Pablo Ibarrarán

Mexican Immigration and Self-Selection: New Evidence from the 2000 Mexican Census

We use data from the 2000 Mexican Census to examine how the education and socioeconomic status of Mexican immigrants to the United States compares to that of non-migrants in Mexico. Our primary conclusion is that migrants tend to be less educated than non-migrants. This finding is consistent with the idea that the return to education is higher in Mexico than in the United States, and thus the wage gain to migrating is proportionately smaller for high-educated Mexicans than it is for lower-educated Mexicans. We also find that the degree of negative selection of migrants is stronger in Mexican counties that have a higher return to education.

The Labor Market Impacts of Youth Training in the Dominican Republic

We report the impacts of a job training program operated in the Dominican Republic. A random sample of applicants was selected to undergo training, and information was gathered 10–14 months after graduation. Unfortunately, people originally assigned to treatment who failed to show up were not included in the follow-up survey, potentially compromising the evaluation design. We present estimates of the program effect, including comparisons that ignore the potential nonrandomness of “no-show” behavior, and estimates that model selectivity parametrically. We find little indication of a positive effect on employment outcomes but some evidence of a modest effect on earnings, conditional on working.

Technology and Child Development: Evidence from the One Laptop Per Child Program

Although many countries are aggressively implementing the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program, there is a lack of empirical evidence on its effects. This paper presents the impact of the first large-scale randomized evaluation of the OLPC program, using data collected after 15 months of implementation in 319 primary schools in rural Peru. The results indicate that the program increased the ratio of computers per student from 0. 12 to 1. 18 in treatment schools. This expansion in access translated into substantial increases in use both at school and at home. No evidence is found of effects on enrollment and test scores in Math and Language. Some positive effects are found, however, in general cognitive skills as measured by Raven’s Progressive Matrices, a verbal fluency test and a Coding test.

Evaluating the impact of job training programmes in Latin America: evidence from IDB funded operations

Among active labour market programmes, job training is popular in Latin America as an attempt to help the labour market insertion of disadvantaged youth, and also as a way of providing skills to low-income groups to enable them to deal with the challenges of globalisation. This paper summarises the findings from the first rigorous set of evaluations of job training programmes in Latin America that were made in the context of a project undertaken by the Office of Evaluation and Oversight at the Inter-American Development Bank. This research was complemented by two independent impact evaluations of similar training programmes in Chile and Colombia. The paper reports the results of two evaluations with an experimental design (the Dominican Republic and Colombia), one with a natural experiment (Panama), and four non-experimental evaluations (Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Mexico). Overall, in contrast to the evidence for developed countries, the results suggest that employment effects range from modest to meaningful – increasing the employment rate by about 0 to 5 percentage points – although higher and significant for some groups, such as women in Colombia and Panama – with an impact of 6 to 12 percentage points in the employment rate. In most cases there are larger and significant impacts on job quality, measured by getting a formal job, having a contract, and/or receiving health insurance as a benefit.

Life skills, employability and training for disadvantaged youth: Evidence from a randomized evaluation design

This paper presents an impact evaluation of a revamped version of the Dominican Republic’s youth training program Juventud y Empleo. The paper analyzes the impact of the program on traditional labor market outcomes and on outcomes related to youth behavior and life style, expectations about the future and socio-emotional skills. In terms of labor market outcomes, the program has a positive impact on job formality for men of about 17 percent and there is also a seven percent increase in monthly earnings among those employed. However, there are no overall impacts on employment rates. Regarding non-labor market outcomes, the program reduces teenage pregnancy by five percentage points in the treatment group (about 45 percent), which is consistent with an overall increase in youth expectations about the future. The program also has a positive impact on non-cognitive skills as measured by three different scales. Scores improve between 0.08 and 0.16 standard deviations with the program. Although recent progress noted in the literature suggests that socio-emotional skills increase employability and quality of employment, the practical significance of the impacts is unclear, as there is only weak evidence that the life skills measures used are associated to better labor market performance. This is an area of growing interest and relevance that requires further research.JEL codesJ24, J64, O15, O17.

Do Education and Health Conditions Matter in a Large Cash Transfer? Evidence from a Honduran Experiment

The article analyzes a new Honduran conditional cash transfer experiment (Bono 10,000) in which 150 poor villages (of 300) were treated. The per household transfer was much larger than an earlier experiment, but it yielded smaller short-run effects on school enrollment, child labor participation, and use of health services. One explanation is that Bono 10,000 did not apply conditions to all children: only one school-age child in participating households was subject to the education condition, and young children and mothers were only subject to the health conditions in the absence of school-age children. Consistent with this, we find a large enrollment increase (and offsetting decrease in labor participation) among households with one eligible child and smaller and insignificant effects on children in larger households. We only find significant effects on health service use among children and mothers in the absence of a school-age child (despite a smaller household transfer). The heterogeneity is not driven by variables correlated with the number of children such as household size, child age, birth order, or poverty.

How Conditional Cash Transfers Work

Twenty years have passed since conditional cash transfer programs were first implemented in Latin America and the Caribbean. This book takes the opportunity to critically review the design options and operational solutions employed by the countries in the region, with the goal of systematizing this accumulated operational knowledge and identifying both good practices and remaining challenges. It addresses the major processes of the operational cycle: beneficiary identification and management of the rosters of beneficiaries, verification of conditionalities, and payment of transfers. In addition, it discusses cross-cutting issues, such as territorial organization, management information systems, and the linkage of beneficiaries to other social programs. This book is a useful and practical tool for those seeking to understand how transfer programs work and how they can be improved by building on the experiences of other countries.

The Effects of Shared School Technology Access on Students’ Digital Skills in Peru

This paper analyzes the effects of increased shared computer access in secondary schools in Peru. Administrative data are used to identify, through propensity-score matching, two groups of schools with similar observable educational inputs but different intensity in computer access. Extensive primary data collected from the 202 matched schools are used to determine whether increased shared computer access at schools affects digital skills and academic achievement. Results suggest that small increases in shared computer access, one more computer per 40 students, can produce large increases in digital skills (0.3 standard deviations). No effects are found on test scores in Math and Language.

Más inclusión social: Lecciones de Europa y perspectivas para América Latina

La region de America Latina y el Caribe ha avanzado tanto en la reduccion de la pobreza y, en menor medida, de la desigualdad como en el fortalecimiento de instituciones para la implementacion de la politica social. Tras la exitosa adopcion de programas de transferencias monetarias condicionadas, en la mayoria de los paises de la region ha surgido la necesidad de politicas complementarias que promuevan la insercion social y productiva de la poblacion pobre y vulnerable, reconociendo que la pobreza y la vulnerabilidad tienen multiples causas. En este contexto, se ha evidenciado la necesidad de estructurar politicas sociales complementarias a las politicas sectoriales tradicionales (educacion, salud, vivienda, trabajo y apoyo al ingreso). Esta monografia revisa el concepto de servicios sociales que buscan promover la insercion social y discute la experiencia europea, donde los servicios sociales han logrado un importante nivel de desarrollo. Asimismo, se discuten las perspectivas para implementar servicios sociales en America Latina y el Caribe y se presenta un analisis de la demanda potencial por estos servicios para atender a los grupos mas vulnerables.

Firm Dynamics and Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations: Does Trade Openness Matter? Evidence from Mexico’s Manufacturing Sector

In this article, we study the effect of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the responsiveness of Mexican economy to real exchange rate shocks. We argue that, by opening the US and Canadian markets to Mexican goods, NAFTA made it easier for domestic producers to take advantage of the opportunities brought by the depreciation of the real exchange rate. To identify this mechanism, we use plant-level data and compare the behavior of employment, production and investment after two big real exchange rate shocks: the first observed in the mid-1980s, the second the Tequila Crisis of 1994–1995. The evidence indicates that after passage of NAFTA exporting firms exhibited higher growth rates of employment, sales and investment vis-à-vis non-exporters. We confirm our results by analyzing the behavior of a control group of firms, that had complete access to the US market during both devaluations, and we show that they responded in a similar way in both events. Finally, we also provide direct evidence on the relationship between exports and tariff reductions brought by NAFTA. Our results support the view that NAFTA has allowed Mexican producers to respond more quickly to real exchange shocks.