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Department of Macroeconomics (Director: Beatriz Muriel)
Department of Social Policy
(Director: Oscar Molina)
Department of Development
(Director: Lykke Andersen)
Economic Modeling
and Simulation Area (Director: Martin Vargas)
Department of Management (Director:
Pablo Von Vacano)
Project Summaries:
Title:
Regional Integration and Poverty
Purpose: The objective of the study is to investigate how
Regional Integration (RI) has affected poverty in Bolivia. The project
demonstrates how RI processes has diverted trade away from traditional
US and EU markets towards partners in MERCOSUR and the Andean Community.
Econometric analyses investigate how these changes in trade patterns
have affected salaries and employment and thus poverty.
Project leader: Osvaldo Nina
Other participants: Lykke Andersen, Oscar Molina,
Paloma Aguilar
Financing: Overseas
Development Institute
Output: Final report in
English.
Title: The Effectiveness of Foreign Aid in
Bolivia
Purpose: The project investigates the effectiveness of foreign aid
in Bolivia. When comparing accumulated aid in each sector during the
period 1998-2002 with the progress in each sector during the same period,
it becomes clear that the four sectors receiving by far the most aid (Institutional
strengthening, Rural Development, Roads, and Budget support) have shown
disappointingly little progress. When the impact of aid is analyzed in a
Computable General Equilibrium model, it becomes clear that aid tends to
have a positive effect on growth, but only in the short run, and it
tends to have an adverse effect on the income distribution.
Project leader: Lykke Andersen
Other participants: José Luis Evia
Financing/collaboration: DFID,
Spanish Embassy, Fundación
Milenio
Output: Final report in
English, Final
report in Spanish.
Title: The
Dynamic Impacts of Aid
on Recipient Behavior
Purpose: This
research project proposes to do a micro-level analysis of the dynamic
impacts of remittances in order to understand how households change
their behaviour in response to the receipt of significant amounts of
unconditional aid. Do they tend to use the funds productively to
increase long term income generation capacity, or do they typically
reduce their own efforts in the expectation of receiving more aid? For
this purpose we will test how remittances affect future social mobility,
school attendance, labor supply, consumption patterns, and investment propensities.
The data that will be
used for the project consists of the two Living Standard Measurement
Surveys conducted in Nicaragua in 1998 and 2001. The huge advantage of
this data is that it follows the same persons over time. This kind of
longitudinal data is very rare in developing countries, but extremely
useful since it allows us to test causality, rather than just
discovering correlations. Nicaragua also provides an excellent case
study of the impact of aid, as the country receives substantial amounts
of remittances (around 10% of GDP) as well as substantial amounts of
official development assistance (also around 10% of GDP).
Project leader: Lykke Andersen
Other participants: Oscar Molina.
Financing/collaboration: Global Development
Network. This project won the 2004 Global Development Award for
Outstanding Research on Development.
Title:
Labor Market
Mobility in Bolivia
Purpose: The objective of this project is to estimate a
structural model of on-the-job search behavior for public and private
sector employees in Bolivia. The hypothesis is that employees find
public sector jobs so attractive that the private sector cannot compete
for and retain skilled labor.
Project leader: Lykke Andersen
Other participants: Bent
Jesper Christensen, University of Aarhus.
Financing: University of
Aarhus
Output: Working Paper
in English, Working Paper
in Spanish.
Title: Is Education Spending in Bolivia
Equitative?
Purpose: The equity in the allocation of resources in Latin
America is an issue that has not yet been analyzed thoroughly.
This work intends to analyze the theme of equity through the
following three dimensions: horizontal equity, vertical equity,
and equality of opportunities at municipal level. The main
objective of the work is to generate criterions for resource
allocation, which would allow a reduction in the inequities in
initial, primary, and secondary education in Bolivia. To be
able to reach our objectives, we intend first to make a
rigorous statistical analysis of the indicators of equity.
Subsequently, we plan to estimate various cross section
econometric models that explain the resource allocation
mechanisms and the academic performance of students.
Project leaders: Osvaldo Nina,
Oscar Molina
Other participants: Paloma
Aguilar, Paola
Barrientos.
Financing: Programa de Promoción de la Reforma Educativa
en América Latina y el Caribe (PREAL).
Output: Working Paper in
Spanish.
Title: Gender Differences in Education: A Municipal Analysis
Purpose: This study identifies the municipalities where girls
receive significantly less education than boys either because of
problems with access or because of problems with permanence (higher drop-out
rates among girls). The study then proceeds to analyze statistically the
causes of these differences both at the municipal level and at the
individual level.
Project leader: Lykke Andersen
Other participants: Oscar Molina,
Paloma Aguilar,
Paola Barrientos.
Financing: Ministry of Education,
The World Bank.
Title:
Projection Scenarios
of MDG's indicators and financial requests:
The Rate of
Maternal Mortality
Purpose: The objective of the project is to determine the
interventions less costly and more efficient to reach the MDG of reduce
the rate of maternal mortality in 3/4 at year 2015 utilizing methods of
the system
dynamics.
Investigador principal: Martin Vargas
Otros participantes: Gustavo Canavire
Financiamiento:
Organización Panamericana de la Salud
(OPS)
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