https://www.caf.com/en/knowledge/ CAFs management inKnowledge https://www.caf.com/en/knowledge/ https://www.caf.com/media/4662825/caforiginalcaribeh-eng.svg en-US Copyright 2026 CAF Knowledge/sustainable development/Latinamerica/Conocimiento umbraco 7.15.6 sciotecaItem While technological innovations typically increase wage inequality by favoring skilled workers, we show that instant payment systems instead reduce it. We study the labor market effects of instant payment systems in the context of Brazil’s Pix rollout. Using matched employer-employee data, we implement a triple-difference design that exploits pre-Pix mobile penetration across municipalities, the differential benefits of Pix for small versus large establishments, and the timing of Pix. We find that wages in small establishments rise significantly relative to large establishments after Pix. These gains are concentrated in cash-intensive sectors such as retail and services, with no effects in wholesale or manufacturing. Crucially, wage inequality declines, driven by wage gains in the lower half of the distribution, with no effect at the top. Our evidence points to increased small-firm labor demand, consistent with lower payment frictions. These effects are amplified where low-skill labor is scarce. A calibrated monopsony model implies that uniform Pix adoption would reduce both the within- and between-municipality components of wage dispersion, amplifying the aggregate inequality reduction. http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2714 Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2714 sciotecaItem Chile’s 2022 Platform Work Law mandates firms to monitor their subcontractors’ formality and establishes maximum working hours, minimum pay, and the right to collective bargaining among these independent contractors. Unlike other countries where informality matters, Chile further stands out for providing a comprehensive dataset for platform work that tracks workers’ labor market outcomes over 2020-2024. By means of DiD and event study designs, we find that this reform induced an 8-percentage-point shift from the share of informal to formal subcontractors without altering the share of employees. Yet, we find no significant changes in collective bargaining coverage, compliance with minimum pay and maximumhours, and wage differentials between employees and subcontractors. We argue that these changes in hiring practices are consistent with a structural labor market model where firms hire employees and both formal and informal subcontractors. The calibrated model also shows that the reform reduced platforms’ profits, while strictly enforcing hours regulations would lead to very small welfare losses. http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2713 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2713 sciotecaItem We examine how automation reshapes firm labor demand and incumbent-worker trajectories in Argentina over 2007–2022. We link customs records on automation-capital imports to administrative employer–employee and simplified self-employment tax data, identify adoption as discrete import spikes, and estimate stacked event studies comparing adopters and their incumbents with not-yet-adopting firms. Five years after adoption, employment is 19 percent lower and the wage bill 20 percent lower, while firm-level wages barely move; the contraction runs through hiring rather than dismissals. Incumbents’ reported earnings stay flat, but their formal attachment weakens—fewer months in registered wage employment, more exits from the registry, and more transitions into simplified self-employment. Automation costs here appear less as payroll wage cuts than as separations, reallocation, and movement out of registered wage employment. http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2712 Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2712 sciotecaItem The rapid diffusion of automation and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to production have boosted productivity and economic growth while also posing significant challenges for labor markets. These technological transformations reshape the tasks performed within occupations and, consequently, the skills that employers demand from workers, with potentially disparate effects across groups of workers depending on their exposure to automation and their ability to adapt to new skill requirements. Despite the growing international literature, empirical evidence for Latin America remains scarce. Given the region’s structural specificities, directly extrapolating results from other contexts may be misleading. This paper seeks to help close this gap by providing a robust, evidence-based understanding of the demand for soft, AI-related and non-AI digital skills in four Latin American countries, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, drawing on a novel regional taxonomy and more than one million online job postings. The results show that employers overwhelmingly demand multidimensional and highly complementary skill profiles, with technical non-AI and soft skills appearing jointly, in most cases, in the vast majority of postings. In contrast, explicit demand for AI-related skills remains limited, accounting for less than 3% of postings in all four countries. http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2707 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2707 sciotecaItem Rural poverty has declined substantially in Latin America over the past two decades, yet vulnerability remains high and rural–urban gaps persist. This paper examines the factors associated with this persistence using harmonized household survey microdata for 14 Latin American countries over 2003–2023. We document three main patterns. First, persistent rural disadvantage does not appear to reflect a worsening composition of the rural population: rural–urban gaps narrowed in household demographics, educational attainment, and access to basic services. Second, rural employment shifted markedly away from agriculture, with the agricultural share falling from 53% to 43%, while informality also declined. Yet convergence in job quality was much more limited: rural workers remain more informal, less concentrated in high-complexity occupations, and lower paid than urban workers, with lower returns to education. Importantly, these disadvantages extend to the increasingly prevalent non-agricultural rural jobs. Third, vulnerability is not confined to agricultural households: poverty remains substantial among non-agricultural rural households, which now account for nearly half of the rural poor. Overall, the evidence highlights a central distinction between sectoral reallocation and improvements in job quality: moving out of agriculture has not, by itself, eliminated rural vulnerability. http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2708 Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2708 sciotecaItem UN Tourism and CAF have launched Tourism Doing Business – Investing in Costa Rica, a strategic guide aimed at promoting tourism investment opportunities in one of Latin America’s leading sustainable tourism destinations. The publication highlights Costa Rica’s political stability, legal certainty, skilled workforce, and attractive investment incentives. The guide emphasizes the country’s exceptional natural wealth, hosting nearly 6% of global biodiversity and protecting more than a quarter of its territory. In 2024, Costa Rica welcomed 2.9 million international visitors, generated USD 5.45 billion in tourism revenues, and attracted more than USD 600 million in tourism-related foreign direct investment. With strong sustainability credentials, growing connectivity, and opportunities in ecotourism, adventure, wellness, rural, and business tourism, Costa Rica offers a favorable environment for innovative investments aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals and long-term inclusive growth. http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2705 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2705 call The research department at CAF together with Women in Economics in LAC (WELAC) encourage submissions for the 2nd Workshop on Gender and Household Inequality: Global Lessons with Relevance for Latin America and the Caribbean, which will be held in Bogotá, Colombia, on 15th and 16th March 2027 at Universidad de los Andes. https://www.caf.com/en/work-with-us/calls/2nd-workshop-on-gender-and-household-inequality-global-lessons-with-relevance-for-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/ Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.caf.com/en/work-with-us/calls/2nd-workshop-on-gender-and-household-inequality-global-lessons-with-relevance-for-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/ sciotecaItem This document explores the use of high-resolution nighttime satellite imagery as a tool to measure economic development and evaluate the impacts of public interventions, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). This is an efficient and alternative evaluation tool when there are no available traditional data sources such as household surveys and censuses in terms of coverage, frequency, accessibility, and representativeness to test results. Nighttime lights data emerge as a complementary and uniform source of information, capable of providing real-time and frequent, spatially detailed insights into human activity and economic outcomes, which is valuable for both academic research and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) evaluations. http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2700 Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2700 sciotecaItem This paper studies gender pay disparities in Mexico's public-school system, a highly regulated labor market with standardized pay schedules and centralized wage setting. Using administrative payroll data from 2016 to 2024, we compare teachers in identical positions within the same school to estimate gender differences in pay for equal work. We find an equal-work wage gap of 0.018 log points. About half of this gap is accounted for by slower progression of women through the horizontal promotion system. Gender differences in total earnings are larger, at 0.045 log points, reflecting both men's greater likelihood of holding multiple positions and the larger gender pay gap in teachers' secondary jobs. We also show that motherhood reduces women's wage rates --as well as labor supply and earnings-- and identify one novel mechanism underlying the decline in wage rates: mothers' switching to working in localities with greater amenities but lower pay. http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2696 Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2696 sciotecaItem Esta publicación analiza la gobernanza para el desarrollo en los países de la Comunidad del Caribe (CARICOM), destacando cómo la calidad de las instituciones, la capacidad estatal y la cooperación regional influyen en la promoción del desarrollo económico, social y sostenible. El estudio examina desafíos estructurales como la vulnerabilidad económica, el endeudamiento, la desigualdad, la inseguridad y el cambio climático, así como el papel de la gobernanza en ámbitos clave como la política fiscal, la salud, la educación, la gestión ambiental y la transformación digital. Adicionalmente, concluye que el fortalecimiento institucional, la transparencia, la participación ciudadana y la integración regional son condiciones esenciales para aumentar la resiliencia y el desarrollo sostenible de los países del Caribe. http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2693 Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT http://scioteca.caf.com/handle/123456789/2693