IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/wpaper/4275.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Sector Reform in Latin America and the Role of Unions

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Maceira
  • Maria Victoria Murillo

Abstract

This paper analyzes the reaction of teachers` and doctors` unions to a series of social sector reforms in the region, including administrative decentralization, provider payment mechanisms, and the introduction of performance evaluation and private provision. It combines the literature of economics and political science to understand the conditions that shape different patterns of union behavior and their effect on policy implementation. The paper suggests that the main conditions influencing union behavior in the health sector are related to the structure of the market (size and level of competition) due to the predominance of the private-public mix in its employment. In education, where the public sector is the main employer, political alignments and the organizational features of teachers` associations also play an important role in explaining the behavior of providers` organizations. Considering the exogenous character of most of these variables, the paper concludes by making some policy suggestions to align the objectives of unions and policymakers through regulatory reforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Maceira & Maria Victoria Murillo, 2001. "Social Sector Reform in Latin America and the Role of Unions," Research Department Publications 4275, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:4275
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=WP-456&pub_file_name=pubWP-456.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caroline Minter Hoxby, 1996. "How Teachers' Unions Affect Education Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(3), pages 671-718.
    2. George J. Mailath & Andrew Postlewaite, 1990. "Asymmetric Information Bargaining Problems with Many Agents," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 351-367.
    3. Maria Victoria Murillo, 1996. "Latin American Unions and the Reform of Social Service Delivery Systems: Institutional Constraints and Policy Choice," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 5858, Inter-American Development Bank.
    4. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    5. Hart, Oliver D, 1988. "Incomplete Contracts and the Theory of the Firm," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 119-139, Spring.
    6. Freeman, Richard B, 1986. "The Effect of the Union Wage Differential on Management Opposition and Union Organizing Success," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 92-96, May.
    7. Cukierman, Alex & Tommasi, Mariano, 1998. "When Does It Take a Nixon to Go to China?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 180-197, March.
    8. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817.
    9. David E. M. Sappington, 1991. "Incentives in Principal-Agent Relationships," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 45-66, Spring.
    10. Melnick, Glenn A. & Zwanziger, Jack & Bamezai, Anil & Pattison, Robert, 1992. "The effects of market structure and bargaining position on hospital prices," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 217-233, October.
    11. Shugart,Matthew Soberg & Carey,John M., 1992. "Presidents and Assemblies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521429900, September.
    12. Shugart,Matthew Soberg & Carey,John M., 1992. "Presidents and Assemblies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521419628, September.
    13. Ellis, Randall P. & McGuire, Thomas G., 1986. "Provider behavior under prospective reimbursement : Cost sharing and supply," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 129-151, June.
    14. S. Baranzoni & P. Bianchi & L. Lambertini, 2000. "Multiproduct Firms, Product Differentiation, and Market Structure," Working Papers 368, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    15. Dranove, David, 1988. "Demand Inducement and the Physician/Patient Relationship," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(2), pages 281-298, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ariel Fiszbein, 2005. "Citizens, Politicians, and Providers : The Latin American Experience with Service Delivery Reform," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7371.
    2. Ganimian, Alejandro J., 2016. "Why do some school-based management reforms survive while others are reversed? The cases of Honduras and Guatemala," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 33-46.
    3. Pablo Egaña & Alejandro Micco, 2011. "Labor Market in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Missing Reform," Working Papers wp345, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    4. Maria Victoria Murillo & Mariano Tommasi & Lucas Ronconi & Juan Sanguinetti, 2002. "The Economic Effects of Unions in Latin America: Teachers' Unions and Education in Argentina," Research Department Publications 3156, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel Maceira & Maria Victoria Murillo, 2001. "Reforma del sector social en América Latina y el papel de los sindicatos," Research Department Publications 4276, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    2. Maceira, Daniel & Murillo, Maria Victoria, 2001. "Social Sector Reform in Latin America and the Role of Unions," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1419, Inter-American Development Bank.
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    4. Torsten Persson & Gerard Roland & Guido Tabellini, 2000. "Comparative Politics and Public Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1121-1161, December.
    5. Mehrdad Vahabi, 1999. "From Walrasian General Equilibrium to Incomplete Contracts: Making Sense of Institutions," Post-Print halshs-03704424, HAL.
    6. Robert Gibbons & John Roberts, 2012. "The Handbook of Organizational Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9889.
    7. Mariano Tommasi & Pablo T. Spiller & Ernesto Stein, 2003. "Political Institutions, Policymaking Processes, and Policy Outcomes. An Intertemporal Transactions Framework," Working Papers 59, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Jul 2003.
    8. Rehn, Eric, 2007. "Public Hospitals - Incentives and Organization," Working Papers 2007:13, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 01 Apr 2008.
    9. Paula González, 2004. "Should physicians' dual practice be limited? An incentive approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(6), pages 505-524, June.
    10. Ilya Segal & Michael D.Whinston, 2012. "Property Rights [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    11. Dessein, Wouter, 2012. "Incomplete Contracts and Firm Boundaries: New Directions," CEPR Discussion Papers 9019, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Hongyun Han & Hanning Li, 2018. "The Distribution of Residual Controls and Risk Sharing: A Case Study of Farmland Transfer in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-20, June.
    13. Dow, Gregory K. & Putterman, Louis, 2000. "Why capital suppliers (usually) hire workers: what we know and what we need to know," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 319-336, November.
    14. David Martimort & Flavio Menezes & Myrna Wooders & ELISABETTA IOSSA & DAVID MARTIMORT, 2015. "The Simple Microeconomics of Public-Private Partnerships," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(1), pages 4-48, February.
    15. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, "undated". "Political Institutions and Policy Outcomes: What are the Stylized Facts?," Working Papers 189, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    16. Schmid, Andreas, 2007. "Incentive Compatibility and Efficiency in the contractual Insurer-Provider Relationship: Economic Theory and practical Implications: The Case of North Carolina," MPRA Paper 23311, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2008.
    17. Foss Kirsten & Foss Nicolai & Klein Peter G. & Klein Sandra K., 2002. "Heterogeneous Capital, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Organization," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-20, March.
    18. Gary Goertz & Tony Hak & Jan Dul, 2013. "Ceilings and Floors," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 42(1), pages 3-40, February.
    19. Kantorowicz, Jarosław & Köppl–Turyna, Monika, 2019. "Disentangling the fiscal effects of local constitutions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 63-87.
    20. Ansgar Richter & Susanne Schrader, 2017. "Levels of Employee Share Ownership and the Performance of Listed Companies in Europe," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 55(2), pages 396-420, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:4275. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.