A central claim in favor of decentralization is that it will improve access to public services, but few studies examine this question empirically. This paper, the policyoriented companion to Faguet and Sánchez (2009), ...

We apply a standard tax and benefit incidence analysis to estimate the impact on inequality and poverty of direct taxes, indirect taxes and subsidies, and social spending (cash and food transfers and in-kind transfers in ...

In this paper, we study how parents react to a widely-used school policy that puts some children at a learning disadvantage. Specifically, we first document that, in line with findings in other countries, younger children ...

We document that life expectancies at the age of retirement differ significantly by income levels and gender in Chile. Using a sample of over 500 thousand workers that retired under the annuity system, we find that, ...

This paper investigates the relationship between economic inequality and crime in Colombian municipalities. Following recent scholarly research that suggests that the legacy of slavery is largely manifest in persistent ...

This paper documents a novel stylized fact: many teachers in Latin America have very low levels of cognitive skills. This skills deficit is the result of both low levels of competencies among the population and a gap between ...