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Begin New Search Political Geography South America Content Type Working Paper

1. Follow the money: connecting anti-money laundering systems to disrupt environmental crime in the Amazon

Author:
Melina Risso, Carolina Andrade Quevedo, Lycia Brasil, Vivian Calderoni, and Maria Fe Vallejo
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Igarapé Institute
Abstract:
Environmental crime became the world’s third most lucrative illicit economy after drug trafficking and smuggling, with estimates of $110 to $281 billion in annual profits. Between 2006 and 2016, environmental crimes grew at a rate of 5% to 7% per year, a pace two or three times faster than that of global GDP growth. Money laundering is part of the criminal machinery that plunders the Amazon Rainforest. The study “Follow the Money: connecting anti-money laundering systems to disrupt environmental crime in the amazon” reveals the need for systems, agencies, and institutions responsible for preventing money laundering to turn their attention to the connections between this illicit practice and environmental crimes. The Igarapé study shows that the money laundering cycle follows three stages before the laundered funds can enter the financial system: placement, layering, and integration. However, not all proceeds from criminal activity are directly laundered into the formal financial system. Thus, informal diversification constitutes the process of moving illegal flows into the informal economy. It is estimated that 30% of the money to be laundered is used to pay the operating expenses of illicit economies. Cash transactions, divided into small amounts and deposited by “money mules,” are used to finance the hiring of precarious labor, accommodations, food, security, transportation, health services, leisure, and machinery, for example. The remaining 70% of illicit proceeds are formally inserted into the financial system. The study also recalls that the World Bank estimated in 2019 that governments lose between 6 and 9 billion dollars in tax revenue each year due to illegal logging. Similarly, other environmental crimes such as illegal mining, especially of gold and diamonds, generate between 12 and 48 billion dollars in revenue. In 2018, Interpol’s Global Illicit Flows Atlas found that illegal logging accounted for a percentage between 15% and 30% of the global timber trade, calculated between 51 billion and 152 billion dollars per year. The illegal logging industry is responsible for up to 90% of deforestation of tropical forests in African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Combating illicit financial flows is a powerful tool for dismantling illegal economies. It becomes even more relevant when it is identified that illicit financial flows fuel an ecosystem of environmental crime composed of a convergence of environmental and non-environmental crimes, such as corruption, fraud, tax evasion, and others.
Topic:
Security, Environment, Financial Crimes, Money Laundering, and Illicit Financial Flows
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, and Amazon Basin

2. Trade Shocks and Social Mobility: The Intergenerational Effect of Import Competition in Brazil

Author:
Andrés César, Matias Ciaschi, Guillermo Falcone, and Guido Neidhöfer
Publication Date:
07-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
This paper investigates whether the impact of trade shocks on employment and wages persists across generations. Using an instrumental variable strategy on survey data with retrospective information on parental employment, we study the consequences of increased Chinese import competition in Brazilian industries on individuals with differently exposed fathers. Results show that several years after the shock, children of more exposed fathers have lower education and earnings, lower chances of formal jobs, and are more likely to rely on social assistance. These effects are substantial for children from disadvantaged background, indicating that the shock had a negative impact on intergenerational mobility.
Topic:
Trade, Imports, Economic Competition, and Social Mobility
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

3. Evolution of Multidimensional Energy Poverty Risk in Bolivia from 2005 to 2019

Author:
Javier Aliaga Lordemann and Sergio Mansilla
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)
Abstract:
“Energy poverty” is a multidimensional concept that reflects the need to achieve a variety of wellbeing outcomes, which has been scarcely studied and used in public policy agendas. Considering that the literature on energy poverty is still incipient in Bolivia, this paper’s objective is to generate evidence about energy poverty evolution in the country, approximating measures of incidence (risk) and severity for the period 2005-2019. The methodological approach follows the one proposed by Alkire & Foster (2011), with five equally weighted dimensions (energy expenditure, lighting, cooking fuel and indoor pollution, food equipment, and education and communication) and using different cut-off options, at the urban and rural levels. Also, Multidimensional Energy Poverty results are compared with a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based weight structure as a robustness exercise. Results show that the risk of being energy poor in Bolivia has decreased, but not structurally. Also, intensity has decreased in both urban and rural areas, but rural energy poor households continue to show at least 50% of deprivation in all dimensions evaluated.
Topic:
Development, Poverty, Rural, and Energy
Political Geography:
South America and Bolivia

4. Social Policy Expansion and Retrenchment After Latin America’s Commodity Boom

Author:
Sara Niedzwiecki and Jennifer Pribble
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The literature on social policy expansion and retrenchment in Latin America is vast, but scholars differ in how they explain the outcomes, arriving at different conclusions about the role of democracy, left parties, favorable economic conditions, and social movements in shaping reform. What can welfare state developments since the end of the commodity boom teach us about the theoretical power of these arguments? This paper engages this question, seeking to explain recent incidents of social policy reform in 10 presidential administrations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. Using a combination of crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) and case studies, we identify multiple paths toward social policy expansion and retrenchment that involve the absence and presence of electoral competition, economic resources, party ideology and linkage mechanism, social movement pressure, international pressure, and legacies. The results show that while both parties of the left and right expanded social programs, only the right engaged in retrenchment, yet partisanship alone is insufficient for explaining reform outcomes, as the variable must appear in combination with other factors depending on the party’s linkage mechanism. The results provide new insight into the politics of social policy reform in Latin America, showing the relevance of complex forms of causality.
Topic:
Health, Poverty, Social Movement, Democracy, Inequality, Public Policy, and Political Parties
Political Geography:
Brazil, Argentina, South America, Uruguay, Latin America, and Chile

5. Anticompetitive practices on public procurement: Evidence from Brazilian electronic biddings

Author:
Antonio Sampaio, Paulo Figueiredo, and Klarizze Puzon
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Using big data from the Brazilian public procurement system, this research aims to investigate what factors are associated with the occurrence of anticompetitive practices in electronic bidding. Our analysis considers all services contracted between 2014 and 2017. The study uses the logit regression model with a dependent binary variable to model the probability of bidding fraud as a function of a vector of explanatory variables composed of the characteristics of the bidding process and of the supplier, in terms of firm size, thus quantifying the relationship between the explanatory variables and the probability of fraud occurrence. We find that firm size and the Apparent Overbilling Index which we propose are associated with the occurrence of fraud and anticompetitive practices in electronic auctions. This study contributes to the accumulation of empirical and theoretical knowledge, expanding safer bases for governments and society in the fight against corruption.
Topic:
Fraud, Economic Competition, and Public Procurement
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

6. Affirmative action with no major switching: Evidence from a top university in Brazil

Author:
Rodrigo C. Oliveira, Alei Santos, and Edson Severnini
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Affirmative action in higher education may lead to mismatch, a situation where students benefiting from preferential admission struggle with their college-level work because of poor precollege academic preparation. In the United States, those students can switch majors if they underperform in the originally intended major. Only in the extreme may they drop out. What happens when major switching is not allowed? In this paper, we examine the margins of adjustment for beneficiaries of affirmative action in a top university in Brazil, where prospective students must choose a major prior to the entrance test, and cannot switch it while in college. Surprisingly, we do not find a larger effect on dropout rates relative to the United States, and also provide evidence of strong catching up for students who remain in school. Because they fail more courses early on, to successfully graduate students benefiting from preferential admission end up reducing the number of credit hours taken in the first and second college years, but compensate by taking more credit hours in the final years.
Topic:
Higher Education, Students, and Affirmative Action
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

7. Abortion Legalization in Uruguay: Effects on Adolescent Fertility

Author:
Wanda Cabella and Rafael-Andrés Velázquez-Pérez
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS)
Abstract:
The Latin America and the Caribbean adolescent fertility rate is among the highest in the world: about 1.7 million children are born to teen mothers every year, and most of them are declared as being unintended pregnancies. The region also has the highest rate of unintended pregnancy of any world region, and nearly half of such pregnancies end in abortion. However, fewer than 18% of the region’s women live in countries where abortion is broadly legal. This paper estimates the causal effect of abortion legalization on adolescent fertility in Uruguay, using official data on legal abortions provided after the 2012 reform. We employed a difference-in-differences strategy, classifying states by whether they are responsive or unresponsive to the reform. The results suggest that abortion reform had a negative impact on the adolescent birth rate by 2.5 to 2.8 births per thousand adolescents aged 15–19 (4% decrease from the preintervention average). Additionally, we exploited variation in reform implementation intensity through the estimation of fixed-effect linear regression models and found consistent results. Our findings are robust to controlling for a concurrent large-scale program of contraceptive implants. We conclude that legislation aimed at enhancing rights and reducing avoidable deaths and complications from unsafe abortions may also have spillover effects that help reduce adolescent fertility.
Topic:
Public Health, Adolescence, Fertility, Abortion, and Gender
Political Geography:
South America and Uruguay

8. 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

9. The Military’s Return to Brazilian Politics

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
Throughout history, the Brazilian Armed Forces have looked inwards towards their own territory and peoples. They are centred around the construction of an ‘internal enemy’ to justify its tactics, strategies, and accumulation of forces. The art for this dossier highlights emblematic ‘internal enemies’ constructed throughout history. These portraits, placed alongside other historical artifacts, rekindle a collective memory. They are, in fact, portraits of ourselves – the people, the poor, and the dispossessed – in the act of resistance.
Topic:
Politics, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Civil-Military Relations
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

10. El control social en Colombia: Un balance sobre las veedurías ciudadanas

Author:
Mariana Cepeda Villarreal and Luis Gilberto Murillo Urrutia
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Accountability Research Center (ARC), American University
Abstract:
En Colombia existen diferentes modalidades institucionales para hacer control social dentro de las cuales se encuentran las veedurías ciudadanas, reglamentadas a través de la Ley 805 de 2003. Si bien las veedurías ciudadanas son un mecanismo de participación ampliamente conocido, y pese a haber sido reglamentado hace casi dos décadas, existe poca información sobre las dinámicas de su funcionamiento, impactos alcanzados, y factores que llevan a su éxito. Este documento analiza los límites y potencialidades de las veedurías ciudadanas en Colombia como modalidad o mecanismo de control social, a partir de la revisión del marco institucional que promueve su desarrollo y formalización en el país. Para ilustrar estas dinámicas, también se presenta la experiencia de la Veeduría Tumaco Despierta, iniciativa ciudadana de control social formalmente constituida, cuyo objeto es hacer seguimiento a la implementación del proyecto de agua y saneamiento básico bajo el crédito IBRD 86490 (PID 156239) del Banco Mundial.
Topic:
Accountability, Participation, Oversight, and Civic Engagement
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America