Discrimination in Latin America: An Economic Perspective

This book presents a set of studies on contemporary discrimination in Latin America that takes advantage of these new tools by focusing on social interactions that range from cooperation, group formation, and the impact of migration in poor families to specific markets such as housing and labor. The techniques applied include traditional regression analysis, experimental approaches, and audit studies, as well as structural methods. This wide range of analytical approaches leads to findings that confirm some of the common perceptions regarding discrimination but challenge the conventional wisdom in other regards. In some instances the long-held conventional wisdom may not hold at all. Latin Americans do not discriminate more or less than inhabitants of other regions, and the discrimination that does occur appears largely to stem from lack of information on individuals--a result of great interest in colleges and universities that teach courses on Latin American development both at the undergraduate and graduate level. Furthermore, this book's findings extend to the political arena, as they challenge standard policies that have been ineffective for decades. Finally, this book should be of interest to researchers, as the empirical methods employed are at the vanguard of the profession. In fact, in addition to the contribution that this volume makes to the literature on discrimination, it also has the potential to contribute more broadly to labor economics, development economics and experimental economics, as well as to Latin American studies. This publication belongs to the Latin American Development Forum Series (LADF), sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the World Bank.