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The degree to which a labor market is segmented and jobs in the formal sector of the economy are rationed is critical to the analysis of coverage of social insurance and pensions. In Chile, using unique panel data spanning the 1998-1999 contraction, I find little evidence that self-employment is the residual sector of a dualistic labor market, as is often depicted in the literature. Data on transitions between sectors show that selfemployment is not a free-entry sector, and that entrepreneurs can be "pushed" out of selfemployment just as others are pushed out of formal employment during economic downturns. However, employment without a contract does exhibit many of the features of the free-entry, employment safety net depicted in the dualistic literature. An annex to this paper, presents supportive evidence from static analysis of selection-corrected wage differentials, and a comment on the drawbacks of this approach. * The sections reviewing the literature on labor markets in developing countries, motivates the analysis of earnings differentials presented in the Appendix. The results presented in the Appendix, in turn complement the empirical sections of this paper. I would like to thank Geeta Kingdon and Abigail Barr for valuable discussions and guidance in the structuring of this paper.
The absence of or poorly functioning risk pooling mechanisms and high amounts of out-of-pocket payments for health care expose households to financial risks associated with major illnesses or accidents. The aim of this article is to analyse the extent to which out-of-pocket health spending impoverishes households in Albania. The study augments existing evidence by analysing the dynamics of such payments over different years and the weight that informal payments have in the total out-of-pocket health spending. The data used in the study come from the Albania Living Standards Measurement Survey (ALSMS) for 2002, 2005 and 2008. We measure headcount catastrophic payments using different thresholds and the decomposition of indicators by expenditure quintiles to better understand their effects. We find that out-of-pocket and informal payments have increased in real value throughout the years. Even though their catastrophic effect has gone down (due also to declining trends in absolute poverty), the effect for the poorest expenditure quintiles remains high. Out-of-pocket payments deepen the poverty headcount and also enlarge the poverty gap and again the effect is larger for the poorest quintiles. Future policy interventions should provide better protection mechanisms for the poor by providing exemption criteria or subsidized transport. They should also seek to address the widespread informal payments in the country.
This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Nothing herein shall constitute or be considered to be a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immunities of The World Bank, all of which are specifically reserved.
Participatory accountability is often advocated as the solution to deficient top-down accountability systems. However, the evidence on the effectiveness of participatory accountability institutions is mixed and the reasons behind the contrasting results produced by the literature are unclear. We argue that the mixed evidence could be owing at least partly to heterogeneities in individuals' willingness and ability to overcome collective action problems. We investigate whether individuals' propensity to cooperate with others for the common good plays a role in their decisions to participate in both a school accountability system -i.e., a "short route" to accountability -and parliamentary electionsi.e., a "long route" to accountability. We combine survey data on 1800 individuals' participation decisions with measures of their willingness to contribute to a public good in the context of a very simple, clearly defined laboratory experiment. We conduct our study in a new democracy, Albania, involving a representative sample of parents of children enrolled in primary schools. Our findings confirm that, both across individuals within communities and across communities, cooperativeness in a simple public goods game correlates with both the decisions to participate in holding teachers and school directors accountable via school-level institutions and the decision to participate in holding all public servants to account via national elections.JEL CODES: C93, D72, H4, O12
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