The Effect of COVID-19 on Firms and Employment in Central America

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reyes Aterido ◽  
Giselle Del Carmen Hasbun ◽  
Marta Ruiz-Arranz ◽  
Rodolfo Stucchi
Keyword(s):  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Small Firms ◽  
Remote Work ◽  
Labor Regulations ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Economic And Social Impacts

This paper assesses the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on firms and employment in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. We use data from The World Bank COVID-19 Business Pulse Surveys and other complementary sources. Our analysis shows that since the COVID-19 outbreak, 1 in 4 formal businesses in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua have closed, with monthly sales dropping by a third on average across countries. To counter the impact of the crisis, firms opted to decrease total hours worked, reduce wages or furlough workers. Small firms exhibited the largest declines in sales and employment and faced greater liquidity constraints. Firms response in terms of employment was highly correlated to the change in sales and affected by labor regulations. Even though the possibility of telecommuting is limited across Central America, over half of formal firms among Northern Triangle countries and a quarter in Nicaragua started or increased remote work, which helped to cushion the impact on employment. Despite increases in public spending and policies to mitigate the economic and social impacts of the pandemic, few formal firms received government assistance.

scholarly journals Do Democratic Economies Grow Faster? The Case of Asia vs. the EU

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Samuel D. Barrows
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Capita Income ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Per Capita Income ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Economic Growth Rates ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

The dynamics of the five fastest growing GDP per capita economies in Asia and the EU are studied between 2010 and 2014. This time frame was selected in order to avoid the height of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, but to include the stimulus and recovery periods which occurred afterward. The intent was not to compare the recoveries or the impact of the stimulus programs. The intent was to compare the economic growth rates of the two groups and also the absolute per capita income along with five topic areas on economies including: configuration, utilization, investments, demographics, and outcomes. A total of twenty measurements are used for assessment from the World Bank databank website. The findings are that the Asian economies grew faster while the EU economies had a higher per capita income. The workforces of the Asia economies are also younger and more flexible whereas the workforces of the EU economies are older, but more educated. Discussions include the links between effective governments and economic development and the links between democracy and economic levels.

El Salvador's “Model” Democracy

2005 ◽  
Vol 104 (679) ◽  
pp. 77-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Holiday
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
World Bank ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Peace And Reconciliation

In the immediate aftermath of the 1992 peace accords, El Salvador was cited frequently by the United Nations and even the World Bank as a country that, with the international community's help, effectively managed its transition from civil war to peace and reconciliation. Thirteen years later, only the US government views the Salvadoran model so favorably.

On the Brain Drain of Africans to America: Some Methodological Observations

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Nii-Amoo Dodoo ◽  
Baffour Takyi ◽  
Jesse Mann
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Brain Drain ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Accounting System ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Relative Comparisons ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Brain

AbstractRecurring debates about the impact of the brain drain— the developing world's loss of human capital to more developed countries—has motivated estimation of the magnitude of the phenomenon, most recently by the World Bank. Although frequently cited as a key contributor to Africa's wanting development record, what constitutes the "brain-drain" is not always clearly defined. Today, in the absence of an accounting system, resolution of the definitional and measurement question depends on relative comparisons of measurement variants, which will identify definitional shortcomings by clarifying the merits and demerits of these variants, and thereby suggest corrective imputations. This paper compares the World Bank's approach to a chronological precedent (Dodoo 1997) to clarify the value of variant comparisons. The resultant implications for corrections are also discussed.

A Simplistic Approach to Health Policy Analysis: The World Bank Team on the Indian Health Sector

1994 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debabar Banerji
Keyword(s):  
Policy Analysis ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Health Financing ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Health Policy Analysis ◽  
The Impact

A World Bank report on the health sector in India has set out to offer an alternative policy framework to cushion the impact of structural adjustment programs on health services. By choosing health financing as a tool for policy analysis, it has arrived at highly questionable conclusions.

Reactionary Despotism in Central America

1983 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique A. Baloyra-Herp
Keyword(s):  
El Salvador ◽  
Central America ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Distinct Form ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Export Agriculture ◽  
Capitalist State ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Distinct Variety ◽  
National Control

This essay seeks to clarify the particular blend of sociohistorical elements that created a distinct form of authoritarian domination in El Salvador, Guatemala and, to a lesser extent, Nicaragua. Situations of ‘enclave’ versus ‘national control’, the consequences of export agriculture, the impact of the commodity cycle, and relations between the oligarchy and other social actors are examined in a comparative perspective to distil commonalities and differences. The emergence of a distinct variety of the capitalist state of exception followed the crisis of oligarchy brought about by the Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s. State power became public at the time and the traditional oligarchies no longer ruled directly, although they were able to weave a relatively complex alliance. This is identified as a ‘reactionary coalition’ capable of resisting any change in the model of export agriculture, ‘unreformed’ capitalism, and political authoritarianism. This model is identified as ‘reactionary despotism’, and the contemporary crises of El Salvador, and Nicaragua are related to the deterioration of this form of political domination

scholarly journals How to measure the territorial economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in contexts with scarce regional data?

REGION ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-186
Author(s):  
Andrés Niembro ◽  
Carla Daniela Calá
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
Remote Work ◽  
Regional Data ◽  
Regional Production ◽  
Operational Level ◽  
Market Areas ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Official Data

In this paper we propose an index to approximate the territorial economic impact of the COVID–19 pandemic in contexts with scarce or outdated regional data, which is often the case in developing countries. This index is based on data that are usually available in most countries: a) the sectoral productive structure of the regions, b) the operational level of each sector, c) the mobility of workers in each region, and d) the possibility of remote work among sectors. The empirical application for Argentina describes the impact of the pandemic on regional production during the second and third quarters of 2020, both for the provinces and labor market areas. Our results show that the regional impact of COVID–19 on private economic activity was highly heterogeneous between and within provinces. The proposed index is also highly correlated with sporadic official data coming from national agencies, while it has a wider geographical and temporal scope, especially in terms of labor market areas.

scholarly journals Assessment of the Impact of Environmental Pollution on Economic Growth

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 68-80
Author(s):  
Olga Kudryavtseva ◽  
E. . Ivanov ◽  
D. . Kolesnik ◽  
E. . Matveev ◽  
S. . Pechenkin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Environmental Pollution ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
Econometric Methods ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Impact

The work is devoted to testing the hypothesis of the existence of an inverted U-shaped dependence of economic growth on the level of environmental pollution, which was based on the concept of the ecological curve of Kuznets. The authors, using econometric methods and data from the World Bank, show that the hypothesis is correct: there is a turning point between the positive and negative nature of the dependence of economic growth on the level of CO2 emissions. The hypothesis is confirmed for low- and middle-income countries, and the dependence is linear negative for countries with a high level of income. Based on the results, the authors formulate recommendations on environmental regulation in accordance with the level of the country's economic development.

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