Juan Ramón de Laiglesia

Covering the Uncovered: Labor Informality, Pensions and the Emerging Middle Class in Latin America

Innovative social policy instruments, notably conditional cash transfers, have been effective in reducing poverty in many Latin American countries.1 As a result, many households have recently succeeded in moving out of poverty and joining the ranks of the so-called emerging middle classes. This chapter will demonstrate, however, that many of these middle-class workers are still vulnerable to significant downward mobility if they are hit by negative shocks, such as illness, disability, job loss or a significant decline in income after retirement.

Living with Duality: Fiscal Policy and Informality in Latin America

Although hard to measure, informality is by all accounts high in Latin America: about half of the region’s working population can be considered informal. In Mexico, the only Latin American country that belongs to the OECD, up to 60 per cent of non-agricultural workers – almost 22 million people – are employed informally or self-employed. These working people have opted out or have been shut out of the formal system of taxes and social protection. In that sense, they bear witness to a broken social contract between citizens and the state.

Institutional Bottlenecks for Agricultural Development

High quality institutions lower transaction costs, encourage trust, reinforce property rights and avoid the exclusion of sections of the population. Overcoming institutional bottlenecks that constrain entrepreneurial activities and the development of the private sector is a prerequisite for achieving pro-poor growth, in particular in Africa. As part of the Development Centre’s Work Programme 2005/2006 on institutional requirements for advancing peace and development in sub-Saharan-Africa, this explorative study sets the stage for forthcoming indepth case studies in Ghana and Cameroon. La mediocre performance de l’agriculture africaine est a mettre au compte non seulement d’une donnee naturelle difficile et d’une histoire de politiques extractives, mais aussi de goulots d’etranglement institutionnels fondamentaux. Ce document de travail presente un cadre pour l’analyse des goulots d’etranglement empechant le developpement agricole en Afrique sub- Saharienne. Il passe en revue la litterature au sujet des institutions et du developpement agricole afin d’identifier les principaux obstacles institutionnels auxquels l’agriculture africaine fait face.

Household Structures and Savings

This paper examines the relationship between household structures, the institutions that shape them and physical and human capital accumulation using household and individual data from China, Indonesia, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. Household structures differ greatly across countries and are very diverse within countries. In the two African countries studied a large share of the population live in extended households and/or polygamous ones. Such household structures are the exception or even absent in the Asian cases, where nuclear monogamous households prevail. This paper finds that polygamy is negatively related to capital accumulation. Wealth per capita is significantly lower in polygamous households even after controlling for income, age and literacy of the household head. A first analysis of the possible channels suggests that the larger size of polygamous households plays an important role. A similar result is found for education: enrolment rates are never higher but frequently lower in these households. The diversity across countries demonstrates that polygamy has very different meanings across societies...

Do Institutions Block Agricultural Development in Africa

A coherent institutional framework that supports investment, exchange and representation mechanisms is a key precondition for agricultural development. The importance of customs and traditions for the process of agrarian transformation has been overlooked. Changes in formal institutions must be complementary to cultural norms and accommodate or foster the evolution of customary practices.

Vivre avec la dualité: la politique budgétaire et le secteur informel en Amérique latine

L’economie informelle est difficile a quantifier, mais, quel que soit l’indicateur retenu, elle est tres repandue en Amerique latine : elle concernerait environ la moitie de la population active de cette region. Au Mexique, seul pays latino-americain membre de l’OCDE, quelque 60 pour cent de la main-d’oeuvre non agricole, soit pres de 22 millions d’individus, ont un emploi informel ou travaillent a leur compte. Ces travailleurs se retrouvent, par choix ou non, en dehors du systeme fiscal et de protection sociale associe a l’economie organisee, ce qui temoigne de la rupture du contrat social entre les citoyens et l’Etat.

Telecommunications in Latin America

Foreign investment in telecommunications in Latin America has amounted to over

Télécommunications en Amérique latine

110 billion since 1990, more than for all other developing countries combined. Only one in four of the poorest Latin Americans has a telephone line; competitive markets and policies promoting access can help narrow the connectivity gap between rich and poor.

Culture, Family Ties and the Saving Hand

En Amerique latine, l’investissement etranger dans les telecommunications se chiffre a plus de 110 milliards de dollars depuis 1990. Seuls des marches concurrentiels et des politiques favorisant l’acces aux telecommunications peuvent reduire l’ecart de connectivite entre riches et pauvres.

Les institutions entravent-elles le développement agricole de l'Afrique ?

Different cultures entail both a great diversity of household structures and different saving patterns. The diversity of family relations and saving patterns creates different incentives for physical and human capital accumulation. Policies can alter saving incentives and create the conditions for household structures themselves to change.