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The report aims to meet two broad objectives: (a) enhance knowledge about the current state of existing social safety nets (SSNs) and assess their effectiveness in responding to new and emerging challenges to the poor and vulnerable in the region by bringing together new evidence, data, and country-specific analysis; and (b) open up and inform a debate on feasible policy options to make SSNs in the Middle East and North Africa more effective and innovative. The first chapter, 'a framework for SSN reform,' describes and illustrates the reasons for the region's growing need for SSN reform and es

Africa, North -- Economic policy -- 21st century. --- Africa, North -- Social policy -- 21st century. --- Middle East -- Economic policy -- 21st century. --- Middle East -- Social policy -- 21st century. --- Sociology & Social History --- Social Sciences --- Social Conditions --- Middle East --- Africa, North --- Social policy --- Economic policy --- Barbary States --- Maghreb --- Maghrib --- North Africa --- Asia, South West --- Asia, Southwest --- Asia, Western --- East (Middle East) --- Eastern Mediterranean --- Fertile Crescent --- Levant --- Mediterranean Region, Eastern --- Mideast --- Near East --- Northern Tier (Middle East) --- South West Asia --- Southwest Asia --- Asia, West --- West Asia --- Western Asia --- Orient

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This paper documents an inverse U-shape in the evolution of wage inequality in Latin America since 1995, with a sharp reduction starting in 2002. The Gini coefficient of wages increased from 42 to 44 between 1995 and 2002 and declined to 39 by 2015. Between 2002 and 2015, the 90/10 log hourly earnings ratio decreased by 26 percent. The decline since 2002 was characterized by rising wages across the board, but especially among those at the bottom of the wage distribution in each country. Triggered by a rapid expansion of educational attainment, the wages of college and high school graduates fell relative to those with primary education. The premium for labor market experience also fell significantly. But the compression of wages was not entirely driven by changes in the wage structure across skill groups. Two-thirds of the decline in the variance of wages took place within skill groups. Changes in the sectoral, occupational, and formal-informal composition of jobs matter for the process of reduction in inequality, but do not fully account for the fall in within-skill variance. Evidence using longitudinal matched employer-employee administrative data suggests that an important driver was falling wage dispersion across firms.

Development --- Economics of Education --- Education --- Educational Attainment --- Experience Premium --- Firm Dynamic --- Gini Coefficient --- Inequality --- Informality --- Labor Market --- Labor Markets --- Poverty Reduction --- Schooling Premium --- Social Protections and Labor --- Wage Gap --- Wages --- Wages, Compensation and Benefits

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What caused the decline in wage inequality of the 2000s in Latin America? Looking to the future, will the current economic slowdown be regressive? Wage Inequality in Latin America: Understanding the Past to Prepare for the Future addresses these two questions by reviewing relevant literature and providing new evidence on what we know from the conceptual, empirical, and policy perspectives.The answer to the fi rst question can be broken down into several parts, although the bottom line is that the changes in wage inequality resulted from a combination of three forces: (a) education expansion and its eff ect on falling returns to skill (the supply-side story); (b) shifts in aggregate domestic demand; and (c) exchange rate appreciation from the commodity boom and the associated shift to the nontradable sector that changed interfi rm wage diff erences. Other forces had a non-negligible but secondary role in some countries, while they were not present in others. These include the rapid increase of the minimum wage and a rapid trend toward formalization of employment, which played a supporting role but only during the boom.Understanding the forces behind recent trends also helps to shed light on the second question. The analysis in this volume suggests that theeconomic slowdown is putting the brakes on the reduction of inequality in Latin America and will likely continue to do so-but it might not actuallyreverse the region's movement toward less wage inequality.

Wage differentials. --- Latin America --- Latin America. --- Economic conditions.

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This paper examines whether export participation matters for job training. The paper draws on longitudinal worker-firm data for Brazilian manufacturing, linked with detailed records on training activity from the main provider. The analysis uses industry-specific exchange rate movements to generate exogenous variation in export status at the firm-level. The findings indicate that export participation tends to increase the share of workers who receive technical upgrading. The results also reveal that technical upgrading has positive returns to trainees within exporting firms. These findings support the hypothesis that exporting requires skill upgrading, and suggest that this is partially achieved by training firms' existing workforce.

Education --- Education for All --- Export Participation --- Job Training --- Labor Markets --- Labor Standards --- Linked Employer-Employee Data --- Primary Education --- Skill Upgrading --- Social Protections and Labor --- Tertiary Education --- Wages

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In many countries safety nets consist predominantly of universal subsidies on food and fuel. A key question for policy makers willing to shift to targeted safety nets is under what conditions middle-class citizens would be supportive of redistributive programs. Results from a behavioral experiment based on a nationally representative sample in Jordan reveal that increasing transparency in benefit delivery makes middle-class citizens (particularly among the youth and low-trust individuals) more willing to forgo their own welfare to benefit the poor. Moreover, increasing transparency enhances the relative support for cash-based safety nets, which have greater impact on poverty compared with in-kind transfers, but may be perceived as more prone to elite capture.

Altruism --- Debt Markets --- Development --- Economic Theory & Research --- Experiments --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poverty Reduction --- Redistribution --- Safety Nets & Transfers --- Services & Transfers to Poor --- Social Protections and Labor --- Transparency