Methods

Abstract

This chapter discusses methods appropriate to the study of social protection in Latin America. It reviews and assesses the main methodological approaches employed by researchers in the past. Building on these, it identifies methods appropriate to developing a theoretical perspective capable of explaining the evolution and current configuration of social protection institutions in the region. Recent trends in social research methods reveal a renewed emphasis on causal inference. The application of quasi-experimental methods in the study of the outcomes of social protection interventions, initially in the context of conditional income transfers, has focused attention on the causal effects of social protection interventions. The chapter assesses the challenges associated with the application of causal inference models in the context of research on institutions relying on observational data. It argues the potential outcomes approach offers a systematic framework for incorporating attention to counterfactuals. It makes a case for the use of graphical casual models to help discriminate causal versus non-causal association between variables, thus refining researchers’ hypotheses and linking the model to potential empirical counterparts.