Search

Begin New Search Political Geography South America Author Leonardo Gasparini

1. Energy poverty on the flip side of energy subsidies

Author:
Julian Puig and Leonardo Gasparini
Publication Date:
04-2025
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between energy subsidies and energy poverty (EP). Understanding this relationship is important because subsidies are often justified from an equity perspective to protect the most vulnerable households. Argentina, which has subsidized residential energy consumption since the early 2000s, is used as the case study. Since then, the energy subsidy policy has experienced two well-defined phases: massive and universal subsidies until 2015, followed by an attempt at reduction and targeting. This context, combined with notable regional disparities -including variations in income levels, climatic conditions, energy prices, and residential energy consumption patterns (e.g., electricity vs. piped gas)- makes this case study particularly compelling. EP is analyzed both unidimensionally and multidimensionally. Under both measures, EP follows a U-shaped pattern that reflects the phases of energy subsidies: a significant decrease between 2005 and 2013, followed by a considerable increase by 2018. The paper also highlights the key role of regional disparities which is crucial for interpreting the results beyond the Argentine case. Based on the findings, the paper contributes with globally relevant insights on the link between energy subsidy policies and EP.
Topic:
Poverty, Gas, Electricity, Subsidies, and Energy
Political Geography:
Argentina and South America

2. The Long-Run Effects of Conditional Cash Transfers: the Case of Bolsa Familia in Brazil

Author:
Luis Laguinge, Leonardo Gasparini, and Guido Neidhöfer
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) have become a key antipoverty policy in Latin America in the last 25 years. The ultimate goal of this kind of programs is to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty through the promotion of human capital accumulation of children in vulnerable households. In this paper, we explore this issue by estimating the long-run effects of the largest CCT in Latin America: the Brazilian Bolsa Familia. Through a combination of the two-stage-two-sample method and a difference-in-differences approach, we find evidence consistent with a positive long-run impact of Bolsa Familia among former beneficiaries. In particular, we find a significant positive effect on education and labor income, and a negative effect on the likelihood of being a current beneficiary of this social transfer.
Topic:
Poverty, Human Capital, Cash Transfers, and Bolsa Familia
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

3. Does the Minimum Wage Affect Wage Inequality? A Study for the Six Largest Latin American Economies

Author:
Carlo Lombardo, Lucía Ramírez-Leira, and Leonardo Gasparini
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
Minimum wage (MW) policies are widespread in the developing world and yet their effects are still unclear. In this paper we explore the effect of national MW policies in Latin America’s six largest economies by exploiting the heterogeneity in the bite of the national minimum wage across local labor markets and over time. We find evidence that the MW has a compression effect on the wage distribution of formal workers. The effect was particularly large during the 2000s, a decade of sustained growth and strong labor markets. In contrast, the effect seems to vanish in the 2010s, a decade of much weaker labor markets. We also find suggestive evidence of a lighthouse effect: the MW seems to have an equalizing effect also on the wage distribution of informal workers.
Topic:
Income Inequality, Economy, Labor Market, Minimum Wage, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:
South America and Latin America

4. Costs and Benefits of Trade Shocks: Evidence from Chilean Local Labor Markets

Author:
Andres Cesar, Guillermo Falcone, and Leonardo Gasparini
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
We study Chile’s labor market responses to trade shocks during 1996-2006, exploiting spatial and time variations in trade exposure arising from initial differences in industry specialization across local labor markets and the evolution of shocks across industries. We take advantage of China’s supply and demand’s worldwide shocks to instrument for Chinese import competition and demand for Chilean exports. Our main finding is that increasing manufacturing import competition implied a significant rise in labor informality in more exposed local markets, especially among young and unskilled workers. These groups also suffered significant relative wage losses. Meanwhile, locations that benefited most from the increased demand for primary products experienced a relative increase in employment, particularly among young individuals, and reallocation from self-employment towards salaried jobs in the formal sector, along with relative wage gains among old-age workers. Interestingly, these areas experienced a smaller increase in tertiary education enrollment rates than less exposed areas.
Topic:
Employment, Trade, Labor Market, and Informal Economy
Political Geography:
South America and Chile

5. The distributional effect of a massive exodus in Latin America and the role of downgrading and regularization

Author:
Carlo Lombardo, Julian Martinez-Correa, Leonardo Penaloza-Pacheco, and Leonardo Gasparini
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
The massive displacement of Venezuelan citizens to Colombia is the second most important episode of forced migration in the world. We study the impact of this demographic shock on the Colombian income distribution exploiting the geographical heterogeneity in the intensity of migration. We use RIF regressions in an instrumental variables approach to account for the non-random pattern of location of immigrants. We find that despite the fact that Venezuelan immigrants are relatively skilled compared to native Colombian workers, the exodus had a larger negative effect on the lower tail of the wage distribution, implying increases in income inequality and poverty. We link this result to a sizeable downgrading of (mostly unregistered) Venezuelan recent migrants who work in more routine tasks and earn lower wages than natives with similar characteristics. We also explore a large regularization program for immigrants and find that it was associated to a reduction in the extent of downgrading, and hence, to a mitigation of the unequalizing impact of the exodus.
Topic:
Migration, Income Inequality, and Labor Market
Political Geography:
Colombia, South America, and Venezuela

6. A decomposition method to evaluate the ‘paradox of progress’ with evidence for Argentina

Author:
Javier Alejo, Leonardo Gasparini, Gabriel Montes-Rojas, and Walter Sosa-Escudero
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
The ‘paradox of progress’ is an empirical regularity that associates more education with larger income inequality. Two driving and competing factors behind this phenomenon are the convexity of the ‘Mincer equation’ (that links wages and education) and the heterogeneity in its returns, as captured by quantile regressions. We propose a joint least-squares and quantile regression statistical framework to derive a decomposition in order to evaluate the relative contribution of each explanation. The estimators are based on the ‘functional derivative’ approach. We apply the proposed decomposition strategy to the case of Argentina 1992 to 2015.
Topic:
Economics, Education, Inequality, Quantile Regression, and Paradox of Progress
Political Geography:
Argentina and South America

7. Routinization and Employment: Evidence for Latin America

Author:
Leonardo Gasparini, Irene Brambilla, Guillermo Falcone, Carlo Lombardo, and Andres Cesar
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
We study changes in employment by occupations characterized by different degree of exposure to routinization in the six largest Latin American economies over the last two decades. We combine our own indicators of routine task content based on information from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIACC) with labor market microdata from harmonized national household surveys. We find that the increase in jobs was decreasing in the automatability of the tasks typically performed in each occupation, and increasing in the initial wage, a pattern more consistent with the traditional skill-biased technological change than with the polarization hypothesis.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Employment, Automation, and Job Creation
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and North America