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This paper argues that political brokers pay particular attention to household size, and the age distribution of its members, when allocating scarce indivisible social benefits. Because people usually share their income with other household members, allocating a social benefit to an individual member of a household with n voters is likely to bring more political support than allocating the same benefit to an individual member of a household with n-1 voters. Based on the main Argentine household survey and on personal interviews with 120 brokers, this paper shows that brokers effectively collect information on family size and age composition and allocate scarce temporary public works programs to families with more voters, unintentionally discriminating against families with children not old enough to vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the effects of economic growth and four different types of energy consumption (oil, natural gas, hydroelectricity, and renewable energy) on environmental quality in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions were examined within the framework of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for three Latin American countries, namely, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, from 1975 to 2018. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) in the form of Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) was used to verify the validity of the EKC hypothesis and the impacts of the variables in the short and the long run alike. Furthermore, the Toda-Yamamoto Granger causality test was carried out to identify the direction of causality between the variables. From ARDL-ECM estimation, the EKC was confirmed (inverted U-shaped curve between income growth and CO2 emissions) only in Argentina in the long run but not in Brazil and Chile. Based on the findings, renewable energy can have a great potential in reducing CO2 emissions in the future, but this advantage has not been fully exploited yet since a significant negative impact on CO2 emissions was only found in Chile. Also, the use of other less carbon-intensive energy sources such as natural gas and hydropower if they could be combined with renewable energy would be of great benefit and contribute to enhancing environmental quality and energy security in the short and the medium term and to successful low-carbon energy transition in the long run in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic data collected in three informal communities, one in Argentina, one in México, and one in Ecuador, we address the long-standing question posed by Larissa Lomnitz's and Carol Stack's now-classic studies of how impoverished people not only survive but what strategies they adopt in an attempt to build a dignified life. By focusing on the diversity of strategies by which the urban poor solve the everyday problems of individual and collective reproduction, we move beyond the macro-level analysis of structural constraint and material deprivation. Our findings show a remarkable continuity in the difficulties residents of these informal communities confronted and the problem-solving strategies they resorted to. We found that networks of kin and friends continue to play a crucial role in how poor people not only survive but attempt to get ahead. Additionally, we highlight the role of patronage networks and collective action as central to strategies by which the urban poor cope with scarcity and improve their life chances, while also paying close attention to ways in which they deal with pressing issues of insecurity and violence. The paper shows that poor people's survival strategies are deeply imbricated in routine political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the tensions between ideals about sociology (and what it ought to be) transmitted during university socialization and the everyday working activities among Argentinean sociologists. It focuses on an extreme case: that of the graduates who, lacking the opportunity or the desire to join the professoriate, became market researchers. The case is extreme because while university training provided these individuals with a set of methodological and analytical skills that proved to be useful (and profitable) when studying consumers and markets, it also encouraged a critical, world-rejecting, view of the discipline which was at odds with their professional activities. Not surprisingly, they encountered a distressing moral puzzle: were they betraying sociology's progressive values, values to which they were seriously committed? Building on E. Hughes' concept of "dirty work", this paper examines how these individuals navigated an occupation that was, at least initially, seen as morally objectionable, and the ways by which they came to imbue it with new and edifying "sociological" value. This article is based on interviews with sociologists working in market research and a socio-historical account of the School of Sociology at the University of Buenos Aires, the nation's most important program, where all our interviewees were trained. This study has implications for understanding situations in which actual professional practices are in sharp contrast with the ideals presented during university socialization, and the identity repair processes that university-trained workers undertake when dealing with deviant careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing macro-historical scholarship tends to assert rather than demonstrate the wider impact of nationalism. Yet, state-sponsored national ideologies permeate the broader reaches of society to varying degrees. To investigate variations in the consolidation of official nationalism, this paper combines the content analysis of school textbooks as state-regulated and picture postcards as primarily market-driven sources. Building on this novel methodological approach, we find that textbooks published in mid-twentieth-century Argentina, Mexico, and Peru promoted a similar popular nationalism that portrayed the lower classes as "true" national subjects. However, picture postcards from the same period demonstrate that the consolidation of this official national ideology varied. In Mexico and Peru, the new state-sponsored conceptions of nationhood gained presence in public life, but they did not to take hold in Argentina. We conclude that studying the top-down nationalist messages promoted by states should not be equated with studying their ideological impact in public life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in individual earnings during positive and negative growth periods in three Latin American economies: Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela. We ask two major questions. First, do panel income changes favor the income recipients who started at the top of the income distribution ('divergent mobility') or those who started at the bottom ('convergent mobility')? And second, are the groups that are found to gain the most when the economy is growing those that are found to lose the most when the economy is contracting ('symmetry of mobility') or is the pattern asymmetric in the sense that the same groups do best both in times of economic growth and in times of economic decline? We find support for the divergent mobility hypothesis only in scattered years in the cases of Mexico and Venezuela and no support at all in the case of Argentina. Rather, earnings mobility is most frequently convergent or neutral in all three countries. As for the symmetry of mobility hypothesis, we find that it is rejected in nearly all cases; rather, those groups that gain the most when the economy is growing are also the ones that gain the most or lose the least when the economy is contracting. Furthermore, we discuss how the absence of divergence reconciles with rising inequality in the countries under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard economic theories of wage inequality focus on the factor-biased nature of technological change and globalization. This paper examines the long-run development of industrial wage inequality in Latin America from a global comparative perspective. We find that wage inequality was comparatively modest during the first half of the twentieth century, but rising much faster during the post-war era than in other industrial countries. In-depth analyses of wage inequality trends in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile confirm this pattern, but also reveal notable country peculiarities. In Argentina and Chile, trend breaks coincided with large political-institutional shocks while in Brazil, wage inequality increased unabated under the wage regulation policies of successive post-war administrations. We argue that without taking national policies with respect to education and the labor market into account, economic theory cannot explain 'Latin American' patterns of wage inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the contribution of the energy industry (oil, gas and electricity) to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in three countries (Argentina, Colombia and Mexico). To build this international benchmark, a tool was built (the MDG-Scorecard), by drawing on theoretical frameworks and guides on how businesses can contribute to the MDGs. Results show that companies are making efforts to contribute to the environment, human rights, employment creation and labour rights. However, their effort is close to nil for the Goals with the weakest links with their core business. Findings also suggest that there is no coordinated and consistent strategy to achieve the MDGs either intra-company or inter-companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes concept formation and its empirical and theoretical implications for the study of subnational undemocratic regimes. The paper argues that extant conceptualizations of subnational political regimes, which generally draw on a strategy of 'conceptual expansion' have important drawbacks for the study of subnational undemocratic regimes (SURs). To overcome these shortcomings, the article claims for a strategy of 'conceptual separation' that disaggregates political regimes into two orthogonal dimensions, i.e., the access to and the exercise of state power. Drawing on original evidence from Argentina and Mexico, the article demonstrates that the strategy of conceptual separation helps researchers to (1) avoid truncation of the universe of cases for analysis, (2) obtain new and more precise information about the actual magnitude of the uneven territorialization of democracy, (3) recognize the existence of two ideal type domains of SURs: patrimonial and bureaucratic, and (4) gain more analytic leverage to identify the causal mechanisms that explain regime continuity within and across SUR types. In-depth case studies of the state of Puebla (Mexico) and the province of San Luis (Argentina) demonstrate empirically the workings of the mechanisms that account for regime continuity in bureaucratic-like SURs. The article also demonstrates the potential of distinguishing between SUR types for the study of SUR origins and SUR change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of life expectancy (LE) in small areas of cities are relatively common in high-income countries but rare in Latin American countries. Small-area estimation methods can help to describe and quantify inequities in LE between neighborhoods and their predictors. Our objective was to analyze the distribution and spatial patterning of LE across small areas of Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (CABA), Argentina, and its association with socioeconomic characteristics. As part of the SALURBAL project, we used georeferenced death certificates in 2015–2017 for CABA, Argentina. We used a spatial Bayesian Poisson model using the TOPALS method to estimate age- and sex-specific mortality rates. We used life tables to estimate LE at birth. We obtained data on neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics from the 2010 census and analyzed their associations. LE at birth was higher for women (median of across neighborhoods = 81.1 years) compared to men (76.7 years). We found a gap in LE of 9.3 (women) and 14.9 years (men) between areas with the highest and the lowest LE. Better socioeconomic characteristics were associated with higher LE. For example, mean differences in LE at birth in areas with highest versus lowest values of composite SES index were 2.79 years (95% CI: 2.30 to 3.28) in women and 5.61 years (95% CI: 4.98 to 6.24) in men. We found large spatial inequities in LE across neighborhoods of a large city in Latin America, highlighting the importance of place-based policies to address this gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alopecia areata (AA) represents an underrecognized burden in Latin America (LA), severely impacting quality of life (QoL). This impact is exacerbated by limited access to specialized dermatologic care and therapies for AA within and among nations. Many of the unmet needs for AA globally also exist in LA. The region has geographic, ethnic, cultural, and economic conditions. With new AA medicines targeting immunologic pathways on the horizon, LA must prepare regarding regulatory issues, reimbursement, awareness, and education to give adequate and timely treatment for patients with AA. To address these issues, the Americas Health Foundation convened a panel of six dermatologists from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico who are experts in AA and its comorbidities for a 3-day virtual meeting to discuss AA diagnosis and treatment in LA and create a manuscript offering recommendations to address discussed barriers. This publication examines unmet AA needs in LA, treatment, and innovative therapies and recommends improving AA care. Access constraints to conventional and novel medicines hinder appropriate treatments for patients. Therapy initiation delays can affect QoL, mental health, and disease progression. People with AA face stigmas, discrimination, and misconceptions owing to a lack of disease awareness. With promising new treatments for AA on the horizon, all stakeholders must coordinate efforts to enhance LA's AA management landscape and improve patient outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formulating effective management plans for addressing the impacts of invasive non-native species (INNS) requires the definition of clear priorities and tangible targets, and the recognition of the plurality of societal values assigned to these species. These tasks require a multi-disciplinary approach and the involvement of stakeholders. Here, we describe procedures to integrate multiple sources of information to formulate management priorities, targets, and high-level actions for the management of INNS. We follow five good-practice criteria: justified, evidence-informed, actionable, quantifiable, and flexible. We used expert knowledge methods to compile 17 lists of ecological, social, and economic impacts of lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta) and American mink (Neovison vison) in Chile and Argentina, the privet (Ligustrum lucidum) in Argentina, the yellow-jacket wasp (Vespula germanica) in Chile, and grasses (Urochloa brizantha and Urochloa decumbens) in Brazil. INNS plants caused a greater number of impacts than INNS animals, although more socio-economic impacts were listed for INNS animals than for plants. These impacts were ranked according to their magnitude and level of confidence on the information used for the ranking to prioritise impacts and assign them one of four high-level actions—do nothing, monitor, research, and immediate active management. We showed that it is possible to formulate management priorities, targets, and high-level actions for a variety of INNS and with variable levels of available information. This is vital in a world where the problems caused by INNS continue to increase, and there is a parallel growth in the implementation of management plans to deal with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately one-third of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) have treatment-resistant depression (TRD). The TRAL study will evaluate the prevalence and impact of TRD among patients with MDD in four Latin American countries. In this multicenter, prospective, observational study, patients with MDD were recruited from 33 reference sites in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina. Patients were assessed for TRD, defined as failure to respond to ≥ 2 antidepressant medications of adequate dose and duration. Demographics, previous/current treatments, depressive symptoms, functioning, healthcare resource utilization, and work impairment were also collected and evaluated using descriptive statistics, chi-square test, Fisher exact test, t-test for independent samples, or the Mann–Whitney nonparametric test, as appropriate. 1475 patients with MDD were included in the analysis (mean age, 45.6 years; 78% women); 89% were receiving relevant psychiatric treatment. 429 patients met criteria for TRD, and a numerically higher proportion of patients with TRD was present in public versus private sites of care (31% vs 27%). The mean Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale score was 25.0 among all MDD patients and was significantly higher for patients with TRD versus non-TRD (29.4 vs 23.3; P < 0.0001). Patients with TRD, versus those with non-TRD, were significantly more likely to be older, have a longer disease duration, have more comorbidities, be symptomatic, have a higher median number of psychiatric consultations, and report greater work impairment. Patients with TRD have a disproportionate burden of disease compared to those with non-TRD. Appropriate treatment for TRD is a substantial unmet need in Latin America. https://www.ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03207282, 07/02/2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In comparison to teachers from Argentina and Uruguay, Brazilian teachers face greater difficulties in teaching biological evolution, due to religion. While Argentina has an official religion set in its constitution, Uruguay and Brazil are considered secular countries. Despite being a self-proclaimed secular country, Brazil tolerates and encourages religious teaching in public schools. Acceptance of the natural origin of mankind, of origin of life, and of biological evolution were investigated in all three countries through interviews and a survey of teachers. Barbour's categories of conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration were used in the analysis of responses. Argentinian and Uruguayan teachers' answers pointed to Barbour's category of independence between science and religion, while Brazilian teachers' answers ranged between the categories of conflict and a merging between integration and dialogue, which was reinforced by high religiosity linked to knowledge gaps. The religious beliefs of Brazilian teachers appeared to influence their answers about the origin of the human species. In Brazil, religion was frequently identified as an obstacle to the teaching of biological evolution, while responses varied in Argentina and Uruguay. Conflicts in classrooms were also reported more frequently in Brazil than in Argentina and Uruguay. Combined with poor teacher training, personal internal conflicts towards biological evolution help to explain the answers of the Brazilian teachers. Argentinian and Uruguayan teachers generally reported being able to teach biological evolution as part of the curricula without interference from religion, in contrast to approximately half of the Brazilian teachers reporting the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to explain the profound discord currently observable in elite political discourse on Chinese investments in many host countries. Using Argentina as a case study, a combination of quantitative content analysis and qualitative discourse analysis was employed to analyze parliamentary speeches on a controversial space-monitoring station built there by China in 2015. The study finds that the competing discourses about China in Argentinean politics draw primarily on locally embedded contexts and the region’s particular historical experiences and geopolitical position. These local narratives are used in different ways by both sides of the debate to support contradicting positions on relevant issues. Questions of regional hegemony, center-periphery relations, national autonomy as well as Peronist and anti-Peronist ideologies are being drawn on by elite politicians in an attempt to cope with the deep uncertainty about what China’s increased engagement means for the country and to compensate for the lack of predictability about China’s behavior in its future role as a major global power. Ultimately, however, Argentina’s elite politicians end up in a dilemma in which these narratives and historical memories can be spun in both ways to either support or reject a controversial investment project to go ahead on domestic soil that is, at the same time, a symbolic test for the potential depth of the future relationship with China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though social movement research has developed an elaborate understanding of how individuals get involved in collective action, our theories frequently fail to capture the full diversity of activists’ experiences following recruitment. In this article, I argue that in order to analyze why people follow different trajectories after they join a movement we need to focus on the interaction between their individual backgrounds and their experiences while mobilized. I address these issues through the study of activists in the unemployed worker’s movement in Argentina (also known as the Piqueteros), one of Latin America’s most influential contemporary instances of collective action. Drawing on 133 in-depth interviews with current and former activists, as well as participant observation of events in their organizations, I find that through the interplay between their practices in the movement and other aspects of their lives, some of them gradually see participation as an end in itself. Their involvement provides refuge from the personal consequences of long-term socioeconomic decline by offering a combination of three particular rewards: access to places to belong, a feeling of empowerment, and the recognition by others in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although typically invisible, neoliberal policies and ideologies are often at the root of why farmers markets struggle to offer affordable prices for consumers, sufficient income for farmers, and expand socially and environmentally sustainable food systems. Argentinian ferias francas, a variation on farmers markets, offer a unique case to examine how they may be designed to alleviate these issues by challenging neoliberalism through legislative mechanisms. Ferias francas emerged as an explicitly anti-neoliberal, grassroots response to Argentina's expansion of neoliberal agricultural policies that stimulated global agribusiness and displaced small-scale farmers. Organizers partnered with municipal, provincial, and national governments to develop legislation to support small-scale farmers and to make the network of ferias competitive with global agribusiness. I ask, how can organizers expand farmers markets' potential to fulfill the social and environmental goals of agri-food movements, given neoliberal capitalism's constraints and contradictions? I analyze feria legislation by situating it in its social and historical context, and comparing legislative mechanisms to core elements of neoliberalism in the economy and in the everyday mentalities of agri-food activists. I find that mechanisms such as setting prices lower than neighboring supermarkets and establishing uniform prices for feria goods contest some aspects of neoliberalism. However, the ferias also reproduce neoliberalism, and are still subject to the price standards set under the global neoliberal agroeconomy, raising questions about their prospects for sustainability under neoliberal capitalism. This analysis of feria legislation makes neoliberalism's influence on farmers markets visible and highlights legislative mechanisms that address some of its harmful effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Physicians in Argentina smoke at rates similar to the general population, and do not have a clear role in tobacco control strategies.Objective: To describe the attitudes and knowledge of medical students and recent graduates towards smoking behavior in Argentina.Design: Cross-sectional self-administered online survey conducted in 2011.Participants: Medical students and recent medical graduates from the University of Buenos Aires.Main Measures: Attitudes and knowledge were evaluated by responses to 16 statements regarding the effects of smoking cigarettes and the role of physicians in tobacco control. Rates of agreement with a full ban on indoor smoking in different public settings were assessed.Key Results: The sample included 1659 participants (response rate: 35.1 %), 453 of whom (27.3 %) were current smokers. Only 52 % of participants agreed that doctors should set an example for their patients by not smoking, 30.9 % thought that medical advice had little effect on patients' cessation behavior, and 19.4 % believed that physicians could decline to care for smoking patients who failed to quit. In adjusted logistic regression models, current smokers had less supportive attitudes about tobacco control and were less likely than non-smokers to agree with a full indoor smoking ban in hospitals (OR: 0.30; 95 % CI 0.16-0.58), universities (OR: 0.55; 95 % CI 0.41-0.73), workplaces (OR: 0.67; 95 % CI 0.50-0.88), restaurants (OR: 0.42; 95 % CI 0.33-0.53), cafes (OR: 0.41; 95 % CI 0.33-0.51), nightclubs (OR: 0.32; 95 % CI 0.25-0.40), and bars (0.35; 95 % CI 0.28-0.45). Recent medical graduates had more accurate knowledge about cessation and were more likely to agree with a full smoking ban in recreational venues.Conclusions: Although most participants reported a strong anti-tobacco attitude, a proportion still failed to recognize the importance of their role as physicians in tobacco control strategies. Current smokers and current students were less likely to support indoor smoking bans. Specific educational curricula could address these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The analysis of the magazines market in Argentina can be summarized in the following statement: “the paid circulation and the distribution through kiosks determine the size, structure and possibilities of the growth of the sector”. The statement is related to the characteristics observed on the national market: the circulation instability, the low advertising revenues, and the poor development of subscription sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]