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This study creates poverty maps for Belize leveraging free and open source methodologies that link satellite imagery and existing survey data with machine learning. Belize is an exemplar of country for which Big Data and machine learning hold promise for generating poverty maps at a reduced cost as the last poverty assessment was conducted in 2009 and no consumption survey with the intention of producing sub-national estimates of poverty has been conducted since then. Even though poverty mapping provides clear information about the location and extent of poverty within a country, mapping the spatial distribution of poverty or incomes within a country remain a challenge for countries. Budget constraints restrict the use of poverty maps for policy targeting, leading to waste and inefficiency. This paper investigates how small area estimates of average income may improve when incorporating features derived from Sentinel-2 and MODIS imagery. The results indicate that the poorest districts are Corozal, in the north, and Toledo, in the south, and suggest reduction in poverty for the districts of Orange Walk and Stann Creek in the last decade.

This paper examines the allocation of resources of poverty rates within households in Suriname. To this end we employ a bargaining model estimation framework that allows one to identify the allocation of resources across adult and children males and females. Our results using the Suriname 2016/2017 Survey of Living Conditions show that there are considerable differences between men and women, but that there is no gender bias among children. We also find that children are least poor members of households.

This paper studies the relative effectiveness of these and other mechanisms by way of a formal model in which workers choose between job opportunities in the formal and informal sectors. Although the means testing mechanism allows for a more pro-poor design of transfers, it distorts labor decisions made by workers.

This dataset covers a Nationally Representative Sample of the Guyana population during the July-September 2017 quarter. It measures all main employment indicators. This is the first quarter of a continuous quarterly labor force survey with an individual level rotating panel component detailed in the survey report also included in the package.

This dataset covers a Nationally Representative Sample of the Suriname population. It measures all main aspects of living conditions and reports consumption based poverty rates. The survey was executed between October 2016 and September 2017 (12 full months of fieldwork).

This dataset covers a Nationally Representative Sample of the Barbados population. It measures all main aspects of living conditions and reports consumption based poverty rates. The survey was executed between February 2016 and January 2017 (12 full months of fieldwork).

Social Pulse describes the trends in a comprehensive set of key social indicators throughout the lifecycle in Latin America and the Caribbean, and highlights the findings that merit attention from those responsible for public policies in the region. The report seeks to provide useful information to consolidate social gains and avoid setbacks in the coming years. In addition, the 2017 edition analyses the repetition of behaviors and outcomes between parents and children, including the intergenerational persistence of education and domestic violence, as well as the role of universities in income mobility.

Strategic foresight is critical to moving a country or region in the right direction. Leaders nearly everywhere in the world are overwhelmed by the crush of events, focusing their attention on the present rather than thelong term. Latin America and the Caribbean is no different. But complacency in thinking and planning for the future can no longer be the status quo. At a moment of profound regional and global transformation, the time is now to seize on policy directions that are most likely to take the region in the right direction. While Latin America and the Caribbean has many challenges, through foresight and strategy it could boost its position in the world -as Asia has done already. This publication makes the case for doing just that. Latin America has made incredible economic and political progress over the past decade. The prolonged commodity boom in the 2000s fueled higher growth rates than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average and generated a dramatic drop in the poverty rate and a huge explosion of the middle class. Today, 288 million, or one in three people, are considered middle class. At the same time, with a few notable exceptions, democratic institutions are stronger, with universal suffrage and regular elections now largely the norm. The key question for the future is whether the region can maintain momentum, particularly with China's slowing growth. The end of the commodity boom exposed underlying structural problems in Latin America and the Caribbean. Fiscal and institutional concerns, as well as other social and economic questions, were laid bare. Not only do the next nearly fifteen years require us to solve lingering issues that remain from the mid-teens, but a new direction must be charted so the region can maximize its inherent advantages and best compete in a rapidly changing world.

This analytic brief presents the results of a quantitative analysis of the socioeconomic characteristics of the beneficiaries of international remittances in El Salvador. The analysis is based on household survey data from the 2013 Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples (EHPM, for its Spanish acronym), which was carried out by the General Directorate for Statistics and Censuses (DIGESTYC, for its Spanish acronym) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of El Salvador. The dataset is made up of 21,086 households (81,865 individuals) and is representative at the national, departmental, urban, and rural levels, as well as for the San Salvador Metropolitan Area and the country's 50 largest municipalities1. The high standards for quality applied to the design and implementation of the EHPM allow for disaggregated analyses of the characteristics of remittance beneficiaries and reliable comparisons between the remittance beneficiary segment and the population at large. The statistical analysis for this brief was performed using the standardized version of the EHPM dataset contained in the Inter-American Development Bank¿s Harmonized Household Survey Databases for Latin America and the Caribbean (also known as Sociómetro-BID).

This analytic brief presents the results of a quantitative analysis of the socioeconomic characteristics of the beneficiaries of international remittances in Honduras. The analysis is based on household survey data from the 2014 Encuesta Permanente de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples (EPHPM, for its Spanish acronym), which was carried out by the National Institute of Statistics of the Republic of Honduras. The survey has a sample size of 5,593 households (24,023 individuals) and is representative at the country level as well as for urban and rural areas. The survey covers all departments of Honduras except for Gracias a Dios y Islas de la Bahía.

This dataset was created to support the 2016 Social Pulse in Latin America and the Caribbean: Realities & Perspectives. The publication highlights specific indicators where progress has been made such us "race and ethnicity," and areas where large gaps remain. Also, the new dynamic between generations: "poverty and family structure," examines demographic shifts in the region, including the evolution of family living arrangements and trends in the age profile of poverty.

This represents a compendium of knowledge products generated by the IDB's Caribbean Economics Lab, Country Department Caribbean Group, during the period 2013-2016. Products comprise monographs, policy briefs, working papers, technical notes and quarterly bulletins, and are listed with accompanying abstracts on The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, and areas of interest.