The effects that the Latin America and Caribbean capital stock (public and private) had on the income inequality levels of 18 countries from this region were analysed, over a period ranging from 1995 to 2017, recurring to an autoregressive distributed lag model in the form of an unrestricted error correction model. The results from the three models that were estimated (with the total capital stock, the public capital stock, and the private capital stock) pointed for the existence of an enhancing effect from the capital stock (public and private) on the income inequality of these countries in the short-run, suggesting that the investments were made in the already richer/wealthiest areas. In the long-run, the effects of capital stock on income inequality seem to vanish, probably due to the efforts to correct the previous detrimental effect. However, the lack of a statistically significant impact shows that, although the efforts, capital stock (public and private) still does not contribute to the income inequality reduction, meaning that these countries should improve/change the management and the selection criteria of their physical capital investments to be able to reduce their income gap.

The paper aims to assess the wage differential that would induce workers to switch between informal and formal sectors, analysing the informal labour market in the Colombian Caribbean region. Relying on the theory of equalising differences, we uncover which workers perceive the highest utility from holding a formal job. Our research sheds light on how workers derive utility from formal and informal job sectors' benefits and to which extent informal workers are willing to accept a lower (or higher) wage to get a job in the formal sector. We also analyse the factors increasing the likelihood to seek employment in the formal sector. Results suggest that, on average, informal workers in the study region are willing to switch to a formal job only if they are offered a salary higher than their current income but are also willing to accept a salary slightly lower than the legal minimum wage in the formal sector. Finally, perceptions of benefits from formal and informal jobs vary with the socio-economic characteristics of individuals, especially by education level and previous work experience.

The COVID-19 pandemic not only generated real shocks affecting economic activity severely, but also a broad uncertainty that unleashed an extreme shock to financial markets. In this paper, we focus on the financial dimension of the pandemic from the viewpoint of an emerging market economy. Accordingly, we estimate a financial conditions index for Mexico since 1993 and find that the acute turmoil generated by the pandemic stands among the four largest episodes of financial distress experienced by the country. In addition, we find evidence suggesting that real variables have responded differently to shocks that worsen financial conditions than to shocks that improve them.

The National University of Colombia boasts a clear and egalitarian salary regime for its academic staff. Apart from rules concerning maternity and paternity leaves, which follow national Colombian legislation, the Academic Personal Statute is completely free of gender-based norms. Salaries are assigned through a points system that considers training level, productivity, and academic rank. With this in mind, one might expect to find egalitarian male and female salary conditions free of the gender-related gaps existing in other, more arbitrary private work environments. In this article, we present the results of a variance decomposition analysis of the gross salaries of all full-time professors and report the existence of an unadjusted gender pay gap of 0.12 and adjusted or unexplained gaps of 0.07-0.09 obtained through a Mincer earnings regression and a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition. Partial correlations between these gaps and the different factors that come into play are examined and analyzed. The high impact of professors’ research track record on their salaries appears as the main contribution to the gender differences. It seems plausible that the crucial need for time to dedicate to research opens the window to the patriarchal society to permeate the otherwise egalitarian salary regime of the University, especially for the highest range of salaries corresponding mainly to male full professors who are very active in research.

This paper aims to shed additional light on the existence of opportunistic and partisan political-business cycles in the Brazilian economy over the 1996-2016 period. To that end, it relies on two different approaches: (I) an Oaxaca model in the spirit of Blinder and Watson (2016); and (II) a DSGE model where fiscal and monetary policies are treated as political- regime dependent (Milani, 2010). By and large, our results from both exercises show that there existed an opportunistic behavior by all the governments studied as regards fiscal policy, and that political ideology played a role in shaping macroeconomic policies in some of the administrations that ran the country within the time span considered. Specifically, as our DSGE exercise illustrates, President Dilma Rouseff’s fiscal management differed significantly from previous governments’. In ad¬dition, we do not find any evidence of political business cycle of any type when it comes to monetary policy, in line with what the consensus in this literature states for the case of Brazil.

This paper aims to analyze the hourly gender wage gap between men and women in Mexico for the period 2005-2020. To this end, a number of variables is selected to reflect workers' human capital, household circumstances and workplace characteristics; then, a novel non-parametric method decomposes wage differentials between men and women into its composition and structure effects throughout the distribution of labor income. Results are consistent with the sticky-floor hypothesis, where male workers earn higher hourly wages than female workers at low income levels. However, differentials decrease in the upper part of the distribution and may even reverse, favoring women over men at the highest income levels.

The objective of this article is to estimate the fiscal costs, using income and expenditure surveys, of the provision of basic public services (electricity, water, telephone and internet) for the 40% of the population with the lowest incomes, the provision of a subsidy of 50% of actual food expenditure for the 40% of the population with the lowest incomes and the provision of a basic income per household equivalent to the value of the poverty line for households under the poverty line in Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador during the COVID-19 pandemic. These fiscal options are a fundamental component of any public health strategy against the COVID-19 considering they give economic viability to the population during the isolation and mobility restrictions period and financial support during the economic and social emergency. The results show that the fiscal costs of the provision of basic public services to 40% of the population with the lowest incomes or other fiscal measures considering less ambitious targets are heterogeneous between these Central American countries because of previous conditions and public policies but are reasonable and possible to cover under the actual circumstances.

The objective of this article is to estimate the fiscal costs, using income and expenditure surveys, of the provision of basic public services (electricity, water, telephone and internet) for the 40% of the population with the lowest incomes, the provision of a subsidy of 50% of actual food expenditure for the 40% of the population with the lowest incomes and the provision of a basic income per household equivalent to the value of the poverty line for households under the poverty line in Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador during the COVID-19 pandemic. These fiscal options are a fundamental component of any public health strategy against the COVID-19 considering they give economic viability to the population during the isolation and mobility restrictions period and financial support during the economic and social emergency. The results show that the fiscal costs of the provision of basic public services to 40% of the population with the lowest incomes or other fiscal measures considering less ambitious targets are heterogeneous between these Central American countries because of previous conditions and public policies but are reasonable and possible to cover under the actual circumstances.

Using data from 6378 Mexican firms for the 2012–2013 period, this paper estimates the effect of competition with China for the US market on the innovation efforts of the Mexican manufacturing sector. After controlling for the influence of several variables, we find a U-curve shaped relationship between foreign competition (measured by the China effect) and the innovation of Mexican manufacturing firms in products, in processes, and for the world. Given that the quadratic positive effect is much larger than the negative linear effect, we conclude that an Escape-Competition effect dominates when Mexican firms are fighting for a larger market share with China in the US.

We exploit a unique field experiment to recover the willingness to pay (WTP) for shorter waiting times at a cataract detection clinic in Mexico City, and compare the results with those obtained through a hypothetical dichotomous choice questionnaire. The WTP to avoid a minute of wait obtained from the field experiment ranges from 0.59 to 0.82 Mexican pesos (1 USD = 12.5 Mexican pesos at the time of the survey), while that from the hypothetical choice experiment ranges from 0.33 to 0.48 Mexican pesos. WTP to avoid the wait is lower for lower income individuals, and it is larger the more accurately the announced expected waiting time matches the true values. Finally, we find evidence that the marginal disutility of waiting is not constant.