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Conventional measures of economic well-being, such as gross domestic product (GDP) and poverty, do not consider the goods produced within the household or the unpaid work done at home. This study analyzes the quantification of the value added generated within a Peruvian household based on the recalculation of the average wage of domestic workers. It proposes measure that complements monetary poverty by considering the time requirements for household production: the poverty of time. The calculation of this time shows that 43.7 percent of the population in 2010 was poor, that is, 12.62 percentage points above the official poverty rate. Thus, the vulnerability of 12.62 percent of the population is hidden when the conventional measure of poverty is used, which does not consider the time poverty of the people. Las medidas convencionales de bienestar economico, como el Producto Bruto Interno (PBI) y la pobreza, no consideran la produccion de bienes dentro del hogar o el trabajo domestico no remunerado. En este estudio cuantificamos el valor agregado generado dentro de un hogar peruano usando como base el salario promedio de trabajadores del hogar. Asimismo, proponemos una medida complementaria a la pobreza monetaria: la pobreza de tiempo. Esta ultima toma en consideracion los requerimientos de tiempo para el trabajo reproductivo dentro del hogar. Los calculos para la pobreza de tiempo muestran que el 43.7 por ciento de la poblacion peruana era pobre en el 2010. Esta cifra esta 12.62 puntos porcentuales por encima de la tasa oficial de pobreza, lo que nos lleva a concluir que la vulnerabilidad de un 12.62 por ciento de la poblacion se encuentra oculta cuando consideramos unicamente la medicion monetaria de la pobreza., Conventional measures of gross domestic product (GDP), from the perspective of either costs or income, do not consider goods produced within houses or unpaid domestic work at home. These activities [...]

How social movement leaders and activists responded to the increasing relevance of poverty reduction in development debates, discourses and programs is investigated. The study is done by mapping social movement organizations in Peru and South Africa. How leaders and activists secure resources and influence without becoming themselves subject to government practices is also discussed.

The effects of access to formal credit on financial efficiency of farms in northern Peru are assessed. A two-stage analysis of panel data set shows that 28 percent of farmers are financially inefficient and credit constraints reduce profits of these farmers by at least 17 percent. The impact of uninsured risk and agricultural insurance market-boosting policies are also described.

Between [approximately equal to] 5,800 and 3,600 cal B.P. the biggest architectural monuments and largest settlements in the Western Hemisphere flourished in the Supe Valley and adjacent desert drainages of the arid Peruvian coast. Intensive net fishing, irrigated orchards, and fields of cotton with scant comestibles successfully sustained centuries of increasingly complex societies that did not use ceramics or loombased weaving. This unique socioeconomic adaptation was abruptly abandoned and gradually replaced by societies more reliant on food crops, pottery, and weaving. Here, we review evidence and arguments for a severe cycle of natural disasters-earthquakes, El Nino flooding, beach ridge formation, and sand dune incursion--at [approximately equal to] 3,800 B.P. and hypothesize that ensuing physical changes to marine and terrestrial environments contributed to the demise of early Supe settlements. El Nino | geoarchaeology | Preceramic collapse | Mid-Holocene

A study was conducted to estimate rural household income uncertainties and welfare changes due to commodity price and production variability in Peru and Ghana. It is argued that uncertainties significantly affect the variability of household income. Rural households in both countries are expected to gain in terms of welfare if they are fully exposed to international markets.

This paper examines how much of the difference in the size of the informal sector and in per capita income across countries can be accounted by regulation costs and enforcement of financial contracts. It constructs and solves numerically a general equilibrium model with credit constrained heterogenous agents, occupational choices over formal and informal businesses, financial frictions and a government sector which imposes taxes and regulations on formal firms. The benefit from formalization is better access to outside finance. The quantitative exercises suggest that: (i) regulation costs and not the level of enforcement account for differences in the size of the informal sector between United States and Mediterranean Europe; (ii) for a developing country like Peru, however, contract enforcement and regulation costs are equally important in accounting for the size of the informal sector; and (iii) regulation costs and contract enforcement do not account for most of the income differences observed among countries. JEL classification: E6; O11; O17 Keywords: Inequality; Credit constraints; Regulation and corruption; Informal sector

The Democratic crisis prevalent in the five countries of the Andean region Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, during the fifteen-year period 1992-2005, is discussed with the aim of coming up with a solution for the crisis. The solution worked out involves the critical need to build a state that protects its citizens and guarantees their rights, that is efficient, and that interacts effectively with markets and with civil society to meet the challenges facing democracy into twenty-first century.

This article examines the impact of structural adjustment in Peru by asking what seems to be a simple question: did the situation of small producers improve following implementation of structural adjustment measures? Though improvement is seen as economic growth, the criteria used to determine that are not uniform. This study focuses on a comprehensive set of indicators of production, diffusion of the cash economy, and revenue, exploring trends among different types of producers, classified according to what they produce and how the production is organized. It focuses on the period 1980 to 2000 and, whenever possible, presents data from 1970 for comparison purposes. The authors conclude that the key is not so much integrating agricultural producers into the market or opening rural markets but rather improving the conditions under which small producers and subsistence farmers become integrated into the market, which will require a deep understanding of how the production system of the rural poor functions. Keywords: Peru; structural adjustment; economic growth; agriculture; rural; poverty

The literature on subjective well-being has focused primarily on the developed economies. The authors provide empirical evidence from a developing country, Peru. Their results--and in particular a strong negative skew in the assessments of the respondents with the greatest income gains--support the importance of relative rather than absolute income differences. Among other factors, they attribute their results to shifts in reference norms and to macroeconomic volatility. Relative differences seem to matter more for those in the middle of the distribution than for the very wealthy or the very poor. Respondents were more critical in assessing their progress vis-a-vis others in their country versus those in their community. The frustrations that the authors find among the upwardly mobile may have implications for the future economic and political behavior of a group that is critical to the sustainability of market policies. Keywords: poverty; inequality; subjective well-being; social mobility

Beginning in 1987, Peru imposed a regime of structural adjustment to transform its economy along neoliberal lines. This analysis suggests that a shift resulted in the odds of international migration and the motivations for leaving among inhabitants of Peru's largest labor market. Before 1987, under the regime of import substitution industrialization, jobs at wages capable of sustaining a basic standard of living were widely available; those few who left the country self-selected for higher human capital and moved abroad to improve their earnings. Under neoliberalism, however, both employment and wages fell to levels that made it difficult for families to sustain themselves. In response, households--with the assistance of friends and relatives with foreign experience--diversified their labor portfolios away from the local job market structural adjustment zones. The number of migrants then rose, the diversity of foreign destinations increased, and migration became less selective with respect to human capital. Keywords: structural adjustment; Peru; networks; neoliberalism; international migration; urban labor markets; social capital

Snapshot of the Comedores Populares It is five-thirty in the morning, and Marisol squints her eyes almost shut, pretending she is still in bed. The peaks of sandy mountains protrude […]

Since the 'lost decade' of the 1980s, many Latin American policymakers have sought lessons from the experiences of the East Asian newly industrializing countries, prominent among them South Korea and [...]

Which socio-economic groups are most vulnerable to welfare declines during a macroeconomic shock? After clarifying the difference between poverty and vulnerability, this paper presents an analytical framework and applies it to panel data from Peru. Major findings are: (1) Households with better educated heads are less vulnerable; (2) Female headed households are no more vulnerable than male headed households; (3) Households with more children are more vulnerable; (4) Transfer networks that assist the poor in relatively stable periods do not protect them during a major shock, unless they originate from outside Peru; and (5) Peru's social security program is targeted neither to vulnerable nor to poor households, but other transfer programs are better targeted. Keywords: Poverty; Vulnerability; Macroeconomic shocks; Education; Household transfers; Peru

This paper tests for the motives for private income transfers. We consider two motives: altruism and exchange. The question of private-transfer motives is important because such motivation can influence the effects of public income transfers on the distribution of income. Using a household survey for Peru, we find that transfer amounts received increase with recipient pre-transfer income, which contradicts a key prediction of the strong form of the altruism hypothesis but is consistent with exchange. We also find that capital market imperfections are likely to be an important cause of private transfers and that social security benefits 'crowd out' the incidence of private transfers. JEL classification: O15; O16; J14; I30; H55 Keywords: Intergenerational transfers; Liquidity constraints; Social security; Developing economies; Altruism; Bargaining

Examination of the employer size-wage effect for males in urban Peru suggests the following. Higher wages in larger establishments do not merely compensate for higher worker quality or inferior working conditions. Size differences in the use of rising wage-tenure profiles cannot provide a market-clearing explanation for the employer size-wage effect unless workers are extremely impatient. Thus, larger employers appear to pay premiums. Unionization explains none of the premiums, and minimum wage compliance explains at best a small fraction. Shirking-based efficiency wage explanations for premiums are implausible because Peruvian job security legislation greatly inhibits dismissals in larger establishments. Explanations meriting further research involve the use of high wages to reduce turnover and to improve productivity-enhancing morale. JEL classification: J31; O15 Keywords: Employer size; Developing countries; Efficiency wages; Specific human capital

When speaking of the oligarchy in Peru or elsewhere in Latin America, one automatically thinks back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Until the late 1920s, Peru's economic, political [...]

The informal economy in urban Peru is a positive development, and one that is reflected in Latin America as a whole, where informal capitalism is succeeding despite lack of legal protection. Street vendors, construction workers and others produce goods and services that benefit society as a whole. The goods and services are not illegal, so the term 'informal' is more appropriate than 'underground'. Peru has been able to make economic progress more rapidly due to its informal sector, and there has been a move away from seeking solutions in the public sector.

We develop a classical model of inflation with rational expectations that carries a number of testable implications. First, money growth and inflation are cointegrated. Second, the changes in real money demand - the equilibrium error - anticipate future monetary policy. Third, cointegration between money growth and inflation implies, as Campbell and Shiller (Journal of Political Economy, 1987, 95, 1062-1088, and Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 1988, 12, 505-522) show, cross-equation restrictions readily generated from an error-correction representation of the variables. Our results show that the allegedly different inflationary experiences of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru are consistent with this classical model of inflation. In all countries, the data fail to reject these three conditions in all but one of the periods studied. Keywords: Inflation; Money demand; Latin America

Results of studies in El Salvador, Peru and Mexico show that 1/3 to 1/2 of paid employment is in the informal sector. Patterns revealed show that the informal sector is characterized by younger and less schooled individuals. In terms of work, retail, construction, transportation, personal services, and other short term jobs are more likely to be in the informal sector. Wage premiums are normally associated with formal sector work, although this is not the case in Mexico. For men, the probability of formal sector work increased with marriage and with heading a household, while the opposite was true for women. Further studies will require inclusion of other factors, such as ethnicity and job tenure.

Peru's economic reforms, under President Alberto Fujimori, are designed to serve the interests of capitalism, the military, and the technocrats. Under the policy, called Fujimorism, these three groups control the state and government machinery through a process of reprivatization. Although Fujimori was democratically elected President in 1990, he seized dictatorial powers in 1992 with the help of international and domestic business and financial organizations, and the military. Subsequent reforms eliminated any influence of the public, such as the working class, over the government.

In this article, the component of the gross wage differential that can be explained by productivity-enhancing attributes and that which is due to unexplained factors and labour market discrimination are empirically determined. Individual data from the 1991 Living Standards Measurements Survey of Peru are used to analyse labour market earnings and to decompose the gross earnings differential. A large portion of the indigenous/non-indigenous wage gap is unexplained by human capital and other observable differences., INTRODUCTION In recent years, the connection between ethnicity and economic inequality in developing economies has gained considerable attention. Yet while researchers have examined the experiences of ethnic groups, especially in [...]