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Achieving greater geographical diversity in economics in general, and in the field of development in particular, is a desirable objective due to ethical and utilitarian reasons. In this article, we analyze geographical diversity in the main academic journals of the discipline, providing a detailed look at articles written in collaboration between researchers from developed and developing countries. Our results confirm the striking prevalence of articles written by researchers based in developed countries. We also detect an increase in collaborative research in time and highlight the importance of non‐academic institutions in the conformation of these collaborative research teams. In terms of contents, most of these collaborations address the study of a country or a region, and many of them are empirical, mainly using quantitative approaches. Integrating a collaborative research team allows researchers located in the developing world to publish in higher quality journals and get more impact, at least in terms of citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between access to early childhood education and care (ECEC) services and family arrangements in the distribution of work in four Latin American countries. We find that households in which all children aged 0 to 5 receive ECEC services exhibit smaller gender gaps in unpaid work, mainly due to a decrease in the amount of time women devote to care work. Women in these households devote more time to paid work, such that the gender gap in total work does not differ between households based on use of ECEC services. However, use of ECEC services for children aged 0 to 5 is associated with reduced hours of unpaid work among women and an increase in women's hours of paid work. These findings confirm the importance of increasing access to early childhood care and education services to reduce gender gaps in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is limited empirical evidence on whether cash social assistance to poor pregnant women improves children’s birth outcomes. Using program administrative micro-data matched to longitudinal vital statistics on the universe of births in Uruguay, we estimate that participation in a generous cash transfer program led to a sizeable 15 to 17% reduction in the incidence of low birth weight. Improvements in mother nutrition and a fall in labor supply, out-of-wedlock births and mother’s smoking all appear to contribute to this effect. Effects are not driven by changes in fertility. We conclude that, by improving child health, cash transfers may help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

This article explores the differences in views between men and women Uruguayan economists regarding their opinions about market solutions and government interventions. In line with international evidence, the support for more market-oriented statements is lower among women than men. The study examines the role of age, family background, exposure to economic discussions (proxied by postgraduate education, reading of blogs and press, and academic environment), and personality traits (risk aversion, optimism, and preferences for competition) to explain these gender gaps. The results indicate that gender plays a role in shaping pro-market opinions. The gender differences remain significant after controlling for explanatory variables, though the magnitudes are mild. The findings indicate that achieving gender balance by including women in public debates and decision-making positions would improve the diversity of perspectives in economics. HIGHLIGHTS In Uruguay, women economists are less pro-market than their men colleagues. Personal traits, notably competitiveness, contribute to this gender gap. Including women in decision making improves diversity and quality of public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen: Muchas economías en desarrollo comparten dos rasgos distintivos: altos niveles de desigualdad de ingresos y una considerable proporción de empleo informal. Sin embargo, no abunda la bibliografía sobre la relación entre ambas variables, sobre todo en el caso de América Latina. En este artículo se analizan diversos factores que pueden influir en el signo de la ambigua relación entre desigualdad e informalidad. Comprobamos empíricamente esta relación utilizando datos de panel de América Latina correspondientes al periodo 1990‐2018. En las condiciones específicas de la región, los resultados muestran una asociación positiva entre la formalización del mercado de trabajo y la igualdad de ingresos laborales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé: De nombreuses économies en développement affichent à la fois de fortes inégalités des revenus et un emploi largement informel. Malgré cette conjonction frappante, la relation entre les deux phénomènes est peu étudiée, en particulier pour l'Amérique latine. Les auteurs soulignent la complexité de ce lien et isolent plusieurs facteurs susceptibles d'influer en la matière. Ils testent leur modèle conceptuel empiriquement avec des données de panel portant sur une série de pays latino‐américains et sur la période 1990‐2018. Dans ce contexte particulier, les résultats font apparaître une association positive entre la formalisation du marché du travail et l'égalité des revenus du travail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the relationship between income inequality and informal employment in Latin America between 1990 and 2018, provides an empirical evidence suggesting a positive association between formalization in the labor market and labor income equality. Topics include the ambiguity of the relationship, the potential causal directions between informality and inequality, and the positive association found in Latin America's context-specific conditions.

Con respecto a temas económicos, ¿cuál es el grado de consenso entre los economistas uruguayos? Este artículo encuentra que los niveles de consenso son menores a los de otros países. Aunque los disensos también lo son, predomina un nivel modesto de acuerdos. Los mayores niveles de acuerdo se detectaron en preguntas relativas a discriminación y, en menor medida, a temas medioambientales. También se determinó acuerdo en la necesidad de mayor equidad de ingresos y en la importancia del papel del Estado para alcanzarla, pero no hubo consenso sobre las herramientas redistributivas más apropiadas. Con base en un análisis de correspondencia múltiple, utilizando la metodología de clústeres, se distinguen dos grupos, diferenciados en función de sus opiniones sobre temas económicos, fuertemente asociados a la ideología propia y la posición ideológica de los padres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present evidence of how researchers from developing countries are represented in three areas of research: conference presentations, articles in journals, and citations. We find that the bulk of research on development and development policies in the South is conducted by researchers from the North. Southern universities represents 9% of conference presenters, while 57% of conference presenters are from Northern universities. There has been no evidence of improvements over time. Fewer than one in six of the articles published in top 20 development journals from 1990 to 2019 were by Southern researchers, while close to three-quarters were by Northern researchers. The remaining 11% were collaborations by Southern and Northern researchers. Additionally, there are also fewer citations per article for Southern-authored articles than for Northern-authored articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En este artículo se analiza la relación entre el crecimiento económico y la pobreza en el período 1991-2006 en Uruguay. La literatura acerca de los efectos del crecimiento sobre el bienestar de la población y específicamente sobre la población en situación de pobreza ha tenido una rápida expansión en los últimos años. En el artículo se revisan los distintos conceptos de crecimiento propobre y se presentan los resultados de la aplicación de distintas metodologías para la determinación de la relación entre crecimiento y pobreza en Uruguay en diferentes sub-periodos.

Assumptions of the traditional income poverty measure have strong implications not confirmed by the evidence, but this measure is still widely used in gender poverty analysis. We explore the boundaries of the gender analysis of monetary poverty based on the currently available information (household surveys for 16 Latin American countries). Our results indicate that departing from the conventional methodology has more influence on women than men, worsening female indicators. Households emerge as crucial venues for income support for low income partnered women and for women with no access to any income, whose autonomy is seriously compromised due to this fact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how changes in Latin American countries’ age structures may affect their long-term economic performance through the impact on labor supply, dependency ratios, and productivity. It analyzes fourteen Latin American countries using population projections for 2015–2050 and considering three scenarios. The basic scenario assumes constant sex- and age-specific behavior concerning employment, while the other two scenarios imply increases in female activity rates and significant human capital accumulation. The results illustrate the heterogeneity of Latin American countries. In some of them, major productivity increases can only be achieved through substantial changes in the incorporation of women into the labor market, and especially in the educational level of the population as a whole. However, in most of the region’s countries, the demographic factor is still favorable and there is scope to exploit the demographic dividend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This article analyses the evolution of child stunting in seven Latin American countries during the 2000s, based on repeated cross-sections of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). The incidence of stunting differs from country to country, ranging from 27% in the Plurinational State of Bolivia to 6% in Brazil. The largest reduction in stunting took place in Peru, where it declined from 28% in 2007 to 18% in 2012. The decrease in Haiti is also noteworthy, from 29% in 2006 to 21% in 2012. Although all countries were able to reduce the incidence of child stunting, inequalities in child stunting evolved differently. Whereas in Brazil and Colombia inequality in child stunting decreased, in Peru and Bolivia it rose. In the rest of the countries, improvements in child stunting took place jointly with no statistically significant change in its inequality. Results from the decomposition analysis indicate that the unequal distribution in stunting is accounted mainly by the wealth index, and to a lesser extent, by maternal characteristics such as weight, education, and children ever born. Factors such as breastfeeding and diarrhoea exert smaller effects. In all countries, inequality in wealth was the main contributor to changes in stunting inequality, with equalizing or un-equalizing effects depending on the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article analyses the effects of the implementation of childcare pension credits for women in Uruguay, which were introduced as part of a social security reform in 2009. Using microdata from administrative records of the social security administration, we show that around 60% of retired women have used these credits between 2009 and 2015, computing on average 2.7 additional years of service. The use of childcare credits has been higher among more vulnerable female workers. Among women with lower pensions, childcare credits are used both to reach the required years for retirement and to improve the amount of pensions, whereas for women in the higher deciles the program mainly impacts on the amount of pensions. Using a difference in difference approach, we also show that the program has, to some extent, acted as a substitute for the mechanism of computing years of service through the declaration of witnesses, an extended practice in Uruguay to access pensions. Lastly, we show that, if these credits had not been incepted, female access to pensions would have been significantly lower, and gender gaps both in access to, and in the amount of, pensions would have been higher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En este artículo se presenta una discusión, desde diferentes miradas, sobre cómo ha evolucionado la desigualdad de los ingresos. Se considera la desigualdad global del ingreso sobre la base de múltiples evidencias recientes, que señalan una relativa estabilidad del elevado nivel de desigualdad. Los principales cambios surgen de los movimientos de China y la India. En los países desarrollados, la tendencia ha sido hacia mayores niveles de desigualdad en los últimos tres decenios. También ha sido así en los países en desarrollo, con la excepción de América Latina en el último decenio. Esta región se analiza en detalle; en términos globales, los ingresos se volvieron más igualitarios entre 2002 y 2014, debido fundamentalmente a la caída de la desigualdad dentro de los países. La desigualdad se ha reducido en la mayoría de ellos, aunque las últimas mediciones dan indicios de una detención en este proceso de descenso. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay show similar empirical patterns in terms of time women devote to unpaid work, they also present important variations in how unpaid work is distributed between men and women. Using time-use surveys for the 2007–10 period, this study finds a uniform pattern across the four countries regarding the main individual-level variables related to the allocation of unpaid work. When decomposing the gender gap in hours devoted to unpaid work, most of the difference cannot be attributed to variations in observable characteristics of men and women: the unexplained part of the gap is the dominant part. Results suggest that both the strength of traditional gender roles and existing welfare architecture are relevant factors in understanding variations in how unpaid work is distributed between men and women in these four countries. The results reaffirm that powerful interventions are needed to shift gender norms about unpaid work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lower female lifetime labour market participation rates, greater interruptions during their working lives, and wage gaps contribute to create gender gaps in pensions at the time of retirement. The design of social security systems may reinforce or attenuate these gaps. This article provides new evidence on gender gaps in access to pensions and in pension income in four Southern Cone countries in Latin America and analyses their evolution between 2000 and 2013, showing significant improvements in both gaps, with differential patterns by countries. The decrease in the gender gap in pension income has been particularly significant in Argentina and Brazil. In both cases, the largest increases in pension values during the period correspond to the lowest income percentiles, where women are overrepresented. The application of redistributive policies in these countries, aimed at reducing poverty and inequality but not necessarily focused on gender equity, has had positive and probably unintended consequences in terms of reduction in gender gaps in pensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline in inequality observed in most Latin American countries after 2002 was surprisingly good news, particularly given that most developed countries were experiencing a rise in inequality at that time. Various arguments have been put forward to explain this decline, but there is still no consensus on the most plausible explanation. This article contributes to the ongoing discussion by performing inequality decompositions by factor components. We estimate the importance of each source of income in explaining the observed decline in income inequality between 2002 and 2011 in five Latin American countries. Specifically, we explore the role of the process of formalization that has taken place in regional labor markets, separating formal and informal wages and considering self-employment incomes. In the five countries studied here informal wages and self-employment income contributed to decreasing inequality. Formal sector wages, on the other hand, fostered inequality in all countries except Bolivia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En este artículo se combinan los datos individuales de las encuestas de hogares de los países latinoamericanos para obtener un vector de ingresos regional y analizar su distribución y cambios recientes. Se investiga si en la última década los cambios distributivos en los países han mejorado la distribución de los ingresos entre los individuos, o incrementado las brechas. Los indicadores de desigualdad global de la región muestran una caída significativa durante 2003-2012. Esta merma en la desigualdad global se explica fundamentalmente por la reducción de la desigualdad en los países latinoamericanos. Los ingresos de los habitantes de América Latina son hoy más igualitarios en términos relativos que hace una década, aunque las diferencias en los ingresos promedio de los países son mayores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En este artículo se analiza la participación de los ingresos laborales en el Ingreso total en los países de América Latina durante las últimas dos décadas. Primero se considera la participación de la masa de salarios en el producto Interno bruto (pib), para luego Incorporar los ingresos laborales de los trabajadores Independientes. Los resultados indican que tanto el peso de la masa salarial como el del total de ingresos laborales en el pib han caído durante el período en la mayoría de los países de la región, aunque con algunas excepciones. La merma en la desigualdad del ingreso laboral en la última década no ha estado acompañada, en términos generales, de una mayor participación de los ingresos laborales en el PIB. Esto implica que la mejora en la distribución personal de los ingresos no se ha producido en conjunto con una mejora en la distribución funcional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La incorporación de los trabajadores por cuenta propia al régimen de protección social constituye un desafío importante en América Latina. En 2007 se modificó en el Uruguay un sistema específico de contribución para estos trabajadores, denominado monotributo, tras lo cual una proporción relevante de ellos puede adherirse al régimen. Este artículo presenta un análisis de las características y condiciones de trabajo de estos trabajadores en el Uruguay de 2000 a 2010 y explora la evolución del nivel de cotizaciones a la seguridad social asociada con la modificación del régimen de monotributo, así como su potencial de inclusión. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé. L'intégration des travailleurs pour compte propre au système de protection sociale est un défi de première grandeur en Amérique latine. En 2007, l'Uruguay a réformé son régime spécifique de contribution unique à l'intention de ces travailleurs, permettant à une proportion significative d'entre eux d'y adhérer. Les auteures analysent les caractéristiques et les conditions de travail de cette catégorie en Uruguay, entre 2000 et 2010, ainsi que l'évolution du niveau de cotisation à la sécurité sociale associée à la réforme du régime de contribution unique, de même que le potentiel d'intégration de ce dernier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Using unemployment insurance records and social security labor histories, we provide evidence of the impacts of recent changes in the unemployment insurance system of Uruguay. We estimate the effects on unemployment duration and post unemployment wages. Two main changes are considered: the modification in the scheme of payments -from a lump sum during six months to a decreasing system of payments during the same period- and extension in the duration of the benefit up to one year for workers 50 or older. We consider different impact evaluation techniques (propensity score, difference in differences and regression discontinuity), and find that the change in the payment scheme has implied a small reduction in unemployment duration, with no effects in terms of subsequent earnings. The possibility of extension of the unemployment insurance for older workers has led to an extension in unemployment duration and it has not helped to subsidize better job matches in the form of better paying jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at contributing to the debate on the effectiveness of cash transfers in terms of income inequality variations at the national and regional level, in middle-income countries like Uruguay. We microsimulate how targeting criteria affect impacts on school attendance, income inequality and poverty of the recently incepted cash transfer programme Asignaciones Familiares. Our results show that inequality tends to persist although programme effects on child education, indigence and poverty are positive. Targeting mechanisms strongly condition both the geographical distribution of beneficiaries and school attendance outcomes but do not affect regional disparities and programme effects on inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]