐conflict situations, and migrant youth. Based on these results, the papers explore various challenges in the implementation of public policies designed to promote entrepreneurship within these specific segments of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remittances have become one of the most important sources of household income in developing countries, empowering recipients to be more politically independent. Using a dynamic estimator and panel data for 84 developing countries over the 1982–2011 period, this paper investigates the effect that remittances have on political institutions. Controlling for country and time fixed effects and using an exogenous source of variation to instrument remittances, the baseline results show that remittances start having a positive effect on democratic institutions when remittances reach 22% of GDP. This evidence suggests that remittances can influence the relationship between recipients and political elites, providing incentives for recipient households to hold their political representatives more accountable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Biotropica is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Antipode is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The recent literature has explored the ambiguous theoretical links between inequality and environmental impact. However, few studies have investigated those links in developing countries. This paper explores the role of income inequality in the per capita emission of CO2 in Latin America. We estimate the impact of income inequality on carbon dioxide emissions, while simultaneously considering national income levels. The results suggest quadratic relationships between environmental impact and both gross domestic product per capita and inequality. Income inequality influences CO2 emissions, but the direction depends on income level. The complexities of the results are analytically explored in the paper. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the so‐called New World in 1492, hundreds of thousands of Spaniards settled in Central and South America. This paper assesses the skill selectivity of Spanish migrants who went to Hispanic America during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries for the first time. The age‐heaping method is employed to estimate numeracy levels as a proxy for human capital. With a database of 33 929 individual observations, the findings show that Spaniards who left the country to settle in the Spanish territories were positively self‐selected. Additionally, differences are observed in the human capital of those who chose to settle in Mexico, who had a higher level of numeracy, than those who chose Peru. These differences might be due to the viceroyalty structure and educational institutions that encouraged the emigration of people with greater human capital to Mexico. Finally, when the level of numeracy of Spaniards in Hispanic America is compared with the numeracy of the total population, emigrants still had higher levels of human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of international and collaborative publication trends in prominent behavior‐analytic journals has been a topic of interest for behavioral researchers. This paper focuses on publication trends from 1997 through 2020 in three prominent journals: Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB), Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), and Perspectives on Behavior Science (PBS). The variable of interest was the percentage of articles published per geographical category—Australasia/East Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America, and Africa. The results showed that 79, 96, and 87% of the published articles in JEAB, JABA, and PBS, respectively, were conducted by researchers with a North American affiliation. Furthermore, 12, 4, and 4% of the articles in JEAB, JABA, and PBS, respectively, were coauthored by at least two researchers from different geographical categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social movement tactic of occupying land, factories, and other workplaces has regained popularity in Latin America over the past decade. These occupations have garnered international attention due to the direct confrontation with neoliberalism that they embody, whilst less attention has been drawn to the particular use of law that underpins this confrontation. Through an examination of the use of law by the Landless Peasants' Movement in Bolivia and by the factory occupation movement in Argentina, this paper explores how these occupation movements have combined both an eschewal and embrace of law in what can be understood as a creative 'radical legal praxis'. The paper sketches the contours of what a theorisation of this approach might look like and suggests that this particular engagement with law challenges traditional understandings of occupation movements and contains important possibilities for emancipatory resistance to neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labor market dynamics have played a significant role in the remarkable social gains experienced in the recent past across Latin America. Assessing quality of employment, beyond the perspective of income, to include other fundamental aspects of jobs – such as whether jobs are secure, provide benefits, or are satisfying – can shed light on the sustainability of these achievements. This is particularly pertinent given the region's current economic slowdown. Using harmonized data for 15 countries in Latin America, this paper connects the role of job quality with the recent process of inclusive growth across the region, and particularly with how individuals worked their way out of poverty. The paper first proposes a multi‐dimensional measure for job quality, and then uses this measure to compare job quality across countries and over time. The paper also studies correlates of job quality and the relationship between job quality and poverty. One main finding is that job quality across the region began to increase in 2003. The best predictors of job quality are age, gender, firm size, formal employment, and union membership. Benefits and job satisfaction are the dimensions of job quality that are best correlated with not living in poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Between 2010 and 2015, engines in 20‐ton excavators in Latin American countries failed with low hours of usage. System maintenance data such as engine oil samples are critical to address engine durability issues seen in equipment operating in the Latin America region. Risk analysis addressing premature engine wear in the Latin America region has not been described in peer‐reviewed literature. Thus, the primary objective of this paper is to apply a system engineering standard risk model evaluation to identify, quantify, and prioritize cost risks associated with diesel engine durability in Latin America. This research is based on several data sources, including a database of 7561 engine oil analysis results for the period of 2010 through 2015. These results were obtained from oil analysis laboratories located in the following Latin American countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. This research applied the standard risk model and cataloged the root‐causes of risks under two groups: fuel and environment. The paper identified a cause and effect correlation between risk drivers and abnormal oil sample analysis results. After calculating, prioritizing, and mapping each risk, the research concludes that diesel sulfur content and diesel quality are the primary risks that should be addressed in machinery operating in Latin America. Risk and cost threshold formulas are presented in this research and support the conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and practitioners of global private business regulation have often recognised the importance of political and institutional dynamics "on the ground," in shaping the degree to which social and environmental regulatory norms are institutionalised or resisted at the local level. Local dynamics of norm contestation generate dilemmas for global regulators who aspire to be responsive to varied contexts in producing countries without "watering down" global regulatory agendas. Drawing on a range of empirical illustrations from Southeast Asia and Latin America, this paper develops a typology of domestication strategies currently being used by global private regulators and examines the effects of these strategies on supporting or undermining the overall values and purposes of global regulatory agendas. In the presence of pervasive local contestation surrounding global regulatory norms, norm domestication strategies are shown to offer important means of countering challenges to the power and legitimacy of global regulators. Nonetheless, the effects of such strategies remain highly contingent on path‐dependent contests between competing regulatory coalitions at both local and global levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the success of academic advising dashboards in several higher educational institutions (HEI), these dashboards are still under‐explored in Latin American HEI's. To close this gap, three different Latin American universities adapted an existing advising dashboard, originally deployed at the KU Leuven to their own context. In all three cases, the context was the main ruling factor to these adaptations. In this paper, we describe these adaptions using a framework that focuses on four different elements of the context: Objectives, Stakeholders, Key moment and Interactions. Evaluation of the adapted dashboards in the three different Latin American universities is conducted through pilots. This evaluation shows the value of the dashboard approach in different contexts in terms of satisfaction, usefulness and impact in academic decision‐making and advising tasks. The main contribution of this paper is the systematic reporting of the adaptations to an academic advising dashboard and showing the value of an academic advising dashboard on academic decision‐making and advising tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shrimp domestication and genetic improvement programmes began in late 1980s, in the United States of America, under the United States Marine Shrimp Farming Program (USMSFP), using the Pacific whiteleg shrimp Penaeus vannamei. The USMSFP was based on proven concepts from the livestock and poultry industries and began with establishing a specific pathogen‐free (SPF) shrimp stock. The original shrimp stock was obtained using rigorous screening of captured wild shrimp for selection of individuals naturally free of major shrimp pathogens. Although the concept of SPF animals was well defined for terrestrial animals, it was relatively new for aquaculture, and it took some time to be adopted by the aquaculture community. In the early 1990s, parallel to USMSFP, several other programmes on genetic improvement of shrimp were also initiated in Latin America. Subsequently, several new terminologies and products, such as specific pathogen resistant (SPR) shrimp, specific pathogen tolerant (SPT) shrimp and even 'all pathogen exposed' (APE) shrimp, entered the shrimp industry vocabulary and became commercial. This led to confusion in the shrimp industry about the meaning, relationship and significance of these new terms with respect to SPF. This position paper attempts to clarify these concepts, provide science‐based definitions, reconfirms the importance of developing, maintaining and using domesticated, specific pathogen‐free (SPF) shrimp stocks (which may also achieve SPR and/or SPT status) to reduce the risk of disease outbreaks and increase production and profit. The same principles would apply to development of domesticated SPF stocks for other species used in aquaculture. The paper also discusses the difficulties of confirming and certifying SPF status due to the presence of endogenous viral elements (EVEs) and calls for internationally agreed science and evidence‐based technical guidelines for producing healthy shrimp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2013, the World Council of Churches (WCC) published its second convergence statement, The Church: Towards a Common Vision (TCTCV), and invited churches, ecumenical councils and groups, and others to respond officially with their assessment of the extent to which convergence had been reached in many areas. After offering an outline of the process in the WCC and its Commission on Faith and Order that led to this statement, this article discusses the process of evaluating the responses to the document and the main issues that were raised in the responses. The article notes the uneven nature of the responses in that no responses were received from Latin America or Africa and very few responses came from Pentecostal, evangelical, charismatic, or independent churches and movements. The article concludes by affirming the need for changes in the methodology of Faith and Order to more readily and clearly hear those churches and peoples who have long and often been marginalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks from a gender perspective at the elusive figure, complex personality and myth of Francisco de Miranda, enlightened traveller and Precursor of Latin American independence. By analysing Miranda's personal archive as his own carefully crafted creation, it pursues three closely connected issues insufficiently interpreted in historical perspective: the forms of masculinity he embodied and those from which he distanced himself, his connections with women and the role that gender played in his assessments of the countries he visited and wrote about. Miranda's trajectory and self‐image trace an evolution (from mondain seducer and enlightened reader and thinker, to revolutionary sympathiser with women's intelligence and even women's rights, to his embracing more traditional domestic arrangements), not exempt from contradictions that shed new light on the complex dynamics of gender in the Enlightenment and the Atlantic revolutions. The ambivalences of his life and writings tell us much about the different and at times conflicting ways of being a man and relating to women in both the Hispanic world and the broader European and American context of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses technical efficiency in the management of non‐performing loans (NPLs) in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) banking industry. To that end, Data Envelopment Analysis techniques are employed with data from the years 2013 to 2016 on a sample of 307 LAC cooperative and commercial banks. Our main contribution to existing literature is that differences of efficiency between cooperative banks and commercial banks are assessed as the result of the different capacities of their managers – managerial efficiency – and the so‐called programme efficiency, which represents differences in the technology used by these two categories of entities. Our principal result suggests that the technology used by cooperative banks in the management of NPLs is more efficient than the technology of commercial banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the political economic consequences of the disappearance of the Spanish silver peso standard in Spanish America, the longest monetary union that ever existed. With the Napoleonic invasion of Spain in 1808, the fiscal and political structure of the empire imploded and most colonies became independent. Regional competition for revenues exacerbated budget shortfalls driven by military expenditure. Local elites established in former colonial Treasury districts started highly diverse monetary experiments to procure funds. Those in control of mint houses started minting their own coins or debased existing silver currency. Elsewhere, inconvertible paper currency was also created to meet budget deficits. As a result, the most valuable feature of the Spanish American silver peso, its quality standard, was broken and the standard that had organized the early modern international economy for more than 300 years ceased to exist altogether. In Spanish America, as diverse monies co-existed within a formerly highly integrated economic space, a widespread Gresham's law effect exacerbated the conflict among local and regional elites. This fostered the political fragmentation of colonial Spanish America into an increasing number of political and monetary sovereign entities during the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flows of workers’ remittances have become a major source of external finance for developing countries and are particularly important in Latin America and the Caribbean, where they are estimated to have reached $40 billion in 2004. Not surprisingly, academics, policymakers and development practitioners in general have been devoting increasing attention to the potential development impact that these flows may have on receiving countries. This paper contributes to this debate along four dimensions. First, it reviews the evolution of remittances flows to Latin America, using Balance of Payments data, and compares these statistics with estimates of remittances income based on Household Surveys. Second, the paper describes the varying profile of remittances recipients in ten Latin American countries. Third, the paper reviews the few macro- and microeconomic studies that have estimated the impact of remittances on poverty and inequality. Finally, the paper expands some of the existing works to investigate the extent to which that impact is different in Latin America and varies across countries in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last ten years have seen many Latin American and Caribbean nations enact or reform competition laws, and numerous other jurisdictions are considering following suit. The evidential base to guide such policymaking is, however, limited. In this paper we have assembled two databases, one concerning allegations of anti-competitive acts in newspaper articles and another concerning the relationship between competition-related factors and the effects of reforms to liberalise markets, that may go some way to remedying this deficiency. In so doing, we have noticed a number of matters that producers and consumers of research in this area should probably bear in mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comparative analysis of the distribution effects of the increase in the real value of the minimum wage in Latin America during the 2000s in four Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Using semiparametric techniques to estimate counterfactual density functions, the authors find that the increase in the minimum wage had an equalizing effect in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, but not in Chile. This increase accounted for a considerable part of the decline in wage inequality, which was the result of compression at the lower tail of the wage distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a comprehensive review of the literature on economic growth regimes, the author develops an econometric model to determine the type of growth regime prevailing in 16 Latin American countries over the period 1950-2012, using statistical data on the respective wage share and profit share of GDP. After analysing the evolution of factor income distribution in relation to economic growth during the period in question, the author concludes that most Latin American economies have a wage-led growth regime, and that redistribution policies targeted at wages are therefore conducive to economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past two decades, China has become a strategic economic partner for both Latin American and African nations. China's economic global relevance is translating via its "Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)" into massive amounts of foreign trade, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), loans, and aid for both regions. Recently, China has added a national security and defense dimension to its BRI relationship with both regions. China's global strategic economic, geopolitical, and global defense goals are being expressed in its global "Road and Belt" power initiatives and strategies. This paper explores an additional dimension of China's BRI initiative: its role in both regions' defense industries and national security environments. China is increasingly using its trade and investment leverage with both regions to unbalance their defense choices and strategic defense relationships. China's increasing interactions with African and Latin American countries poses a number of geopolitical implications for both the United States and Western European countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates empirically the relationship between exchange rate ( ER) regimes and volatility of real exchange rate depreciation ( RERD), comparing the G7 and 17 Latin American ( LA17) countries, during 1970-2010. We estimate a panel autoregressive model with generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity ( GARCH) errors and regime-specific effects on both the conditional mean and conditional variance. For the G7, we find that, relative to the fixed ER regime, only the freely floating regime shows higher RERD volatility; under the managed floating regime the RERD is equally volatile and under the crawling peg it is actually less volatile. Instead, in the case of the LA17, more flexible ER regimes are associated with more volatile RERD rates, with higher volatility under the managed floating regime than under the crawling peg and with extremely high volatility under the 'freely falling' ER regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Combining macroeconomic and microeconomic data and three indicators of international market integration, this paper assesses the degree to which Latin American labour markets are integrated. The results suggest that relative to East Asia, Latin American labour markets are somewhat more integrated, but considerable differences across countries persist. In addition, the evidence indicates that the degree of labour market integration across Latin American borders is significantly less than that of labour markets within the United States in two of the three indicators. These differences may suggest opportunities for efficiency gains from further labour market integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cemetery planning in high‐density urban areas is essential for more equitable societies in Latin America. This paper addresses the implementation of a cemetery master plan in Bogotá to explore the effects of public policies. I argue that tensions between the ‘city of the dead’ and the ‘city of the living’ demonstrate how politicians and planners increasingly envision public cemeteries as urban infrastructure rather than public space, making it more difficult to manage cemeteries as a public good. This paper engages with debates about urban planning in contemporary Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new Multidimensional Poverty Index for Latin America. The index combines monetary and non‐monetary indicators, updates deprivation cut‐offs for certain traditional unsatisfied basic needs indicators and includes some new indicators, aiming to maximize regional comparability within the data constraints. The index is estimated for 17 countries of the region at two points in time—one around 2005 and the other around 2012. Overall, we estimate about 28 percent of people are multidimensionally poor in 2012 in the region. We find statistically significant reductions of poverty in most countries, both in terms of incidence and intensity over the period under analysis. However, important disparities between rural and urban areas remain. Statistical scrutiny of the index suggests that it captures the state of poverty relatively well while maintaining a certain parsimony and being highly robust to changes in weights, indicators, and poverty cut‐off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides difference-in-differences estimates suggesting that Latin American countries that signed a free trade agreement with the United States experienced an increase in the number of labor inspectors and inspections. We also find large heterogeneity across signers and no evidence that the North American Free Trade Agreement ( NAFTA) had a positive impact on Mexico. We conclude by suggesting that the stringency of content of the accord and the resources devoted by the U.S. government to increase enforcement make a difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Has the past decade of sustained economic growth and political transformations reversed Latin America's historical failure to secure market and social incorporation? To address this question this article draws on the experiences of Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay by distinguishing between short-term outcomes - which may depend on benign international conditions - and policy changes, which are more important for long-term performance. It highlights the overall success of both Brazil and Uruguay and shows that the other countries have made more progress in terms of social than market incorporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Levels of overweight and obesity across low- and middle-income countries ( LMIC) have approached levels found in higher-income countries. This is particularly true in the Middle East and North Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean. Using nationally representative samples of women aged 19-49, n = 815,609, this paper documents the annualized rate of increase of overweight from the first survey in early 1990 to the last survey in the present millennium. Overweight increases ranged from 0.31% per year to 0.92% per year for Latin America and the Caribbean and for the Middle East and North Africa, respectively. For a sample of eight countries, using quantile regression, we further demonstrate that mean body mass index ( BMI) at the 95th percentile has increased significantly across all regions, representing predicted weight increases of 5-10 kg. Furthermore we highlight a major new concern in LMICs, documenting waist circumference increases of 2-4 cm at the same BMI (e.g. 25) over an 18-year period. In sum, this paper indicates growing potential for increased cardiometabolic problems linked with a large rightward shift in the BMI distribution and increased waist circumference at each BMI level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the role of cognitive skills, socioemotional skills, aspirations and expectations on the likelihood of being NEET (not in education, employment or training) using a novel sample of 15 to 24 year old residents of seven Latin American and Caribbean countries. After controlling for sociodemographic household conditions, we find that numeracy and literacy skills, core self‐evaluation, extraversion and educational aspirations are robust correlates of being NEET. We also find cross country heterogeneity. That is, in some countries, passion and perseverance for long‐term goals, neuroticism and labour market information biases are additional factors associated with being NEET. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an introduction to this special issue by presenting a general picture of the economic and political situation of the Latin American countryside at the dawn of this millennium, when a wave of left-wing parties and leaders assumed power in several countries of the region. We argue that after more than a decade in power, few of the promises to reform the agrarian sector in favour of peasant and family producers were fulfilled. This situation constitutes a paradox, because these governments came to power partly on the back of a wave of social mobilization in which peasant and indigenous movements had been key actors. However, rural social movements were incapable of pressuring the state to change this situation. At the heart of this paradox lies a contradiction, which is that in their political proposals rural social movements called for an interventionist state, but they did not have the ability to control it through their alliance with political parties and politicians. This introduction offers a theoretical framework to better comprehend the struggles of the peasantry and the rentier nature of the state in Latin America, in order to contribute to the discussion on agrarian class reconfiguration under neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims The alcohol industry in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region promotes demand for alcohol products actively through a number of channels, including advertising and sponsorship of sports and other events. This paper evaluates whether human rights instruments that Latin American countries have ratified can be used to limit children's exposure to alcohol advertising and promotion. Methods A review was conducted of the text of, and interpretative documents related to, a series of international and regional human rights instruments ratified by most countries in the LAC region that enumerate the right to health. Results The Convention on the Rights of the Child has the most relevant provisions to protect children and youth from alcohol promotion and advertising. Related interpretive documents by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child affirm that corporations hold duties to respect and protect children's right to health. Conclusion Human rights norms and law can be used to regulate or eliminate alcohol beverage marketing and promotional activities in the Latin American region. The paper recommends developing a human rights based Framework Convention on Alcohol Control to provide guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a symposium on transgenic crops and neoliberalism in Latin America. We address the question: What is the relationship between the neoliberal food regime and transgenic crops in Latin American agriculture? Our goals are, first, to provide the main conceptual definitions and analytical parameters to contextualize the case studies that follow; and, second, using the findings of our contributors as our empirical stepping stone, to briefly elaborate the concepts of expropriation, accumulation by dispossession and negative value as the primary consequences of the neoliberal food regime. We also offer a brief description of each of the papers in the symposium that follows, linking them to our theoretical proposal. We hope this symposium will help in further exploration of the connection between GM crops and the larger dynamics of capitalist development worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides evidence on the incidence of poverty among older people in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), based on household survey microdata from 20 countries. The situation of older people is characterised in terms of income, education, health and access to services vis-à-vis the rest of the population. The paper identifies the role played by the current pension systems in LAC, and assesses the efforts needed to achieve substantial improvements towards the reduction of old age poverty. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are financial institutions' social responsibilities in developing countries? On the one hand, these institutions share the generic responsibilities of all human organizations and business enterprises. However, their specific social responsibility is the performance of the social function of financial intermediaries, which, in the case of emerging countries, consists mainly of contributing to economic growth and solving the problem of poverty. This paper describes a number of technical-economic and moral problems that take us to a consideration of the performance of banking operations in microfinancing, with special reference to Latin America. The paper also provides a series of recommendations that, in addition to contributing to solving the development and poverty problems in emerging countries, help define financial institutions' social responsibility in such countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Motivation: How is research on social issues shaped in Latin America? How much attention do researchers give to poverty and inequality? What is the focus of research on these issues? Purpose: The paper aims to analyse the main patterns of academic publications on poverty and inequality in Latin America. Approach and methods: A bibliometric analysis based on different sources is used to review the main trends of publications on poverty and inequality in the region between 1990 and 2014. Findings: We find that although Latin America is widely recognized as one of the most unequal regions worldwide, poverty—not inequality—has been at the centre of the region's research agendas for many years. We detect a gradual shift in research from poverty to inequality, both in the academic literature and in the publications of international organizations. Policy implications: These findings provide new elements to better understand how and why researchers choose certain topics over others. This understanding is important both to gain knowledge on what researchers are prioritizing, and to shed light on the relationship between those priorities and public policies to combat poverty and inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Latin American universities, Learning Analytics (LA) has been perceived as a promising opportunity to leverage data to meet the needs of a diverse student cohort. Although universities have been collecting educational data for years, the adoption of LA in this region is still limited due to the lack of expertise and policies for processing and using educational data. In order to get a better picture of how existing data‐related practices and policies might affect the incorporation of LA in Latin American institutions, we conducted a mixed methods study in four Latin American universities (two Chilean and two Ecuadorian). In this paper, the qualitative data were based on 37 interviews with managers and 16 focus groups with 51 teaching staff and 45 students; the quantitative data were collected through two surveys answered by 1884 students and 368 teachers, respectively. The findings reveal opportunities to incorporate LA services into existing data practices in the four case studies. However, the lack of reliable information systems and policies to regulate the use of data imposes challenges that need to be overcome for future LA adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How and why does geography inform the organisational strategies of political parties? Encuentro por la Democracia y la Equidad (Encounter for Democracy and Equity, hereafter EDE) is a centre‐left Argentine political party that, since arriving in Buenos Aires in 2008, quickly became one of the largest oppositional parties in the city in terms of its activist base and electoral representation. This was achieved by explicitly prioritising a territorial organisational strategy: building the party at the scale of the neighbourhood by opening branches, accumulating activists and constructing linkages with civil society. Through a qualitative analysis of EDE's organisational strategy over 10 years (2008–2018), the paper proposes four dimensions for understanding the relationship between grassroots territorial organising and party strategy: party‐building; electoral success; democratic linkages; and alliance building. The findings are of relevance not only to party‐building in Latin America but also to the recent surge of territorial organising in parties in Europe. The paper makes three contributions to geographical literature. First, it adds to limited Anglophone geographical engagements with Latin American electoral and party politics by highlighting the centrality of spatiality to party‐building. Second, it emphasises sub‐national dynamics of party organising, contributing to a dismantling of methodological state centrism that pervades party scholarship. Third, it develops a geographical analytical approach to party organisation that demonstrates how sociospatial relations constitute parties' unfolding relations with the state and civil society. How and why does geography inform the organisational strategies of political parties? The paper proposes a model for analysing the geography of political parties by focusing on the relationship between territory and party organisation. It draws on empirical work in Buenos Aires to outline four dimensions through which parties strategically organise in and through territory in order to pursue their objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin America has the most unequal income distribution of any region in the world, yet its historical causes are poorly understood. This paper reports the first exploratory attempt to compute income distributions for the five leading Latin American economies for the whole 20th century. The methodology produces estimates of earnings dispersion for four skill groups over 1900–2000, which can be used to generate the familiar Gini coefficients. Large fluctuations in dispersion over time are found: countering claims of stability since the colonial past in the recent economic institutions literature; but supporting the findings of economic historians and development economists. An estimation model (reflecting the impact of international trade, labour quality and macroeconomic imbalances) explains the data reasonably well, with all three sets of drivers proving significant, although the measured effects are different across the five countries. The paper concludes that the skill composition of the workforce not only underpins long run trends in income distribution; but also conditions inequality fluctuations in response to exogenous shocks. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I analyse the role of openness and globalisation in Latin America's economic development. The paper is divided into two distinct parts: I first ( Sections 2 to 4 ) provide an analysis of 60 years of the region's economic history, that go from the launching of the Alliance for Progress by the Kennedy administration in 1961, to the formulation and implementation of the market oriented reforms of the Washington Consensus in the 1990s and 2000s. I conclude that Latin America's history has been characterised by low growth, high inflation and recurrent external crises. In Section 5 I deal formally with the costs of crises and I estimate a number of variance component models of the dynamics of growth. I find that external crises have been more costly in Latin America than in the rest of the world. I also find that the cost of external crises has been inversely related to the degree of openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of foreign reserves, domestic real income and relative import prices on import demand for seven Latin American countries. We differentiate empirically between the short-run and long-run impact of reserves, income and prices on imports. The paper has three main results. First, we show that there exists a unique long-run relationship among real imports, real income, relative import prices and real foreign exchange reserves for all seven countries. Second, we find that increases in foreign exchange reserves exert a significant positive effect on import demand in both the long run and the short run in all countries. However, the economic impact of foreign exchange reserves is rather small. Finally, we find that the long- and short-run impact of real domestic income on import demand is positive as well, while the effect of relative prices is negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theoretically significant research on transnational migrations has usually been based on in-depth qualitative studies with detailed case study data linked to specific contexts. The concept of transnationalism has been used to capture and theorise enduring and complex interchanges of people, things and ideas between places, regions and/or countries, that are separated by borders, and usually by large physical distances. Transnationalism has also been linked to accounts of intense forms of international migration under globalisation, often in contexts of unequal power relations. Rather few studies have tried to grasp the phenomenon in larger samples, examining its importance and characteristics over time in different migratory contexts. While sharing theoretical and epistemological understandings from the transnational research field, this paper explores the phenomenon by analysing a comprehensive set of quantitative data on long-distance frequent movers between Sweden and Asia, Latin America and Africa. By looking at the most mobile of all migrants in this South-North context, the paper explores the characteristics and scope of transnational migrations. The analyses show that transnational circulators, defined here as individuals who have migrated three times or more between Sweden and these regions, constitute a very small proportion of all South-North migrants over a 35-year period. They are more likely than other groups to be highly educated, male, low-income earners and Swedish citizens. These results contrast with other studies where transnational mobility of the highly skilled is often associated with successful career migration and high income groups. The conclusion of this paper is that, despite the high qualification level of circulators, long-distance circulation between Sweden and the global South is associated with negative income and labour market situations. The paper also questions the relevance of the concept of transnationalism itself in this specific context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines individual trade policy preferences across 17 countries in Latin America. The focus is on whether skilled or unskilled workers are more likely to support liberalised trade and on whether country characteristics, such as factor endowments, alter the preferences of skilled and unskilled workers. Based on the standard Heckscher-Ohlin model and the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, wage inequality in developing countries will decrease under free trade and unskilled workers will benefit. We find that on average skilled workers are more likely than unskilled workers to support free trade in Latin American countries. Separate country regressions reveal that this pattern is only statistically significant in 8 out of 17 Latin American countries. However, there are no countries in our sample in which unskilled workers are statistically more likely to support free trade than skilled workers, not even in the lowest skill-endowed country in the sample. We also find that people from Latin American countries with higher GDP, faster growth, more cropland and a longer period of time since reform were more likely on average to support free trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘geographical pivot of history’ concept, subsequently developed into his famous‘Eurasian heartland thesis’, marginalizes South America, yet his ideas have attracted considerable interest there, including interpretations (and fantasies) of a‘South American heartland’. This paper examines the reception of Mackinder's ideas in Latin American geopolitics and how his heartland thesis was adapted for the South American context. It traces the roots of this adaptation in earlier South American geopolitical writing, and examines these ideas of counter-insurgency policies and global geopolitical strategies, analysing their relationship to military and anticommunist perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]